Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript (27 page)

“Mom, what are you talking about?” my daughter demanded.

“The correct pronoun relative to the direct object is
whom
, not
who
,” I lectured.

“Don’t evade the question,” Sunnye said.

“Yeah, Mom, who’ll give you hell? And for what?”

I set my fork down. The chicken was still warm and juicy, but my mouth was dry, and I had lost my appetite. “Lieutenant Charles Piotrowski of the Massachusetts State Police is displeased that I meddled in his investigation.”

Amanda: “Charlie! So that’s why—”

Sunnye: “That big cop? You gonna let him—”

Me: “Shut up, both of you.” I slapped my hand down on the table, and the fork clattered on my plate.

Amanda stared at me, wide-eyed. “Mom, it’s not like you to lose your cool. Are you guys—”

“I’d rather talk about the bookshop,” I said. “Sunnye, tell us more about your visit to Henshaw’s.”

She and my daughter exchanged knowing glances. Amanda, exasperated, spread her hands wide.

Sunnye tore a chunk off the wholemeal baguette and buttered it. “The bookshop? Well, okay. Paul’s got a great crime fiction collection. I couldn’t resist a first of
The Dain Curse
, signed, with jacket. He’s shipping it home for me.” She took a bite. “And, then—”

Another slow car with powerful headlights. Sunnye glanced at me. If it was the cops, they must have some particular reason for being so obvious. Was this plain and simple police harassment? If so, what role was Charlie Piotrowski playing in it?

***

After we’d watched the video, Sunnye slipped into her leather jacket and clipped Trouble’s leash onto his collar. She had her hand on the doorknob when she remembered something. “Paul Henshaw said he knew Elly Munro.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, but he knew him by the name of Bob Tooey. Tooey used to come into the store to schmooze. Never bought anything, though—a real Lookey Lou.” She wrapped the leash around her wrist, and turned the knob. “Over the weekend the FBI asked Paul to go up to the house in Chesterfield, give them a preliminary idea of the value of the stolen books. He was there all day yesterday. He told them five, six million dollars.”

Amanda gasped. “Millions!”

“And he said Munro’s collection is so knowledgeable and comprehensive he hated to see it broken up. Funny, isn’t it. A genius book collector, but a thief.”

I watched Sunnye’s Town Car turn—there went the rest of my tulips—then pull onto the road. A minute later another set of headlights raked the kitchen window, following the rental car.

I sat up until after midnight reviewing my underlinings in
The Long Goodbye
. Then I went to bed and fell asleep with the book in my hand.

I was with Sunnye Hardcastle at the Book House. Trouble had turned into a cat and was winding in and out between my feet as I stepped my way past precarious piles of leather-bound tomes. “This beast is trying to kill me,” I said.

“Don’t be absurd,” she replied. “He’s simply committed to intertextuality.”

“Oh. Well then.” I reached down to stroke the silky animal. He sank his teeth into my hand.

***

Paul was just placing the CLOSED sign in the shop window when I arrived at Henshaw’s Rare and Antiquarian Books after class on Tuesday afternoon. “Karen Pelletier? What a surprise.”

“Hi, Paul. Glad I caught you. Could I buy you a drink?”

“Now I have younger women after me.” He raised an amused eyebrow. “Life is good.”

“I have an ulterior motive.” I wanted to find out if he knew anything about Elwood Munro and Peggy Briggs.

“That’s what I hoped.”

“Flirt.” I grinned at him. Paul was of the generation just previous to the rise of politically correct male-female social interaction. We walked over to Rudolph’s, and sat at the bar. I ordered Cosmopolitans. Spring was on its way, and the fruity drink made me think of carefree days ahead, however delusional that thought might be.

“Salut,” Paul said.

I tipped my glass toward him, then drank.

Across from us Claudia Nestor sat alone, drinking beer from a green bottle. Her gaze was riveted to a local news program on the TV above the bar.

“Here’s what I want to ask you, Paul. I understand you knew Elwood Munro—”

“Bob Tooey, the little bum.” He twisted his lips. “Yeah, I knew him. Used to come into the shop, handle the books. Smell them, even. Never bought anything.” He gave an ironic laugh. “And I always had this feeling in my gut, you know, like I shouldn’t turn my back.”

“Good instincts.”

“Yeah. Why are you asking about him?”

“A student of mine is missing,” I said, “and I’m looking for her. I think she may have known Munro.” I told Paul about Peggy and her backpack. “And today she missed class for the second time in a row. That’s totally out of character for her.”

He shook his head. “You say this Briggs girl works in the library? Do you think she could have been Tooey’s—er, Munro’s—accomplice in crime? Given the guy’s obsession with books, I wouldn’t put anything past him. But if she started giving him problems, he’d have gotten rid of her in a New York minute.”

“He couldn’t have ‘gotten rid of her,’” I said. “She’s the one who found his body.”

“Oh.” He raised his eyebrows. “Then maybe
she
killed
him
.” He spread his hands. “It wouldn’t be the first time murder’s been committed in the pursuit of books. There was this guy in Spain sometime in the nineteenth century, a man named Don Vincente, who killed at least eight people in order to get their books. And he started out as a good guy—a librarian in a monastery.”

“Not Peggy,” I said. “She’s too…well, not Peggy. Do you really think that’s why Munro was murdered? For his books?”

Paul turned his glass slowly by its stem. “What better reason could there be?”

***

When I got home with burgers and fries from Rudolph’s, Amanda was deep into
The Lady Vanishes
. I set a tray on the coffee table in front of her. I came back into the living room a half hour later, and the untouched meal was still in its Styrofoam take-out case. The video had ended, and Amanda was asleep in front of the staticky TV screen.

Chapter Twenty-three

Thirteen women and Rex Hunter sat around the pine conference table in the Women’s Studies office Wednesday morning holding a post-mortem of the crime fiction conference. The consensus was that if it weren’t for the actual murder that had kicked it off, the murder-mystery conference would have been an unqualified triumph.

After the meeting I followed Rachel Thompson out of the building. I had more questions for the librarian.

An early spring sun had evaporated all traces of the recent snow. Crocuses poked tentative shoots though the raked earth of flower beds. Although March in New England could hardly be called tropical, students strolled by dressed in shorts and T-shirts. I foresaw a pneumonia epidemic within the week.

“Any word from Peggy?” I asked Rachel.

“Nothing.” Her ruddy complexion was deepened by the crisp air. “I’ve been querying the library staff. Nobody has seen her since last Thursday when she stumbled across Munro’s body. Poor thing.”

“I know the cops talked to her after that,” I mused.

“And then she vanished—kaput.” Rachel spotted a discarded Pepsi bottle, plucked it off the sidewalk, and marched it over to the blue recycling bin. “This may sound heartless, but I don’t know what to do about Peggy’s job. She’s supposed to do the reshelving and the stacks are in a mess. Lately Nellie doesn’t even seem capable of something as simple as getting the books back where they belong.” She let her breath out with a frustrated
whoof
. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. It seems to be all she can do to show up and park her butt at the desk. And mope. I find it very difficult to keep from letting her see just how annoyed I am with her. She needs help.” She paused and thought for a moment. “Help with reshelving, I meant, but…” She shrugged. “Listen, I know Peggy is desperate for the income, but if she doesn’t return soon, I’m going to have to hire a replacement.”

A job was the least of Peggy’s problems, I thought. I shifted my book bag from one hand to the other; it was loaded with course anthologies and felt as if it were packed with lead. “What about the book thefts? Any news there?”

Rachel gestured toward an ornate marble bench. “Can you sit for a minute?” The bench sported a brass plaque commemorating the class of 1934. When we sat, I could feel the stone’s chill through the light wool of my skirt.

Before Rachel could answer my question, Claudia Nestor came bounding up. “Rachel. Karen. You left the meeting before I could ask if you’d caught my interview on WENF-TV.” Her purple wool coat was unbuttoned, her striped wool scarf askew.

“I saw a bit of it,” I replied.

Rachel said nothing. Reaching into the capacious pocket of her light wool jacket, she pulled out a handy-wipe packet, tore it open, and proceeded to clean her hands with the towelette.

“And did you know that the
Boston Globe
picked it up? They sent out a reporter and photographer. There was a shot of me on the front page Monday. Did you see it?” She took a swig from the water bottle that was all she carried.

I shook my head. Rachel studied her fingernails.

“It was right next to a photo of Sunnye Hardcastle. I looked great.” She sighed blissfully.

The blankness of our expressions must have registered. She had the grace to look momentarily abashed. “Of course I know the murder coverage isn’t exactly good publicity for the college. That’s why I didn’t mention the interview during the Women’s Studies meeting. But everyone who saw me said I really handled myself like a pro.”

“Your Warhol moment,” Rachel muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Your fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Yes. And isn’t it wonderful. I’m hoping the face time will lead to new opportunities—who knows, maybe even as a television cultural commentator. That’s what it’s all about these days, isn’t it? Image. Exposure. Visibility. If it worked for Mark Fuhrman it can work for me.”

Mark Fuhrman?
Her role model was Mark Fuhrman?

Claudia brushed her hair back with such an exaggerated gesture that I couldn’t help but notice the blond highlights that surely hadn’t been there last week. She guzzled more water. Her face glowed with what might have been a new vision for her life—or might just as easily have been a professional make-up job.

Or might have been the contents of the clear plastic bottle.

As Claudia floated away on her cloud of anticipated celebrity, Rachel gave a disgusted snort. “Cultural commentator, my ass. Can’t you just see Claudia as a talking head?”

“Well, if anything good is to be snatched out of that poor, obsessed little man’s death, Claudia will be the one to snatch it. And, hey, if she doesn’t get tenure, she’ll have a backup career.”

“Yeah, superstar conference director. Whoop-di-doo. Did you notice something odd about Claudia?”

“You mean, aside from the fact that she’s Claudia?”

“That’s just it. She’s not herself. The whole time we were talking to her just now, her eye didn’t twitch once.”

I laughed. “She certainly seems to be…happier than she was last week.”

“
Happy
? Is that what you call it?”

“I did get a distinct whiff of…what was it? Gin? Anyhow, Rachel, you were going to tell me about the book thefts.”

“Let’s see. What don’t you already know? The FBI agents warned Avery to expect a lengthy investigation. And we’re not going to get any books back until the Feds are done. Can you imagine? They’re going to have to inventory all those volumes.”

“What would you call that?
Forensic bibliography
?” I quipped.

She laughed at the absurd-sounding expression. “I suppose. Then academic librarians are going to have to schlep in from all over the country to identify their books. It could take years.”

“It must have taken years for Munro to steal them in the first place. What did he want with all those books?”

“I think he just
wanted
them,” Rachel said, “the way some men want all the women they can get. Or all the money. He
lusted
for them.”

A red Frisbee whizzed out of the air and landed at our feet. Rachel scooped it up, glanced around, and whipped it back to a black kid with blond hair and a stringy blond goatee. He plucked it out of the air, held it to his heart, and gave her a bow.

“The other day when I was looking for Peggy, Nellie told me Munro did research in Special Collections all day, every day. What was he looking at?” I phrased the question carefully; I knew I was on shaky ethical ground in asking it.