Over My Dead Husband's Body by Etta Faire

Author:Etta Faire [Faire, Etta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The Freak Show

Mrs. Nebitt unlocked the doors right at 9:30.

"Morning," I said. She didn't smile or respond, but she didn't shush me either. Progress.

She waddled back behind the incredibly high counter that separated us and climbed onto her stool without really looking at me. It was, after all, a Thursday again. I briefly thought about telling her I had a job now at the Purple Pony, but I knew she wouldn't be impressed. Her eyes were glued to her computer. I went over to the periodicals section.

After searching through Gazette after Gazette for anything on Jasmine Truopp and Tina's "episode" that happened around the same time, I gave up. I needed the older stuff. The good stuff.

The stuff that required help.

I stared at the little old lady sitting behind the counter and tried to will her attention to me.

She never looked up.

I approached her desk, and leaned into her. "Can you help me do some research?"

She scrunched her nose like she'd just smelled a burning septic tank. "Depends on what kind of research you're doing?"

She turned her head suspiciously to the side like I might ask for help finding the "Chronically Unemployed's Guide to Cooking Meth" or something to that effect. What I had to ask would be equally as horrifying in her eyes. "I would like as much information as possible about a woman murdered here four years ago. A prostitute."

She looked at the ceiling a second, and I tried not to care what the horrible old woman thought of me. I knew she was wondering if this was a colleague of mine or a friend. She thought of me as a prostitute too. I was just about to go back to the Gazettes when she scooted her stool forward.

"I think I know who you're talking about. She was from Chicago, actually, or so they thought." She tapped on her computer and turned the screen toward me. "Jasmine Truopp?"

"That's her."

"I'll bring the articles up on the microfilm machine,” she said, quickly making her way over to the large file cabinets against the far wall of the periodicals section. She seemed to have a swing in her step as she moved. Maybe she wasn't awful after all. Maybe she was just bored.

She finished setting up the machine for me. "Always ask for help with this. Got it?" she said. Mrs. Nebitt was one of those people who needed things done her way. Don't open the microfilm drawers without help. Don't try to put books back on the shelf yourself. Things must go in their exact spots and ordinary people are incapable of doing complicated things like alphabetizing.

I thanked the librarian then, before she turned away, I whispered. "You were right about Jackson all along."

She stared at me a second, her eyes the size of dinner plates under her coke bottles. "I don't know what you're talking about," she finally said, cracking a smile as she waddled away.

The Gazette was a weekly newspaper, so Tina's article was in the same edition as Jasmine's remains.

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