The Bookwoman's Last Fling

by John Dunning

  “Oh, wow,” I said softly.

  He leaned forward in tense expectation. “What?”

  “Just a helluva nice book. I wonder why whoever he was didn’t take this.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Is it real?”

  “I’m wary of signed books, but yeah, it sure looks real.”

  “Why are you wary?”

  “There are too many people today who can sign books and make it look real. But the ink is old and it’s from different fountain pens. If she bought this long ago and you have records telling where and when and from whom, we can assume it’s real. At least for the moment. And as we say in the trade, these people ain’t signing any more of ’em.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Maybe whoever took these, he wasn’t looking for this one.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

  “I don’t either. Yet.”

  My first theory, that the thief knew what he was doing and went after the highest-end stuff, was suddenly in trouble. Why pluck a book like The Wishing Horse of Oz when more valuable books were within arm’s reach, just as easy to conceal, just as quickly tucked away and gone? Her Disney section had been ravaged: so many wonderful and hugely expensive books, so easily replaceable with good-looking reprints for book-ignorant guys like Willis and Geiger. The value would be in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, I thought, adding the tally mentally and putting in nothing extra for such amenities as signatures. I did find a nice Disney Pinocchio under Collodi, signed by Disney with a generous and highly readable full-page inscription. Beside that was a true first edition of the same book, 1883, in Italian: a major rarity if my memory could be trusted. A section away, I found the first British edition of Alice in Wonderland, suppressed by the author and virtually unavailable anywhere. I had no reliable idea, but in this exceptional condition I guessed sixty to a hundred grand, maybe twice that. Softly I said “Jesus,” and Junior leaned toward me, waiting. “Another good one,” I said.

  “How good is good?”

  I smiled at his choice of words and told him what I thought, adding the usual caveats. He nodded and I moved on. Under Clemens was a pristine Huckleberry Finn, signed by the author, but the Tom Sawyer was gone, replaced by a reprint from the late 1890s. “Strange for a thief to take one and not the other,” I said, but life was strange, and maybe this wasn’t so strange after all. Her Joel Chandler Harris stuff looked untouched: all first editions, some signed, all in that wonderful condition. There was a Song of the South misfiled, the Grosset & Dunlap edition from 1947, and again it had Disney’s signature.

  I moved around the room, taking in the obvious high spots: a run of Milne’s Pooh books, beginning with the first, When We Were Very Young, then Winnie the Pooh, and Now We Are Six, and The House At Pooh Corner, running on and on through the long series, all in dust jackets, oh my pounding heart, the jackets, it made my scrotum tingle just to touch them. And the Beatrix Potters!…The Tale of Peter Rabbit missing with a cheap substitute, but a gorgeous unbelievable signed limited of The Fairy Caravan and other first-edition fairy and bunny books were real. I had reached the Arthur Rackhams: more fairies in original drawings and books. The Compleat Angler had been replaced, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream and other signed limiteds had been left. For the moment I did little more than glance at the Tolkiens. I sat on the other chair and Junior and I looked at each other.

  “So what’re you thinking?”

  “Mr. Willis, I have seen a lot of great books, but today I am astonished.”

  He looked gratified but only for the moment. “Your astonishment is duly noted. The question is, what do we do now?”

  “Depends on what you want. I can go around this room and put prices on your books…theoretical prices on the ones that are missing, real prices on what’s still here. I can do that, but I can’t testify to what I haven’t seen, and just making the appraisal will take some time. I could be in here for several weeks.”

  “I don’t care about the cost. But I do need it wrapped up soon.”

  “You made reference to the books being stolen, maybe. If you can produce rosters and billings from Rosenbach and others, you might make that case for the insurance company.”

  “Where else could they go? You think they just sprouted legs and walked out?”

  “I’m being cautious.”

  “I haven’t got time for caution.”

  “Then maybe, sir, with all due respect, you’d better find the time.”

  I saw instant fury in his eyes but he calmed himself and said nothing.

  “They’ve been in here for what, twenty years?” I said. “Since she died they’ve been sitting here and it looks like they’ve been getting picked off one by one. Now you’ve got ’em under lock and key; you can wait till we see what we think might have happened. Let’s try doing it right, see exactly what’s missing, and work from there.”

  “And do what about it?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Catch the bastard that did this and put him in jail, what do you think?”

  “And get the books back.”

  “Yeah, sure. That goes without saying.”

  “Nothing goes without saying.” Without writing, I thought. I had a sudden notion that I’d need everything defined on paper with this guy. A long moment passed.

  “Mr. Willis, let me explain something to you. A book thief, unless he’s doing his dirty work for some personal motive, usually sells what he steals as quickly as he can. In this case, I’ve got a hunch that whoever did it knows damn little about books and cares even less. He is taking whatever he takes because he has access and somebody else told him what to get.”

  “How the hell could you possibly know that?”

  “I told you, it’s just a hunch. But that’s how I’d proceed, till I discover something that leads me somewhere else. Whatever happened, we have no idea when the books were lifted—may have been last week, maybe ten years ago.”

  “Well, it wasn’t yesterday. And I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

  “Then you don’t need me, you need the cops.”

  “If I could prove it, maybe you’d be right.”

  “So what you want me to do is get the proof.”

  Suddenly his thinking seemed to change again. “Sure. But I’ll settle for getting the books back. I don’t need to make a fuss.”

  This time the moment stretched into a long minute. I didn’t ask him who he suspected, not yet. I didn’t tweak him on the subject of Mrs. Geiger’s death. All in due time.

  “What about the insurance?” I said. “You’ll need to have everything documented. Those boys don’t just hand out big checks because I tell them to.”

  He was shaking his head and suddenly I had a sinking feeling. “Don’t tell me they weren’t insured.”

  He seethed his answer into the wallboard. Another long minute passed. I could have said a lot of things then, but what was the point? The last thing a dope wants to hear when it’s too late is what a dope he’s been.

  “What’s your best guess as to when the thefts occurred?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe years ago.”

  “That could be a deep window of opportunity.”

  “The rooms have been locked for two years. And people haven’t been around.”

  “What people?”

  “Nobody. There’s been no one living here except Mr. Geiger and me for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Since Sharon moved to her own place, seven, eight years ago.”

  “So before that, anybody who had easy access to the house could have gone in there.”

  He nodded, just barely, and I said, “Who might such a list include?”

  “Mr. Geiger’s three sons.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Cameron, Damon, and Baxter.”

  I already knew that but now I wrote it all down and raised my eyes in a go on motion. “His daughter Sharon,” h
e said reluctantly.

  “That’s still a small list.”

  “There were some servants, a cook, some house people, and stable hands. They never lived here, though, and they’re gone now too.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Mr. Geiger had me let them go after we realized we might have a problem.”

  “After you discovered there were books missing.”

  “Yes.”

  “No particular reason to suspect them?”

  “No. When something like this happens, you hate to look at the people close to you.”

  “Have you kept tabs on those servants?”

  “Sharon hired them.”

  He looked annoyed as I wrote a long entry in the notebook. “Let’s not go there,” he said.

  “Why not? Is Sharon suddenly off limits?”

  “If that’s how you want to put it.”

  “How long did the servants work here before Sharon hired them?”

  “You don’t hear so well, do you?” he said, and now what had begun on a testy note and seemed to be improving was testy again.

  “This really is a simple question, Mr. Willis.”

  “Suppose I decline to answer it…or any other questions along that line?”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  This time the silent stalemate extended across one minute and into the next.

  “I think I should tell you,” I said: “I’m not inclined to take this on, as things stand.”

  He sneered at me. “Yeah, right. You’re not about to walk out on this.”

  “Try me.”

  Another minute passed. “I can’t work for somebody who wants to dictate how I must do it,” I said. “If you know so much about investigation work, do it yourself.”

  He flushed a bright red and finally said, “All right, what was the question?”

  “How long did the house people and stable hands work here before they were fired and Sharon hired them?”

  “The older ones, years. I hated to let them go, but…”

  “Who else might’ve gotten in there?”

  “Some people, just visitors. Some friends of Sharon’s, friends of the three sons as well. But that’s been long ago, and they were only here for short periods of time. You don’t frisk people going in and out of your house.”

  “Maybe you should have. Who else? Any wives of the brothers?”

  “Damon married young, they split almost before the ink was dry. I never met her.”

  “What about Sharon? She got a husband?”

  He shook his head and I studied his face deadpan.

  “Of course there’s me,” he said. “If you want to go that route.”

  My pen was still, poised on the notebook. “Did Geiger ever give you any reason to believe he suspected you?”

  “Would I have the keys to those rooms if he did?”

  I had a clever-as-hell answer for that but the moment was awkward enough. Instead I settled for a straight question. “Since you brought it up, what is your standing here?”

  I couldn’t tell for a moment whether the question had offended him. He said, “I am the man who has paid you to do a job. The executor says I’m to continue running things the way I’ve always been doing.”

  “Until the estate is out of probate.”

  He nodded.

  “So as things now stand we’ve got two angry blood relatives and one more who might show up at any time.”

  “Afraid you’re gonna get arrested?”

  “It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s ever happened. I just believe in playing it straight, Mr. Willis, doing things according to Hoyle. If I can.”

  “You can ask the executor.”

  “And meanwhile, if Damon or one of the others shows up and demands to get in here…?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  Another awkward moment passed.

  “What’s wrong now?” he said. “Do you think I took the books?”

  “Mr. Willis, I have no idea yet what I think. I barely know you and I haven’t seen the others at all. Right now I’m just asking some questions.”

  I made a few notes and returned to my premise. “Whoever did this didn’t do it in a weekend. Those books were carefully removed over time, maybe for years, which points to Geiger’s children, maybe the servants…”

  “And me.”

  I made a note. “And maybe the friends of the children. Do you have their names?”

  “Not handy. Maybe I could come up with ’em. They were horse people. No reason for them to care about books.”

  “I can think of a million reasons, and none of them have anything to do with a love of literature. You could buy a pretty nice racehorse for what one of these books might bring.”

  I waited through another silence; then I said, “Would you please get the names?”

  “If I can find ’em. If not, you’re on your own. I don’t know, I haven’t seen or heard of them in years.”

  “Off the top of your head, who do you remember?”

  “Sandy Standish. Another horse trainer. Years ago he worked for Mr. Geiger. And there was a fellow the brothers knew…what the hell was his name?”

  “Don’t try so hard, maybe it’ll come to you. What about Standish?”

  “You don’t follow racing much, do you? He wins a lot of races; won a big stakes race at Golden Gate last year with a 40–1 shot.”

  I wrote down the name Sandy Standish in the notebook. “Anybody else?”

  “There were some others who hung around. I haven’t thought of them in years. Sharon might remember their names.”

  “Okay then, back to Geiger’s sons. Where do they live now?”

  “They spend most of their time in California. They are middle-aged and in charge of their own lives.”

  “What do they do?”

  “They are all horsemen.”

  “Like father, like sons.”

  “Hardly.”

  I waited him out. At last he said, “What’s eating you now?”

  “That disapproval in your voice. It’s pretty hard to miss.”

  “Mr. Geiger was an extraordinary horseman. Not many people, even blood relatives, could come up to his level of excellence.”

  “What do you think of the sons as people?”

  He shrugged: The disapproval was still heavy in the room with us. Again he went into that sullen, moody silence, almost like a murder suspect in the box downtown. If I wanted to get anything I’d have to pry it out of him piece by piece, which might be difficult since he was paying my freight.

  “Mr. Willis…”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said shortly. Mr. Geiger had no relationship with any of them. “That shouldn’t be so difficult to understand. He hadn’t seen them in years.”

  “So was there some reason for that, or did he just wake up one morning and decide he didn’t like his children?”

  “Don’t you dare make light of this, Janeway…”

  “Did Mr. Geiger have a falling-out with his sons?”

  “Oh Christ, it was one thing after another. After Mrs. Geiger’s death, they became impossible. Cameron in particular turned out…wrong. He has a twisted soul.”

  “And he’s a horse trainer?”

  He nodded. Then, so softly I barely heard him, he said, “God help any horse that falls into his hands.”

  “Aren’t there rules against abusing horses?”

  “You know what they say about rules.”

  I scribbled some notes. “Where’s he at now?”

  “He’s here in town, living in some cheap flophouse. He comes back here every year or two, always broke, hoping to get his dad to give him some money so he can go racing, probably at some small track till he goes broke again. He’s a bush-leaguer.”

  “Did he ask for money this time?”

  “He never got that far. I wasn’t about to let him get to Mr. Geiger.”

  “Did you ever tell Mr. Geiger he was here?”

 
“Mr. Geiger was sick. And he had made it abundantly clear how he felt about Cameron.”

  “So the answer to that question is no.”

  “I took care of Mr. Geiger’s affairs. Especially the unpleasant ones.”

  “The answer then is no.”

  He looked to be on the verge of a major explosion. “Goddammit, Janeway, I don’t like your tone much. And I don’t like the implication at all.”

  “There is no implication, and if I had a tone I apologize. I’m just trying to get a few simple questions answered and so far you aren’t helping me much.”

  “If you think asking offensive questions is part of your job, maybe we should forget about the whole thing and find someone else. Is that what you want?”

  I fought back the urge to tell him what I really wanted. Assume the position, Mr. Willis. Roll this job into a big wad and see how it fits where the sun absolutely does not shine. I thought but did not say these things. My restraint was little short of heroic, but then he found the words to send our relationship to a new low. “You need to understand something, pal. You are an employee here, you don’t have any standing or authority at all, you’re a work-for-hire hand, a temporary grunt, and we will get along much better if you remember that.”

  I sighed. “Oh, boy.”

  “Oh, boy what? Oh, boy what? What does that mean?”

  We stared at each other for at least twenty seconds. “Oh, boy what?” he said, much louder now. I shook my head and said, “It means oh, boy, it is such a thrill to work for a lovable fellow like yourself. Oh, boy, this is so much fun I think I’ll have to give you your money back and do it for you free. It means oh, boy, Junior, what charm school did you graduate from? Oh, boy is a superlative, meaning wow, terrific, unless it’s used sarcastically; then it means your slip is showing, Junior, I’ve caught you being an asshole again. Can we figure it out from there?”