TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—The premise, for suspense lovers, is impossible to put down. From the publisher: “Historian Jean Sheridan returns to Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, excited about her twenty-year high-school reunion at Stonecroft Academy. But a dear friend of hers soon becomes the fifth woman in the class to meet a sudden, mysterious end…”
Coincidentally marking a 20-year reunion: a copy of that very book — Mary Higgins Clark’s “Nighttime Is My Time” — with the Township of Washington Public Library. Mary Quinn checked the relatively new title out on Nov. 18, 2005. Her son, Westwood volunteer firefighter Bill Quinn Jr., who has since lost both his parents, returned the hardcover this week — a last errand for his mom. Twenty years to the day. He presented himself, somewhat sheepishly, at the circulation desk. “I need to return this book,” he said. “It’s way overdue…”
Mary died in 2007. The novel had spent two decades in a box in the cellar of the Quinn family home on Devon Road, just steps from the library. Quinn found it while clearing out belongings as his father, Bill Sr., prepared to move to the Paramus veterans home. His father died three years ago at age 99 — a day shy of Veterans Day, Bill said.
“When I went through the box,” Quinn said, “I realized it was a library book. And I noticed that it was 20 years overdue today.”
That’s not to say he’d rushed it over. An avid reader, he first read the 432-page novel cover to cover. He even slipped in a page of notes, his own annotations — a habit he says he developed on his own. “A lot of times when I read a book, I jot little notes down so I can remember things later on,” he said. He removed the folded page at the desk, at the book handoff, keeping it as his own memento.
Quinn said he reads a book of roughly this length every month.
A Familiar Name at the Desk
Circulation staffer Susan Seligman, startled by the date, called over Janet Baker, head of circulation. Baker looked at the name on the card pocket and brightened instantly.
“Your parents, Bill and Mary?” she said. “I knew them. They were so sweet.”
The Quinns lived close enough to be library regulars. Mary, an avid reader with a special love for Mary Higgins Clark, visited often. Baker recalled her warmth and humor, and remembered how her husband continued to come in after Mary died.
“He would still come in,” Baker said. “He would always say, ‘I want to go out for a hamburger with somebody.’”
Quinn smiled at the memory.
Baker also recalled when Bill Sr. won a new Harley-Davidson in a Fire Department raffle. Quinn confirmed his parents sold it to help pay for Mary’s care.
Ka-chunk! Or, A Card Pocket Out of Time
As staff examined the book — one of Clark’s 51 standalone titles — a small crowd gathered. The old book pocket and borrowing card drew the most attention: a sight not commonly encountered since the library joined the BCCLS consortium years ago, moving to barcodes and shared circulation across dozens of libraries in northeastern New Jersey.
“We haven’t used that for years,” Baker said.
She recalled stamping outgoing books — that unmistakable ka-chunk of the date stamp, the sound and motion synonymous with libraries for generations.
Mary Quinn had checked the book out only a week after it had been checked out previously, Nov. 9, 2005, the date stamped above hers. George W. Bush was president.
As director Laura Rifkin joined the conversation at the desk, and board trustee Clarence Pettis drew in to say hello — “His parents used to come in all the time, you know?” — the recognition between Quinn and Baker deepened when Baker shared a memory from Mary Quinn’s later years, when Alzheimer’s had begun to intrude.
“She meant to put books in the book drop,” Baker said, “and she left them out, and they got wet.”
Quinn listened as Baker described how his father came in alone afterward, protective. “Don’t say anything to her,” he told staff. “She would get very upset.”
Baker added something Quinn had never known.
“We actually took donated books and made them look like library books,” she said — pockets, cards, everything — so that Mary could enjoy reading without worrying about due dates or returns.
Quinn paused, visibly moved. “Thanks for doing all that,” he told her.
“She was lovely,” Baker said. “Both of your parents were.”
Time hadn’t been kind to this classic from “the Queen of Suspense,” who died in 2020 at age 92. The book’s spine had loosened; the entire text block had slipped from the cover. Baker examined it and declared it easily repairable. Staff planned to fix it and return it to circulation — but agreed it first deserved a small display.
The conversation broadened to memories of the neighborhood and the library’s former home — a house on Hudson Avenue, near the old ambulance corps headquarters. Bill caught himself speaking too loudly for a typical library chat, but it was fine: onlookers were following along and smiling.
The mood remained light as Quinn jokingly calculated the overdue fine as if the library still charged one. He estimated “6,000 days… at a dime… $600.”
The actual number — for 7,305 days, including leap years — would have been $730.50. But the library is now fine-free.
And, unlike the “library cop” in Seinfeld’s famed 1991 episode, bent out of shape about a copy of Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” checked out in 1971 and not returned, nobody was waiting to scold him. Rifkin confirmed this was the library’s most overdue return — and now one of its sweetest stories.
A Return, and a Remembering
Before leaving, Quinn chatted with staff about the building’s history and the neighborhood he grew up in. The family moved here from the Bronx, in 1965.
Oh, that page of annotations: What did Quinn think of “Nighttime Is My Time” after all this time?
“It was very good,” he told Pascack Press. “Clark is top-notch, you know, one of the most famous mystery writers. I usually don’t read fiction, but I thought it was very interesting — and a very surprising ending.”
We won’t spoil it. Check out your own copy.