Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript

by Joanne Dobson

  “Nothing.” Her ruddy complexion was deepened by the crisp air. “I’ve been querying the library staff. Nobody has seen her since last Thursday when she stumbled across Munro’s body. Poor thing.”

  “I know the cops talked to her after that,” I mused.

  “And then she vanished—kaput.” Rachel spotted a discarded Pepsi bottle, plucked it off the sidewalk, and marched it over to the blue recycling bin. “This may sound heartless, but I don’t know what to do about Peggy’s job. She’s supposed to do the reshelving and the stacks are in a mess. Lately Nellie doesn’t even seem capable of something as simple as getting the books back where they belong.” She let her breath out with a frustrated whoof. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. It seems to be all she can do to show up and park her butt at the desk. And mope. I find it very difficult to keep from letting her see just how annoyed I am with her. She needs help.” She paused and thought for a moment. “Help with reshelving, I meant, but…” She shrugged. “Listen, I know Peggy is desperate for the income, but if she doesn’t return soon, I’m going to have to hire a replacement.”

  A job was the least of Peggy’s problems, I thought. I shifted my book bag from one hand to the other; it was loaded with course anthologies and felt as if it were packed with lead. “What about the book thefts? Any news there?”

  Rachel gestured toward an ornate marble bench. “Can you sit for a minute?” The bench sported a brass plaque commemorating the class of 1934. When we sat, I could feel the stone’s chill through the light wool of my skirt.

  Before Rachel could answer my question, Claudia Nestor came bounding up. “Rachel. Karen. You left the meeting before I could ask if you’d caught my interview on WENF-TV.” Her purple wool coat was unbuttoned, her striped wool scarf askew.

  “I saw a bit of it,” I replied.

  Rachel said nothing. Reaching into the capacious pocket of her light wool jacket, she pulled out a handy-wipe packet, tore it open, and proceeded to clean her hands with the towelette.

  “And did you know that the Boston Globe picked it up? They sent out a reporter and photographer. There was a shot of me on the front page Monday. Did you see it?” She took a swig from the water bottle that was all she carried.

  I shook my head. Rachel studied her fingernails.

  “It was right next to a photo of Sunnye Hardcastle. I looked great.” She sighed blissfully.

  The blankness of our expressions must have registered. She had the grace to look momentarily abashed. “Of course I know the murder coverage isn’t exactly good publicity for the college. That’s why I didn’t mention the interview during the Women’s Studies meeting. But everyone who saw me said I really handled myself like a pro.”

  “Your Warhol moment,” Rachel muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “Yes. And isn’t it wonderful. I’m hoping the face time will lead to new opportunities—who knows, maybe even as a television cultural commentator. That’s what it’s all about these days, isn’t it? Image. Exposure. Visibility. If it worked for Mark Fuhrman it can work for me.”

  Mark Fuhrman? Her role model was Mark Fuhrman?

  Claudia brushed her hair back with such an exaggerated gesture that I couldn’t help but notice the blond highlights that surely hadn’t been there last week. She guzzled more water. Her face glowed with what might have been a new vision for her life—or might just as easily have been a professional make-up job.

  Or might have been the contents of the clear plastic bottle.

  As Claudia floated away on her cloud of anticipated celebrity, Rachel gave a disgusted snort. “Cultural commentator, my ass. Can’t you just see Claudia as a talking head?”

  “Well, if anything good is to be snatched out of that poor, obsessed little man’s death, Claudia will be the one to snatch it. And, hey, if she doesn’t get tenure, she’ll have a backup career.”

  “Yeah, superstar conference director. Whoop-di-doo. Did you notice something odd about Claudia?”

  “You mean, aside from the fact that she’s Claudia?”

  “That’s just it. She’s not herself. The whole time we were talking to her just now, her eye didn’t twitch once.”

  I laughed. “She certainly seems to be…happier than she was last week.”

  “Happy? Is that what you call it?”

  “I did get a distinct whiff of…what was it? Gin? Anyhow, Rachel, you were going to tell me about the book thefts.”

  “Let’s see. What don’t you already know? The FBI agents warned Avery to expect a lengthy investigation. And we’re not going to get any books back until the Feds are done. Can you imagine? They’re going to have to inventory all those volumes.”

  “What would you call that? Forensic bibliography?” I quipped.

  She laughed at the absurd-sounding expression. “I suppose. Then academic librarians are going to have to schlep in from all over the country to identify their books. It could take years.”

  “It must have taken years for Munro to steal them in the first place. What did he want with all those books?”

  “I think he just wanted them,” Rachel said, “the way some men want all the women they can get. Or all the money. He lusted for them.”

  A red Frisbee whizzed out of the air and landed at our feet. Rachel scooped it up, glanced around, and whipped it back to a black kid with blond hair and a stringy blond goatee. He plucked it out of the air, held it to his heart, and gave her a bow.

  “The other day when I was looking for Peggy, Nellie told me Munro did research in Special Collections all day, every day. What was he looking at?” I phrased the question carefully; I knew I was on shaky ethical ground in asking it.

  She pursed her lips and gave me a Marion-the-Librarian look. “Professional protocol prohibits me from releasing that information.”

  “Okay. I understand.”

  She deliberated for a moment, then relented. “Oh, God, Karen, the cops asked me that, too.” She sighed. “Library borrowing information is supposed to remain strictly confidential. When I refused to let them look at our records, they got a warrant and did it anyhow.” A shrug. “He’s dead now, what harm can it do? At least I can tell you that Tooey—er, Munro—began using our collections in mid-January—”

  “Jeez, that’s just about when I was knocked down in front of the library.”

  “That’s right.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, there’s one mystery solved.”

  “Are you allowed to say what he was researching?”

  “Not really.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “He was not a particularly noticeable person—probably on purpose—and so I didn’t notice him. But Nellie did.”

  “I could tell.”

  “She’s freaking out about…something. Munro’s death, maybe? Who knows? Maybe she’s just overwhelmed with the increased workload now that we’re missing a student aide. But she did pull herself together long enough to tell the police he was doing descriptive bibliography. He called up a large number of books—I’m not allowed to divulge precisely which ones—and paid close attention to individual volumes. A couple of hours on each one. I can’t give you more details than that.”

  “Descriptive bibliography?”

  “You know, describing books as material objects. The bibliographer details the particularities of each existing volume of a certain text. Not only the usual author, title, publisher, but also type face, quality of paper, binding, signs of prior ownership—book plates, library markings, marginalia. It can tell you a whole lot about books and who uses them. For instance, if a volume of sermons had a great many annotations in the margin, that would reflect close attention to religious issues by the reading public. If a novel had library markings, the binding was worn, and the pages were coming loose, that could indicate an active readership and wide popularity.”

  “Uh huh.” My eyes had begun to glaze over. I prefer to read my books, not transcribe their marginalia.


  “Munro entered whatever data he was interested in into a laptop computer. I asked that pregnant detective if they’d found it with his things, and she just gave me a cryptic smile. I think she’s seen too many Jack Nicholson movies.”

  Peggy’s friend Stephanie Abrams crossed the quad in front of us, deep in conversation with Greg Samoorian. I jumped up from the bench. “Rachel,” I said, “there’s someone I’ve been trying to get hold of. Can we continue this later?” I’d meant to talk to Stephanie again after class yesterday, but, like her friend Peggy, she hadn’t shown up.

  “Hey, Pelletier,” Greg greeted me. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.” His dark hair needed a trim, but he was still good to look at.

  “You were at my house Sunday, Samoorian.”

  “That didn’t count. The kids were there. We couldn’t carry on an adult conversation.”

  “As if we ever do.” I grinned at him, and turned to my student. “Hello, Stephanie. I need to see you.”

  The girl gave me a straight, serious look. But, then, she was always serious. At twenty, she already had faint etchings of worry between her eyes. When time had completed sculpting Stephanie’ face, she’d have multiple deep lines bracketing her narrow lips.

  Greg glanced from me to Stephanie, then back to me. “Karen, are you brushing me off?”

  “’Fraid so, buddy.” I squeezed his arm. “But just this once. Give me a call, will you?”

  “You should be so lucky.” He winked at me and ambled away. Fatherhood had been good to Greg. He seemed settled and happy, tied to the earth in a way he hadn’t been when I’d first known him.

  Stephanie looked wary. Slender and blond, with a pale, almost bloodless complexion, she appeared cold in her thin Indian wrap skirt and Madonna tee.

  I buttoned the neck of my quilted jacket. “It chills me just to look at you, Steph. Can I buy you a hot drink?”

  “Okay.” She was a typical Enfield student, far too polite to tell a professor to butt out. “But I’ve only got a few minutes before class.”

  Most of the bustle in the coffee shop at this late morning hour was behind the counter, as workers prepared for the lunch onslaught. I set the tray with my coffee and her hot chocolate on a table in a window nook. “You know what I want, Stephanie, so tell me—have you heard anything from Peggy?”

  “No.” She picked up her cup, sipped, and winced as steaming liquid burned her mouth. Then she concentrated on stirring the pillow of melting marshmallow into the hot chocolate. She had no intention of making this conversation easy.

  I sighed. “Look, I know you and Peggy are friends, so I’ll be brutally frank with you if that’s what it takes to get you to tell me where she is. Peggy’s in trouble, and not simply because she’s missing work and classes. You remember that… suspicious death that occurred in the library last week?”

  “Of course.” Stephanie nodded solemnly. Her voice was low. “Peggy found the…the man when she went into the closed stacks Thursday morning. She was so freaked.” So Stephanie had seen Peggy on Thursday, and after the police had questioned her. I wondered whether she’d told the investigators that.

  “Well, there’s more, I’m afraid,” I said. And I told her about the backpack found in the victim’s house.

  Stephanie slapped a thin hand on the table. “So that’s where it went!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Somebody stole Peggy’s backpack. Let’s see, when was that? The day of the reception in the library.”

  “Wednesday…” Peggy had been in my office Wednesday morning. And her pack with her.

  “Yeah. Someone snatched it right out of the library. When Peggy came in to work at noon, she stuck it in her cubbyhole in the staff room, like she always does. When she went to get it that evening, it was gone. Her books, wallet, car keys—everything. I had to drive her home after the president’s dinner.”

  “You mean Peggy’s wandering around out there without even her wallet.”

  “Well, she’s not exactly wandering around—”

  I’d had it with her evasions. “Steph, look, you’ve got to understand, there’s been criminal activity involving the library. And a man has been killed. Peggy could be a suspect. And she may even be in danger. I, personally, am very concerned about her.”

  The student jumped up, leaving her drink unfinished. “Can’t be late for class, Professor. Bye.”

  With narrowed eyes, I watched Stephanie disappear through the door. Distrust authority: the code of the young. I sighed. It was my code too.

  The smell of tomato sauce and pepperoni began to clamor for my attention. It was almost noon. At the pizza counter, I ordered a slice to go. The pie wasn’t quite ready. While I waited, I checked out the large room. Students, staff, a few professors. Rachel sat at a table by the window with Nellie Applegate. The light shone on Rachel’s crisp, dark curls. Over her broad shoulder I could see that even the white had drained from Nellie’s complexion, leaving her face a pasty grey. On my way to the door, I caught a snatch of Rachel’s voice, oddly flat: “…must see a marked improvement in job performance. Just one more lapse in professional standards and we will have no choice but to…” I sped up. It was too pathetic; I didn’t want to hear any more.

  ***

  I ate the pizza at my desk, dripping oil on the lined notepad in front of me. I’d known from the start that the presence of Peggy’s backpack at Munro’s house could make her a suspect in the eyes of the police. Now, I planned to call Charlie and tell him that Peggy hadn’t left it there herself, that it had been stolen from the library. But first I needed to think about how to approach him. Everything between us was up in the air. Charlie had said we shouldn’t see each other until the investigation was over, and he’d followed through. I hadn’t spoken to him since Saturday when I’d called about finding Peggy’s car.

  Life can be so damn hard.

  Okay. Back to work. No matter how things stood between Charlie and me, I had to organize my thoughts before I spoke to him about Peggy. I’d seen how he put together investigation notes, and I tried to follow suit. It wasn’t unlike outlining my thoughts for a lecture or an essay. Peggy Briggs, I wrote, missing from home, work, and classes.

  Then I made two columns: Guilty, and Not Guilty.

  Under Guilty I listed:

  –Discovered Munro’s body.

  –Vanished immediately thereafter.

  –Works in the library. Would have had opportunity to become acquainted with Elwood Munro.

  –Needed money. (Badly enough to collude in book theft?)

  –Backpack found in victim’s house.

  –Car located nearby.

  Under Not Guilty I wrote:

  –Backpack stolen from library on day of murder. (By Munro?)

  –Best friend may know where she is.

  –Friend seems not to be worried about her.

  –Car keys stolen with backpack. How could she have gotten her car out to Chesterfield?

  Chewing on pizza crust, I sat back and regarded the two columns for a full minute. Hmm. Heavy on the Guilty side—at least circumstantially. I sighed, picked up my pen and scratched out the entire Guilty list. I didn’t want to be able to read it myself, let alone have anyone else stumble across it.

  Charlie answered his cell phone on the third ring. I told him what Stephanie had said about Peggy’s backpack having been stolen. He grunted, taking in the information.

  A long, heavy silence ensued. I broke it. “We have to talk, Charlie.”

  “Yes, we do. You free?”

  “I have a class later.”

  “How about lunch?”

  “I’ve already eaten, but, sure, I’ll meet you. Rudolph’s is closest.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  ***

  I never drink before teaching, but at Rudolph’s I asked for a glass of the house white anyhow. Fidgeting with the wine glass would give me something to do with my hands. Charlie ordered a burger. His fingers were laced t
ogether as if permanently locked.

  “How’s your father?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “How’s your daughter?”

  “Fine.” Although she wasn’t, not completely.

  More silence. The waiter delivered our drinks, and I took a long sip of the cool wine.

  Charlie pushed himself back in his chair and gazed over at me somberly. His broad face was half-illuminated in the bright noon light from the window. “Now, here’s what’s bugging me, Karen. As to your support of Sunnye Hardcastle, I just don’t get it. The woman’s a suspect in a murder investigation, an investigation I’m responsible for. And you continue to hang out with her. You invite her to your home, even after I advise you she’s a primary suspect. How stupid is that? Or…is it just a slap in the face for me?”

  I opened my mouth and found I had no voice, so I began to fold my cocktail napkin lengthwise in fanlike pleats. Construction of the flimsy paper fan required all my attention.

  “I don’t know where you are,” he went on. “Are you with me or with some total stranger—a half-baked thrill-seeker like Sunnye Hardcastle?”

  My voice came back. “She’s not a stranger. I’ve read all her books.” I carefully tore a strip off the fan. “I feel as if I’ve known her for years.”

  He shook his head and leaned toward me. “Karen, I truly don’t know what to think. I want you so much, but I don’t know where I am with you.”

  “Oh, Charlie,” I said. My hands were shaking. He was a policeman—an officer of the law. He was dedicated to his job. At times he was overbearing and overprotective. Those were all things I couldn’t stand. Then there was the other Charlie.… I swallowed hard, afraid I might choke on my words. “The last thing in the world I want is to risk losing you.” I ripped another strip off the paper fan. “But I have to be my own person, and I don’t believe Sunnye’s guilty. I can’t abandon her. As tough and outrageous as she seems to be, she’s at a loss about all this. When I first met her, she bugged me, too. But now I’d go so far as to say we’ve become friends. You have to respect that. You have to respect my maturity and judgment.”

  He reached across the table and plucked the half-shredded napkin from my hand. “Okay, I can do that. I can respect you. But here’s my position. What I said the other day. I don’t think we should see each other until this case is over. It compromises the investigation if I…fraternize with associates of a suspect.”