“She could be a suspect. I caught her bending over that.” Striker nodded toward the embosser.

“What is that?” Augusta walked over and bent down to inspect it.

“It’s the embosser from the library. I saw it when I came back here after Pandora. I was going to pick it up and return it to the library when King Kong over here tried to shoot me down.” Another lie … bad karma was coming my way for sure.

Augusta took a plastic bag out of her pocket and deftly bagged the embosser without ever touching it with her fingers.

“Did you touch this?” She held the bag up in front of my face.

“No.” At least I wasn’t lying that time.

“Okay, I think we can let her go,” Augusta held her hand up to squelch Striker’s protest. “Striker, she’s my sister. She found Lavinia and called it in.”

“She found the body and now I catch her bending over the murder weapon? In Dixford Pass, she’d be my number one suspect,” Striker said incredulously.

“I’ll vouch for her. Let’s take this to the lab. I think I see blood on the corner.” Augusta turned to walk away and Striker reluctantly lowered his gun and followed. When they got to the corner of the building, Augusta half turned back toward me.

“Willa, you can put your hands down now,” she shot over her shoulder. “Oh … and don’t leave town.”

***

I walked to the parking lot, Pandora trotting at my side with a satisfied look on her face.

“Well, looks like we found the murder weapon,” I said to her as I started the Jeep.

She ignored me, curled up in the passenger seat and went to sleep.

I thought about the murder weapon as I drove home. I couldn’t really picture the perfectly-coiffed Ophelia smashing Lavinia on the back of the head with the embosser, but she was the only lead I had.

The embosser had blood on it. There was no doubt in my mind it was the murder weapon. I remembered the thread of navy blue fabric that was caught on one of the screws.

Was the fabric already on there or could it have come from the murderer?

Who else would have been in the library that morning and why? Did Lavinia have any enemies? Or was the intruder after something in the library, anyway? What would someone want in a library? All that was in there were books, and as far as I knew, none of them were valuable. Could there be something else of value in the library?

I pulled into my driveway and walked into the house like a zombie, exhausted from thinking.

As usual, Pandora sped ahead of me, making a beeline for her dish.

“Are you hungry?” I asked the obvious as I searched in the cupboard for her favorite food. “You deserve a special treat, since you led me to the murder weapon.”