I made a mental note, but her tone didn’t invite me to ask what she meant. “Ms. Anderson blogs about books, I’ve heard. Is that right?”
Carole waved her hand. “And organizes literacy programs for kids. And was the president of Friends of the Library for several years, and runs a couple of book groups at Open Book and has a podcast and—” She pointed to a door in the back wall. “That’s the break room. Let’s get something to drink.” Over her shoulder she added, “I’m sure she’ll be glad to give you all the splendid details.”
“She sounds like a busy lady,” I said neutrally. I was remembering that Dorothea hadn’t much liked Margaret, either. As we went into the break room, I asked, “Do you know why she thought you’d be a good fit for the foundation board?”
She opened a compact fridge. “Well, I know what she said. It was because I worked in the Bethany Library before I opened this shop. And because I love books, which is certainly true. I do. All kinds of books—new books, old books, fiction, nonfiction. Real books and ebooks, too. I think books are the most wonderful things in the world.” She held up a soft drink can. “Diet Coke?”
“Yes, please,” I said, and she handed it to me.
“If I didn’t have this place, I’d have a bookstore.” She got her own drink and led us to a small table set against a wall under a calendar with a large photo of the Bethany courthouse. “I wonder what will happen to the Open Book if Jed . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it.”
Others might have been a bit more suspicious, but I didn’t believe that the chief’s ex-wife’s desire to own a bookstore would have driven her to murder the bookstore owner. Or maybe I saw it that way because we were sisters. Under the skin.
I opened my drink can. “You must have felt a kind of kinship with Miss Carswell. She was a book lover, too.”
“Yes, but for somebody who had all that money, you’d think she’d be better organized.” She popped the top of her soda can and sipped it thoughtfully. “I mean, if I didn’t keep my accounts straight, and all the cash register receipts and the expenses and the taxes and stuff, I’d be out of business next week. You’ve got to be organized.”
“And that wasn’t Miss Carswell’s thing?” I had already heard this from Dorothea, but it was good to have it confirmed.
“Miss Carswell didn’t give two hoots about that end of it. She left it up to Jed to keep track of what she bought, at least until they had their falling out. All she cared about was the books. Some she didn’t like, and she’d just stick them on a shelf and forget about them. Others were like a new adventure for her. She couldn’t stop talking about them. I guess that’s what we had in common.”
So Jed Conway may have kept some records of Miss Carswell’s book purchases. Well, that would make sense, if he had been doing most of her buying and selling. If Dorothea knew this detail, she hadn’t mentioned it. Why?
Carole sighed. “You know, there are a gazillion books up there at Hemlock House, some of them very rare and costly—and beautiful. Some of those botanical drawings are just incredible, when you look at them closely. But most are hidden away on the shelves in those damp, dark rooms where nobody can find them.” Her voice became earnest. “Really, now. What’s the good of a beautiful book if nobody sees it? Don’t you think it ought to be someplace where people can at least have a look at it? That’s why I volunteered to help Dr. Harper with the cataloging. It gives me a chance to actually see and appreciate the books.”
I raised an eyebrow, thinking that it also gave her a chance to decide which books to loot. “Did you tell Miss Carswell how you felt? About the books being hidden away, I mean.”
“Well . . .” She dragged it out. “Not really. She wouldn’t have wanted to hear my opinion. After all, I’m just one of those Bethany people.” She gave the word a mocking emphasis.
“But after she died? After the foundation got underway? You were on the board. Did you tell the other board members how you felt?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.” She frowned. “What kind of an article are you writing?”
I was pushing her, and I backed off a little, giving her my standard dodge. “I’m just trying to understand the big picture.” I picked up my can for a sip. “If you like, we can consider all of this deep background.” I put my drink down and gave her a reassuring smile. “In other words, I won’t quote you.” I wasn’t exactly sure if that’s what “deep background” meant, but she looked relieved.
“That’s okay, then,” she said. “I just don’t want to cause any more trouble than I have already. On the board, I mean.” She sounded frustrated. “I’m the one who rocks the boat, and Mrs. Cousins doesn’t like me very much. I was even thinking of resigning. But Jed said I ought to stick it out, at least as long as Dr. Harper is there. That way, I’d know what’s really going on up there.”
“So you told the board what you thought?”
“Yes, after Miss Carswell died, when they were trying to figure out what to do with all those books. What kind of person they should hire as the library director, I mean.” She bit her lip. “It was sticky, though. Because of Margaret.”
“Oh? How was that?”
“Well, nothing against Margaret, of course, except that she wasn’t qualified. Of course, she would never say that. She thought because she had been Miss Carswell’s right-hand-girl for a few months, the board would just fall into line and hand her the director’s job. But that’s not what happened.”
I looked up quickly. “No?”
“No. Jed helped. He put in his two cents and they listened because he’s in the book business. Between the two of us, we persuaded the board to open a search for somebody who was qualified to actually work with the books—catalogue them, conserve them, figure out what should be done with them. We had several good candidates, I’m glad to say, but it was unanimous for Dr. Harper, who was exactly what we were looking for. That’s why it’s so unfortunate. The way they reacted when the Herbal disappeared. Since then . . .” She let her voice trail off.
I raised both eyebrows. “They think Dr. Harper was somehow at fault?”
“Well, what would you think?” she challenged. “After all, she had to know how much it was worth. And she’d probably have a pretty good idea of who might want to buy it. Not that I think she stole it,” she added hastily. “Just sayin’ what others think. Especially Mrs. Cousins. She’s the board chair.”
It was an interesting little aside, but I wanted to pick up on something else.
“How did Ms. Anderson feel when she was passed over for Dr. Harper? Was she . . . disappointed?” It sounded as if Margaret’s departure from Hemlock House wasn’t quite as “amicable” as Dorothea thought it was. Or said it was, although I couldn’t think why she would want to deliberately misrepresent what happened.
“Disappointed.” Carole chuckled dryly. “That’s one way to describe it. Or you might say that she was super ticked off. She blames Jed and me. She says we bad-mouthed her to the board.” She stopped, remembering that we weren’t really sisters, and backed up a little. “Which of course I never did. I mean, I might not be her biggest fan, but I wouldn’t do a thing like that. And I’m sure Jed didn’t either. He’s a gentleman.”
Ah. I thought of the other valuable items that were known to be missing—plates from Redouté’s Lilies and from Royle’s book on the Himalayas, as well as Beatrix Potter’s fungi prints. And A Curious Herbal, of course. Altogether, we were looking at thefts that could add up to a couple of hundred thousand dollars, with not nearly the risk of walking into a bank and asking for the day’s deposits.
And if Margaret Anderson was “super ticked off,” as Carole said, she could easily be much more of a player than Dorothea imagined. She had been at Hemlock House from the time Miss Carswell died until Dorothea took charge—with no attention paid to security. She would have
had ample opportunity to pilfer anything she felt like pilfering, from individual pages to whole books. Why didn’t she take the Herbal until some months later? Maybe she had waited until the new director was in place, so Dorothea would be the prime suspect—as it seemed she was, at least in the sheriff’s mind. That would net her two birds with one stone, so to speak. She would settle accounts with the board for letting her go while she got even with her rival for being better qualified. Plus, there was all that lovely money.
Well, then. Assuming that Anderson had done this, how would she have disposed of her ill-gotten goods? Did she have a bookseller connection in Asheville or Raleigh? Or maybe she didn’t have to go that far. Maybe her fence was closer to home. Jed Conway, for instance. Or Socrates—or whoever owned Socrates.com. It might even be Carole.
Carole? Yes, Carole. In her website, I had seen that at least one vendor in her mini-mall offered framed botanical prints. Maybe that was Carole herself?
But we weren’t there yet, and I didn’t want to raise any suspicions. I took us back a step or two.
“And the rest of the board? Were they in favor of doing a search for a librarian? Or a curator or a director—whatever you were calling the position?”
“Director.” Carole made a face. “To tell the truth, they weren’t exactly keen on the idea. A search is a lot of work and the chances of finding the right person might not be very high. In fact, Mrs. Cousins would have been perfectly content to let Margaret stay on—less trouble, you know. Plus, they liked her. I have to say that she does her best to be likeable, even though—” She broke off.
I wanted to ask even though what, please? But I didn’t want to remind her that we had wandered pretty far outside the topic I was supposed to be interested in.
“Anyway, Jed and I knew we had to find someone else.” A smile flitted across her mouth. “His first choice would have been him, of course.”
“Jed Conway wanted the job?”
Dorothea hadn’t said anything about that. But then, she hadn’t said much at all about Jed Conway. What I knew about him had come from Rose and Jenna. Was there a reason for Dorothea’s silence on the subject? I shivered, remembering Conway’s ghost-like whisper.
Black . . . well. Blackwell.
Was he trying to say that he’d been shot because of Blackwell’s Herbal? And then I thought of something else. Hadn’t Dorothea driven to Bethany today? Yes, she had. In fact, I had seen the Hemlock House minivan in front of the grocery store—just down the block from the Open Book. A sudden shiver ran through me. But Carole was going on and I filed the question away to deal with later.
“Well, of course he wanted the job. And with his book background and his acquaintance with the collection, I’m sure there would have been an argument in his favor. But everybody on the board knew that he and Miss Carswell had had a disagreement.”
“What did they disagree about?”
My question was more blunt than it should have been. She looked away for a moment and when she looked back, she spoke hesitantly.
“Well, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you. It’s not really a secret. Jed thought that some of the books ought to be sold. He made a list—a long list, actually. And in a couple of cases—the Herbal, for one—he’d identified potential buyers.”
Buyers? Now, that was interesting, especially in view of the fact that he had just been shot. “Do you know why?” I asked. “Why he thought they should be sold, I mean.”
She gave a little shrug. “He said they ought to be held in collections where they could be properly conserved and displayed, rather than stuck away on a shelf. Sunny was offended by the suggestion that she wasn’t taking proper care of her books. And the idea of selling A Curious Herbal . . . Well, as far as she was concerned, that was completely off the table.” She frowned. “I really hope you’re not going to—”
“I won’t,” I said reassuringly. “It’s just helpful background for the paragraphs where I’ll cover Dr. Harper.” I moved on. “I hope you’re satisfied with the job she’s doing.”
Her expression cleared. “Oh, yes. Dr. Harper is a real library person, with training and credentials. Just what we need. And Jenna—the graduate student who is working with her—is a perfect jewel.” She raised an eyebrow. “Did she tell you she’s writing a novel?”
“I’ve read the first three chapters,” I said. “They’re very good. It’s a great beginning. Leaves me wondering what’s going to happen next.”
“Jenna and I have talked quite a bit about Elizabeth Blackwell,” Carole said. “She probably knows more about the way the Herbal was compiled and published than anybody else in the world, so I hope she’ll be able to publish her novel. The story is even more interesting when she gets into how Elizabeth Blackwell made enough money to bail her husband out of jail. And then there’s the big mystery of what happened after that. Anybody who loves books will be interested—especially a writer. Like you.”
I ducked my head, feeling a little guilty at my deception.
“Anyway,” she went on in a practical tone, “both Dr. Harper and Jenna know what has to be done with the library and I’m behind them a hundred percent. If anybody can get that collection whipped into shape and catalogued and open to researchers, they’re the ones. Or get the books moved to another library—a university library, for instance—where the collection would be much more accessible. That’s my idea.”
“Move the books?” I was surprised. “You think that might happen?”
“Probably not.” She sighed. “I mean, it’s one of the board’s options, if they could only agree. Half of them don’t want Hemlock House open to the public, because that will cost too much. Not just completely cataloguing the books, of course, but we’d have to hire more staff and upgrade all the facilities, including parking. Plus, there’s a lot of deferred maintenance on that ugly old house that has to be managed—a new roof, just as one example. And we’d probably have to close in the winter. That road can be treacherous when it snows. That old place is one huge bundle of liabilities.”
She smiled grimly—a sisterly sort of grimness. I had the feeling that Carole would have said none of this if our comradeship had not been so opportunely established. And I could see the problem.
“Where the library is concerned, it’s either, or?” I asked. “There’s no middle ground?”
“There might be. Dr. Harper says we could digitize the best part of the collection and put it online, so people could read the books without coming to the library. Then we could keep a skeleton staff and just open the library to only a few visiting researchers who need access to the actual documents. But digitizing would cost a lot of money. And the house would still need maintenance.” She regarded me for a moment, her expression darkening. “Actually, I’m wondering why you’re asking all these questions.”
“I think it’s important to have a balanced view of the situation, don’t you?” I was making this up as I went along. “I mean, the Hemlock collection is an important one, and the board is facing a lot of challenges. I’d like to represent as many sides of the issue as I can. And a little more publicity for the Hemlock library—done in the right way, with a positive perspective—might encourage a few donors to take a closer look.” I assumed a cautious expression. “I understand that the board has been concerned about the possibility of actually losing donors—when they became aware that the Herbal had been stolen, that is.”
Carole cocked her head, frowning. “Dr. Harper told you about that?”
“Yes. As I said, I’ve known her for a while—we share a common interest in old herbals. When the Blackwell Herbal went missing, she told me she wanted to send a heads-up to rare book dealers and collectors so they could keep an eye out for it. But the board wouldn’t let her.”
She sighed. “Another of our disagreements. Some of the board members feel that the thefts make us look sloppy and unprofessional
. I don’t think they’re going to move off that position.” She shifted in her chair. “Are we done here? I really need to find out what’s going on with Jed.”
“I think we’re done, thank you.” I was paging through my notes. “Oh, hang on, here’s something. You mentioned Kevin Maxwell. And Amelia somebody. Are they on the foundation board?”
“Amelia sells real estate,” Carole said tartly. “She would love to be on the board, but she isn’t.”
“Her last name is—”
“Scott.” She was impatient. “Amelia Scott. She and Jed are the cofounders of . . .” She looked away. “They used to be friends. That’s all.”
I frowned. Cofounders of what? A readers’ group? An arts program? A business enterprise? I glanced down at my notebook again. “How about Maxwell? Kevin Maxwell?”
But I wasn’t going to get any more out of Carole. She was looking up the hospital number on her phone.
I closed my notebook. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,” I said. “I appreciate it.” It had been an instructive conversation. It was beginning to seem that Margaret Anderson might know more than anybody else about the thefts at Hemlock House. And what did she know about the shooting of Jed Conway?
“Glad I could help,” Carole said, but her mind was already on her call. A moment later, she had reached the hospital and was being put through to a nurses’ station. A moment after that, she was saying, “Hi, this is Carole Humphreys. I’m calling about Jedidiah Conway. Can you tell me how he’s doing?”
Hemlock Page 14
