Whistle-blowing was out. It was socially acceptable but it didn’t bring in bucks. Could not have been Emily’s secret plan. Emily was involved. Co-thief? Perhaps. Or blackmailing the real thief. Probably the latter, because she was still researching the probable worth of the books, didn’t know that on her own. I didn’t think she was the one stealing or selling them. But blackmail was just as bad, and more dangerous.
Or maybe there really was a rich guy working at the library simply because he wanted to. I put the reins on my runaway thoughts and looked at the crumpled slip of paper again. Bauman/Sabin: AL. “Was the boyfriend’s name Al?”
Mackenzie could find out what was true and what was not. He’d believe me on this one, wouldn’t he? At least find it worth pursuing.
Call waiting beeped. “Beth,” I said, “hold on there—I have to take this. It might be Mackenzie.” I clicked and answered.
“Pepper?” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Who is this?”
“Your name’s in Adam’s pocket.”
“Is he all right? Where is he?”
“Where he is is on my nerves. I don’t need this—I have my own problems.”
“Try—tell me where he is, what he wants. Who you are.”
“We’ve been hanging. He’s no trouble. Wasn’t. But he’s like … he’s gone really weird. Thinks he needs his scarf, but he needs a lot more than that.”
“Again? The scarf? Where is Adam?”
I don’t know how you can hear a kiss-off without the kiss, but I had the definite impression I just had. “He says the library kept it, and he wants it back, which is where he was headed. Tried to call you but he said his fingers weren’t working anymore, he couldn’t press phone keys. Couldn’t read the numbers, either. See what I mean? So, well, I did this because I’m out of here. I can’t take no more. Somebody better get him.”
“But is he—when did he—” The connection ended. Adam sounded like he was having a full-fledged psychotic break. I clicked back to Beth.
“Was it Mackenzie?” Beth asked.
“No. It …” What should I do?
“You know,” Beth said, “about Helena’s rich boyfriend’s name. All I remember is something like a wine. His last name. Chardonnay? Burgundy?”
It was barely seven o’clock. The library was open for two more hours.
“Blanc? Rosé?”
I knew. The library’s Rare Book Department. A name very much like a wine. Like Bordeaux? Could there be more than one person with that kind of name there? A Frank Champagne, or Claude Merlot?
“Wait,” Beth said. “I remember that he was going to France because that’s where his family was from—half his family. The other half was Scots. Lots of jokes about cheap wine.” Her yawn was audible.
Scots. Cheap-wine jokes. Short for Alastair, Terry had said.
Terry. Alastair Labordeaux. AL on the crumpled paper. At the library, where Adam was headed—Adam who’d found Emily, not murdered her. Adam, about whom Terry had questioned me, had offered to help find. Sweet God—
“… a little tired, actually,” Beth was saying. “I should—”
“Absolutely. Right away.”
“If I get this tired walking one corridor and riding one elevator—”
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” I pressed the disconnect button before I finished my sentence. Mackenzie had to listen to me this time. I punched in his page number and felt a flash of understanding and then a flush of embarrassment. Labordeaux hadn’t been coming on to me, and he hadn’t been upset because I had another romantic involvement. He’d been upset because I was asking too many questions. Because I hadn’t known where Adam was or what he knew, and he needed to know what Adam had or hadn’t seen.
That boy, he’d said. That crazy boy who did it—where is he? Do you know? Is he in touch with you?
That boy was walking into big trouble, worse trouble now than ever before, and there was no way he could anticipate it.
No return call from Mackenzie despite a second page with a 911 hooked on to make it clear this was an emergency. I watched the clock change, move forward a minute at a time, a dot on the side of the face pulsing with each second, each of which I felt along with the cumulative pressure of the past week, the impact of meaning well and doing poorly.
This was my last chance to help Adam.
To do it right this time.
I looked wistfully at the silent telephone, then at the clock.
To do it myself.
Now.
Twenty-one
MOVIES HAVE RUINED REAL LIFE, MADE IT FEEL SLUGGISH AND damned near impossible, with countless irrelevancies demanding space between hither and yon. In a movie, if I had to get from Old City to the library, I would have done it in the blink of a scene change. Instead, I had to live all the intervening molasses moments, from riding the sluggish elevator down to getting to my car, to having somebody double-parked beside it, to finally getting free, to being stuck in traffic (which never, ever happens in movies—instead, they have wild, high-speed chases right through town), to not being able to find a parking space within dreaming distance of my destination, to the walk-jog, finally, to the library itself.
And with all that time and intervening garbage, you’d have thought, I would have thought—anybody with a brain would have thought—about what I was going to do once I arrived at the place.
Goes to show you… I’d gotten as far as get Adam. Without a clue as to how to do that, or what I’d do if I found him, I speeded by the ever-present sullen smokers out on the front steps and into the lobby, which, to my amazement, was densely populated. I caught a glimpse of a poster with SOLD OUT on a banner across it. A special event, a lecture by somebody famous. More people. Too many people.
I looked around, sure that Adam would not be a part of the crowd. People were not his favorite things, and being touched frightened him. I worked my way through the crowd, slowly, with many “excuse me’s.”
Maybe having a lot of people around was good. Nobody would act out with an audience. I could find Adam, and keep him away from Labordeaux, and … The librarian’s questions about my student echoed in me, as did his controlled anger at my questions about the case, about my asking for details, when I opted to revisit the scene of the crime. I could see his face as he held the elevator door, trying to look natural and only partially succeeding. How abruptly, angrily, he’d withdrawn his hand from the door, setting the elevator back to work.
The elevator. I suddenly saw it for what it was—for that minor moment when I didn’t know if Terry Labordeaux would allow me to go to the Rare Book Department. When I was in a small box and he guarded the exit.
It wasn’t only a perfect scene for a crime, but the only possible way the crime had happened. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? It was the only place a murder could be committed without anyone observing it in that fishbowl of a balcony.
The elevator. Of course. He’d been upstairs at the cafeteria, he said—and who knew if that was true? Maybe they’d both been. Ten seconds, Mackenzie had told me. Ten seconds to unconsciousness. Hold the elevator. Keep it out of action just a bit longer, then open the door and push the body out, to the right, around the corner, away. Reset the button and return to the cafeteria, probably without anybody’s having noticed your absence at all.
So easy. So dreadfully easy. A life in ten seconds. Then Adam had come out of the actual department, seen Emily’s body, cried out, called for help in his disorganized way, heard his own voice, tossed his scarf over the balcony like a summons—that scarf was close to his alter ego—then run, setting off the alarm as he pulled back the wrought-iron doors to the staircase.
By this time I’d maneuvered my way through the clumps of people and reached the foot of the great staircase.
Labordeaux had become a terrifying figure to me, a terrible, heartless danger to Adam. The best thing he could do for himself would be to further incriminate Adam—or eliminate him, if he could make it look like an accident or
self-defense against a crazed and crazy killer.
I needed to get to Adam first, take him home, wait for Mackenzie, make sure he got psychiatric help. Perhaps the saddest idea was that he’d be safer with the law than with his parents. At least he’d be evaluated and treated in the legal system.
The people in the lobby swirled aimlessly. The auditorium probably hadn’t opened yet. I scanned again for Adam, then looked up, toward the statue of Dr. Pepper. I wondered if Adam might be upstairs, looking for his scarf. Not in the Rare Book Department. It was closed for the night, as I’d realized, and the elevators were programmed so that they would not stop on that floor.
Which meant Adam wasn’t there.
Which also meant Terry Labordeaux’s workday had ended two hours earlier, and he was gone. Adam was not in as much danger as I’d feared. Relieved, I reconsidered my options.
Upstairs, perhaps, at the statue?
Altogether gone? Gone as soon as he couldn’t find his scarf? Gone long before I’d inched my way here?
I stood at the bottom of the staircase, my bronzed non-ancestor looking magisterial and dour above me, and admittedly late in the game to do so, I considered my course of action.
“Amanda! Is that you?”
I turned so quickly I nearly gave myself whiplash. He wasn’t supposed to be there—wasn’t supposed to see me. But he was, beaming, dressed in fine but rumpled clothing, his silk tie skewed. I’d found that endearing a few days ago.
“I thought that was you!” he exclaimed, as if we were best friends, not people who barely knew each other and who’d parted awkwardly. Not people who were both profoundly suspicious of each other. “You here for the lecture?”
“I—no. I’m doing research. I have to find something.” I managed a semisocial smile. “I won’t keep you,” I said, “and I’m in a bit of a rush myself. Library hours and all, I need to … I was just heading up.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got five minutes before they open the doors to the auditorium. I’ll walk you, to be sociable, and then I’ll bid you adieu. What is it you’re looking up?”
I wanted to say, Back off! I wanted to say, I know what you did. I don’t have the details yet, but I know you did it, and I’m going to convince the police you did it, too. I wanted to say, You’re lying. Every sentence you’ve ever said in my presence was a lie. Except maybe in the Elkins Library. Maybe what you said in there about the place was true. But even then, I realized. Even then he was angry with Emily Fisher. I’d thought because she was usurping his role, but now I remembered. Linda had asked about the value of the books, and Emily had said something to the effect that these books were not for sale. Had said it emphatically. The message had been for this man, who’d gotten it, loud and clear. He’d been silent— resentful, I’d thought, of her speaking up when it was his turn. But it was much more than that. It was a warning given and received.
And she was dead by that afternoon.
I said none of this. I did nothing except walk briskly up the staircase.
“What is it you’re researching?” he asked pleasantly. “Still involved with Henry James?”
I shook my head. “No. This time it’s … Crime and Punishment.” I didn’t veer my sight line from straight ahead—and that very second I saw Adam on the landing, pacing near the statue, staring at it as if it might return his long-gone scarf.
“Hey!” Labordeaux shouted. “You!”
Adam looked without recognition.
“It’s him!” Labordeaux shouted. “The kid who killed the librarian!” He took two steps. I grabbed him, screamed. “Run, Adam!”
Luckily, the library-goers on the landing couldn’t decide who was the actual crazy one—the shouting man, the bruised woman, or the boy who looked panic-stricken. No one moved.
“You crazy?” Labordeaux said, shrugging me off as if I were no more than an annoyance. “You nuts? You’ve got a killer here—again.”
“No—no, I don’t. No, you don’t. And you don’t have a victim here—again.” I pushed him, and he slipped, went down on one knee, but was up in a second, behind me, and we both raced.
Adam wasn’t on the landing anymore.
I saw a flash of black sweater in the social sciences room. It could have been anybody, but I had to hope it was Adam. “Adam,” I called, “stop! I’ll—”
I ran through a sea of gaping expressions, of librarians standing up from where they’d been, ready to warn me, to stop Adam—and Labordeaux was right behind, shouting to get that kid! Get that killer kid!
Adam wasn’t in sight. Not anywhere. I glared at Labordeaux, half furious, half relieved.
“I’m getting the guards,” he said. “Call the police,” he told the librarian. “We’ll need them in a few minutes. He’s in here. They’ll get him.” He turned and ran down the stairs.
I wheeled around, scanning the large room with its high, book-lined walls, the stacks midfloor, the wrought-iron balcony ringing the room one story up. No sign of Adam, who had to feel like a hunted animal now.
Who was a hunted animal now. The librarian left to summon help, and in that second I saw him—he’d been behind the nearest stack, and now he darted into an open doorway behind the desk and was gone.
I followed immediately, before the librarian was back and would stop me, for surely this was off-limits.
It absolutely was. I went through the doorway and maneuvered down a narrow circular staircase, feeling like Alice— where the devil was I going? “Adam,” I whisper-shouted. “Adam, it’s me. To help you. Where are you?”
Nothing. No one. Except a shout from above I could still hear: “In there! Get the guard!”
We’d been seen. I reached the bottom of the winding staircase and was relieved I wasn’t in the basement or a frightening dark space. I was in a small, bookcase-lined room, or corridor, or series of rooms that were strung ahead of me as far as I could see. What was this? “Adam?” I called out. I couldn’t hear any noise from above anymore, and I felt safe calling for him. “Adam!”
I heard steps ahead, labored breathing, and I followed the sound. The corridor’s contents changed—a computer, a desk, more and more and more books in stacks on shelves. A parallel corridor, glass doors, shelves in the middle and along the sides. Dividers and sections and I ran, and ran.
Adam was gone. Disappeared down one of the alternative “roads”?
I suddenly remembered the maintenance man in the basement telling me there were hidden passageways between the floors. He’d said not to bother looking for Adam there because it was a maze. Impossible. A person could be lost there for weeks.
I told myself I wasn’t lost. I’d come along a straight path— I thought—and I could go back the same way. I was not lost in passages that honeycombed the library between floors.
I wasn’t alone. That much was for sure. I heard a thunk and a bang. Something overturned, a guttural curse. “Adam!” I shouted again.
I reached the dead end of the passage, looked to a hallway running sideways from it, but he was nowhere.
I had no choice. I had to turn back, to summon help, to hope someone would believe me when I said the real menace was not Adam but the gentle-looking librarian.
I turned and hurried and only slowly became aware of a change in my surroundings. I hadn’t noticed the old-fashioned library catalogue cases. Maybe I’d been too intent on finding Adam. I simply hadn’t noticed. If I kept walking, I had to reach the glassed-in cases, the staircase, the social sciences room.
Except that nothing was familiar—nothing was right, and there was no opening at the end of the passageway, no spiral staircase. The light felt as if it had dimmed. It wasn’t bright enough, it was a trap, and I was lost. I was somewhere else altogether, and I had no idea how I’d moved off track, where I was.
The maintenance man had called these passageways a maze. He’d been right. I was turned around in my head, surrounded by muffled corridors, and the only other human being I knew to be down here had disappea
red.
I could be here forever. How could anybody find me? I couldn’t find me!
I had to calm down. Had to stop this. Of course I would be found. There had to be people who knew how to claim the books stacked and stored here, the equipment. People who used the glass-paned cubicles. I would be found. Eventually. I stood still and took a deep breath, and then another, calming myself. I’d be fine. By morning, by next day—by tonight, if anyone had listened to the person who’d spotted us— somebody would form a posse and find me. Mackenzie would. The police had been called. I wasn’t in trouble, just in corridors and storage spaces I hadn’t known about. This wasn’t a frightening place—simply new and unknown.
I was finding it increasingly difficult to listen to my stupid reassurances, but every time I imagined the enormous library and these narrow paths, like an ant colony beneath the departments, between those soaring double- or triple-height stories—every time I saw myself inside them, a dot in a maze, I found it difficult to breathe.
“Adam!” I shouted. “Adam, where are you?”
Nothing. It was as if my voice were absorbed by the walls, by the sighs and rustles of all the books waiting to be read, by all the words already written and said.
And then I heard a step, a bump, a low curse. Behind, not in front of me. “Adam?” I said, but cautiously. He could have wound up behind me in this crazy-house, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know for sure which direction was behind me. I listened.
I heard the shuffle of a shoe. A man’s dress shoe, not a sneaker. Not Adam.
Calm down, I told myself again. It’s the guard. It’s the security person he summoned. “Hello?” I said.
Nothing. Nothing and more nothing. A guard would call out, a guard would say “Halt” or whatever they said. I turned to run—but where? Best bet was to wait and see where these footsteps came from.
There. Closer. Closer still. And still in silence. I looked around, realized there weren’t many choices left. Only toward or away from.
I saw the shoe come around a stack. Dark blue slacks. Then him, his face, his jacket, his white shirt.
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