The Collectors

by David Baldacci

  before he’d start feeling the effects. That’s why they use halon in occupied places. And before the gas is discharged, a warning horn comes on. We’re changing systems actually but not because it’s dangerous.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Halon significantly depletes the ozone layer. In fact, while it can still be used in this country and recycled for new applications, the manufacture of halon 1301 is banned in the U.S. and has been since the mid-nineties. Although the federal government is still the biggest user of it.”

  “You seem to know a lot about halon.”

  “Well, all employees were given an in-depth review of the system when it was first installed. And I did some extra reading on the subject.”

  “Why?”

  He blurted out, “Because I come into this vault a lot, and I didn’t want to die a horrible death! You know I lack any shred of personal courage.”

  Stone examined the nozzle. “Where’s the gas stored?”

  “Somewhere in the basement level of the building, and the gas is piped up here.”

  “You say it’s stored as liquid and then comes out as a gas?”

  “Yes. The speed with which it’s blown out of the nozzle turns it into a gas.”

  “It must be very cold.”

  “If you’re standing in front of the nozzle, you could get frostbite, in fact.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, if you stay in the room long enough, I suppose you could be asphyxiated. The rough rule of thumb is if there’s not enough oxygen for a fire, there’s not enough oxygen to sustain life.”

  “Could the gas cause a heart attack?”

  “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. The system never came on. That horn can be heard throughout the building. The only way Jonathan wouldn’t have heard it is if he was already dead.”

  “What if the horn was disconnected?”

  “Who would have done that?” Caleb said skeptically.

  “I don’t know.”

  While he was talking, Stone was staring at a large register built onto one of the columns supporting a bookshelf. “Is that a vent for the HVAC system?” he asked. Caleb nodded. “Something must have fallen on it,” Stone said, pointing to where two of the vent grilles had been bent.

  “It happens with people bringing book carts in and out.”

  Stone said, “I’ll have Milton research the halon system and see if anything else turns up. And Reuben has some friends at D.C. Homicide and the FBI from his days in military intelligence. I’ve asked Reuben to call them to see if he can find out something about the investigation.”

  “We have the meeting with Vincent Pearl tonight at Jonathan’s house. In light of these developments, don’t you think it best to call it off?”

  Stone shook his head. “No. Those men can find us wherever we are, Caleb. If we’re in danger, I’d rather try to find out the truth for myself than sit back and wait for the blow to fall.”

  As they were leaving the vault, Caleb muttered, “Why couldn’t I have just joined a nice, boring book club?”

  CHAPTER 22

  THAT EVENING THEY ALL RODE to DeHaven’s house in Caleb’s Nova. In the meantime Milton had found out a lot about fire suppressant systems. He reported that “halon 1301 is odorless and colorless, and extinguishes fires by tweaking the combustion process, which includes the depletion of oxygen levels. It evaporates quickly, leaving no residue. Once the system is activated, it’ll discharge in approximately ten seconds.”

  “Can it be lethal?” Stone asked.

  “If you hang around long enough and depending on the concentration levels of the flooding agent, you can suffer asphyxiation. It can also cause a heart attack.”

  Stone looked triumphantly at Caleb.

  “But the autopsy result said he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest,” Milton reminded him. “If he’d suffered a heart attack, the cause of death would’ve been listed as a myocardial infarction. A heart attack or a stroke leaves very clear physiological signs. The medical examiner wouldn’t have missed that.”

  Stone nodded. “All right. But asphyxiation can happen, you said.”

  “I don’t really think so,” Milton said. “Not after I spoke with Caleb earlier.”

  “I looked more into the library’s halon system,” Caleb explained. “It’s rated as an NOAEL system. That stands for No Observed Adverse Effect Level, a standard protocol used in fire suppression. It relates to the cardio-sensitization levels present in a particular place in relation to the amount of flooding agent required to extinguish a fire. Bottom line, with a NOAEL level, you’d have plenty of time to escape the space before being affected. And even if the horn were disconnected for some reason, if the gas had come out of that nozzle, Jonathan would’ve heard it. There was no way halon could have incapacitated him so fast that he couldn’t have escaped.”

  “Well, it looks like my theory on how Jonathan DeHaven died was incorrect,” Stone admitted. He looked up ahead. They had just pulled onto Good Fellow Street.

  “Is that Vincent Pearl?” he asked.

  Caleb nodded and said irritably, “He’s early, probably very eager to prove yours truly wrong about the Psalm Book.”

  Reuben smirked. “I see he left the robes at home.”

  “Keep your eyes open,” Stone warned as they got out of the car. “We are undoubtedly being watched.”

  True to Stone’s words, the same pair of binoculars from the window across the street were trained on the group as they met Pearl and headed into the house. The person also had a camera and snapped a few shots of them.

  Once inside, Stone suggested that the rare book dealer accompany Caleb to the vault alone. “It’s not that large of a space, and you two are the experts in the area,” he explained. “We’ll just wait upstairs for you.”

  Caleb looked unhappily at Stone, doubtless for casting him solo to Pearl. For his part Pearl gazed at Stone suspiciously for a moment and then shrugged. “I doubt it will take me long to show that it is not a first-edition Psalm Book.”

  “Take your time,” Stone called to them as the two men stepped onto the elevator.

  “Don’t let the book bugs bite,” Reuben added.

  As the door closed, Stone said, “Okay, quick, let’s search the place.”

  “Why don’t we wait for Pearl to leave?” Milton asked. “Then we can take our time and Caleb can help us look.”

  “I’m not worried about Pearl. I don’t want Caleb to know, since he would undoubtedly object.”

  They split up, and for the next thirty minutes they covered as much as they could.

  Stone said in a disappointed tone, “Nothing. Not a diary, no letters.”

  “I did find this on a shelf in his bedroom closet,” Reuben said, producing a photograph of a man and a woman in a small frame. “And that’s DeHaven next to her. I recognize him from his picture in the paper.”

  Stone gazed at the photo and then turned it over. “No name or date. But judging from DeHaven’s appearance, it was taken many years ago.”

  Milton said, “Caleb told us that the lawyer mentioned DeHaven was married once. I wonder if that was the bride?”

  “Lucky guy if it is,” Reuben commented. “And they look happy, which means it was early on in the marriage. That all changes with time, trust me.”

  Stone slipped the photo into his pocket. “We’ll just hold on to it for now.” He stopped and looked upward. “This home has a steeply pitched roof.”

  “So?” Reuben said.

  “So homes with a pitched roof of this vintage usually have an attic.”

  Milton said, “I didn’t see anything like that upstairs.”

  “You wouldn’t if the access were hidden,” Stone replied.

  Reuben checked his watch. “What’s taking the book geeks so long? You think they’re fighting?”

  “I don’t really see those two chucking first editions at each other,” Milton said.

  “Whatever it is they’re doing, let’s just hope
they keep it up for a little while longer,” Stone said. “Milton, you stay down here and keep watch. If you hear the elevator, call up to us.”

  It took a few minutes, but Stone found the attic access behind a rack of clothes in DeHaven’s closet. It was locked, but Stone had brought a pick and tension tool with him, and the lock quickly succumbed to his prodding.

  “They must have added this closet later,” Reuben said.

  Stone nodded. “Walk-in closets weren’t very popular in the nineteenth century.”

  They headed up the stairs. Along the way, Stone found and hit a light switch; this illuminated their path only weakly. They arrived at the top of the stairs and looked around the large space. It appeared unchanged since the day the home had been built. There were a few boxes and old suitcases, but a quick examination revealed them to be either empty or full of old junk.

  Reuben spotted it first, positioned in front of a half-moon window of leaded glass. “Why a telescope here?” he asked.

  “Well, you wouldn’t have one in the basement, would you?”

  Reuben looked through it. “Holy shit!”

  “What?” Stone exclaimed.

  “It’s pointed at the house next door.”

  “Whose house is it?”

  “How do I—” Reuben stopped and adjusted the eyepiece. “Damn!”

  “What is it? Let me see.”

  “Now, wait a minute, Oliver,” Reuben said. “Let me just execute a nice long recon.”

  Stone waited a few moments and then pushed his friend out of the way. Wiping the eyepiece clear, he gazed through a window of the house next to DeHaven’s. The drapes were drawn, but this window also had a half-sphere of glass above, which the drapes didn’t cover. It was only from this high vantage point that one could see into the room. And now Stone saw what had fully captured Reuben’s attention. The room was a bedroom. And Cornelius Behan was sitting naked on a large four-poster while a tall and lovely brunet did a slow striptease for him. The dress had already hit the polished floor, as had a black slip. She was now undoing her bra. When this fell, she was left with nothing on save four-inch heels and a G-string.

  “Come on, Oliver, it’s my turn,” Reuben called out, his big hand on Stone’s shoulder. Stone didn’t budge. “Hey, that’s not fair, I saw the damn telescope first,” Reuben protested.

  As Stone continued to watch, the panties slid down the young woman’s long legs. She stepped out of them and tossed them to Behan, who promptly put them over a certain part of his anatomy. She laughed, grasped one of the bedposts and proceeded to engage in a professional-looking pole dance. When she took off her shoes and slinked barefoot and naked toward the eagerly awaiting Behan, Stone gave up the telescope to his friend. “I’ve seen a picture of Mrs. Behan in the newspaper. That is not the woman.”

  Reuben adjusted the eyepiece. “Damn it, you got it all out of focus,” he groused.

  “Well, you fogged up the glass.”

  Reuben settled down to watch. “A little, homely man and that beautiful woman: How does that crap happen?”

  “Oh, I could give you about a billion reasons.” Stone added thoughtfully, “So DeHaven was a Peeping Tom.”

  “Hell, can you blame him?” Reuben exclaimed. “Ow, that looked like it hurt. Oh, it’s okay. It looked worse than it was . . . Wow, the gal’s limber too. Talk about heels over head.”

  Stone perked up. “What was that?”

  Reuben was too busy giving the play-by-play to answer. “Okay, they’re on the floor. Oh, get this, now she’s lifted him up in the air.”

  “Reuben, that’s Milton calling us. Caleb and Pearl must be coming.”

  Reuben didn’t budge. “What the hell? I’ve never seen that move outside a monkey house. That chandelier must be really anchored to the damn ceiling.”

  “Reuben! Come on!”

  “How is she doing that with no freaking hands?”

  Stone grabbed his friend and pulled him toward the door. “Now!”

  Stone managed to push him down the stairs with Reuben complaining the whole time. They arrived on the main level just as Caleb and Pearl emerged from the elevator.

  As Milton shot Stone and Reuben murderous glances, no doubt for cutting it so close, the rare book dealer looked stunned while Caleb appeared triumphant.

  “I know it must’ve been a shock,” he said, patting Pearl on the shoulder. “But I did tell you it was an original.”

  “So it is a 1640 edition?” Stone asked.

  Pearl nodded dumbly. “And I held it, in these two hands, I held it.” He sat down in a chair. “I almost fainted down there. Shaw here had to fetch me some water.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Caleb said in a sympathetic tone that was betrayed by his broad grin.

  “This morning I called every institution that owns a Psalm Book,” Pearl said. “Yale, the Library of Congress, Old South Church in Boston, everyone. They confirmed that all was fine.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief.

  Caleb took up the story. “We went over all the accepted points of authenticity regarding the book. That’s what took us so long.”

  “I came convinced it was a forgery,” Pearl admitted. “But even though we examined the entire book, I knew from the opening pages that it was real. I could tell largely from the uneven presswork. The printer thinned his ink sometimes, or else there were splotches of it across the printing elements. In first editions you will always see signs of dried ink caked in between the letters, which makes it very difficult to read. It was not the norm back then to wash one’s typeset letters. The other points one would expect to see, indeed have to see in a first edition, are all there. All there,” he repeated.

  “Of course, the authenticity will have to be confirmed by a team of experts undertaking stylistic, historical and scientific analysis,” Caleb noted.

  “Precisely,” Pearl agreed. “Still, I believe in my heart what their answer will be.”

  Stone said, “That there’s a twelfth existing copy of the Psalm Book?”

  “Indeed,” Pearl confirmed quietly. “And Jonathan DeHaven had it.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe he never told me. To have one of the world’s rarest books, one that some of the greatest collectors of all time never possessed. And to keep it a secret. Why?” He looked at Caleb helplessly. “Why, Shaw?”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb acknowledged.

  “What would something like that be worth?” Reuben asked.

  “Worth?” Pearl exclaimed. “Worth? It’s priceless!”

  “Well, if you’re going to sell it, somebody has to put a price on it.”

  Pearl stood and started pacing. “The price will be whatever the highest bid is. And it will run to many, many millions of dollars. There are some collectors and institutions flush with cash right now, and the interest will be extraordinary. There hasn’t been a Psalm Book on the market for over six decades. This will be the positively last chance for some to get it for their collection.” He stopped pacing and looked at Caleb. “And I would be honored to arrange the auction. I could do it in conjunction with Sotheby’s or Christie’s.”

  Caleb drew a deep breath. “This is a lot to take in, Mr. Pearl. Let me just think about everything for a day or two, and then I’ll phone you.”

  Pearl looked disappointed but managed a smile. “I will eagerly await your call.”

  After Pearl had left, Stone said, “Caleb, while you were down in the vault, we searched the house.”

  “You did what!” Caleb exclaimed. “Oliver, that is outrageous. I’m only allowed in this house as Jonathan’s literary executor. I have no right to go through his other possessions, and neither do you.”

  “Tell him about the telescope,” Reuben prompted with a smug look.

  Stone did so, and Caleb’s anger was replaced with astonishment. He said, “Jonathan watching people having sex. That’s repulsive.”

  “No, it’s really not,” Reuben replied earnestly. “It’s actually very uplifting in a way. You wanna g
o check it out with me?”

  “No, Reuben!” Stone said firmly. Then he showed Caleb the photo of the young woman and DeHaven.

  “If she was Jonathan’s wife, that was before I knew him,” Caleb said.

  “If he kept the photo, he might have been in touch with her,” Milton suggested.

  Stone said, “If so, she might be someone we need to find.” He glanced at the book Caleb was holding. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a book in Jonathan’s collection that needs some work. It got some water damage somehow. I didn’t notice it the last time we were here. I’m going to take it into the conservation department at the library. Our people are the best in the world. One of them does some freelance work on the side. I’m sure he can repair it.”