Murder in the Locked Library

by Ellery Adams

  “But we found the bones!” Fitz protested.

  Jane gave him a stern look. “I realize that, Fitzgerald. You and your brother are observant and you have excellent eyesight. You also stopped the earthmover driver just in time. But neither of you are trained scientists. Therefore, you will not go near that area unless you are specifically asked. Do you understand?”

  The boys murmured “yes, ma’am” into their plates while Jane tried not to roll her eyes. Women on her staff were constantly telling her to be grateful for sons because girls were far more dramatic. But these women hadn’t been around to witness Fitz and Hem when they embarked on one of their lengthy sulks, and Jane could see that they were heading in that direction.

  “Tell you what,” Jane said in a softer tone. “Let me finish my coffee and throw on a pair of jeans, and we’ll walk over to the garage together. If the bone lady and her team are up and about, that’s where we’ll find them.”

  The boys responded by devouring their pancakes, loading their plates into the dishwasher, and offering to fix Jane a travel mug of coffee.

  In lieu of accepting, she gestured at the mixing bowl, whisk, measuring cup, spatula, and pan and suggested that they get a firsthand experience of how many tools pancake art required.

  Fifteen minutes later, with the kitchen relatively clean, Jane trailed after her sons on the very brief trip from their house, which was originally the back half of the hunting lodge on Walter Steward’s estate in England, to the garage. This larger front half contained the fleet of Rolls Royce sedans used to collect Storyton Hall guests from the train station as well as Sterling’s living quarters and lab. There was also a spacious basement where the Fins did much of their physical training and Jane and the twins honed their martial arts skills.

  This morning, a small crowd of people dressed in jeans and T-shirts occupied the garage. They stood in a loose circle around the table where the bones had been laid out the day before. Because their heads were bent and they were so quiet, they looked like a group at prayer.

  Drawing closer, Jane noticed that the plastic sheeting covering the skull and larger bones had already been removed and that several powerful lights had been positioned around the area. A woman with round glasses and dark hair laced with filaments of silver was speaking in a hushed, but animated tone. Not only were the graduate students giving who was undoubtedly the forensic anthropologist their full attention, but so was Sinclair.

  Unlike the students, Sinclair was a Fin. As soon as he sensed Jane’s approach, he signaled to Celia Wallace that he needed to interrupt her.

  “Doctor Wallace? This is Jane Steward, the manager of Storyton Hall.” Sinclair introduced Fitz and Hem next. “These gentlemen are her sons. They’re responsible for finding our Englishman.”

  “Please call me Celia. We living are all friends among the dead.” The anthropologist came forward to pump Jane’s hand while the boys received enthusiastic high-fives and a string of compliments for their discovery.

  “Is he a man, ma’am?” Hem asked.

  “He is,” Celia said. “One of my students”—she pointed at a pretty young woman with an auburn ponytail—“has already given him a nickname. We’re calling him Oliver.”

  “Like Oliver Twist?” Fitz peeked out at the grad student from under his long lashes and she rewarded him with a friendly smile. Flustered, he instantly dropped to a catcher’s pose and pretended to tie his shoe.

  Celia was noticeably impressed. “Wow,” she said to Jane. “I didn’t expect them to get the reference. Not many kids their age would. Then again, not many kids are lucky enough to grow up in this paradise. After we’re done with the site, I’m not sure I’ll want to leave.”

  It was impossible not to warm to Celia. “You’re fond of books, then?”

  “Fond?” Celia laughed, and the sound was so replete with unchecked merriment that everyone in the room laughed with her. “I’m an addict. A junkie. A hoarder. I openly admit to having a serious problem when it comes to books. Ask my students. They had to fight for seat space with the books I keep in my truck. I ride around with books to read at cafés, or during boring movies, dull lectures, or at really long red lights. People are constantly honking at me.”

  She began chortling again, but tapered off when she noticed Hem studying her with a wary eye.

  “I love books, but my real passion is old bones. And the stories they tell. Ah, the lessons we can learn from the silent past,” she added in a far more sedate, almost melancholy tone. She then took off her glasses, rubbed at a smudge on the left lens, and addressed the twins. “Would you like to learn how we knew this person was an Oliver and not an Olive?”

  The boys said that they would, and while Celia showed them Oliver’s femur as well as the partial pelvic bone, Sinclair motioned for Jane to join him away from the others.

  “Sheriff Evans is on the way with the rest of the collected evidence. Doctor Wallace—I cannot bring myself to use her Christian name—has informed me that she intends to grid the area where the remains were found. It’s her hope that she and her team will take what’s already bagged as well as what they find back to the university two days from today.”

  Jane was both astonished and delighted. “Two days? That’s all?”

  “Apparently, once she gets her hands in the dirt, she doesn’t stop digging.” Sinclair shot Celia Wallace an appreciative glance.

  “It sounds like she shares your work ethic,” Jane said.

  Sinclair’s lips formed the ghost of a smile. “We seem to have several common interests. Doctor Wallace also enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on, from autobiographies to historical fiction to romantic poetry.”

  Jane gave Sinclair a gentle bump with her shoulder. “Maybe I shouldn’t want such an interesting woman to leave us so quickly.”

  For the briefest moment, Sinclair looked like he might agree. “On the contrary,” he said instead. “We must do all we can to assist her. Keeping the construction project on schedule is of paramount importance.”

  “Mom!” Hem and Fitz suddenly materialized in front of Jane.

  “The bone lady said that we could help!” Fitz exclaimed. He opened his mouth to continue, but Hem didn’t give him a chance.

  “If we follow her directions, and you say that it’s okay, we can shake dirt through special screens!”

  Jane smiled. “It’s okay with me. I see it as an educational opportunity.”

  This earned her a hug from her sons.

  “You’d better wear boots!” she cried as they dashed off. “You’ll be spending the day in the dirt.”

  When Jane turned to look at Celia, she saw that the anthropologist was grinning at her. “They seem pretty amped about playing in the dirt.”

  “It’s their favorite medium,” Jane said with a laugh. Growing serious again, she asked, “Did Sheriff Evans tell you about the other artifacts found with the bones?”

  Celia nodded. “One of my students is proficient in coin cleaning. He’ll get going on that as soon as it arrives. As far as the book fragment, I’d planned to ask you and Mr. Sinclair—he insists on being so formal—to lend us your expertise. This is the first time I’ve encountered a book buried with human remains.”

  One of Celia’s male students, who wore a faded Cheerwine T-shirt, waved to get his mentor’s attention. “PoPo’s here.”

  When Jane saw that Deputy Amelia Emory was with Sheriff Evans, she smiled. She liked the young deputy. Emory was an art aficionado and a chronic reader, and Jane suspected that she’d volunteered to come with the sheriff today.

  After dispensing with introductions, Jane gave Sheriff Evans the floor.

  “I’m going to sign the evidence over to you, Doctor, er, Celia,” the sheriff said. “But if you need manpower from our department, just say the word. We’re a bit short, seeing as it’s a holiday weekend, but I can always find a few deputies willing to work extra shifts.”

  Celia’s eyes were already moving over the evidence bags, an
d she seemed pleased by what she saw inside. “Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate all that you’ve done already. We’ll be sure to let you know what we find. Won’t we, team?”

  The grad students murmured in agreement, but the disarticulated remains had transfixed them as well. Though no words were spoken to the effect, it was plain that Celia and her team were eager for the sheriff and his deputy to depart so they could be alone with the bones and the British coin.

  Sheriff Evans was an intuitive man. Tipping his hat, he wished everyone a pleasant day. As he headed toward his car, Jane heard him say, “Don’t worry, Emory. If they need help, you’ll be the one I send over. But for now, we have the glamorous job of responding to Mrs. Hogg’s complaint.”

  “Not the rooster again,” Emory muttered before the pair moved out of earshot.

  With the arrival of the evidence bags, Celia’s demeanor changed. She clapped her hands and began assigning tasks with the loud, rapid-fire speech of a general launching a full-scale assault.

  Jane realized that if she didn’t interrupt, she might spend the rest of the morning waiting for an opening, and she had plenty of things to do before the conference attendees checked in that afternoon.

  “Celia.” Jane touched the anthropologist lightly on the arm. “I’m leaving you to your work, but before I go, could we discuss the book found with the body? My guess is that it’s too humid out here for something in such delicate condition, so I’d like to take it inside Storyton Hall for safekeeping and further study. With your permission, of course.”

  “The book!” Celia shook her head. “Forgive me, but when I’m near a pile of bones, I completely lose myself. They’re the most fascinating puzzle. And it’s much more than the reassembly of the broken pieces. The bones ask so many questions. Am I male or female? Am I young or old? Rich or poor? Healthy or Unhealthy? Did I die of natural causes? What was my diet? Did I take care of my teeth?”

  Jane glanced at the skull. “When I look at that, I’m full of questions, not the other way around.”

  Celia nodded encouragingly. “Such as?”

  “Why were you buried without a coffin or headstone? Why did you come to America? Why did you take that book to your grave?”

  “Excellent questions,” Celia said approvingly. She scanned the room until her gaze landed on Sinclair.

  Storyton Hall’s head librarian had just left the twins in the care of the pretty grad student who’d smiled at Fitz earlier. Celia had asked the girl, whose name was Petra, to take the boys under her wing for the day, and she’d happily agreed.

  “Are we talking books or bones?” Sinclair asked, joining Jane and Celia next to the table bearing the skull, femur, pelvis, and other large bones.

  “Both,” Celia said. “However, I’d like to entrust the book to you and Jane. After an initial examination, including photographs, I’ll send the book inside and out of harm’s way.”

  Sinclair was satisfied with this outcome, so Jane left the occupants of the garage to their tasks and headed into the kitchens to get a cup of coffee before proceeding to her office.

  She bumped into Mrs. Hubbard refilling her personal mug from the staff coffeepot.

  “It’s nice and strong this morning,” she said, settling on a stool. “I heard that our special guests are already hard at work.”

  She must pay her spies with baked goods, Jane thought.

  Instead of supplying Mrs. Hubbard with details, she ordered a tray of sandwiches to be prepared for the anthropology team by lunchtime, poured herself a mammoth cup of coffee, and continued to her office. She spent the next two hours answering e-mails and meeting with various staff members to ensure that all was ready for the kickoff of the rare book conference.

  At noon, Jane helped two waiters from the Kipling Café carry platters of sandwiches, fruit kebabs, homemade potato chips, and drinks to the garage.

  The grave site was now completely covered by a white event tent, and when Jane ducked under one of the flaps, she was stunned by the transformation she saw within. Hours ago, there’d been a jagged hole in the ground. Now, the shape of the hole was a perfect rectangle and a grid of strings covered the entire opening. A grad student armed with trowel, sieve, brush, and a pair of buckets occupied each grid square. Celia remained in the garage. Spotting Jane, she announced that Oliver’s bones had been cleaned and were now drying in shallow pans.

  “Your sons made another discovery,” she told Jane, sounding like a doting aunt. “A halfpenny! Both the halfpenny and the farthing are in great shape. I wish I could say the same of Oliver’s clavicle bones.”

  Hem and Fitz couldn’t wait to show Jane their find. After she admired the coin, which was about the size of a contemporary quarter, she convinced the boys to leave the treasure and eat.

  “The halfpenny lady is called Britannia,” Hem told her as he selected a smoked ham and mozzarella sandwich from the platter.

  “She’s holding a thing that looks like a pitchfork,” Fitz added. “Poseidon had one too.”

  Jane looked on with amusement as Fitz grabbed a roast beef with herbed goat cheese and far too many potato chips. To make up for his excessiveness, she skipped the chips, putting a spoonful of fruit salad on her plate next to her prosciutto and fig sandwich.

  “A trident?” she guessed.

  “That’s it!” Fitz exclaimed. “Ms. Celia is going to put our names in her article. She said it’s important to give credit where credit is due. I don’t know what that means, but we’re having our names in a magazine. Isn’t that awesome?”

  Jane smiled at her son. “Yes, it is. And what Doctor Wallace means is that you should be recognized for what you found. For your hard work as well. No matter what your age.”

  “I like her,” Hem said as Jane led her sons to a bench in Milton’s Gardens.

  “Me too,” Jane said.

  Fitz, whose mouth was stuffed with potato chips, began to speak, but Jane pointed at his cheek and shook her head.

  He hurriedly swallowed and began to tell Jane how he and Hem had helped sift the dirt of Petra’s grid through a screen. While they’d worked, Petra shared stories of the other digs she’d been on.

  Hem said, “She’s done two others, but she said that this one’s her favorite.”

  “Not because of us,” Fitz added. “It’s Oliver. They have lots of his bones. And Ms. Celia is excited because he had a disease just like Doc Lydgate said.”

  Hem examined a brown spot on his potato chip. “They all think diseases are cool, but we saw pictures of germs in our science book and I think they’re gross.”

  “Plus, Aunt Octavia has a disease and it makes her unhappy,” Fitz added.

  Jane put down her sandwich. “Some adults are interested in how diseases mark human bones because it helps them know what kind of life that person lived. It helps them understand that person’s story. It would be like if, one day, they found your Aunt Octavia’s diary and they read about how sad she was when she learned that she couldn’t sample all of the teatime treats everyday.”

  “Because too much sugar isn’t good for her,” Hem said.

  Fitz had stopped eating and was frowning in thought. “Oliver must have eaten a ton of candy. He had holes in his teeth. Remember how Doc Lydgate showed us three cavities?”

  “Probably not from candy,” Jane said. “But who knows? Tooth decay is another kind of disease. See? These are the things Celia and her team will study when they take Oliver back to their lab.”

  “I want to study bones when I grow up,” Fitz announced.

  Hem stared at him in astonishment. “I thought we were going to be explorers. We made a pact.”

  Imagining pinpricks on pinkie fingers and the swearing of a blood oath, Jane spoke up before her sons could begin one of their endless arguments. “You could do both. Anthropologists travel quite a bit. So do archaeologists.”

  “But I don’t want to study bones,” Hem complained. “I don’t want to be stuck in a building. I don’t want to wear a tie and be qu
iet all the time. I’d die!”

  Many of Storyton Hall’s guests felt as Hem did. Their professions required that they spend countless hours in cramped spaces—walled cubicles, labs, operating rooms, offices—and when they dreamed of a vacation place, they dreamed of a setting with tall trees, rolling hills, and a wide swath of bright blue sky. They longed for the tranquility of muted phones and e-mails set to out-of-office reply. Only with this combination could they hope to finally unwind, take a deep breath for the first time in a very long time, and pursue their love of reading. Which is exactly what Storyton Hall offered.

  And a dead body from time to time, Jane thought ruefully.

  After lunch, the twins wanted to continue working with Petra.

  “They’ve really been helpful,” Celia assured Jane. “And we’re making wonderful progress. If tomorrow goes as well as today, I expect to be Charlottesville-bound before suppertime.”

  “That’s incredible.” Jane wanted to hug the anthropologist. “When the sheriff first mentioned this process, I was under the impression you’d be here for weeks.”

  Celia laughed. “We have no structure to excavate. The metal detectors aren’t signaling large buried objects, so what I expect to find at this juncture would be more coins, a belt buckle, buttons—that sort of thing. We’ve probably found all the bones we’re going to find. The rest have likely been destroyed, but we’ll continue searching.”

  “In the meantime, we can study the book here?” Jane asked.

  “Mr. Sinclair told me that an entire army of rare book experts is descending on Storyton Hall. If the book remains a mystery to you two, why not show it to these folks? I’m not one of those scientists who secrets her discoveries in a lab cabinet where they never see the light of day. I believe, that by pooling knowledge and sharing information, all disciplines benefit. The human race benefits.”

  Jane thought of how she’d previously tried to convince Uncle Aloysius to display items from their secret library and of how the words she’d said to him had sounded similar to Celia’s.