“But … the affair that your friends seemed tae know about, between Dr. Glenn and Mallory?” Bridget said.
“I don’t know, maybe they were wrong, or scared. Or, if there was an affair, it was Dr. Glenn’s way of trapping his victim,” I said. “I don’t think there was anything between Mallory and Dr. Eban. I think Conn Clacher overreacted to something he thought he’d put together in his mind. But I just don’t know.”
“The police need this information as soon as possible,” Gaylord said.
I held up my phone. “I left a message.”
“No, we’ll need to do more,” Gaylord said.
“I can call Inspector Winters,” I said.
“I’ll take you tae him,” Tom said as he stood.
Bridget and Gaylord wanted to go with us, but Tom told them to meet us there. We told Rosie and Hector our plans and left, still in a hurry.
Bridget didn’t even notice that Edwin was already gone.
THIRTY-FOUR
Inspector Winters would talk to me only with my attorney present. We all pretended Gaylord was my attorney, though even Inspector Winters figured out there was a conflict of representation. Neither Inspector Winters nor Gaylord cared. They just wanted things done as correctly as possible by then, and they were both glad an attorney was in the room, perhaps as just another witness.
After I told the entire story again, Inspector Winters dismissed us, with assurances that he’d take care of everything.
Bridget was disappointed that Gaylord wouldn’t let me tell her anything new that had come up in the conversation in the interview room. Nothing new had, anyway. Tom gave Gaylord his car keys and told him to make sure Bridget got to where she needed to go, that he’d get the car back later, and that he and I were walking to Grassmarket.
But we didn’t go straight back.
“We’re taking some time,” Tom said. “We don’t have tae talk, just walk is fine. Time tae clear your head, take a breath.”
Before long, we’d taken a path toward the library, and decided to stop by and see if Artair was there.
I didn’t realize how long it had been since we’d walked the city streets and just chatted about normal things, but it had been long enough that the moments passed by quickly and infused me with a sense of calm and peacefulness that had been missing for a few days at least. Edinburgh had become home. Leaving someday was something I chose not to think about very often, but my time with Tom, while perfect for the most part, sometimes left me sad about a potential future when we had to live in different cities. In different countries.
But today, I was walking, hand in hand, cobalt eyes smiling at me frequently, with my very own pub owner. For a few moments, I’d just focus on that. And maybe think about how good he looked in a kilt.
We found Artair right inside the library doors. He greeted us with happy surprise, and I knew immediately our calm moments were over again.
“I’ve found a wee bit, Delaney, but not much. Come to my office,” he said.
“I didn’t know you had an office,” I said. “You’re usually working on something in specific areas of the building.”
Inspector Winters had commanded me not to tell even one more person what I’d told him. I didn’t think Artair counted, but Tom sent me a small head shake. I wouldn’t tell Artair anything. For now.
“Ye’ll have tae forgive the mess, but, aye, I have an office.”
I expected something hidden, like the subbasements or Joshua’s small office in the museum, but Artair’s office was down a hallway and set in between other matching rooms. It seemed too businesslike for the larger-than-life library.
I might have bet that the inside of it held more books than the library itself.
“Oh my!” I said. Stacks of books teetered everywhere: floor, desk, shelves, couch. A book labyrinth.
“I know. I’ve a million projects,” Artair said. “Make your way tae a couple chairs and I’ll gather the things.”
Tom and I sat on one side of the desk just as Artair slid a short stack of papers in between us all.
“I found a picture of Lily,” Artair said as he pulled it from a small pile. “I didn’t find much, but, aye, here’s a picture.”
I took it and didn’t say I’d seen it just a short time earlier; it was the picture with the man in the cap, the infamous Dr. Glenn. The picture must have been circulated at one time.
“That’s a clear picture. I wonder what happened to her. Such a sad story,” I said.
“Aye,” Tom said.
“I thought this picture was interesting too,” Artair said.
He slid a copied piece of paper my direction, and I looked at Tom. It wasn’t fair that Artair was doing all this work, yet couldn’t be told of the recent developments. But Tom shook his head again.
In the picture, Doctors Eban, Glenn, and Clacher were younger, standing together, laughing, probably making a toast if the shot glasses were any indication. Dr. Carson was there too. She had her arm crooked in Dr. Glenn’s, her admiring full smile aimed his direction.
Rosie had said they’d spent time together at Dr. Glenn’s flat.
I read the caption: “Medical school personnel and their families enjoying a warmer than normal summer day.” It was from a picnic or some outside gathering, something casual.
“That’s all I found,” Artair said. “I wish there were more.”
“No, this is great. Thank you, Artair.” I fell into thought. Was there something important about the past relationship between Meg Carson and Jack Glenn?
“Lad, come help me carry up some boxes from the other side of the library. I couldn’t find a cart and you’re here now.”
I barely noticed them leaving, but when I realized I was alone, I stood and walked around some book stacks to get to the arched, paned window. Even the windows in Scotland were architecturally interesting. And the views. The current one looked out to George Square, the patch of short trees and green grass that students passed through, the space Lola had seemed to look at suspiciously when I first ran into her on campus.
There was no sun out today. No rain at the moment, but some clouds threatened at least a drizzle. The green area was populated only by moving pedestrians. I didn’t spot anyone relaxing or chatting.
But I did see something strange. Or I thought I did. It was a moment when I hadn’t been paying close enough attention, just letting my eyes scan. Thankfully a bookish voice spoke up.
Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets.
It was from Hamlet’s desk calendar. Quotes from the Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration, transcribed onto a tear-away-a-page-a-day calendar. Maybe the strangest place I’d ever received a bookish voice communication from.
Okay, I needed to listen to the trees. I moved my eyes back to the tree line I’d already scanned.
I still didn’t see it at first, but at third glance I saw what the voice, and my instincts, were telling me to look at.
A man held too tightly to a young woman’s arm and guided her way too forcefully toward a building on the far side. I was turned around and wasn’t positive, but I thought the building was the one in which Dr. Eban’s anatomy theater was located.
I only slightly recognized the tall gray-haired man as the one I’d seen in the pub the night Mallory was killed, but I couldn’t mistake the tilt to his head. “Dr. Glenn?” I said aloud.
I recognized the women right off. Lola. Lily.
I hurried out of the office, hoping I’d run into Tom and Artair on the way. I didn’t spot them, but I made my way toward the doors I thought they’d gone toward. I pulled out my phone and hit Tom’s number as I set off in a fast walk. As much as I wanted to run, it was a library.
My phone eventually took me to voice mail, and I left a message that was sure to scare him to an unreasonable state, but a killer was forcing Lily into that building. Even if he was her father, he was a killer. I couldn’t wait for Tom and Artair to return before I hurried to help her
.
I put the phone into my pocket and took off in a run. Librarians everywhere would be unhappy, but I’d make it up to them.
The distance across the green seemed so far; I started pumping my legs and arms even faster, but it still took forever to get across. Snippets of thoughts ran through my mind: yell for someone to call the police, yell to someone to go find Tom, yell to someone to come help you.
I ruled out the last one quickly; if harm was being done, I wouldn’t want to put anyone else in its way. As far as yelling to call the police or Tom: a request to call the police could cause panic, and it would have taken too much time to try to explain who Tom was and where they could find him. No time. Hurry!
I kept running. Breathing heavily, I pulled open the door to the building and propelled myself inside. I quickly determined that this was indeed the building with the anatomy theater, though I’d come inside it from a different door than before.
I didn’t even consider that they’d gone anywhere other than the theater. I hoped I’d picked the right way. I didn’t see anyone else in the building, and another flash of a thought went through my mind: Dr. Glenn had known the building would be quiet.
As I turned a corner, though, the population in the hallway went from just me to two. With all the grace of someone in too much of a hurry, I ran into Dr. Meg Carson.
Noises of surprise bounced off all the plaster, lath, and linoleum as we both stumbled backward. I was grateful that neither of us went down.
“Goodness, lass, why do I so often come upon you in hallways?” Dr. Carson said after we’d both recovered our balance. “You’re not even a student here.”
I was happy to run into someone fierce. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Carson, but please, let me explain later. For now, come with me if you want, but I need to get up to your husband’s anatomy theater.”
“He’s not there,” she said, a deeply suspicious tone to her voice. Again, I’d heard that tone a few times before from other women who didn’t trust their husbands.
“I know. Please, come if you want.” I started to walk away, but she grabbed my arm and yanked me backward.
“Ouch,” I said.
I wrestled my arm free and sent her my best scowl. “Don’t touch me, Dr. Carson. Come with me or not, but I’m going to the theater.”
I turned and started moving away, the spark of anger giving me renewed purpose.
Dr. Carson double-timed and started walking with me.
“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on with you and my husband?”
“I don’t even like your husband,” I said, but I knew that sounded childish, and wasn’t true. I actually liked what I knew of him. “Nothing is going on. I met him less than a week ago. I don’t know him.”
“Why are you going to his theater then?”
“Because I saw something and I’m worried about someone, and something tells me they went to the theater.”
“In that case then,” she said. I heard the eye-roll.
“You don’t have to come with me.”
“Oh yes I do.”
I should have been paying better attention. Looking back at that specific moment and her clipped words, I should have been paying much better attention to the word everyone had been using to describe her. She wasn’t being sarcastic at all. It’s too bad I didn’t see that at the time.
With a matching double-step climb, we took the stairway in record time.
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Classes are over for the day. No Wednesday afternoon classes or labs.”
“That must be why he brought her here,” I said.
“Who are we talking about?”
“I don’t know for sure. I’m not even certain I’m going to the right spot. I hope my instincts are on track, though.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Probably.”
We’d made it to the next floor, but she didn’t pull out her cell phone. She kept walking right along with me.
We reached the theater, and I put my hand on the door as I looked at her.
“Hang on. Let me look,” I said.
“All right.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and held it at the ready.
I opened the door and peered carefully inside. I was shocked but not surprised to see Lola and the man who’d been manhandling her. They were seated in the back row, one empty seat between them. It looked like I’d interrupted a conversation, not a murder.
“Delaney?” Lola said as she stood.
The man turned his face away as if he didn’t want me to see it. I’d been just about to ask if everything was okay when everything suddenly became not okay.
Dr. Carson shoved me, causing me to be flung backward down the concrete stairs that led to the stage.
I didn’t hit my head only because I managed to stop myself from more than one roll by catching my hand on the last chair of the third row down. I twisted muscles in my back and shoulder, but adrenaline kept the pain from going beyond that initial twinge that promised much more agony later.
I heard Lola scream and Dr. Carson yelling for her to shut up.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lola continued loudly.
I looked up toward the door. Lola had joined Dr. Carson, who seemed to be latching the door with some sort of pin. I had a memory of seeing such a mechanism at one time, but it had been a while. Were there other doors? Yes! Dr. Eban had entered through one at the back of the stage when I’d been there before.
“Shut up,” Dr. Carson told Lola again.
I was trying to figure out how to get out of there, but it would have been impossible not to wonder about the other people in the room.
“What the hell, Dr. Carson?” I croaked. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t look at me. She turned her attention to Lola. “I’m doing this to protect you and your father.”
“I don’t want you to protect me by knocking someone down the stairs!” She started to descend toward me.
I put my hand up to stop her. I wasn’t going to trust any of them. I figured chances were about 93 percent that one of these people had killed Mallory.
“Stay away,” I said.
“Oh, Delaney, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.
I looked at her and remembered our conversation as we walked across campus. She’d seemed so young, but she’d said she was a senior.
“You’re Lily, aren’t you?” I said as a few more tiny pieces came together.
She sighed. “I am. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“The man. He’s your father. He’s Dr. Glenn.”
“He is, but Delaney, he’s not a killer. He never … Oh, Delaney, your arm looks funny. Let me help you.”
“Stay away.”
“All right.” She turned back to Dr. Carson. “I don’t want to be protected; neither does my dad. Come on, let us get some help for Delaney.”
She made a move toward the door, but Dr. Carson pointed something at her. A scalpel. A modern one.
“What the hell?” I said. “What’s going on?”
I hefted myself upright and stood. My shoulder was either broken or out of joint. Either way, even the adrenaline wasn’t going to keep the pain at bay much longer.
“Stop it, Meg,” Dr. Glenn stood too, and came around the seats toward the two women.
“Stay back,” she said as she grabbed Lola and twisted her around, holding the scalpel at her throat.
“Don’t!” I yelled. “Let her go.”
“Meg!” Dr. Glenn said.
“Why can’t everybody just do what I say?” Dr. Carson said.
Dr. Glenn looked at me and then at Meg. “We will, Meg. We’ll do whatever you want us to do.”
I nodded, but the motion hurt all the way to Kansas and back. My eyes filled with tears.
“She’s the one who killed Mallory,” Lily said between clenched teeth.
“Shut up, Lily,” I said.
“Of course I killed Mallory. You destro
y me, I destroy you. I’ve killed before.”
Dr. Glenn was seething. I could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears.
“Did you kill anyone?” I couldn’t help but ask him.
“No!” Lily croaked. “She did it all. She set my dad up. It was all her.”
I couldn’t believe that Dr. Carson wasn’t slitting Lily’s throat, but the doctor seemed to be enjoying the sudden notoriety instead. She smiled, some evil mixed with some satisfaction. Dr. Glenn had gotten all the credit for murdering people, but now at least one other person knew differently. If I wasn’t being fed lies.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Dr. Glenn said. “But she set me up, and good. All evidence points undeniably to me. There’s no doubt I would have been found guilty.”
He was a handsome man, his thick gray hair bushy but neat. The lines around his mouth and eyes were deeper than they should have been, but the younger man I’d seen in the pictures was still there.
“You’re really a doctor?” I said.
Shame pinched at the lines around his eyes. “No.”
“I see. You did fake that part?” He nodded. I looked at Dr. Carson. “And you worked it. You found out and killed all those people and blamed it on him.”
“He wouldn’t leave her!”
“Wait, who wouldn’t he leave? His wife?” Pain muddled my mind, but I could still think a little bit. “This was about that? About him not leaving his wife for you?”
“Yes!”
“You killed Mallory too?” I asked.
She laughed cruelly. It was almost a cartoonish noise. “She had to go.”
“Mallory and my dad met when she and I were roommates,” Lola interjected. “She didn’t know who he was. They … they fell in love.”
A May-December romance to be sure, but that was the least weird thing about it.
More pieces came together tighter in my mind, even if I still didn’t understand it all.
“Your husband? He has an eye for the girls, right? He wasn’t having affairs, forcing women to do things for grades?”
Dr. Carson laughed again. “Not a chance. There’s not a woman interested in him. He was easy to frame, though, much easier than Dr. Jack Glenn,” she sent him a venomous glare, “was all those years ago. A skull here, a jawbone there. That bookshop of yours. When those men were talking about Burke and Hare, I knew I could use you all.”
Lost Books and Old Bones Page 24