A Murder for the Books

by Victoria Gilbert

  The library was dark and quiet—hushed as it only was without patrons. Although the media still liked to present libraries as bastions of silence, nothing could be further from the truth. With all the activity in modern libraries, silence was impossible and, actually, not that desirable. These days, there were so many group school assignments and cooperative research projects that keeping a library silent was neither useful nor practical. The age of shushing librarians had gone out with card catalogs, despite what popular culture might portray.

  I flicked on the workroom lights, knowing its lack of windows wouldn’t betray us, but didn’t flip the switches for the main part of the library. There was enough sun spilling through the windows to light our way.

  “So where do we start?” Richard asked as I turned on the computer at the circulation desk.

  “Thinking,” I replied. “Always start by thinking through the problem.” I pulled the gold brooch from my bag and placed it on the circulation desk. “Try to figure out the best mode of attack.”

  “Because?”

  “Because there are so many resources one can use and so many different ways to tackle any specific research question. You have to narrow it down.” I stared at the brooch. “With this, for example, text materials might be useless, so I’m going to search images first.”

  Richard moved behind me. He was tall enough to view the computer monitor over my shoulder. “You mean old photos. Won’t you need the archives for that?”

  “Not necessarily. The county newspaper has been digitized, so I might find something if I search that resource. I assume the Cooper trial was big news, and if my great-grandmother was a major player for the prosecution, there might be a photo of her in the newspaper from around that time.”

  Richard leaned closer. “But wearing a specific piece of jewelry?”

  “That’s the fun part of research. It seems unlikely, but you never know. It’s like a treasure hunt. You search and search and then sometimes—a discovery.” I bent my head over the keyboard. It was true that I could smell the sweat on Richard’s shirt, but strangely, it wasn’t actually an unpleasant scent. Which was a bit unnerving, all in all.

  “So you’ve pulled up the newspaper archive. Now what?”

  “Now I have to figure out what terms to use to search.” I turned my head to meet Richard’s interested gaze. “That’s one of the things a lot of people don’t understand. They just type in stuff, and when no useful hits appear, they give up. ‘Must not exist,’ they say. But see, it all depends on how something was indexed. I mean, what title was given to an article, or what terms were used in it, or even how someone’s name was spelled. Because if you search for a name with the wrong spelling, you might think there’s no information available even if there is. And that works the opposite way too. Sometimes the article or report or whatever misspells names or other things. And then when you search with the correct spelling, you won’t find that particular item.”

  “I see.” Richard stepped to the side and looked me up and down. “So if I search Baryshnikov and spell his name wrong, I might not find all the articles or websites that reference him?”

  “Right.” I shot him a smile. “Of course, that brings in the whole language transliteration thing, which is another wrinkle. Translating from languages with their own alphabets is a real challenge. But the point is, despite what most people might think, everything in the digital world still goes back to human interaction.”

  Richard tilted his head and studied me. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, even though we now have bots and spiders and things scanning the Internet and compiling information, they’re still only searching what exists. At one point, somewhere, all that content was originally created by human hands. Stuff doesn’t just get created on the web from thin air. Extracted, compiled, and perhaps reimagined, yes, but not entirely created. So somewhere along the line, it only exists because some human introduced the original content into the digital sphere.”

  “And humans are fallible.”

  “Yeah, and we all look at and comprehend things differently. I might use certain terms to describe something that you would label entirely differently. So even if we both enter the same information . . .”

  Richard tapped the brooch with one finger. “You might call this a brooch and I might call it a pin? I see. Because if I only search under pin, I wouldn’t necessarily find the information you wrote or uploaded.”

  I cast him a smile. “Correct. You must consider all the possible ways something could be indexed or described and all variations of names. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and try an entirely novel approach.” I pointed at the computer screen. “See, I have found a picture of Great-Grandmother Rose, but it was listed under Cooper Trial Witnesses, not her name.”

  I moved aside so Richard could view the screen. “Didn’t realize what a flapper she was,” I said as we both examined the picture. “Kind of looks like that old movie star, Louise Brooks.”

  My great-grandmother was dressed in a sleeveless satin dress with a low-slung waist decorated with a jeweled band. Her silky dark hair was cut in a short bob, and her full lips were pursed into a pout. Her wide dark eyes stared out at the viewer as if daring them to take her for granted. Somehow, I doubted anyone ever could.

  I peered at the label under the photo. “Rose Baker, age seventeen. Must’ve been taken around the time she testified at the trial.”

  Richard studied the digital photo for a moment. “She was quite a fox, wasn’t she?” He glanced over at me. “You have her eyes.”

  “I suppose.” Somehow, that thought didn’t please me. “My mom inherited her dark hair and eyes. That’s where I get it. Well, and my dad has dark hair too.”

  “So your mom resembles Rose? Obviously Lydia does not.”

  “Yeah, my aunt looks like her dad. I mean my grandfather, Randy, who looked like his dad, Fairfax Litton. All blue-eyed blonds.” I stared at Rose’s picture for another moment before stepping back from the computer. “Nothing showing the brooch yet, so maybe I need to reconsider my approach.” I held up my hand as Richard opened his mouth. “I’m not giving up. I just need to try another tactic.”

  “Can I do something to help?”

  “How about checking your great-uncle’s book about the Cooper trial? I know it’s fiction, but he used a lot of facts from real life. So maybe he mentioned the brooch when he described his Rose-based character?”

  Richard, obviously lost in thought, rubbed his jawline. “That’s a long shot, don’t you think?”

  “Typical of library research,” I said, leaving the circulation desk and heading for the stacks. “Sometimes more art than science, to be honest. Here, I’ll help you find the book, then you can dig into it while I sleuth on the computer.”

  Richard trailed me to the fiction section. “So this is all arranged by author’s last name? I thought you always assigned specific call numbers.”

  “Academic libraries do, and they also typically use the Library of Congress classification system. Public libraries tend to use the Dewey Decimal system for nonfiction and then just shelve fiction alphabetically using the author’s name. Makes it easier for patrons to browse.” I reached the D section and scanned the book spines until I found the shelf holding Paul Dassin’s novels.

  “Here it is, A Fatal Falsehood.” Richard reached over my shoulder and plucked the book from the shelf.

  As he pulled his arm back, I spied an odd object pressed against the back of the shelf. “Wait, there’s something stuffed behind Dassin’s books.” I slid my hand across the smooth metal shelf, reaching around the row of bound volumes. My fingers touched a worn binding, softer than our hardback library books. I pulled out the slim, battered volume and examined its stained leather cover. There was no title. I carefully opened the volume, noting that the pages were sewn together with linen thread, and stared at the spidery script that covered the top of the title page—“Eleanora Amaryllis Heron, 1916.”

  I
gasped. “It’s the herbal!”

  “What?” Richard tucked his uncle’s novel under his arm and leaned in to look at the book I held balanced between my palms.

  “Eleanora’s herbal. The one that disappeared right after Aunt Lydia donated it to the library.” I stroked the heavy paper with my thumb. “But how did it show up here?”

  “Could it have been stuck behind my great-uncle’s books all this time?”

  “Not possible. The shelves are straightened and dusted too regularly for that. Might’ve been the Nightingale.”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, a patron who likes to help, as she calls it, by shelving loose books in wrong locations. I could see her shoving this in with Dassin’s novels, but I wonder where she would have found it in the first place. Usually she just picks up things that are lying out on tables.” I shook my head. “Well, that’s one mystery we may never solve, but at least the herbal has turned up again. I was afraid it was lost forever.”

  Richard shifted position until his arm pressed against mine. “Heron? I guess that was her maiden name?”

  “Must’ve been. And 1916.” I did a mental calculation. “Means she was only fifteen when she got the herbal. I think it’s older than that, though. Probably passed down through the family.” I traced the spiky script of her signature. “Amaryllis. Pretty, but unusual.”

  “A flower,” Richard said. “I bet her mother was an herbalist too. That would make sense. And you know”—he cast me a smile—“Amy could be short for that.”

  “Doubt that was my mom’s intention. She’s not very fanciful.” I touched my fingertip to the rough edges of paper clinging to the interior spine at the back of the book. “Here’s where the pages were torn out.”

  Richard leaned in and tapped the back of the opposite page. “You can also see where Eleanora wrote stuff. Pretty distinctive handwriting. Matches her signature.”

  “‘A remedy for the colic,’” I read out. “Can’t really decipher the rest, though. The ink has faded.”

  “I bet there won’t be any recipes for poisons,” Richard said, crossing to one of the nearby tables. “I can scan through that, along with Paul’s book, if you want.”

  “Okay.” I followed him and laid the old herbal on the table as he took a seat. “If you find anything interesting, just give me a shout.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows. “Shouting? In a library?” His grin faded as he picked up the herbal. “Shouldn’t I be handling this with gloves?”

  “Yeah, just a minute.” I dashed back to the workroom and grabbed a pair of cotton gloves and carried them to Richard before I walked back to the circulation desk.

  Using the computer at the desk, I ran several other searches in the newspaper digital archive before pausing to reconsider my approach.

  Eleanora Amaryllis Heron. It was an unusual name. Certainly more so than Rose Baker. I decided I should conduct some searches using Eleanora’s name, both before and after her marriage. Any hits on her unique name would undoubtedly lead back to the trial.

  I entered the name several different ways, using quotation marks around each version to limit my search to hits including all of the terms. That was another research trick not everyone understood. Most search engines or databases included an implicit “or” between words. So looking up Eleanora Cooper would translate into Eleanora or Cooper and return all results that included any mention of an Eleanora or a Cooper. Enclosing the two words with quotation marks turned that search into Eleanora and Cooper, and only returned results that included both names. Much more precise.

  After searching for some time, I finally discovered an article that mentioned both Eleanora and Rose. I scrolled to the bottom of the page, which merely reiterated what I already knew about the trial. But it did list an attached photo. I clicked on the link, and the photo came up in a new window.

  It was a picture of Eleanora, at least according to the caption. I peered at it for a moment before releasing a loud and expletive-laced exclamation.

  Richard stripped off the gloves and came running with the herbal balanced on top of his great-uncle’s novel. “You found something? What is it?”

  I pointed to the monitor, where the grainy black-and-white photo now filled the screen. A slender, stern-looking young woman with light eyes stared out at the viewer. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight bun, and she wore a simple dress with a white lace collar. Pinned to her collar was a brooch. “Eleanora Cooper.”

  Richard laid the books on the counter and lifted the brooch. He narrowed his eyes as he held the piece of jewelry up to the monitor. “It was her pin.”

  “Apparently.” I grabbed Dassin’s novel and flipped through it. “And listen,” I said as I scanned a passage that described the protagonist of the novel. “Lily—that was the name he used for the Eleanora character, right?”

  “Yeah.” Richard glanced from me to the brooch nestled in his palm.

  “‘During her questioning’”—I read aloud—“‘Lily wore a simple, understated dress of navy wool. Pinned to the white lace collar was a gold brooch given to her by her husband on their wedding day. Lily wore that piece of jewelry throughout the trial and was heard to say that she would wear it every day for the rest of her life.’” I snapped the book shut.

  Richard curled his fingers about the brooch. “She always wore it? So why didn’t she take it with her when she left town?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” I placed A Fatal Falsehood on the reshelving cart. “She must’ve lost it in my great-grandmother’s garden before she disappeared, but how?”

  “They were neighbors. Perhaps it was during a visit after the trial when she was saying good-bye?”

  “But Rose testified against her. Why would Eleanora have anything to do with my great-grandmother after that?”

  Richard shrugged. “Those were politer times. I mean, people like Eleanora lived under different social constraints. Maybe she felt she had to be on good terms with her neighbors before she moved?”

  I closed the link and cleared my search history before shutting down the computer. “Anyway, I guess that answers the question of who owned the brooch.”

  “And what happened to Eleanora’s herbal. Well, not exactly where it’s been hiding all this time, but at least we found it.” Richard picked up the slim volume. “You want to put this in the archives?”

  “Eventually, but I’ll store it in the workroom for now.” I met Richard’s questioning gaze with a tilt of my head toward the back door. “There’s a deputy out there right now.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Richard handed me the herbal as we walked into the workroom.

  I laid the slim volume in the bookcase designated for my personal projects. No one else would mess with anything on those shelves.

  When we reached the staff door, Richard turned to face me. “Sorry, forgot this.” He uncurled the fingers of his right hand, revealing the gold brooch. “You probably want it back.”

  “No, you should keep it.”

  What are you saying, Amy? Why give it up, and to someone who is practically a stranger?

  Because I must.

  Honestly I didn’t have idea why I felt that so strongly, but the moment Richard offered the pin, I knew with unwavering certainty that this was the right thing to do. “If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in your house. I mean, that was Eleanora’s home, and the brooch was hers, after all. Nothing to do with my family.”

  Richard looked pleased. “Thank you. I felt the same way, but since you found it on your property, I hated to ask.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, opening the door. “It just seems to me it should end up back at the Cooper house. I mean, since Eleanora was so attached to the thing. Now what do you say we get out of here? We’ve been fortunate so far, but I don’t want to test my luck, which can be questionable.”

  “Or mine, which isn’t always so great either.” Richard slipped the brooch into his pocket before following me outside. “Once more
unto the breach,” he said after I locked up.

  I shot him a surprised glance.

  “Shocking, isn’t it? But I do know a bit of Shakespeare,” he said as we reached the sidewalk in front of the library. “Despite being a dancer, I’m not completely uneducated, you see.”

  So I wasn’t the only one with some nagging insecurities. I pondered this as I struggled to keep pace with his longer strides. “Never thought you were.”

  Richard slowed his pace slightly. “Glad to hear it. Sometimes people think all dancers are stupid. Athletic but brainless.”

  “Some people think all librarians wear buns and cardigans and clutch their pearls.”

  Richard’s lips quirked into a quick smile. “So they do,” he said, “and obviously”—he looked over at me—“that isn’t true.”

  “Nope. So why don’t we ignore those stereotypes. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” he said.

  We spent the next few blocks talking about our favorite books and movies. Assuming he might be sensitive to any hint that he was one of those “brainless” types, I was careful to hide my surprise over Richard’s interest in some rather esoteric foreign films.

  As we paused in front of Aunt Lydia’s house, Richard looked me in the eye. “We seem to share similar tastes, which is a nice surprise.” He grinned. “The dancer and the librarian, who would’ve thought? Although I think we both break the mold for our professions quite a bit. You certainly don’t fit the stereotype of the old maid librarian.”

  I unlatched the front gate and stepped into the yard. “I am thirty-three. Some people would call that an old maid.”

  Richard’s gaze swept over me, taking in my short shorts and my T-shirt. Although loose elsewhere, it still hugged my breasts, as all blouses tended to do. “I can’t imagine anyone saying that about you. Besides, not everyone needs to be married these days, do they?”

  “Would you please repeat that sentiment in my aunt’s hearing the next time you see her?”

  “Sure, but I have a favor to ask in return.”

  “What’s that?” Under his intent gaze, my fingers fumbled as I closed the latch.