Lost Books and Old Bones

by Paige Shelton

  “It looked like no one had come into the shop? Did … did the police check everywhere?” They all knew what I meant.

  “Aye. I checked the warehouse first,” Edwin said. “Nothing seemed out of place, but I wouldn’t have thought tae look in the desk for anything. When he got here, the officer in charge walked through everywhere with me, including a brief look inside the locked warehouse. He said they’d probably only need to cordon off the kitchen for now to gather possible evidence. He’d tell me if he needed to look further, but they suspect the bulk of any evidence will be found in the close. I’ve given them full access to everywhere. I didn’t hesitate,” Edwin said.

  I nodded. “Do you think she was trying to get inside through the window?”

  “That’s our best guess, but no one would have been able to make it in through the security grate over the window,” Hamlet said. “You just met her last night?”

  “Yes, I was at a pub with Rena, Sophie, and Mallory. The bookshop did come up in conversation, when one of their professors, a Dr. Eban, joined us at the table. He asked if the warehouse really existed, asked about some scalpels…”

  “She was curious tae see, maybe,” Edwin said.

  “Possibly, but she was killed, murdered? Or did she hurt herself out there?” A note of hope lifted my voice. Accidental death was so much better than murder.

  “I dinnae think so,” Rosie said. “There was … She looked … Hamlet, please explain.”

  Hamlet nodded and blinked as he called up some stronger resolve.

  “We walked back there and when we spotted her, we hurried, thinking maybe someone needed help. I turned her over and it was clear she was dead. Her … her neck was bruised—I’ll never forget that.” He paused. “There was something else, too. A skull. A human skull had been placed next to the body. As if it had been staged.” He shook his head.

  It took me a moment to understand why the skull seemed to unsettle him further, but I figured it out. I reached over the table and put my hand on his. “You thought it might be a message to you?”

  “I just wasn’t sure. It was so eerie and wrong—and the skull. Shakespeare and Hamlet and skulls…”

  “No, Hamlet, it had nothing to do with you. I met her last night, and it’s a good bet that our conversation somehow brought her here and her killer here. Nothing to do with you. The skull … well, who knows, but I have no doubt that it has nothing to do with you.”

  Hamlet nodded.

  “It’s all right, lad. It’s all right.” Edwin moved to Hamlet and patted his shoulder.

  “Did anyone call Inspector Winters?” I asked. Inspector Winters had become a friend to all of us, though an ever-suspicious friend to Edwin.

  No one had.

  “Should we call him? Are the other police out in the close? I need to talk to an officer,” I said.

  “We’ll not call Winters yet,” Edwin said. “And, I’m afraid I’m going tae have tae intervene and ask you not tae talk tae anyone until you and Tom have an attorney.”

  “I can just give a statement,” I said.

  “No, lass. We need to do this the right way,” Edwin said. “We can tell them that you want tae talk tae them, but we’ll be meeting with them later. Same goes for you, Tom.”

  “Aye. I have a friend,” Tom said. He looked at me. “He’d be happy tae represent us both. He’ll tell us if there’s some conflict. Let me ring him.”

  “All right,” Edwin said. “If we need more than one, I have a few we could contact.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Excuse me. I’ll ring him right now and let him know.” Tom stood, but then didn’t seem to know which direction to go.

  “Go on tae the pub, Tom. We’ll let the police know you aren’t a flight risk,” Edwin said. “You should call from somewhere private, and I can’t rest assured there’s any place around here that is at the moment.”

  Instead of leaving immediately, Tom crouched next to me. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “I don’t think we did anything to make this happen.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Call me when you’ve talked to him.”

  “I will.” He kissed my forehead, shared a look with Edwin, and then hurried out of the bookshop.

  I looked at Hamlet. “How do you think she broke the window?

  “It was just a rock. Nothing unusual, except that it might be unusual tae find one its size around here.” He made a five inch or so diameter circle with his hands. “She, or the killer, might have brought it from elsewhere. I don’t know. I didn’t put all that together in my mind.”

  “Can I tell you all about last night first? The details, now, before I talk to the police? The things Tom and I found? Maybe you will catch something I’m missing,” I said. I had never wanted my bookish voices to speak to me more. Had I missed something that might tell me who had killed Mallory? The voices were silent, telling me my subconscious hadn’t picked up on anything either, or maybe it just needed to process some more. I hoped it would process quickly.

  “You might want tae wait,” Edwin said.

  “I don’t want to wait.” I shook my head.

  Rosie said, “Let her tell us, Edwin. We’d all lie for her anyway.”

  The tiny pull of a smile showed briefly at Hamlet’s lips, but he sobered again quickly. Edwin frowned.

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with, lass,” Edwin said.

  “I’ll let ye know if someone comes back ’round inside,” Rosie said as she scooted her chair to a position where she could better see the door.

  I told them about the pub. I even told them what Rena had almost confirmed about Sophie and Dr. Eban. I mentioned her strange, last-minute concern for Sophie if something happened to her. But mostly, I tried to relay Dr. Eban’s curiosity about the warehouse, while mentioning that I hadn’t noticed if Mallory had seemed as curious. Had she? Had someone last night done something in the pub, directed toward Mallory, that should have made me worried for her safety, or suspicious? Replaying the events didn’t shed any new light.

  I tried to recall if anyone had been watching us with evil intentions in their eyes, but nothing came to me. Even the as-described “odd” Dr. Eban hadn’t seemed evil, and the sighting of the gray-haired man seemed insignificant—so much so that I was sure my mind had turned the moment into something it really hadn’t been.

  I remembered finding Dr. Eban endearing at one point. In my mind, the evening still ended with me getting into my own cab after I’d watched Rena get into hers, my concern for her much greater than for anyone else. We’d both seen Mallory drive off with Sophie in tow, but I had no way of knowing if any of them had made it home or if, like me, hadn’t wanted to go directly home.

  I didn’t think Sophie had it in her to kill anyone, but figured maybe the police should look at her and the cabdriver. My concern for Rena was renewed, and I had an urge to call both of the women to ask if they were okay, but Edwin told me to wait.

  I hadn’t seen anyone else when Tom and I came into the bookshop, but perhaps one of them could have been lurking in the dark close, and unless we’d heard something we would never have considered looking there. I didn’t turn the light on in the kitchen and didn’t glance even briefly at the window as we passed by it on our way to and from the warehouse. We didn’t hear a window break.

  “Mallory didnae seem at all interested when Dr. Eban brought up the warehouse?” Rosie asked.

  “No, but I was so focused on Dr. Eban at that moment that I wasn’t paying attention to the others. I was also worried Sophie might do or say something she would later regret, so I had some attention on her, but I didn’t pay much attention to Mallory.”

  “You’re certain you’d only met her last night?” Edwin said.

  “One hundred percent sure,” I said.

  “You don’t remember seeing her in the bookshop?” Edwin asked.

  “Never,” I said. “The three of them seemed to be pretty good friends, but Rena and Sophie did
n’t mention her to me before. There’s no reason to think they would; our friendship is still new. There was a sense of camaraderie between them all. She was a welcome member of the group last night, but so was I. There was no sense that anyone was unwelcome, except for the doctor, and the women weren’t rude to him.” I took a deep breath. The reality of the murder just kept getting bigger.

  “Ye couldnae’ve seen this coming, Delaney,” Rosie said.

  “Do you suppose I was followed back to the shop? Tom and I came to look for the scalpels, but we locked the doors. When we left we were both nervous about what we’d found. Tom wanted to call you, Edwin.”

  “You think the scalpels are genuine?” Hamlet asked.

  “Unless they’re some sort of novelty items—and we’ve seen that sort of thing before. They were in a small hinged case with Dr. Knox’s name engraved on the outside.”

  “I didn’t know about them either,” Edwin said. “Rosie, Hamlet?”

  “No,” Hamlet said.

  “I dinnae think so,” Rosie said. “But there’s so much back there. I’d have tae see them tae be certain.”

  “Do you think that Mallory somehow knew they were there, or her killer knew?” Hamlet asked.

  “I have no idea. I didn’t sense that Dr. Eban’s questions were frivolous; but he was curious, not certain. Maybe Mallory was just curious enough to come looking,” I said.

  “And someone else too,” Rosie said. “Curious enough tae kill her tae get tae them first.”

  “But they didn’t get there first, I don’t think,” I said as I looked at Edwin. “The warehouse seemed undisturbed? It’s impossible to know if she was killed because of something in the warehouse or just because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I need to look in the drawer. Should we go do that?”

  “No, not until the police tell me it’s clear,” Edwin said. “It seemed undisturbed.”

  I nodded and blinked away a swell of tears. I swallowed hard just as the bell above the door jingled way too happily.

  A man dressed in the head-to-toe white coveralls came around the corner. He pulled off the hood and down on the face mask, and his eyes landed on me. He wasn’t the same officer I’d seen outside the shop.

  “You are?” he asked, with not a hint of a Scottish accent.

  “Delaney Nichols,” I said as I stood. “I was here last night, officer.”

  “You were?” He lifted his eyebrows. He was a big man, and I guessed he was from my neck of the woods even though he hadn’t said very much yet.

  “Yes.”

  “I need your statement. If the rest of you would excuse us.”

  “She’ll not be talking tae the police without an attorney present. We’re acquiring one for her as we speak,” Edwin said.

  This was not what the police officer wanted to hear, but he didn’t argue. “All right.” He sat in a chair next to me. “I’ll wait right here.”

  It was an awkward half an hour, but fortunately not much longer than that.

  FIVE

  I’d been right. Inspector Raymond Pierce was originally from Duluth, Minnesota, which happened to be the same place my first college roommate had been born and raised. Our short conversation of small talk, interspersed in between all the awkward, went something like this:

  “You’re from the States?” he asked.

  “I am. Kansas. You?”

  “Duluth, Minnesota,” he said.

  There were a million more questions that should have followed and would have in any other setting, but neither of us asked those questions. The strain (on my part mostly; Inspector Pierce seemed practiced at waiting out uncomfortable moments) went on way too long. I was relieved when Tom and the attorney finally rushed through the bookshop’s front door. The attorney moved with a dramatic flourish; Tom followed behind with less flourish and more concern. I sent him a quick smile to tell him I was okay. He seemed to relax a bit.

  Gaylord Buchanan didn’t look like an attorney. He looked more like a pub owner who’d been awakened too early; I’d seen such a thing before. His messy dark hair and jeans and T-shirt made me wonder where he’d been when Tom had called him.

  Introductions were made, and I didn’t miss Inspector Pierce’s tight eyebrows when he realized I wasn’t the only one who’d been in the shop the night before. He looked at us before the formal questioning began and asked, “Anyone else?”

  We both shook our heads.

  Edwin, Rosie, Hamlet, and Hector removed themselves from the back table and left it to the four of us. My coworkers stepped outside the shop, where more people in white coveralls were gathering, coming out of the close, I thought.

  I was given a moment alone with my attorney—a man I, surprisingly, found to be more soft-spoken than any attorney I’d ever met. He listened with intense eyes that made me almost uncomfortable. I was glad he was on my side.

  He’d gotten a rundown of the night from Tom. After I told him about my time at the pub with Sophie, Rena, and Mallory, and my version of the events, he said, “Just stick tae the facts and the truth. Do not give your opinion about anything, including what you think the women thought of each other or what they might have truly thought about the doctor. Don’t offer up anything about the possible affair, but if you’re asked specifically about it, just answer honestly and without putting your own interpretation into it.”

  These were all things I knew, but I sensed that actually doing them correctly might end up being a challenge.

  As the four of us sat down together, the moment suddenly felt over the top. Tom and I had done nothing wrong, and I just wanted the police to know what we knew, or at least that we’d been at the shop and hadn’t seen anything suspicious. From a distance, I knew that having an attorney present whenever you talked to the police was the only smart way to go. Up close and in person, it was stressful and seemed unwarranted, even if he was on my side.

  “The both of you were here together last night?” Inspector Pierce began.

  Tom and I nodded and I added, “And I was at the same pub the victim—if it’s who I heard it was—was at last night.”

  Inspector Pierce sent me a blink.

  “You were at the pub too?” Inspector Pierce asked Tom.

  “No, I met Delaney here afterward,” Tom said.

  “All right then, let’s start from the beginning,” Inspector Pierce said as he looked at me. “How did you know the victim, and what were the two of you doing together last night?”

  Doing my best to stick to just the facts, I relayed what had happened at the pub, except for the part about the possible relationship between Sophie and Dr. Eban. I did mention that the women seemed to respect their professor even though they also seemed to be bothered by him being there, in the middle of their night out. Because it would be so out of context without the mention of the alleged possible affair, I also didn’t mention Rena’s request of me to watch over Sophie if something happened to her.

  “And you two searched the … warehouse for some scalpels?” Inspector Pierce asked.

  “We did,” I said.

  “Did you find any?”

  “We did.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Still locked inside the warehouse, in a desk drawer, as far as I know. I haven’t been over to check.”

  “You didn’t know the victim? We have confirmed that the deceased’s name is Mallory Clacher.” He looked at Tom, emphasizing Mallory’s name.

  “I didn’t know her.”

  “These scalpels, would they be worth killing for?” Pierce asked.

  “I don’t know their true value. And I don’t understand what’s behind killers’ motives anyway. I’d have to research to put some sort of monetary value on them,” I said.

  “The warehouse is real, but you told the doctor and the others that it didn’t exist?” Pierce said.

  “That’s correct. We don’t advertise it, and it has become somewhat of a legend, I guess.”

  “Is it a secret because of t
he value of the items inside?”

  “Yes…” I answered.

  “Delaney?” Inspector Pierce continued.

  “Right. Well, kind of. It’s Edwin’s personal world, a place he created full of things that interest him. He’s not about the money so much as he is protective of his passions. As you probably saw, that side isn’t as well taken care of. The steps are worn, there’s more grime on the windows. It might not be considered safe.” It was probably perfectly safe, but that felt like the right thing to say.

  However, the attorney, Gaylord, sent me a look that told me to remember to just stick to the facts.

  Inspector Pierce nodded. “Are the two of you dating?”

  “How is that relevant?” Gaylord interjected.

  “I need to understand why they were here, together, in the middle of the night,” he said.

  “We’re together, a couple,” Tom said, but Gaylord sent him a frown.

  Inspector Pierce nodded. “Maybe there’s some sort of connection to what Delaney said at the pub and Mallory being here. She might’ve been curious, I don’t know, but I’m going to figure it out. And she wasn’t here alone, obviously. You said,” he looked at his notes, “that Sophie went with her. I’ll talk to Sophie and the other woman, Rena, but I’ll have more questions for the two of you.” He looked only at me.

  “Have you checked on them, Sophie and Rena, to make sure they’re okay?” I asked.

  “I know some officers visited the victim’s building, but you’re the first person to tell me about last night,” Inspector Pierce said. “I don’t know who has been questioned and who hasn’t, but everyone was accounted for.”

  I hadn’t said anything earlier, but it suddenly felt deeply wrong to leave something out. I looked at Gaylord. He wasn’t going to be happy with me, but I said, “There’s a little more.”

  “Do tell,” Inspector Pierce said.

  I shared the details about the favor that Rena had asked of me, still not mentioning the alleged affair. Surprisingly, Gaylord didn’t frown at me, and Inspector Pierce called in another officer to go check on the women immediately. He asked to get them both into the station for questioning.

  “Well, someone killed Mallory Clacher,” he said after he dismissed the other officer and turned his gaze back to only me. “The last person or persons seen with a murder victim is of particular interest. I appreciate your cooperation, but no going back to Kansas or anything for a while.”