Free The Boric Acid Murder by Camille Minichino Page B

The door between the main foyer and the stairs to the prep room was ajar, most likely not fully closed in the first place.
    Conclusion: false alarm. Fallout: six of Revere’s finest on an unexpected coffee break.
    I was curious about the size of the response force sent out to my building.
    “Not exactly standard,” Michelle told me when I broached the subject. She’d begun what seemed a tricky process—stuffing her long dark hair back under her cap.
    “Someone else would have gotten five cars instead of three?” I asked.
    She laughed. “Hardly. I got the call and—given the circumstances, thought I’d ask for backup.”
    “The circumstances being …?”
    “It’s a business site.”
    I raised my eyebrows and grunted my disbelief. “Is that all?”
    “And you’re on our short list,” she admitted.
    “Well, I’m grateful for the service.”
    True to my Italian upbringing, I made sure everyone had enough to eat and encouraged the officers to wrap a few cookies
for later. As they prepared to leave, my tension returned. Had they missed anything? I was too embarrassed to ask if they’d checked inside the dryer in the laundry room, inconveniently located next to the prep room where Frank and Robert embalmed their clients. Although Rose ridiculed my choice, I was a frequent customer of the Laundromat on North Shore Road.
    Michelle patted my shoulder on her way out. “I can hardly wait for retirement, Gloria. Your life is more exciting than mine.”
    COMFORTABLE AND SAFE in my air-conditioned Cadillac the next morning, I talked myself out of worrying about the alarm incident. I’d spent my last waking moments planning my outfit for the trip to the library, starting with a costume jewelry pin Elaine had given me—a colorful ceramic stack of books she’d earned by tutoring in an ESL program in Berkeley.
    As I drove, I reviewed the details of my eventful evening. Zone four, the one that was breached, was an inside door—a second wall of safeguard. Since there was no sign of break-in through any outside door or window, I reasoned, it was certainly a false alarm. I focused on how lucky I was to have so many police officers at my disposal.
    One especially, I thought. Then reality kicked in and I realized it might be time for the first we-have-to-talk session for Matt and me. A session about our future. If we had one.
    I approached the library for the third time in two days, surely a record for a noncardholder, and parked on Beach Street. My mission was to introduce myself to Yolanda’s last-known boyfriend, Assistant Director Derek Byrne.
    I could hear the arguing as I walked to the circulation desk. A meeting seemed to be breaking up on the mezzanine above me, at the doorway of Director Dorothy Leonard’s office. I altered my strategic plan, deciding to remain anonymous for a few minutes.
    A table in the adult reading section was close enough for me to eavesdrop. Only one other table was occupied, by teenagers
who seemed more interested in each other than the library holdings. A nearby pamphlet on the history of Revere provided cover as I pretended to read it. Over the edges of the colorful tri-fold, I watched two men and a woman come down the stairs to the first floor.
    The first comment I heard, right after Dorothy Leonard slammed her door, was from the woman. Tall, navy-blue power suit, bulging Italian leather briefcase. A lawyer, I decided. “This is not a battle you want to fight, Derek. The expansion proposal is dead,” she said to the younger man. Derek Byrne, Yolanda’s boyfriend—tall and lean, with light brown hair. “You should listen to your father.”
    “He never does,” the older man said. Councilman Brendan Byrne, according to Rose’s tutorial.
    “Not since I was two.” Derek’s laugh came out more like a snort.
    “You’re out of your league here,” the lawyerlike woman said. “I don’t care what documents you claim to have.”
    Derek ignored her. “I’ll talk to you later,