The Grim Reader

by Kate Carlisle

  “Okay, you’re right,” I admitted. “But I’ll just add that blackmail is a very good motive. Specifically with Lawson.”

  “And I agree. But now let’s change the subject to the fact that you could be in danger because of that book.”

  I could feel my stomach begin to tighten all over again. “I’ve been so concerned about my mother that I keep forgetting that other little issue.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” he said. “And as long as we’re sticking close to your mother for safety’s sake, I’ll also be sticking close to you.”

  “Despite the possibility of mortal danger, I’m happy to have you close by.”

  “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”

  “Don’t want to.” I gazed at the names and wondered. “So any last word on motives?”

  “For Lawson’s killer, it could have been about the money. Someone stole the money that he stole from the festival. Or someone was blackmailing him for taking the money in the first place so he handed over the money.”

  “I thought it had to be Banyan who killed Lawson,” I said. “All along, I’ve been thinking that all Banyan wanted was his own festival booth. I suppose he thought it would bring him some respectability, which is kind of ludicrous when you think about it. I mean, the guy was making box wine in the midst of the Sonoma wine country. He was never going to be considered respectable.”

  “He might not have realized that.”

  “No,” I murmured. “He was too vain, too far into himself to see the reality.”

  “What other reasons would he insist on being part of the festival?”

  I thought about it. “Prestige? Connections? Acceptance? Visibility? Was he trying to impress someone?”

  “We might never know,” Derek said.

  “Well, that’s not very satisfying.”

  He chuckled. “We’ll do our best to find out.”

  “I hope so.”

  Derek finished the last of his wine. “Could Banyan have been working with Lawson behind your mother’s back?”

  “I suppose so. To tell the truth, I never really trusted Lawson all that much.”

  “Perhaps they had a falling out when Lawson couldn’t work out a way to get him a booth at the festival.”

  “So Banyan killed Lawson? And then someone killed Banyan?” I frowned, then yawned. “Could we really have that many murderers wandering through Dharma?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “So what was the motive for killing Banyan?”

  Derek smiled. “I believe we need to cut this discussion short and go to bed.”

  “Good idea.” I stretched my arms over my head. “I’m so tired all of a sudden. There are too many players and I’m getting confused about motives and I’m worried about my mother.”

  “Let’s go to sleep. We’ll think more clearly in the morning.”

  We straightened up the room and packed up the food. Then Derek picked up Charlie and we went upstairs to bed.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next morning my phone rang, and it was my mother. “You won’t believe who called me.”

  “Who?” I asked

  “Saffron. She called a few minutes ago, hysterical about Jacob Banyan. She accused me of killing him!”

  “She’s insane,” I said, and suddenly this morning’s delicious avocado toast formed a ball of anxiety in my stomach. “You need to get rid of her.”

  “I can’t get rid of her. She’s in charge of the festival promotion, and to be honest, she does a good job. She’s just a miserable person.”

  “Okay. But you should call Stevie and report her phone call. She could come after you if she honestly thinks you had anything to do with Banyan’s death.”

  “I’ll call him right now.”

  “And, Mom, I don’t want you to go anywhere today.”

  “I can’t stay home! I have far too much to do.”

  “Derek and I will take care of all your book-festival errands. You do everything you can on the phone and the computer, and then just text us with directions on anything that needs to be done in person.”

  She protested but finally acquiesced. But as extra insurance, Derek called Gabriel to ask him to contact Stevie to see how the murder investigations were proceeding.

  “And ask him what’s happening with those surveillance cameras on the Lane,” I said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Gabriel said.

  The rest of the day flew by in a flurry of activity. Derek had several hours of conference calls with his office and with clients, and I got lost in the pages of Little Women. We didn’t slow down until it was close to midnight and we finally went to bed.

  The next day I had to spend more time working on the book rehab, but I knew Mom had work to do at the festival and I didn’t want Derek to be her only protector. He solved the problem by calling Gabriel who agreed to meet them at the town hall.

  I knew that Mom’s first priority was to make sure that the booths were being set up in the correct pattern around Berkeley Circle. She was also going to meet up with the porta-potty dude and give him my cashier’s check for ten thousand dollars, which meant that she and Derek would have to walk over to my bank on the Lane and get a cashier’s check from my checking account, on which Derek was a signatory. They promised to call me if there were any problems. But there weren’t, thank goodness.

  My personal priority was to work on the book for four hours in the morning. Then Derek would pick me up and we would attend the committee’s tea party to welcome the Louisa May Alcott scholar.

  It was a pretty sure bet that Gabriel wanted nothing to do with the Alcott tea party. But then, neither did Derek. He had insisted that he was looking forward to it, of course, and I was pitifully grateful to him for lying.

  Meanwhile, I had a moment of sheer panic when I didn’t see the Little Women book inside my plastic bookbinding crate.

  “Oh God.” I had meant to find a more secure place to hide it, but had completely forgotten in all the chaos surrounding the two murders and my mother’s attack.

  “This isn’t happening,” I muttered. I definitely remembered wrapping it in the soft white cloth and putting it right on top of the crate. And I couldn’t remember taking it out again. So it had to be here.

  Unless it had been stolen.

  But who knew I had the book? Clyde had sworn he didn’t tell anyone and I believed him. Not only was he grumpy, but he didn’t talk about his business much.

  I wondered how anyone could’ve broken into Annie’s house. I knew it had a state-of-the-art alarm system comparable to Gabriel’s, because he was the one who had installed it. Still, there were ways. Maybe the book thief was a friend of Annie’s. Maybe he knew the code or had talked her into letting him come inside at some point.

  “Search the whole box,” I said to myself. It could be stuck between something. I went ahead and started by removing my canvas traveling bag of tools, then my pint container of Polyvinyl Acetate or PVA, which was the archival glue I used most often for bookbinding.

  And that’s when I saw the bit of white cloth pressed against the lower side of the crate. The book must have slipped down when I carried it from Abraham’s workshop back to the house.

  I had to take a minute and breathe. All that panic for nothing, but seriously, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if that book had been stolen. Maybe I was kidding myself and maybe it wasn’t as valuable as I hoped it would be, but I had a feeling that the book could be the key to everything.

  I put my tools and glue jars back into the box, placed Little Women on top, and carried everything out to Abraham’s workshop.

  As before, I put the box down next to the worktable and pulled out the bag of chocolate caramel Kisses to keep up my strength. Then I grabbed my magnifying glasses and my camera. I laid out the white cloth a
nd placed the book on top of it. I studied it as though it were the first time, admiring the illustration of the four sisters, then checking the front and back.

  I had to finish sweeping each page and each gutter with my short, stiff brush, and check for foxing all through the book. The paper itself was of good quality, not thin and weak, and I thought I might be able to get away with using a soft gum eraser on any smudges. Yesterday I had cut new endpapers, a new cover, new headbands, and new pastedowns.

  I was happy that the book had a cloth cover rather than leather, so I would simply replace it with a high-quality bookcloth. I didn’t mind working in leather, but it was much more time-consuming job. And the one thing I didn’t have was much time to complete this job. I had already decided to carefully remove the cover illustration and insert it into a cutout within the new bookcloth. I envisioned a beveled edge that would improve the look of the cover and I hoped that Clyde would be happy with it. Not that he cared, I supposed, but I would be happy.

  I would also have to gild the titles and add a touch of decoration onto the spine. That would take some extra time and I planned to save that job until the end.

  For now, I splayed the book open on the white cloth and used my X-Acto knife to cut along the front hinge, separating the front cover from the textblock—this consisted of the actual sewn pages that made up the book’s interior content. I did the same with the back cover, cutting along the hinge until the entire cover and spine were separated from the rest. I set the cover aside and took hold of the textblock. I gripped it with the spine facing me and tore off the original headbands, those small, decorative fabric bands attached to the head and foot of the spine. The headbands, besides being pretty, served to cover up any remnants of loose threads and glue that might otherwise be visible after binding. Ideally, they also add strength to the spine itself.

  I carefully picked a few bits of old glue from the spine and from the super, which is a very stiff strip of woven cotton that also adds strength to the spine.

  Books from this era were invariably held together with animal glue and, sure enough, that was what I found on the surface of the spine. Animal glue was derived from animal protein, and while it had its uses, it tended to turn brittle on paper and darken and shrink with age.

  Of course, if the book’s owner had kept the book in pristine condition, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But since I had to take the entire book apart, I would go ahead and get rid of this glue and replace it with good old archival PVA.

  I pushed away from the table and walked over to what Abraham had always called his glue cupboard, where he kept his myriad containers of every type of glue known to man. I found an unopened bag of methyl cellulose powder and poured two-and-a-half tablespoons into the large glass mixing cup that he kept in the cupboard. At the sink, I turned on the hot water and waited for it to warm up, then added one-quarter cup to the powder. I stirred it quickly to keep any lumps from forming, and when it was a nice consistency, I carried it over to the worktable.

  Once again holding the textblock with the spine facing me, I began to brush on the mixture. This would help loosen and break down the old animal-based adhesive and allow it to be more easily removed.

  While the methyl cellulose did its thing, I started work on the front cover. I had to peel away the bookcloth from the cover boards, but since I wanted to keep the charming illustration intact, I had to carefully pry it away instead of just tearing it.

  I rolled out my canvas tool kit and found my micro spatula, a paper-thin stainless steel tool that’s exactly what its name implies: an eensy-weensy spatula. I slid the tool in between the interior endsheet and the cloth turnover and used it as a wedge to separate the two, inching ever so slightly forward from the outer edges to the center of the board, until the entire cover was loosened.

  Later, I would trim the edges of the pretty illustration and fit it into a beveled space in the bookcloth that would give the effect of a picture frame. But that would happen tomorrow.

  For now, I returned to the textblock spine and began to scrape off the softened animal glue with another micro spatula. Since I had discovered this tool in a catalog last year, it had become one of my favorites. I had a feeling it was originally created to be used by surgeons in hospitals, but I didn’t want to think about that too much because blood.

  Eventually I would have to sand the surface of the boards to make them smooth before laying down the new bookcloth and endpapers. I wanted to avoid the bubbles and ripples that could ruin a pretty new cover.

  Removing the old cloth was a painstaking job that took more time than I realized. When the alarm on my phone beeped, I was surprised that four hours had passed.

  I stood and stretched, and wondered where the time had gone. It seemed to fly by when I was immersed in my bookbinding work.

  Knowing Derek would be home any minute to pick me up, I quickly packed up my equipment and supplies, wrapped up the book in the white cloth, and carried everything back to the house.

  I changed out of my jeans and into a slightly dressier pair of brown plaid pants, a pretty mocha-colored sweater, and black booties. I carried a jacket and scarf with me downstairs and sat and played with Charlie until I heard Derek’s car drive up.

  “You have a good day, Charlie,” I murmured, stroking the fluffy, soft fur of her back and scratching her ears. “I love you, funny face.”

  I gave a quick glance around to make sure there was nobody listening to my ridiculous conversation with my cat. Then I locked up the house and set the alarm. Before I could even turn around, Derek was standing beside me.

  “Hello, darling,” he murmured, and kissed me.

  “Hi, you.” I smiled up at him. “Everything okay with Mom?”

  “Gabriel is with her and so is my mother.”

  “Meg is at the town hall?”

  “Your mother invited her to attend the tea party.”

  “How nice. That’ll be fun for both of them.” I batted my eyelashes at him. “And for us, of course.”

  “Oh yes,” he said somberly. “Tea parties are my life.”

  I laughed. “Gabriel will be there and there are other men on the committee.”

  “Fun for all of us.”

  I touched his cheek. “You can slip out with Gabriel and have a beer.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m not going anywhere unless you and your mother are there with me.”

  I sighed. “Thank you.”

  He glanced down at the plastic crate I’d carried out of the house. “What’s this?”

  “My bookbinding tools are in there, but more importantly, it contains the copy of Little Women that I’m working on.”

  “The expensive one?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know where to hide it safely inside the house, so I was wondering if we could just put it in the trunk of your car.”

  “Good thinking,” he said, easily lifting the crate. “My car is fairly safe.”

  I smiled. “I know.”

  I watched while he stowed the book and my tools in the trunk and shut the lid with a heavy thud. His Bentley was built like an armored tank inside a beautiful, classy exterior, and his alarm system was, like everything else he did, one step beyond state-of-the-art.

  We got in the car and Derek leaned over to kiss me again. Then he deftly reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his very deadly looking gun.

  I shivered at the sight of the weapon. “Do you think you’ll need that?”

  “I hope not,” he said lightly, “but I won’t take chances with our mothers.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  As we drove off, I stared at the glove compartment in front of me. I realized I had the truly convenient facility for forgetting there was a deadly weapon just inside that box, waiting for the next time Derek called it into action.

  I truly hoped today wasn’t one of those days. />
  Chapter 14

  The tea party was in full swing when Derek and I walked into the town hall conference room. There were two long utility tables covered with pretty lace tablecloths, and six wide platters were spread out across the space. They were filled with a variety of finger sandwiches, bite-sized pastries, and dozens of fancy cookies. At one end of each table was an industrial-sized hot water dispenser and three teapots per table. These contained loose tea, ready to be filled with steaming hot water.

  Two dozen elegant teacups with saucers were placed next to the tea service, with spoons and napkins spread in neat rows.

  My mother stood in a circle with some of the other women on the committee and a stranger I guessed to be the visiting scholar.

  I did my daughterly duty and went over to meet her. My mother grabbed my arm and gave me a harried smile. “Professor Trimble, I’d like you to meet my daughter Brooklyn. You might be interested to know that she’s a bookbinder who specializes in rare book restoration.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Professor,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand.

  “Nice to meet you, too.” She wore a severe navy suit with a skirt hanging well below her knees and a wrinkled white blouse, with what my mother would call sensible heels. She wasn’t much for smiling, I noticed. It was a trait I’d seen in other academics through the years. They took their jobs very seriously. Nothing wrong with that, I supposed, but this was a tea party. Maybe she would lighten up as we all got to know her better, or maybe she was simply a permanent frowny face.

  “So. You’re the bookbinder.” Why did she sound so suspicious?

  I gave her a smile. “That’s me.”

  “Lawson told me about you.”

  Now that was a surprise. “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you and Lawson know each other?”

  “We went to college together.” She leaned in closer. “I heard that he was killed.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “Before he died, did he show you the exquisite copy of Little Women I sent him?”