Trapped!

by James Ponti

Because we weren’t certain what we were looking for, we had to be careful not to appear as if we were just wandering around. A skilled spy would instantly see through that. We needed to have a “reason” to be in each place, and our reason at the Folger was to show my mom the fake portrait.

  “This library holds the world’s largest collection of Shakespearean works and items,” I told her as we walked through the building. “But the thing I really want to show you is this portrait.”

  I led her to the Founders’ Room and showed her the painting that Rose Brock had shown us on the tour.

  “Who’s this?” she asked when she looked at the picture.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s not Shakespeare,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe it. “How did you know that?”

  “Florian, what do you think I do for a living?”

  “You restore paintings at the National Gallery,” I said.

  “Yes, and the reason I can do that is I have a fair amount of expertise in art,” she answered. “This is the painting of an English nobleman. You can tell by the style, the pose, and the iconography. Shakespeare was a playwright. He would never have been painted in this manner.”

  Margaret laughed. “Maybe we should have brought her along from the beginning.”

  I scanned the area for Rose Brock and saw her preparing to give another tour. I waited until she noticed us and when she did I waved.

  “Weren’t you two here earlier this week with Marcus?” she asked when she came over.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Florian, and this is Margaret.”

  “Right,” she said. “What are you doing back so soon? My tour’s good, but it’s not that good.”

  “I wanted to show my mother this painting,” I said. “She’s a preservationist at the National Gallery of Art, and I knew she’d find the story fascinating.”

  “Hello,” said Rose, introducing herself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “And a pleasure to meet you,” said Mom. “Florian couldn’t stop talking about the tour he had here. He told me I just had to come.”

  “I love that necklace,” she said. “And those earrings. Where did you get them?”

  “I’ve had them so long I don’t remember,” she said. “Back when we lived in Italy.”

  “I love Italy,” she said. “I went to Verona to see the house where they say Romeo talked to Juliet on her balcony. I know she’s a fictional character, but I couldn’t resist. I try to go to Europe every year and visit the locations from Shakespeare’s plays.”

  “You aren’t from there, are you?” asked my mother. “Europe, I mean.”

  “Something far less glamorous,” she responded. “Baltimore. Pikesville to be exact.”

  “I grew up not far from Verona, and when I was a teenager, my girlfriends and I made the same trip and stood beneath her balcony dreaming of our own Romeos.”

  The two of them laughed.

  “Florian tells me that you used to work at the Library of Congress.”

  Rose gave my mom a look, like maybe she was pushing too hard, but Mom didn’t back down.

  “I ask because we’re thinking of doing an exhibition together with the library and the National Gallery,” she explained. “And I’m a little concerned about how they are to work with. The politics between institutions can be tricky.”

  “They’re mostly good,” said Rose. “Right now I’m actually working with them on a project for an upcoming exhibit about Shakespeare and the presidents. I’m calling it The Bard of Pennsylvania Avenue.”

  “That sounds really cool,” said Margaret.

  “It is,” answered Rose. “We’re going to display different copies of Shakespeare’s works that were in the personal libraries of the presidents.”

  “So you’ve been working over there at the library?” I asked.

  “I go over once a week,” she said. “Luckily, the presidential libraries are all part of the Rare Book collection, and that’s where I used to work, so I know it well. So they leave me alone for the most part.”

  A grandfather clock chimed, and Rose said, “That’s my cue. It’s time for the next tour. Are you going to be joining us?”

  “I’d love to,” said Mom. “But we have some errands to run.”

  “Here’s my card,” Rose said, handing her business card to my mother. “Maybe in the future we can develop an exhibit between the Folger and the National Gallery.”

  “That would be delightful,” said Mom.

  Rose called her tour group together while we left the building.

  “You were really good at that, Mrs. Bates,” said Margaret once we were outside.

  “Yes, Mom,” I said reluctantly. “You were great.”

  “Poverino bambino,” she said, using the Italian for “poor baby.” “You have to admit that your mother isn’t useless.”

  We didn’t have much time if we wanted to check on all four suspects in one day. Luckily, our next stop was right across the street.

  “Who’s next?” asked Mom as we walked toward the entrance of the Library of Congress.

  “Alistair Toombs,” I said. “He’s in charge of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the library.”

  “He’s also kind of awkward,” said Margaret. “His whole life is the collection. He’d do anything to protect it. He’s spent lots of money upgrading the climate controls and security system for the stacks.”

  “The question is, did he sell off some of his books to pay for those upgrades,” I said.

  “Got it,” she said as we entered the building.

  Most of the Great Hall was blocked off as workers set up tables for an event that evening.

  “What’s going on?” asked Margaret.

  “The ‘It’s All About the Books’ Gala,” Mom said, pointing at a banner that was over the stage. “It must be a fund-raising event for the library.” She looked around at the massive space. “It’s certainly a beautiful location for one.”

  We navigated around the workers and up the stairs to the second floor. We were just about to go into the Rare Book Reading Room when Margaret reached over and grabbed me by the arm.

  “Wait,” she said. “We can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Alistair Toombs talked to the FBI,” she said. “He thinks Marcus stole the books, and we were with Marcus.”

  “You’re right,” I said, turning and leading us all in the opposite direction. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “No,” said my mother, stopping. “You two have to get out of here. He doesn’t know who I am.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said as she walked toward the door. “I’ll probably just be charming and see what happens from there.”

  She stopped and turned back to us. “How will I know which one he is?”

  “Pale skin with a bad comb-over,” said Margaret. “Oh, and it’s probably faded by now, but on Monday his right arm was completely sunburned.”

  “Just his right arm?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Margaret.

  “Ciao,” she said with a wink as she entered the reading room.

  “I’m going to be honest,” Margaret said to me as we stood there a moment. “I’m loving your mother.”

  “She has that effect on people,” I said.

  “Let’s hope she has it on Alistair Toombs.”

  A large balcony wrapped around the second floor looking down over the Great Hall, and we stood there and watched all the people. There were the ever-present school groups and all the workers setting up for the gala. They were putting place settings on all the tables and the clinking of plates and silverware was almost musical.

  “It really is a beautiful building,” said Margaret as we looked over it all.

  “Hard to believe there are spies lurking about,” I said.

  “Not really,” she said. “With halls and tunnels that connect to the Capitol,
it was bound to happen.”

  “Do you suppose that’s how the secrets were stolen?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you said, this building is connected to the Capitol. Workers here constantly go back and forth with carts of books to take to senators and congressmen. They enter all those rooms where secrets are hidden. Maybe that’s how the secrets were stolen in the first place.”

  Margaret thought about this for a moment. “That makes a lot of sense,” she said. “If you’re a worker wheeling stuff in and out of a conference room day after day, I bet they stop noticing you.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  We stood there for another fifteen minutes until my mother came out and saw us.

  “Did you meet him?” asked Margaret.

  “Alistair, yes.”

  “Well, what did you find out?” I asked.

  “Like you said, he is very devoted to his collection. I told him that I work at the National Gallery and was curious about what measures he took to protect the books.”

  “I bet he loved that,” said Margaret.

  “Yes,” replied Mom. “We talked all about temperature and humidity control. He seemed especially proud of his motion-control lighting system.”

  “Unfortunately, we already knew all that.”

  “Did you know that a computer tracks not only everyone who enters and leaves the stacks but also which lights are turned on when they’re back there? He says it allows him to maximize efficiency in layout, all with an eye to protecting the books.”

  “We knew that, too,” I said, disappointed by the lack of new information. “Come on, we better get going.”

  I started down the steps.

  “Wait a second,” said Mom. “Don’t you want to know about the sunburn?”

  I stopped and turned back to face her. “You know how?”

  “Yes, I know,” said Mom.

  “He told you?”

  “No. I figured it out,” she said. “You’re not the only one in the family with a logical mind.”

  “How?” I asked.

  Mom flashed a smile. “I like this,” she said. “I like figuring something out that you haven’t yet.”

  “Are you going to tell us or not?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car,” she said. “It’ll make more sense.”

  26.

  Preservation

  MY MOTHER WAS IN NO hurry to tell us about Alistair’s sunburn. We’d left the Library of Congress and were headed up New Jersey Avenue toward the Petworth Library, where Lucia worked, and Mom was still milking the moment for all she could.

  “You know, it’s a really nice day today,” she said. “Let’s ride with the windows down.”

  First I rolled my eyes, then I rolled down the window.

  “Feel that breeze,” she said as we rode along. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “It’s great, Mom,” I said, exasperated. “Now, are you going to tell us how his arm got sunburned or not?”

  “I just did,” she answered. “Look at your arm, Florian.”

  I looked at my right arm, and it suddenly dawned on me. I’d rested it on the door now that the window was down, making it the only part of my body that was exposed to the sun.

  “Your grandfather used to get that all the time,” she said. “His truck didn’t have air-conditioning, and he’d drive it for hours with the windows rolled down. I recognized it instantly.”

  I thought about this for a moment and couldn’t think of how that might relate to the case. “So, Alistair drove around with his arm out the window. . . .”

  “No, he didn’t,” said my mother. “He rode in someone’s car with his arm out the window. It was his right arm. That means he was in the passenger seat.”

  “True,” I said. “But I still don’t think that gives us anything.”

  “I didn’t figure it would,” said Mom. “I imagine that’s how most clues are.”

  “Still, it’s impressive that you solved it,” I said.

  Just then Margaret blurted out from the back seat, “Brooke King!”

  “We’re going to see her last,” I said. “After we stop by the Petworth Library and check on Lucia.”

  “No, no, no,” she said excitedly. “Go to Dupont Circle, Mrs. Bates.”

  “It’ll save time if we see Lucia first,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Margaret said. “We want to see Brooke first.”

  “Why?” asked my mother.

  “Because the air conditioner is broken in her car!”

  It took a second for me to understand her point. “She’s right,” I exclaimed. “Go to Dupont Circle!”

  My mom turned the car, and we tried to explain why we were excited.

  “When we went to see her, she had just come back from a trip to North Carolina, where she bought a bunch of antique books at an estate sale,” said Margaret. “But when she was there, the air conditioner broke in her car, and she had to drive all the way back with her windows down.”

  “And this is important because . . .”

  “Because Alistair was riding in the passenger seat,” I said. “He showed us that picture he’d just taken of the lighthouse. Where was it?”

  “Nag something,” said Margaret.

  “Nags Head,” I said. “Where’s that?”

  Margaret did a quick search on her phone. “Nags Head is a town on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Here’s a picture of the lighthouse. It’s the same one.” She passed her phone to me to look at the lighthouse.

  “Okay, we’re getting somewhere,” I said.

  “Where?” asked my mother, feeding off our excitement.

  I thought about it and said, “I have no idea. But it’s something.”

  I plugged Palace Books into the navigation system on the car, and we worked up a strategy for Brooke King.

  “Her specialty is book conservation and repair,” I said. “So you two can certainly strike up a conversation about that. Do that charming thing again.”

  “Also, it’s your birthday this week,” added Margaret.

  “It is?” she asked.

  “We found a really great present there for your birthday,” I said.

  My mom picked this up so quickly, it made me wonder if solving puzzles was some sort of family trait. Margaret had been looking into her DNA hoping to find out more about herself. I wondered if my mom passed down the DNA that helped me come up with TOAST.

  We opened the door to Palace Books, and a bell signaled our arrival. There were a few customers in the store, and Brooke King was behind the desk.

  “Look who it is,” she said when she saw me. “Are you back to pick up a birthday present?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I even brought the birthday girl with me.”

  “Hello,” said Mom. “I’m Florian’s mother, Francesca Bates.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Brooke. “Let me get the book for you.”

  She went over to a cabinet behind her desk and pulled out the thin book. “I kept it back here to make sure no one else picked it up.”

  “What is it?” asked my mother, truly interested.

  Brooke handed her the book, and my mother’s eyes lit up.

  “La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia!” my mother squealed with delight. “I love this book. I haven’t seen it in so many years.”

  “I told you,” Brooke said to me.

  “We are definitely buying this,” Mom said to me as she happily flipped through the pages.

  “I understand you’re a conservationist,” said Brooke.

  “Yes,” said my mother. “At the National Gallery of Art. And Florian tells me that you are a book conservationist.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Do you do that in addition to running the store?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a little studio set up in back. It lets me stay in touch with a lot of collectors and potential buyers, not to mention lib
raries and other institutions.”

  “That’s fantastic,” said Mom. “I don’t suppose I could take a peek.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Let me show you.”

  “What about your customers?” asked Mom.

  “It’s a small place,” joked Brooke. “I can keep an eye on things from there.”

  She opened a door and revealed a small room with a workstation filled with all sorts of equipment, tools, and supplies. I didn’t know what any of them were used for, but my mom recognized it all, and they started talking shop, only about half of which I understood.

  I looked around the room for anything that might give me some additional insight into Brooke. I didn’t see any pictures or personal items. The walls were mostly bare with the exception of a few posters for classic books like The Grapes of Wrath and Pride and Prejudice. One thing about the room, however, was that it seemed extremely organized. There were stacks of books in various piles around the room.

  “I’m guessing all of these are stacked in a particular order,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Brooke. “Everything on this side is work to be done, and everything over here is work that’s completed and ready to go out. You can see that the completed piles are much shorter.”

  “Who do you work for?” asked Margaret.

  “Let’s see,” said Brooke. “That stack is for the DC Public Library. That stack is for George Washington University. And that stack over there is made up of all the books I bought last week at an estate sale.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Margaret. “You were telling us about that. Was it out in Virginia?”

  “No,” she replied. “It was on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Beautiful, but a long drive.”

  “Do you ever repair books for the Library of Congress?” I asked, going for broke.

  “Once a week,” she said. “That’s why I’m closed on Wednesdays. I go in there to do that. This store isn’t secure enough for those books.”

  “Well, it’s all fascinating,” said my mother.

  “What type of work do you do at the National Gallery?” she asked Mom.

  They started getting technical again, so Margaret and I moved out into the store to look around.

  Ten minutes later they were done, and my mom bought the Italian children’s book. We said good-bye to Brooke and left the store.