“He doesn’t understand the language well enough,” she said.
Alfredo stepped in here. “But I can do it on my own. Penelope, you have not to worry. All will be well.”
I had never heard him address her so sweetly before. She looked rather more frantic than I thought she should. Once again I wondered what was going on between the two of them.
When the door closed behind them, Penelope slumped to the wall. I put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Let’s go sit down. Did you sleep well last night? You look a little peaky.”
She let me lead her down the hall, and then she burst into a rant. “Just because he’s a foreigner, they think he did it. That’s so like the police. Alfredo is a good man, and he didn’t even want Sally’s money or anything. He told me.”
“I believe you,” I said, steering her to a seat. “So you’re sure he wouldn’t have killed Sally?”
“Not in a million years. He didn’t want to hurt her. You might not know this, but he was trying to break it off with her.”
“And how do you know this?” I asked.
“Well, he had to tell someone.”
“Why was he breaking it off?” I wanted to hear how Alfredo had explained himself to Penelope.
She dropped her head and fussed with a button on her blouse. “He said he didn’t feel the same way anymore.”
“Was there someone else?” I asked, prying a little more.
“I think there was,” she said with a half smile on her lips.
TWENTY-FIVE
Ring-a-Ding-Ding
The police had taken down the crime scene tape and said we could go back into the library. Caldwell went off to run some errands, and I decided I would try to put the books back in some semblance of order. I wanted to do it when he wasn’t around, as I was worried there would be damage to some of the books. I wanted to repair what I could before he saw them.
But when I walked up the stairs, I noticed the door to the library was open, and when I looked in I saw a man standing in the middle of the floor, slowly turning around, completely absorbed in perusing all the books. It was Bruce, and I knew Caldwell didn’t want him in there by himself.
“Hello there,” I said in a friendly voice. “Can I be of help?”
He startled, as he should, and said, “The door was open, or rather, not locked, and Caldwell had been promising me a look.”
“I know, and you will have a look, but not until he’s here to help you. I’m merely a librarian, not a full-fledged collector like you two.”
“Yes, I can see by his books that he knows quality when he finds it. This is quite a wonderful collection.”
“I’m glad you approve,” I said, ever so snarkily.
I could see his hands shake slightly as he gestured toward the stacks of books, so impatient was he to handle them.
“What books are you most interested in?” I asked, knowing full well that I could be in for a torrent of a list, having experienced it with other collectors.
“I try to keep myself open to all possibilities. When one starts collecting books, one never knows what one might find. A well-made first edition is always worth looking at.”
I was surprised at his admission. “But surely you must have some areas you specialize in?”
“Oh, yes. I love books printed by small presses in the early twentieth century, like the Hogarth Press, for example. Such wonderful, thoughtful books. And so few were produced.”
“So you like Virginia Woolf?” I asked.
“I love her books, not that I’ve read them. I just admire what beautiful objects they are. And worth quite a lot of money, especially in FN.”
I knew FN stood for fine condition, the penultimate designation for a collectible book.
“And then I adore children’s books,” he went on.
“I’m not sure about any Hogarth Press books, but I know Caldwell has a decent collection of children’s books.”
“Yes.” Bruce turned his head longingly to the bookcase that housed most of them. “I’d love to have a look.”
I had to be firm. “I can’t allow that without Caldwell. They are, after all, his books, and I don’t have any idea which ones he’s even willing to sell.”
Bruce’s shoulders sagged. “When will he be here?”
“Soon, I hope. But I’m not sure when he’ll be ready to show the books. He seems to want to wait until we have a proper store.”
“I understand,” Bruce said, and walked out of the room.
But I wasn’t convinced he did.
*
The books had all been put back on the shelves by the police but completely helter-skelter. No sense of any order—not by size, not by color, not by author’s name or title or by topic. I suppose book organization is just not in their job descriptions.
As I stood before these scrambled shelves I realized it was making me a little nauseous to look at them. Almost as if I didn’t know where to start. A sense of hopelessness came over me like a dark fog.
Things need to be in their proper place. Just as each book has one spot to be in the Dewey decimal system, so it is with a crime. There is a victim and there is a murderer. There is the truth of what happened. That’s the way it is. I should be able to line up everyone—Alfredo, Brenda, Bruce, Caldwell, Karen, Penelope, Sally—and put them where they belong.
There was a second reason I was tackling the books. I had a sense that if I could know why Sally was in the library it might help me figure out who had killed her and why.
I remembered the toppled bookcase well. It was the one I had just finished organizing when Sally had rung the front doorbell at the very beginning of this whole disastrous affair.
The top three shelves contained history books, specifically English history. I slowly moved through the ages, putting books about early England on the top shelf. I had to stop and browse through a book on Ethelred, the not-ready king of Britain from around A.D. 1000. He tried to save the country from the Danes by paying them off. He gave them so much money that they say it is easier to find an old English coin in Scandinavia than in the British Isles.
After an hour’s work, I had made my way down to present-day England and had to resist peeking into many of the books. I promised myself that I would read the books on the abdication of Edward VIII very soon. People had so many different opinions on his wife, the previously married Wallis Simpson. Why are nasty people so much more interesting than good ones?
Finally I found the book I had been looking for, the one I thought just might be Sally’s because I was sure that it wasn’t Caldwell’s. I pulled it off the shelf where it had been tucked in between some history book and a book on gardening: a biography of Princess Diana called The Diana Chronicles. It was written by Tina Brown, the former editor of the extremely gossipy magazine Tatler. I was sure it was juicy as all get-out and equally sure that Caldwell would never have read it.
Opening it up to the copyright page, I saw the book wasn’t even a first edition. This made me more sure that it was one of Sally’s few books. In fact, it could have been the book Sally was looking for the night she died.
I paged through it, stopping to look at the pictures. Diana on horseback, Diana with long hair, Diana at her wedding, her sons. Diana always impressed me, with her short, thick haircut, as a very handsome young woman. But I felt like there was almost a prince-like quality about her.
What could there be about this book that would make Sally get up in the middle of the night to look for it?
Just as I was about to put the book where it belonged on the shelf, I noticed it didn’t close as it should. When I turned to the very back of the book, I saw that there was a hole cut out in the middle of the pages, and in the hole was a tiny envelope taped shut.
I carefully unsealed it and dumped the contents into my hand.
A ring.
A Victorian, quite an exuberant ring with jewels galore, mostly diamonds, I thought, and one rather large green stone in the middle.
; The size made me think it could have been some kind of cocktail ring, not an everyday ring.
I was quite sure I had found the ring that Sally and Penelope had fought over and that Sally was said to have stolen from her sister.
This had to be what Sally was looking for.
And I was probably the reason she couldn’t find it.
That very day I had rearranged the books and put that particular book way up at the top of a different bookcase than where it had been, in the very bookcase that had fallen over on her.
I hated to think it but, if the book had been where she had left it, Sally might still be alive.
TWENTY-SIX
A Killing
I tried the ring on. It was too big for my ring finger but came close to fitting my middle finger. Sally and Penelope were both bigger women than me, and their hands were certainly larger too. I closed the door of the library and locked it, then walked down the hall toward Penelope’s room.
Before I knocked on her door, I gathered myself together. What did I want to learn?
I turned the ring around so the stones faced my palm and, seeing only the plain gold band, Penelope wouldn’t recognize it. I wanted to learn how she felt about her sister, Sally, and what the ring had meant to her before she realized what I already knew. When I looked at the whole blasted situation head-on, I had to ask myself whether Penelope could have killed her sister.
I hoped not. I had come to like Penelope for her quiet, quirky ways. And the fact that she wasn’t Sally.
I knocked.
Sheets rustled inside the room.
I knocked again.
“Yes?” Penelope’s voice quavered.
“May I come in? It’s Karen,” I announced.
“Of course. Give me a moment.” I heard the bed creak, footsteps crossing the room, then water running. Had I caught her sleeping?
Suddenly the door opened and Penelope stood before me: her face wiped clear of makeup, a white T-shirt on and loose jeans, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looked younger and more vulnerable than usual.
“I’m sorry about all this,” I found myself saying, although I wasn’t sure what I was sorry about since none of it was my fault.
“Yes.” She nodded and ushered me into her room.
The bed looked a scramble, almost as if more than one person had been sleeping in it. Penelope ushered me to a small table with two chairs that was sitting by the window. We both took a seat.
She set her chin in her hands. “Yes,” she said again, “first Sally dead, then Caldwell suspected of her death, and now Alfredo taken away by the police. It’s just too much.”
“Are you sure Alfredo had nothing to do with what happened to Sally? No reason to want her dead?”
Without hesitation, she responded, “Very sure.”
I asked, “Why?”
She lifted her hands up and waved them around as if trying to encompass a large thought. “Because he just couldn’t. Alfredo doesn’t have enough gumption to kill someone. He’s just too easygoing and sweet.”
I had to agree with her.
“Could you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she admitted after a moment. “I’m surprised to say it, but I think I could kill someone. I’ve given it some thought—you know how you do when you’re faced with one of these life-changing situations—and I’ve come to see that, in the right circumstances, I could kill someone.”
“Did you?”
She looked up at me and then covered her mouth as she laughed. “Sally? No, I wouldn’t bother.”
“Even if she took something that was near and dear to you?” I asked, feeling the ring in the palm of my hand.
“Which she did often when we were young.” Penelope stopped to think, then said, “No, I was used to it. Although I have to wonder how she would have felt if I did it back to her.”
I slid the ring around on my finger and then held my hand out to her. “Is this yours?”
She grabbed my hand with both of hers. “Oh my lord. My ring! Where did you find it?”
“In a book.”
“A book? What do you mean?”
“I found it tucked into a book in the library. Sally must have put it there for safekeeping.”
Penelope burst out, “I knew she had taken it. She denied it up and down, but I always knew.”
“Why would she take it and then leave it behind in the library when she left Caldwell?” I asked.
“Oh, I think she just didn’t want me to have it. That was so Sally. If she knew I liked something, she would do something to ruin it.”
I slipped the ring off my finger, handed it to Penelope, and then watched her slide it on the ring finger of her right hand. On my hand it had looked gaudy, but somehow on her hand it looked elegant, even regal.
“Thank you so much for finding it. I can’t tell you what it means to me. Maybe some things are going to turn out all right after all.”
“You’re welcome.” I got up to leave. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes, thanks. It was just so hard watching the police take Alfredo away. I felt so powerless.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. What is going on between you two?”
She looked down at her ring, held it out to see it better, then said, “Something.”
“You know when you said that you could kill someone—would you have killed someone for that ring?”
Penelope kept admiring the ring as she held her arm out straight, turning it this way and that. “No, not for the ring.”
“Alfredo?” I asked.
She clasped her hand around the ring. “For him, I might.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Hopping Down the Bunny Trail
“Things have really gotten bollixed up,” Caldwell said as we sat down to eat dinner in the kitchen, where we could be away from the guests. All that was on the table was one big casserole of Yorkshire hotpot.
I didn’t think it would do to argue with him about how bollixed up things were. “I know,” I said as I served both of us the dish.
He didn’t say anything. I stabbed a fork into a pile of overcooked potatoes with bits of bacon in them. I could tell how off Caldwell was feeling, because his cooking was rapidly deteriorating.
“How are we to decide what we want to do? How am I to convince you to stay here in England and start our new venture when I don’t even completely own my major asset?” he asked.
“That’s not so important,” I said. “That wasn’t really what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
“Explain to me again your thoughts,” he said, reaching out and rubbing my hand with his thumb. “Do I stand a chance with you?”
“More than a chance. It’s hardly about you at all. You’re perfect, or as close to perfect as one can expect in this imperfect world.”
At that he tweaked my nose.
I continued, “I’m trying to see if I can give up my life back home, my work as a librarian, my friends, my house, my books, my walks, my everything . . . to come and live with you in this world that I don’t completely understand and in which people get killed far too often for my taste.”
“Okay, now we’re getting someplace. First off, I need you as a librarian. You will help me order my books, organize my life. In my eyes, you will always be the librarian of our books. Second, your books will come with you, I hope, to commingle with mine. Third, as they say, mi casa es su casa. And I hope your friends will come often to visit and that you will find new friends and new walks to make your life full and complete. And then there’s me.”
“Yes, the most potent argument of all—to live with a man who loves books and who loves me.”
“Nearly as much as books,” he murmured.
“I would be a fool not to grab you while I can,” I said, pulling away to look at Caldwell.
“And no one would ever be caught dead calling you that,” he said emphatically, then heard what he had said and apologized. “Sorry about the dead part.”
; “That is the part that worries me now. I can hardly think of all the rest of it until we have that part figured out. What if they take you away again? What if it was Alfredo? What if they think it’s me?”
“You? Why would they think you did it?”
“Because of you.”
“Oh, now this is getting ridiculous,” he said.
“You don’t think I have it in me to be a jealous, conniving woman who would slay anything in the way of getting her man?”
“Well, hardly conniving. The rest of it, perhaps.”
“Caldwell, we must resolve what happened to Sally.”
“And we will.”
“I forgot to tell you that Bruce went into the library this morning. I found him in there snooping around.”
It was as if I had thrown a glass of ice water in his face. Caldwell gulped, went white, and then stood up, shaking his head. “He was in the library?” he asked. “Alone? By himself?”
“Yes, but I don’t think he had time to do anything. I asked him what he wanted—which was to buy books from you. I explained to him that you weren’t ready to sell and then sent him on his way.”
“I must go and check on my books.”
“I locked the room. I’m sure that everything is fine.”
“But I haven’t told you about something.”
“The thing that you haven’t told me about yet?” I asked. “The surprise that you’ve been keeping from me?”
“Yes, that thing. Well, I did want it to be a surprise, at the right moment, but I think you need to know now, because of how valuable it is and all that.”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“But first I have to go and check the library.” He dropped his napkin on the floor and bolted out of the room.
I followed behind him, at a slower pace. I caught up with him as he was fumbling with the key to unlock the door.
“Please let it still be there,” he said as he pushed the door open.
Caldwell strode over to the Edwardian rolltop desk and unlocked the top to reveal a set of drawers and pigeonholes. Underneath one of the drawers, he pulled out a second small, secret drawer. From there, he took out a carefully wrapped rectangular object that I had no doubt was a book. Reverently, he placed it on the desktop.
Death Overdue (Librarian Mysteries) Page 11