The Library Fuzz

by James Holding

  The books were all that was neat in the room. Everything else looked like the aftermath of a cyclone. Somebody had jerked up the faded carpet and tossed it into a crumpled heap in a corner. The cushions and upholstery of the sofa and chair had been slashed in half a dozen places with a sharp knife. The pictures were torn from their hooks, the draperies from their rods. A large TV lay on its side, shattered. The contents of the room’s only closet had been dumped on the floor in disarray. Through an old-fashioned archway, I could see that Mr. Cuyler’s dining room had been given similar treatment. And probably his bedroom and kitchen as well.

  “What the hell happened here?” I asked.

  His blue eyes brooded on the confusion around us. “Well, as I said, I’ve been away—fishing. This is what I found when I got home an hour ago. Somebody broke in through the back window.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “I guess I’d better, hadn’t I?” He gave me a funny slanting look accompanied by a wry smile. “I’ve been checking out the mess. Lucky your library books weren’t lost in the shuffle.”

  I gazed around me. “These weren’t your ordinary friendly neighborhood burglars, Mr. Cuyler. I hope you realize that.”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t had any previous experience.”

  “Well, I have. And I’ve never seen a more thorough job. Whoever turned the place over was looking for something special, I’d say.”

  Cuyler’s handsome features shaped themselves into an expression of bafflement. “I don’t know what it could be. It’s not as though I owned the Hope Diamond.”

  “What’s missing?” I asked. It wasn’t my business any more, but old habits die hard.

  “Nothing,” Cuyler said, “as far as I can tell. Nothing here worth stealing, anyway.”

  “You’re forgetting my library books,” I said, keeping it light. “Did you know that it would cost the library an average of fourteen bucks apiece to replace these six books on the shelves if anything happened to them?”

  “I had no idea a library book could be so valuable,” he said. His cobalt eyes mirrored a new, nameless emotion for a brief instant. Anger? Uncertainty? Amusement? Triumph? Maybe a little of all of them. It wasn’t until later that I recalled he’d said ‘could be’ instead of the more natural ‘was.’ “How much of a fine do I owe?” he asked.

  I told him and finished checking the titles of his books against my list while he got his money and paid me. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you when you’ve got all this on your mind.” I gestured at the chaos of the room.

  “Forget it,” he said. “You couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.”

  Politely, he saw me to the door.

  * * * *

  That was Monday. The next time I heard anything about Cuyler, he was dead.

  Lieutenant Randall telephoned me at the library during my lunch break on Friday.

  “Listen, Hal,” he said, “do me a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “A book called The Henchman. By somebody named Eugene Stott?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You got it in the library?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know the book?”

  “Yeah. At least, the title rings a bell. It was on one of my overdue lists earlier this week.”

  “Good. Find out if it’s in or out, will you? And if it’s in, hold it for me.”

  “For what?” I said. “You know you can’t reserve a book over the telephone, Lieutenant. Why are you interested in it?”

  His voice held a note of weariness. “It may be a clue in a murder I’m working on.” He put oral quotation marks around the word clue. “So move your tail, O.K.? Call me back at this number.” He gave me a telephone number.

  I moved my tail. Ten minutes later I called him back and told him that we had two copies of The Henchman circulating from the main library. Copy number one was on the shelves in its assigned place when I looked, and I’d taken it in charge for him. Copy number two had been borrowed on Tuesday by a lady named Carolyn Seaver.

  Randall hesitated. “Could you drop the one you have off at Headquarters for me?”

  “Sure, Lieutenant. On my way home. No trouble.”

  “Thanks. It may give us a lead, Hal. God knows we need one.”

  I had a cold flash of intuition. “Where are you now?”

  “West End. Why?”

  “I’m wondering if your murder victim could be a man named Jefferson Cuvier,” I said.

  Dead silence. Finally, “Still a show-off, aren’t you? How’d you guess that?”

  “He’s the guy I collected the The Henchman from on Monday. I remember it now. He was a handsome…

  “He’s far from handsome now.” Randall paused. “Could you bring that book out here, Hal? If you saw this guy on Monday, you may be able to help us.”

  “Give me ten minutes,” I said.

  “I’ll give you fifteen,” Randall growled. “You’re a private citizen now, remember? You can’t break the speed laws with impunity anymore.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” I said humbly. He’s never forgiven me for leaving Homicide to become a sissy library cop.

  * * * *

  When I got to Cuyler’s duplex, I told Jimmy Coogan, the Homicide cop on the door, that Randall wanted to see me, and Coogan, an old buddy of mine at the department, passed me inside with a friendly sneer about my present line of work.

  I don’t know what I was expecting to see on this second visit to Cuyler’s house—maybe the same scene of chaos as the first time. Anyway, I was a little bit surprised at how quickly the place had been returned to a condition of normal bachelor neatness. The pictures and draperies had been rehung, the closet contents hidden away again, the rug replaced, the TV-set repaired. Even the slashed sofa and chair had been treated to ready-made slipcovers that hid their knife wounds.

  Lieutenant Randall was sitting in the chair. “Come in, Hal. You got that book?”

  I held it out to him. He took it without a word and leafed carefully through it. Then, with a frustrated shake of his head, he put the book aside and fixed his spooky yellow eyes on me and said, “Tell me about seeing Cuyler on Monday.”

  “I can’t tell you much. It was just a routine call for overdue books. Except that this house was a howling mess when I arrived. Somebody had broken in and been through it with a fine-tooth comb while Cuyler was away fishing.”

  “I already got that much from Robbery’s report. Nothing was stolen, they say.”

  “Well, it wasn’t just a casual break-in, Lieutenant. Somebody was looking for something special. Couldn’t Cuyler give Robbery any hints about who or what?”

  “Apparently not. But it stands out a mile that Cuyler’s murder ties in with it somehow.”

  I nodded. “Who found him?”

  “His once-a-week cleaning woman. She has a key, and tripped over Cuyler when she walked in at seven-thirty. The M.E. guessed he’d been dead less than seven hours when he was here at eight-thirty. So it happened early this morning, probably, not long after midnight. And we haven’t got anything on it yet. Zilch. None of the neighbors saw or heard anything out of the way last night or this morning. And the killers didn’t leave calling cards.” He sighed. “They never do.”

  “Who was Cuyler, anyway?” I asked.

  “Cuyler? Jefferson Rhine Cuyler, born and brought up in the East End, a widower for eight years, sixty-three years old, retired with a bad heart from Crane Express over a year ago, took early Social Security and has been living here alone. He had only one living relative, out of town somewhere.”

  “He must have had something more valuable than a distant relative,” I said.

  Randall said, “That seems obvious. That’s why I asked you to bring the book. Whoever killed Cuyler beat the hell out of him before he died. Cuyler had three broken ribs, multiple bruises all over, marks on his wrists and ankles where he’d been tied up. And his face was a disaster.”

  I remembe
red Cuyler’s good looks and his warm friendly manner, and thought that he wasn’t the type to withstand torture for very long, without cracking. Especially with a bad heart.

  Randall seemed to sense my thoughts. “It’s possible his killer didn’t intend him to die. He may just have been trying to get Cuyler to talk. But the beating killed him, the medical examiner thinks. Caused heart arrest.” Randall rubbed a big hand over his face and I could hear his whisker bristles rasp. “It must have been somebody he knew. There wasn’t any sign of forced entry this time.”

  “The cleaning woman has a key, you said.”

  “She couldn’t tie up a grown man and break his ribs with punches. She’s seventy years old, four feet ten, and weighs 96 pounds!”

  I grinned. “Just suggesting a possibility,” I said.

  He grunted.

  I pointed to The Henchman, precariously balanced on the arm of Randall’s chair. “So what did you want that for?”

  In reply, Randall took an envelope from his pocket, and from it he carefully extracted a sheet of unlined memo paper, which he held out for me to see. “Ned Jordan found this when he was dusting for fingerprints. It’s the top sheet of a memo pad Cuvier kept beside his telephone.”

  I leaned closer. The dusting powder had revealed faint impressions of handwriting on the paper’s surface—indentations obviously made by a sharp pencil or pen pressing on the sheet above it. I could make out the smudged words quite easily:

  The Henchman Eugene Stott Public Library

  I looked at Randall. He nodded, somewhat sheepishly. “It’s a chance in a million, I know that. But the handwriting doesn’t match Cuvier’s. So it might be that Cuyler’s killers—or one of them—wrote the words on the memo pad.”

  “Making a note of information he’d beaten out of Cuyler, you mean?”

  “Could be. Maybe the book stuff was all he got out of Cuyler before Cuyler cashed in. But then, I couldn’t be that lucky. Your damned book doesn’t seem to give us a thing.”

  “Let me look.”

  Randall passed me the book. I examined it carefully. Nothing. “Maybe this isn’t the copy Cuyler had.”

  Randall said, “Check it, O.K.?”

  I went to Cuyler’s phone and called Ellen, the girl on the check-out desk at the library. I’m hoping she’ll marry me someday. I usually propose to her every time I see her. “Listen, Ellen,” I said, “find out which of our two copies of The Henchman by Eugene Stott I brought back on Monday from our card-holder, Jefferson Cuyler, will you?”

  She recognized my non-courting voice. “Hold on,” she said, all business. In a minute or two she was back on the line and informed me that copy number two of The Henchman was the one that Jefferson Cuyler had borrowed.

  “Thanks.” I hung up and turned to Randall who was standing beside my shoulder. “You hear that?”

  He nodded. “Get me copy number two.”

  “It was borrowed on Tuesday,” I reminded him, “by a Miss Carolyn Seaver.”

  “The day after you got it back from Cuvier?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s Carolyn Seaver’s address? Do you know?”

  “Prestonia Towers. On Clark Terrace.”

  “Let’s go,” said Randall.

  * * * *

  Our luck was out. So was Miss Seaver. She had left for a visit with friends at the shore and had taken The Henchman with her to read on the plane. The woman in the adjoining apartment gave us this information, but was unable to give us the name, address, or telephone number of the friends Miss Seaver was visiting. “She’ll be home Saturday afternoon—tomorrow,” the neighbor said. “Can’t you wait twenty-four hours? What’s so important about a library book?”

  Randall was honest with her. “We don’t know ourselves. But it may turn out to be evidence in a crime. Will you ask Miss Seaver to get in touch with me the minute she returns?”

  The neighbor’s eyes grew round. “Of course.” Randall gave her his phone number. We thanked her, left, and went back to Cuyler’s place, where I’d left my car.

  As I climbed out of the police cruiser, Randall said, “Is The Henchman a popular book, Hal?”

  Randall doesn’t know a best-seller from the Encyclopedia Britannica. I said, “Not any more, Lieutenant. The copy we have here hasn’t been borrowed for three months, as you can see from the last stamped date on the card envelope. And copy number two, borrowed, it seems, by both Mr. Cuvier and Miss Seaver in less than a month, represents a real burst of business, I should imagine.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “The Henchman? ’ I shook my head. “Historical fiction isn’t my dish.”

  Randall pondered. “Listen. When you get back to the library, brief your librarians for me, will you?”

  “On what?”

  “Tell them to inform you—or me—immediately if anyone comes into the library and asks for The Henchman. And tell them to find out who’s asking, if possible.”

  “O.K. And what about the book? Tell anyone who asks that we don’t have it?”

  “Yeah. Until we check them out. And, Hal—”

  “What?”

  “Do one more thing for me. Read the goddamn book. Maybe something will jump out at you that seems significant.”

  “How am I supposed to recognize anything, even if it’s there?”

  Randall’s yellow eyes took on that bland amused look. “How the hell should I know? You’re the book detective, aren’t you?”

  * * * *

  The next day, Saturday, I stayed in the library all day, lining up my call sheets for the following week, so I was in my office when Ellen phoned me from her desk. “Hal?” she said. “Somebody just asked Joan for your book.

  I snapped to attention. “The Henchman, you mean?”

  “Yes. Joan gave her a song and dance and put her in the reading room.”

  “What song and dance?”

  “Joan told her we have The Henchman but it’s out for repair at the bindery. I’m supposed to be checking now on when it’ll be back on the shelves.”

  “Good for Joan,” I said, “and good for you. I’m on my way.” Then, in belated surprise, “Did you say her, Ellen? Is it a woman?”

  Ellen whistled lewdly under her breath. “Wait’ll you see her!” she said and hung up.

  She was a woman, all right. A blonde, beautiful young woman sitting with her hands clasped around her handbag in one of the reading-room chairs. I went over to her and said, “The librarian tells me you want to borrow The Henchman. It will be back in circulation in just a day or two. If you care to leave your name and telephone number, we’ll be glad to call you when the book’s available.”

  She stood up and I could see what Ellen’s whistle meant. Her figure, which a modish pants suit did little to hide, was nothing short of spectacular. Every eye in the reading room, male and female, turned her way as though magnetized. Her face took on a look of disappointment. “I didn’t want to borrow the book,” she said, “I just wanted to look something up in it here in the library. I’m from out of town.”

  She didn’t look capable of breaking a man’s ribs and beating him to death, but maybe she had a friend who was. I said, In that case, perhaps we can help you, after all. “What did you want to look up in The Henchman?”

  “That’s the trouble,” she said, “I don’t really know.

  That shook me a little. I said, “I’ve read The Henchman myself quite recently, Miss—”

  “Elmore,” she said. “Nancy Elmore.”

  “Miss Elmore, maybe if you cared to be a little more specific, I might be able to help you. I’m Hal Johnson. I’m on the library staff.”

  Miss Elmore looked around self-consciously. “Can we go somewhere and talk, Mr. Johnson? I’m sure we re disturbing the people here.”

  I didn’t think the people in the reading room minded being disturbed by this Miss America candidate, but I said, “Good idea, I’ll just tell the librarian and we can talk in my office, O.K.?”

 
; Joan, the librarian, was hovering outside the door of the reading room, her curiosity showing. I told her in a library whisper to call Lieutenant Randall at Police Headquarters and tell him somebody named Nancy Elmore had asked for The Henchman and that I was about to interview her in my office.

  Joan nodded and scurried off.

  I had barely got Miss Elmore settled in the one chair in my tiny office when my phone rang. It was Randall. “Is the girl still there?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She says her name’s Nancy Elmore?”

  “Right.”

  “Ask her where she’s from.”

  “What?”

  “Are you deaf? Ask her where she’s from.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if she says Minneapolis, she’s probably Jefferson Cuvier’s niece. The one we notified of his death. Only living relative, remember?”

  “Oh.” I looked across my desk at Miss Elmore with new interest.

  “Don’t let her get away,” Randall said. I’ll be right over.”

  I hung up and turned to Miss Elmore. You said you were from out of town, Miss Elmore. Where do you live?”

  “Minneapolis. Why?”

  I said, “Nancy Elmore. Minneapolis. I thought that name sounded familiar. You’ve got to be the niece of the man who was killed here yesterday, Jefferson Cuyler. Right?”

  She was surprised. “Yes, that is right. I flew in this morning to arrange for Uncle Jeff’s funeral as soon as the police release…his body.” She swallowed. “How did you know?”

  “I collected some overdue books from your uncle on Monday, Miss Elmore, and he mentioned your name,” I lied. “That’s where I heard it before. Your uncle seemed very proud of you.” ‘As who wouldn’t be?’ I was tempted to add.

  “Was The Henchman one of the books you collected from Uncle Jeff?” she asked. Beautiful, I thought, but definitely not dumb.

  “Yes, it was,” I answered carefully, “so I’m naturally curious to know why you’re so interested in it now.”

  She gave me an uncertain smile. “You won’t believe this,” she said. “It’s crazy. Really wild. But Uncle Jeff told me that if he died unexpectedly, I’d find something in that book he wanted me to have.”