The Book of Old Houses (24 page)

Or—if luck was really with us—to murder. “Listen,” I told Bert. “We know what you're up to. We know about the old books.”

Inside, the trailer was as trashy and unappetizing as the yard. Dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor, and dirty bedding on the narrow fold-down platform Bert slept on.

I'd been in here once before, on another matter. He'd had books, and a chessboard with a game set up on it. Since then, though, Bert Merkle had gotten loonier. The door closed behind us with a decisive click.

“Oh, really?” he replied. “You know that, do you?” Those teeth were like the “before” picture in an
Illustrated Textbook of Nasty Dental Pathology.

“Bert,” I insisted in what I hoped was a conspiratorial tone. “We need to talk. Because the thing is, Dave DiMaio knows the old book is fake, too. He's seen your forgery lab, in the shed behind Jason's house.”

Saying this, I carefully refrained from looking toward the open louvered window. I hoped sound carried well from in here; in fact, I was depending on it.

“I'm not sure,” Merkle said unconvincingly, “why you think I'd be interested in that. Or why you think anything at Jason's house is mine, or what it is you really want.”

Ellie wandered to the table in the squalid kitchenette. On it lay several squares of sheet tin like the kind you might use to patch a roof, plus a rivet-insertion tool and a power sheet-metal cutter that resembled a pair of battery-powered electric scissors, but a lot heavier.

It looked as if Merkle had graduated from tinfoil hats to a higher level: making them out of real tin.

“We'd like to make a deal with you,” Ellie said.

By now Bob Arnold was right outside, I hoped, near enough to the open window to hear us. And to hear Merkle.

“Really,” Bert drawled, not yet sounding convinced. “Well, as you can see—”

He waved a mottled hand at his living quarters, crammed with the kind of amateurish pamphlets, cheaply printed booklets, and blurrily illustrated newsletters favored by crackpots everywhere.

“—I'm always open to new ideas.”

Uh-huh. “Okay. The thing is, I know you've been faking old books and selling them, probably for years. But now I need my old book to be
real,
” I said. “Because I need money. Lots of it. So I meant to get the book authenticated.”

Now he was the one watching me. “By Horace Robotham,” I prattled on. “Then I meant to sell it, get the money I need. I've heard that it would be valuable to the right kind of collector. And—”

Here was the kicker. “I've got my book back.” Gosh, but I was out there on a wing and a prayer. “But DiMaio's knowing about it has messed my whole plan up.”

Merkle's lips pursed consideringly. “And do I assume correctly that you'd like to turn the clock back on that little event?” he asked finally. “Erase,” he added, “our friend Dave's brand-new knowledge of your book's being a forgery?”

Oops. I needed Bert thinking someone else knew what
we
did, or he might decide to do something drastic to us before Bob could intervene. But I didn't want Merkle going out after DiMaio , once we were gone from here.

“Not exactly,” I said. “I'll take care of Dave.”

He turned sharply. “What do you want, then? Come, come,” he added, “you wish me to be frank with you. Why should I not demand the same?”

Ellie stepped in, making no effort to sound friendly. “The truth is, we think you killed Horace Robotham, Jason Riverton, and Ann Talbert. Since you also faked that old book, we think the reason you killed them must be to keep the forgery a secret. We want it to remain that way, also.”

He smiled, seemingly in appreciation. But behind the smile was a hint of malicious amusement I didn't like one bit.

“Dave said it's key for something like that to have been in place for a long time,” I put in. “So it made sense to hide it in the foundation of my cellar.”

How he'd managed
that
trick was something I'd have liked discussing with him, too. But we didn't have time; if he thought about this too hard he might figure out what thin ice Ellie and I were skating on.

“But once Horace had the book something happened,” I said. “Something that meant your plan to embarrass him wouldn't work, maybe some flaw that he as an expert would surely recognize and link to you.”

Merkle listened with seeming interest. “You realized that if that happened your other fakes could get exposed as well. You could,” I finished, “go to jail for years.”

“Wouldn't I risk the same kind of exposure with my original plan?” he inquired reasonably. “Expose the forgery? Expose my own hand in it?”

“No. The original plan would've revealed the book as a fake, all right. But a fake perpetrated by someone else.”

“Go on,” he said intently.

“With Horace dead, you thought your problem was solved. Until DiMaio showed up,” I said. “And then all kinds of things started going to hell, didn't they?”

Merkle's eyes narrowed. “Continue, please. I'm especially interested in knowing why you think I'd entrust a valuable item of mine to the Talbert woman. Since she did end up with it and in your view that could hardly have been an accident.”

“Because you sent her and Jason to steal it from Horace. Whose idea killing him was, yours or theirs, I don't know and it doesn't matter. It happened, that's all,” I replied in a rush.

Saying it aloud to him made the cruelty of it all the more real: Horace's pain, Dave's grief and Lang Cabell's. The sudden, violent ending of a quiet, decent life, and for what?

Some damned book, that was all. “Jason would've done anything for you,” I said. “But to get Ann to go after the book with him, you must've threatened her, somehow. Or promised her something.”

“Maybe that she'd get to keep it,” Ellie put in. “Or at least use it.”

“Right. For her research,” I added, the word sour in my mouth. “You must've believed she'd hold on to it, and keep her mouth shut about it until
you
could steal it from
her.
”

“That way even if things went badly,” said Ellie, “no one would find such an incriminating piece of evidence in
your
possession.”

“Very clever. I'm flattered,” Merkle remarked with a touch of sarcasm. He still wasn't admitting anything, though.

“But afterward Ann and Jason were dangerous to you,” I said. “Jason was loyal, but who knew how long he'd stay that way? And Ann—well, she started bragging practically right off the bat. So you had to get rid of her, too.”

Even as I said it, I wondered
why
she'd bragged. You'd think she'd keep quiet about it. But then, common sense hadn't been her strong point. And in any case, we'd never know, now.

Ellie took up the story. “It was dark and noisy on the dock. People had been drinking. Ann, especially. And it all must've happened so fast. You meant to invade her house and take the book just as
she'd
done at Horace Robotham's after
his
death. But Jake and Dave DiMaio beat you to it.”

As she spoke, she picked up the electric snippers from the table and pressed the switch experimentally. The thing whirred; she put it down.

“I might have watched Horace for a few days or even weeks and learned his routine, that he always went out for a walk in the evening,” Merkle said as if testing the idea. “Alone.”

He looked at me. “Theoretically I might have asked Jason to follow him, strike him with something—a rock, a brick—which he'd have tossed away somewhere later. And you're right, once Horace's house was empty I could've sent the Talbert woman in to take the item I wanted. If,” he added, “I'd wanted it.”

He joined Ellie by the table, gripped the tin snips, turned them on again. The sharp, serrated edges moved in a blur.

Yeeks. I hoped Bob Arnold really was right outside as he'd promised. Merkle's gaze flickered at me. “As for the rest, that might've worked as you've described, too. But—”

Theory, schmeory. I needed him to say he'd committed fraud, or some other criminal act, so Bob Arnold could grab him up and clap him into handcuffs and deliver him to people who were much better at rattling bad guys' cages than I was. Let
them
work on getting Merkle prosecuted for murder; right now I just wanted the process begun, starting with him in custody.

“Look,” I said, interrupting him. “If you'll just fix up the book you faked so I can sell it as authentic, obviously it'll be in my best interests to forget anything else you might've done, and—”

“Right. Me, too,” Ellie agreed, nodding energetically just as a loud
thud!
hit the trailer's door.

I jumped. “What was that?”

Another bout of hammering, and then several more in quick succession, rattled the trailer. Merkle frowned, rushing to the door. He grasped the handle, which turned easily enough.

But the door didn't open. Bert yanked on the knob, then put his shoulder to the door; nothing happened, though. And unless I missed my guess nothing would.

Fixing up an old house makes a person pretty familiar with the sound of a hammer. Which is used, of course, to pound nails. Or spikes. Whichever; that door was
shut.

And now I thought I smelled smoke. “Is there another way out of here?” I asked Merkle, who looked alarmed.

Me, too. “No,” he growled. “No, there's only the—”

“Hey!” said Ellie as a grayish wisp of something floated in through the tiny window.

That is, too tiny for us to crawl out of. Her freckled nose twitched unhappily. “What's . . . ?”

But we both knew. It
was
smoke, and not the stuff coming out of Merkle's burn barrel. This was the heavy, acridly oily kind from flaming rags or papers, if they're doused in something.

Say, charcoal-starter fluid. And Merkle's trash wasn't only in his yard; there'd also been plenty shoved under the trailer itself. Suddenly an errand I hadn't bothered telling anyone about because we had Bob Arnold riding shotgun for us didn't look so guaranteed-safe anymore. The opposite, in fact, because come to think of it, where
was
Bob?

I shoved past Merkle and Ellie to the window. “Fire! Help!” But the only reply was the crackle of flames under the trailer. And then I glimpsed it, crumpled in the weeds a dozen yards from the trailer. Something that glittered.

It was Bob Arnold's utility belt, and the shiny thing on it was his pair of handcuffs reflecting a fire. And the crumpled thing—

That was Bob. I stared as the orange gleam grew brighter and he didn't move.

“Jake,” Ellie managed, then stopped as a bout of coughing seized her.

Merkle vanished into the trailer's inner recesses. He came back gripping a fire extinguisher; he aimed it around uncertainly, his eyes streaming.

Uncertainly, because from where we were there was nothing to extinguish. The fire was
beneath
us, not inside, spewing toxic smoke up into the trailer, and the tiny window did little to vent it.

“Jake,” Ellie repeated, sounding frightened. “We've got to do something. . . .”

I felt the floor under my feet growing warmer. The fire was now visible through a crack in the linoleum by the door. “Bert,” I demanded, “do you have a crowbar, or anything we could use to pry the—”

Coughing convulsively, his eyes streaming with tears, he shook his head. “No,” he choked.

I struggled to think clearly. But the fumes made me dizzy, burning my throat and blurring my vision. Ringing in my ears rose to a siren sound I thought might be real, even though the trailer was out of sight of any neighbors.

Someone passing might've seen something and called 911. But when I peered desperately out again no truck or emergency vehicle—no help—was anywhere in view.

And Merkle, damn him, didn't even have a phone. I hurled myself against the door but it didn't budge, then punched the window hard, agony exploding up my arm. Behind me Merkle reeled like a helpless animal, kicking walls, shoving me aside to rattle the doorknob again as the fire's crackle deepened to a rumble,
whoof
ed to a roar.

Ellie's coughing grew uncontrollable; she couldn't speak but I felt her gaze on me, begging me to do something.

Only I couldn't, and moments from now this place would be an inferno. It'd only been a matter of a few seconds but it already seemed we'd been in here forever.

And we'd be here forever, too, I thought in despair, until our blackened bodies or what remained of them got sorted from the charred rubble.

But then . . . blind, deafened by the fire's greedy roar, and terrified out of my wits, I remembered the tin snips lying on the table. The power tool Merkle had been using . . .

Where?
Fumblingly I located the table's corner, groped my way across its surface until my fingers closed on the tool. Or tried; a searing bolt of pain jolted from my bruised knuckles, and my fingers wouldn't grip the tool's handle firmly enough to use it no matter how hard I willed them to.

“Bert!” I snarled. Ellie was coughing too hard to help, what breath she had left coming in short, scary-sounding whoops. Any moment she'd be unconscious.

And so would I. “Bert! Where the flooring's loose, over by the door . . .”

He flailed like a wounded beast, but got the snippers into his hands. The spot where I'd first seen the fire's glow was an orange-red triangle, bright licks of flame greedily poking up through it as if sampling a delicious meal to come.

“Cut there!” I gasped. “Then up and away from . . .” A convulsive fit of gagging stopped me, but he half-crouched, half-fell toward the flaming gap.

Because the door's frame was likely made of reinforced steel, but the area nearby was obviously thinner and flimsier. And I'll say one thing for the weird old goofball, he might not have given two figs about us but Bert Merkle had a powerful sense of self-preservation.