Cover Story

When a record blizzard knocks out the power across Whitby, North Carolina, the old Carnegie library becomes the county’s warming station. There are cots between the stacks, a fire in the reading room, casseroles on the long tables, and Fitz the library cat greeting everyone who comes in from the cold.

Among the guests is Vera Lindgren, the retired teacher who taught half the town to read. Vera has something on her mind. Before the lights go down, she tells a friend there’s something she needs to set right.

By morning, Vera is lying in the snow outside the library’s side door, and it wasn't the storm that killed her.

The roads are buried and the state police are a long way off. Reference librarian Ann Phillips can’t stop asking questions, and there’s no shortage of people to ask. Whitby has always loved a good story. Someone in that library has spent years making sure it kept telling the wrong one.