Lost Books and Old Bones

by Paige Shelton

  Rena looked around. There was no one sitting near us, but she slunk in her chair.

  “Do you feel threatened?” I asked.

  “Yes. I mean, not really … I’m just upset. When I read this article, I felt like you didn’t tell me something. Like Mallory didn’t tell me something. I guess I just wanted to know what I was missing.”

  I nodded, feeling the same way she said she did. “Did you tell the police everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time did you tell them you got home?”

  “Right after Sophie. I told you that already.”

  “But you left again. Where did you go?”

  She didn’t know how I knew, but she wasn’t going to back away. “None of your business.”

  “It’s the police’s business. I hope you told them.”

  She shrugged. She wasn’t going to tell me one way or the other. However, she was correct—it was not my business. I could only hope that me knowing she had left was enough to make her worried I’d tell the police before she did.

  I shook my head. “Look, I’m … I just want the killer found too.”

  “The police are doing their jobs, surely,” she said quietly.

  “It’s been my experience that everyone has so many secrets that the police aren’t ever really able to do their jobs thoroughly. I hope you did tell them what you were doing Friday night after the pub.”

  She looked at her coffee cup on the table in front of her.

  “Rena, has Dr. Eban ever asked anyone to do anything … do something to get a grade?”

  Her features relaxed. I thought she was going to shake her head, but she didn’t.

  “It’s a tough go, you know? Medical school is really hard,” she said.

  “Right, but students should never be asked to do things against their will. I know you know that, but I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something happening that’s made you, and possibly others, lose sight of it. I understand you being upset about the murder, but I wonder if there’s more going on. Things happening behind the scenes that might not cause murder directly, but might lead to it indirectly.”

  “Nothing’s happening,” she said only somewhat unconvincingly.

  I looked at the newspaper she’d set on the table, its fold wrinkled from her grip.

  “Rena, you can talk to me if you need to,” I said. And then I followed up with my own lie. “You know what? You can tell me anything, and if you want me to keep it from the police I will. Just tell me, if that’s what you want.”

  She looked at me, and tears filled her eyes. For a moment, I saw relief and gratitude, but then she thought too long, or she realized I was lying too, and she blinked away the tears and the moment.

  “Thank you, Delaney,” she said too politely. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She stood. “And thank you for the breakfast.”

  She stood and took the newspaper with her, but left behind the mostly full coffee cup and the completely untouched muffin.

  I knew how she felt. I wasn’t hungry either.

  I cleaned up the table and then bade Bruno a distracted goodbye.

  “Take care of yourself, Delaney,” he said as I left.

  Feeling much different than I had during my time alone in the shop yesterday, I was glad to finally be heading back to work.

  *

  “It’s best tae just ignore it all,” Rosie said right as I came through the bookshop’s front door. “It will pass.”

  She stood behind the desk holding the newspaper. Her reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose and Hector was in the crook of her arm. He sent me a tiny bark of support.

  “I see you’ve read it,” I said.

  “Aye.” She shrugged and put the dog on the ground.

  He ran to me, and I grabbed him, then lifted him to my face.

  “I can’t believe she twisted our brief encounter into something like this,” I said as I let the dog kiss away some of my stress.

  “She’s an irksome one tae be sure, but it will pass, Delaney.”

  “Oh, Rosie, I hope so,” I said.

  “It’ll be fine, lass,” Rosie said as Hector pushed himself a little harder into me.

  I was grateful for Edwin’s call earlier. I’d spent too many moments over the last year wondering about my job security—not because I’d done a poor job, but because I’d overstepped my bounds or discovered secrets that weren’t meant to be discovered. I didn’t think the article was in itself something I might be sacked for, but it was just another piece of straw to be thrown on the haystack.

  Even my secretive boss might someday have his limits.

  The shop’s phone rang. In the quiet, the sound was extra shrill and ominous. I wondered if we’d get calls or complaints all day because of the article.

  “The Cracked Spine, how can we help you?… Aye.” Rosie’s eyebrows came together over her nose-tipped glasses. “One moment please.”

  Rosie covered the mouthpiece and quietly said, “It’s for ye. A gentleman who says he works at the medical school. Says ye talked tae his wife on Saturday.”

  “Dr. Eban?” I said as I placed Hector onto the desk and reached for the phone.

  “He didn’t give his name, but ye might want tae think a wee bit before taking calls this morning.”

  She was correct, of course, but I couldn’t resist.

  “I’ll talk to him.” I cleared my throat and took the phone. “Dr. Eban?”

  “Aye. I heard you stopped by my office on Saturday tae ask me about some books. My wife told me.”

  “I did.” Had he put together the facts that we’d met Friday night and that I was standing in the bookshop next to where one of his medical students had been killed?

  “I’m in my office this morning if you’d like tae come by. I’d love tae see the books. She said they were some of the illustrated volumes from the Sydal Society.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I’d be intrigued. I can come tae you if that would be easier,” he said.

  It would have been much easier, but I didn’t want Dr. Eban inside the bookshop, particularly today.

  “No, I can bring a couple of them to you. Anytime this morning okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll be in all morning. If I’m not in my office, I’ve just run tae grab some tea and will return shortly.”

  “I’ll be by soon.”

  As I hung up the phone I wondered: Had he put the pieces together in his head? How would he react when he saw me?

  There was only one real way to find out.

  “I’m running an errand,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I think this is important.”

  “Um. Okay,” Rosie said as Hector sat and whined at me. “Where are ye going?”

  “The medical school—Dr. Eban’s office specifically,” I said as I made my way to the stairs. “Don’t worry—I won’t talk to anyone without leaving the door open.”

  I hurried over to the dark side, happy for the distraction from another wave of nerves and self-pity.

  The warehouse was cold, but comforting in its homey way. I spied the message from Birk and said aloud, “I’ll call this afternoon,” before I grabbed the box with the books, took the top one on the stack, and placed it into a transparent protective sleeve. One would be plenty for him to look at.

  I double-checked the scalpels, and the treasure chest. Everything was where I expected. As I locked the door, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.

  I dug for it as I made my way up the stairs, but didn’t see who was calling until I’d walked through the doorway to the other side.

  “Hey,” I said to Rosie, “I’m—”

  But I didn’t finish telling her I was back where she could talk to me in person before I noticed the small crowd of three, if you included Hector, looking up at me from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Oh, there she is,” Rosie said as she hung up the phone. “She was here after all. My mistake.”

  “Ms. Nichols,” Inspector Pierce said. “You
have a minute?”

  I wanted to tell him no, but of course I couldn’t.

  FOURTEEN

  “You’re famous,” Inspector Pierce said as he scooted the paper toward me.

  We sat at the back corner table. Rosie made it her business to have something to do at the bookshelves opposite us. The shop wasn’t big enough for privacy, and I didn’t suggest that we go over to the other side. I didn’t want to be alone with Inspector Pierce, but I didn’t call Gaylord either. I hoped that wouldn’t prove to be a mistake.

  “I didn’t mean to be. She used some creative license with that story.”

  “She’s a journalist, not a creative writer.”

  Rosie sniffed.

  Inspector Pierce and I glanced over. She kept her back to us, so he and I resumed looking at each other.

  “At least she—they—should be journalists,” I said. “She struck me as hungry, out to find a big story. If she couldn’t find one, she was going to make one up.”

  “Were you looking in the window?”

  “I was,” I said. I squelched an urge to explain further.

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I was deeply curious, and it wasn’t off-limits. Seemed like a natural thing to do, considering the circumstances. The fact that she said I was suspiciously looking in the window … well, either that was just her opinion or the creative license I was talking about.”

  Inspector Pierce leaned closer, moving his arms across the table. I squelched an urge to scoot backward. “Did you know the victim before you claimed to have met her on Friday night?”

  I blinked. Like Rena, he’d read that into the article. I was perplexed and wanted to read it again.

  “No, Inspector Pierce. I didn’t. May I ask why you think so?”

  “The tone of the article.”

  “Are journalistic articles supposed to have tone?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought they were just supposed to state the facts.”

  Inspector Pierce sat back and nodded slowly as he continued to squint at me.

  Rosie turned and interjected, “Edwin closed the shop.” She walked toward us. “He told us specifically not tae come back tae work until the morning, inside the building. Ye’d already said the outside was clear. None of us were here or I’m sure one of us would have explored with Delaney. The reporter just wanted a story.”

  “Everyone left but Delaney?” Inspector Pierce asked.

  “Aye,” Rosie said, though she had no idea that I’d walked around the block before coming back to the close.

  “Did you know about the burial site that’s back there?” I said, so out of the blue that I had to force myself not to apologize.

  “No,” Rosie said with a blink.

  “No,” Inspector Pierce said, but I could tell he was intrigued.

  “When I wouldn’t tell Bridget anything she told me that there’s a legend that women who were accused of witchcraft were buried in that same area. She thought that would intrigue me into a conversation. Any other setting, time or place, even person probably, it would have, but I didn’t talk to her except to tell her I wouldn’t talk to her.”

  Inspector Pierce nodded again. “I hear stuff like that all the time. Scotland’s history … anyway. Tell me more about the legend of the warehouse. What am I missing? It just seemed like a room with a lot of junk. And you said nothing was out of place.”

  “Nothing was out of place, and yes,” I said, “it is legendary, though I don’t know on what scale. Almost every person I tell where I work mentions it. We don’t advertise it, and we don’t invite many people over to see it.”

  Rosie shrugged. “We’re not going tae let customers traipse over tae the other side without an escort. Ye saw the bad lighting, the dirty conditions. It wouldnae be safe, nor good for business. People like a good mystery. Ye should ken that. Since we dinnae allow explorations, people have made it into something it isnae.”

  Rosie was very good at this.

  However, Inspector Pierce didn’t hide his skepticism.

  “You’re an officer of the law,” Rosie continued. “I’ll happily escort ye back over there if ye’d like tae see more, but I’m not going tae allow tours tae the general public.”

  I nodded along.

  “I don’t need to see it again right now,” Inspector Pierce said.

  I couldn’t tell if he was convinced or not as Rosie and I watched him. I didn’t know why it mattered, except this was exactly why I’d shown the room to Inspector Winters—because I’d felt that Pierce hadn’t quite understood what it was, so I doubted he could find a possible connection. I didn’t want there to be a connection, but I did want Mallory’s killer found.

  “I’d like to take another look at the window, both from the outside and the inside,” he said. “I think we checked from the inside and didn’t find a breach, but I’d like to make sure, from both directions, just one more time.”

  “Have you talked to the reporter?” I asked.

  “No, not yet. I thought I’d come see you first.”

  “You might want to talk to her.”

  “And why is that?”

  “She claims to have found something in the close that day,” I said. “I don’t know if she was making it up or not, but you should ask her about it.”

  Take that, Bridget Carr. The zip of revenge I felt was immature, but I didn’t care.

  “What did she find?”

  “I think it would be best if you just asked her.”

  “I will. Right after I look at the window. Let’s go.”

  I’d been holding on to the book, and I set it on the table as I stood.

  “What’s the book?” Inspector Pierce asked as he stood too.

  “An old medical book.” I slipped it out of the protective sleeve and opened to a middle page. “Illustrated, from the early 1900s. Here’s a picture of a compound fracture. This was drawn a long time ago.”

  At first he scowled, but then he seemed genuinely interested.

  “Hand-drawn?” he said.

  “No computers back then,” I said. I wanted to tell him more about the books, where they came from, but not without Gaylord present. I was probably already talking too much.

  “Must be worth a fortune.”

  “We’ve had more valuable books in the shop, but this one and its companion volumes are worth at least a few thousand.”

  “Sounds pretty valuable to me. What’s the value of this shop’s inventory?”

  “It would be impossible tae put a number tae it,” Rosie said.

  “That’s what Mr. MacAlister said,” Inspector Pierce said as he looked at the book again. He’d been testing us, or confirming.

  I thought about telling him that we kept all the really valuable books locked up in the warehouse, but that wasn’t true. We did keep some back there, but not all of them. We had no alarms, and if someone wanted to break a window and take something from the shelves, they could probably get away with it. I’d pointed those issues out to Edwin more than once, and he’d taken my comments under consideration. But I didn’t think he’d ever secure the shop the way Inspectors Pierce and Winters thought it should be secured.

  I cleared my throat. “Did you hear from an Inspector Winters?”

  Inspector Pierce blinked at me. “I have a message to call him. Friend of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Delaney, did you tell him something you didn’t tell me because he’s a friend?”

  “No, I told him that I wasn’t sure you were making a connection between the legendary reputation of the warehouse, the scalpels, and Dr. Eban’s fooling you. He told me I would be incorrect in my assumption and that the police were used to people attempting to fool them.” It was almost the whole truth.

  He blinked again, and shook his head this time. “How do you think he’s fooling me?”

  “The skull maybe.”

  “Because he has access to the skull room on campus and placing a skull next to th
e victim would seem too obvious, so someone must have planted it there?”

  I nodded.

  “I appreciate your concern regarding my methods, but your friend is correct: I’m working hard not to let anyone fool me.”

  “Good.”

  “Let’s look at the kitchen window from the inside first,” he said.

  Rosie and I shared a glance as I followed behind Inspector Pierce. She put her finger up to her lips as if to tell me to remain as mum as I could. She was probably more concerned about Gaylord not being there than I was. I nodded. I could tell she tried not to look doubtful, but she didn’t pull it off.

  I was as curious as Inspector Pierce. Would we find something no one had noticed before?

  But there was nothing new to see. The window hadn’t been opened from the inside in so many years that Inspector Pierce and I both speculated on the number of paint layers that were keeping the frame from moving even if the security grate hadn’t been in place. From the inside, there was no indication that anyone might have jimmied or tampered with it.

  Per my idea, Inspector Pierce carried a chair outside to the close. We both started to hurry when we spied something colorful and unexpected under the window.

  “Flowers,” I said as we got closer.

  “Don’t touch them,” Inspector Pierce said as he set the chair to the side and then crouched.

  “I don’t see any cards or anything that might indicate who left them,” I said.

  “They could be from anyone.” Inspector Pierce stood and looked up and down the close. “I already noticed there are no cameras around.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I said, “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “After all the media coverage, this might turn into some sort of shrine, which is fine, but I’d like to have a look at anyone who wants to pay their respects. I’m going to get in touch with the city and put some closed-circuit cameras around here.”

  “You must think I’m innocent, or you wouldn’t have just told me your plan,” I said with a small smile.

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re innocent,” he said far too seriously. “But I also don’t think you killed Mallory Clacher.”