Lost Books and Old Bones

by Paige Shelton

  “You can board up the window from the outside if you’d like,” Inspector Pierce said. “I really don’t want you on this side for at least the rest of today, at least until I hear if any of the crime scene folks need to come back. If you just want to leave it, those bars will keep anything out; anything larger than a cat or a rat, I suppose.”

  “I’d rather not tempt any animals. I’ll have it taken care of from the other side,” Edwin said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  The close wasn’t like some alleys I was familiar with back in the States. As with most of them in Edinburgh, it was clean, a space for exploration. It had been named Warden’s Close because a prison warden had once lived on it, back in the day when people were packed together in the city and creatures like rats brought fleas that spread the plague, killing off much of the population. Twice. I hadn’t see a rat since coming to Edinburgh, other than one time when Tom and I took a walk by the ocean and came upon some docks. A rat, cute enough for a children’s book, had peered out at us from under some wooden planks, twitching his whiskers before he disappeared under again.

  As cute as that rat had been and despite the fact that I hadn’t ever seen one near the bookshop, I was all for boarding up the window, no matter from which side.

  We watched as the remaining officers and then Gaylord left the shop, leaving behind them an unexpected silence and sense of discomfort. I hadn’t realized that though it was weird having them there, their official capacity had also layered in a sense of protection that they took with them.

  “I’ll have the shop cleaned,” Edwin said. “Everyone please go home and get some rest. We’ll begin business as usual tomorrow if the police say it’s okay.”

  The front door swung open. It was the woman with the blond curly hair. Bridget. It was as if she had been lurking outside and waiting.

  Her eyes moved over each of us, but landed on Tom.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  Tom didn’t answer as he gave Edwin and then me a strained, apologetic frown.

  “How can we help you, lass?” Edwin said.

  Reluctantly, she pulled her attention away from my pub owner. “My name is Bridget Carr. I’m with the Renegade Scot. I heard there was a murder here,” she said. “I’d like tae get the facts straight for an article.”

  Love goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

  Hello, bookish voice. Hero’s words to Ursula from Much Ado About Nothing might have come to me because of something I sensed in Tom’s attitude toward his old friend. Or maybe she was just so pretty that I wanted to shine some sort of bad light on their previous relationship.

  “I’m sorry, we won’t be able tae help you with that today. Perhaps you could give us some time and maybe stop by tomorrow,” Edwin said.

  “It’ll be old news by then,” she said with a smile and a shrug. “Was there a murder?”

  “Lass, I’m sorry. We’ll have tae ask you tae leave,” Edwin said impatiently.

  Unbothered, she stood a moment and stared at Edwin. The strained silence lasted a few beats too long before she sent Tom what might have been a glare, though it was difficult to interpret, and then left the shop.

  “A friend of yours?” Edwin asked Tom.

  “Used tae be,” Tom said.

  “Aye,” Edwin said as he looked out the front window again.

  “Aye,” Tom said.

  I swallowed the surprise jealousy that blossomed in my chest. I didn’t think I had such a thing in me. I was sure I had no reason to be jealous. Tom gave me another apologetic frown.

  But then, just after the frown, I was almost certain that he took a brief but real and curious glance out the front window. That couldn’t have been what I saw. Could it?

  No, it must have been my imagination. Hopefully.

  SEVEN

  Edwin shooed us out of the bookshop. He locked the door and made it clear we weren’t to return until the next day. He would have someone board up the window later in the afternoon, but he didn’t want any of us to join him for the task. Rosie, Hamlet, and I argued that we should be there too, but Edwin wasn’t to be argued with today.

  After everyone else was gone and Tom and I were walking to his pub, he said, “I can take the day off. We can do whatever you’d like.”

  I looked toward the pub’s front window. Rodger was probably already inside multitasking.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Can I drive you home at least?”

  “No, I want to walk some. I’ll take the bus when I’m ready.”

  He held me a little tighter and a little longer than normal when we hugged goodbye. I liked it when he did that.

  I set off with a plan to go around the block, clear my head, enjoy the temporarily clear skies. But I couldn’t help myself. My feet, guided by my curiosity, took me around the block once and back to the close. I wouldn’t disobey Edwin’s and Inspector Pierce’s orders not to go inside the shop, but I needed to see where Mallory’s body had been.

  I less-than-furtively made my way down the narrow-spaced alleyway. Not all of the closes were narrow, but this one was. If I stretched my arms, I could touch both walls with my fingertips. I hadn’t asked my landlords, Elias and Aggie, about the history of this one and only knew about the warden’s onetime residence because of what Hamlet had told me that first day. Once word of the murder spread it was sure to become busier with curious tourists and locals.

  There was nothing architecturally appealing about this one, like some I’d seen, but it did garner some attention simply because it was located so near the Edinburgh castle, as well as Grassmarket Square.

  I’d noticed before that it was clean, but today it was pristine. Not even a random scrap of paper littered the concrete ground. I wondered if the police had removed many items. There was no sign that a dead body and a disembodied skull had been found down here. There was nothing gruesome anywhere.

  The close was bordered by the dark side of the bookshop and a small used-furniture shop, and I noticed the different bricks used in each building. The bookshop’s were reddish brown, but the furniture store’s were lighter gray, darkened around the edges from the passing of time.

  The window that had been broken was just above my head, too high for me or someone close to my height, like Mallory had been, to get a good look inside, and there was nothing in sight that she could have stood on.

  Tentatively, I put my fingertips up to the grate on the ledge and estimated how hard it would be to hoist myself up. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Why would anyone break the window after they noticed the security grate anyway? With awkward leverage, I tried to pull on one of the bars. The grate wasn’t going anywhere.

  I stood back and looked up at it. It did look like someone had taken a file to it. Breaking through would have been almost as impossible as moving it. I didn’t know how things were bolted in, but it wouldn’t budge; even with some good help and a file it would have taken more days than anyone would have patience for. And even if the grate could somehow be removed, the window was small. Some people could probably make it through, but only narrow people. There was a chance I could make it, but I’d have to squirm and wiggle.

  I looked out toward Grassmarket. The view wasn’t wide, and someone would have to be purposefully looking this direction to notice anything going on, but it was difficult to picture the scenario of someone thinking they could try to break in or murder someone in daylight without being seen. I frowned back up at the window.

  “You know, it’s said they buried witches down here,” a voice said.

  I jumped and made a too-loud noise that was a combination of a curse and a yell.

  “Sorry,” Bridget said with an unfriendly smile as she sauntered closer. “I really didn’t mean tae scare you.”

  She held something in one of her closed fists. I squinted as I eyed a sharp point. She noticed my look and stopped moving forward. She opened her han
d and I saw that the item was indeed sharp, and grayish white.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “I found it earlier, at the opening,” she nodded backward toward the square. “I heard there was a skull back here with the body, but this isn’t part of a skull. It’s plaster. That made me wonder if what I’d heard was a skull was maybe a death mask or something similar. Do you know?”

  “Death mask?’ I said, though I was pretty sure I knew what she was talking about.

  “Aye. A cast of the face of a dead person, done in plaster as far as I know, but maybe other materials were used too. It’s not a contemporary tradition.”

  I cleared my throat. The item could be used as a weapon. Nevertheless, I moved a little closer and looked again. It could have been mistaken for part of a bone, maybe a skull. With a ragged edge, it was only about four inches long and a couple of inches wide at its widest points. It might not have anything at all to do with the murder.

  “I don’t know what the police found. You should have shown them this, though,” I said.

  Bridget shrugged. “They should have noticed it themselves.” She stuck it out closer to me.

  I looked at her and then rubbed my fingertip over it. The ragged edge wasn’t sharp like the pointed end. The surface was smooth. “Yes, feels like plaster.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Consider giving it to the police.” In fact, I wondered if I should call Inspector Pierce and tell him she’d shown it to me. The only reason I didn’t had something to do with not trusting her. I wondered if she had just brought it with her as curiosity bait to reel me in. If so, it had worked.

  “I’ll think about it.” She closed her fingers and pulled back her hand.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I need to know what happened.” She nodded toward the window. “I hear there was a murder. I saw the body bag coming out of the close, but I need confirmation that someone didn’t just keel over on their own.” She waited and blinked. When I didn’t say anything, she continued, “There’s so much mystery around the owner of the shop. And there’s that secret room of his, or so I’ve heard.” She nodded at the window again. “Is it right inside that window? The room? Boost me up?”

  “I’m not going to answer your questions, but I believe Edwin said he would talk to you tomorrow,” I said as I made my way around her. She didn’t move to give me any extra space, and the squeeze-through only made me clench my teeth tighter.

  “He said I could stop by tomorrow, but he didn’t say that he’d talk tae me,” she said as she followed behind. “You work there? You sound like you’re from America. Where?”

  “Look, I have to go,” I said. “Stop by and talk to Edwin tomorrow.”

  “I’ll just get the police report today,” she said. “Then I’ll write a boring, police-facts-only article. Or, maybe I’ll add the part about the redhead from America who seems to work at the shop being spotted later, suspiciously trying to look into the window under which the body might have been found. I see the window has been broken out. Aye, that could make it interesting.”

  I no longer disliked her only because she was so pretty and had dated Tom.

  “Print whatever you like. It’s your integrity on the line,” I said.

  “Good one.”

  I kept walking.

  “You don’t want to know about the witches buried down there?” she said as she kept pace with me, now outside the close. “Most tourists love the story.”

  “I’m not a tourist…” I said before I realized what she was doing.

  “So you do work there?”

  I kept walking.

  “Anyway. Back in the day, they used tae roll accused witches down the hill on the other side of the Royal Mile. There used tae be a loch there right where the Princes Street Gardens are now located. It was where everyone who lived on the Royal Mile dumped their waste; nasty business. If the woman being rolled into the filthy loch drowned, she wasn’t a witch. If she didn’t drown she was, so she’d be brought over here tae Grassmarket and hanged or burned at the stake. A lose-lose situation, if you ask me. There’s legend that there was someone, or perhaps a number of someones, who liked tae steal the hung bodies and bury them down the close, right outside their room. People lived more in rooms down here, not flats, but you know what I mean. I don’t know if the legend has any truth tae it, but there’s no record of anyone being arrested for the weird behavior. I know because I did a story on it once. Have you heard of the Renegade Scot?”

  I certainly had heard of the paper. I’d read it frequently, along with any other newspaper I came across. I still didn’t know nearly enough about my new home; reading the local newspapers, even those with “renegade” in the masthead, was one way to learn. I didn’t admit that to her, though. In fact, I had to force myself to keep ignoring her. She was interesting.

  She was not to be deterred. “Really, it’s true! It’s called Wardens Close now, but it used to be Auld Bane Close until someone higher up in the government found out their ancestor lived there and was an old prison warden.”

  “Auld Bane?” I said, because I couldn’t help myself.

  “Right. That’s Scots for ‘Old Bone.’ Clever, huh?”

  I’d known about “auld” but not “bane.” Seemed obvious now.

  “Interesting,” I conceded.

  “I know lots of interesting things,” she said. “I’m always happy to share my stories.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, trying hard not to like any part of her, including her undeniable charm, evident even through her pushiness.

  “But just tell me this, yes or no, was there a murder at the bookshop?” she asked just as I spotted the approaching bus.

  “Come by the bookshop tomorrow,” I said. “I’m sure Edwin will talk to you.”

  I boarded the bus and took a seat halfway down the aisle. I was glad she didn’t board too. I’d escaped her for today, but my relief was short-lived. I looked out the window and watched as she turned away from the bus stop and started marching purposefully toward Tom’s pub.

  It looked like she wasn’t going to “ring” him after all.

  EIGHT

  I hadn’t meant to go to Sophie and Rena’s flat, but when the bus stopped near their building I hopped up and joined the others who were disembarking.

  I stood outside a long time, looking for a police car or something that might dissuade me from checking on my friends. Neither police cars nor police officers were in the vicinity, so I pushed through the gate and made my way to the front door.

  I couldn’t see her watching me from inside, but the underclassman I’d recognized at the pub opened the front door. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  “Did you hear?” she asked as she sniffed. “Did you hear about the murder?”

  “I did, and I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m a friend of Sophie and Rena’s. I saw you last night at the pub. My name is Delaney.”

  “Hi.” She sniffed again. “Lola. I didn’t see you last night. Were you with Mallory too?”

  “I was.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I don’t. I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “We’re all so distraught. How did this happen? Did you see Mallory with anyone else last night? Dr. Eban was there. Did he talk to her?”

  “I’m not sure. Why do you ask?” I said. She spoke about Dr. Eban as if I should know exactly who he was, and that she hadn’t noticed him join our table. I didn’t correct her assumption that I was a medical student too.

  “That’s what everyone is talking about today, that Mallory and Dr. Eban were having an affair. Do you think it was true?”

  I tried to quickly remove the look of confusion that pulled my eyebrows together. She was too distraught to notice my reaction, but I wanted to know more, wanted to know if wires had gotten crossed, and just who was supposed to be
having an affair with whom. However, I didn’t want to contribute to something getting further out of hand. Any clarification I tried to seek would only make things worse. “It’s never good to listen to rumors.” I felt like I should be pointing my finger with the advice. I cleared my throat.

  “Of course not,” Lola said. Her eyes filled with tears again and she put a tissue to her nose. Without saying anything else, she turned and went back into her flat, closing the door with a half slam behind her. I thought about knocking to see if she needed someone to sit with her, but I didn’t. I thought about the gray-haired man she’d watched leave the pub, and I lifted my hand to knock on her door, but questioning her about the man would have been too random and bizarre, and completely unsympathetic to her grief. I lowered my hand.

  As I moved down the hallway toward the stairs that led to Sophie and Rena’s flat, I passed a makeshift memorial. Flowers and cards were piling up outside the door where Mallory must have lived. I became choked up again myself when I saw the tribute, but I’d pushed away the emotions by the time I knocked on my friends’ door. If they needed me at all, they’d need me to be strong.

  Sophie opened the door with her own set of red and puffy eyes and nose. “I thought you’d be the police.” She blinked. “I’m sorry, Delaney. Come in, come in.”

  The living room of their shared flat was small and always messy; books, papers, and clothes; jackets and sweaters were everywhere. Most of the time their two laptops were also open and in view, but today they were closed, sitting side by side on the coffee table amid a sea of empty and stained coffee cups. Sophie and Rena sat together on the worn love seat, and I grabbed a stool from under their kitchen counter.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Sophie said. “How could this have happened?”

  Rena handed her a tissue. She was sad too, but she handled her grief in a more withdrawn, quiet way that didn’t include tears.

  “I’m so very sorry,” I said. I swallowed hard to keep from joining in with Sophie’s contagious tears.

  “She brought me home, Delaney!” Sophie said. “I remember that part. She made sure I had some aspirin and a glass of water before she left. I remember.”