I ran my hand over the shiny pea-green exterior. “Is it new?”
“Yeah.” No explanation.
I pushed it. “Sure doesn’t look like a librarian’s car.”
“No, it sure doesn’t.” That was all I was going to get.
“Nice.” I stroked the cherry-wood dashboard. We headed through town, past outlying pizza parlors and video rental stores, then skirted a new subdivision of huge, featureless houses situated on a former onion field. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, the brown winter grass was beginning to poke through what was left of the now-filthy snow.
Rachel seemed to have no particular destination in mind. “Do you really want coffee?”
“No. I’m already saturated with caffeine. I want to talk.”
“Then let’s just drive. And talk.” She turned left on Route Two, and we drove west through evergreen woods and the occasional hamlet, picking up speed, listening to the powerful engine growl like a crouching lion.
“How are you doing?” I asked. “It must have been a nasty shock to have a man die in your library.”
“God, yes.” But Elwood Munro’s death wasn’t the librarian’s primary concern. “On the other hand, it’s been an enormous relief to have the book thief identified.” She gave a short laugh. “And, selfishly, it’s good to know that it wasn’t only my library he hit. From what I saw yesterday, he’s looted dozens of colleges and universities. Even major institutions. I saw books from the Houghton at Harvard, the Beinecke at Yale, the Perkins at Duke.” She shook her head. “He must have been at it for years.” She glanced over at me. “When I saw those Beadle’s dime novels in that house I immediately thought of you. Let me tell you, they were a welcome sight. Not many of those left around.”
A yearling deer edged out of the trees, paused by the road. Rachel slowed and sounded the horn. The young buck turned and vaulted back into the woods.
“What about the Maltese Falcon manuscript?” I asked. “Any sign of that?”
“No. And believe me, I kept my eye open for it. I was in that place for hours, but only scratched the surface of Munro’s…er…collection. And I wasn’t allowed to recover any of our holdings. I think I told you that the state cops are turning the whole thing over to the FBI.”
“Unbelievable. Books!”
“This is big time, Karen. Transporting stolen goods over state lines gets the attention of the Feds, especially when it’s to the tune of millions of dollars.”
We turned left onto a country road and wound through the main street of a small town and past a farm with crumbling barns. The Berkshire mountains, tinged red with early spring buds, loomed to the right. I’d lived in Massachusetts most of my life, but this little pocket of country wasn’t familiar to me.
“What do you know about this guy—this Munro?” I asked. “Did the police tell you anything?”
“That lieutenant…Piotrowski?…I think you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him.” My throat constricted. Just how angry was he?
“He was close-mouthed about the whole thing. Didn’t impart any info. Only asked questions. He was pretty brusque.”
Hmm. “What kind of questions?”
“Like how the hell did Munro get into the vaults? How did he get all that stuff past the alarm system? How did he evade the guards? All the questions we’ve been asking ourselves since books started to go missing.”
I recalled Sunnye’s tales of Elwood Munro’s derring-do, slithering through sewer systems and ventilation ducts, scaling elevator shafts. It made a great story, and I was itching to tell it, but didn’t. That information was between Sunnye and the investigators. “Did you have any answers for the…the good lieutenant?”
“No. To get through our alarm system, the guy must have been a magician.”
“Why would he do it? What kind of twisted thinking compels someone like Elwood Munro to take such risks?”
“Who knows? There’s a kind of mystical aura about books. They represent learning. Maybe for someone who felt…oh, say…insecure about his education, stealing all those books from colleges could serve as a substitute.”
“Pretty far-fetched, don’t you think?”
She shrugged. “Can you think of a reason that isn’t?”
The BMW passed a dilapidated grey church next to a grange hall with a For Sale notice. At a crossroad, a rusty white sign with black letters pointed the way to Chesterfield. Chesterfield! “Turn right!” I ordered impulsively. “I want to see that house again.”
Rachel glanced over at me, a half-smile flickering. Then she shifted smoothly, and the car took the quick corner without hesitation. The road narrowed and began to climb. We climbed with it. Eyes on the road, she said, “They won’t let us in, you know. Piotrowski made it clear that once the FBI took it over, that place would be locked up tighter than Walpole Correctional.”
I shrugged. “Let’s drive by, anyhow. See what’s going on.”
She grinned. “Sure thing. I’m curious, too.”
The blue-and-greys in Munro’s driveway were outnumbered and outranked by government SUVs and a sinister black van. The latter must have been packing some heavy-duty crime-scene equipment; it had sunk to its hubcaps in the muddy drive. The old red farmhouse brooded in the brown earth as it had for over a century, its latest crop not the traditional New England corn or hay or Macintosh apples, but a more enduring harvest of print on paper: American villains and heroes; American violence and redemption; American myths and nightmares.
Rachel slowed as we passed the house. At the sound of the sports car’s downshift, a tall woman in a sensible blue suit turned in the doorway to check us out. About a half-mile down the road from Munro’s property, the cause of her vigilance became clear. The local-news van and a network satellite truck lurked at the entrance to an abandoned farm lane just outside a keep-clear zone marked by police traffic cones. The House of Stolen Books would provide a whimsical story for Local News at Five.
“Jeesh! They were after me all morning. We’re not safe anywhere. Let’s get out of here.” Rachel stepped on the gas. We sped through a stand of native pine. Abruptly she took the first right, onto an even narrower road.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m looking for a place to turn around so we can head back the way we came.” She raised a thick eyebrow at me. “I haven’t got the slightest idea how to get out of here otherwise. A person could get so lost in these mountains that she’d never be found.”
I shuddered. Is that what had happened to Peggy Briggs?
Rachel pulled into a rutted lane, stopped, and began to back into her turn.
“Stop!” In the drab landscape, a swatch of orange caught my eye.
“Why?” She frowned, but braked the car.
“There’s something back in that field I want to take a look at.” I was already gripping the door handle.
“Huh?” The field in question looked like a hundred others we’d passed: Overgrown bushes poked through granulated snow cover, at this altitude still inches deep.
“Just bear with me, will you?”
Seasoned in New England ways, we were both suitably shod for a trek through the March muck. I led Rachel over a collapsed stone wall, into a scrawny woods growing up on what must have been a short ten years earlier an active farm. With Trouble straining at his leash we trudged straight back through the young evergreens and birch, then circled around and came out at the edge of a spongy field. At the far end of the abandoned farm lane, half-hidden by a tangle of wild raspberry bushes, sat an old orange Chevrolet Citation plastered with “I’d Rather Be Reading” stickers.
“That’s Peggy Briggs’ car!” Rachel exclaimed. “What the hell is it doing here?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” I took a step in the direction of the vehicle.
She grabbed my arm. “No, Karen, don’t!”
“Why not?” I knew very well why not. We were thinking the same thing: If this was Peggy’s car, was Peggy still in
it? If she was, was she dead?
“Because…because it’s not safe. And…because of footprints.” An unbroken expanse of snow lay between me and the car. When had it last snowed? The opening night of the conference? The Citation must have been here since then.
I hesitated, half-persuaded by the footprint argument. Trouble changed my mind. He suddenly pulled loose and loped over to the car, trailing his chain-link leash. He sniffed at the driver’s door, then jumped up and looked in the window. I ran after him and snatched up the leash. I took a deep breath, then peered inside the car. I couldn’t help it; I had to know if Peggy and Triste were in there. Tattered cloth upholstery. An empty Burger King kid’s-meal carton in the back seat. School books scattered around. No dead bodies. I exhaled.
Somewhere in a tall oak, a crow cawed. I started and screeched.
“Karen! What?” Rachel remained in the cover of the woods. “Is she there?”
“No, she isn’t.” I reached for the door handle, then halted just before touching it. Better not. Fingerprints. I’d tampered with evidence enough already.
Trouble continued his olfactory investigation. When he paused at the rear of the car, Rachel gasped. “What if she’s in the trunk?”
“I think we’d…know.” But I pivoted and followed my footprints back to the librarian. “You have a cell phone?” My hands were still shaking as I pressed the buttons.
“Piotrowski.”
“It’s me.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Look, Charlie, I know you’re pissed at me, but this is very important.” Heavy silence. I waded through it. “I’m really worried. I found Peggy Briggs’ car—”
“Huh?”
“It’s in the woods near Elwood Munro’s house. It’s an old Citation. Orange. I’ve seen her in it a hundred times, but she’s not in it now.” I swallowed. “At least I don’t think so.” I gave him details of the location.
“Okay. We’re on our way.” There was a long pause, and then a heartfelt, “Thank you.” Another pause, and again, “Thank you for letting me know. And, Karen, I’m not even going to ask what the hell you’re doing up there.”
***
A person savvy about her health shouldn’t eat General Tso’s Chicken. And she shouldn’t feed it to a fine pedigreed dog. But it was Saturday evening, and we were both alone. Trouble lay on my living-room rug with his muzzle on his paws. Every five minutes he gave vent to a mighty sigh, longing for Sunnye. I sat in the old recliner, dipping chopsticks into my cardboard carton long after Trouble had gobbled the contents of his. I was longing for…God knows what.
Within minutes, a patrol car had arrived at the field where Rachel and I had found Peggy’s car, and I told my story to a hefty red-faced trooper who looked uncomfortable in a too-tight winter uniform. After a lengthy phone call, he returned to where we sat in the BMW. “The lieutenant says you can go now. He knows where to find you.”
Now, back at home, when I pushed the power button on the TV remote, the Six O’clock News flashed on the screen with as much urgency as if it actually had something crucial to impart to viewers. Voices and images flashed by in an impressionistic montage. My full attention was triggered only when the camera focused on Ms. Blow-Dry standing on the steps of Enfield College’s Emerson Hall. “Professor Karen Pelletier, is it true that you have been assisting investigators in the bizarre case of the murdered book thief?”
The screen switched to the image of a startled dark-haired woman in a long wool coat. “N…no comment,” she stammered. She looked guilty as hell.
I groaned. Any minute now the phone would start ringing, friends and colleagues on the scandal alert, making sure I didn’t miss my fifteen seconds of infamy.
The phone rang. I grabbed the cordless by my chair. “I know. I saw it.”
“Mom? What did you see?” Amanda sounded disconcerted.
“Sweetie! Nothing! Nothing at all. How are you?”
“Not so great.”
My heart sank. “Baby! What’s wrong?”
“I just got back from the infirmary. I have mononucleosis.” She dragged the word out to eight syllables. “That’s why I’ve been feeling so lousy this past couple of weeks.”
“Honey! I’ll come and get you! I’ll leave right this minute!”
“No, Mom. You don’t have to. Luke is gonna drive me home. He’s already gone to get the car.”
“Luke? Who’s Luke.”
“Just a guy.” I heard the call-waiting signal click. I ignored it.
“Just a guy? Or just a guy?”
“Mom, don’t start. I feel like shit.” The signal clicked again.
Another maternal failure. “I bet you do. I’m sorry. So, okay, you’ll be here by, what, midnight?”
“Around then. Oh, and Mom?”
“Yeah?” Click.
“Can Luke sleep on the couch?” The couch. Whew! “I’ll get everything ready,” I assured her. “I love you, Sweetie.”
“Yeah, me too. You.”
I hung up, and the phone rang. I ignored it. Claudia Nestor was on the TV screen. Ms. Blow-Dry asked, “Can you tell our viewers how you feel about the detention for questioning by state police investigators of the crime novelist, Sunnye Hardcastle?” I thumbed the set off in the middle of some old footage of Sunnye doing an interview on Book TV.
Chapter Twenty
The Stop ‘N’ Shop was semi-deserted, and I sped through aisles, throwing food into the cart. Ginger ale, sherbet, crackers, noodles. Chicken: mother-love in plastic wrap. What was the recommended diet for mononucleosis, anyhow? I added chocolate-frosted cupcakes with cream filling to the cart. Those were for me; my daughter doesn’t eat junk food. I stopped at the mall and bought Amanda a Gap sleep shirt, then, when I got to the car, turned around, went back, and bought two more; it takes weeks to recover from mono. I went to Video Heaven and picked up her three favorite films, even popped into Bed, Bath, and Beyond for two new pillows. Still it was only nine o’clock when I arrived home.
What to do? Put the groceries away? Make up Amanda’s bed with fresh sheets? Run the vacuum? Clean the bathroom?
Mononucleosis? Mononucleosis? I didn’t know a damn thing about mononucleosis. Why hadn’t I become an M.D. instead of a useless Ph.D.?
Trouble met me at the door. He allowed me to pat him on the head. “Good dog,” I told him. What else can you say to one hundred and twenty pounds of tooth and muscle? I dumped the bags on the kitchen table and headed for the computer: Maybe I could learn something about mono on the Internet.
The phone rang before I could log on. I snatched it up. “Amanda?”
“No. It’s Sunnye.” The novelist was uncharacteristically subdued. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all evening.”
My daughter’s illness had driven Sunnye Hardcastle from my mind. “Where are you?”
“I’m back at the Enfield Inn, but I’ve got to get out of here. Can you come get me? Those damn journalists are swarming the place.”
“The police let you go?”
“For now. But, Karen…” She paused. I could hear her swallow. “I’m in deep shit. They really do think I killed Elly. They told me not to leave the county.”
“God, Sunnye, I’m sorry.” Charlie and his team don’t make unfounded accusations. Was I crazy, helping her out? “Do you have a lawyer?”
“He’s on his way out from L.A. right now. And Merry will be up from New York in the morning.”
“Who’s Merry?”
“She’s my publicist. I’m gonna need big-time damage control. Can’t you see the headlines? Hardcastle Gets Hard Time.”
“Hmm.” The police suspect this woman of homicide, and she worries about P.R. What’s wrong with this picture? Then, all of a sudden, over the telephone line, I could hear the tough cookie crumble. “But for tonight…you said I could use your daughter’s room?…” She sounded like a homeless waif.
The silence on my side of the line must have gone on too long. Charlie’s admonition to stay out of his case was
all too fresh in my mind.
The waif-like voice faltered. “Look, I can go to a motel.”
Her plaintive tones melted my resolve. “Actually, Sunnye, Amanda’s coming home, but I can put you up anyhow.” My house has three small bedrooms, and I’d converted one into a study. It has a lumpy futon. I could put Sunnye and her dog in my room, make up the futon for myself. Amanda could sleep in her own room, Luke—whoever he was—on the couch. What had been earlier this evening an empty shell of a house was quickly being transformed into Home Central.
I suppressed any qualms I might have about harboring a suspected murderer. Charlie doesn’t know everything. He’s skilled at what he does, but he’s not infallible. Sunnye might be abrasive, even obnoxious, but she was a good person. I’d read all her books. The creator of Kit Danger was no killer.
Right?
“Don’t worry, Sunnye. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks. You’re a pal.” Her voice seemed to creak, as if she hadn’t said “thank you” in a long time. “When you get to the Inn, come around to the kitchen door. The staff’s going to smuggle me out that way.”
“Okay,” I said, “see you there.”
But Sunnye wasn’t ready to hang up. “And, oh, Karen… how’s my big boy?”
Huh? Her big boy? “Trouble’s fine. He’s right here.” The Rottweiler was panting at my elbow.
“Let me talk to him.”
“Talk to Trouble?”
“Yes. Please.”
I put the phone to the big dog’s ear. I could hear Sunnye’s voice echo faintly through the receiver: “Hey, sweet boy. Mommy’s coming home. See you soon.”
The dog’s muscular body quivered. “Ruff! RUFF!”
When I spoke into the phone again, Sunnye was gone.
***
The rescue operation went without a hitch. I drove my nondescript Subaru down the Enfield Inn’s rear drive, picked up a nondescript individual in dark-green work clothes toting a nondescript black plastic garbage bag. Trouble almost wriggled out of his skin greeting Sunnye. We exited the service road under the blind surveillance of the press.
“Thank God!” Sunnye exclaimed, as we turned north out of town. “And thank you, Karen. I won’t forget this. What can I do to repay you?” Sunnye looked exhausted, her fine features drawn and haggard. I wondered if she’d had any sleep at all since she’d left my house in police custody the night before.
Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript Page 17
