“Asta’s on our side, Mom,” I said. “She wouldn’t be growling if this whole thing was harmless.”
“You’ve made her skittish, Dev. You girls panicked and that startled her. That’s why she’s growling.”
“Don’t blame the victim, Mom. Bad form.”
“Fortunately you’re not a victim. So don’t exaggerate, dear.”
“He’s more like an acquaintance than a friend,” Natasha said. “I’ve only known him a few weeks. He’s one of the group going to the movies with me tonight. I can’t imagine he meant any trouble.”
“But—but he knew Dev’s name,” Liza said, looking up at my mother’s stern face. “He called out her name from across the street. How would he know who she is?”
“I’m responsible for that,” Natasha said. “I didn’t want him coming to the apartment and starting with all that security stuff. I told him I’d meet him at the corner. He knows I live with you, Blaine. And with Dev.”
“See what I mean, Liza?” I asked. “When I do get old enough to have dates, I’ll probably have to sneak off to coffee shops and secret passageways so the guys don’t get frisked and fingerprinted.”
“Don’t let me ever hear the word ‘sneak,’ Dev,” my mother said. “All your friends are welcome at our home. That’s true for you, Natasha, just as it is for Dev. You know that.”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to bother introducing everyone in this little group,” Natasha said. “I try not to talk about you, Blaine, but every time you’re in the news, someone or other brings you up in conversation. Then there was that profile about you both in the article from Take Your Daughters to Work Day. What could be cooler than going to One PP as the commissioner’s kid? Seems like everyone I know saw that piece.”
“How did he know what Dev looked like?” Liza asked.
“There was a picture of her sitting at Blaine’s desk in the centerfold of the magazine article,” Natasha said, lowering her head. “I put it on my Facebook page, which was really stupid of me. I was just so proud of you both.”
My mother put her arm around Natasha’s shoulders. “That’s entirely my fault. I thought Dev would get a kick out of having that photograph. I never imagined it would be part of the news article. I should have insisted they not use it.”
“Don’t forget you were walking Asta,” Natasha said. “All my friends know about her, and they know where I live.”
“Three solid clues,” I said, nodding to myself. “Me— the kid in the photograph—with our pooch, and the building number printed on the side of the awning. Even a rookie could get lucky with those facts.”
“What’s his name, this friend of yours?” my mother asked Natasha.
“Jack. His name is Jack Williams.”
“That’s it,” Liza said, clutching the arm of the sofa. “John Williams. Isn’t Jack the nickname for John?”
“I—I’ll have to ask him,” Natasha said, looking puzzled.
“John Williams is the name of the Columbia graduate student who was signed into the Map Division at the library yesterday. His name was on the part of the list I had to memorize.”
“I don’t want to cause you any pain, Natasha,” I said, “but your buddy may be a thief and a stalker, too.”
She was ashen. “His big paper is about the New York City grid,” she said. “Of course he has to examine old maps. Let me go talk to him, please.”
“What’s the grid?” Liza asked me.
“It was the plan for the development of Manhattan’s streets from, like, 1811—the single most important idea for the building of this city,” I said to Liza before turning to Natasha. “You stay with Mom. I’ve got a lot of questions for Jack.”
“No, you stay put, Dev,” my mother said in her sternest command voice.
I really wanted to eyeball this guy to see whether I had noticed him lurking at the library, too. “But I know all about the grid, Mom. I can do this cross-examination. See what he was really up to.”
“Everything you learned about the grid, you learned from me.”
“I learned it from Sam, actually.”
“May I come with you, Blaine?” Natasha asked.
“Best if you don’t.”
My mother uncrossed her arms, turned on her heel, and headed for the street. Even the nosy doorman stood at attention. I feared that Natasha’s night at the movies was going down in flames once my mother got into her full-on prosecutorial mode.
“Sorry, Natasha,” Liza said.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she said, inching closer to the front door. “But what was it about Jack that sent you running for cover?”
“I don’t know, Natasha,” Liza said. “Maybe my nerves are just on edge because Dev and I are working this case. It’s almost dark and along comes this guy who calls out her name. I recognized him right away, and I figured he might be part of this group of thieves.”
Natasha turned to me. “You two need to take a break from what you’re doing, Dev.”
Fat chance of that, now that Liza made him as one of the library lurkers.
“Is he cuffed?” I asked her.
She stood inside the entrance and peeked out. “No.”
“Has my mother started jabbing her finger at his chest yet? That’s when I can tell she’s really loaded for bear.”
“No. She’s letting him talk, actually.”
“He was carrying a briefcase tonight, Liza, wasn’t he?”
“He always carries a briefcase,” Natasha said, before Liza could confirm what I remembered. “He’s a grad student.”
I was already pretty sure, from the way Liza reacted, that he’s the accomplice to the tall man and spirited the stolen map out of the library for him.
“I hope you were going to the late show,” I said. “You might be able to make it.”
Natasha took a deep breath and kept up her stealth-like surveillance. “I couldn’t sit still and concentrate on a movie. I’m too upset,” she said. Then added, “Jack’s a really good guy.”
“Did Jack tell you he saw Dev at the library yesterday?” Liza asked.
“No. No, he didn’t mention that,” Natasha said.
“Was Jack at the library again today?”
“I don’t think so. We were in class together this afternoon.”
“You know my mom and Sam don’t believe in coincidences,” I said. “I mean, they don’t believe in coincidences in solving crime.”
“But coincidences happen,” Natasha said. “Just because Jack was in the public library the same day Liza witnessed a theft doesn’t mean he had anything to do with it. You girls are letting your imaginations get the better of your good sense.”
Just then my mother stepped through the doorway into the lobby. She was followed by the second cop on the security detail—and by Jack Williams.
Liza gasped and grabbed my arm when she saw Jack come inside, just as I reflexively pulled Asta closer to me.
“Liza, Dev, let’s not be rude,” my mother said. “This is Natasha’s friend, Jack Williams.”
My mother expected a “how-do-you-do” from me but instead got just a frozen stare.
“I’d like to apologize for giving you a scare tonight, Dev. I shouldn’t have called out your name on the street. I should have known better,” he said. “Natasha’s very loyal to her family, and I should have respected that.”
“You’re quite observant, Liza,” my mother said, trying to take the attention off me and the pressure off this Jack Williams character. “You’ll make a great investigator someday. That was indeed Jack at the library yesterday.”
“I didn’t know anything about a theft,” he said, ignoring Liza and giving me his most earnest look. “I had my nose in my own research work, really.”
“Why don’t we let Jack and Natasha get on their way to meet their friends?” my mother said.
“Because I’m really curious about a few things, Mom. Can’t Liza and I ask him some questions?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Ask me
anything.”
“Can we dump your briefcase?”
“What?” he asked, holding the case close to his chest.
“Dump it. Empty it out.”
“Don’t listen to her, Jack. She’s just pushing my buttons,” my mother said, shaking her finger at me. “Always remember to get your warrant first, Detective Quick. And that your evidence can’t be stale. Most important when you’re dealing with the public is to remember that the three words painted on the side of every NYPD patrol car are Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect.”
“It’s only been a little more than a day since Liza saw the theft, Mom. That’s pretty fresh.”
“So are you, Dev. Try courtesy. Jack’s got an exam on Friday,” my mother said. “Tonight’s the one night he can relax with his friends before he goes into a final study lockdown. He’s graciously agreed to come down to see Sergeant Tapply on Monday and go through everything we need to know about the library and the Map Division then.”
“Monday?” I said, doing my best to sound completely exasperated. “It will be time to throw this whole thing over to the Cold Case Squad by then, Mom. The theft will be a week old.”
My mother turned her back on Liza and me and walked Natasha and Jack to the door. I could see her squeeze Natasha’s hand to assure her that she was totally fine with the situation.
“Don’t let it get you down, Liza,” I said. “You were great to recognize this guy tonight. If there’s no break in an investigation, with any important kinds of crime, within the first forty-eight to seventy-two hours, it might as well be treated like ancient history.”
“Well, I appreciate that your mother is taking it seriously enough to have this guy interviewed at the Puzzle Palace on Monday. At least she believes in us.”
“Are you kidding? There’s no time to be wasted. My mom just doesn’t get the urgency of all this. I would hate for this map thief—or any of his cohorts—to become fugitives. By Monday, I expect that you, Booker, and I will have this whole caper solved.”
13
“Are you sure you’re done with your homework?” my mother asked when I pushed back from the dining room table. “Liza still seems to be going at it.”
“We don’t have all the same classes, Mom. I just knocked mine out faster,” I said. “I’m going to read in my bedroom.”
“Have you calmed down?” she asked me, reaching out for a hug. “Want a glass of warm milk to help you sleep?”
“I’m good. I wasn’t really scared or anything.”
“Don’t ever be afraid to admit things frighten you, Dev. That’s the healthy thing to do.”
I hugged her as hard as I could. I hoped that she had someone she could confide in, too. I knew she hid all her fears from me.
I took my laptop to my room and set it up on my bed. I e-mailed a couple of my friends to see what they were doing this week, brought Katie up to speed on the case, told Booker about the run-in with Jack Williams, and then got directly to work.
I created an xmail account in Liza’s name, anticipating that I might be lucky enough to encounter the mysterious BookBeast at some point. Better to use her real name since she had ID to back it up, but I made up all her contact and other personal information. I didn’t want the tall man—PJS, we thought—to have any way to actually find us.
I logged in to the private membership group I had joined the night before: the Latitude Society. I needed to catch up on the latest in exhibitions and news of rare map sightings and sales. I had to master the lingo and likings of the participants.
Not only had I created a new e-mail account for my membership account, but I had picked the perfect username. Most of the obvious ones were taken, like MapGuru and MercatorMiss. I channeled Liza’s South American roots and called myself LatinaCarta, a South American woman who was into maps and charts.
“It’s just me,” Liza said as she opened the door to the bedroom and slipped inside. “Are you online?”
“Yes. I’m reading about the Latitude Society.”
She put down her stack of books and climbed onto her bed.
“So what is it, exactly?”
“The home page describes the organization as a group devoted to the knowledge and preservation of antique maps,” I said. “Let’s see. There’s a fund-raising part of it, to help libraries acquire expensive maps for their collections.”
“Not us,” Liza said.
“Certainly not. We meet twice a year at the NYPL,” I said. “In November and in May.”
“Not helpful.”
“Smaller gatherings are encouraged when there are exhibits of special interest at other institutions. We have a quarterly newsletter, and we are encouraged to post interesting photographs of maps we own or see on kind of an internal Instagram. And bingo,” I said with a burst of enthusiasm, “we blog!”
“Go for it,” Liza said, clapping her hands.
I logged on to the private blog and entered my password. “Whoa,” I said, “these dudes are serious.”
“About what?”
“Wait a second. I’m scrolling down to look for obvious names.”
“Like BookBeast?” Liza said.
“Yeah. Or someone with his same initials, PJS,” I said. “Or maybe even Jack Williams.”
Liza dropped her voice. “Are you also thinking he could be an accomplice in this?”
“Jack was in the library at the same time as the tall man, wasn’t he? And he carries a briefcase,” I said. “We can’t rule him out just because he’s Natasha’s friend.”
“I’m with you on that.”
I was skimming some of the posts as I moved the cursor downward as fast as I could.
“Nothing yet?” Liza asked.
“No familiar names. But it looks like we missed a hot ticket event in Boston last month. Lots of chatter about how rare sea charts are because they weren’t ever kept in libraries centuries ago like bound atlases were. They were used on sailing vessels to actually help captains navigate, so very few of them survived the salt sea spray and the shipwrecks.”
“I didn’t see anything on the sign-in page today about sea charts.”
“I’m moving on from that topic,” I said. “But this is promising. There was a cocktail party at the Vassar College library two weeks ago. Hosted by President Catherine Hill, it says, to display some of the rarest maps in their collection, including a Mercator and an Ortelius, among a lot of others.”
“What’s so promising about that?” Liza asked.
“Remember when the tall man—the thief—beat us to the train at Grand Central Terminal?”
“Of course I do.”
“The last stop on the train that he boarded was Poughkeepsie. That’s the city where Vassar is.”
Liza didn’t bite without thinking. “But we saw him get on that train on Tuesday, two days ago, not two weeks. And there were lots of stops in between Manhattan and Poughkeepsie. It could be just a coincidence.”
“I told you I don’t credit coincidence in my sleuthing, Liza. I also don’t ignore the baby steps it takes to put together a solution to a crime. It’s a straight line from the map room on Fifth Avenue to Track 113 in the terminal to the Vassar College library, where there just happen to be Mercator atlases and other rare maps in the collection.”
Liza was beginning to see the light. She nodded.
“Besides, I have someone to open the door to both libraries, which might catapult us right in to the information we need.”
“Who’s that?”
“My grandmother Louella Atwell. Vassar College, class of 1962.”
“Amazing,” Liza said. “But didn’t you tell me your mother also went to Vassar? She’s sitting right at the dining room table. We could just start by asking her.”
“You’ve got to know your players, Liza,” I said. “If I ask my mother one more question about the library or the map thief, I bet I’ll be grounded for the foreseeable future. No Shakespeare in the Park. No Booker.”
Liza frowned and twirle
d a few strands of her hair.
“My grandmother, on the other hand, she’s the ticket, Liza. Lulu delights in teaching me how to take on the impossible.”
14
“Last chance for milk and cookies,” my mother said, opening the door and sticking her head inside. “Any takers?”
“No, thanks,” I said as Liza shook her head. “We’re good.”
“How about lights-out in ten minutes? Finish up what you’re doing, okay?” She walked over to kiss me good night.
“Deal,” I said.
Then she walked to Liza’s bed and kissed her on both cheeks. “See you in the morning.”
Liza leaned forward to accept the embrace. “Yes, Ms. Quick. Thanks for everything.”
I waited until the door closed and my mother’s footsteps faded as she went down the hallway to her bedroom. Liza turned off her light, put on her pajamas, and slid under the covers.
“How’s this, Liza? There’s a meeting this Saturday at noon for Latitude Society members and their friends—that means you can bring me—at the Brooklyn library.”
“The whole society?”
“No. Let me finish. It’s a display of the sketches by Hernán Cortés from 1524.”
“Cortés,” Liza said, rolling her r as she propped her head up on the palm of her hand. “The conquistador who destroyed Tenochtitlán, the great Aztec capital.”
“Yes. You should see the comments people are posting. This one could be lively. It’s a small exhibition, and it’s really just for people interested in early maps of the Americas.”
“Like me.”
“You bet. LatinaCarta is feeling the need to post something,” I said, rubbing my fingers together. “I can just tell.”
“What are they saying?”
“So what’s on display is this rare book of sketches made by Cortés and his crew. It’s the first map ever made of a North American city.”
“That should be interesting.”
“But then this guy starts ranting; his screen name is Montezuma.”
“The Aztec leader captured and killed by Cortés,” Liza said.
“Yes. So Montezuma writes in all caps, like he’s screaming at the rest of us. He says it’s not only the first map of Tenochtitlán, but it’s also the last map. That after Cortés sketched the magnificent city, he burned it to the ground.”
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