“Did you reply to him? I mean, did I?”
“Just a blast back to the crowd,” I said. “What I wrote was ‘Remember the Champlain! Remember Harvard Yard! Let’s hope there is no similar revenge of Montezuma!’”
“I get the point that you’re trying to start some controversy, Dev. But why do you think Blodgett’s punches have anything to do with the library?”
“They’ve just got to, Liza. The rare map business is so high stakes, as we’re finding out more and more every day. The fact that he assaulted someone just outside a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition is most likely because tempers flared and there was an argument. We just have to find out what that was about.”
“But how?”
“Put it out of your mind for now,” I said, powering down my laptop.
“But it makes me nervous, Dev, if you don’t even know how we’re going to handle this tomorrow.”
“I have to sleep on it, Liza. I just don’t have an answer for you right at this moment.”
And to tell you the truth, that made me nervous, too.
24
My mother came in at the crack of dawn to kiss me good-bye and make sure my alarm was set. At seven thirty, when it rang, Liza and I dressed for the day. I put on a turquoise polo shirt for the exhibition, figuring my jeans and sneakers would be necessary if we developed any good leads.
Booker came by at eight forty-five in a yellow cab to pick up Liza. She was so excited about her outing with him that I was afraid all the adrenaline she’d need to investigate at the Brooklyn Central Library would be used up sitting courtside.
“When and where do we meet up?” he asked.
“Let’s say Eighty-Sixth Street and Lexington Avenue at eleven fifteen,” I said. “The exhibition opens at noon, and I’ve mapped out the subway route.”
“Cool,” Booker said. “Swim fast.”
I was so wired that I practically ran to the Ditch. I stopped in front of Miss Wilhelmina to do my curtsy. She had given me such a leg up by instilling in me the We Learn, We Lead motto that I believed in its power even more with the events of this week.
The pool was in the basement of the school. The intense humidity enveloped me as soon as I opened the door and went into the locker room.
“Hey, Dev,” one of my teammates said. “Good to see you. Are you doing summer school?”
This was our first practice since the end of the last semester’s exam period.
“Yeah. It’s been kind of interesting, actually.”
I slipped into my racing suit—a kind of nauseating shade of bubble-gum pink, since pink and gray were the Ditchley colors.
“I am, like, so glad my mother didn’t make me do it,” Kelly said. “I’m just getting to hang out and have fun for a change. No school, no books. It’s like I don’t do anything at all every day.”
Kelly did a mean backstroke, but she didn’t seem to care about her schoolwork. I didn’t think I could live without books. “Sounds good, Kelly.”
There were at least a dozen girls warming up in the pool by the time I got to the end of one of the lanes.
“Jump in and get going,” the coach said to me, waving her arm. “Glad you’re here, Dev.”
The water was a brisk seventy-eight degrees, and it actually felt good to be in it. I did about ten laps before the coach blew her whistle and called us all out to the end of the pool.
We spent the first half hour exercising, which was a routine I had let slip during this investigation. We weren’t allowed to do serious weights yet, because of our ages, but we did all our standing moves with five-pounders.
I hated push-ups, which came next—fifty of them today—but they were also essential to building the upper-arm strength so necessary to swimmers.
“Let’s try a few heats, ladies,” the coach said. “Breaststroke first for a change. I’ll mix the order up today.”
I sat with my knees drawn up against me, my arms wrapped around my legs, and my chin resting on top. All I could think about was stolen maps, which was not what I needed to focus on right now.
Kelly dominated the next round of swimmers with her backstroke. She realized she was a cool girl and she carried herself like a champion. I’d never know how to do that.
“Four of you for freestyle,” the coach boomed in her loudest voice. “Stop dreaming, Dev. Lane one for you.”
Next to the green chair in Miss Shorey’s library, the pool was the happiest spot in school for me. I was part of a team, but once I had my face in the water and set my own pace, I took off like a jet plane and was totally in a zone of my own.
“Get in your places, ladies,” the coach said. “I want to see you explode out of the starting blocks, okay?”
I stepped up and positioned my feet, the left on the edge of the block and the right one behind me.
“Stand tall, ladies,” she said. “You, too, Dev. You’re a skinny twig now, aren’t you? It’s all going into your height.”
I leaned over, my hands touching the front of the block. The coach barked out the words. “On your marks, get set—GO!”
I dove in, stretching my arms out in front of me and tucking my head in the water. Most of the time at swim meets, my teammates stood on the side of the pool, winding their arms around like windmills, urging one another on by screaming “Faster! Faster! Faster!” and “Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!”
For me, they had come up with a special incentive. I liked swimming, in part because I couldn’t hear the cheering—or jeering—when my head was in the water. I just motored on and did what I was able to do, swimming for my own personal best.
But when I kicked off the wall and came up for air, I could always hear the chant that emphasized my name to motivate me: “Quick-er! Quick-er! Quick-er!” And most days I responded to it.
I was the third swimmer to touch the wall. I threw my head back and ripped off my cap. “Sorry, Coach,” I said, after congratulating the girls who beat me.
“What’s up, Dev? Have you lost your concentration?” she asked.
“Temporary thing, Coach,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’ll have it back by next week.”
“Everything okay? You seem to be somewhere else.”
“I’m fine, thanks. I just have a lot on my mind.”
I was totally somewhere else—on the number 4 train, trying to remember where I could make the transfer to the 2 or 3.
I went back into the locker room to shower and dress. I checked my phone for messages and e-mails but there were none. I said my good-byes and went out into the sunlight—another hot day—and walked west to the Eighty-Sixth Street station.
Booker and Liza were waiting for me, and we jogged down the long staircases to the subway platform together.
“Did Liza fill you in?” I asked. “Real Time Crime and all that?”
“I’m up to speed, Dev,” Booker said. “Have you got a plan?”
“I’m figuring that Walter Blodgett is likely to be there,” I said. “He’s been in New York all week—we saw him on Thursday afternoon—and his answering machine says he’ll be away from his shop till Monday. I can’t believe he’d have this opportunity to see something as rare as Cortés’s 1524 map without staying on in New York.”
“And Preston Savage?” Liza asked.
“He’s a bit more of a wild card. No job, no car, no home that we know of. It’s just in my gut that he has something to do with this,” I said. “And Sam says it’s a really basic rule of policing that you go with your gut.”
They both nodded in agreement.
“Blodgett’s your job for the day, Booker,” I said, forwarding to him the photo I took of his mug shot on the giant screen over Richie Marcus’s desk. “If we see him, it’ll be your assignment to try to chat him up.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Because you’ve got that maturity thing going on, like I told you,” I said. “He’ll take you more seriously than he will either one of us.”
“Got it.”
“And you can ask him about the night at Harvard,” Liza said. “About why he hit a man, and who it was.”
“Now, how am I supposed to know that he assaulted someone?” Booker asked. “That charge was dismissed.”
“Good point,” I said. “Well, we know from the Latitude newsletter that he was there. That’s how you can get into the subject.”
“How about me?” Liza asked
“Keep an eye out for Natasha’s friend Jack Williams,” I said. “He’s supposed to be studying the famous Manhattan grid. If he shows up here, it might be he’s connected to the thief or thieves.”
“Poor Natasha,” Liza said. “I’d hate for that to be the case.”
“We have to go where the evidence leads us, Liza,” I said, echoing another Sam Cody mantra.
“What about you, Dev?” Booker asked.
“I’ll be looking for the tall man. I’m pretty certain he’s Preston Savage,” I said. “We don’t have a photograph of him, but I know exactly what he looks like. It was only five days ago that we chased him all the way through Grand Central.”
“What will you do if you see him?” Booker asked again.
“Well, if he’s really such a scholar as Ms. Bland thinks, and he’s really such a friend of the library as Lulu believes, he’ll behave like a gentleman. He doesn’t have any record of violence,” I said. “I just want to talk to him. Confront him with what Liza saw him do, as long as you guys are nearby to back me up.”
The subway car pulled into the station, and we got on when the doors opened.
Liza grabbed the pole in the middle of the car and clung to it with both hands like her life depended on it. “What if I’m wrong about what I saw, Dev?”
“This is a fine time to come up with that idea. Backbone, Liza. That’s all you need.”
“So I’ve got Blodgett and you’ve got the tall man,” Booker said.
“And if I don’t happen to see Jack Williams, which one of you should I be hanging out with?” Liza asked.
“I’ll leave that choice up to you,” I said. “You can shadow Booker.”
I saw a glimmer of a smile on Liza’s face.
“Or if you want to face off with the map thief you identified all by yourself, you’re welcome to work with me.”
Liza de Lucena looked from Booker’s face to mine. “I’ve been in your hands since the first minutes after the crime,” she said. “And you’re the only person who never questioned what I told you, Dev.”
She hesitated before she spoke again. “I’m in this with you all the way. I’d like to be your partner till we make a collar,” she said.
“Sounds like you not only picked up some clues in the Puzzle Palace,” I said, “but some cop talk as well.”
Liza lifted her head up and flashed me a smile. We had really become partners in crime.
25
We transferred to the number 3 train at Nevins Street and reached Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza shortly before noon.
My phone was ringing as we reached the sidewalk. “Hello?”
“Devlin Quick?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“I’m one of the librarians at Vassar College. President Hill asked me to call your grandmother with some information about an event we held a few weeks ago. Her housekeeper said Mrs. Atwell was out of town but she would pass me through to you.”
I stopped in my tracks. “That’s so kind of you.”
Booker and Liza flanked me on either side and waited for me while I talked.
“You wanted the list of names of the attendees, am I right?”
“You are.”
“If you give me a fax number, I’ll send them along.”
“It’s sort of urgent, ma’am. If you don’t mind, we know it’s a short list—would you just read them out to me?”
The librarian went through the alums and donors who’d been at the launch party for the Ortelius and Mercator showing. There were only sixteen names, and not one of them was familiar to me.
“How about Walter Blodgett?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know him,” she said. “Was he supposed to attend?”
“I—I don’t know. My grandmother was hoping he had,” I said. “And Preston Savage isn’t on your list, either, is he?”
The librarian didn’t speak for thirty seconds.
“No … but … No, he’s not.”
“What’s the ‘but’ about? Do you know Mr. Savage?”
“I do know him, as a matter of fact. He used to teach here, for a brief period of time,” she said. “May I ask, Ms. Quick, how old you are?”
I cleared my throat and tried to deepen the tenor of my voice. “Old enough,” I said, “to be assisting my grandmother with her affairs, madam. She’s keenly interested in your library, and in the goings-on of Preston Savage.”
“Perhaps I should clear this with President Hill before I discuss it with you,” the librarian said.
“Discuss what?” I said, imitating Lulu at her sternest. “You should let me be the judge of what’s relevant in this matter. My grandmother does.”
The librarian didn’t resist for very long. “Preston Savage did not attend the Mercator-Ortelius event that evening in early June,” she said. “But he was here in the library at the very same time.”
“He was? And how do you know that?”
“Because I helped him out, Ms. Quick, while all the others were at the reception.”
“What did you do, exactly?” I asked.
“He wanted a carrel, he told me, in which to do some research.”
“A carrel? What’s that?”
“They’re small desks, partitioned off from the rest of the room, or study cubbies in libraries, like college libraries in particular,” she answered. “And I guess you’re not quite as old as I thought if you’ve never worked in one.”
“Busted,” I said to Liza and Booker, covering the mouthpiece of my phone. “And by a librarian, no less.”
“Why did Mr. Savage want a carrel?”
Why didn’t he want to be at the important exhibition, and why did he need a private space in which to make his observations?
“There was a book he wanted to see, Ms. Quick. That’s my job, you understand.”
“According to my grandmother,” I said, opting for the softer touch, “Mr. Savage is a great friend of the New York Public Library. He has access to their collection, too, so I get it completely.”
Booker nodded to me. “Lure it out of her,” he said. “Well done.”
“That’s why I gave him what he asked for, Ms. Quick.”
“Of course,” I said. “And do you recall what book that might have been?”
“Certainly,” she said. “It was one of our rarest volumes. John Smith’s 1625 Atlas of Virginia.”
“Thank you for your candor, madam. And would you mind a piece of advice from a young person—well, a kid, actually—like me?”
“I’d welcome it.”
“I’d suggest you locate that book right now and secure it in a very safe place.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “You make it sound quite sinister.”
“I don’t mean to do that at all,” I said. “It’s just that the Major Case Squad of the New York Police Department might need to take a look at it next week. The atlas might contain evidence of a crime.”
26
“You scored some useful information about Preston Savage,” Booker said. “He was at Vassar—at the very time of the party for the Ortelius-Mercator exhibition—but he didn’t attend it. I wonder why not.”
We were walking across the plaza toward the rear of the Brooklyn Central Library, which resembled the spine of a giant book.
“And he might have been at Harvard for the Champlain display,” Booker said, “but didn’t go to the opening night reception. What’s up with that?”
I was trying to make sense of Preston Savage’s actions, to find a pattern in his behavior, if there was one to discover. “We should kn
ow soon enough.”
We walked around to the front of the building, on Eastern Parkway, and Liza stood still at the base of the library steps, looking up at the impressive structure before us. “It’s—well, it is a book, isn’t it?”
None of us had ever visited here before. The huge limestone building—at least fifty feet tall—was in fact built in the shape of an open book, and above the entrance there were more than a dozen bronze panels with golden figures in each of them—figures representing beloved characters from American literature.
For a moment, each of us forgot the purpose of our visit, transfixed by the images above our heads.
“There’s Hiawatha,” Booker said, “and White Fang.”
Liza picked out Moby Dick, the Raven, and Rip Van Winkle.
I was whisked back to childhood by the gilded image of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod—fishermen three—sailing off in a wooden shoe. Then I recognized Louisa May Alcott’s Meg, who was one of my favorite fictional friends.
“Time for enjoying all this later,” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”
People of all ages were pouring in and out of the library as we entered the building. There was an information booth in the center of the lobby, and I approached it to ask about the Latitude Society meeting. We were directed to a room on the second floor.
I suggested to Booker that we enter separately, so Liza and I approached the conference room first. There was a volunteer at the door—a woman who appeared to be older than my mother—who had a clipboard with a list of names.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “Are you members of the society?”
Liza was our mouthpiece. “No, not exactly. But my mother is, and we’re supposed to meet her here.”
“What’s the name?”
“De Lucena. Liza de Lucena.”
“I see it here. Plus one.”
“That’s me.”
“So that would make three of you?” the volunteer asked.
“Yes, but—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head at Liza, “but we’ve had to limit the numbers because of the response we got to the reception. Two people per ticket. Why don’t you wait for your mother—perhaps in the Youth Wing downstairs—and come back when she gets here?”
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