The Last Page Page 2

  Julia had been surprised to hear the part about his loving books, because he didn’t strike her as the type. But Julia loved her mother, and her mother loved being in love, so Julia decided to be happy for her.

  As they neared the Seattle’s Best counter, Julia said, “I think I’ll try something different today.”

  “Fine, dear,” her mother said, obviously not really listening.

  “Mocha, tall, decaf,” Julia told the barista. “Skim, no whipped cream.” She turned to her mother. “What about you? It’s on me.” But Mavis was facing the other way, scanning the huge store, searching for William. “Mother?”

  “Yes, dear. Whatever you’re having.” She was waving her arm in the air now, trying to get the attention of William, who was about a football field away at the Information desk, deep into a computer search for a customer. “He deeply cares about books,” Mavis said.

  Julia took both mochas and steered her mother to a small round table. “So, dear,” her mother said, “how are classes going?” She sipped from her cup and made a face.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “I’ll never understand why you didn’t go to Harvard Law.” Her mother took another sip, and then said, “What is this, anyway?”

  “It’s a decaf mocha, skim, no whipped cream, and I didn’t go to Harvard because I wanted to go to Northwestern, and live near Chicago, and maybe practice law in Chicago…if I practice anywhere.” She really didn’t like law school and changed the subject. “Did Barbara like William?”

  “You know, after her husband committed suicide, Barbara’s …well… she had her doubts about men. Her advice was always, ‘Go slow.’ Poor Barbara. Did I tell you she called me the night she died?”

  “No, you didn’t. What did she call about?”

  “I was at the symphony and didn’t get her messages until I got home. Two of them. She seemed anxious to speak to me. Said she’d just found some ‘disturbing news.’ So like Barbara; always dramatic.” Mavis sighed. “They were her last words to me and I couldn’t bring myself to erase them from… Oh, good!” Mavis looked past Julia’s shoulder and broke into a huge smile. “Here he comes.”

  Julia and Mavis stood to greet William. He was over six feet tall, tanned, and silver-haired. He wore a designer suit coat over a white shirt and tie. He was impressive-looking, though quite a bit overweight. He greeted Mavis with a kiss. Then he turned to Julia. “I’m so lucky,” he said. “Spending the whole evening with two beautiful women.”

  Avoiding the vomit-inducing gesture for the second time in half an hour, Julia drew back her hand and checked her watch. “We’ve got a wake to go to,” she said.

  * * *

  They passed the Mystery section as they left the store. Julia loved mysteries. Maybe that’s why she’d enjoyed working for Aggie Sherwood that summer. Sherwood, a woman, was the top gun in the city when it came to defending murder cases. Not the simple bar fights where success was getting a good plea bargain, but the complicated cases. Sherwood was brilliant at finding every last piece of evidence. Nothing in a police report or a medical report got by her. She even used private detectives to ferret out the truth from the tangle of confusion and lies.

  They went out the door and walked to the car. Julia got in the back this time, and William drove. She wasn’t looking forward to Barbara Adams’s wake. She was anxious to go home, and listen to those messages on her mother’s answering machine.

  FOUR

  Mark Wainwright frowned when he came across the email. As the IT director for the library, it was his job to connect—or in this case, disconnect—employees’ computers from the library system. It was a dandy system, he had to admit. He’d set it up himself. He’d been a geek since high school, but he liked the fact that, whatever the problem, he could fix it. He loved being the go-to guy.

  He was working late that evening, scanning Barbara Adams’s files. He obviously had no authority to delete anything, so he was transferring the files to disks. Somebody else—the acting director, or someone on the Board of Trustees—would decide what was worth keeping and what wasn’t. Of course, he also wasn’t supposed to be snooping. He’d fire any of his subordinates—if he had any—if he found them reading a client’s private correspondence. But that’s what he was doing when he found that interesting email.

  No one was using Ms. Adams’s office, and the door was closed. He had time to spare because, for one thing, he didn’t have to field any more calls from Ms. Adams, demanding this or that...all of it “ASAP.” She’d been a difficult boss, but he didn’t mind. He was a better IT guy because of it. One day he’d move on to bigger things. More sophisticated networks. Maybe a Fortune 500 Company. For now the library was fine, and a little snooping now and then was a perk of the job. He enjoyed seeing what other people worried about, what they said about each other. He knew it was wrong, but it gave him a sense of belonging. Maybe because his personal life, aside from Second Life, was so…well…boring.

  He’d scanned Ms. Adams’s inbox. She was the type who deleted emails after she dealt with them. The mark of a good manager, or so he’d heard. He hadn’t come across anything interesting—a few messages about the next Board of Trustees meeting, something about complying, or not, with the Patriot Act. But then he’d clicked onto her outgoing mail. Nothing much there, either. He was about to copy everything to a disk when he checked her Draft folder. And there it was. Highlighted in bold, it was addressed to mavisfairbanks@comcast.net. He clicked on the message.

  Mavis: I’ve been trying to reach you by phone. We MUST talk ASAP. It’s about something I found out. I may be causing trouble for myself, but I must act. NOW. I know I’m right.

  Ms. Adams loved to capitalize words in her messages. The email equivalent of shouting, and not at all polite. Mark had been on the receiving end of those annoying capitals more than once.

  Now what? The message seemed important. But it hadn’t been sent. The fact that it was in her Draft folder could mean she might not have finished it. But it could also mean she didn’t know if she wanted to send it. Whoever Mavis Fairbanks was, she would probably know its significance. If he sent it on to her and she didn’t understand it, or it wasn’t important, she could just delete it. Still, it wasn’t up to him to send other people’s emails. Except this one seemed to have mattered a lot to Ms. Adams. Doing nothing was the safe thing, but also the cowardly thing. Mark went back and forth, then decided to send it. It wasn’t, like, illegal or anything. He composed a note to go with it.

  Hello. I’m Mark Wainwright, IT Director of the Windbrook Village Library. I was going through Ms. Adams’s system and found this unsent email. I thought it might be important, so I’m forwarding it to you. And please accept my sympathies.

  He hit “send,” and at once regretted it. Damn, why did I do that?

  * * *

  “Dear, come into my office and see this.” It was Julia’s mother calling. Her “office” was really an enclosed sunroom, but her mother did volunteer work for several organizations, and having an office made her feel professional.

  “Be there in a minute,” Julia called. They were home from Barbara Adams’ wake, and she should have been studying, but in reality she was pondering the two telephone messages Barbara had left on her mother’s answering machine. The first said:

  Mavis, it’s Barbara. We have to get together and talk. I found something very disturbing. Call me ASAP.

  The second was equally worrisome:

  Mavis, you must call me right away. It’s critical!

  Julia sighed and went to her mother.

  She found her mother hunched over her computer. “Look at this email.”

  Julia leaned over her mother’s shoulder. The email had been from Barbara, but had been sent by someone named Mark Wainwright. She frowned.

  “Don’t grimace like that, dear,” her mother said. “We need to keep those frown lines at bay.”

  Julia absently rubbed her palm across her forehead. “Do you have any idea what this is ab
out?”

  “Not a bit. But it appears to be important.”

  “It sure does. And together with those phone messages...” Julia shook her head. “Something was obviously bothering Barbara.”

  “Oh dear.” Worry lines popped out on her mother’s forehead.

  Julia pointed to her mother’s brow. “Premature aging, Mom.” Mavis shot her a look. Julia ignored it. “Tell me,” she went on. “Did Barbara send this kind of email often?”

  Mavis sighed. “You know how careless I am about checking my emails, dear. In fact, Barbara rarely sent me any. But she certainly has…I mean had…a dramatic streak. And she was impulsive. Still, her phone calls, and the few emails she did send, were usually full of chatter about Malcolm, her cats, or her step-daughter.”

  “She ever talk about any… problems she was having?”

  “She’d talk about her step-daughter. Otherwise, mostly the normal things: arthritis in her hip, property taxes, where she was going to come up with money for this or that.”

  “What about her job?”

  “She never talked about it.”

  Julia was taken aback. “Never? Not even something…well, I don’t know…some silly piece of gossip?”

  Mavis straightened up. “Barbara never discussed anything about her job with me. She wouldn’t, with William on the Board of Trustees.”

  “William is on the board?”

  “Oh yes. So Barbara couldn’t talk about library business with me. In case it got back to William and the board.”

  “I suppose,” Julia said, although she couldn’t imagine what library matters would require such discretion.

  Nothing in Barbara’s email or phone messages indicated her distress had anything to do with her job. The email did, however, talk about her finding something out, and that could have been about a library employee. On the other hand, it might have been something personal. A bill she thought was exorbitant? A shoddy home repair job? But ASAP? What was so time-sensitive about—

  “Yoo-hoo! Darling…I asked you a question.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. What did you say?”

  “I asked what you were thinking about.”

  Julia shook her head. “Just that something was on Barbara’s mind. Something that made her call here twice, and send you an email.”

  “She didn’t actually send it, dear. Maybe she changed her mind, or…well…I don’t know.”

  “I wonder…” Julia paused. “I wonder whether we ought to tell the police about it.”

  “The police? Why?”

  “Well, whenever anyone dies suddenly and unexpectedly, there’s a death investigation. It’s routine.”

  “But Barbara died of a heart attack.”

  “True. But the information we have might help figure out why she had the heart attack.”

  “What difference does ‘why’ make, Julia? Barbara’s gone. Whatever was on her mind…well, it doesn’t matter now. “ Her bottom lip started to quiver.

  Julia bent down and gave her mother a hug. “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry to upset you. Don’t worry. I’ll take the tape and the email to the police myself.”

  Mavis’s eyes widened. “What in the world are they teaching you in law school? Maybe whatever was on her mind was so stressful it triggered her heart attack. But that’s nothing for the police.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Mom.”

  Mavis frowned. “Don’t patronize me, darling.” When Julia didn’t answer, Mavis said, “You’re going to the police, aren’t you?”

  Julia nodded.

  * * *

  Detective Shawn Nystrand’s office was on the second floor of the Windbrook police station, in a tidy building on Green Bay Road. Everything in the village was tidy, Julia thought. The architecture, the grounds, even the police.

  Take Nystrand. His dark hair was neatly cropped close to his head. His mustache was carefully trimmed, and he was wearing a well-tailored suit that looked several cuts above what she saw on police detectives in Criminal Court at 26th and Cal. Even the man’s eyes—dark brown, with long lashes—looked tidy. Those eyes were appraising her now.

  “Appreciate your coming in Ms. Fairbanks,” he said. “We’re always grateful when a citizen wants to help out.”

  Sounded like something he learned in the village employee manual. Be polite and courteous at all times. You never know whom you’re dealing with on the North Shore.

  Aloud she said, “I just think it’s odd that Barbara was so…determined…to talk to my mother. She was worried about something important. I thought it might have some bearing on her case.”

  “Case?” Nystrand stroked his mustache with a well-manicured forefinger. He seemed to be trying not to smile. “This was a death investigation, miss. Not a case. “

  “I understand that,” she replied.

  Nystrand’s look turned guarded.

  “I’m a student in law school—at Northwestern.” She bit her lip. Why had she said that? It made her look like the worst kind of amateur. Full of self-importance. He’d think she was a spoiled child.

  But he surprised her. “Good for you. I’ve thought about going to law school myself. Maybe night classes. But I never seem to get around to it.”

  Grateful for the crumb of respect he’d thrown her, Julia relaxed. “That’s why I wanted you to have this information, detective. I don’t know. There’s just something odd about it. My mother says Barbara tended to be dramatic, but this seems over the top. I keep thinking something unusual was going on.”

  Nystrand nodded. “Look, I know what it’s like when someone dies unexpectedly. It’s a shock. You want to find a reason why. It’s understandable. Especially since she was a close friend of your mother’s. It’s natural to let your imagination run away with you.”

  So much for respect, Julia thought. “I don’t think it’s my imagination. It’s the nature of these messages.” She leaned across his desk and pointed to the email. “You see this?” She read upside down. “‘I may be causing trouble for myself.’ Don’t you agree that’s disturbing? At least unusual?”

  Nystrand glanced at the email then back at Julia. “Look, I’ll put these notes and messages in her file. But everything adds up. She had a history of a heart problem. Maybe she got some disturbing news. You admit she was a little high strung. Maybe she’s on her way down to the basement for some reason, and…bam. The ticker just goes. It happens.”

  “But something was going on. Maybe someone wanted to do her harm. Maybe something else. I’m just…uncomfortable…with the way it happened. Why would she go down to the basement at night anyway?”

  “Look,” Nystrand said, his voice firm, “there’s nothing here, Ms. Fairbanks. If I were you, I’d concentrate on law school. Study criminal law. But don’t be thinking there’s a crime in every death.”

  FIVE

  Northwestern University had a campus to dream of, nearly 250 acres sprawled along the shore of Lake Michigan in Evanston, just north of Chicago. The Law School, though, wasn’t on that campus. It was about ten miles south, deep inside the city itself. An urban setting, but still close to the lake, and just steps from the shops of Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile.

  The day after talking to the police detective Julia had two classes in the morning—Criminal Procedure and Constitutional Law—and none in the afternoon, so by twelve-thirty she was riding a north-bound Red Line train just starting its climb out of the subway tunnel up to the el tracks. The semester was heating up, but her mind wasn’t on her studies.

  She stared out the window of the train and wondered, as she so often did, what direction her life would take. She’d discovered during her first year at law school that she didn’t care much for most of the courses. The professors seemed intent on making her “think like a lawyer,” which seemed to mean thinking about making a ton of money sitting in an office somewhere. The only courses she enjoyed were related to criminal law. If she ever became a lawyer, it would be to work in the criminal justice system like
her mentor, Aggie Sherwood.

  Most of her classmates scoffed at this, reminding her that the real money was elsewhere. But Julia already had more money than she needed, most of it in a trust fund whose assets grew like mushrooms in a cave. The trust was already making quadrennial distributions to her, and when she was forty the cave would be opened up completely.

  Still, she had to do something with her life, and a smart young woman who throws herself into the pursuit of justice, when so few people were willing to take on the—

  “Howard Street!” The recorded announcement startled her. “This is as far as this train goes. Transfer to Purple and Yellow Line trains.”

  She looked around. Howard? Already? She hoisted her backpack and hurried out onto the platform.

  A Purple Line train was waiting. She boarded and sat down. As the train pulled away she closed her eyes and mentally replayed the messages from Barbara Adams on her mother’s answering machine: “I found something very disturbing.” Her mind went from there to that unsent email: “I may be causing trouble for myself, but I must act.” Barbara had sounded desperate to reach Julia’s mother, only minutes before her death. Was what Barbara wanted to say connected to that death?

  * * *

  She’d left her car—a blue Mazda Miata—in the CTA lot in Wilmette, a short drive from the Windbrook Library. It was a warm, sunny day, so she put the top down on the Miata and headed to the library.

  It seemed to her that Barbara Adams had been Director of the Windbrook Public Library forever, but according to the local weekly newspaper, the Windbrook Talk, it had only been eight years since that she’d gotten the top position, after spending her entire working life at the library, starting as an intern—or what libraries called a “page”—. Entering the library that day, Julia wasn’t sure what to expect, but she was a little surprised that there was no indication that someone important to the library had just died.