Bookman Dead Style

by Paige Shelton

  He reached over for the boot, thinking he could tuck it under one arm and drop it off at lost and found. He’d been so off-balance on the board that carrying a boot the rest of the way down couldn’t possibly make the experience any worse.

  Ski boots are naturally heavy, but there was something different about this one, something weirdly balanced, maybe. With the boot in his thick-gloved grip, he peered inside.

  And then he screamed and flung the boot, sending it flying a short distance through the air, landing only a few feet away and on its side.

  Though the inside of the boot had been filled mostly with what Larry would describe as “gore,” he knew he’d seen the foot, ankle, and sock that had originally gone into the boot. When it had been attached to the rest of a body.

  His breathing and heartbeat sped up immediately, and though he’d never had a panic attack or hyperventilated, he knew that something like that was about to happen.

  He noticed a snowboarder making her way toward him. She’d either heard his scream or had noticed the flying ski boot and the drops of blood that now fell across a small patch of the whitest snow, making it not so much the greatest snow anymore.

  “Hey,” she said as she took off her helmet and goggles, strands of her curly blond hair escaping its ponytail. “You okay?”

  “I know you,” Larry said, oddly zoning in on the fact that he’d seen the girl before, rather than focusing on what had been in the boot.

  “You might have come into my great-grandfather’s shop, The Rescued Word. I work there sometimes. I’m Marion.”

  He nodded and wished he could just keep his attention on her and that wonderful shop rather than what he’d seen a few moments earlier.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked again. “The blood?”

  “It’s not my foot,” Larry said.

  “What?” Marion asked, but realization came over her features quickly. “Oh. In the boot. There’s a foot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that . . . that just sucks.”

  “Big-time.”

  She didn’t look into the boot but she swooned for a beat or two. Larry tried to get up to help her, but his legs were spaghetti. Fortunately, she recovered quickly.

  “I’m okay, and I can get help,” she said as she held out her hand. He fell back onto his sore behind again.

  Marion pulled out her phone and looked at the screen a moment before she pushed a button. She brought her eyebrows together as she inspected Larry. He was trying to look like he was okay, but he wasn’t, not even close.

  “Aunt Clare. Hey, will you call Jodie and tell her there’s a problem up on Thor? Yeah, the half-pipe run. No, I’m not hurt. I’m up here with a man, though. Yeah, he found something that the police need to see. Okay, well, I’m not going to look in it but I think it’s a ski boot with a foot still inside. Only the foot.”

  Larry didn’t bother to add “ankle and sock too” but the words rattled through his shaken and muddled thoughts.

  “Right,” Marion said. She ended the call and smiled stiffly at Larry. “The police will be here quickly. You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  Larry nodded, thinking that maybe law school and even the divorce hadn’t been all that bad after all.

  2

  “Yep, that’s what it was,” Jodie said as she sucked on her straw. She’d hit bottom two pulls ago, but she wasn’t one to let any drops of pineapple shake go to waste.

  I shook my head, having lost interest in my own hot fudge sundae. But Jodie was a cop; she was used to these sorts of things.

  “Where was the rest of the body?” I asked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “No clues at all?”

  “None. Not much evidence either. It wasn’t as . . . messy as you might think. Frozen for the most part. It was beginning to thaw.”

  “Oh, Jodie. I don’t want to think about that.” I pushed up my glasses.

  “I understand. Let’s just say there are no clues yet. We’re hoping something turns up soon.”

  “Could the person still be alive?”

  “It’s a possibility, but we don’t think it’s likely. As of about thirty minutes ago, no one missing a foot has checked into any hospital in the western United States. Even someone trying to hide they were hurt would be hard-pressed to try to take care of that sort of wound on their own. Most people would seek help even if they were guilty of something and afraid of getting caught.”

  We were inside the diner across the street from The Rescued Word, sitting opposite each other in a booth composed of a Formica table and pink vinyl bench seats.

  Shortly after I’d called Jodie to send out the troops for my niece Marion and the man on the Thor snowboard run, Marion had actually come into the shop with the tale of the afternoon’s brief but jarring adventure.

  She hadn’t been too shaken up, but she’d been bothered in a wired sort of way. It had taken two hot chocolates and one of Chester’s stories to get her back to her normal bubbly self. Chester, my grandfather and Marion’s great-grandfather, was the original owner of The Rescued Word. He frequently made up stories—some of his most famous were about the carved wooden doors over the middle shelves of the shop, which was in a building that used to house the Star City Silver Mining Company. All of his stories were wild fabrications, but today he worked extra hard to distract Marion’s thoughts from spooky ski boots by inserting whiskey-addled fairies and magic silver from the old mines. I think she was more perplexed than entertained, but before long she was smiling and questioning the plot’s logic. Of course, Marion’s father—my brother, Jimmy, a single parent—would probably want her to seek therapy just to make sure she was really okay. Jodie had said that Marion hadn’t seen much and made the call to Clare based solely on what Mr. Gerald had said. Jodie also said that Marion would be fine. She was young and would move on soon enough—unless she’d been the one who’d separated the foot from the body, Jodie had added with a sly grin.

  “What about a skiing accident? Maybe the body got flung to a place you guys couldn’t spot right off,” I said.

  “We’re looking. That’s another possibility, but, again, it’s unlikely. There are just too many weird things that would have had to happen for it to be something like that. Of course, weird things do happen, so we’ll see.”

  “Foul play you think?”

  “Probably. But it’s all really strange.”

  “I’d say.”

  “So, other than the boot, how’s Marion doing?” Jodie said.

  I thought for a moment. “Oh, you mean the competition?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m worried about her.”

  “We all are, but she’s moving past it.”

  Marion had been a part of the Olympic snowboard qualifying series of events. The events, the Grand Prix, had been held on our own Star City slopes. She’d aced the first two events, but then a heavy and sudden wave of self-doubt got into her head, and she couldn’t finish, thus ending any chance of her being invited onto the team this time around. She was so young, still only seventeen, so she’d have another shot. But it had most definitely been a rough time for her. I’d tried to comfort her, and Chester had tried to explain that it was not a big deal, that her life would be long and she’d have lots more chances, and Jimmy had continually wondered how he’d failed his daughter.

  “Good. She’ll do great the next time around,” Jodie said.

  “I think so too. That is, if her family doesn’t get in her head too much. We’re trying to figure out the right balance. But she’s still hitting the slopes every day and her coach says she’s still improving, that she hasn’t reached her peak. Maybe something deep inside her knew she wasn’t ready yet. Hard to understand subconscious motivations.”

  “She’s amazing.”

  “I agree.”

  Jodie gave up o
n the shake, moving the cup to the other side of her clean plate. We’d both ordered cheeseburgers and fries, but most of my food was still on my plate.

  “How’s it going with the visiting celebrity?” Jodie asked.

  “Nathan is working hard and driving poor Adal crazy.”

  Nathan Grimes, world-famous horror author, had made The Rescued Word his temporary place of business. He’d enjoyed time in Star City before, working on a couple of his most popular and bestselling novels: Jump and Spark. All the titles of his books were one word. I hadn’t had the chance to ask him how that had happened, but he’d been working with Adal for only a little over a week, and only part-time, as they planned and prepped to print a book of Grimes’s poetry on the replica Gutenberg press that Chester had built in our workshop. It stood amid old typewriters, typewriter parts, tools, and typeface boxes. Nathan had heard about the press when he’d been in the middle of Spark, and he hadn’t been able to shake the idea of self-publishing his poetry. I didn’t know how well the book would sell, but anyone who’d read his horror novels was sure to be surprised by his romantic way with words.

  Adal was my apprentice. He’d come from Germany with the hope that I would teach him everything I knew about rescuing words: fixing typewriters, operating an old Gutenberg printing press, repairing books, even where to find the best paper products throughout the world. He and many of his family members, the male ones, had shown up in January for the Star City Film Festival. They’d stopped at the shop, and before I could even understand most of their names, Chester had offered the apprenticeship position to Adal. It had turned into one of Chester’s best decisions ever. Someday Adal would take his skills back to Germany, but he was ours for a while.

  Adal had been a part of The Rescued Word family during the Grand Prix, which had taken place in February, and had become a surprising source of comfort for Marion. He was a stranger from another land who brought a perspective that she somehow tuned in to. He’d helped us all, but mostly Marion. It was time for Marion’s job at the shop to take a backseat to her dreams. She could still work on personalizing stationery on her computer at home and at the shop when she wanted to, but Chester had made it clear that she had to choose the best way to follow her dreams. He’d quit complaining when she couldn’t be found or was late because she was on the slopes. It would have been only me and Chester at the shop if Adal hadn’t come along, and we all preferred the idea of an apprentice over an employee.

  “Adal dealing with the famous author okay?” Jodie asked. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s a pro, but why do you ask?” I said, though I suspected I knew the answer.

  Jodie shrugged. “He’s taking Latin from Anorkory. You know that, don’t you?”

  I laughed about his lessons with our resident Latin teacher. “I do know that. German, French, Spanish, and English just weren’t enough for him”

  “He’s very into languages.”

  “He’s very into you,” I said as I picked up my mug of hot chocolate. I took a sip and then looked at her over the top of the cup.

  “It’s hard to take your disapproval seriously when you have whipped cream on the tip of your nose,” Jodie said.

  I wiped off the cream.

  “Better?” I said.

  “A little, but I still don’t understand your disapproval.”

  “Well, it isn’t disapproval so much. It’s concern.”

  “I’m listening.” She took a drink of her water and kept her eyes wide, exaggerating her attentiveness.

  But I still knew she was listening, so I took advantage of the moment.

  “You and Mutt broke up only a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not really sure you broke up all the way.”

  “Oh, we broke up all the way. No worries there,” Jodie said bitterly.

  “Well, you haven’t told me what happened. That’s weird. You tell me everything.”

  “I do not tell you everything. You don’t tell me everything either.”

  “Actually, I do,” I said, a tinge of hurt in my voice. “What won’t you tell me?”

  Jodie cleared her throat. “I don’t want to tell you the details of the breakup yet, Clare, just like you didn’t want to tell me the details of your breakup with Creighton soon after that happened. My breakup with Mutt is a sore spot that needs to fester a bit before I start picking at it and then finally let it heal. This is how wounds work. They go through stages. Remember how you were with Creighton?”

  “I do, but he’s your brother. I was afraid . . . of your loyalty to him,” I said.

  Jodie laughed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Not once since we were sixteen have I put my brother before you. I knew what he was when you started dating him. I wasn’t surprised at all when he cheated on you. You needed time too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I just want you to understand that I’m in no state to talk about my breakup with Mutt yet, even with you. But when I’m ready, you’ll be the only one I’ll want to talk to. I promise.”

  “Okay, but . . .”

  “Right, it’s too soon to start dating someone else. I’ve never had many dating options, and another one so soon after a pretty serious relationship is weird for me, but I like Adal. That’s it—like. He likes me. We like each other and want to get to know each other. He invited me to take Latin with him. It’s the weirdest thing anyone has ever asked me to do. I said yes, but I’m not going to fall in love so quickly this time. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said quickly, but then paused a beat. “You do know he has plans to go back to Germany, right?”

  “Yes, I’m aware.”

  I paused again. “And, Jodie, I’m sorry for what happened with you and Mutt, whatever it was.”

  “It’s okay. Really okay.” She forced a sad smile.

  “Mutt and Adal. You sure pick guys with strange names,” I said with a smile.

  “I know. Elmo’s probably next.” She laughed.

  A loud rumble pulled our attention toward The Rescued Word.

  “Expecting anyone?” Jodie asked as a white panel truck came to a noisy stop and a young guy jumped out of the driver’s side. He stood in front of the shop and took turns inspecting a clipboard he held and the front of the darkened windows.

  “I’m not. I should check on Chester.”

  We got the bill taken care of quickly and by the time we were across the street, Chester was in front of the store with what appeared to be a delivery guy. Chester wore a red silk robe that I’d never seen before, and held a sleepy-eyed Baskerville, our cat (well, all of ours, but mostly his), in his arms. They were both in decidedly sour moods.

  “What’s up?” I said as we approached.

  “This young man says we are expecting the items in his truck. I have explained to him that we are not, no matter what they are.”

  “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Typewriters, I think,” he said. He was young and his face looked flustered and unsure in the glow of the old-fashioned streetlight.

  “Little late for a delivery, don’t you think?” Jodie said. I saw her hand go to the spot where her gun would be holstered if she were in uniform.

  The kid shrugged. “Got caught in some snow up around Evanston. Sorry I’m late, but once I got here I wasn’t sure what to do except see if I could get these delivered. I’d like to get back on the road and back to Evanston tonight. It’s gonna storm in this direction tomorrow and I came all the way from Nebraska.”

  “Where in Nebraska?” Jodie asked as she inspected the back license plate.

  “Lincoln.”

  “That’s a long way to bring some typewriters,” Jodie said.

  “Yeah, I was supposed to meet Lloyd here this afternoon. I’ve been calling him for hours, leaving messages t
hat I’d be late. He was here today, right?”

  Chester and I looked at each other.

  “No one named Lloyd was here today as far as we remember,” I said.

  “Oh man, I was worried when I couldn’t get ahold of him. I’m sure he’ll call me back, but he told me specifically to meet him here this afternoon. He’ll call me when he can. Must have gotten busy or something. He said there was a small reunion too—some meetings, I think. Maybe you can talk to him tomorrow?”

  “I can’t even think of someone I know named Lloyd,” Chester said.

  “Yeah, he said he knew you guys. Lloyd Gavin?” the young man said.

  “Lloyd Gavin?” Jodie and I said together.

  “We went to high school with him,” Jodie said to me as I nodded.

  “Wait a second,” Chester said. “A gentleman called last week and asked for you, Clare. He wouldn’t give me his name, but he said you and he knew each other when you were kids. I said you weren’t in. He said he had some typewriters we should look at, but I told him we weren’t interested. He mentioned he was coming out for some meetings and would stop by. I reiterated that we didn’t want to buy any typewriters, either for consignment or otherwise. He laughed. I remember being distinctly put off by his attitude. I told him to travel safely and that I had to go. Maybe that was him.”

  “That sounds like him,” the kid said. “But they’re not for sale. They’re gifts.”

  “He was one of the really smart kids in school,” Jodie said. “We always thought he’d go far, but Lincoln, Nebraska, wouldn’t have been a destination I would have predicted.”

  “He did go far. He’s a very successful businessman in Lincoln,” the kid said.

  “What’s his business?” Jodie asked.

  “Computer hardware and software development.”

  “Lloyd Gavin,” I muttered, remembering his sweet and shy personality more than I remembered his smarts. He’d asked me to the junior high dance, but had broken out in hives right before the dance. His dad had come by my house to apologize for his son’s nerves. I’d been heartbroken about missing all the fun, but I went back to Lloyd’s house and we watched movies. He and I became friends after that. In fact, he’d been my best friend until Jodie had come into my life at sixteen.