The library was packed with people. Librarians from surrounding towns were there for this very special event, along with most Leetsvillians. I had arrived early, store-bought bags of chocolate chip cookies in hand. The cookies got only a minor look of consternation from Anna Scovil before being removed from the bag and piled in an orderly manner on a cut-glass plate.

Coffee and tea were ready in tall silver urns, with sugar and cream beside them. The cups weren’t Styrofoam, but an assortment of china cups Anna must have scrounged from everyone in town.

The charge was three dollars each to get in for the evening—including coffee, tea, and cookies. Not a bad deal, I thought, and smiled at those assembled, tea cups in their hands.

I nodded to people who nodded formally back at me. Evidently this was a state occasion and therefore everyone was dignified, dressed in their best, and prepared to sit through family history, lady’s slippers, and whatever it was I’d come up with.

Gertie had put in a busy day. Most of the women’s heads were pouffed and sprayed. The gentlemen had trimmed their beards and even the long-haired men from The Skunk had their hair slicked back and stuck behind their ears.

Once every seat was taken, Anna clapped her hands and introduced Ronald Williams, who stepped forward to polite applause and slapped an enormous manuscript on the desk Anna had provided for the readers. I wondered if anyone else in the room felt like groaning, but I remembered Anna had warned him. Twenty minutes. I hoped she was going to check her watch and keep him honest.

“The Parkinsons came to this area in 1856 …,” he began, stretching his long neck out of the white shirt collar that didn’t fit him. He spoke in a monotone that only got worse as he picked up page after page and read to us: dates, names of places in the East his mother’s people had come from. Then we were on to the Williamses—his father’s family—back to when they first came to Leetsville and how they knew the John Leets family who’d settled here first.

I sat at attention, keeping a bright look of interest pasted on my face. About the time Dolly finally got there, taking a standing position against the wall among the travel books, I began to fade. I checked my watch and saw Ronald Williams had fifteen minutes to go.

He read on. The Williamses started a farm.

Ten minutes to go. Joshua Williams opened a tackle shop in Leetsville.

Ronald’s voice droned through the next two years of minutes from the church society.

Eight minutes. We learned how the one-room school got started—not early teachers or even other students, only a list of Williamses who went there.

Five minutes. I zoned out. There was a titter of laughter. Something I’d missed. A joke. He was looking over the audience, a wide grin on his face. He wiped it away and went back to reading.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One. I looked over at Anna. Surely she would pop out of her chair and move on to lady’s slipper slides before everyone fell sound asleep. I’d already heard a heavy snore coming from behind me.

Ronald read on. Anna sat with her hands in her lap, in her front-row seat, a look of rapt attention on her face.

“Twenty minutes is up.” Someone called out behind me. Maybe the snorer had popped awake and checked his watch.

Others added murmurs of polite agreement.

Anna Scovil rose, cheeks red, and approached Ronald, who hadn’t heard a thing. She touched his forearm, then shook it. He frowned as he looked first at the hand on his page-turning arm, then up at Anna. “Your time is up, I’m afraid,” she said, smiling, but not letting go of him.

“Well, I’m just getting to the part …” He pointed one long, crooked finger down at the page he’d been reading. “I know everybody’ll be interested in when the Williams’ barn burned down.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s all interesting,” Anna said, but sighed. “We have other people waiting to speak, however. Maybe another time.”

Ronald wasn’t about to give up that easily. One of his hands folded around the edge of the table and held on. Anna, in a smart move, let go of his arm and began to clap. Everyone joined in, clapping loudly. There were a few bravos. Ronald could do nothing but take a bow, gather his worn manuscript, and go back to his seat.

Winnie Lorbach and Anna set up the slide projector, asking people to move to one side or the other so everyone could see the screen pulled down at the front. Winnie snapped a tray filled with slides into the machine, got the control in hand, and waved an imperious hand at Dolly to hit the light switch beside her.

Winnie was a good photographer. One by one, different varieties of lady’s slippers moved past on the screen. I’d never seen the beauty there, myself, but with Winnie describing them and pointing out differences and telling us where they grew and how they grew and what treasures they were, I thought I’d take another look when mine bloomed, next spring. Maybe I’d take some photographs.

Her presentation was smooth and interesting. She put up the slide that announced “The End” at fifteen minutes, not even using her allotted time. Dolly turned the lights on and people put up their hands to share stories of their own lady’s slipper finds. A couple stood to show a few photos of lady’s slippers they had taken and get pointers from Winnie.

Everyone was awake, but Anna Scovil stood to say there would be a break before Emily Kincaid read from a work in progress. She offered more coffee, cookies, tea.

“And don’t anyone leave yet,” she warned as chairs scraped back and people talked. “I’m sure you are all looking forward to hearing Emily.”

Dolly came over and took the empty seat next to me. I told her about my trip out to see the two men in Peshawbestown. “Bill went along. We found Alfred Naquma, even got inside. I’m not sure he knows what Lewis George is doing. I came away confused. Maybe Lewis George is the one they’re all protecting. This keeps going in circles. I feel like a dog chasing my own tail. I’m getting nowhere.”

“I think I got something on Christine Naquma.” She leaned close and whispered in my ear. “That old woman Lena Smith put me on to? She’s a great aunt or something like that. A relative, anyway, to Christine’s mother. Not one good word to say about Orly. Called him a mean drunk who destroyed his own family.”

“Whew.” It was so good to hear one of us had learned something. “Any idea where Christine is?”

“The old woman knows how to contact her. Belongs to a group of dancers in Colorado, she said. Guess they’re well known and travel to powwows around the country. She called somebody while I was there and whoever she talked to said Christine was dancing in the West and she would find her.”

“Great.” I congratulated Dolly as people filed back through the rows of seats and a large woman stood waiting for Dolly to get out of her seat.

Anna introduced me once everyone settled down, calling me the town celebrity, their very own novelist, and also a journalist known to everyone in Michigan. Over the applause for that out-of-proportion introduction, I gathered my pages together and went to stand at the table, pages too far down in front of me to be seen. I gave them the synopsis of the book I’d put together, taking them through the surprise ending that I assured them would astound the reader. There was a murmur and Flora Coy, in the second row, turned around to look at people behind her. She mouthed words at somebody. I read, bending to see, as Ronald had. I squinted, filled in words I couldn’t quite make out and read what I figured had to be a pretty exciting part …

“Mister.” The old woman in tattered skirt and torn lace blouse pulled at the sleeve of Randall Jarvis’s tweed sport coat. “Mister,” she said again, frantic as he shook her off.

“Go away,” he growled, bunching his shoulders up to his ears. The last thing he wanted was a beggar hanging on him. He had had enough trouble staying on his feet since the heart attack. If he didn’t concentrate, keep one foot plodding straight in front of the other, he might fall and die there in the gutter. The worst thing he could imagine happening at the end of what he thought of as an illustrious life.

I read for a while, looking up to smile—as all good public speakers must learn to do.

I figured I was close to my ten minutes when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Flora Coy standing beside me, her eyelids fluttering behind her large, pink-framed glasses. I gave her a perturbed look and kept on reading. She tapped again.

“What is it, Flora?” I hissed at her.

She leaned very close and whispered, “Witness for the Prosecution.”

My mouth dropped open. I gulped a couple of times. The words she’d said ran circles in my brain. Witness for the Prosecution, Witness for the Prosecution, Witness for the Prosecution …

I knew that title. But from where?

“The movie, dear,” Flora bent to my ear. “I thought I’d better stop you. Others recognized the plot …”

I groaned. Tyrone Power. Marlene Dietrich—both the cool woman and the old tart. Charles Laughton—oh my God. My aging barrister. How far had I fallen that I didn’t recognize an Agatha Christie plot? What a complete fool I had made of myself.

I looked at the faces in front of me. Most were sad. No one looked back. They stared at the floor or up at the pressed tin ceiling.

I couldn’t move. I stood immobilized with my hand over my mouth until Anna hurried over to nervously thank me for my presentation. There was polite applause. Anna invited everyone to finish the cookies, have another cup of coffee, and come back often to the library where new books would be appearing soon, thanks to their generous contributions. I gathered my papers and left the building.