Free Rubout by Elaine Viets Page A

students call it News Lite, because they don’t think it has anything worth read-mg?
    “No, I didn’t. I suspect the paper will be even emptier when this committee gets through with it. This is going to be a long voyage,” I said with a sigh. “And besides these Voyage Committee meetings, I still have to write my column and do that special feature on Sydney Vander Venter. And if I write about Sydney, I have to go to one of my least favorite areas in St. Louis—Ladue.”
    “Ladue is an attractive older suburb,” Lyle replied. He wasn’t from St. Louis, so he didn’t have my built-in attitude. “All those big trees and big houses.”
    “And small-minded people,” I said.
    “Oh, come on. Not everyone in Ladue is a snob. Don’t you have some friends who live there?”
    “Yeah, I like them. But I still can’t stand the place.”
    “Why?”
    “I hate the rich.”
    “You do not. I’m rich. You don’t hate me.” No. But right now, I didn’t exactly like him, either. When he stood there and smiled like that, I wantedto slap him. I was in a foul mood after spending yesterday on that Voyage Committee.
    “Come on, tell me why you hate the place,” Lyle said, and punctuated his taunt by kissing me on the nose. I swatted him away, like a pesky fly.
    “It’s insular. It’s stupid. It’s smug. There’s a whole Ladue attitude. They think they can run the city and do whatever they want and they don’t have to follow the rules like the rest of us.”
    “Those are prejudices,” Lyle said.
    “Based on fact. Remember when I did that story on the county health department’s vector control service—we call it Rat Control in the city? Well, a woman called up and asked what she could do about the night squirrels. Vector control said they didn’t know what night squirrels were.
    “ ‘My gardener told me about them,’ the Ladue woman said. ‘They only come out at night. They look like squirrels with long skinny tails.’
    “ ‘Those are rats, ma’am,’ said vector control.
    “ ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘We don’t have rats. We live in Ladue.’”
    “A funny story, I admit,” Lyle said. “But still not enough evidence. Why don’t you start with some research on Ladue?”
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go to the downtown library tomorrow and find the facts to back me up.”
    “At least you’ll know why you hate the place.”

S ome barflies get thirsty at the whiff of an old-time bar. There’s something about the smell of stale beer and Pine-Sol, and I do feel at home in a saloon. But I lust for libraries. They were my home away from home. My parents argued a lot. I would sneak off to the library and hide out there in the silence with my peaceful books. I liked the suburban library with the blond bookcases, the big glass windows, and that peculiar greenish aquarium light. The librarians wouldn’t let anyone talk to me or hurt me. I’d sit there, feeling safe and protected, hoping my parents would quit fighting by the time I got home. If the bedroom door was locked and I heard their bed-springs squeaking, I knew they were making up and everything would be fine in the morning. If they were still arguing, I would sneak upstairs to my room, shut the door, and read my books on my bed until I finally fell asleep. I’m surprised my ribs didn’t cave in, sleeping on some of those fat tomes.
    After my parents died and I moved in with my grandparents in the city, I hung out at the library near my grandparents’ city store. The Carpenter Branch Library smelled dark, old, and mellow. It was different, but I liked it. My favorite, though, was the main library downtown. It was built in 1912, when St. Louis was still a mighty river city and wanted a book palace for its people. Cass Gilbert, the same guy who designed the U.S. Supreme Court, designed an opulent library. Every time I went in the place, I took my own tour. The main room was oval and done in a warm, soft pinkish gray marble. It had molded plaster