Now she had to plan afresh.
The Black Lady was white.
Julia felt like a fool.
For weeks now, she had been trying to track down Kellen’s partner in crime, the woman he had called the Black Lady, not realizing that the Black Lady was busily tracking her. Thinking herself clever, Julia had been out-thought by her white shadow, fooled by her assumption that the Black Lady was black, and a Sister Lady; and that the Black Lady would never be so sneaky as to throw off suspicion by mentioning the phrase.
Steeling herself, she went down to the basement guest room.
Little Jeremy Flew, fully dressed and wide awake, had the door open before she knocked.
“Good evening, Mrs. Carlyle,” he said, utterly unperturbed.
“May I talk to you for a moment?”
“About what?”
“It’s more a who than a what.”
“Consider my inquiry suitably corrected.” Not quite smiling.
“Remember how you kept Mr. Huebner away from me that time on Main Street?”
“Of course.”
“Well, there’s somebody else I want you to keep away from me.”
“I think you may misunderstand precisely what I—”
“Please, Jeremy. I know why you’re here. I don’t think I like it, but I do understand it.”
“I see,” he said after a moment.
“Now, will you help me? Please?”
“Perhaps.” Careful eyes glittered pale and guileless. He meant the word literally. She wondered if he had to check with somebody first. “Who is it that you wish kept away from you?”
“A woman named Mary Mallard.”
CHAPTER 56
AGAIN NORPORT
(I)
“RICK CHREBET IS ON VACATION,” said Bruce Vallely. “He’ll be back next week. I trust your question can wait until then.”
In Ruby Tuesday again, Julia being demanding and mysterious at the same time. She wanted him to persuade his former partner Lieutenant Chrebet to answer a single question for her. Although she refused to tell Bruce what the question was, she plainly thought the answer would blow the top off of…well, pretty much everything.
“You’ll still arrange the meeting?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“All right, then,” said Julia, as if everything was settled. “Now, tell me about Dr. Brady.”
“What’s there to tell? It was a hit-and-run. An accident. Except you obviously don’t believe it. Neither do I.” A beat. “So maybe you’d like to tell me what they were looking for?”
Julia hesitated, obviously torn, then let slip a small nugget. “Vanessa doesn’t know anything about what’s going on. I want to make that clear. She doesn’t know a thing. But some people think she does. A file was stolen from my office, and, well, maybe—”
“You’re saying somebody tried to kill Vincent Brady to get a look at his files?”
Julia shrugged and took a bite of her burger. She was endorsing no theory.
“But why try to kill him? Why not just break into his office?”
“Vanessa has a new therapist. Sara Jacobstein is her name. We filled out all the paperwork to get her files opened for Sara, only to discover, according to Dr. Brady’s office, that a lot of the files are missing. No sign of burglary, nobody tripped the alarms.”
“You’re saying Brady had the files with him. In the briefcase.”
“Maybe.”
“Why would he be carrying them around?”
She grinned that crooked grin. “That’s why there’s cops. To answer questions like that. Maybe he was studying them. Maybe he was selling them. Maybe anything.”
Saying goodbye in the parking lot, Bruce tried again. “You can’t do this by yourself, Julia.”
“Do what?”
“Please don’t play games. There are issues here you don’t know about. There are interested parties. Kellen Zant set off a firestorm. Not just politics. Much more. I would hate for you to—”
He stopped.
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then, coloring, both looked elsewhere.
“Bruce?” she said, as they parted.
“Yes, Julia?”
“Who was that man? The one who bothered me at the Exxon station?”
“A reporter. I told you.” He seemed suddenly in a hurry to be free of her.
“For what publication?”
“One of the tabloids. I don’t remember.”
“Well, thank you.” A friendly hug. “For everything.” She looked up into his eyes. Hers, he realized, were more gray than brown. “I need you to do me one more favor.” A crooked grin. “It’s a big one.”
“What’s that?”
“Stop following me.”
“What?”
“I want you to stop following me, Bruce. I’m perfectly safe.” Stepping back, fully in charge. “Just wait for my call.”
(II)
BRUCE WATCHED HER from a distance as she climbed into the Escalade, a small, smart, competent woman, fiercely protecting her family. She did not want anybody looking into Vanessa’s connection with Kellen Zant. That was why she insisted on doing it all herself. That was why she wanted Bruce to keep his distance. At least he hoped that secret was all Julia was protecting. The alternative was that she was protecting whatever Zant had discovered; or, worse, protecting whomever he had discovered it about.
He wondered if she knew that Jeremy Flew was dogging her tail rather more often than Bruce himself; and whether she knew as much about Flew’s background as he did.
And whether she knew that nobody seemed to know where the little man had been the night Kellen Zant was shot.
“Be careful,” Bruce called, very softly.
It was plain to him, although Trevor Land had never directly admitted it, that Lemaster was the author of the absurd story that Nathaniel Knowland had told him, with embellishments, about the night Zant was killed. The president of the university had somehow managed to get the official investigation shut down, and then maneuvered Bruce onto the trail instead of Rick Chrebet and his team. Why get the inquiry dropped only to have it started up again? Why did Lemaster want his director of campus safety following his wife around, searching for evidence of a link? The questions baffled him, and yet he sensed that the answer was right in front of him, hidden in the information he had already collected, and that if he could just stir things up a bit, the truth might fall into his lap.
CHAPTER 57
AGAIN THE LIBRARIAN
(I)
THIS TIME JULIA STRODE CONFIDENTLY into the workroom of the archives, clutching the photocopies of Kellen’s search requests. The new me, she kept saying to herself, even as something inside her trembled at the thought of further rejection. This is the new me. She had chosen late afternoon because morning was busier, and selected Mrs. Bethe rather than Roderick Rutherford as her target because Mrs. Bethe had been known every now and then to attempt a smile.
But not today.
“These citations do not match the Joule papers,” Mrs. Bethe explained, near breathless with wonder that anyone could think otherwise. “These items are all in other collections.”
“I know that.”
She handed the sheets back. “Then please write the names of the proper collections on the indicated line. The rules require—”
“Yes, Mrs. Bethe, I know what the rules require. But since you have the numbers, isn’t finding the documents just a matter of going to the indicated shelf and cubbyhole and taking them down? I mean, there’s no practical impediment, is there?”
Mrs. Bethe wore small-bore glasses, pearls, and a twin set. She had assisted in the archives for a quarter century, and saw no distinction between disagreement and insolence. “Wait here,” she said, and scooped up the search requests, providing Julia a moment of glorious hope. Then she dashed it, marching across the small room into the chief archivist’s office.
Oh, great.
A moment later, Roderic
k Rutherford emerged and, rubbing his hands against each other as if he had been handling something dusty, crossed to her side as Mrs. Bethe returned to her hutch.
“Now, what can we do for you today, Dean Carlyle?”
“You can show me the files on this sheet.” She passed over the page on which she had copied the folio and volume numbers. The librarian studied it briefly, eyebrows knitting, prim mouth working as if voicing them.
“May I ask why you want them?”
“Isn’t it enough that I want them?”
“Oh, no, my dear Dean Carlyle, not at all. The archives are open only to scholars with a bona fide interest in materials available in our collection.” He handed the page back to her. “I cannot permit you to examine any of these files without a legitimate academic reason.”
Not again! “What counts as an academic reason, Mr. Rutherford?”
“Say you were writing a book or article that required you to—”
“All right. I am.”
“You are what, Dean Carlyle?”
“Writing an article. An article about what happened to Gina Joule thirty-odd years ago. There. Now I have a scholarly purpose.”
Rod Rutherford smiled rarely. Now that he was offering one, Julia knew why, and hoped he would not soon do it again. The smile was narrow and presumptuous, touching no other part of his face, which remained locked against her: the sort of bright, crazy smile we expect on the face of a little boy pulling the wings off a live butterfly for fun. Or a teenaged girl burning her father’s midnight-blue Mercedes on the Town Green on the anniversary of Gina Joule’s death.
“Alas, Dean Carlyle, the only difficulty is that I don’t believe you.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I believe, Dean Carlyle, that you are lying to me.” Calmly. “There is no such article.”
“Lying! You’re accusing me of lying!”
The outburst stunned Mrs. Bethe, who was packing up her desk: that is to say, she cocked her head vaguely in the direction of the long work table, as if listening to distant music she was not sure she remembered. Without ever quite looking their way, she crossed to the heavy vault door guarding the archives, spun the lock, and set the alarm. Then she went out.
“That is correct, Dean Carlyle. I am accusing you of lying. Of course, ordinarily it would not be my business. But because I do not believe you have a bona fide scholarly purpose, I cannot comply with your request.” Spreading his hands. “It is perfectly evident that you are still seeking to discover what documents, if any, Professor Zant might have examined. The pertinent rules forbid me to share that information. I believe I told you this already.”
“Yes, you did, Mr. Rutherford. Rule 22-C, I believe you mentioned. Adopted by the faculty senate in 1973, after the Buckley Amendment.”
“Correct, Dean Carlyle.”
“The only trouble is, the Buckley Amendment didn’t pass Congress until 1974. I looked it up. You told me to pay close attention to the rules, so I did.”
The brows crinkled delicately. “Perhaps I made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so. You don’t make that kind of mistake. Not unless you do it on purpose.” From her shoulder bag she drew the university rulebook. She found the page she wanted. “And there’s something else. Here’s Rule 22. It has nothing to do with privacy, does it? It’s about the two types of committees of the faculty, standing and ad hoc.” Tapping the pertinent section. “And it only goes up to Part B.”
“How distressing.” His long pale hands made their washing motion again. “How terribly distressing.”
Julia half smiled. “You’re good, Mr. Rutherford. You’re very good. I never would have guessed your whole story was a façade. But, as I said, you don’t make that kind of mistake. You gave me that false information for a reason. I would like to know why.”
He shook his head. “Alas, I cannot violate confidentiality. Whatever the pertinent rule number might be, I am unable to tell you whether Professor Zant was ever here, or what files he looked at.”
“Just tell me why you made up that story about the rule.”
“The rules, Dean Carlyle, exist for the benefit of the entire community. Of every one of us.”
“I just—”
“And our families.”
“Our families?”
He ignored her surprise. “And you have brought me no authorization? A subpoena, something like that?”
“No, I—”
Oh!
The straight man. Rod. Straight. Was it possible?
“Wait here,” she said, in the most commanding voice she could muster. “Wait right here.”
“Oh, dear me.” A glance at his watch. “How the day does fly by. Five-thirty already. Time to lock up for the night.”
“Five minutes,” she said, and, without lingering for his answer, hurried back to her office. She opened her bag and pulled out the broken mirror from Luma’s Gifts. Two minutes later, she was standing in front of him again.
“What am I to do with this, Dean Carlyle?” murmured the librarian, frowning down at the mirror she had laid on his blotter. “What is it, precisely?”
“You know what it is.” So she hoped. “It’s my authorization.”
“That seems rather unlikely.”
“Somewhere you have the other half. You’re supposed to see if they fit together. Then you’re supposed to give me what I want.”
He shook his head, refusing to take the proffered item. “If indeed I were in possession of the other half, as you call it, I would hardly need time for study to see, as you put it, if they fit together. It would be obvious at a glance.”
“Are you saying—”
“It is half past five, Dean Carlyle. The archives are now closed.”
“Mr. Rutherford, you can’t just—”
“I am afraid I must.” He was on his feet, thin and imposing. “Sadly, Dean Carlyle, I am unable to be of further assistance in this matter. The rules about closing time are unambiguous.”
“You can’t just walk out on this conversation!”
“Incorrect, Dean Carlyle.” Tugging on the heavy parka that emphasized rather than concealed his scrawniness. “I can do exactly that.”
He pulled on his hat, turned off all the lights except the one directly above the table where they had been sitting, and walked out the door.
She stood, astonished.
The lock cycled. The red light came on.
The alarm was active. And Julia Carlyle was alone, locked inside the archives.
(II)
HER FIRST INSTINCT SAID ACCIDENT. Rod Rutherford, flustered by her demands, had followed his end-of-the-day routine, walking out the door precisely at half past five because he always did, except on Sunday, when he rested. But that was absurd. Surely a part of his daily routine was checking the archives to make sure nobody was hiding out to disturb the perfection of the preservation of knowledge.
So she swung the other way. He had left her on purpose.
Either way, the response was obvious. She banged on the heavy double doors leading to the stairs and called his name, then called for anybody—but of course nobody could hear her, because this entire end of the library would be deserted once the archives shut down.
Oh, great.
There would be no climbing out the window this time either. The bars had been repaired. She had already checked.
She clutched the reassuring techiness of her cell phone, only to discover, when she flipped it open, that down here in the basement, surrounded by metal beams and concrete, no signal was available. There was a phone on the archivist’s desk but the handset was fastened down by a lock of a design popular in her own student days, when unpaid calls presented a significant budgetary problem, and Julia possessed no key. A glance out the door told her that Mrs. Bethe’s phone was similarly secured.
Oh, this is great, Julia. Just great. The archivist has locked you in. Now all you have to do is sit down and wait for the Eggameese to come and gobble you up
. Or for a bullet in your own stupid head.
She forced a calm on herself.
There had to be a reason for this.
First hypothesis: Roderick Rutherford was involved up to his manicured fingertips in the search for Kellen’s surplus. Kellen was dead. Boris Gibbs was dead. Bruce Vallely had tried to warn her that if she kept this up she might wind up dead, too. So perhaps the Eggameese really was lurking out there, and she was next on the list.
She shivered and, back on her feet, banged on the door again, shouting. She already knew she could not be heard, but she could not bear not trying.
When she was all panicked out, she sat down again.
Second hypothesis: Nobody was waiting to kill her. Therefore, Roderick Rutherford had a method to his madness. Tomorrow morning, whoever opened up the archives first would find her, and she would have the librarian’s job, and maybe see him in prison, too. Therefore, he expected her not to turn him in.
Why not?
She had an idea. Maybe they were on the same side. She walked over to the vault door and gave it a shove. The lights blinked angrily. All right, she needed the pass code to get in. An alarm on the outer door, a combination for the inner door, and only Roderick Rutherford and his assistant possessed both. Those were the rules, to prevent theft of—
The rules.
The rules?
What had he said to her? Rule 22-C. The nonexistent rule.
The panel had numbers and letters. She pushed 2, 2, C, then shoved the door.
Blinking red lights.
Okay, so that was a bad guess. But the archivist had lied about the year the rule was adopted as well as its number.
She tried 2, 2, C, 1, 9, 7, 3.
No result.
What else had he said?
It was adopted after five months of debate.
She entered 2, 2, C, 5. No. Then 2, 2, C, 1, 9, 7, 3, 5. No. She tried one permutation after another of the same letters and numbers, because standing here and punching possible combinations into the lock was at least moderately saner than hunching in the corner screaming her head off.
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