Claws For Concern

Nothing from Miss An’gel, although I had a couple of spam messages. I deleted those quickly and put my phone away.

“Come on, Diesel, this time we’re going to the library.”

The cat meowed loudly at me as if to say It’s about time. I knew I had confused him by getting ready to leave the house and then stopping to have a conversation.

Less than ten minutes later we arrived in the library parking lot. All the spots on the one side that claimed any shade from the trees already had cars in them, so I had to park in the full sun. Today was going to be a scorcher, too, with temps in the high nineties. With the humidity, the feels-like temperature would be over a hundred degrees. At least I could accomplish what I needed to do and get home again before the worst heat of the day. I intended to stay home the rest of the day once I had spoken with Bill Delaney.

I spotted Teresa Farmer at the reference desk the moment Diesel and I stepped inside the front door. She looked our way and smiled, though she also appeared a bit surprised. I rarely came to the library on a Saturday, especially after I had worked there the day before.

Diesel chirped when he saw Teresa, and he ran around the counter so he could properly visit with the head of the library. There was no one standing in front of the desk waiting to be helped, so I walked up to the counter. Teresa was busy patting Diesel and talking to him in a low voice.

After a moment Teresa turned her attention to me, and we exchanged greetings. “What are you doing here on a Saturday morning?” she asked. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, of course.”

“I need to talk to one of the patrons if he’s here,” I said. “An older gentleman named Bill Delaney. Do you know who I mean?” I looked toward the area where Delaney usually sat, but the chair stood empty.

“Yes, I know him.” Teresa frowned. “I haven’t seen him this morning, and that’s rather odd, come to think of it. He’s usually here, waiting for the door to open every day. At least, he has been for the past several weeks since he first came in and got his library card. I hope he’s not ill.”

“Maybe he had errands to take care of this morning.” I didn’t want to alarm Teresa about Delaney’s welfare. Given what I now knew about his history, I wondered whether he had fallen off the wagon and was in his apartment, passed out. Or he could have had a heart attack or a stroke. I was beginning to make myself uneasy over him. My imagination could conjure up numerous scenarios, none of them pleasant.

“Don’t worry about him,” I said, my tone as nonchalant as I could make it. “Diesel and I will go check on him. I know where he lives.”

“That’s kind of you to take an interest in his welfare,” Teresa said. “I got the impression that he doesn’t know anyone in Athena.”

“I’m not sure whether he does or not.” I hesitated to tell her about Delaney’s connection to my family. Now really was not the time to go into personal history. I realized belatedly that a patron stood behind me waiting to talk to Teresa. “We’ll go now and see if he’s okay. Come on, Diesel.”

I stepped aside to let the woman behind me approach the desk. Diesel sauntered out from behind the counter and joined me. He meowed to let me know he hadn’t had quite enough attention from Teresa yet. “Tough luck,” I told him softly. “We need to get going. Let’s go to the car.”

He knew what that meant, and I carried him to the car without further protest.

Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of the seedy-looking apartment building that Bill Delaney had listed as his home address for his library card. The squat brick building, two stories tall, needed cleaning to remove spiderwebs and other visible dirt stains. Each window on the front had decorative shutters on either side. Several were slightly askew, and they all needed a fresh coat of paint. The small area of landscaped yard in front had been let to run to seed. Overall the place exuded shabbiness and desperation, to my mind, anyway.

I put Diesel in his harness and attached the leash. The neighborhood ambience made me uneasy, and I wanted to be sure the cat stayed next to me at all times while we were here. I opened the door and picked up Diesel. I locked the car, and we proceeded up the walk to the front arched entrance to the inner courtyard of the building.

A row of battered metal letter boxes adorned the short passageway to our right. Ahead I could see an overgrown common area with a couple of wrought iron tables and several rickety chairs. I turned my attention back to the letter boxes, hoping that one of them bore Delaney’s name. I couldn’t remember the number of his apartment. I wasn’t sure if he had even included it on his application. I didn’t want to have to go knocking on doors to find him. I preferred not to disturb any of the other residents of the building if I didn’t have to.