Between the Dark and the Daylight

by Ed Gorman

  Joly stared at the old man’s genial expression. Hoarsely, he said, “Thanks.”

  “Think nothing of it. That’s what friends are for, don’t you agree?”

  Two hours later, Joly arrived at the Piazzale Roma, bag in hand. Within moments he caught sight of Sanborn by an advertisement boarding and the American lifted his stick in greeting before limping to greet him. He had a black velvet bag slung over his shoulder.

  “You’re looking much better. Remarkable what wonders can be worked by a simple wash and brush up.”

  “I’m very grateful to you,” Joly said humbly, handing over the key to the apartment.

  “Think nothing of it.” Sanborn cleared his throat. “Actually, I talked to Lucia before I made my way over here. There isn’t an easy way to put this, Joly, but I don’t believe she has any intention of joining you in Rome. I’m sorry.”

  Joly took a breath. “Maybe things had run their course.”

  Sanborn bowed his head. “That was rather the impression that I had gained. Well, I don’t care for prolonged farewells. I hope you will reflect on our conversation last night and that soon we shall see you again in La Serenissima.”

  Forcing a smile, Joly said, “Who knows, I might take Zuichini up on his kind offer. There are worse ways of making a living than binding fine books, I guess.”

  A light flared in Sanborn’s old eyes. Voice trembling, he said, ‘Joly, the moment I first saw you, I knew you were made of the right stuff. In fact, I’ll let you into a secret. I’d seen you a couple of times at the Campo Santi Apostoli before I made so bold as to introduce myself.”

  “Is that so?” Joly didn’t know whether to be puzzled or flattered. “So did you see Lucia as well?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Such a pretty creature, with that gorgeous dark hair and honey skin. Oh well, there are many more lovely girls in Venice. Despite my age, I can guess how sad you must feel. I felt the same about my friend Sophia, after I’d talked to her for the last time. But she and I were not lovers, the physical loss makes it doubly hard for you.”

  “These things happen.”

  “Yes, life goes on. And you will never forget Lucia, of that I am sure. But your life will be so much richer if you take up Zuichini’s offer. Truly, his craftsmanship is unique. Think of it! You could follow in his footsteps. Make a name for yourself and earn a not inconsiderable fortune.”

  “Is Zuichini rich?”

  “My dear fellow, do not be deceived by appearances. If — no, when you return, you will have a chance to visit his splendid home near the Rialto. Even though he and I are close associates, he never fails to drive a hard bargain. But I, and others like me, are willing to pay for the best. For something unique.”

  They shook hands and Sanborn pulled out of his shoulder bag a parcel wrapped in gift paper. He thrust it at Joly.

  “I want you to have this. A token of our friendship. And a reminder of the esoteric pleasures that lie in store, should you accept Zuichini’s offer to help you learn his trade.”

  “Thanks.” Joly’s cheeks were burning. He’d harboured so many false suspicions and now he couldn’t help feeling a mite embarrassed. “I’m not sure that bookbinding is …”

  “Think about it. That’s all I ask.” Sanborn smiled. “I have seen enough of you in a short space of time to be confident that you would relish the chance to become a craftsman in your own right. As you told me, you have a taste for the unusual. And with your love of books … ah well, you must be going. Goodbye, my friend. Or as I should say, arivederci.”

  Joly found himself waving at the old man’s back as he limped away. At the notice board, just before he moved out of sight, Sanborn raised his stick in salute, but he did not turn his head. The bus was waiting and Joly found himself a seat by the window. As the driver got into gear, Joly tore the wrapping paper from his present. He stared at it for a long time.

  The present was a book, carefully protected by bubble wrap and old newspapers and that came as no surprise. The title was A Short Treatise on the Finer Points of Bookbinding. But it was not the text that seized Joly’s attention, though deep down he knew already that, one day, this would become his Bible.

  The front cover was tanned and polished to a smooth golden brown. He’d never come across anything quite like it. To the touch, it had slight bumps, like a soft sandpaper. The spine and back cover felt more like suede. But what entranced him was not the texture of the binding.

  At first sight, he thought the cover bore a logo. But with a second glance, he realised his mistake. In the bottom corner was a design in blue-black. A picture of a flying dove, with broad outstretched wings.

  He held his breath as he recalled kissing Lucia’s toes. Recalled the delicate heart shape traced in ink upon her ankle. Recalled, with a shiver of fear and excitement, Zuichini’s admiration of the tattooist’s work, the way those dark and deadly little eyes kept being drawn to Lucia’s tender, honey-coloured skin.

  He settled back on the hard seat. The countryside was passing by outside, but he paid it no heed. Sanborn understood him better than he understood himself. After searching for so long, he’d finally found what he was looking for. Soon he would return to La Serenissima. And there Zuichini would share with him the darkest secrets of the bookbinder’s craft. He would teach him how to make the book that Sanborn craved, a book for all three of them to remember Lucia by.

  MARTIN EDWARDS’ Lake District Mysteries include The Coffin Trail (short-listed for the Theakston’s prize for best British crime novel of 2006), The Cipher Garden and The Arsenic Labyrinth (short-listed for the Lakeland Book of the Year award in 2008.) The first of his eight Harry Devlin novels, All the Lonely People, was short-listed for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the best first crime novel of the year. He has also published Take My Breath Away, and a novel featuring Dr. Crippen, Dancing for the Hangman, which, like the latest Devlin novel, Waterloo Sunset, appeared in 2008. He completed Bill Knox’s last book, The Lazarus Widow. His short stories include “Test Drive,” shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2006, and “The Bookbinder’s Apprentice,” which won the same award in 2008. In addition, he has edited 16 anthologies and published eight nonfiction books.

  I/M-Print

  A Tess Cassidy Short Story

  BY JEREMIAH HEALY

  Tess Cassidy, carrying her crime scene unit duffle bag over a shoulder, heard the uniform at the house’s front door say to Detective Lieutenant Kyle Hayes, “Bad one, Loot.”

  Hayes just nodded, then, almost as an afterthought, glanced back at Tess. “How’s your stomach, Cassidy?”

  Stung by the implied dig at her professional ability, she said, “Never had a problem so far.”

  Hayes moved past the patrol officer. “Always a first time.”

  As Tess followed the detective, she noticed the uniform was a little green at the gills, and, suppressing a shiver, she remembered what the other techs in the CSU called a “debut”: covering your initial homicide and autopsy.

  “Well,” said Hayes to the uniform inside the den, “I don’t think we have to wait for the ME on cause of death.”

  Tess looked at the body sprawled over an oriental throw rug, then looked away, drawing a deep breath.

  The house — a McMansion — had a huge living room they’d had to cross before reaching the den, which was more a library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and not the artsy, leather-bound volumes she’d seen in other rich people’s places. No, lots of novels and travel guides, jackets worn, even torn from being handled, and, Tess figured, read more than once. She wasn’t that involved in books herself, thanks to dyslexia. In fact, Tess nearly flunked seventh grade before her big sister, Joan, made the principal see what their parents had ignored. But Tess always, secretly, admired anyone who loved reading.

  As, apparently, the dead man on the rug had. Hayes said to the uniform, “We got a name?”

  “Decedent’s Zederberg, Martin, middle initial ‘D’ as in ‘David.’”

>   “Who found the body?”

  “His wife. Nanette. Rollings is with her in the kitchen.”

  Tess knew Rollings, an empathetic patrol officer and a widow herself.

  “Other family?”

  “Just a son, Steven, with a V. We reached him, and he’s on his way.”

  Hayes nodded. “How about a weapon?”

  “Negative so far, sir.”

  “Cassidy, what would you say?”

  Tess didn’t mind being called by her last name. Appreciated it, in fact, as a badge of “blue” respect. But she also knew that “Kyle” used it to buffer his own emotions, because he called her sister — the lieutenant’s preferred investigation partner — ”Joan.” The older Cassidy was out on maternity leave three weeks prior to having her baby, which Hayes wished was his baby, too. Despite his romantic hopes, Joan had chosen the law over law enforcement for a husband, marrying an attorney named Arthur.

  And now Joan was at the hospital, about to deliver, while Tess was wading into a grisly crime scene commanded by a scorned, pissed-off detective.

  “Cassidy,” said Hayes, “Am I talking to myself here?”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant.” Tess forced herself to look at the body. “From the way his skull’s caved in, I’d guess an axe. Or, with that big RV in the driveway, a camp hatchet?”

  “Might be hope for you yet, Cassidy. That’s my take, too.” Hayes squatted next to the slight man’s torso. “No defensive wounds on the hands or forearms, so I’m guessing this one in the back of the head was Blow Number One. Then, after the vic fell and landed sideways, Numbers Two through — what, Six, maybe? — on the floor.” Hayes rose. “Barefoot, too, and bloody soles but no tracks in the living room, so probably he was already here in the den when attacked, rather than being chased into it.”

  Tess thought out loud. “Or running for it.”

  “What?”

  She looked around the library. “If Mr. Zederberg knew somebody was going to kill him, maybe he wanted his books to be the last things he saw.”

  Detective Lieutenant Kyle Hayes just stared at Tess. “Cassidy, you are one odd duck.”

  Consider the source, sister Joan would have told her, so Tess took that as a compliment.

  Dusting for latent prints at the threshold of the kitchen, Tess Cassidy could hear Hayes interviewing Nanette Zederberg, but not actually see them. It was like listening to a play being read aloud on the radio.

  HAYES Did your husband have any enemies?

  ZEDERBERG No. No, Marty was in medical supplies. He was always helping people, not hurting them.

  HAYES Anybody else you can think of who might want to hurt him?

  ZEDERBERG Just the man I told Officer Rollings about.

  HAYES The man?

  ROLLINGS Mrs. Zederberg was driving down the street, saw a quote, “hulking man,” unquote, walking toward her — meaning northward — about two doors up from the house here.

  HAYES Mrs. Zederberg, can you describe him for us?

  ZEDERBERG Not really. I mean, as she just said, he was … well, “hulking,” the size of a professional wrestler? But also kind of mean.

  HAYES Mean?

  ZEDERBERG The way he walked. And moved his head. Like he was really angry about something.

  HAYES Did you get a good look at his face?

  ZEDERBERG No. I … I really only glanced at him. He stared at me, I know, but I was … well, frankly, scared of the way he seemed, so I just kept driving. Then I found the front door open here, and Marty — Oh, God, Marty in …

  ROLLINGS Here you go, Ma’am. These tissues will help.

  Good cop, Rollings.

  Tess was almost finished dusting when she heard from behind her, “Cassidy, you know where the Loot is?”

  The green-gilled uniform they’d met at the front door. “In the kitchen, with the widow.”

  “The son is here. Where should I put him?” “Ask Hayes, but maybe call him out blind first. He might want to interview the guy without his mother knowing. Or in earshot.”

  “Stepmother, actually,” said Steven Zederberg.

  Now Tess was working the entrance to the library, and she could see Hayes with the younger man in the living room, sitting across from each other on matching armchairs. The son took after his father, slight frame and black, curly hair, with a Jewish skullcap bobby-pinned to the back of his head.

  Looked a whole lot better than blade wounds. Thinking back to the corpse, though, Tess didn’t remember any cap on or around the victim.

  Hayes said, “You realize I have to ask some awkward questions?”

  “Lieutenant, my father’s just been brutally murdered, and you’ve told me I can’t see Nanette until after you’ve interviewed me. So, please, ask away and be done with it so I can go to her.”

  Tess thought, kid’s got some guts.

  Hayes said, “We haven’t found a weapon so far. Do you know if your parents keep an axe or a hatchet on the premises?”

  “If you mean the house, no. But I’m sure Dad has one — had one in the camper.”

  “The recreational vehicle outside?”

  “Yes. My father traveled a lot in his business, but mainly via airplane to convention cities and big hospitals. He always yearned to see the rest of the country, and so when he got a good offer for the medical supply company, Dad sold it.”

  “Can you tell me how much he got for it?”

  A pause. “Is that really necessary for your investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause. “All right. My father asked me to work with his lawyer on the deal.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d just gotten my accounting degree, and Dad thought it would be good experience for me. And it was. Overall, we netted about three million.”

  “‘We?’”

  Tess looked up to see Zederberg clench his teeth. “My father did, that is.” A shake of the head. “They were going to put the house on the market, too, though I told them he’d take a wicked hit — God, I’m sorry.”

  The son began rubbing his eyes with his fists, like a little kid. Tess’s heart went out to him, but her job meant returning to the dusting.

  Hayes said, “I know this is difficult for you.”

  “Yes,” Tess hearing what she thought could be palms slapping thighs, “yes, you probably do, Lieutenant, because this is your job. But it’s our lives.”

  Tess thought: The son’s got guts and humanity.

  Then Steven Zederberg made a noise that sounded almost like a laugh. “The bizarre thing is, Dad was always afraid he was going to die by fire.”

  “Fire?”

  “Yes. The hospital he was born in burned to the ground like a week later. Then my father’s first warehouse was struck by lightning when he was at his desk on the second floor of it. And, just before Dad decided to sell his company, he got caught in a hotel fire in Rochester, New York.” The son hung his head. “Never thought he’d be killed like … this.”

  Hayes cleared his throat. “When you said your father and stepmother were going to ‘take a wicked hit …’?”

  “Uh, taxwise.” Zederberg raised his face to the lieutenant. “While they’d lived here way beyond the minimum period for capital-gains forgiveness, the house has also appreciated to the point — ”

  Tess couldn’t follow the rest of what Steven Zederberg said, but it sounded interesting, so she resolved to ask her brother-in-law, Arthur the Attorney, about the issue.

  If she ever get done with this crime scene, that is, so she could go visit Joan at the hospital.

  “You look way too cute to be a cop.”

  Puh-leeeze, thought Tess. Where do guys find such garbage lines? Could there be a “dumb-ass.com”somewhere on the Web?

  She was at the step-up entrance to the RV, about to go in to look for the camp hatchet Steven Zederberg had mentioned. The male, forties and balding, stared back at her over the bordering fence, focusing less on her face and more on her butt.

  Tess sa
id, “And you’d be?”

  “Pete.”

  “That’s your last name?”

  “No.” A husky laugh. “First. Pete Odabashian.”

  Zero hope of remembering that one. “Can you spell it for me?”

  He did.

  Tess said, “And you live next door?”

  “Why I’m standing where I am.”

  “What can you tell me about the Zederbergs?”

  “Well, they were quiet, that’s for sure. No wild parties, probably because she’s way younger than he was.”

  “By how much?”

  “Actually we happened to talk about that once.”

  Tess heard his “happened” the loudest.

  Odabashian said, “We were all like ten years apart.”

  “The ‘we’ being?”

  “Well, Marty was the oldest, at fifty-six. I’m next at forty-seven, then Nan at thirty-six, and Stevie at twenty-five.”

  Using “Nan,” not her full first name. “Anything else about your neighbors?”

  Odabashian shrugged. “Not very religious, though I think the kid’s decided to be, since he wears a yarmulke all the time.”

  Tess remembered that was the religious word for the skullcap. “How’d the family get along?”

  “Fine, far as I could tell. I’m guessing Marty and Nan had to help Stevie out, starting a new business with student loans, an office, his own apartment, and so on. Then Marty decided to pull the ripcord on owning and running the company, and they bought this camper here. He was always puttering around in it, even forgot to close the door sometimes.”

  “Lock it, you mean?”

  “No, not even click the door shut. I’m surprised he didn’t get a squirrel or skunk building a nest in there.”

  “How about Mrs. Zederberg?”

  Odabashian squinted. “In what way?”

  A careful reply. Tess inclined her head toward the RV.

  “Roughing it?”

  “Ah, right. I got the impression Marty was a little higher on the great outdoors than Nan was.”

  “Mrs. Zederberg told you that?”

  “Not in so many words. But I remember they took the camper out for a trial run, toward really touring the country in it. When Nan came back, all I heard was her not feeling safe driving it, banging her head or elbow into things. Even though the camper’s enormous to look at, when Marty invited me to take a Cook’s tour, it’s kind of like a submarine inside, and I kept banging into cabinet corners and doorways myself. Plus there’s the poisoned ivy and bug bites Nan got on their maiden voyage.”