There is one more lie I must confess to now.
You know me as Errol Roy, but I was born Clarence Anglin. As Clarence Anglin, I was inmate #1485 at Alcatraz. In 1962, I carried out an elaborate escape along with my brother John and Frank Morris. Some say the plan was a success because we were never heard from again.
I don’t.
My brother and Frank didn’t make it to land. Somehow I did, physically, but I have often felt Clarence Anglin died that night, too.
Luck saved me as I crossed the bay, but it was reading books that gave me a second chance at life. I made my way to Brazil where I found solace in Dashiell Hammett, a mystery writer I discovered while at Alcatraz. His personal story spoke to me as much as his writing. Dashiell Hammett began writing when he was bedridden with tuberculosis. Although I wasn’t ill, I related to the extreme isolation. I admired what he was able to do with a story.
In 1976, the same year my third story was published, I moved back to the United States as Errol Roy. The rest of my story is well known. Some of you might be able to recount it better than I can myself.
I have to state, once again, that I acted alone today. Neither Garrison Griswold, nor the caretakers of Alcatraz, nor anyone involved with Unlock the Rock has known anything about my plans or my true identity.
It’s a miracle I’ve made it this long, given the life I’ve led, and I don’t know how much more time will be allotted to me. I would regret going into this dark night without revealing my truth, but I also can’t face prison at my advanced age, which is surely where my story would end if I did not disappear once again.
My lawyer, who has no prior knowledge about my plans or my past identity, will be receiving instructions tomorrow to distribute a check to Hollister’s bookstore in the amount of $100,000. (I have faith that Garrison Griswold’s event will attract readers who can solve my puzzle within the time limit.) The rest of my wealth will be donated to the American Library Association to be distributed to community outreach programs that bring literacy and reading initiatives to prisons and juvenile-delinquent centers.
I know this is the coward’s way out, to run away once more and not turn myself in with this confession. I apologize to any of my loyal readers who feel I’ve let them down. I hope you will appreciate my effort to come clean before my time is up, and leave you with one last story to remember.
—Errol Roy
CHAPTER
35
ERROL ROY sailed under a night sky masked with clouds. Behind him, Alcatraz was a shadowy mass. The dim lights of the cell house glowed like the embers of a fading fire.
It hadn’t quite sunk in that he’d made it off the Rock for the second time. This escape was more luxurious compared to his last. Instead of a makeshift raft crafted from prison-issued raincoats, he’d paddled his kayak from Alcatraz to the marina where he kept his beloved Effie Perine, the catamaran he hoped would get him to Mexico and beyond. On his outing the night before, he’d used his dinghy to hide the kayak in the brush near one of the few accessible points on the Alcatraz coastline. Errol Roy had escaped once before, and he hoped he wouldn’t get found this time, either, but he would take his chances.
Just as he always had.
Beyond the white light of Effie’s mast, the clouds shifted in the dark sky. Moonlight broke through and illuminated a pathway forward. Errol pointed the boat toward the yellow lights of the Golden Gate Bridge and the open sea beyond.
As he glided into his next uncertain chapter, he imagined the boat disappearing over the horizon, rings spreading behind like a peacock fanning its tail.
Errol Roy had escaped Alcatraz. Again.
CHAPTER
36
ON THE SUNDAY after Unlock the Rock, Emily and James pushed open the door to Hollister’s, and the old familiar bells jangled, announcing their entrance. Emily had never thought she’d miss the sound of sleigh bells as much as she had.
“Hollister!” they called to the bookseller, and ran forward to give him a hug. Their families filed in the store behind them. They’d arrived early to help set up the grand reopening, but Mr. Griswold and Jack were already there, and Mr. Quisling and Miss Linden, too.
“Where would you like us to put this?” James’s mom asked, holding up a stack of bamboo steamers. His mom and grandmother’s catering business had offered to provide a dim sum bar for the event.
Hollister led them over to a long folding table, which Mr. Quisling and Jack were covering with a paper tablecloth.
“It looks like a brand-new store in here!” Emily marveled, turning in a circle to take it all in.
There were, of course, bookcases everywhere, filled with books, but Hollister had brightened the store considerably by painting them, and there was a new reclaimed-wood floor. The old spiral staircase in the back had been redone completely with wood risers that had the fronts painted to look like different book spines. The upstairs loft used to be a cluttered mass of boxes, but now it looked like it might be a reading nook—Emily made a note to check it out later.
There were endless touches of book art and whimsy—book-page lanterns dangled from the ceiling, and on the wall behind the register hung three books, each with its pages folded in a way that made it look like a word was jumping out.
Emily imagined she and James would spend many future afternoons after school exploring the new and improved store.
The bells on the door jingled and a woman’s voice asked, “Am I in the right place for the party?”
Emily turned to see Lucy Leonard stepping inside the store.
“Ms. Leonard! Welcome!” Hollister hurried over to usher her inside.
“Oh, please, Hollister, call me Lucy,” she said.
Emily’s mom stared with her mouth open. “That isn’t … is that…?” She looked to Emily’s dad, who was also analyzing Lucy curiously. Lucy gave them a polite smile as she passed by and tapped Emily on the shoulder with a “Hey there!”
Emily gave Lucy a hug and laughed at her mom’s flabbergasted reaction.
“Mom, would you like to meet my new friend, Lucy?” she said.
“Your … friend? But how … last Monday you were, I mean, and now you’re on a first-name basis?”
Emily had decided to keep Lucy Leonard a surprise for her mom, and it was as entertaining as she’d hoped it would be.
Lucy extended a hand. “Emily and I met at Unlock the Rock. She told me you enjoyed my book.”
“Enjoyed it? Enjoyed it?” And Emily’s mom was off and running, talking nonstop about how much The Twain Conspiracy meant to her, with Emily’s dad chiming in every so often to say things like, “That’s true! One day she was reading your book on the bus and missed so many stops, she was practically to Noe Valley before she realized!”
Emily was a little embarrassed at how gushy her parents were and wasn’t sure if she should intervene, but Lucy glanced over and gave her a wink, so she figured it was all good.
Mr. Quisling came to stand next to James and said, “How are you hanging in there about Errol Roy?”
James threw his hands out and his head back, pantomiming being frozen in a state of disbelief.
Mr. Quisling nodded. “Yep, I’m still in shock myself, too.”
“I can’t believe there’s been no sign of him,” Miss Linden said.
“Four days.” Mr. Quisling shook his head. “He clearly planned ahead for this, but the authorities might well catch up with him eventually.”
Miss Linden rested a hand on James’s shoulder. “You okay? He was a favorite of yours, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.” James threaded his fingers through Steve, making him extra spiky. “I’m not sure what to think about it, to be honest. I liked his books before I knew anything about him. And then when I met him, he was nothing like I’d thought he’d be in person, and I was kind of disappointed—and that was before I knew he was a fugitive from one of the most famous prison escapes ever! But his original crime was holding up a bank with a toy gun, so it’s not like he w
as a serial killer or anything, but does that make a difference?
“It’s kind of messing with my mind. If you love something, like a book or a movie, and then you find out the person who created it did something awful or wasn’t a very good person—is it still okay to love what they created?”
“Those are great questions,” Miss Linden said.
“I think I’m wrestling with the same thing, James,” Mr. Quisling said, “and I wish I had an answer for you. The only conclusion I’ve come to so far is that people are complicated, but that isn’t a very satisfying answer.”
“One thing that is satisfying about all this is finally getting an answer to a famous unsolved mystery,” Miss Linden said.
“I agree with that,” Lucy piped up, joining their conversation. “It’s a great story. In fact, I e-mailed my editor to let her know I want to back-burner my Harriet Beecher Stowe book and write about Errol Roy instead.”
“Oh, you have to!” Miss Linden said. “His story would be wonderfully told in your hands.”
“You would postpone an entire book?” Emily asked, incredulous. “But you were so excited about Stowe!”
Lucy nodded. “And I still am. I know my work won’t go to waste and something will come of it eventually. Sometimes stories aren’t ready to be told. And sometimes stories don’t want to be told. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to have something to wonder about.”
“One thing I wonder,” James interjected, “is if I need to take a break from Errol Roy mysteries for a while. I might need to branch out.”
Hollister leaned into the group. “Did I hear somebody say they’re in the market for new books? You’re in the right place! If you like mysteries, have you tried Sammy Keyes? That’s a great series. Or maybe Winterhouse if you like a little magic in your mysteries? Maybe The Great Greene Heist or Belly Up?”
Hollister kept pulling books off the shelves, and James’s eyes got wider and wider as the stack piled up in his hands.
Mr. Griswold hurried over and put a hand on Hollister’s arm. “Don’t pull too many of those books off the shelves, or you might disturb some of the setup for…” He lowered his voice and said, “The game.”
“Another game?” Emily wasn’t sure she could muster the energy to play another Garrison Griswold game so soon. She thought she’d need at least a week to unwind.
Mr. Griswold laughed. “It’s a game I know you love, Emily. Book Scavenger! I figured we could do a Book Scavenger hunt in Hollister’s store today. It will be a way for people to tour the different sections and have fun at the same time.”
“Oh!” Emily brightened. “That sounds like a great idea!”
People began to trickle in for the grand reopening, and soon Hollister was tapping the service bell at the checkout counter to get everyone’s attention. He stood on a chair and said, “I just wanted to say a few words before I hand this party over to my old friend Gary, who will lead you in another of his crazy games.”
The audience chuckled and Hollister continued, “I can’t say thank you enough to show my appreciation for all of you: my neighbors, my customers, and the bookseller community. When that fire got my store, I thought that was it. I’m old. Too old to start over. It wasn’t how I wanted to go out, but we don’t always get a say in that.
“And then the notes started to appear, and the crowdfunding was set up, and Binc—that’s a bookseller thing, if you’re not in the know—swooped in, and I just…” Hollister shook his head. “And these are people I know helping me, but also a lot of strangers.
“You can’t lie down and give up when so many people are rallying for you. I appreciate it. And I wish for each and every one of you that you’ll feel that rallying support when times get tough for you. You made that support easy for me to see—and you all know my eyesight has been failing, so I appreciate that very much.”
The audience chuckled at Hollister’s joke and he continued.
“If there are strangers out there who are rooting for me when I’m down, I know they are there for you, too. You may not see them or get the notes like I did, but I hope you believe there are more people wishing for you to succeed than there are hoping that you fail. I’m going to step up, rise up, and keep going because of you all. And if times get tough, I hope you’ll imagine a team rallying for you, too, and step up and keep moving forward. Please stop by my store—you’ve always got a friend in me. And free Wi-Fi—we’re going to have that now, too.”
Everyone laughed at that. Hollister looked around for a glass to raise, but there wasn’t one nearby, so he grabbed a bookmark from the stack next to the register and raised it in the air. “Cheers, to book lovers!”
Emily and the crowd returned his toast: “Cheers, to book lovers!”
* * *
After Hollister’s grand re-opening had wound down, Emily and James went up the staircase in the back of the store to see what the new and improved loft looked like. There was a small couch and chairs, a colorful rug and cozy lamps, and, of course, books. Jigsaw puzzle pieces were spread across the coffee table for anyone to work on.
“James—the purple chair!” Emily pointed. It had been her favorite reading spot in Hollister’s store before the fire, and she didn’t think it had survived. She ran to it and collapsed in the seat, immediately realizing the feeling of the chair wasn’t exactly the same. “I think this is a new one.” She wriggled around a bit and rested her head back. “Still comfy, though.”
“Check this out.” James was inspecting a special bookcase designed to look like a potted bookcase flower. The flower part was a cabinet with a glass door attached to a post that had been secured inside a giant pot. Bookmarks sprouted around the post like grass, along with a sign that read Take One! I’m Free!
A sign on the front of the cabinet said Neighborhood Reads. Emily and James peered through the glass. Inside were two shelves filled with books. Each one had a notecard labeling one shelf “Quisling’s Corner” and the other “Linden’s Loves.” Hollister’s all-cap handwriting explained, “These books are recommended to you by the winners of Garrison Griswold’s Unlock the Rock competition on Alcatraz. Every month we’ll feature different customer recommendations in this display.”
They scanned their teacher’s and the librarian’s picks, and Emily pulled a book from Mr. Quisling’s shelf called Puzzle Mania. Flipping through it, she said, “This looks cool. I’m going to get this with my gift card from Unlock the Rock.”
She took the puzzle book to the purple chair and opened to a crossword puzzle. “A four-letter word for square, clove hitch, sheet bend,” she read aloud to James.
“I know that! Thanks to my one year in the Boy Scouts.” James plopped onto the couch next to her. “The answer is knot.”
Emily tugged free the pencil tucked in her ponytail and filled out the answer.
“Were you disappointed we didn’t win Unlock the Rock?” James asked.
“Well…” Emily traced a finger along a crossword row. “I’m glad Mr. Quisling and Miss Linden won. And I’m glad they figured out the solution in time for Hollister’s store to get the bonus money. But it would have been great to win. Especially because we did figure out the answer.”
“I know.” James flopped back against the couch, disbelief written all over his face as he stared up at the exposed rafters in the ceiling. “If we hadn’t hesitated over whether our answer was correct—”
“Or if Bookacuda and Fiona hadn’t been trying to get us out of the game.”
“Ugh,” James groaned. “Don’t remind me. That Bookacuda kid was the worst.”
Footsteps clomped up the stairs, and they soon saw the green, lopsided Mohawk of Matthew. “Did I hear Bookacuda? Are you talking about his sabotage?”
“And Fiona’s,” Emily added. “We were saying we probably would have won if Fiona hadn’t set you up to look like a thief and Bookacuda hadn’t been trying to scare us with his notes.”
“And stealing backpacks and messing up puzzles for other pla
yers,” James added.
“Well, to be fair,” Matthew interjected, “I kind of messed with him, too. Making up a fake puzzle only wasted his time. I mean, that was my intention, because he was always popping up and annoying us, and I didn’t want him following us around, but I shouldn’t have tricked him, either.”
Matthew sat on an ottoman next to the coffee table and studied the spread-out puzzle pieces.
“Bookacuda deserved it,” James said.
“I feel a little sorry for him,” Emily said. “I checked his profile on Book Scavenger the other day and his account is deactivated now.”
“Really?” James said, with surprise. “Because of the stuff he did at Unlock the Rock?”
“Not exactly. When word spread around the forums that he’d been disqualified from the game for cheating, questions came up about whether or not he’d genuinely earned his Sherlock-level status.”
“How could he have fudged that?” Matthew asked, plucking a puzzle piece from the table and inserting it into the jigsaw.
James’s eyes widened. “Did he hack into Book Scavenger?”
Emily smiled at his mind immediately leaping to computer programming. “No, I don’t think so. People came forward and said he’d bullied them into finding books through Book Scavenger and letting him take credit on his Bookacuda account. Others said he paid them to hide or find books. I think hearing about Unlock the Rock triggered a bunch of people into issuing complaints against him, and it looks like either Bayside Press suspended the account or Bookacuda decided to deactivate himself.”
“Why would you feel sorry for him knowing he treated other Book Scavenger players like that?” Matthew asked. “All that does is make me think he’s even more of a punk than I’d initially thought.”
“Well, I’d been surprised when I met him in person to see how small he is, because he was supposed to be an eighth grader. I’d chalked it up as another one of his lies, but he’d been telling the truth. Apparently, he skipped a grade at some point. In the Book Scavenger forums, kids from his school in Nebraska said he’s always trying too hard to fit in and forcing people to be his friend. I don’t know.… I just feel sorry for him.” Emily grinned. “But only a little bit.”
The Alcatraz Escape Page 16