After three days of working on the Wilkie Collins collection, I’d finished only two books and I needed a break.
It seemed that all of us were stalled in finding further information about Angelica and Solomon. Derek’s office was in turmoil, so his time spent investigating weapons sales to the survivalists had taken a backseat.
I was happy I had my own work to do, because I would have gone stir crazy otherwise. Max seemed a little closer to the brink, although he managed to keep busy, as well.
Despite Derek’s distractions, he’d taken the time to arrange for one of his assistants to pick up my car from the police, run it through the car wash, and fill it with gas, then deliver it to my home. I was thrilled to have my car back, even though I wasn’t about to leave the house while there was a killer on the loose.
Monday morning, after Derek left for a meeting with clients, I took a break from the Wilkie Collins books and turned my attention to Beauty and the Beast. I’d received permission from Max to restore the book, even though he and Emily had originally insisted they wanted it left in its shabby condition. I gave him all sorts of reasons why it should be cleaned and rebound, but the reason that swayed him most was that the book had spent three years in the hands of someone who had shown ill will toward Max and Emily. Those bad vibes needed to be exorcised, and I was just the bookbinder to wipe them clean.
I didn’t bring up the fact that the book had once belonged to me and part of me felt that it was back where it belonged. I certainly planned to turn it over to Emily and Max if they got back together again, but if the book really was mine, I would want to give it a shiny new cover. So that’s what I was going to do.
That had been Ian’s wish, too. Even if Emily and Max did reunite, I was hoping I could convince them to donate the book to the Covington after all.
In one of my map drawers where I kept sheets of leather, I found a beautiful piece of soft morocco in a spectacular shade of vermilion. I’d been saving it for the perfect project, and this was it. The color reminded me of the crimson paper Max had created from the juice and pulp of his homegrown beets.
I shuffled through the bags from Max’s house and found the red paper among the many sheets I’d collected from his basement.
When I held up the paper next to the piece of leather to compare the colors, I was thrilled. The two shades complemented each other perfectly. I decided at that moment that I would build a storage box for Beauty and use Max’s thick crimson sheets of paper for the lining.
The style of box I had in mind was commonly known as a clamshell because of its construction. A hinge on one side allowed it to spread open completely and reveal its contents, somewhat like the action of a clamshell. Most jewelry boxes opened this way, and many rare books were housed in similar style.
Max, meanwhile, had discovered that one of the doors in my living room led upstairs to my small, private rooftop patio, and he had taken over the space. Moving the patio table and chairs around, he set up a makeshift papermaking studio in the southeast corner, where the walls blocked the worst of San Francisco’s winds.
He laid out his tools and supplies, then went around my house, pruning the plants and small trees I had in pots inside and out on the patio. He gathered quite a selection of twigs and leaves and petals that he would use to work into the sheets of paper he would make. I loaned him a week’s worth of newspapers for turning into pulp, as well as my hair dryer, to speed up the drying process, and he was good to go.
I spent the afternoon in my workroom, studying the endpapers of Beauty and the Beast. They were worth saving. There was a fanciful rendering of a magical forest in shades of green and brown and gold that would work beautifully against the vermilion leather. The details of the forest were charming. Cheerful flowers lined a winding path that led deeper into the woods. Small forest creatures flitted among the trees. The picture was faded but still engaging, so I was extra careful to make a clean, razor-sharp cut along the inner hinge. I would splice the two sides together later and the little work of art would look as good as new.
It always took me a while to get started when I was taking apart a faded, broken book. The first cut was the most difficult. I know it sounds silly, but I felt as though I was cutting open an old friend, and I wanted to make sure that initial slice of the knife was exact and effective. I was always relieved to get past that moment.
I picked up my scalpel and used it to pick at the blobs of glue along the front inside cover. It was a mess and so thick that I wondered if some child had poured glue over the edges and their parent had tried to wipe it up to little avail. Stranger things had happened to books.
My mind wandered to thoughts of Max working upstairs. I hoped he was as blissful at pulping and mashing newspapers up there as I was with ripping apart an old book down here. I pictured the two of us, happy as dancing toadstools, working away in our own private worlds all day long.
Toadstools? I shook my head in bemusement. I’d been staring at that magic forest way too long. I blinked to clear my vision and glanced over at the clock on my desk. It was almost five o’clock. I’d been working for four hours straight.
“And didn’t make it past the endpapers.” Oh, well. I covered my tools and the book with a soft white cloth, slid down off my high stool, and stretched for a minute. Then I flicked off the bright ceiling light over my worktable and headed for the kitchen.
Max came walking out of his bedroom minutes later.
I stared, stunned by the change in him. “You shaved your beard off.”
“I did. I felt like I was shedding an old skin.”
“I love it,” I said, smiling up at him. “You look years younger and very handsome.”
“Shucks. I bet you say that to all the guys.”
I laughed. “Are you ready for a glass of wine?”
“Sure. I’ll open the bottle.”
I pulled three wineglasses down from the shelf just as the phone rang. I answered it, listened and talked for a moment, then hung up. “Derek will be home in fifteen minutes.”
While we waited for Derek to show up, we sipped our wine, a rich, dry Rhône that I’d found on sale at the market and bought a case of last month. And I took the opportunity to beg Max to help me hone my cooking skills.
“I only know a few dishes,” he said.
“But you cook effortlessly. There’s no anxiety or kerfuffles in your kitchen. That’s the part I’d like to learn.”
“Kerfuffles? I’ve never baked those before.”
“Ha-ha. Are you going to give me some pointers or not?”
He grudgingly agreed. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
“You really are a beast,” I said, teasing him.
“About time you recognized my true nature,” he said, and opened up my refrigerator to stare at the contents.
“I recognized it years ago, Beast.”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” he said, and tweaked my cheek. “Let’s see what you’ve got in the cupboard.”
We made a quickie version of what he called his world-famous chicken Parmigiana recipe from the six ingredients I actually had on hand: frozen chicken breasts, a jar of pasta sauce, bread crumbs, one egg, Parmesan cheese, and linguini. It would’ve helped if I had mozzarella cheese, too, but we worked around that. Because, really, who kept mozzarella on hand, just in case?
Max pointed out that normally, he would have made the sauce from scratch with fresh tomatoes, onions, and garlic grown in his garden. He would have added heavy cream, too, because that’s how he rolled. The consensus was that our quick-and-dirty version might not have been world famous, but it was pretty darn delicious.
The effortless part of cooking was something I still needed to work on. But watching Max, I could see his cooking techniques and his movements around the kitchen had everything to do with enjoying the journey and little to do with the results. He didn’t get hung up if every tiny detail wasn’t perfection. He just had a good time. To my surprise, I realized that th
is was the same philosophy I used with my bookbinding, and vowed that tomorrow night I would prepare dinner effortlessly.
Later that night, Gabriel called and I put him on speakerphone. Clyde sat on my lap during the conversation.
“I swung by Angelica’s place again,” Gabriel said. “Everything was neat and clean, same as last time, except for one little change.”
I jumped forward in my chair. “What?”
“Did you find a gun?” Max asked.
“No,” he said. “I found every piece of clothing from her closet tossed on the bed.”
“So she probably wasn’t there to meet a guy,” I said.
Derek’s eyebrow jutted up. “Bit difficult to carry on an affair when you can’t find the bed.”
“Were the clothes tossed neatly?” I asked.
“No,” Gabriel said. “It was a mess. Jumbled.”
“Like she was packing in a hurry?” I suggested.
Gabriel paused, then said, “Maybe. At first I was thinking she might’ve stopped by to pick up something different to wear. Except-”
“Except it’s a mess,” I cut in. “So why would she leave everything out in a pile on the bed? Especially when the rest of the place is so tidy?”
“Good question,” Gabriel said.
“You’ll watch for her next move,” Derek said.
Gabriel made a sound of disgust. “I would if I could find her. She’s disappeared.”
“Maybe she did pack for a trip,” I said.
“Maybe,” Gabriel said, but he sounded unconvinced. Changing the subject, he said, “I tracked down Bennie and Stefan. Or maybe I should call them Beavis and Butt-head. Whoever said they weren’t exactly geniuses was right on. Personally, I think they would sell their souls for a box of candy bars.”
“So they should be easy to manipulate,” Derek said.
I had already told them about the conversation with Bennie at the Art Institute store the other day, so now I agreed. “Bennie would be very easy to manipulate. Stefan seemed to be a little more on the ball. Still, Solomon is a master manipulator. He would have no problem with either of them.”
“That was my impression, too,” Gabriel said. “And I took your advice and snuck into one of his classes. Interesting guy.”
“For a psychopath,” Max muttered.
“Exactly,” Gabriel said.
“What else?” Derek asked.
Gabriel paused, then said, “Well, now that I’ve been out to the Hollow a few times, I’ll admit I misjudged the place. Maybe it was because of that name, the Hollow, but I assumed the houses would be shacks and hovels. They’re not. A bunch of them are really nice and some of them are huge.”
“The Ogunites believe in having lots of babies,” I explained.
“That must be why,” Gabriel said. “Anyway, back to Bennie and Stefan. Solomon might be getting those two knuckleheads to do some of his dirty work, but my professional opinion? Neither of them is clever or vicious enough to have killed Joe Taylor.”
Derek leaned one elbow on the table. “So that brings us back to Angelica or Solomon.”
“Right.”
“I’m betting on Solomon,” I said, and felt a chill as I recalled his piercing look that day I walked into his lecture hall. There was little doubt a man like that could manipulate a weaker person into committing murder.
Chapter 19
Tuesday morning, Derek left for his office as the sun was rising. I was awake, anyway, so I decided to get an early start on my work. I was popping chocolate kisses and measuring out boards to cut for the new cover of Beauty and the Beast when Ian called.
“I’m checking up on you and the book,” he said. “How’s my Beauty doing?”
“I’m putting a whole new cover on your Beauty,” I said with a smile as I reached for another chocolate kiss. “It’s going to look fantastic.”
“So you’re going ahead with the restoration? That’s great news.”
Yikes. I probably shouldn’t have told him I was restoring the book. If he asked if I’d gotten permission from Emily, I would have to lie. I couldn’t tell him about Max. Not yet, anyway. I hung my head in dismay at my big mouth. “Um, yeah. I decided it needed an overhaul, so I’ve made an executive decision to take care of it while I wait to hear from Emily.”
“So you haven’t talked to her yet?”
“Not yet.” I scrambled for an excuse. “I left a message. She’s, um, out of town right now, but I expect to hear from her soon.”
“You’re still going to ask her to donate it to the Covington?”
“Absolutely.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him I would ask Max about it. I was a terrible liar and almost as bad at withholding information. Of course, Ian was so focused on work at the Covington, I wondered if he’d even heard about Joe Taylor’s murder yet. Oh, he had to have heard by now. The book world was so small and garrulous, the news would have spread like crazy. But I wasn’t about to bring up the topic, and I certainly wasn’t going to admit that I was the one who found Joe’s body.
“Look,” he said, “shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations or something? You know, if you haven’t heard from her in thirty days, the book is mine?”
I smiled. “I’ll look into that.”
“I’m just encouraged that you’re restoring it. Maybe I’ll drop by to see it.”
I almost choked on my Hershey’s Kiss. “Um, I’m not sure I’ll be home, so you’d better call first.”
“I’ll take my chances. See you later, Brooklyn.”
The following day, Ian made good on his warning.
On a whim that morning, I’d made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and put the first two dozen cookies in the oven to bake.
While I waited for the cookies, I mixed up some polyvinyl acetate, or PVA, the archival glue I used for bookbinding and book repair. It had a low moisture content, dried quickly, and remained flexible.
I had my largest cutting board out on the worktable, ready to go. But first I began drawing a template. The vermilion morocco was too precious to cut without measuring it precisely first. After I made the final cut, I would be ready to glue it to the boards and the spine.
I was getting ahead of myself. I still needed to resew the signatures and clean the book thoroughly. But I couldn’t wait. The leather cover made me giddy with excitement. And didn’t I sound like the biggest book geek ever?
The timer went off and I ran back to the kitchen to remove the two cookie sheets from the oven. The cookies were baked to perfection, golden brown with perfectly melted bits of chocolate and still soft to the touch. While transferring them to a rack to cool off, I almost stuffed one into my mouth, but I resisted, barely.
As I slid two more sheets into the oven, my telephone rang. It was two quick rings, then nothing, which meant that someone was at the front door of my building, buzzing to be let inside.
“Max,” I called, but he didn’t respond, so I knew he wasn’t in the apartment. He had to be up on the roof.
I was expecting my new bookshelves to be delivered today or tomorrow, but just in case it wasn’t the delivery man, I needed Max to stay hidden. Feeling a hint of desperation, I grabbed the phone to see who was downstairs.
“Hey, Brooklyn, it’s me,” Ian said.
“Ian, what do you want?” How rude was that? He was going to think I was off my rocker. “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m just a little stressed. What’s going on?”
“I’m right outside,” he said. “Let me in. I want to say hi and see the book.”
“Um, sure. Great. Here you go.” I pressed the code numbers to release the door lock, then raced upstairs to the roof.
“Max,” I yelled, since the wind made it hard to hear. “Someone’s coming to see me, so stay up here, okay? Don’t come downstairs.”
“Okay, no problem,” he said, waving me off, as casual as could be. “Let me know when it’s safe to come down.”
“You got it.” I went running back down the stairs and
closed the door that led to the roof, wondering how the hell he could be so laid-back when I was running around like a crazy person.
Ian stayed for almost an hour. I showed him the leather I’d chosen for the cover, and we discussed the ideas I had for gilding the leather. He suggested an elaborately gilded, highly stylized cover with curlicues in each corner. Since the book was from the Victorian era, I went along with his idea for a fancy design.
While he was here, I pulled more cookies out of the oven. Ian grabbed two while they were still warm. Shortly after that, he took off, and by then I was ready to collapse. All this running around and worrying was taking its toll. The PVA had hardened, so I would have to make another batch. But not right away. Just now, I felt like taking a nap. Maybe I would take the rest of the day off, eat cookies, and read a good book.
I was starting up the stairs to let Max know the coast was clear when the phone rang twice and stopped again. Someone else is at the front door? What the heck? I ran to the kitchen phone to answer it.
“Hey, Brooklyn. It’s me, Ian.”
“Did you forget something?”
“Nope, just wanted to let you know a delivery guy is here with a huge box for you. I let him inside.”
“Oh, my bookshelves. Thanks, Ian.”
We hung up, and it was a full minute later before I heard our building’s ancient industrial freight elevator chug into action.
I cleaned off my worktable and tossed the PVA in the trash can.
The elevator shuddered to a stop and a few seconds later there was a knock on my door. That was one speedy deliveryman.
Max was hidden away on the roof and everything was fine. I took a few deep breaths to steady my heart. I really wasn’t cut out for a life of intrigue.
Oh, who was I kidding? I thrived on intrigue, but this day was driving me batty.
“Brooklyn, yoo-hoo!” A voice called through the door. “You are home?”
My neighbor Vinnie? I ran to open the door.
“Hello, my friend,” she said, and stepped inside.
I wrapped her in a warm hug. “Where’s Suzie? How are you? I haven’t seen you all week.”
One Book In The Grave Page 18