Remaindered (3 page)

Her time as stand-in manager would soon end.There was already talk of an administrator being appointed.

The phone on the desk buzzed. She jerked in surprise. Guiltily, as if someone was in the room with her, she turned the books face down and covered them with her arm.

“Miss Tripp?”

“Speaking.”

“Al Johnson here, from the bank, about the late Mr. Ripple's estate.”

She repeated automatically, “Mr. Ripple's estate.”

“You were planning a further search for his will when we last spoke. I guess you'd have called me if you'd been successful.”

“I guess.”

“Are you okay, Miss Tripp? You sound a little distracted.”

“There's a lot going on,” she said. “Sorry. You asked about the will. It didn't turn up. I looked everywhere I could think of.”

“How long has it been now—five weeks? I think we're fast approaching the point of assuming he died intestate.”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Neglecting to provide for one's death is not as unusual as you might suppose, even among the elderly. The law is quite straightforward here in Pennsylvania. We get an administrator appointed and he or she will calculate the total assets and make a search for relatives who may inherit.”

She made a huge effort not to think about the Agatha Christies. “I tried to contact the family before the funeral, but there doesn't seem to be anyone left. He was unmarried, as you know, and had no brothers or sisters. I couldn't even trace any cousins.”

“If that's really so, then the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will collect. Robert's main asset was the bookshop and his apartment upstairs, of course. Do you have other plans yet?”

“Plans?” Sure, she had plans, but this wasn't the moment to speak about them.

“To move on, get another job.”

“Not really. How long have I got?”

“In the shop? About a week, I'd say. It's up to me to ask for the administrator to take over and there's usually no delay over that. Everything is then put on hold.”

“We have to close?”

“Between you and me, you should have closed already, but I turned a blind eye, knowing what a blow this will be for our community.”

After the call, Tanya reached for a Precious Finds tote-bag and filled it with Agatha Christie firsts. She couldn't help the community, but she'd be crazy if she didn't help herself.

Edward, the David Niven lookalike from the Friends of England, was waiting outside the office door, immaculate as always, a carnation in his lapel, when Tanya unlocked next morning. He held a coffee cup in each hand.

“Howya doin?” The charm suffered when he opened his mouth.

“Pretty good,” she said, and meant it. “But it's looking bad for the shop. I think we'll be in administration by the end of the week.” She was trying to sound concerned.

“Soon as that? Too bad.” Strangely, Edward didn't sound over-worried either. “I picked up a coffee for you, Tanya. Skinny latte without syrup, in a tall cup, right?” He handed it over.

“How did you know?”

“I was behind you in Starbucks the other morning.”

“And you remembered? What a kind man you are. Why don't you come in?” She could offer no less.

He looked around for a chair but there wasn't a spare one, so he stood his coffee on the filing cabinet Tanya had been trying to get back into some kind of order. He appeared to stand it there. In fact the cup tipped over, the lid shot off and his black Americano streamed down the side of the metal cabinet.

Tanya screamed, “Ferchrissake!” She grabbed some Kleenex from the box on her desk and moved fast.

“No sweat,” Edward said after rapidly checking his clothes. “Missed me.”

She was on her knees, dragging the remaining Agatha Christies away from the still dripping coffee, her voice shrill in panic. “It's all over the books.”

He stepped around the cabinet for a closer look. “Aw, shit.” He pulled the pristine white handkerchief from his top pocket and sacrificed it to mop the surface of the filing cabinet. Then, seeing Tanya's frantic efforts to dry the books in the box, he stooped and began dabbing at them.

“Don't—you'll make it worse,” she said.

“Are they special?”

“Special?”
She felt like strangling him, the idiot. Words poured from her before she realized how much she was giving away. “They're first edition Agatha Christies, worth a fucking fortune. Help me lift them out. The coffee has ruined most of them.”

He started picking out soggy books and carrying them to her desk. “Agatha Christies, huh? And you say they're valuable?”

“They were until you—” She stopped in mid-sentence, realizing she'd said too much. She tried to roll back some of what she had revealed. “Okay, it was an accident, I know, but Robert paid five hundred dollars for these.”

He whistled. “Five hundred bucks for used books? I thought people gave them away.”

“Not these. Most of them are more than seventy years old and with hardly a stain on them … until now.”

“You can still read them when they're dry.”

Tanya sighed. The blundering fool didn't get it. He had no conception of the damage he'd done—but maybe this was a good thing. After the initial shock she was trying to calm down. They had finished emptying the carton. She told herself this could have been a far worse disaster. Fortunately the real plums of the collection were safe in her apartment. The ones she'd left were there for show, in case anyone asked about Robert's last book deal.

Edward gave another rub to the filing cabinet, as if
that
was the problem. “You tidied this place good.”

“Sorting it out,” she said, still shaking. “Robert wasn't the best organized person in the world.”

“And you never found the will?”

“The will?” She forced herself to think about it. “Let's face it. There isn't one—which is why we don't have any future.”

“Where did he keep his personal stuff?”

“All over. Birth certificate upstairs. Tax forms and credit card statements down here in the desk drawers. His bank documents were at the back of the filing cabinet.”

“Driving license?”

“In the car outside on the street. I even looked there for the will.”

“Credit cards?”

“A bunch of them were in a card case in his back pocket. They came back from the morgue last week. I shredded them after making a note of the numbers.”

“Good thinking,” Edward said, but his facial muscles went into spasm.

“So it's the end of an era here in Poketown,” Tanya said and she was beginning to get a grip on herself. “What will happen to your Friends of England group? Will you be able to go somewhere else?”

Edward shook his head. “Wouldn't be the same.”

“The end of the line for you, then?”

“Seems so.” But he still didn't appear depressed at the prospect. He glanced at the line of sad, damp books. “I wanna find some way of saying sorry. How about lunch?”

“It's not necessary.”

“After what I just did, it's the least I can do. Someone I knew used to say, ‘You shoot yourself in the foot, you gotta learn to hop.'”

She managed a smile. “Okay. What time?”

They lunched at Jimmy's, the best restaurant on Main Street. By then Tanya had recovered most of her poise. After all, she had enough undamaged Agatha Christies at home to make her rich. And this tête-à-tête with Edward was as good a chance as she would get to discover the main thing she had come to Poketown to find out.

She waited until she had finished her angel-hair pasta with Thai spiced prawns—by which time Edward had gone through three glasses of Chablis.

“Now that Precious Finds is coming to an end, do you mind if I ask something?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“What exactly went on at the meetings?”

“Meetings?” he said as if he didn't understand the word. She hoped he hadn't drunk too much to make sense.

“Of the Friends. I asked Robert once, but I don't think he knew. He was pretty vague about it, in that way he had of telling you nothing.”

Edward gave a guarded answer. “We don't do much except talk.”

“In that case, you could talk in some other place. It's not a total disaster if the shop closes, as it will.”

He seemed to be avoiding eye contact. “It's not so simple. We can't just shift camp.”

“I don't understand why not.”

“You don't need to.”

She should have waited for him to sink a fourth glass of the wine.“But you can tell me how you three got together.”

“We know each other from way back, when we all lived in New York City.”

“And Myrtle was married to that man who was murdered?”

He nodded. “Butch Rafferty.”

“Mr. Rafferty had a hard reputation as a gang leader, didn't he? I can understand a woman being attracted to that kind of guy.” She noted his eyes widen and his chest fill out. “Did you know him?”

“Did I know Butch!” Out to impress, he jutted his jaw a fraction higher.

“Closely, then?”

Edward put down his glass, made a link with his pinkies and pulled them until they turned red. “We were like that.”

“Wow! They must have been dangerous times for any friend of Butch Rafferty. Is that why you moved away?”

“We didn't run,” he said.

“When you say ‘we', do you mean yourself, Myrtle and George? You knew each other in New York?”

“Sure. It suited us to come here.”

“I heard there was a big robbery of a security van that in some way caused the falling-out between Butch and Gritty Bologna.”

His mouth tightened. “You seem to know a lot about it.”

She felt herself color a little. “It was in the papers at the time. I looked it up later after I heard who Myrtle's husband had been. I was curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Edward said and ended that line of conversation. It wasn't one of Butch's sayings.

“Well, thanks for the meal. I really enjoyed it,” Tanya said a few minutes later.

“Let's do it again tomorrow,” Edward said, and it was music to her ears.

“Why not? And I'll pay.” She could afford to, now she was dealing in first edition Agatha Christies. She'd get him talking again after a few drinks, no problem.

Her mention of the robbery hadn't put him off entirely, she was pleased to discover. And now Edward played the assertive male. “This afternoon I'm gonna check the filing cabinet.”

“There's no need. It was locked,” she said.

“Some of my coffee could have seeped inside. I'll take a look.”

“What in the name of sanity is Edward up to?” George asked Myrtle later that week. “I saw them leaving Jimmy's at lunch today. It's become a regular date.”

“He's keeping her sweet, I figure,” Myrtle said. “We encouraged him, if you remember.”

“That was when we needed the credit card with Robert's signature. He found an old receipt book full of Robert's signatures in the filing cabinet, but that was three days ago. He handed it to me and it's all I want. His work is done. He has no reason to be lunching with Tanya every day.”

“Silly old fool,” Myrtle said. “He stands no chance with her. Smart clothes can only do so much for a guy. God help him when he takes them off.”

“Is that one of Butch's sayings?”

“No. I said it.”

“I'm worried, Myrtle.” George showed the stress he was under by pulling the end of his silver ponytail across his throat. “We don't want him telling her anything.”

“About this?”

“No—about the heist of the van.”

“She isn't interested in that. She has too much on her mind, and soon she'll have a whole lot more. How's the project going?”

“My part is complete,” George said, reaching into his pocket. “It's over to you now.”

“Fine,” Myrtle said. “I'll plant the little beauty tomorrow lunchtime, while Edward is working his charm on her in Jimmy's.”

“I was thinking,” Tanya said, at the next lunch date.

“Yeah?” Edward had already finished the bottle of Chablis and was on Bourbon. His glazed eyes looked ready for a cataract operation.

“About Robert,” she went on, “and how you three linked up with him. Was he ever in New York?”

“Sure,” he said, with a flap of the hand, “but way back, when we were all much younger.”

“In Butch Rafferty's gang?”

“I wouldn't say Robert was in the gang,” he said, starting to slur the words, “but we all knew him. He was a bartender then, some place in the Bowery where we used to meet.”

“Someone you trusted?”

“Right on. Like one of the family.”

“Butch's family?”

“Yeah. Butch liked the guy and so did the rest of us. Robert knew how to keep his mouth shut. Jobs were discussed. It didn't matter.”

“A bartender in New York? That's a far cry from owning a bookshop.”

“He had a dream to get out of town and open a bookstore and that's what he did when he had the money.”

“Just from his work in the bar?” she said, disbelieving.

“Butch helped him. Butch was like that. And it wasn't wasted. Butch knew if he ever needed a bolt-hole he could lay up for a while here in Poketown, Pennsylvania.” He shook his head slowly. “Too bad he was shot before he had the chance.”

Tanya knew all this, but there was more she didn't know. “So after Butch was killed, some of you left town and came here?”

He nodded. “Myrtle's idea. She knew where Robert had set up shop.”

“Was she an active member of the gang?”

“She didn't go on jobs, but she has a good brain and she's cool. She helped Butch with the planning.” He blinked and looked sober for a second. “You're not an undercover cop, by any chance?”