Adam and Evil

by Gillian Roberts

  I gave her my sandwich and said I wasn’t hungry and wouldn’t she please, please try it.

  Her moral scruples were never heard from again. Nor was she. Not even a thank-you. One small burp, and she didn’t follow it with so much as an “excuse me.”

  I tried to find the moral center of that small episode, to make it a learning experience, since it certainly wasn’t a culinary one, but all I heard from my inner self were stomach grumbles until Mackenzie, having a good laugh about my persuasive powers, shared his steak. As did Beth. “And what would you have done differently?” I asked.

  “Drawn my gun,” Mackenzie said. “Blown her away.”

  Beth was full of plans for how she was going to manage her unborn business despite being on crutches for a while.

  “I’ll help,” I promised. “I’ll be your legs. I’ll carry you around like Tiny Tim. Don’t you worry about a thing.” I didn’t have a chance to tell her how possible that was, now that I had all the time in the world, because Sam, neatly tailored and carrying his briefcase, entered at that point. I’d expected him. That’s why I hadn’t tapped the fourth cheesesteak.

  “Didn’t expect you tonight,” Beth said, her face lit with joy. Sam’s such a dry and methodical man, such a predictable and, frankly, unsexy, forgettable man, I’m always shocked to be reminded of the charge that runs between Beth and him.

  He put a small bouquet on the night table next to her. There were five enormous baskets and floral arrangements lined up on the windowsill. Beth’s friends moved speedily. “I can’t stay long. My folks can only baby-sit till seven…. You’ve gone Technicolor, Beth. Your poor face!” His words were light, but he looked as if he might cry.

  “Doesn’t hurt. Just looks disgusting. It’s a shame it isn’t Halloween,” she said.

  “We’re having dinner,” Mackenzie said. “Join us. There’s a place set for you.” He handed Sam the final white-paper-wrapped cheesesteak. Sam sighed, shook his head, said how really bad the combo of steak, cheese, and fried onions was for him, then quietly ate the whole thing.

  I wondered what Sam really thought of me. To him, I was always the troublemaker, and now I must have seemed even more of a screw-up and the cause or x factor in the accident.

  I wondered if he was right.

  “What about Ray?” Beth asked. “What about Helena? What’s going to happen to them?” Her swollen lips were set in that stern line that tolerated no nonsense. I got the sense she’d like to see them hang. Me too.

  “They released Ray last night. His nose is broken.”

  Which might make him more interesting-looking. Finally something had happened to his face.

  “I don’t care about his nose. How about arresting him for reckless driving?”

  “He wasn’t driving the car. Helena Spurry was. It was her car.”

  I don’t know why that should have so surprised me, but it did. Even the dog-faced woman in the next bed stopped chewing and looked over, as if also startled.

  “And Helena’s still in the hospital. This one, one floor up. Turns out she had a couple of broken ribs and possible internal damage.”

  “You aren’t representing her, are you?” Beth’s voice had edged toward the shrill. “That isn’t why you know those details, is it?”

  “I refused,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine why she asked me in the first place, given that my wife was her victim.”

  “Because you’re a good lawyer, that’s why,” Beth snapped. “And she is going to need one!”

  “There’s nothing to collect, though,” I said sadly. “No money there.” So no great settlement was going to pad my brand-new retirement, either. “Wish she’d married her sugar daddy, whoever he was, before going for her joy ride. Which reminds me—what were they doing together? Is Ray Helena’s secret love? That ‘prospect’ of hers?”

  Sam looked horrified. “He’s—he was—married to her sister!”

  “Like that never happens?”

  “No,” Sam said. “No. He … no.”

  “Trust the man,” Beth said. “The truth is, Sam knows who Ray is involved with.”

  “Beth,” Sam said sadly.

  “What does it matter? Emily’s dead. And she knew. We all knew.”

  Mackenzie’s beeper buzzed. Everybody was saved by the buzzer. Mackenzie excused himself to make a call, and we chatted about tiny, noncontroversial things—the quality of the food, the calls from the children, how my minor bumps and aches were coming along, and the like.

  Then my guy reappeared. “This is either good or bad news, but there’s just been a—the thing is, a witness we’ve been tryin’ to reach for weeks is upstairs here, just brought in, an’ I need to interview her as soon as possible. Very convenient and serendipitous, but sorry, Mandy. You get to go home in a taxi. Alone.”

  “I’ll take her home,” Sam said. “It’s almost on the way. I’ll get on the expressway from there.”

  I felt mild apprehension, for no obvious reason. Of course Sam would make the offer, and indeed, the Vine Street Expressway was seconds from my house; he’d have offered even if that were not so. But I felt it nonetheless, and after we finished the cursory chitchat and promised to be in touch the next day, Sam and I left, and I felt it still.

  Sam’s approach to life is straight on. If I had to draw mental charts, or diagrams of attention, most would look like the spiky mountains and valleys an electrocardiogram produces. Mackenzie’s would look like that—in duplicate, or triplicate, mountains doing a do-si-do with valleys, and all points tracking. But I envision Sam’s as a straight line. Perhaps several parallel straight lines, but they move inexorably from A to Z, with not a zig or zag en route.

  Halfway to my place, which wasn’t far away at all, I was aware of that straight line again. “Amanda,” he said in his formal manner, “I know that you’ve been upset on behalf of your student, and you’ve been trying to find other solutions to the identity of poor Emily’s murderer. I know this because Beth is now involved, and she asked me a great many questions about Ray Buttonwood’s whereabouts this past Thursday. And believe it or not, last night, at the hospital, she asked more.”

  “Because of the accident. Because it felt like he— whoever—aimed the car at us.”

  Sam sighed. “I gather they were fighting about a loan. They’d been taking care of preparations for a memorial service, neither of them willing to allow the other to plan it, and wound up fighting about money Emily had loaned Helena. Of course, that missing money is part of Emily’s estate, and her husband would inherit … or at least her son, and so it’s all a mess. The business is not a success, and unless there’s a miracle—”

  “Well, this would hardly be a miracle, but there’s supposedly a man on the horizon, a future husband.” I didn’t try to contain the contempt in my voice.

  “She mentioned him,” Sam said, “although not by name. She’s optimistic, and feels that then she could settle out this debt. But may I emphasize that the gentleman in question is most assuredly not Ray Buttonwood. I myself believe that it’s not anybody. Or rather, it’s somebody who has no idea he’s being auditioned as husband number two, or that there’s an outstanding large debt, let alone one he’s expected to pay off.”

  I wondered if Emily’s financial solution had been as illogical and unlikely as her sister’s.

  Sam cleared his throat. “Let me reemphasize that I was with Ray on that … tragic day. We were taking a deposition. He was barely gone from my sight until we were finished, well after the … sad event. There’s no rational way to think he could have done that. Or would have. He’s a good lawyer. That makes him seem fierce or unpalatable to you and Beth, and so be it. He’d argue to the death—but that’s the only way he’d kill anybody.

  “I’m sorry, Amanda, for dashing your hopes, and I’m sorry for the boy, but there is every indication, and no doubt in my mind, that your student is the perpetrator. I just hope they find him soon, and that they keep him somewhere that’s safe for him—and saf
e for the rest of us, too. Mostly for you. You’re too close to a disturbed young man who has already killed. Much, much too close.”

  Twenty

  ONE HAPPY THOUGHT ABOUT BEING FIRED: I DIDN’T HAVE papers to mark. Or, more accurately, I didn’t have to mark the papers I still had.

  I didn’t have calls to return, either. The answering machine was a blank.

  I could watch TV, rent a video, read a book, scrub the floors, polish my nails. Do absolutely nothing. Whatever I wanted.

  Odd that it didn’t make me happier. And odd that, having all options available, I couldn’t choose one. It was a replay of my paralysis about what I’d do if I could do anything, and where I’d live if I could live anywhere.

  I found myself behaving as if this were an ordinary Tuesday evening. I emptied my briefcase, stared at its contents, and realized as soon as I saw the worn paperback of Turn of the Screw that I’d never had the conference with Lia about her adaptation. Havermeyer be damned. I’d go back to tie up loose ends. I wasn’t walking out on Lia.

  Good. I’d done something. I’d made a decision.

  Now what? There was nothing I had to do. I put everything back in the case. And fidgeted.

  Adam. I should have made him talk longer when he’d called. Had the phone tapped. I should have ensnared him, tricked him, trapped him, allowed the police to take him in— to protect him. From me. Instead, I’d helped make him a fugitive. With a little more of my help, he was sure to land on America’s Most Wanted. But there was nothing I could do about him now.

  What should I do, then? Something different. Something I normally never had time to do. Something to signify a new, unemployed era.

  A bubble bath. The very image of leisure. A long soak in the tub. That was what I’d do with my first night of freedom. Or was that my first night of an aimless, purposeless life?

  I undressed and then considered my sweater and slacks, which had, as the day progressed, begun to feel too woolly. The wrong texture against the skin. The season had turned, and I probably wouldn’t wear them again till autumn. Time to wash and put away the sweater, have the slacks cleaned. I checked my pockets, lest I lose something for the next two seasons. Nothing, except the predictable unused, disintegrating tissue, one paper clip, and a crumpled piece of paper. I started to toss the lot until I realized what the paper was and where I’d found it: Bauman/Sabin: AL: CDPP—17K, EAPMS95K … Numbers, letters, more of the same. I remembered asking Beth if she knew what it meant. Neither of us had had a clue, and we’d renewed our search for the love letters. I must have absent-mindedly stuck it in my pocket.

  I stared at it again. Five days had not improved my comprehension except for the Bauman and Sabin parts. But knowing that made it probable the rest of the symbols were also about books. And money. 17K. 95K. Seventeen thousand, ninety-five thousand dollars—it had to be. Her solution? Her way out—way, way out I thought, looking again at that 95K.

  Bauman was a reference, a way to find out worth even though the actual sales would be elsewhere—to unethical collectors, mad to own something no matter its origins. How would she find them?

  Emily told my sister that books were what she cared about, almost exclusively. Reading them. Working with them. Saving them.

  Selling them. My wild speculation had been right.

  I had nowhere in particular I had to be for the rest of my life, so that bath could wait. Instead, I sat down half clothed and logged onto the Net, searching for rare books. Mackenzie window-shopped on-line. Maybe doing the same would clarify something for me.

  I found a page of dealers, with easy access to their web sites, and the first I came to had his catalogue divided alphabetically. I looked at the scrap of paper and pressed the section that said C-D.

  Charles Dickens. Of course. I felt like an idiot. And the PP, Pickwick Papers. The CDDC—David Copperfield. ED— Edwin Drood. The abbreviation—il—for illustrated. Emily’s stickums had been so full of CDs, I’d thought they were certificates of deposit. Or music disks. But they were works by Charles Dickens, one of the library’s specialties, and next to them, prices she’d gotten from catalogues for comparison’s sake.

  Now, with a sense of her coding, I looked at the EAPMS. Earlier I’d focused on the PMS part of it and wondered. Now, knowing this was about books, I recognized MS as manuscript, and Poe’s initials practically popped out at me. Ninety-five thousand dollars’ worth of manuscript. And the man wrote short stories.

  The other initials obviously referred to other books. Manuscripts, incunabula. Irreplaceable volumes for which enormous sums would be paid.

  I saw descriptions mentioning a book’s “leaf” or “gutters” and realized how off I’d been in their interpretation. I’d thought Emily was concerned with her household maintenance.

  Here was Emily’s solution, as incredible and dreadful as it sounded: stealing and selling the rare books she was supposedly saving.

  I waited for the heady eureka bubbles to elate me—I’d solved a puzzle, after all. But they never became airborne. There were weights in those bubbles, and one by one they ruptured. The truth was, my solution didn’t work.

  If Emily was the bad actor, selling off rare books, why had somebody felt a need to kill her? Aside from moral scruples, there were practical ones: What would be gained? If someone knew and was horrified by the act, why not turn her in, expose her? Become a hero, not a murderer.

  The jolt of the phone’s bell annoyed me. I was—almost— on to something. Right there—almost. But …

  I pressed the talk button on the phone.

  “Good. You’re there. I had to tell somebody, and Mr. Propriety, to whom I’m married, needs to be told such things gently,” Beth said. “It may not have been prudent, but I went and saw her. Confronted her.”

  Beth could only get so far on crutches, so I knew who “her” had to be. “Helena?” And indeed, in the light of any future lawsuits, a visit would appall Sam.

  “I went there to be the voice of doom, the avenging angel, the—I have no idea what, but tough, at least that. And furious. But she was pathetic. Cried the second she saw me, apologized over and over, said they had been making memorial service arrangements, carpooled, but Ray badgered her. Said he was taking her store and her apartment because of the debt, because he legally could, because he’d never liked her. She wasn’t looking. She was screaming and crying and just wanted to get him back to his car, get him out of hers.”

  “So you wound up new best friends.” Money again. Even Beth’s tears and stitches and bruises had been caused by a quarrel about money. Everything kept being about money, often the same money going round and round.

  And Emily the librarian had somehow been sucked into the whirl of it. Money … Whatever happened to sex, ambition, and drugs as driving forces? “I gather you were less than tough. Or avenging. And, in fact, you’ve changed your mind about hauling her into court, haven’t you?” I wondered whether I should tell Beth my suspicions about her murdered friend, or keep them to myself until they were proven either right or wrong.

  Another sigh. “She’s got nothing.”

  “You’re un-American. Don’t you know to sue the hell out of anybody and anything that happens to you?”

  “If Ray calls her debt, she’ll have less than nothing.”

  “Why doesn’t she get herself an actual job?” I snapped with the righteous indignation of the unemployed.

  “She’s like those displaced Romanovs after the revolution, absolutely unable to realize that the glory days are over. Now her lost glories include her car. She’s just clinging to the hope of marriage to this man.”

  “Poor jerk. Should we warn him her intentions are impure?”

  “They’re pure enough. Purely material. They met on a luxury liner en route to France, can you believe that?”

  “Not about a penniless person like Helena.” It makes me crazy that people like her exist and get away with their grasshopper lives. Surely some of her fare had been paid for by her sister
’s loan. Or she needed the loan because she blew her inheritance on a deluxe trip to Europe.

  “She, of course, was on a buying trip for the store she had in mind at the time.”

  So I was right. She took her inheritance and sailed to Europe like a grande dame of a century ago.

  “This guy used her scouting talents, and she’s provided pieces for his beach house and his place in New York. She has high expectations of moving beyond designer status to wife-hood. Only she told me it became awkward because Emily then got herself a job in the same place where he works, and she was always afraid of running into her sister. Afraid Emily might go after him, too.”

  Wait a minute. “Mr. Big Bucks works at the library?” Helena was further out of touch with reality than I had thought. But she had said there was somebody there she visited. I’d assumed it was her sister. Once again I was wrong.

  “As a hobby, she thinks. To have something to do.”

  Money again. Lots of it. Money to be relocated from the librarian to Helena to Ray, except that money is something libraries need, not something they provide, and the idea of a gentleman librarian … It wasn’t the best fit I’d ever heard of. It wasn’t an as-if occupation, the way Helena’s was. It was hard work and lots of it.

  Still. A rich librarian.

  Emily afraid of something, asking Beth to clean things up. Emily afraid, yet having a plan that would bail her out.

  The money. The books. The scraps of paper checking out worth.

  A rich librarian.

  Somebody had been stealing, but not Emily. She knew about somebody else’s stealing. That person killed her because she knew. Odd that the balloons and trumpets still didn’t rise in triumph.

  I had to do more thinking. It wasn’t right yet. Emily had told Beth she had a plan. An economic plan. Like her sister, she’d thought she had a way out. But she hadn’t said what it was. Didn’t that hint at something less than ethical? If you were going to get a second job, sell an asset, win the lottery—anything that was socially acceptable—wouldn’t you tell your good friend?