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here yesterday when Beta made her scene. Hally Schneider’s family is distant kin to me and they live on my street. Matt Blalock and Bob Don Goertz—well, everyone knows them. And I’ve no idea what my mother and I are doing there. I don’t know what significance the Bible quotes have. She wasn’t quoting the Good Book when she was here yesterday. Where’d you find this?”
    Junebug narrowed his eyes at me but kept his voice soft and slow. “It was stuffed down her shirt. She’d hidden it there, I guess.”
    “Or someone planted it,” I suggested. “Maybe to confuse the issue.”
    Junebug appeared unwilling to grant such cleverness to a local murderer. He watched me fish another cigarette from his pack and light it. I resolved to keep the amount smoked to a prime number, to give myself some leeway.
    “You ever see that bat before? The one that killed her?”
    My stomach sank to somewhere near my ankles, and I’m sure my cigarette shook. “Oh, God, yeah. And I’m sure my prints will be on it, unless the killer wiped itclean. I found it yesterday in the softball lot when I was coming back to the library.”
    “I see.” He jotted on his pad and eyed me like I might make a sudden move.
    “And so did everyone else who was in there, Junebug! A roomful of people saw me carrying that stupid bat. I put it in my office.”
    “Well, Jordy. This is all very interesting. You know what I learned at the police academy?”
    I bit back my first reply, which involved mastering how not to leave a piss stain on your pants. Junebug wasn’t acting like a childhood friend. I couldn’t believe he imagined I had any connection to this.
    “That most murders are awful simple. You just got to worry about motive, opportunity, and access to a weapon.” He looked up at me with the eyes of a stranger. “Sounds to me like you got all three, buddy.”
    “Please. The woman hit me with a book, made a spectacle of herself, and stormed off. That’s not a motive for murder. Plus, do you honestly think I could kill anybody?”
    Junebug didn’t answer that question; instead, like a Socratic teacher, he posed me another one. “Did you have any other dealings with Miz Harcher aside from yesterday?”
    I looked him dead in the eye.
    “Like I said, she got thrown off the library board. She didn’t approve of the city council hiring me and she’d been trying to get certain books off the shelf for ages. I had to deal with her through the library board. She lost and I won. So my feud was over with her, as far as I was concerned.” A rational thought fought its way through my shock. I stubbed out my cigarette and snatched the list back from Junebug, who didn’t look at all pleased.
    “The library board,” I said. “Ruth Wills and Eula Mae Quiff are both on it. So’s Hally Schneider’s mother and Tamma Hufnagel’s husband. And Bob Don Goertz replaced Miz Harcher when she was taken off.”
    “What about Matt Blalock?”
    “He’s not on the board, but I let the county Vietnam vets support group meet here.”
    “So who all has keys to this place?”
    “Well, me, of course. And Candace. The board members: Eula Mae, Ruth, Adam Hufnagel, Janice Schneider, and Bob Don Goertz. Matt Blalock has a key because the vets’ group meets after hours on Thursday, which is our short day.” I tried unsuccessfully to dredge up more names. “I think that’s it.”
    “Interesting, isn’t it?” Junebug’s quiet drawl dripped with accusation.
    I raised my palms in mock surrender. “I don’t know what that list means. She was a crazy, bitter old woman who believed she was doing God’s work when all she did was piss folks off. But nobody on that list is a murderer.”
    Junebug stared back at me with the look he’d used to try to psych me out before basketball tryouts. “There was a dead woman here this morning, and I can’t find a single shred of evidence that points to a break-in. She had a key on her. Where’d she get that key or a copy?