Fully awake and well fed, Lily paid her bill, then headed across town to the library. It was just opening when she arrived, so she waited a few minutes in her car. The initial thrill of a puzzle had faded slightly, leaving Lily with a logistic and very human puzzle that needed quick attention. She had decided to start with the train schedules and put together a timeline to work from. Since she hadn't brought anything with her to Cassie's, she decided to hit the library to use their computers to get her info.
"No time like the present," she decided, and headed in.
There were only a couple other patrons waiting to get inside. One older man headed for the reading room off the main foyer with the practiced look of someone who had been there before. The other lady was in a nervous state and immediately went to the counter and started rattling off a tale of despair that seemed to fluster the dutiful librarian caught in the full gale. Lily smiled at her and headed off to the left.
Around the corner from the main entrance was a small room with several cubicles set up for internet access. Lily sat down and pulled up the browser. Not sure where to start, she Googled The Downeaster and traced down the Amtrak website through the links that popped up. She pulled up the timetable, and just stared. She suddenly felt very stupid.
Caught up in the emotions of the moment, she hadn't asked Grace when Carter Denning had boarded the train, where he had started from, or anything. She had to look around the room to make sure no one was watching. She had to chalk it up to being tired. It was responsible for most bad decisions, after all. Lily chuckled at her own joke and took a deep breath. There was little point in worrying about it now. She needed to reach out to Grace and get the information. But not until she had made it home and set up a proper case file. An organized file meant an ordered mind... or something like that.
Deciding to make the most of the moment, she typed in 'Carter Denning' and searched. Nothing promising came up. She tried again - 'Carter Denning Illustrator' - and send. Nothing again. She frowned. Maybe his career predating the digital age had kept him out of the search engines. She tried children's book illustrator, black and white illustrator, and a string of others. All with the same result, or lack of.
"Hmm, that's odd," she thought. What was the book series Grace had mentioned? Tom Terrific or something. How could she find out? Looking around to restart her brain she remembered where she was and silently kicked herself again. Since there wasn't much she could find out here at the moment, she logged off the system and went to speak to the librarian.
Fortunately, the frazzled lady seemed to have been accommodated, so the librarian was free. He was a balding, middle aged man with a soft face, wearing a fleece vest over his ample frame. 'Hello! I'm Terry' was stuck to his chest, and he was quietly going through the overnight returns, checking their condition and updating their status. Lily walked up to the desk.
"Excuse me, I'm trying to find about some old children's books, but I can't remember the name," she began.
"Well, good morning!" He returned, setting aside the books he was working on. "Let me see if I can help you out... do you remember anything about them?"
Lily was impressed by his attitude after the hectic start he'd had. But then, working here was probably similar to working at the bookstore in that sense. You couldn't let one customer influence the way you dealt with the next. And the poor lady had just been frantic about whatever she needed, not mean or insulting. She smiled back at him, trying to match his warm demeanor.
"Good morning, Terry," she started again. "I was talking to a friend of mine this morning about a series of children's books from the 1960s and I wanted to try to find some of them, but I can't remember the name she mentioned. I remember it alliterated... something like Tom Terrific or Timothy something..."
