Body in the Bookcase ff-9

by Katherine Hall Page

  The lights were on in Stackpole’s house, so he was home. Yet, she couldn’t merely walk up to the front door and pretend she was collecting for the March of Dimes at this time of night. Besides, she didn’t want him to see her, since she hoped to be able to buy some more of their things back from him the following day at the Copley Plaza show.

  What happened next wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. She slipped into his side yard and flattened herself against the house, peering through the lower part of a window. She was looking into the dining room, where stuff was piled all over. There was no room to eat on the large round oak table. It was covered with stacks of china, a box of what looked like old Lionel trains, and a pile of damask table linens. None of it looked familiar. And no one was in the room.

  Faith moved around to the back of the house. By standing on the bulkhead, she had a clear view of the kitchen.

  A man, whom she presumed to be George Stackpole, was packing a carton with silver spread out on a 1950s Formica table—the kind of retro set New Yorkers were paying high prices for in SoHo. A woman was helping him. They weren’t talking, just packing. They must be getting ready for the show. Stackpole was the an-tithesis of Julian Bullock. Unkempt, unshaven, he wore a rumpled brown suit that appeared to have come from a vintage clothing store. He was short, paunchy. His red face looked oily and the broken veins across his nose and cheekbones betrayed years of drinking. The one indication of vanity was the attempt to cover the vast expanse of his baldness by combing the few remaining strands of hair over it, slicking them into place with some kind of gel that fossilized the whole attempt.

  Should George ever be sucked up into a tornado, all three hairs would stay put.

  The woman at his side appeared to be a few years younger, but not much more than that. All Faith’s notions of what antiques dealers looked like had been undergoing rapid revisions lately.

  The establishments she’d frequented in the past had tended to be run by women of a certain age in twin sets and tweeds or men in sports jackets, suede patches at the elbows. Maybe dapper sus-penders. Like the proprietor at the Old Oaken Bucket, this woman looked as if she should be sitting on a bar stool. She was wearing a short, tight turquoise spandex skirt and matching top that was being stretched to its limits, the fabric straining over her midriff and breasts. She had big hair and it had been subjected to a serious henna treatment. Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes—she was covered with jewelry, most of it apparently fake, but the huge diamond solitaire on her ring finger sparkled as only the real thing could. There was no wedding band.

  As Faith watched them work, she felt chilled to the bone despite the mildness of the evening.

  These could be the people responsible not simply for the house breaks but also for Sarah’s death.

  She stared at George’s hands. They didn’t match the rest of him—well formed, nails trimmed, long, tapering fingers. He was deftly wrapping objects, placing them in the cases and boxes that filled the floor space. Hands that could tie an old woman up, an old woman who would have been no match for him. And the woman with him. Had she played a part in all that? The fact that they weren’t talking made the scene unreal and even sinister. There was no indication of companion-ship, pleasure at what they were doing, doing together. They worked methodically, wrapping item after item, eyes on their work, eyes on the merchandise. Merchandise belonging to whom?

  The silence gave no cue. No time for Faith to get away. Suddenly, the woman reached for the back door, opening it, anticipating George’s action.

  Loaded down by two boxes, he was on the back stoop, a few feet away from Faith, heading for his car before she had any notion that he might be leaving the house. She didn’t dare move, dare breathe. She heard the beep as he unlocked the car automatically. He’d be back, unencumbered. If he looked sideways, he’d see her. She slid off the bulkhead and crouched down beside the small back porch, putting her head down, her arms clutched tightly around her knees, compressing her whole body into as small an object as possible.

  The smell of dirt filled her nostrils. It wasn’t the smell of new earth and growing things. It stank of mold, of decaying garbage—of fetid waste poured out the back door: oil, and something sharper, vomit. She started to gag.

  He was back, walking up the stairs, inches away. He stopped before he opened the door.

  “What’s the matter?” The woman joined him.

  “I dunno. Nothing, I guess.” They went in.

  Faith started to stand up, about to sprint away.

  She’d been crazy to come. The door banged open.

  He was back. She turned her head to look. Was he looking at her? He was carrying a large green trash bag and walked directly around the house.

  This time, he returned sooner. But again he paused. She buried her head; the muscles in her arms were straining and she tried to make herself smaller and smaller. He didn’t go inside. She imagined him peering about the yard. What had he heard? What had he sensed? She hadn’t made a sound, and if he had seen her at the window, he wouldn’t be acting this way. She knew what he would be doing, because in that first swift glance, she’d seen what he was carrying besides his trash.

  A dog barked. Stackpole went into the house, letting the door slam behind him. The dog barked louder.

  “What is it, George? What’s going on?” the woman said, her last words slightly muffled by the closing door.

  This time, Faith didn’t wait. She raced around the house. Like his neighbors, George had put his Hefty bag of trash on the curb. Without breaking her stride, she grabbed it and made for her car, flinging herself and booty into the front seat. She sank down behind the steering wheel, groping with a trembling hand for the button to lock all the doors. She was breathless and the loud beating of her heart competed with her frantic audible gasps for air. She should have known better, and she could never tell anyone how stupid she’d been. How close she had come to danger.

  The second time Stackpole had gone out his back door, he’d been carrying his trash, but when she looked up, she saw that he was also carrying a gun.

  It took Faith a long time to get to sleep. Tom had still been working when she got home. Even when not preoccupied with “What Does Turning the Other Cheek Really Mean?”—this Sunday’s topic—he would not have been particularly interested in his children’s wardrobe, so her lack of tiny shorts and T-shirts went unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was to explain her agitation.

  Later, she stretched out her ablutions until she heard his low, steady breathing, indicating he was asleep. She tried to read, then turned the light off, hoping the darkness would prove more soporific than her book, Beard on Bread.

  Closing her eyes immediately brought the image she’d been trying to suppress into sharp focus, and opening them didn’t help much.

  George Stackpole was in the shadows of the room. The scene played over and over again. She heard his back door open, darted a quick look at the stoop, and saw him. He was carrying the trash bag in one hand. His face was grim, alert.

  His eyes, which had seemed bleary, hooded by his drooping lids, were sharp, intent on piercing the darkness of the yard. The gun was in his right hand. Faith didn’t know much about guns, but this wasn’t a toy and it wasn’t carved out of soap.

  She remembered the smith & wesson sign at the Old Oaken Bucket, and the gun at the pawnshop, barely out of sight under a piece of paper. Charley MacIsaac had told her once that she’d be amazed at the people who kept a gun in the house. America was armed to the teeth. Everyone was afraid.

  Afraid of being robbed, afraid of being hurt.

  What they should be afraid of was having the gun in the house. She supposed a dealer like Stackpole would keep a weapon to protect his inventory, but why would he walk into his backyard armed? Who did he think was out there? The house was very obviously occupied. A thief would wait until it was empty. And George would be a target for pros. Nobody else would suspect a house like that contained items of so much value. He hadn�
��t said a word. Hadn’t called out a name. She knew she hadn’t made any noise, so he expected someone to be there. Who was George Stackpole so afraid of that he packed a pistol when he took out his trash?

  Faith rolled to one side and pulled the covers up over her shoulder. She fitted herself close to Tom. She began to feel warmer. She’d been chilled since she got back into the car. Slowly, she began to relax, sleep stealing over her.

  Would he have killed her if he had seen her? A shot in the dark? No questions?

  She turned on the light and picked up her book.

  As soon as the kids and Tom were out the door, Faith went to her car and opened the trunk, removing the bag of garbage she’d hidden there the night before. She knew it was legal to have taken it. Once trash is on the curb, it’s public property.

  She spread newspaper on the kitchen floor and prepared to analyze the contents. Daylight had chased away most of last night’s fears and she was feeling like her old self again. Whatever that self was, she amended. It was a self that was gearing back into action, however. After this job was done, she planned to drive into town, go to the show at the Copley, and find Stackpole’s booth. It would be crowded and the only guns in evidence would belong to the security guards.

  An overwhelming smell of coffee grounds greeted her as she opened the bag and dumped the contents out. She was surprised. From his appearance and the look of the house, she would have pegged George Stackpole as an instant coffee aficionado—or a devotee of those horrific coffee bags. Aside from this fact, there didn’t seem to be anything illuminating in George’s trash—for instance, a map and instructions on how to get to the various houses in Aleford that had been robbed or pawnshop tickets for their items. He and his lady friend seemed to subsist on pizza and grinders, with the occasional Greek salad—there were a couple of partially consumed containers of shredded iceberg lettuce coated with feta cheese. Eggs in some form supplemented this diet. There were a lot of shells. He used Colgate toothpaste, the kind with the stripes. She paid particular attention to any mail or scraps of paper, but there was remarkably little. Unopened fund appeals from things like the Jimmy Fund, a few envelopes marked “You May Already Be a Winner,” but nothing remotely personal. She picked up one of the empty pizza boxes. Crumpled inside, there were several Post-it slips. She carefully smoothed them out. One was a grocery list: “Coffee, eggs, butter, t.p.” The next was a telephone number, seven digits. It must be in this area code, Faith thought. Just the number, nothing else. But what was this? “Call Nan” and a number. The handwriting was different from the writing on the grocery list. Excitedly, Faith picked up the last piece of paper. “Nan called again. Call her.” It was the same handwriting. She studied the three slips of paper intently. The list was printed in block letters. Someone had borne down hard on the pencil. The other messages were in ballpoint pen, clearly a more feminine hand—script, the Palmer method. It was safe to assume the calls from Nan were for George and the messages taken by the woman who’d been in the house with him.

  Nan. Was she in on all this? It would explain her obvious reluctance to talk about George Stackpole.

  She’d characterized him as “volatile,” and it was this description that had added to Faith’s terror the night before. But why had Nan told her about buying the napkin rings at the Oaken Bucket? To cover her tracks? None of it made any sense. Faith decided to give the woman a call. She was in the shop and answered the phone on the first ring. Expecting a call?

  “Hi, Nan, it’s Faith Fairchild. I’m off to the Copley in a little while and thought maybe I’d see you there.”

  “I can’t get there until this afternoon. A decorator is bringing a client in, someone who was at the show house. But you’ll have fun. The organizer gets inundated with requests for booths and only picks the best.”

  This didn’t exactly square with Julian Bullock’s description of George as a picker, but Faith tucked that away to think about later.

  “I wondered if you’d had time to call George Stackpole and see if he would let us come by his house.” The notion of going back there was not a pleasant one, but she wouldn’t have to if what she was thinking about Nan was correct. She fully expected the woman to say it wouldn’t be possible, so the dealer’s next words took Faith by surprise.

  “He said it would be fine. Would late Sunday afternoon be okay?”

  “Fine,” Faith gasped. “We’ll talk this weekend and arrange where to meet.”

  “Oh, here are my customers. Got to run. Bye.” Faith didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened to death. If Nan and George were partners, she’d be walking into a trap. But if she asked Nan if she could bring a friend, Chief MacIsaac, for instance, that wouldn’t work, either. One thing at a time. She’d go to the show. Courtney Bullock hadn’t canceled the meeting, so Faith had to get back to Aleford, pick up the kids, and get everything ready at work before three o’clock.

  She parked at the Prudential garage and walked down Boylston Street into Copley Square. The square was the kind of place that made you feel like a walking Fodor’s. It was anchored on two sides by architectural landmarks: H. H. Richardson’s Romanesque-style Trinity Church and McKim, Mead & White’s glorious Medici palazzo of a library—the BPL, translated for outsiders as the Boston Public Library. New Old South Church—not to be confused with the Old South Meetinghouse downtown—hovered majestically on one corner. The Copley Plaza Hotel, her desti-nation, sat next to I. M. Pei’s sixty-floor column of glass—the John Hancock Building. The contrast was enormous and incongruous—a grande dame, spreading a bit with age, beside her chic, slightly anorexic Kate Moss of a granddaughter.

  Copley Square was in Boston’s Back Bay section—literally a bay before the 1850s. The new Hancock Building had caused the older ones, especially Trinity, to sink significantly into the squishy soil beneath, creating slightly tipsy angles here and there. Boston’s city planners were notorious for egregious mistakes, such as the de-struction of the West End and the creation of Stor-row Drive along the Charles River, turning Olmsted’s green necklace into an add-a-pearl. In the same spirit of progress, the lush lawn in the middle of Copley Square had been extensively paved. Still, it was one of the loveliest sights in town, and Faith slowed her steps in enjoyment.

  She walked into the Copley, patting one of the gold lions that regally flanked the entrance for luck, and soon found herself in one of the ball-rooms, elbow-to-elbow in a throng of treasure seekers.

  Clutching the ticket that allowed her to come and go the entire day, she wandered about the room. Many of the booths had been set up to look like rooms. Shaker simplicity vied with Louis Quatorze curves. The room’s cream-colored walls, gold trim, and deep rose draperies added significance to the wares, burnishing their luster.

  Setting is everything, Faith thought. A booth filled with an assortment of Kirk silver, Bavarian china, and sentimental genre oils in enormous gilt frames looked completely at home. In a flea market or antiques co-op, they would have appeared a tawdry mishmash and suspect.

  The size of the room helped keep the noise level down, but there was a steady drone of conversation—or rather, negotiation. It was hard not to be distracted by the merchandise, but Faith didn’t have much time. She began to comb the aisles systematically There was no sign of Stackpole. Had Nan Howell been mistaken?

  There were booths on the balcony that encircled the room and it was here that she finally found him. He was having a heated argument with someone over the price of an Art Deco diamond brooch.

  “Look, I don’t need your business, Arnold. I don’t even want your business. Buy from somebody else. You’ve gotten plenty of bargains from me over the years, and you’re not going to find a piece to equal this anywhere else in the show. Take it or leave it!” He snatched the brooch from the man’s hand and put it back in the glass showcase.

  “Calm down, George. I just said I thought the price was high, not that I wasn’t interested. We’re still talking here.”

  Stackpole glow
ered at him. “Talk is cheap.

  Come back when you’re serious.” He turned away and lifted another of the heavy flat showcases onto the table next to the one he’d just opened.

  The man appeared to take no offense. “See you tomorrow night at Morrison’s. You consigned some lots, right? I did, too. If you haven’t sold the pin, bring it along and we’ll talk some more.” George totally ignored him. The man shrugged and left.

  “Gloria,” Stackpole called to the woman who’d been at the house the night before and was now sitting in the back of the booth, sipping a cup of coffee. “Gloria, get your keister over here and help me make room for this case. Get your stuff out of the way.”

  Faith trained her attention on the goods before her. There was a long row of glass cases, all locked, filled with jewelry and silver. Costume jewelry had been spread out on a piece of velvet at one end of a table. These were presumably Gloria’s things. Gone was the spandex of last night.

  Today, she was dressed conservatively in a beige linen pantsuit and was wearing only a few gold chains. Her hair had been tamed by a scrunch.

  The whole idea appeared to be to attract as little attention as possible. Let the customers concentrate on the goods, not her goodies, was the message. George was wearing what he’d worn the night before, but he’d shaved. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference.

  Faith’s recent visits to the pawnshops and antiques marts had perfected her technique. Her eyes were minesweepers and rapidly trolled the merchandise for anything remotely resembling one of her possessions. They locked on the third case. It contained a Victorian gold pendant watch that Tom had given her when they were first married. A lovely ladies’ Waltham watch, still on the gold watch chain he’d bought to go with it, and still—she was sure—with the inscription inside: