Read or Alive

by Nora Page

  Cleo blushed.

  Henry came around the table to give her a peck on the cheek. “Do you have any good news? Clues? Suspects?”

  “I do have something new,” Cleo said. “Mary-Rose and I visited your psychic neighbor.”

  Henry chuckled. “I bet that was fun.”

  Under the table, Mr. Chaucer awoke with a snuffle. His big eyes blinked several times before he recognized Cleo and his curlicue tail wagged.

  “Chaucy will be demanding a walk,” Henry said, as Mr. Chaucer yawned, looking more inclined to demand another nap. “I need to stretch my legs too.” His books were safely locked in their cabinets. He asked the woman a few stands up to watch over them. She nodded in sleepiness as much as agreement.

  They ambled slowly, at drowsy pug pace. “I’m sorry I missed the visit to Madame’s cottage,” Henry said. “I’ve only been inside once, another case of misdelivered mail. I went in and a ghostly voice ordered me to sit at that table. You bet I did what I was told. The voice kept on saying to sit, so I kept on sitting. Finally, I realized the words were on repeat. She’d left a recording on.”

  Cleo could picture the scene and Henry dutifully following orders. “She has an impressive electronic surveillance system hidden behind curtains.” Cleo described the “apprentice” teens and video cameras. “Gabby found the camera pointed at the alley—it’s as tiny as an eyeball. Gabby’s hopeful that they can get a warrant to search the property and collect any recordings.”

  Henry thumped his forehead. “I should have known she monitors that alley. She basically told me a while back. She was having trouble with raccoons tipping her trash cans. She said she sees every move they make. I thought she meant she was using her special powers.”

  “Oh, they’re special powers, just not psychic.”

  “This is a wonderful development,” Henry exclaimed. “The video will show the killer. It’ll prove that neither Dot nor I was there.”

  Cleo had initially felt the same rush of optimism. “Yes,” she said.

  “What?” Henry asked.

  Cleo didn’t want to be a pessimist, but something didn’t feel right. “Madame Romanov didn’t come forward about her video monitoring. Why?”

  Henry nodded slowly. “She doesn’t want her seeing technique revealed? She’s afraid? Of the killer?”

  “Or afraid of the police,” Cleo speculated, getting a shocked gasp from Henry. Cleo told him about the empty spot on Madame’s bookshelf and how Madame had seemed to know Hunter Fox’s name. “Or,” she ended in a brighter tone, “she simply forgot to say anything, and the video’s right where it should be, with the killer’s face as clear as a sunny day.” She reached out and squeezed Henry’s hand.

  He squeezed back. “I’ll hope for the best.”

  Cleo would too, but she’d keep sleuthing out the worst.

  Their stroll was nearing the end of the row of bookstalls. Buddy’s red-and-white-checkered tablecloth was a bright flash of color. At the next stand, Kitty Peavey was waving around her feather duster. She’d been busy chatting when Cleo came in, and Cleo had been glad. She was hoping Kitty would forget about getting her manicured fingers on the library’s copy of Into the Waves.

  Henry stopped to talk with Buddy.

  “Slow afternoon,” Buddy chuckled. “Makes me want to pack up and go fishing.”

  Henry agreed. “Me too, and I don’t even know how to fish.”

  Cleo took the opportunity of their small talk to peruse Buddy’s offerings. He had some copies of Gone With the Wind, she noted, simple reading copies in good condition.

  “I can’t say this fair’s a bust, though,” Buddy said, turning his attention to Cleo and his inventory. “I picked up some items I wouldn’t mind keeping for myself if it comes to that.” He pointed to a book on fishing lures and fly ties.

  Cleo looked at it with interest, thinking it might be just the book to cure her insomnia.

  “And this …” Buddy said, grinning like a kid playing hooky. He reached under his table and drew out a clear plastic folder. “I’m not putting it out, because it’s too good for the likes of me. I’m only showing folks who might appreciate it. If no one bites here, I’ll put it up in an auction.” Buddy’s cheeks were red, his voice excited. “I got a by-golly deal, and from Hunter Fox too.” He added quickly, “May he rest in peace.”

  Henry and Cleo leaned in as Buddy waved his thick hand over the folder, palm up like a game-show hostess in overalls. In awed tones, he said, “A letter from James Oglethorpe to some English lord dude. Gander at that date: 1738!”

  Henry studied the page, making appreciative murmurs.

  Cleo wished her twin grandsons could see this. The boys had recently done a middle-school project on James Oglethorpe, founder of the English colony of Georgia. He’d been a humanitarian beyond his time, with dreams of reforming prisons, aiding the poor, and keeping Georgia free for all. Cleo bent close to Henry, cheek to fluffy beard. She thought of the man, so long ago, sitting at a desk, simply writing a letter. And here she was, within nose length of a page he’d touched.

  “My!” Cleo said. “How exciting!”

  Buddy grinned. “I know, right? I can hardly believe it. I mean, it cost a mint, by my standards. But it’s worth it. I think I can make two thousand back, more than twice what I paid.”

  “Hunter found this?” Cleo asked. “I wonder where?”

  “Old box of junk, sitting around an attic. It’s in out-of-the-way towns like this where treasures can still be found, Hunter said, and he was right about that.” Buddy glowed with pride.

  “Congratulations,” Cleo said. Good news was something to celebrate, and she was more than ready to cheer it.

  “Ahhh.” Henry had picked up the clear folder and was holding it up to the light.

  “What?” Buddy’s smile froze. “Aw, don’t tell me. If it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear.”

  Cleo didn’t want to hear either.

  Henry turned the page, eyeing it from both sides. “Could we examine it?” he asked. “I have gloves at my stand.”

  “I have gloves!” Kitty Peavey swooped over. “Couldn’t help but overhear you mention Hunter. Poor Hunt. Rest assured, Mr. Boone, that man would never sell you something for less than it was worth. Always the other way around, with him. So clever.” She sniffed dramatically before retrieving a pair of blue gloves as thin as air.

  Henry tugged them on, with only one finger poking a hole out. He carefully removed the letter and placed it on the clear sheet.

  “What are you looking for?” Buddy asked. “The paper seems right—old and dingy. I figured that was good.”

  “The paper looks fine. It’s the pressure of the signature,” Henry said. “A forger—”

  Kitty sucked in air. “Hush! Don’t say that awful word around here!”

  Henry continued on evenly, “Sometimes a signature doesn’t match the text. Say, there’s a letter from the same general time period with no signature or one that’s been removed or cut out. A forger can use the space to add a famous signature. Signing a single name is easier than forging an entire document, like a letter.”

  He ran a finger at the bottom of the page and then behind it. “The page doesn’t appear to be torn recently. But the indentation of the signature, the impression made by the pen … You can see how it’s different from that behind the letter text. I wouldn’t swear by it, without analysis of authenticated Oglethorpe writings, but I’d say that the letter and signature are by two different people.”

  “The signer probably isn’t Oglethorpe?” Cleo said, disappointed for Buddy’s sake and let down too. She’d wanted it to be real.

  Buddy’s shoulders slumped. “Shoot! Good thing I didn’t pay what I thought it was worth. Still … shucks!”

  “I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I truly am. I’d have loved to buy this myself. I saw a similar item up for auction last autumn, but it was beyond my means. It’s why the handwriting in the letter gave me pause. It seemed different from th
e document I’d seen. But, again, you should take it to an expert. I know a museum archivist who could help. We’ve worked together before authenticating—or deauthenticating—pieces.”

  Kitty gave a disapproving huff and muttered something about “meddling.”

  Buddy shook his head. “I believe you. Guess I will be keeping this for myself after all.”

  “Win some, lose some,” Kitty said with a shrug. Then she smiled. “I guess Hunt won after all.”

  “Unless someone tricked him first,” Cleo pointed out.

  “No,” Kitty said scornfully. “You think someone around here happened to have a fine forgery sitting around her attic, just waiting for a gullible book scout to come by?” Kitty countered. She laughed, theatrically clutching at her chest. “Oh, or a master forger is living here in little old Catalpa Springs? Ha! Hunt always knew what he had. He could tell a cheat at a thousand paces.”

  Because he was one, Cleo thought.

  Kitty touched her stiff blonde waves. “Good thing I know my Margaret Mitchell signature is authentic. No question there!”

  Cleo couldn’t help herself from taking the bait. “I thought you said we were only imagining that signed Gone With the Wind.”

  Kitty beamed. “That’s right, imagining sure builds excitement, doesn’t it? I’ll have buyers eating out of my hand by the end of the fair, lining up to buy it. You keep thinking of our deal too, Miss Cleo! I’ll even raise my offer. Two thousand.”

  She swept off in a wave of flowery perfume, leaving Cleo’s nose wrinkling.

  “So you’re book dealing now too?” Henry asked, his tone joking but baffled. “Two thousand?” He looked down at his pug, whose wrinkly face quivered with concern. “Chaucy, we’re getting cut out of all the local business.”

  “No, you’re not,” Cleo said, aiming her words at the worried pug. “The book Kitty wants isn’t for sale. She thinks she can buy the library’s copy of Shirley Macon James’s Into the Waves.”

  Henry cocked his head. He, Buddy, and Mr. Chaucer sported nearly identical looks of male confusion.

  “It’s a southern Gothic romance,” Cleo said, to murmurs of “Ah, yes,” from Henry, who had an excuse, given that he specialized in texts written several centuries earlier.

  “It’s not a widely known work,” Cleo admitted, “but a classic nonetheless. Miss James lived just outside Catalpa Springs while she was writing it, not far from the Pancake Mill. Mary-Rose’s family knew her quite well. Like Margaret Mitchell, she was uncomfortable with fame and passed away far too young.”

  “Too young, tragic, and one big hit,” Buddy said. “Kinda wrong how that brings up the value of a signature.” He glanced back at his letter. “If it’s real,” he said, glumly slipping the paper into the protective sleeve.

  Over at her stall, Kitty was back to twirling her feather duster, looking bored.

  Cleo noticed that the French translation of Gone With the Wind no longer occupied Kitty’s display case. A sign had taken its place. She pushed back her bifocals, but the text was angled away.

  Buddy noticed and said, “That sign says Inquire about a true delight. Gone With the Wind, that’s all I’ve heard about, all day long. Twenty-five thousand, she’s asking. Can you imagine that? Here I was planning a deluxe vacation with my three-thousand-dollar letter.”

  Henry looked as deflated as Buddy, but Buddy cheered up faster. “I’m actually glad you caught the problem, Mr. Lafayette. Someone had to get the ‘fair curse.’ I’m just glad I didn’t pass it on by selling a fake.”

  Henry shook his head sadly.

  Buddy lowered his voice. “Did you hear the rumors about a bigwig antiquarian getting caught passing off a fake after last year’s fair? I didn’t get a name and I’m not gonna ask. I mind my own business.” He patted a stack of books, including several fine and affordable copies of Gone With the Wind. “I’m sure there’s no problem with these.”

  Cleo reached for the top copy and flipped through. The book was lovely, and the price seemed almost too reasonable. “I’ll buy this one. I’d like to have my own copy to reread in the bookmobile.”

  Henry chuckled. “One for every room of the house and every vehicle too?”

  “One of every edition except those a bookmobile librarian can’t afford.” She handed over a twenty and insisted that Buddy keep the change.

  “The Gone With the Wind Kitty has,” Cleo said. “You know I fear it’s Dot’s, but I haven’t been able to look at it to confirm. When Kitty describes it to folks, what edition does she say? May or June or …?”

  Buddy frowned. “I don’t know. Just first edition. First is first, right? She’s talking up the price most of all, and I feel real bad, thinking Miss Dot won’t be getting that. It’s not right. If Kitty ever brings out the actual book, I’ll call you right away. Although that might not help …”

  “How do you mean?” Cleo said, fearing she knew.

  “Professor Weber told everyone to look out for Miss Dot’s bookplates and the identifying marks on that rare Gone, didn’t he? But it’s like Mr. Lafayette said about this letter: marks can be added. Or removed. I made a point to stroll back over to Professor Weber’s stand this morning and look around, all casual like. He had a title on Miss Dot’s list. William Bartram’s Travels—the reproduction, not anything pretending to be from the 1700s.” He glanced sadly at his letter. “Anyway, I looked inside, expecting to see Miss Dot’s bookplate. Nope.”

  “Not hers, then,” Cleo said.

  “Who knows?” Buddy said. “The front page, where she stuck her other plates, was missing.”

  Henry huffed. “Unacceptable. If any book or seller is questionable, it’s bad for all of us.”

  Buddy nodded gravely. Mr. Chaucer whimpered.

  Henry said, “Buddy, I’m going to ask you a favor. Will you let me alert the members to this forgery? Probable forgery, I should say. It won’t reflect badly on you, only the man who sold it to you.”

  “He can’t care anymore,” Buddy said. “You do what you have to. I won’t speak ill of Hunter Fox, though. My mamma always said, you’re courting bad luck if you speak ill of the dead.”

  Cleo looked out over the Depot. Hunter hadn’t conned only laypeople like Dot and Bernice. He’d swindled his fellow antiquarians too. If someone had lost more money and professional pride than Buddy had, then Hunter Fox had made his own bad luck … and a motive for murder.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The following afternoon, Cleo sat on her front porch, enjoying the simmering warmth, and the company of her favorite neighbor and cat. Rhett lounged in a patch of sun. A cardinal chirped in the magnolia, and scents of flowers and fresh-cut grass wafted through the screen.

  The noisy source of the chopped grass marred the mood. A Weedwacker buzzed frenetically over at Wanda’s. The looming cloud of crimes damped the atmosphere even more.

  Gabby flexed socked feet, stretched to rest on the porch rail. The chief had ordered Gabby to avoid excessive overtime pay. Cleo had advised the young deputy to kick off her shoes and rest for a spell. It was Friday, after all.

  “How was your day?” Cleo asked, after giving Gabby time to sip her iced tea—the proper, sweetened kind. “Any sign of Madame Romanov? Any word on her?”

  Gabby groaned, not a good sign. “No sign of her. I don’t know whether to be worried or irritated. As for words on her, I’ve read and heard way too many of those.”

  Cleo raised a go-on eyebrow.

  Gabby obliged. “Her real name’s Tina Roman, from Miami. She and her sister and a niece moved up here a few years back to get a fresh start, the sister says.”

  “A fresh start implies leaving trouble behind,” Cleo observed.

  “Indeed it does. Trouble of her own making. Down in Florida, Tina worked as a cleaner in a cathedral. Seems she had a bad habit of listening in on confessions and got herself fired. I found that out from a nice, talkative lady in the cathedral’s bookstore.” Gabby stretched so that her toes were in a spot of sun.

/>   “Book people are helpful,” Cleo said, and then qualified. “Usually.”

  “When they’re not conning folks and possibly murdering one another,” Gabby agreed amiably. “Tina’s former boss, the priest, would only say that Tina had been asked to ‘avoid further contact’ with his parishioners and had left ‘voluntarily to reassess her spiritual interests.’”

  Cleo, who’d been drinking unsweetened tea, tasted a fresh bitterness. “No contact? That seems harsh for a priest. Do you think she was eavesdropping for information to use in her fortune-telling?”

  Gabby rattled the ice cubes in her sweating glass. Beads ran down in little rivers. The air was steamy, like summer had sneaked in early. “I think she was more direct. Why bother with fortunes if she already had confessions?”

  “Blackmail,” Cleo said. She didn’t like the evil word hovering about her porch and had the urge to get up, open the door, and shoo it out.

  “Mind you, I’m only speculating,” Gabby said. “So was the bookstore lady, who admitted to reading a lot of mysteries and thrillers.”

  Cleo issued a favorite philosophy: reading nourishes a healthy brain and imagination. Then she added, “Was there any evidence of blackmail?”

  Gabby shrugged and plunked her feet back down to the porch planks. “There might well have been, but no one pressed charges. Tina Roman rented a fancy condo with an ocean view. On a church cleaner’s salary? Her sister worked for a vehicle repo service. She had the condo next door. Between them, those ladies had the skills to hustle money.”

  “Interesting,” Cleo said, loading the word with implications.

  “Sure is. I’d like to find her.” Gabby frowned toward Wanda’s yard. “I’d like to go over to Wanda’s, too, and disable that Weedwacker. What a racket! Here she complains about me. Do you know, she called in another complaint this morning, saying my vehicle woke her up at three AM? I was out on an emergency call, an accident!” The young deputy sighed and added, “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”