Mystery, Inc.

by Joyce Carol Oates

  It was an utterly impulsive decision, Neuhaus said. He had not even consulted with his dear wife. Yet, it was unmistakable—“Like falling in love at first sight.”

  The row of brownstones on High Street was impressive, but Mystery, Inc: M. Rackham Books was not so impressive. In the first-floor bay window were displayed the predictable bestsellers one would see in any bookstore window of the time, but here amid a scattering of dead flies; inside, most of the books were trade paperbacks with lurid covers and little literary distinction. The beautiful floor-to- ceiling mahogany bookshelves—carpentry which would cost a fortune in 1982—were in place, the hammered-tin ceiling, hardwood floors. But so far as the young bookseller could see the store offered no first editions, rare or unusual books, or art-works; the second floor was used for storage, and the upper two floors were rented out. Still, the store was ideally situated on Seabrook’s main street overlooking the harbor, and it seemed likely that the residents of Seabrook were generally affluent, well-educated, and discerning.

  Not so exciting, perhaps, as a store on Bleecker Street in the West Village—yet, it may be that excitement is an overrated experience if you are a serious bookseller.

  “After I’d been in the store for a few minutes, however, I could feel—something … An atmosphere of tension like the air preceding a storm. The place was virtually deserted on a balmy spring day. There were loud voices at the rear. There came then—in a hurry—the proprietor to speak eagerly with me, like a man who is dying of loneliness. When I introduced myself as a fellow bookseller, from New York City, Milton Rackham all but seized my hand. He was a large, soft-bodied, melancholic older gentleman whose adult son worked with him, or for him. At first Rackham talked enthusiastically of books—his favorites, which included, not surprisingly, the great works of Wilkie Collins, Dickens, and Conan Doyle. Then he began to speak with more emotion of how he’d been a young professor of classics at Harvard who, with his young wife who’d shared his love for books and bookstores, decided to quit the ‘sterile, self-absorbed’ academic world to fulfill a life’s dream of buying a bookstore in a small town and making it into a ‘very special place.’ Unfortunately his beloved wife had died after only a few years, and his unmarried son worked with him now in the store; in recent years, the son had become “inward, troubled, unpredictable, strange—a brooding personality.”

  It was surprising to Neuhaus, and somewhat embarrassing, that the older bookseller should speak so openly to a stranger of these personal and painful matters. And the poor man spoke disjointedly, unhappily, lowering his voice so that his heavyset, pony-tailed son (whom Neuhaus glimpsed shelving books at the rear of the store with a particular sort of vehemence, as if he were throwing livestock into vats of steaming scalding water) might not hear. In a hoarse whisper Rackham indicated to Neuhaus that the store would soon be for sale—“To the proper buyer.”

  “Now, I was truly shocked. But also … excited. For I’d already fallen in love with the beautiful old brownstone, and here was its proprietor, declaring that it was for sale.”

  Neuhaus smiles with a look of bittersweet nostalgia. It is enviable that a man can glance back over his life, and present the crucial episodes in his life, not with pain or regret but with—nostalgia!

  Next, the young visitor invited Milton Rackham to speak in private with him, in his office—“Not here: Rackham’s office was on the first floor, a cubbyhole of a room containing one large, solid piece of furniture, this very mahogany desk, amid a chaos of books, galleys, boxes, unpaid bills and invoices, dust balls, and desperation”—, about the bookstore, what it might cost with or without a mortgage; when it would be placed on the market, and how soon the new owner could take possession. Rackham brandished a bottle of whiskey, and poured drinks for them in “clouded” glasses; he searched for, and eventually found, a cellophane package of stale sourballs, which he offered to his guest. It was painful to see how Rackham’s hands shook. And alarming to see how the older man’s mood swerved from embittered to elated, from anxious to exhilarated, as he spoke excitedly to his young visitor, often interrupting himself with laughter, like one who has not spoken with anyone in a long time. He confided in Neuhaus that he didn’t trust his son—“‘Not with our finances, not with book orders, not with maintaining the store, and not with my life.’ He’d once been very close to the boy, as he called him, but their relationship had altered significantly since his son’s fortieth birthday, for no clear reason. Unfortunately, he had no other recourse than to keep his son on at the store as he couldn’t afford to pay an employee a competitive wage, and the boy, who’d dropped out of Williams College midway through his freshman year, for ‘mental’ reasons, would have no other employment—‘ It is a tragic trap, fatherhood! And my wife and I had been so happy in our innocence, long ago.’” Neuhaus shudders, recalling.

  “As Rackham spoke in his lowered voice I had a sudden fantasy of the son rushing into the office swinging a hand ax at us … I felt absolutely chilled—terrified … I swear, I could see that ax … It was as if the bookstore were haunted by something that had not yet happened.”

  Haunted by something that had not yet happened. Despite the heat from the fireplace, I am feeling chilled too. I glance over my shoulder to see that the door, or rather the moving panel, is shut. No one will rush in upon us here in Aaron Neuhaus’s sanctum sanctorum, wielding an ax …

  Nervously, I have been sipping my cappuccino, which has cooled somewhat. I am finding it just slightly hard to swallow—my mouth is oddly dry, perhaps because of nerves. The taste of the cappuccino is extraordinary: rich, dark, delicious. It is the frothy milk that makes the coffee so special, Neuhaus remarks that it isn’t ordinary milk but goat’s milk, for a sharper flavor.

  Neuhaus continues—“It was from Milton Rackham that I acquired the complete set of William Roughead which, for some eccentric reason, he’d been keeping in a cabinet at the back of the store under lock and key. I asked him why this wonderful set of books was hidden away, why it wasn’t prominently displayed and for sale, and Rackham said coldly, with an air of reproach, ‘Not all things in a bookseller’s life are for sale, sir.’ Suddenly, with no warning, the old gentleman seemed to be hostile to me. I was shocked by his tone.”

  Neuhaus pauses, as if he is still shocked, to a degree.

  “Eventually, Rackham would reveal to me that he was hoarding other valuable first editions— some of these I have shown you, the ‘Golden Age’ items, which I acquired as part of the store’s stock. And the first-edition Mysteries of Udolpho—which in his desperation to sell he practically gave away to me. And a collection of antique maps and globes, in an uncatalogued jumble on the second floor—a collection he’d inherited, he said, from the previous bookseller. Why on earth would anyone hoard these valuable items—I couldn’t resist asking—and Rackham told me, again in a hostile voice, ‘We gentlemen don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves, do we? Do you?’”

  It is uncanny, when Neuhaus mimics his predecessor’s voice, I seem—almost—to be hearing the voice of another.

  “Such a strange man! And yet, in a way— a way I have never quite articulated to anyone, before now—Milton Rackham has come to seem to me a kind of paternal figure in my life. He’d looked upon me as a kind of son, or rescuer— seeing that his own son had turned against him.”

  Neuhaus is looking pensive, as if remembering something unpleasant. And I am feeling anxious, wishing that my companion would devour the damned chocolate truffle as he clearly wishes to do.

  “Charles, it’s a poor storyteller who leaps ahead of his story—but—I have to tell you, before going on, that my vision of Rackham’s ‘brooding’ son murdering him with an ax turned out to be prophetic—that is, true. It would happen exactly three weeks to the day after I’d first stepped into the bookstore—at a time when Rackham and I were negotiating the sale of the property, mostly by phone. I was nowhere near Seabrook, and received an astounding call …” Neuhaus passes his hand over his eyes, shaking his
head.

  This is a surprising revelation! For some reason, I am quite taken aback. That a bookseller was murdered in this building, even if not in this very room, and by his own son— this is a bit of a shock.

  “And so—in some way—Mystery, Inc. is haunted?”—my question is uncertain.

  Neuhaus laughs, somewhat scornfully— “Haunted—now? Of course not. Mystery, Inc. is a very successful, even legendary bookstore of its kind in New England. You would not know that, Charles, since you are not in the trade.”

  These words aren’t so harsh as they might seem, for Neuhaus is smiling at me as one might smile at a foolish or uninformed individual for whom one feels some affection, and is quick to forgive. And I am eager to agree— I am not in the trade.

  “The story is even more awful, for the murderer—the deranged ‘boy’—managed to kill himself also, in the cellar of the store—a very dark, dank, dungeon-like space even today, which I try to avoid as much as possible. (Talk of ‘haunted’! That is the likely place, not the bookstore itself.) The hand ax was too dull for the task, it seems, so the ‘boy’ cut his throat with a box cutter—one of those razor-sharp objects no bookstore is without.” Casually Neuhaus reaches out to pick up a box cutter, that has been hidden from my view by a stack of bound galleys on his desk; as if, for one not in the “trade,” a box cutter would need to be identified. (Though I am quite familiar with box cutters it is somewhat disconcerting to see one in this elegantly furnished office— lying on Aaron Neuhaus’s desk!) “Following this double tragedy, the property fell into the possession of a mortgage company, for it had been heavily mortgaged. I was able to complete the sale within a few weeks, for a quite reasonable price since no one else seemed to want it.” Neuhaus chuckles grimly.

  “As I’d said, I have leapt ahead of my story, a bit. There is more to tell about poor Milton Rackham that is of interest. I asked him how he’d happened to learn of the bookstore here in Seabrook and he told me of how ‘purely by chance’ he’d discovered the store in the fall of 1957—he’d been driving along the coast on his way to Maine and stopped in Seabrook, on High Street, and happened to see the bookstore— Slater’s Mystery Books & Stationers it was called—‘It was such a vision!—the bay windows gleaming in the sun, and the entire block of brownstones so attractive.’ A good part of Slater’s merchandise was stationery, quite high-quality stationery, and other supplies of that sort, but there was an excellent collection of books as well, hardcover and paperback; not just the usual popular books but somewhat esoteric titles as well, by Robert W. Chambers, Bram Stoker, M.R. James, Edgar Wallace, Oscar Wilde (Salome), H.P. Lovecraft. Slater seemed to have been a particular admirer of Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, Josephine Tey, and Dorothy L. Sayers, writers whom Milton Rackham admired also. The floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves were in place—cabinetry that would cost a fortune at the time, as Rackham remarked again. And there were odd, interesting things stocked in the store like antique maps, globes—‘A kind of treasure trove, as in an older relative’s attic in which you might spend long rainy afternoons under a spell.’ Rackham told me that he wandered through the store with ‘mounting excitement’—feeling that it was already known to him, in a way; through a window, he looked out toward the Atlantic Ocean, and felt the ‘thrill of its great beauty.’ Indeed, Milton Rackham would tell me that it had been ‘love at first sight’—as soon as he’d glimpsed the bookstore.

  “As it turned out, Amos Slater had been contemplating selling the store, which had been a family inheritance; though, as he said, he continued to ‘love books and bookselling,’ it was no longer with the passion of youth, and so he hoped to soon retire. Young Milton Rackham was stunned by this good fortune. Three weeks later, with his wife’s enthusiastic support, he made an offer to Amos Slater for the property, and the offer was accepted almost immediately.”

  Neuhaus speaks wonderingly, like a man who is recounting a somewhat fantastical tale he hopes his listeners will believe, for it is important for them to believe it.

  “‘My wife had a faint premonition’—this is Milton Rackham speaking—‘that something might be wrong, but I paid no attention. I was heedless then, in love with my sweet young wife, and excited by the prospect of walking away from pious Harvard—(where it didn’t look promising that I would get tenure)—and taking up a purer life, as I thought it, in the booksellers’ trade. And so, Mildred and I arranged for a thirty-year mortgage, and made our initial payment through the Realtor, and on our first visit to the store as the new owners—when Amos Slater presented us with the keys to the building— it happened that my wife innocently asked Amos Slater how he’d come to own the store, and Amos told her a most disturbing tale, like one eager to get something off his chest …

  “‘Slater’s Books’—this is Amos Slater speaking, as reported by Milton Rackham to me—‘had been established by his grandfather Barnabas in 1912. Slater’s grandfather was a ‘lover of books, rather than humankind’— though one of his literary friends was Ambrose Bierce who’d allegedly encouraged Barnabas’s writing of fiction. Slater told Rackham a bizarre tale that at the age of eleven he’d had a ‘powerful vision’—dropping by his grandfather’s bookstore one day after school, he’d found the store empty— ‘No customers, no sales clerks, and no Grandfather, or so I thought. But then, looking for Grandfather, I went into the cellar—I turned on a light and—there was Grandfather hanging from a beam, his body strangely straight, and very still; and his face turned mercifully from me, though there was no doubt who it was. For a long moment I stood paralyzed— I could not believe what I was seeing. I could not even scream, I was so frightened … My grandfather Barnabas and I had not been close. Grandfather had hardly seemed to take notice of me except sneeringly—‘Is it a little boy, or a little girl? What is it?’ Grandfather Slater was a strange man, as people said— short-tempered yet also rather cold and detached—passionate about some things, but indifferent about most things—determined to make his book and stationery store a success but contemptuous with most customers, and very cynical about human nature. It appeared that he had dragged a step-ladder beneath the beam in the cellar, tied a hemp noose around his neck, climbed up the ladder and kicked the ladder away beneath him—he must have died a horrible, strangulated death, gasping for breath and kicking and writhing for many minutes … Seeing the hanged body of my grandfather was one of the terrible shocks of my life. I don’t know quite what happened … I fainted, I think—then forced myself to crawl to the steps, and made my way upstairs—ran for help … I remember screaming on High Street … People hurried to help me, I brought them back into the store and down into the cellar, but there was no one there—no rope hanging from the beam, and no overturned step-ladder. Again, it was one of the shocks of my life—I was only eleven, and could not comprehend what was happening … Eventually, Grandfather was discovered a few doors away at the Bell, Book & Candle Pub, calmly drinking port and eating a late lunch of pigs’ knuckles and sauerkraut. He’d spent most of the day doing inventory, he said, on the second floor of the store, and hadn’t heard any commotion.’”

  “Poor Amos Slater never entirely recovered from the trauma of seeing his grandfather’s hanged body in the cellar of the bookstore, or rather the vision of the hanged body—so everyone who knew him believed. …”

  “As Milton Rackham reported to me, he’d learned from Amos Slater that the grandfather Barnabas had been a ‘devious’ person who defrauded business partners, seduced and betrayed naïve, virginal Seabrook women, and, it was charged more than once, ‘pilfered’ their savings; he’d amassed a collection of first editions and rare books, including a copy of Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland—such treasures he claimed to have bought at estate auctions and sales, but some observers believed he had taken advantage of distraught widows and grief-stricken heirs, or possibly he’d stolen outright. Barnabas had married a well-to-do local woman several years his senior to whom he was cruel and coercive, who’d died at the age of fifty-two of ‘s
uspicious’ causes. Nothing was proven—so Amos Slater had been told. ‘Growing up, I had to see how my father was intimidated by my grandfather Barnabas, who mocked him as ‘less than a man’ for not standing up to him. ‘Where is the son and heir whom I deserve? Who are these weaklings who surround me?’—the old man would rage. Grandfather Barnabas was one to play practical jokes on friends and enemies alike; he had a particularly nasty trick of giving people sweet treats laced with laxatives … Once, our minister at the Episcopal church here in Seabrook was stricken with terrible diarrhea during Sunday services, as a consequence of plum tarts Barnabas had given him and his family; another time, my mother, who was Grandfather’s daughter-in-law, became deathly sick after drinking apple cider laced with insecticide my grandfather had put in the cider—or so it was suspected. (Eventually, Grandfather admitted to putting ‘just a few drops’ of DDT into the cider his daughter-inlaw would be drinking; he hadn’t known it was DDT, he claimed, but had thought it was a liquid laxative. ‘In any case, I didn’t mean it to be fatal.’ And he spread his fingers, and laughed—it was blood-chilling to hear him.) Yet, Barnabas Slater had an ‘obsessive love’ of books—mystery-detective books, crime books—and had actually tried to write fiction himself, in the mode of Edgar Allan Poe, it was said.

  “Amos Slater told Rackham that he’d wanted to flee Seabrook and the ghastly legacy of Barnabas Slater but—somehow—he’d had no choice about taking over his grandfather’s bookstore—‘When Grandfather died, I was designated his heir in his will. My father was ill by that time, and would not long survive. I felt resigned, and accepted my inheritance, though I knew at the time such an inheritance was like a tombstone—if the tombstone toppled over, and you were not able to climb out of the grave in which you’d been prematurely buried, like one of those victims in Poe … Another cruel thing my grandfather boasted of doing—(who knows if the wicked old man was telling the truth, or merely hoping to upset his listeners)—was experimentation with exotic toxins: extracting venom from poisonous frogs that was a colorless, tasteless, odorless, milky liquid that could be added to liquids like hot chocolate and hot coffee without being detected … The frogs are known as Poison Dart Frogs, found in the United States in the Florida Everglades, it is said … “‘The Poison Dart Frog’s venom is so rare, no coroner or pathologist could identify it even if there were any suspicion of foul play— which there wasn’t likely to be. A victim’s symptoms did not arouse suspicion. Within minutes (as Grandfather boasted) the venom begins to attack the central nervous system— the afflicted one shivers, and shudders, and can’t seem to swallow, for his mouth is very dry; soon, hallucinations begin; and paralysis and coma; within eight to ten hours, the body’s organs begin to break down, slowly at first and then rapidly, by which time the victim is unconscious and unaware of what is happening to him. Liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, brain—all collapse from within. If observed, the victim seems to be suffering some sort of attack—heart attack, stroke—‘fainting’— there are no gastric-intestinal symptoms, no horrible attacks of vomiting. If the stomach is pumped, there is nothing—no ‘food poisoning.’ The victim simply fades away … it is a merciful death, as deaths go.’” Aaron Neuhaus pauses as if the words he is recounting, with seeming precision, from memories of long ago, are almost too much for him to absorb.