Free Checked Out by Elaine Viets

woman,” he said.
    “Are you here for library business?” Gladys said.
    “I just stopped by to see Aunt Blair.”
    “Then go see her,” Gladys said. “She’s in the back.” She walked away from the desk and began alphabetizing books on the cart.
    “Aunt Blair?” Helen said, when Ozzie slouched toward the back.
    “It’s a courtesy title,” Gladys said. “The families have been friends forever.”
    “He’s repellent,” Helen said, and shuddered. “Does he really get dates with that routine?”
    “Not with me. I think he just hits on women for practice. Ozzie dates impressionable high school girls who tell him how wonderful he is. I have to be nice to him because his mother’s a big donor.”
    “You were nice?” Helen said.
    “You should see me when I’m rude,” Gladys said.
    “I guess there are a lot of politics in a small library,” Helen said.
    “You wouldn’t believe,” Gladys said. “Some of the stories are better than those novels you’re shelving. Actually, the crazy politics have improved since I came here six years ago.
    “Back then, the library had a totally different Friends group, a bunch of rich old trouts who spent most of their time fighting over who should run the Friends. There was so much infighting they finally closed the bookstore.”
    She nodded toward the shelves of used books in the corner. “Nobody would sort the donated books or help sell them. They were too busy backstabbing one another.
    “The bookstore is the Friends’ primary fund-raising tool, and those old books bring in seventy or eighty thou a year. The Friends’ power grabs didn’t stop until the woman who ran the group died. Then, six months later, the Friends started up again, this time with a new president and a new, younger board. Blair is in charge, but I give her credit—she actually works, and so do the new Friends.
    “I’d just missed the big Flora Park Library sex scandal, but I heard about it from Hilary. The library board censured the library director—an old white guy—because he was having an affair with a staff member. They both were married, to other people.
    “The board found out because the two shared a room at a library convention. One of our librarians ratted them out. The director made that librarian’s life so miserable she finally quit.”
    “Why would she tell the board?” Helen asked.
    “She thought she’d get his job. Instead, she couldn’t take the harassment. She left. Then the censured director quit, and we got Alexa. She’s good.”
    “The old director must have been a heartbreaker,” Helen said.
    Gladys laughed. “He starred in the epic video
Flora Park, Flower of South Florida Libraries
. The dude was no hunk—short, bald, in his late fifties, and spoke like he had a mouth full of mashed potatoes.”
    “Wow,” Helen said. “I had no idea there was so much going on between the covers.”
    “Lisa, the current board president, is a bit whack-a-doodle about ghosts,” Gladys said, “but she’s still an improvement. You’re doing a good job as an undercover detective. It must be cool to be a private eye. You’ve really maintained your cover as a library volunteer. You don’t look like a private eye.”
    “Now who’s stereotyping?” Helen asked.

CHAPTER 11
    H elen smelled the books before she saw them. She’d passed a fragrant jasmine vine near the library’s staff entrance, when she caught the stink of mold and rotting paper.
    The half-crushed cardboard box was abandoned on the staff steps. More worthless books for the Friends of the Library, she thought. Do people really think dumping trash here helps the library?
    Might as well take it inside. It’s part of my new job.
    Helen was in a better mood after her encounter with Blair Hoagland. Her lively conversation with Gladys had lightened her outlook. She’d had a sandwich and a soda, and bought treats for Paris, the library cat. It was nearly noon and she was ready to tackle the Kingsley