Trapped!

by James Ponti

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll hold it for you, and if you decide you want it, you can just come back.”

  Just then the bell rang, and an older man entered the store carrying a book wrapped in plastic. Brooke’s eyes lit up.

  “Huckleberry Finn?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She looked like a kid about to open her birthday presents. “I have to take this,” she said to us.

  “We’ll get going,” said Marcus.

  “Come back if you decide you want the book,” she told me.

  “I will,” I answered.

  Since there were people on the sidewalk, we waited until we got in the car before we talked about anything.

  “So, what did you all think of Brooke?” asked Marcus.

  “I think she’s another suspect who I don’t want to be guilty,” answered Margaret. “She’s funny and nice.”

  “It also took her less than thirty seconds to find the perfect birthday present for my mother,” I added. “I like her too.”

  “This case must have been so hard on you,” Margaret said to him.

  “In what way?”

  “These people were your friends, but you had to consider them suspects in a crime,” she said. “Even Alistair Toombs has some likable traits.”

  “That part was harder than you can imagine. I was new to the Bureau, and it was such a big investigation. I told myself I had to ignore my personal feelings and follow the clues no matter where they led. Even if it meant I hurt someone.”

  “Did you?” I asked.

  “Did I what?” asked Marcus. “Follow the clues?”

  “No,” I answered. “Did you hurt someone?”

  He was quiet for a moment and then softly said, “Yes. Very much.” He didn’t speak for nearly a block before he added, “That’s why I’m going to need you to check out the last suspect on your own.”

  We waited some more, but that’s all he said. He just continued driving, deep in thought.

  15.

  Lucia

  THE LAST SUSPECT ON OUR list was Lucia Miller, a children’s librarian at the Petworth branch of the DC Public Library. For some reason, Marcus was sending us on this surveillance by ourselves.

  “Is this some kind of test?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing like that,” he assured us. “It’s just that the situation with Lucia is . . . complicated. When I was working on my PhD, she’d just gotten out of college and was new to the library. We were both young, so we started to hang out. And hanging out turned into going out.”

  “Wait a second,” Margaret said excitedly. “Was she your girlfriend?”

  He hesitated before answering, “Yes.”

  “Does Kayla know?” she asked.

  “Why would Kayla care about an old girlfriend?”

  “Seriously?” I said. “We’re consulting detectives for the FBI. You think we can’t put clues together?”

  “Yeah,” said Margaret. “I think the two of us knew you were a couple before the two of you did.”

  He laughed as he realized it was pointless to try to dodge this.

  “Okay, yes, Kayla and I are a couple,” he admitted. “And yes, she knows that I was engaged to Lucia.”

  “What?” said Margaret. “You were going to marry her?”

  “That is what ‘engaged’ means. We were planning on getting married, but then we didn’t. And now we haven’t spoken in nine years. So you can imagine how ineffective it would be if I went into her current workplace under false pretenses to investigate her. We wouldn’t get any clues, and there might be some books thrown at me.”

  Margaret shook her head. “Every day a new surprise.”

  “What was her job at the Library of Congress?” I asked.

  “She scanned the pages of various books in the collection to create digital versions that the public could access online.”

  “Did she work with the Russian Imperial Collection?” I asked.

  “Extensively,” said Marcus.

  “What do you want us to find out?” I asked.

  “Just the basics. See if you can get an idea of what she’s been up to and if it’s connected to anything having to do with government secrets. The goal at this point is to eliminate suspects so we can narrow the scope of the investigation.”

  “Don’t you want us to find out what’s going on in her life?” asked Margaret.

  “No,” he said. “Only information that might pertain to the case. Beyond that, it’s none of my business, and she deserves her privacy.”

  He parked at a diner across the street from the library.

  “Can you tell us what she looks like?” I asked.

  He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a photograph. “This picture’s nine years old, but it should give you a start. We took it on a trip to San Francisco. She was there for a library conference, and I tagged along.”

  In the picture Marcus and an African-American woman were standing in front of a cable car. They were in their twenties and looked happy. He had his arm around her, and they were smiling.

  “It can’t be her!” exclaimed Margaret.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because she’s African-American. We’re looking for a deep-cover spy from Russia. Do they even have black people in Russia?”

  “That’s a good point,” I said.

  “It would be a great point if it weren’t for Lucia’s father,” said Marcus. “He was a foreign service officer with the State Department and was stationed in Moscow for two years while she was in high school. She’s fluent in the language and has Russian friends both here and there. Believe me. I wouldn’t have made her a suspect if I didn’t have reasons.”

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I got the sense he’d already told us more than he was comfortable with, so I remained quiet.

  “What are you going to do while we’re in there?” asked Margaret.

  “This diner serves breakfast all day,” he said. “I’m thinking pancakes and bacon would hit the spot.”

  The Petworth Library resembled an old-fashioned schoolhouse with red brick walls, white-framed windows, and a cupola on the roof. It reminded me of Alice Deal Middle. Not that Margaret and I were concerned with architecture as we approached the entrance. We were still in a state of shock from Marcus’s revelation.

  “How is it that we’ve never heard about this woman before?” asked Margaret.

  “Well, it ended nine years ago, when the two of us were only three.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s Marcus we’re talking about. And he was engaged? To a suspect?”

  “I wonder what that was like for him,” I said. “You’re pursuing a case, and the evidence points to someone that close to you.”

  “I think you got that backward,” said Margaret. “What was it like for her? The man you plan to spend the rest of your life with thinks you may be a criminal. I bet that’s why they broke up. She felt betrayed.”

  The first thing I noticed when we stepped inside was that the floor in the main room was actually a giant map of Northwest Washington with a gold marker indicating the location of the library. A librarian at the front desk directed us upstairs to find the children’s department.

  Almost the entire second floor was devoted to children’s books. There was an area for little kids, a separate story time room, and a large reading room with big wooden bookcases, seating and tables, and a large fireplace.

  “There she is,” said Margaret.

  Lucia Miller was tall with thick curly hair. Her dress had a flower-print design, and she wore red-framed glasses. She was helping a girl decide between two books. We pretended to browse at a nearby bookcase and watched her.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Margaret. “She looks the same as she did nine years ago.”

  “She certainly doesn’t look like a spy,” I said. “But I guess that’s the point, right? It’s not like spies really lurk around in trench coats.”

  “Th
ere’s no way she’s a spy,” said Margaret.

  After helping the girl, Lucia circled the room, going from person to person and offering assistance. She was moving counterclockwise, which gave me an idea.

  “Go to the nine hundreds and find a couple books on Russia,” I said. “When you do, meet me at the table by the fireplace.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for cookbooks.”

  She gave me a funny look, but I didn’t wait around to explain. I kept my eye on Lucia, trying to time out how long it would take her to reach the table. My goal was that we’d get there right before she did. I found two books designed to teach kids how to cook simple recipes and plucked them off the shelf.

  I sat at the end of the table, and a minute later Margaret sat directly across from me.

  “What’s the plan?” she whispered.

  In the window I could see a reflection of Lucia walking straight toward us. “Just follow my lead,” I whispered.

  “Good afternoon,” Lucia said, flashing an easy smile. “Are you two finding what you need?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “We’re having a culture day in our social studies class, and everyone is supposed to bring in food from a different country.”

  “We got Russia,” Margaret said, picking up on my plan. She held up one of her Russia books for emphasis.

  “But we can’t figure out what to cook,” I said. “And these cookbooks don’t have those kind of recipes.”

  “Well, today is your lucky day,” said Lucia.

  “What do you mean?”

  “At this library, we just happen to have a resource that can tell you all about Russian food and even the best place in town to get the ingredients.”

  “Really?” I said. “Is it over in the cookbooks?”

  “No.” She laughed. “It’s me. I lived in Moscow for two years. I can help you figure it all out.”

  “That’s awesome. How’d you end up living in Russia?”

  “My dad worked in the embassy,” she explained. “I went to high school there.”

  “This is our lucky day,” said Margaret. “Do you have any suggestions about food we should make?”

  “Borscht is famous there, but I think you want to stay away from that.”

  “Why? What’s borscht?”

  “Sour soup made with beets,” she said.

  Margaret laughed. “We definitely want to stay away from that.”

  “My favorite Russian food is piroshki. They’re little buns with baked-in fillings like meat and vegetables.”

  “And they’re good?” asked Margaret.

  “Dee-lish,” she said, drawing out the word. “There was a bakery around the corner from where we lived that made the most amazing piroshki. They got me through the cold Moscow winter.”

  She humorously put her hand over her heart at the memory, and when she did, I noticed she was wearing a wedding ring.

  “Where can we find a recipe?” I asked.

  “Not up here in the kids’ section. You were right about that. Come with me.”

  She led us over to her desk and sat down at a computer. “I’ll go online and find a good one that has straightforward directions.”

  As she did the computer search, I scanned her desk for any signs of TOAST. There was a framed picture of her with two small children who looked to be twins and a coffee mug with pictures of the characters from Where the Wild Things Are. Her nameplate read, MS. LUCRETIA MILLER—LIBRARIAN. (Apparently, Lucia is short for Lucretia.) She also had a small plaque that read, THANK YOU FOR YOUR DEDICATION AS A LIBRARY OF CONGRESS VOLUNTEER.

  “You work at the Library of Congress, too?” I asked, pointing at the plaque.

  “I used to, but now I just volunteer in the Young Readers Center,” she said.

  I looked over at Margaret, and she seemed deep in thought.

  “This one looks good,” Lucia said. “I’ll just print this up for you.”

  “Thank you so much. You mentioned something about a store to buy the ingredients.”

  “Yes. Gorky’s is a deli and market over on Wisconsin Avenue. I go there when I have a craving. Ask for Natalia. She’s the owner. Tell her I sent you, and she’ll take good care of you.”

  She reached over to her printer and pulled off the recipe. Then she did a quick search for Gorky’s to get the address for us.

  “Here you go,” she said as she wrote the address on the top of the paper. “Forty-two thirty-seven Wisconsin.”

  She handed me the paper, which I folded and put in my pocket.

  “Thank you so much,” I said.

  “My pleasure.”

  I started to walk away, but I noticed that Margaret was lingering. She still had that expression of deep thought.

  “Can I ask you something a little personal?” she said.

  I was panicked as to where this was going, but there was nothing I could do about it. My worry was that she was somehow going to ask about Marcus and their relationship. It would totally blow our cover.

  “I guess so,” said Lucia uncertainly.

  “When did you go natural?”

  The librarian smiled and answered, “Why? Are you thinking of getting the big chop?”

  Margaret nodded, and I don’t think I’d ever been so confused in my life. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

  “I did it eight years ago. I was at a point in my life when I needed a fresh start. I needed to say, ‘This is who I am.’ ”

  Margaret beamed. “I totally get that.”

  The more they talked, the more confused I was.

  “Look at him,” said Lucia, referring to me. “It’s like we’re speaking Latin.”

  “Actually, I might understand a little Latin. This is much more complicated than that.”

  “We’re talking hair,” she said.

  I nodded like I knew what she meant, but I was still pretty confused.

  “I think yours looks amazing,” said Margaret. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Thank you,” said Lucia. “You two have a great day.”

  We walked away, and I asked, “What’s the big chop?”

  “I’ll explain it later,” said Margaret, who seemed to be in a hurry.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I just feel bad about it all,” she said. “She was supposed to end up with Marcus, and now she’s married with kids.”

  “That’s not all,” I said.

  “What else?”

  I waited until we entered the stairwell to pull the paper out of my pocket. I held it up for Margaret to see.

  “Check out the seven in the address she wrote.”

  “I don’t have to,” she said. “I noticed she crossed it when she wrote it out.”

  “And you know what that means?” I said.

  “She’s our new prime suspect.”

  16.

  Evasive Tactics

  THERE WERE ONLY A HANDFUL of people in the diner as we slid into the booth across from Marcus. He’d almost finished his pancakes and was midchew when Margaret started talking in her signature “I’m going to tell you everything I’m thinking really fast” kind of way.

  “Before we talk about the case, I need to say something,” she said. “First of all, I absolutely love Kayla. She’s a hero, a role model, a total rock star. I adore her, and what I’m about to say has nothing to do with her.”

  Marcus swallowed his bite and flashed me a wry smile. “Here it comes.”

  “How in the world did you let that woman get away from you? You’re a smart man who went to Harvard and Georgetown.”

  “I take it you met Lucia,” he said.

  “The second she agreed to marry you, you should have rushed to the nearest church and had the ceremony,” she continued. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  “This sounds remarkably like a conversation I once had with my mother,” he said. �
�I know. I was an idiot. Lucia’s amazing.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s smart. . . . She’s kind. . . . She’s—”

  “Our prime suspect,” I said, interrupting.

  This brought Margaret’s rant to a screeching halt. She scrunched up her face for a second and let out a long sigh. “That too.”

  Marcus looked crestfallen. “Really?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  He started to take another bite but seemingly lost his appetite on the spot and put his fork down instead. He looked through the window toward the library and then back to us and said, “Let’s talk about it in the car.”

  No one said a word until he pulled out onto Kansas Avenue and I asked, “Can you take us to the forty-two hundred block of Wisconsin Northwest?”

  “What’ll we find there?” asked Marcus.

  “Lucia’s favorite Russian market.”

  “You weren’t even in there long enough for me to finish my pancakes. How’d you get the name of her favorite Russian market?”

  “We’re good at this,” I answered with more than a little pride. “We told her we were struggling with a class project on Russia and had to cook some food from there. She said it was our lucky day because she used to live in Moscow. After that it was easy.”

  “Well played,” he said. “Now, what makes you think she’s the prime suspect?”

  “We already know that she has a connection to Russia and speaks the language. And you said she worked extensively with the Imperial Collection.”

  “She got the job because of her language skills,” he said. “When you’re making digital versions and scanning all those pages, it helps to be able to understand what’s actually on them.”

  “And we have two crime scenes so far,” I said. “The Rare Book stacks and the Tenley-Friendship Library.”

  “Lucia has easy access and familiarity with both,” said Margaret, jumping in. “She works for the DC Public Library system, and she volunteers at the Library of Congress.”

  “There’s a third location,” Marcus reminded us. “The Friendship Station Post Office.”

  “Anybody has access to that,” I said. “But I think we’re going to find out something when we get to Gorky’s.”

  “What’s that?” asked Margaret.