“Why the library?”
“God, I’m so sorry, Mac. The reason I became a reference librarian was that we found out that Jilly Bartlett was coming to the library in Salem. At least three days a week, like clockwork. Our surveillance showed-oh God, Mac, I’m so sorry about this-she was meeting a lover there, always in the reference section. If I became the reference librarian, I’d have a good chance to meet her, to make friends with her, and I did. The regular reference librarian got a very nice open-ended holiday, with pay.”
I had only heard one thing. “A lover? Jilly met a man in the library three days a week?”
“Yes. He’s a local thoracic surgeon. No one could find out how they’d met, but as yet we have no reason to think he’s involved in anything going on down in Edgerton.”
I looked up to see a police car cruising slowly by, his eyes on us. I waved and turned the ignition key. “Let’s go to that McDonald’s we passed. I need some breathing space and then a cup of coffee.”
The McDonald’s was about three miles back up the highway off Exit 133. It was tucked between a Denny’s and a Wendy’s, with three gas stations completing the grouping.
Grubster slept through being put back into his carrying case. Nolan didn’t even squawk once when Laura slipped his cover over the cage.
Over Big Macs and coffee, I said, “You’ve been undercover for four months. What have you come up with?”
“You mean against Jilly and Paul?”
“Believe me, I don’t give a damn about Molinas or Tarcher or this Del Cabrizo character.”
“Again, Mac, I’m sorry, but the truth is that Jilly lied to me from the beginning, told me she was here because she wanted to get pregnant. She told me she was the uneducated one in the family. I don’t know if she did this to protect herself or me.
“I like Jilly. When you told me she was in a coma, it really hit me hard because I do like her so much. She’s funny, lights up a room when she swings in, her skirts swishing, her hair bouncing. We did get close, but not close enough that she ever really let me in.”
“Bottom line, Laura, you didn’t have squat on either Jilly or Paul, and that’s because there isn’t anything to get. I don’t believe my sister would be involved with drug dealers, for God’s sake. Both she and Paul are scientists, not criminals. They’re moral people, not people who’d develop a drug to feed to kids. You’re wrong about them, Laura. At least you’re dead wrong about Jilly.”
I was being a brother, defensive and angry, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to accept it, couldn’t accept it. I looked at Laura, felt mean as a snake, and said, “Did you sleep with Paul? As a sort of quid pro quo?”
“No,” she said matter-of-factly, but I felt her surprise and hurt at my question. She dropped the french fry she was holding back onto her plate. “Jilly never mentioned anything like that to me. Actually, she’s very fond of Paul.”
I said slowly, “Jilly said you’d betrayed her. I assumed it meant you’d slept with Paul, but that isn’t it at all. She found out you’re a DEA agent, didn’t she?”
“She must have but I don’t know how. Maybe I gave myself away somehow, I don’t know. But she must have found out that very night. Both she and Paul must have known since then. One of them may have made a phone call to Molinas. He’s perfectly capable of everything that’s happened since.”
“So now you’re saying that my sister conspired to commit murder. I’ll never believe that. Probably Molinas found out about you. Jilly wouldn’t blow the whistle on you.”
She took my hand and held it between hers. “She came out of the coma, Mac, and disappeared just as soon as she was able. She knew we were getting close. She went into hiding.”
“Then why didn’t Paul leave with her?”
“I don’t know. There’s still no direct evidence against either of them. I thought about that, a lot. Something else I wanted to tell you. Over the past couple of months, Jilly didn’t seem quite right. She talked about sex a lot, how much more she liked it than before. Not just one conversation, she went on and on about it. And she seemed somehow off, the way she spoke of other things, mixing in non sequiturs, like she wasn’t really with me.”