“Detective Mason.”
“Um, hello, Detective. This is Katrina Peters. Something happened that I thought I should tell you about.”
“Yes?”
“I saw someone trying to get into the bookstore, doing something with the lock. It was Matt Wilkes, my student. He gave up and started walking away and then I talked to him. He just said he’d left a textbook in there, but I think he was lying.”
“Are you still there at the college?”
“Yes, in the parking lot. In my car.”
“Stay there. I’ll be right there.”
“What?” I said. But he had already hung up.
I only had to wait about ten minutes before he came. I got out of the car and walked with him to the back of the bookstore. He looked carefully at the lock Matt had been fooling with.
“See anything?” I said.
“No, but then I’d be surprised if I did see something. Lock picks don’t leave marks on the face of the lock. The forensics lab could tell from the inside of the lock whether the lock was picked, but since you actually saw him try to unlock the door with something, and since he didn’t get in, there’s really no need to prove it. But you’re sure it was Matt Wilkes you saw?”
“Positive.”
“That means there’s something in there he wants pretty badly.”
“All I can think of is that diary, which is still at the police station, right?”
“Right. But his actions seem pretty extreme just to get a family diary back.”
“He asked me if the books would be sold, and I told him I didn’t know. Maybe he’ll try to get it that way.”
“Hm. Unless he is the murderer and left something behind that he wants to retrieve.”
“Wouldn’t the crime scene people have found it?”
“Probably, if they saw something that seemed out of place. But if whatever it was looked like it might belong there, they wouldn’t notice it.”
“Oh.”
“Perhaps you ought to go in and see if you see anything out of place.”
“Now?” I shrank from the idea of going in and seeing the…seeing the spot where Frank had died.
“If you can bear to. Once a cleaning crew has come, it might be too late. And of course someone might try again to get in there.”
“We could post a guard, couldn’t we? Like a policeman on a stakeout?” Into my mind flashed a picture of Todd inviting me to sit in a car on a stakeout with him. That might be fun.
“I don’t think the chief would think we have the resources to expend on that possibility. You might think about getting a security camera, though.”
“I’m sure that would cost a bundle.” I contemplated the possibility for a moment and then dismissed it. “Anyway, I couldn’t get it installed today.”
“No, you couldn’t. Would you be ok looking inside?”
I found myself trembling a little. “Do I have to go in by myself?”
“No, no, I’ll go with you. I ought to be there if you find anything.”
I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. “All right.” I found my keys and fitted the right one into the lock.
The door opened and we went into the bookstore. All was dark. I flipped on the lights. The first area I checked was Frank’s desk. The computer was gone, of course, and the ledger had been taken away. Frank’s coffee cup was still there, half full of coffee, and it made my eyes fill up with tears. Nothing else looked any different than usual. Frank had not been much use at organizing books, but he wasn’t a slob. Everything was neatly put away in drawers; nothing was on the floor. The lovely dark wood bookcases looked the same as they always did. I carefully avoided looking at the dark stain in the middle of the open area—there was nothing on the floor there, anyway.
“I don’t see anything here,” I said. “I could go shelf-by-shelf, I guess, but that would take hours.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Todd. “It seems like the gunman had only about a minute to do whatever he did between the shot and leaving the scene. If you didn’t hear him do anything around the shelves, it’s unlikely he had any contact with them. Is there anything around the front entrance that is unusual?”
I looked. “No, nothing.”
“All right, then. I think we can go now.”
We walked to the back of the store and I turned out the lights before we went out. I locked the door again and Todd pulled on it to make sure it was secure.
“Well, that’s over,” I said gratefully.
“Yes. You did great. Really, great.” His hand just rested on my shoulder briefly before he turned and led the way back toward the path.
“Can I go home now?”
“Of course. You must be sick of the sight of me.”
“What I’m sick of is thinking about this murder.”
“I know. I’m sorry you’re so mixed up in it.”
I shrugged. “At times like this the knowledge of the sovereignty of God is a great help. He has a reason for me to be going through this. I just have to trust Him. In fact, I just finished reading an old Puritan book called All Things for Good. This situation is probably God’s idea of giving me a final exam on it.”
“The one by Thomas Watson? Good book.”
“You’ve read it?” I was incredulous.
“Yeah.”
We walked silently for a few minutes. Then he said, “Do you really think God gives us final exams?”
“No, not really. I think that’s the professor in me, always think in terms of tests and evidence of learning. Besides, God already knows how we are going to react to things. I think the tests are there so that we know where our hearts are at.”
“I think you’re right.”
We had reached the parking lot by this time, and I pulled my car keys out of my pocket. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at three, huh? You must be pretty tired of seeing so much of me.”
The smile appeared again. “I wouldn’t say that, Miss Peters.”
Chapter 6
I met Callie at the library the next day exactly at noon, and the librarian let us into the Special Collections room. It had been given that name in a burst of optimism with the hope that more rare books would be donated to the institution. As it was, there was only the one collection—the books willed to the college by Willard L. Jackson, whose portrait adorned the wall of the room with a plaque beside it to make sure everyone knew that this was the generous benefactor.
The prize of the collection, was, of course, the Bradstreet poem. It sat by itself in a glass case in the middle of the room, too valuable and fragile to risk handling by the general public. The other books were in a locked cabinet off to the side. The librarian unlocked it and got out the requested book: Modern Chivalry, Volume One, published in 1792. There had been six volumes altogether in the novel, brought out over a number of years, but the library only has the first. It is the most valuable, of course, and definitely a treasure for a small private school like this. Callie was allowed to sit at the antique desk in the room (also a bequest from Mr. Jackson) and read it.
While she did so, I took the opportunity to look at the Bradstreet poem again. It was beginning to be an old friend. The distinctive marks of water stains along one side only added to its charm. Sometime or other it had gotten damp, but it had survived. I admired, as I always did, the beautiful script, looking slightly cramped compared to the more fluid writing of the next century. Its angles and curves always reminded me of gothic architecture for some reason. The poem, though not my favorite of hers, was still beautiful, and a reminder that Christians through the centuries have had the same experience:
By Night when Others Soundly Slept
By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.
I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
&nb
sp; He bow’d his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.
My hungry Soul he fill’d with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.
What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I’ll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Love him to Eternity.
I felt like I had had a moment of communion with Anne Bradstreet. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism…” in spite of the centuries separating us.
I gave a satisfied sigh and headed toward the opened cabinet. I hadn’t really spent much time browsing through its contents. It was an eclectic mix. There were a couple valuable first editions, a few not-so-valuable first editions—mostly books few people have heard of, some manuscript volumes, and some books that were merely very old. One of these was the memoirs of a servant who had worked on George Washington’s estate. I pulled it out and began to leaf through it.
The author, who had worked his way up from footman to butler, was probably a much better butler than he was a writer. To my knowledge, his reminiscences had never been reprinted, and I was not really surprised. However, it occurred to me that the book would contain some valuable information about the way servants were treated and their own feelings about their station. I wondered if it differed at all from the way people in service in Britain were treated and how they felt during the same time period. I decided to let Dr. Shaw in the History department know the book was in here, in case he hadn’t seen it before. He had done a lot of work in the area of social history.
“I guess we should probably get going, huh?” Callie’s voice pulled me out of the eighteenth century. I glanced at my watch.
“Ack! Only fifteen minutes till class! You’re right, we ought to get going.”
The librarian came back to ensure that the books were back in the right places, and to lock up the cabinet and the room after us, and Callie and I headed off to American Lit.
When class was over, I grabbed a sandwich from the grill on campus and then went to the police station. It was odd—I was almost starting to feel at home there. Some faces were now familiar, like the woman working at the desk out front who said she would tell Detective Mason I was there. I might have imagined it, but I thought she smiled at me more broadly than she would have if I were someone who had never been there before. I expected to be brought back to the interview room again, but instead Todd came out to where I was.
“Are you in a hurry?” he asked. “Do you have somewhere you need to be anytime soon?”
“Not really,” I said. “I finished grading that stack of papers last night, so my calendar is pretty clear.”
Idiot, I thought. You might as well just scream “I have no social life!”
“Mr. Delaney’s cousin had an accident yesterday and broke his leg. He’s in the hospital while they decide if they need to do surgery on it. I asked him if it would be all right if we talked to him at the hospital, and he agreed. It’s in Tacoma, but that’s not too far.”
I consented, and nothing more of any importance was said until we were on the road. It’s rather a pretty drive in spring—the road follows a river almost the whole way, and you can pretend you’re out for a drive in the country.
“I have a question for you,” Todd said. “When you saw that journal of Matthew Wilkes, could you read it?”
“Sure. It wasn’t in code or anything, just ordinary writing.”
“That’s the problem; it isn’t really ordinary writing. I mean, the letters are written differently, some of them, and he has some abbreviations for words that just seem odd. We’ve been trying to read it to see what Matt might have thought was valuable about it, but we are struggling. You didn’t have the same problem?”
“No, it was fairly typical handwriting and abbreviations for the nineteenth century. But then I guess I’ve read a lot more of that than most people have.”
“Exactly. I talked to the chief about hiring you as a consultant on this case. Right now it just means you would read the journal for us and see if you come up with anything important. But since you also knew the victim fairly well and have connections with a couple of suspects, it would be helpful to have your opinion as we sift through evidence.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking that “police consultant” would sound nice on my resume. “It wouldn’t take me very long to read the journal. It’s one of my few talents, actually: reading fast. Comes in handy for someone who makes a living out of reading. Well, and teaching. Teaching what I’ve read.” I could feel myself beginning to babble. I made myself be quiet.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll see that you get the book when we get back to the station.”
I nodded. “By the way, did you ever figure out what the note in the trash can meant about forgeries?”
He hesitated.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I’m sure you probably can’t tell me that. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Well, I suppose you are a consultant on the case, so I could tell you. We don’t know yet. We thought that it might be written by the same person you heard Frank talking to on the phone, but we’re not sure. The Office of College Development is headed by someone named Justin Marks—and his name obviously doesn’t start with a K.”
“Was Justin the one who called Frank?”
“He says he wasn’t, although he admits that the college has approached Frank in the past about buying his building.”
“Did he have any idea why someone would say the deed was forged?”
“We didn’t ask him that. We don’t always tell the people we talk to everything we know.”
“I see.”
I looked out the window at the river. It was swollen with spring rains; the few ducks I could see were hurried along by the current. It reminded me of my life at the moment—since the murder, I felt like events had caught me up in a headlong rush toward the unknown, and I was like one of those ducks swimming frantically with startled expressions. Oh well. God was over all of it, untouched by the turbulence of the water. As one who sits and gazes from above, Over the rivers to the bitter sea, I thought. It was one of the poems we were going to discuss on Monday.
“It’s funny how forgeries seem to be a recurring theme in my life right now,” I said. “The book we’re discussing at the book club on Monday also has a famous connection to forgeries.”
“You go to a book club? You don’t get enough reading done for your job?”
“Well, I started the book club, kind of as an outreach. It meets at the library, and it’s called ‘Reading the Classics.’ A lot of old books touch on profound themes and a Christian worldview. I thought that even though I can’t openly make it an evangelistic group, it might cause people to think about the deeper things in life. I also thought I could get to know people in Morris Creek that way.”
“That’s a great idea. What book are you discussing?”
“Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Usually we do novels, but someone asked if we could do poetry, so we’re trying it out this time.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
I wondered if he was just saying that to be polite—most men do not find early nineteenth century woman poets to be anything but incomprehensible.
We found Frank’s cousin John sitting up in bed with his leg in a boot cast. He greeted us much more warmly than I would have thought a relative of Frank would.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it in to the police station to see you today,” he said. “I was trying to move a bookcase and it fell over on my foot. Entirely my own stupidity.”
“Please don’t worry about it,” said Todd. “It was refreshing to be able to get out of the station this afternoon.”
“And pleasant company too, I see,” said John with a look I can only describe as teasing. I hate it when people do that—particularly people who don’t even know you.
I was dreading hearing Todd say the obvious rejoinder, either “we’re just friends” or “we’re just colleagues,” or even “She’s just working on this case with me as a consultant”—although that last one would be a bit of a mouthful.
Fortunately, Todd just ignored the comment, and pulled out a pen and a notebook.
“We wanted to ask you about your cousin Frank. We’re very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, but I haven’t seen Frank in years. The real loss happened a good long time ago when he stopped speaking to me.”
“We need to ask you if you know of any reason why someone would want to hurt Frank.”
“No, but like I said, I haven’t been in contact with him for years.”
“Did you expect him to leave you anything in his will?”
“Heavens, no. That’s the last think I would have expected. If anything, I thought he might leave something to Linda Johnson—she was his sweetheart years ago.”
“Oh? Were they still in contact, do you know?”
“No idea. Unlikely, I’d say. She broke it off with him years ago—nearly twenty, at least. But I always thought he still had a soft spot for her.”
“What happened?” I asked. Evidently this was the romantic secret behind Frank’s embittered soul. A real-life male version of Miss Havisham.
“I don’t know, exactly. She thought he had done something wrong, he told me. He’d done a lot for her, you know. She was the librarian at Wilkester College. It was on her account that he turned the hardware store into a bookstore. She said she wished there was a book dealer in Wilkester and he had inherited the store a few years before. He wasn’t particularly excited about hardware, of course, and he thought he might as well switch to books. But like I said, afterwards she broke it off with him and she moved away not long after that.”
“And he never told you what she thought he’d done?” asked Todd.
“I’m not even sure he knew for certain. But that’s all he told me. After that he got cantankerous and quarrelsome—made enemies of pretty much everyone. He got mad at me for some reason—honestly, I can’t even remember what it was.”
Brought to Book Page 6