"I was getting to be a pretty good reference librarian. I read just about all the assigned texts for a degree."
"What's your real name?"
"I'm really Laura. They just changed my last name. My real last name is Bellamy. I've been undercover for over four months now. It involves drugs, of course."
"And it has to do with Paul and Jilly," I said slowly, looking closely at her. She paled and hesitated because what she was about to say was going to bring me pain.
"Just spit it out."
Grubster meowed loudly. "It's all right, Grubster. Take a nap. You've been through a lot." She closed her eyes a moment and ran her fingers through his fur. His loud purring soon filled the car again.
"About five months ago an electronic surveillance unit picked up a rumor that a new drug was being developed, one that is highly addictive and cheap to produce."
"A drug dealer's wet dream."
"Yes. A man called John Molinas was said to be bragging about it. We think Molinas is a major drug distributor, but we don't have anything solid on him. He's been in business in the past with a cartel headed by Del Cabrizo."
"I've heard of him."
"Del Cabrizo occasionally comes to the United States just to shove a finger in our face. And now the reason I'm here. The word was that there was a wealthy local man involved. It's none other than Alyssum Tarcher."
I must admit I was staring at her now. "Tarcher involved with Del Cabrizo?"
"There's more. John Molinas is Alyssum Tarcher's brother-in-law. That's probably why Tarcher's involved in this thing."
"A real kicker," I said. "I knew Tarcher was powerful, but this? He's a damned crook too?"
"Evidently so. All of this came as a bit of a surprise to us too. You see, John Molinas hasn't been active for a few years as far as we could tell. Maybe he got religion, maybe he got cancer, we just didn't know. But when we threw Alyssum Tarcher into the mix, it didn't take us long to find out that Dr. Bartlett and his wife, pharmaceutical researchers, had just moved to Edgerton from Philadelphia into a house that Tarcher sold them for a nominal price. We put two and two together and put pressure on their employer in Philadelphia, VioTech, to tell us what they had been working on. Paul and Jilly had been working on some sort of memory drug. It sounded nuts, but still, our people went over all the research Paul and Jilly had submitted. It was obvious why VioTech had pulled the plug. Whatever else the drug did, it was toxic as hell, turned some lab animals completely nuts. They'd sunk millions of dollars into a drug that was going nowhere.
"Still, why had the Bartletts suddenly moved to Edgerton? We found out that Paul had grown up there, but there wasn't anything to draw them back."
"Alyssum Tarcher was behind it," I said.
"Right. I set up in Salem posing as a reference librarian because there was no better way I could get closer to Edgerton, to the major players there. I did go to Grace's
Deli to see if she needed help, but she didn't. I couldn't just move to Edgerton. Everyone would have known I was up to no good. It's too small and tight a community."
"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?"