Page 31 of Up In Smoke

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Thank you, Mr. Gentson. You've been a huge help.”

Ivy led him out the front door, though the library had opened while they talked and she’d moved them into the back room. She’d even cut him off partway through the interview when people started needing books checked out.

She’d not “finished” per se, and he would have to come back, but he’d told her all sorts of things about all kinds of “bad seeds” all over town. Watching as the old man made his way to his car, she noticed he was leaning more heavily on his cane than he had on the way in. The interview, as tame as it had been, had worn him out.

Ivy worried about him in more ways than one. He had been instrumental in finding some lost children just a short while ago. He was kind, friendly, and always willing to be helpful. On the other hand, the information he had just given her about the history of the town spoke to a deep bias against Latino people.

That hurt her soul in addition to simply being ridiculous. The Hispanic population in Nebraska was so high that having a bias against them would mean being at odds with a very large portion of the locals.

Nebraska, as late as the 1990s, actively recruited southern border immigrants, inviting them to not stop in the southern states, but come all the way north and settle on the open plains and corn fields. It worked, and Ivy now saw the results of that in the faces around her—even in Luke’s.

She would have to take everything Mr. Gentson said with a grain of salt. However, even accounting for that there were disturbing things the man had said, it was clear that Tiago’s troublemaking had begun when he was young. No one was watched the boys—they’d basically raised themselves which made her all the more impressed by Luke's success. Carlos, too. It seemed he had only managed to get himself straight by leaving town.

Ivy checked out a young woman’s stack of thrillers even as her brain replayed some of the things Mr. Gentson had said. “It's no wonder Mario's got problems!” He’d smacked his hand onto the laminate surface of the table. “Tiago dealt drugs for a while, probably got his own little brother hooked.”

Ivy hadn’t written notes for that one, but mentally noted another thing to follow. She'd not found drug arrests in Tiago’s history but there weren't necessarily public statements for every time he'd been picked up or questioned.

Mr. Gentson had also had a sour expression when he’d told her, “Mario and Carlos used to tease the neighborhood dogs. They were horrible little children. Evil if you ask me. There were rumors that somebody had found Mario having cut open a squirrel to see what was inside it. I don’t think it died of natural causes.” Ivy hadn't been able to hide the way her whole body had pulled back with the revulsion.

Mr. Gentson had nodded at her as if to say,See, he was right. Those Hernandez boys were terrible. “That Luke kid ran with a rough crowd, stolen cars, lots ofweed.” He’d emphasized the last word and she wondered if he would call it the “devil's lettuce” or something more ridiculous. She wondered what he'd say if she told him about all the drugs she'd done.Weedhad been the least of them.

“That Luke never got caught,” Gentson had said and there was something in his tone that made Ivy wonder. But the older man followed it up with, “I never was quite sure if it was because he wasn't really doing any of it, maybe just hanging out with the wrong people. Or if he was so slick, that he always weaseled out of it and left his friends holding the bag for what he'd done.” Ivy nodded along, knowing that people spoke more when you agreed with them.

Mr. Gentson at least had the decency to follow up with, “Luke, though, he’s made something for himself. Went off to community college, came back and tried out for the firefighters.” He said it as though it were a cheerleading squad and Ivy smiled as she tried to cover a laugh. “Surprises me, but seems he's been a good addition to the station. Taggart seems to like him. And I like Taggart.”

And didn't that just say it all?Mr. Gentson decided who he trusted. And he trusted the people that those people trusted, whether or not it was the right thing to do.

Between helping the few patrons that wandered through the place on a Wednesday afternoon, she dashed back into her office and pulled her notebook out of her bag and jotted down everything she could remember about the Hernandez boys. When she finished, there wasn't much left to do, just help the steady trickle of patrons and stare at empty walls.

So she worked her way through the library, doing some of the things she normally did on Wednesday mornings, so that her workers didn’t find things amiss. Though they were giving her a pretty clean pass these days, so she knew that anything that wasn’t done would get written off. Still, it was time to get back to normal. Sitting around and waiting for the arsonist to strike again would only make her a crappy librarian … and who even knew how long that would last?

Turning her attention fully to the job, the singular focus that she’d lacked for several weeks felt good, even though she hit a long stretch with no one but herself in the building. The only sound that cut the silence was her phone ringing.

The name on the screen said Orlando Tavares, so she jerked the phone to her ear and greeted him quickly. “That was fast!”

“You did catch us at a good time. We're in between cases and it was easy enough for us to just sit down and pull the records for you. We’d just been finishing breakfast when you called.” His voice sounded cheerful, and she was glad that he and Chloe were doing well with the work. “Anyway, it's all gathered up, but I didn't want to send it until I talked to you. Sounds like this info is a little hush hush?”

“That it is.” She hadn’t fooled him at all.

“So where do you want me to send it?”

She rattled off her personal email because everything that went through the library system could be checked by the city records. It was, after all, a public job. She thanked him and tried to turn her mind back to the work. When she heard the ping, she didn't dare open it on one of the library computers, she herself had made sure everything researched on library systems could be traced. She couldn’t have any of her employees finding what she’d dug up or even learning that she was digging if they were the ones checking search histories.

So she was on her phone as she heard the chime over the front door, indicating that another patron had come in. Her eyes grew wide as she'd read through the sealed juvenile record. How had Orlando and Chloe gotten this?

Her heart was racing, but she closed everything out—just in case someone saw what was on her phone. The rest of the day went by in a blur. She traded out with Shannon later, not having gotten the break she was supposed to have taken before she opened. With her stomach grumbling, she drove through for fast food again and headed home.

At least she was finally able to sit down, open the email, and read through the reams of information that Orlando had sent. He had even included a couple of notes. “Chloe suggested I look up old burglaries. So I included these reports.”

Chloe was known for her hunches. It was part of why she was so good at finding missing children. She and Orlando were the perfect pair—she was an ex FBI-agent, him an ex-detective who knew his way around the area and the people and the cultures here.

Chloe had once asked Ivy to help her look up her own ancestry, as she hadn't known much of it herself. It was Ivy who had traced her past to the Goodman family from regions in both Northern and Southern California. It was Ivy who told Chloe the interesting thing about the Goodmans was that they ran a witchcraft shop in Los Angeles. And for the first time, Chloe had wondered if her ancestry played a role in her special gifts.

So now, when Chloe suggested Orlando look into the burglaries, Orlando had listened to Chloe’s hunches and Ivy took it all, even though she didn't quite see the pattern.

Yet.

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