Down

by Kirsten Weiss

  “Lawyers are all vultures. Now get out of here and stop bothering us.”

  A swiftly moving shadow passed above our heads, and I glanced up, half expecting to see my turkey vulture. But it was only an airplane.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” I said. “I miss Mike too.”

  She deflated. “Mike was an idiot, getting himself killed.”

  “Getting himself?” Beads of sweat formed on my arms and chest. “Do you think someone killed him?”

  “Of course someone killed him. Do you think he just fell off a ladder and died? He was nimble as a squirrel and always sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “Do you know who hurt him?” I asked too loudly.

  She leaned closer, stale coffee on her breath. “The government,” she whispered. “It’s a conspiracy. That’s why the FBI was here yesterday, trying to figure out what I knew. But I’m too smart for them. I didn’t tell that agent anything.” She jabbed me in the chest. “And you’d better not say anything either, if you know what’s good for you.”

  I rubbed my chest. Dammit, did I have a target there? This is what I got for questioning a schizophrenic. But Alba had lived next door to Mike for decades. Maybe there was some mindfulness in her madness. I said a silent prayer for patience. “Why would the government be after Mike?”

  “They’ve lulled us into a dream – all this technology and television hypnosis has stopped us from feeling the truth.” Her words were a hiss, and I swallowed, my mouth dry.

  “What’s the truth?” I asked.

  “None of this is real. Mike knew. He was trying to fight it. I was helping.”

  “How?”

  “By telling everyone!” She thrust a bony finger toward her front porch. Her sandwich board lay at an angle against the railing.

  “How did Mike find out?”

  She tossed her lank, gray hair. “He listened to me.”

  “I thought the FBI agent was asking you about that man who was killed the other day – Mr. Van Oss, the bookdealer.”

  Her suntanned face twisted in a sneer. “He was no bookdealer. He was a common criminal.”

  “Oh?” Did she really know something? Or was I clutching at slippery straws?

  Turning, she marched into her yard and struggled into her sandwich board. “Don’t trust the government!” She stomped down the steep road, the board banging against her knees.

  Unsettled, I collected my things. The ledger had fallen open, wrong-side down on its spine. Dirt specked its creased yellowing pages. I brushed them off and trotted up the steps to Mike’s house.

  Stepping into the high-ceilinged foyer, I locked the door behind me. Slices of color, light filtering through the stained glass, painted the rug and hardwood floor.

  The temperature plummeted.

  My breath ghosted the air, and I rubbed my arms. The scent of Mike’s cherry pipe tobacco thickened.

  “Mike?”

  I stood for a long moment, my head cocked, listening. Hearing and seeing nothing, I continued into the library and the secret room. The lights flicked on automatically. I closed that door behind me too, my skin pebbling in the air conditioning.

  In front of the three-piece desk sat a cane-backed, rolling wooden chair. Determined to conduct a thorough autopsy of the desk, I sat and scooted closer. Mike would keep the most important things, the items he consulted the most, in easy reach. So I started with the closest drawers and worked my way outward.

  In the top right-hand drawer was an old-fashioned card file. I flipped through it – contact names and numbers and notes. I sighed. Jerry Pringle – dealer. Arnaud Lecroix – collector. These were his fellow bookdealers.

  Digging my cell phone from my pocket, I started calling.

  My approach was simple – Mike had passed, and I had inherited his book collection. I was looking to sell – could they recommend an appraiser? And what about Heath Van Oss?

  My approach turned out to be a little too successful. If I’d doubted the value of Mike’s collection before, my doubts were erased now. Every dealer I called offered to appraise and buy the books. One man offered to buy the entire collection sight unseen. He named a price I would have considered extravagant before learning about the mysterious million-dollar volume. None had heard of Van Oss.

  To one dealer, who’d expressed the most regret over Mike’s passing, I confessed. “There are three books in particular I’m concerned about getting a proper valuation.”

  The man’s chuckle was dry. “And you quite rightly don’t trust any of Mike’s fellow bookdealers. If you believe you have anything truly precious, then I suggest using an auction house. Let the market’s demand determine the price.”

  “May I tell you about the books?”

  “Of course.” Another chuckle. “I’ve only been restraining myself from asking for details out of respect. He told me about you, you know.”

  My breath hitched. “He did?”

  “He said you were too intelligent to be a mere bookseller, but you undervalued your worth. I believe he’d hoped he could bring you into his world of rare books. I suppose he has now.”

  “I suppose he has,” I repeated sadly.

  “Are you certain you simply want to sell it all? The book world needs more honest dealers like Mike.”

  “Right now, I’m not sure about anything.” I braced my elbow on the desk. “His death, inheriting his business, has been such a shock.”

  “Then take your time. Mike’s collection won’t become any less rare. Now tell me about these three books you’re concerned about.”

  I consulted the ledger. “A third edition set of The Golden Bough, a first edition of De Praestigiis et Incantationibus Daemonum et Necromanticorum – I’m not sure about the pronunciation. Sorry. But it’s by Richard Argentine, and an illustrated William Blake – Songs of Innocence and of Experience. There’s no note on the edition number here, only that it was printed in 1794.”

  There was a long silence. Then, “Good Lord.”

  “Do you recognize them?” I leaned forward. Roughly shifting aside a pile of receipts, I braced my elbows on the desk.

  “Your Golden Bough – I presume it’s the entire thirteen-book set?”

  “Yes,” I said, my excitement rising. “Is it valuable?”

  “Not as much as you may be hoping. Its retail value is somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, depending on its condition. Your demonology book is a bit more challenging, but let’s say around three thousand dollars. Again, it depends on the condition of the volume. It’s the Blake I’m interested in. You said it was from 1794, and it’s the Songs of Innocence and of Experience?”

  “Yes. I’m going by Mike’s notes on the date.”

  “How much do you know about William Blake?”

  “He was a British poet who had visions,” I said, thinking hard. “He wrote what his voices guided him to. Blake was a painter as well. He self-published his illustrated poems, creating the engraving plates, hand tinting the colors...” I went cold. “Wait. You don’t think...?”

  “I couldn’t possibly say without examining the actual book. After Blake’s death, unscrupulous dealers bound together mismatched copies of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. They pawned them off as one of Blake’s original bindings.”

  “Didn’t Blake die in the early eighteen hundreds?”

  “Yes. If you have a 1794 copy, one he’d bound himself, well, it would be quite remarkable. So remarkable, I have a hard time believing it.”

  I swallowed. “Then this could be one of Blake’s original, handmade works?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I can’t imagine Mike getting his hands on a find like that. The discovery of an original William Blake... Well, that’s about as unlikely as the discovery of an unknown Van Gogh. It’s most likely Mike found a reproduction, but even a well-made reproduction can have value.”

  But the auction house had authenticated one of the books, and said the bidding
would begin at a million dollars. Could the Blake be it? Had Mike found an undiscovered original volume by William Blake? Good Lord indeed.

  He chuckled. “Don’t get yourself worked up, my dear. It’s likely a fraud.”

  “Right.” My mouth was dry, and I swallowed again. “There’s another book in Mike’s collection that’s giving me some trouble. It’s called The Folk and Fairy Tales of the Americas, by Ichabod Langley. Have you heard of it?”

  “Not a whisper, but folk tales aren’t my specialty.”

  Head cocked, I stared at the glass-fronted bookcases. “According to you, neither is William Blake, but you seem to know a lot about it.”

  “Ah, well. Bookdealers.”

  “Have you heard of a bookdealer named Heath Van Oss?”

  “Van Oss?” His voice sharpened. “He’s no bookdealer. If he’s sniffing around, keep Mike’s books locked up tight.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What do you know?”

  He blew out a heavy breath. “Know? Nothing. Suspect? Everything. I was involved in a bidding war for a rather nice library of books of magic—”

  “Magic?” My pulse quickened.

  “Not real magic, of course. Stage magicians, magic tricks. That’s how Mike and I became acquainted. Occasionally, our interests overlapped, but not so often that we were true competitors. I specialize in books and ephemera about stage magic, and he in the occult. We helped each other out when we found books that might work in the other’s collection. At any rate, I had a buyer lined up – a wealthy one – and money was no object. Van Oss represented the other bidder.”

  “Who was the bidder?” My hand tightened on the phone.

  “It was all anonymous. We bookdealers like to keep our secrets. It makes us more important. At any rate, all was going well, and I had the deal sewn up. And then someone broke into the house and stole the most valuable pieces.”

  “And you think Van Oss was responsible?”

  “I could never prove it, but there was something about the man I didn’t like. When I called my friends in the industry, no one knew a thing about the man. It was as if he didn’t exist. Is he bothering you?”

  “No,” I said. “But he was here, and now he’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Someone killed him.”

  “Not Mike?”

  “No, Mike passed away a week earlier.”

  The air conditioning clicked on and hummed, a low drone. A strand of my hair whipped my cheek and stuck to the corner of my mouth. I scraped it free.

  “Miss Bonheim, this sounds very suspicious. First Mike’s death, and now the murder of Van Oss? It is a murder, isn’t it? Not a simple accident?”

  “No, it was murder.”

  “Then I strongly advise you to take care. The book world may seem dull, but where there’s money, there are always people willing to kill.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I returned the card file to the drawer in Mike’s fold-up desk and studied the mass of cubbies. Untidy bits of paper and envelopes stuck from every one. I forced myself to continue my circuit of the Wooton desk and work my way outward.

  File folders filled a bottom drawer. I pulled them out – tax information. A travel magazine from Canada. A folder marked HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. Doc Toeller was its president. Had Mike been a member?

  Outside the room, something creaked. I glanced at the door, still shut fast.

  I flipped through the file. Faded brochures from the sixties on Doyle’s history. A page torn from a yellow pad headed, BELL AND THISTLE.

  I stilled. There was no date on the yellow sheet, so no way to know if he’d written this before or after the pub had disappeared. The page consisted of bullet points:

  - Opened 1855

  - Sold to Patrick Doyle, 1887

  - 1920: Town boundaries shift – it becomes part of Arcadia Twshp

  - 1920: Prohibition – becomes a restaurant

  - 1921 - Doyle renegotiates town bndries. B & T becomes an “island” of Doyle inside Arcadia. Fy influence? Pwr ltd to Doyle?

  The air conditioner hummed.

  Fy influence – that had to be fairy influence, right? I grimaced. Once again, I was jumping to conclusions. Mike couldn’t have known about the fairy. But I gnawed my bottom lip. Or could he have? He’d been interested in the occult enough to build a respectable library on the topic. And fairies had played a supernatural role in human history since we began recording it.

  Mike didn’t have a bullet point for the date of the disappearance of the Bell and Thistle. If he’d made this list after it had vanished, he’d have included it, wouldn’t he? It was the most interesting part of the pub’s history, aside from the boundary change which returned it to Doyle.

  I stared at another entry, Pwr ltd to Doyle? The fairy’s power limited to Doyle?

  That was the question. I wiped my palms on my linen shorts. I wanted to believe it, but I wasn’t quite ready to. Surely the doctor had traveled outside the town at some point in her life. She had to leave Doyle to reach the Bell and Thistle, and we’d seen her at that pub. Karin was certain leaving Doyle wouldn’t free us from her curse. But could other aspects of her power be somehow limited outside the town’s boundaries?

  I rose and paced the small octagonal room. If Mike had known the truth...

  I paused and scanned the glassed bookcases. Were there answers on these shelves?

  Something creaked outside the room, and my pulse accelerated. Old houses made noises. It could be nothing. But someone had broken in before.

  I pressed my ear to the hidden door.

  Above, a careful footstep.

  Someone was in the house.

  I grabbed my phone and inched open the hidden door.

  Voices murmured upstairs – male and female.

  I stiffened. Peter and Gretel, damn them. They weren’t supposed to be in here.

  I took the winding steps two at a time and emerged on the upstairs landing, my chest heaving. The hallway’s wine-colored carpet was threadbare. Sepia photos of old Doyle lined the walls – wooden buildings and men in rough clothing and horse-drawn carriages.

  Peter emerged from a room, his fists clenched. His hands loosened when he saw me. “Lenore? What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  His mouth worked silently, thought processes grinding forward. “I asked you first,” he finally said.

  “I’m inventorying Mike’s library. Why are you here, Peter?”

  Gretel emerged from another room. A gold pocket watch dangled from her delicate hand. “What’s...?” Her eyes narrowed. “You! I should have guessed you’d be here.”

  “I’m supposed to be here,” I said. “You’re not.”

  She stepped closer to me, her neck cording. “How dare you. We were his family! This is our house.”

  “Yes, and it was also Mike’s place of business. He ran his rare book business from here. The lawyer wants–”

  “The lawyer is flat on his back in the hospital.” Gretel jammed the watch into the pocket of her cargo shorts, and I’d no doubt she’d taken it from the room she’d just left. I’d never seen Mike wear the gold watch, but it had to be his. In the brief glimpse I’d gotten, it was likely an antique. But the watch belonged to them now, even if they weren’t supposed to be here, so I said nothing.

  “We’re petitioning for Mike’s other executor to take over,” Gretel continued.

  “Other executor?” I asked.

  Peter cleared his throat. “That would be me.”

  “Oh.” I blinked. Crap. “You’re the executor now?”

  He glanced apologetically at his wife. “Not yet. It’s not official. Mr. Pivens feels–”

  “It doesn’t matter what he feels,” Gretel said. “What matters is he can’t do his job.”

  “But I thought he was getting better,” I said. “He’s been sending me emails, checking with auction houses.”

  “He’s an old man,” Peter said gently.

&nbs
p; “And you need to leave,” Gretel said.

  My jaw tightened. “No. I won’t.” I was tired of getting interrupted and ignored and pushed around.

  “I said, get out!” she shrieked.

  “Gretel.” Peter placed a hand on her arm. “She’s right. Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. Let’s go.” He tugged her down the stairs.

  Swearing, she followed.

  The front door slammed.

  I exhaled a shaky breath. Of all the places to make a stand, this had to have been the stupidest. Peter and Gretel had always been grasping, but I think Peter, at least, had cared for Mike. I should have stayed more calm.

  I glanced into the upstairs rooms. They didn’t seem to be disturbed, so I returned downstairs. I jiggled the handle to the front door, making sure Peter and Gretel had locked it behind them, then walked to the hidden room.

  At the desk, I sat in the cane-backed rolling chair and rifled through the remaining papers in the file. An organizational chart of the Historical Association dated this year. Doc Toeller, Sheriff McCourt, Steve Woodley, and other local luminaries were on the board.

  And that was the last paper in the file. I flipped it over. In one corner of the page, Mike had drawn a spider web. A tiny fly was trapped in its center. I flipped the paper over, dropping it on the desk. It slipped to the floor.

  Shaking myself, I bent to retrieve it. I was seeing omens everywhere. It was just a stupid drawing.

  I flipped through the Canada travel magazine. It looked like it had been swiped from an airplane. An article on Anne of Green Gables and Prince Edward Island. As a child, I’d loved those books, and I paused to read the article. The island had seemed magical in the books, and the travel photos had me drooling. Maybe someday... I flipped the page.

  A VILLAGE VANISHES: THE ANJIKUNI MYSTERY

  Located along the Kazan River, the Anjikuni region is littered with legends of malevolent spirits and malignant monsters. The most controversial of these tales is of the thirty disappearing villagers who lived beside Anjikuni Lake.

  On a frigid night in November, 1930, a trapper named Joe Labelle trudged into the lakeside Inuit village seeking shelter. But when he shouted a halloo, he was met with a wall of silence.