Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Where were you? When you saw him.”

  “In my bedroom. Then…Then I heard glass breaking on the service porch. I locked my door and hid until the police got here.” Trapped in my bedroom like a chicken in a cage. It took them forever.

  Gonzalez flipped to a clean page in his notebook. “You told Officer Raskin that some business property was stolen.”

  She nodded. “Yes. A box of books.”

  Gonzalez blinked and looked up at her. “You’re an antique dealer?”

  She recognized the skepticism that flashed across his face. She’d seen it a hundred times when customers looked at a price tag.

  “Yes. I deal in glass. Art glass, mostly.”

  “Art. Glass. And a burglar wants to steal…art glass. No offense.”

  “No offense taken.” She delivered her three-minute lecture on glass and dropped a few buzz words: Tiffany, Murano, Lalique, Steuben.

  “Tiffany. I heard of Tiffany.” He clicked his pen. “But the stolen property list says…antiques books, value eleven hundred and fifty dollars?”

  “Maybe he just grabbed a box when he heard the sirens?” She looked toward her studio, her throat now as dry as papyrus.

  “Tell me about the thousand-plus dollars’ worth of books.” He looked down at the report to hide a smirk.

  She could see the top of his head. Balding. “I did an antique show at the Pasadena Center last weekend. Besides glass I offered fifty books from the collection of a client named Sam Barbieri. He died six months ago. He looked like Luciano Pavarotti—twinkling eyes, huge stomach, talked with his hands.”

  Detective Gonzalez nodded. He clenched his jaws to stifle a yawn.

  She took a sip of water, then continued. “Sam collected glass and books. He was a scholar of Renaissance Italian Art and professor at UCLA. A month ago his nephew called.”

  The detective sat up. “Nephew?”

  She nodded. “His name is Jimmy Barbieri. Jimmy offered to sell me Sam’s glass collection, but only if I would buy his books too.”

  “That’s where the books come in?”

  “I offered thirty of them last weekend. Those are the ones stolen last night.”

  “All thirty?”

  “No. I sold seven.”

  Detective Gonzalez scribbled rapidly. “When you sell stuff, you write receipts?”

  “Definitely. Names, addresses, phone numbers for everything sold.”

  “Can I see them?”

  “Sure.” Kate hurried to her studio, opened the center drawer of a mahogany partner’s desk, and grabbed the receipts from the past weekend.

  A moment later, she returned and set them on the coffee table. “You can keep these. I’ll print another set.”

  “Thanks. Did last night’s burglar look like any of the people who bought from you?” He pushed the receipts towards her.

  She thumbed through the collection and set aside all the female buyers. “Tony Shaffer uses a wheelchair. Ethan McKenzie is a dead ringer for Danny DeVito. Not him. Not him…” Kate paused. “This one’s not a regular customer—Steve Tanner. He bought a book of Italian poetry. Looks like Keanu Reeves.”

  Gonzalez wrote a note on Tanner’s bill, then slid the receipts into his portfolio. “That’s all I need for now.” He stood and offered her his card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

  A moment later, Kate stood at the window and watched Gonzalez steer his Crown Victoria down the hill. Once she could no longer see the blur of the red brake lights, she took a deep breath, then said, “No time like the present.”

  Out on the service porch, a hot Santa Ana wind blew through the broken window pane. She flinched as glass crunched underfoot or crashed into the waste basket, but she kept sweeping. Next, she dissected a corrugated box to thumb-tack over the door’s gaping wound.

  Her cell phone chirped. It was her handyman. “Thanks a bunch for calling back so quickly. I need a rush repair to my back door, and some shelves built for a walk-in closet. As close to yesterday as you can manage?”

  That business handled, she tuned her Bose to classical radio and opened the studio’s windows to clear the room of the burglar’s smell. Rupert gave a friendly yap, mourning doves cooed, and orange blossom perfume wafted in on heated air. Mountains and beaches, museums and nightlife, cuisine of a hundred ethnicities.

  There’s no place like home.

  Kate searched the drawers for three tiny silver bells her mother had tied to a birthday gift. Mom’s definition of antique. Kate’s idea of old-timey. “There you are, my pretties.” She snipped a foot of slender black cord, threaded it through the bells, and hung it on the inside knob of her back door. A talisman. An alarm.

  Was he one of the glass buyers? A neighborhood thief? An agent of that oily book seller on La Brea?

  “Let Gonzalez figure it out,” she muttered. “You’ve got books to price.” She pulled her hair off her neck, wound it through a scrunchie, and began sorting Sam’s collection.

  How much for Pisa Illustrata?

  How much for I Sessanta Cesarei?

  “I’m out of my depth.” Who could she call?

  Alfred Bergstrom was a book dealer. Expert, honest, helpful. Always so helpful.

  Alfred was born the year the Hindenburg disaster horrified America. Kate hugged him and kissed both cheeks. The aroma of his pipe tobacco lingered on his jacket. She led him through the house, her hand at his elbow to steady him.

  “…and when I said ‘graphic novel’ is an oxymoron, my grand-daughter unzipped her backpack. Out spilled every graphic novel written by Philip K. Dick! I was set up,” he chuckled. He hung his gilt-handled cane—once owned by Mark Twain—on the studio’s door knob, and lowered himself into the club chair.

  A chilled bottle of Chardonnay was already uncorked. “Napa Valley 2015” Kate waggled the wine. She held up two wine glasses. “Target, 2018.” She ran through the story of the break-in, praised Rupert for trying to warn her, and hoisted her tiny baseball bat from the floor. “This is now my office bat. I bought a man-sized aluminum bat for the bedroom. Since I haven’t heard anything from the detective—it’s been six days—I called him. No rash of break-ins around here. I don’t know why he picked me. Enough of my burglar story. Let me tell you about Sam Barbieri while you work.” She heaved several boxes of books nearer his chair.

  He dried his hands on his pants. Running his fingertips across the spines peaking from the box, he said “Delicious, aren’t they?” His eyes sparkled.

  Kate put an inventory on the table. “Titles, dates, descriptions. Most are in Italian or Latin. Some languages I didn’t recognize. Many dates are in Roman numerals.”

  He plucked a pen, coke-bottle glasses, and a magnifying glass from his jacket pocket. He held the books so close to his glasses, they tapped his nose. He fanned the gilded edge of one book to reveal a scene of Rome and the Tiber River. “These fore-edge paintings are quite sought-after,” he explained. A few books Alfred kept on the table, the rest Kate delivered to the closet shelves.

  At last Alfred sat back, sighed, and handed Kate the book list. “My dear Katie, here are your prices and remarks.” His tiny notes filled the margins like a floral frame.

  Kate felt as if she had just witnessed an expert grading diamonds. “Would you consider a fifty-fifty consignment? I can’t represent them adequately. Pick whichever you wish to take to your shop. I’ll deliver the rest.” She offered her hand to seal the proposal.

  Instead of shaking her hand, Alfred kissed it, then clapped in delight. “Agreed! Except…Except this book.” He lifted a white leather-bound volume from the table. It was so heavy his hands trembled and his blue veins bulged. “We’ll need an expert. The pages are parchment, not paper. The text is hand-written, not printed. A codex.”

  Kate’s eyebrows scrunched. “Okay…”

  “Look closely. Here.” He pointed to a shadowy mark at the top margin, then he traced a line down the middle of a page. �
��These faint characters are text. Greek text, I believe. Look again. Pale lines run perpendicular to the Latin.” He turned to a page in the middle of the book. “And on this page is the outline of a diagram. The vellum was washed of old text. This is a palimpsest.”

  Kate leaned forward for a closer look. “A…what?”

  “Palimpsest.” The old man tapped the book’s cover. “It was a strategy employed when parchment was dear. Like reusing marble from a derelict temple to build a castle wall.”

  Kate squinted at the book. “So, is the value in the visible text or in what was written and drawn before?”

  “Either.” The old man winked and added, “Value is in the eye of the beholder, wouldn’t you say? Book lovers are an odd lot. Our expertise often surpasses our means. Some lust for the book, some lust for the profit.” He struggled to lift the heavy volume onto the table. “A single leaf palimpsest from a seventh-century Quran auctioned at Christie’s London fetched well over two million pounds.”

  Kate gawked at him, and then at the book. “Two million…?”

  He stroked the palimpsest. “I’m not comfortable taking this. I have a friend—a rare book dealer—who reads Latin and Greek. I’ll ask her to call you. I am as anxious as you to hear what she says.”

  Kate placed three dozen books into boxes and carried them to the front door. She returned to the studio, helped the old man to his feet, and handed him his cane. Together they walked slowly to the front door and out to the baking city. As he shuffled to the driver’s side of his ancient Cadillac, she deposited the books on his back seat.

  “Be careful on the curves, Alfred. People drive too fast going down this hill.”

  “And you be careful too, my dear.”

  “I keep the porch lights on and I’m never far from my baseball bats.” She leaned through the driver’s window to squeeze his hand. The scent of his cherry tobacco mingled with orange blossoms.

  Kate had locked the doors and was latching her bedroom window when her phone vibrated across her bureau. She froze, realized it was a call, and relaxed. “Alfred? Are you okay?”

  “I just spoke with Didi Rankovich.” He sounded like a boy with a new train set. “I told her about your palimpsest. She’s intrigued. Katie, she lives in San Francisco but she’s in Pasadena right now, working on a project at the Huntington Library. She wants to visit you tomorrow morning.”

  “Alfred, you’re a prince. Let me write down her…” From the corner of her gaze, she spotted movement outside the window.

  There, beneath the bushes. She held her breath, moments away from hanging up on Alfred and calling the—

  A skunk. It’s just a…skunk.

  The next evening Kate called Alfred to let him know that she’d met with Didi. No answer, so she left a message. “I wish you’d been here! She used an ultraviolet light and read some erased text. The Greek is about the Parthenon. Did you know it was a temple dedicated to Athena the virgin, and the Christians converted it to a church they re-dedicated to the Virgin Mary? I’ll tell you all about it when you call back.”

  Kate repeated the word “palimpsest.” She conjured images of Constantinople and Greek icons and incense and the great library at Alexandria. Palimpsest. Palimpsest.

  A day passed with no call back from Alfred.

  And then, another day.

  And another.

  Kate’s jumpiness from the burglary waned while her anxiety for Alfred waxed. Maybe he was attending an antiquarian book fair. Maybe the grandkids were up from San Diego. Maybe…maybe she’d pop over to his shop.

  She filled five plastic storage bins with Sam Barbieri’s books and loaded them into her van. The drive to Bergstrom’s in Larchmont Village was an easy shot down Silver Lake to Beverly Boulevard. Alfred lived above his business in an enviable old craftsman. Built-in bookcases, oak wainscoting, original leaded glass windows and a deep covered sitting porch for clients. He had once invited her to his second-floor retreat. It was a magic cavern. Antique maps and hand-colored engravings decorated his walls. His pipe collection snuggled in a revolving walnut bookcase next to an overstuffed wing chair. His only nod to the twentieth century was an electric stair lift.

  She parked a block away on Beverly Boulevard and activated the van’s alarm on her key fob. She ducked into La Cave, bought wine, a baguette and several cheeses, then walked to his shop.

  A black sedan was parked in front of Bergstrom’s. Short antennae bristled from its roof and trunk. The shop door stood open. An ambulance was in the driveway. Cops in black uniforms stood on the reading porch. The crackle of patrol car radios filled the air.

  Kate stopped halfway down the street. She examined each piece of the jigsaw puzzle, but rejected the meaning.

  Then she needed to know. Know that Albert was okay. She hurried toward the flashing lights.

  A uniformed officer blocked her entry. “Sorry, ma’am. You can’t enter.”

  “What? Why?” She strained to see into the shop’s dark interior. “What’s wrong? Is Alfred okay?”

  He looked at the clear plastic bag in her hands. Inventoried its contents. Wine. Bread. Something else. “Are you a friend of Mr. Bergstrom?”

  “Yes, yes…?” Nervous now, she looked past the cop.

  “There’s been a break-in.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry. Your friend is dead.”

  Kate swayed. The bag fell to the sidewalk. Glass shattered. The policeman put an arm around her waist, and caught her before she collapsed.

  A detective walked her to the nearest patrol car and helped her sit in its front seat. Then, he offered a brief story of the call. “…customer looked through the window…ransacked…bottom of the stairs…dead for three days…”

  “Dead? Three days…? ” she whispered, eyes wide.

  The detective told her she could sit a while until she was ready to get up. He handed her his card.

  She stared at the scene. Alfred. Dead. Three days.

  She gripped the steering wheel and drove. Tenacious. Like a woman twice her age.

  Sidewalks were clogged. Young brown men pushed ice cream handcarts. Old brown men in hats and cowboy boots stood on corners holding poles, anchoring balloons and cotton candy. Cars honked. Bicycles darted. Too many people.

  She managed to reach home without causing an accident.

  Parked, she turned off the ignition. The engine ticked. Sweat drenched her underarms. Rupert barked. A police helicopter circled above. Normal life in Silver Lake. No. This is not normal. Nothing has been normal since the break-in. Nothing will be normal again.

  Still she sat. Imagining Alfred. Trying not to imagine his last moments. She put her hand to her mouth when she visualized him, all alone. Gone for three days.

  Unsteady, she climbed the service porch stairs and unlocked the door. Her mother’s bells tinkled. The house was cool and dark. She retreated to her studio. Dropped her purse onto the desk. Walked to the chair where Alfred had sat.

  A hand covered her mouth. An arm cinched her neck.

  She tried to scream, tried to claw his hand, but he was stronger. The stench of stale clothes and cigarettes poisoned the air.

  He growled, “Shut up. Not a sound. I’m not going to hurt you.” He dropped his hand from her mouth. “Where are the books?”

  Kate screamed, a piercing shattering scream. She stomped her heel on his foot.

  He howled and yanked her hair.

  She fell backward, striking her head on the table before hitting the floor.

  He sat on her chest and pinned her arms under his knees. He wore a black knit ski cap but she recognized his smell. And his eyes—Keanu Reeves eyes. Tanner?

  He crushed his forearm against her throat.

  She tried to turn her head. She thrashed and bucked, and crimson blackness closed around her. She forced herself to go still. She looked at him with terror, pleading with her eyes for her life.

  He leaned forward until his beard scratched her jaw. “You do
n’t want me to hurt you, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ready to talk?” His voice rasped like a cold chisel on concrete.

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “Where are they?” His lifted his arm from her throat.

  Her lungs burned. She gasped. “Closet.”

  He stood. “Turn over. Forehead on the floor. Hands over your head. All the way up. All the way!”

  She obeyed. What is he going to do to me?

  She heard the closet door open and the light switch click.

  Books crashed to the closet floor.

  “It’s not here. Where is it?” He knelt on her back. “The old book. The big white one.”

  Kate’s tears soaked the carpet. He was still on her. Can’t breathe. She pointed to her desk.

  He got up and began yanking the drawers, sweeping his hands deep into the back of each one. He tossed her laptop to the floor. Pens, papers, price tags, postcards. All flung to the floor.

  He said, “Yes,” and pulled the palimpsest from the lower right drawer. He dropped to his knees to cradle the heavy text into his black backpack.

  Kate spotted the baseball bat. Now! She grasped the bat and rose to her knees. She swung blindly, striking his ankle.

  He cried out and toppled sideways, crashing into her desk.

  Kate leapt up and swung again, this time connecting with his side. His ribs crunched and the bat vibrated in her hands.

  He grunted a single “oomph” as she drove the bat into his kidneys. Down he went, no longer moving.

  Detective Gonzalez stood on Kate’s front porch. “May I come in?”

  Kate opened the screen door. “Detective.”

  He paused, taking in the bruise on her throat, then sat on the living room sofa. He set his portfolio on the coffee table and opened his mouth to ask his first question.

  Kate, though, held up a hand. “That man. Was it Steve Tanner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he kill Alfred?”

  “We’re still investigating.”