A Novel Death

by Judi Culbertson

"But if she was depressed..."I prayed that I did not sound like the people on the phone.

  Margaret traced the compass in the center of our table. "You have to understand that Lily was never completely happy. Even on the wonderful vacations we took, places that people only dream about, there was always something-the hotel, the bad weather, a museum that was closed-that ruined her day. We still had fun, of course, but... Being a perfectionist was great for her work, but people aren't statues."

  Which people? At their last Christmas party, Lily had seemed more edgy than usual, her green eyes constantly darting to the doorway, as if she were expecting somebody who never came. By the end of the party she had even been short-tempered with Margaret.

  "But why now?"

  Wrong question. Margaret's face completely shut down.

  "Why don't you just go home?" I pleaded. "I can keep the shop open."

  "And do what? The police won't let me do anything. They wouldn't even show me the note in her purse."

  "But you're her sister!"

  "Tell them that."

  "But who would they show it to? Her husband? Ex-husband, I mean."

  Margaret's hand suddenly knocked against her cup, her rings clattering sharply. She was the only person I knew who could wear several rings and look as refined as Princess Grace. "What are you talking about?"

  "But I thought-Lily had a different last name. I thought she must have been married, since you hadn't."

  Margaret sighed. "No, we were both young and foolish once. But I took my own name back, and she kept his. He was an actor, if you can imagine that. But I have no idea where he is. And I wouldn't tell him anyway."

  I didn't say anything. I was too surprised that Margaret had never told me she had been married. She was my mentor, true. But we did talk about other things besides books. The vagaries of my life with Colin, my shock when he moved out. Wouldn't it have been natural to share her own unhappy experiences? "How long ago was it?"

  "Years. I can't even remember." She sounded sorry she had mentioned it. "And I have to get back to the shop." Her feet hit the linoleum.

  I slid down from my stool too. I still didn't know when Lily had been found or what the police had told Margaret, but I knew I couldn't ask. Instead I said, "Do you need me to fill in this afternoon? If you have things you have to do, I'll be glad to help out."

  "Well, you can check with Amil. See if he needs any help. Anddamn! I forgot his latte." She stepped back from the door with its small porthole opening and into the restaurant again, leaving me to go next door by myself.

  When I opened the door of The Old Frigate, I was surprised to find the shop empty. No customers, but no Amil either. I called his name, but there was no answer.

  Why would he leave the shop unattended? If there had been an emergency, he knew Margaret was right next door. He shouldn't have been in the back room, out of earshot of customers anyway.

  And then there was the click of a knob and Amil stepped out of the small side office. His cheeks were an odd sunburned red and his dark eyes hard as glass. "Where is she?" he hissed.

  "Margaret? Getting your latte. Why?"

  He muttered something I could not understand, and then said more clearly, "You want to know something about your friend?"

  "What?"

  "You know what she-" But then he stopped, and I saw that he was looking past me out the window. With my back to the door, I could not tell whom he was seeing.

  "Let me write down the name of that book for you." His voice was deliberately loud, meant to be heard. He patted the countertop for scrap paper, found only Margaret's neat lists of new arrivals, and then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a square leather wallet. It was so choked with bills that it could barely close. Had I interrupted him cleaning out the safe? Had he been going to tell me that Margaret owed him money? But he worked out a dog-eared white card and scribbled on the back with Margaret's pricing pencil.

  Then the bell over the front door chimed and I dropped the card into my woven bag.

  But it was only Margaret, holding a paper cup aloft Miss-Liberty style. "Better lat-te than never, boy-o!" Her voice was hollow, a brave attempt to mask her terrible sadness. When she saw me her smile faded completely. "What are you two plotting?"

  Did we look guilty? Amil was just about to tell me something terrible about you. "We were talking about Colin. Amil likes his poetry."

  Though I use my own last name, Laine, I hoped that Amil as a graduate student had at least heard of Colin Fitzhugh.

  Margaret's expression cleared as I knew it would, and the corners of her mouth turned up. "Voices We Don't Want to Hear?" She quoted the title of Colin's prize-winning book mockingly. "What's the new one? Earthworks?"

  "Earthworks," I confirmed. Colin actually taught archaeology at the university, and many of his poems referenced that.

  Without saying anything, Amil moved deftly around me and approached Margaret. I saw her hold out the cup to him. But instead of taking it, he shoved it back into her chest. His force popped the white lid off and sent hot coffee spewing across her face and onto her white blouse.

  Margaret gasped as the coffee reached her eyes and dropped the cup. It hit the oak floor noiselessly, sending tan streams everywhere.

  Amil jerked the door open. "You've ruined my life!"

  Then he was gone.

  "Margaret, are you okay?"

  "Paper towels. In the bathroom."

  I doused several in cold water, and handed the wad to her. Instead of pressing it to her face as I expected, she sank to her knees, frantically mopping up the spill. "Get more and help me," she cried. "This floor will warp!"

  What about your face? I decided she was in shock and ran for another wet towel. Then I knelt down on the floor and twisted her face toward me. Her left cheek and the side of her chin glowed with the cherry-red shape of a continent. "How are your eyes?"

  "Delhi, I'm okay!"

  But I pressed the towel against the burn gently.

  "I'm really okay. It wasn't as hot as you think."

  "But he assaulted you! We've got to call the police."

  "No police! Delhi, he was upset; he bumped my arm. That's all. It was my fault as much as his."

  This was too much. "But why was he so upset? He wasn't before."

  She didn't look at me. "I told him I might have to let him go. For personal reasons"

  And then the bell over the door dinged and we both froze. My mind raced with images of angry employees and guns. I would die too, just for being in the wrong place.

  It was a smiling young couple looking for travel books about Australia.

  "Domestic accident," Margaret said, pointing to her face and blouse with a rueful laugh. The tan streaks were beginning to dry, but the silk still clung to her breasts.

  "You go change," I said, "I'll stay here"

  "You don't have to. I'm closing up anyway. I've had it!" Plucking her blouse away from her body, she added, "Maybe I'll see you at the sale tomorrow."

  "You're going to Oyster Bay?" I was surprised. Margaret didn't often make the rounds with the rest of us. When you had a brick-andmortar shop, people usually brought books to you. You didn't have to line up hours early at estate sales and fight with other dealers. Still, the Oyster Bay sale, located on Long Island's Gold Coast, was supposed to be exceptional. The furniture from the estate had been sold separately last weekend, clearing the way for books and collectibles.

  "I'll get a number for you," I promised. I was one of the ones who arrived hours before the sales began so I could be in the first group of people to go inside.

  "Leave your phone on. I'll call if I'm not coming."

  We said good-bye again, once more with delicate hugs, and I hoped she'd be all right.

  When I first started buying books, I was a crazy woman. I would pore over Newsday on Thursday nights, cut out the classified ads for tag and estate sales, and then lay them across the scarred wooden table like miniature Tarot cards. I studied them as if they held
my future. Should I start on the North Shore-or in the Hamptons? Massapequa or Manhasset? Where could I go that would have wonderful books and no other dealers buying them? When I finally had a workable pattern, I would tape each advertisement onto a pink index card and number it. Then I would consult my street atlas, and write out detailed directions to each house on the back.

  It took several years to calm down, to be able to wake up naturally just before five o'clock on a weekend morning instead of at three or four. But that Friday night, I kept jerking awake, haunted not by missed opportunities, but by Lily Carlyle. Her narrow face and tangled black curls floated over me with a tense smile. You don't know the half of it, she seemed to be taunting. You'll be so surprised. But when I woke just before daylight, it was because her expression had changed from a kind of gloating to frightened anguish.

  I knew I couldn't sleep after that. Pushing up from the bed, I told myself I was mixing her up with Amil, that he had been trying to tell me something. When I got back to the house yesterday and remembered the business card he had given me, I pulled it out of my purse. It was a card for an automobile repair shop in East Setauket, Stan's Body Shop with a small red-embossed image of a tow truck. On the back, Amil had scrawled in pencil Call me tomorrow and a number. Because of all that had happened, I had been tempted to try him right away. But I decided he had specified Saturday for a reason.

  Lily's ghost watched me while I dressed in black shorts, sandals, and a black T-shirt that said in yellow letters, "I am a professional. Do not try this at home!" You killed yourself, I told her reproachfully. Why are you haunting me? Newsday would probably have more details today, so I would not have to bother Margaret. Ghoulish. But I had always been ghoulish. I could hear my mother's gentle reproof from years ago: "But why would you be curious about something like that?" I didn't know why; I just was.

  Of course I had never been curious about the square root of seven or what a Bible verse really meant.

  I opened a can of tuna fish for my cats, Raj and Miss T, a consolation prize for being left alone all day, and then left immediately for Planet Java and the largest coffee they sold. But I did not reach full alertness until I was on the Northern State Parkway, almost to Nassau County. I live in Suffolk, the wilder of the two counties that comprise Long Island. If Nassau is a jaded matron sucking on an ivory cigarette holder, Suffolk is her teenage daughter, still experimenting with purple hair and navel rings. There is one nail salon for every two people in Suffolk and an attraction to lawlessness and danger, which spawns bars like Goodfellas and the Bada-Bing Cafe.

  Lawlessness and danger I thought about Amil and his violent outburst, and then forgot him as an SUV entering from Greenlawn cut me off. He could have waited five seconds and entered an emptiness as big as Montana. I guessed it was his way of saying "Howdy." One of his bumper stickers read I EAT TOYOTAS FOR BREAKFAST.

  By the time I turned my decrepit white van north to Oyster Bay he was safely miles ahead of me. I was approaching an historic area of Nassau County, closing in on Teddy Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill estate and expensive waterfront properties. Most of the side roads were labeled PRIVATE, but at the corner of one was a discreet yellow TAG SALE TODAY sign.

  My stomach jumped the way it always did, and my fantasies soared: Despite the extensive advertising for this sale, I imagined myself as the only book dealer there. Maybe the proprietors would decide to open at six A.M. instead of waiting until the scheduled time of nine, catching everyone else off guard. Despite Margaret's skepticism that such things existed, I would stumble on the find of a lifetime. After all, Teddy Roosevelt and his family were buried here on the quiet green slope of Young's Cemetery. Was an inscribed first edition of The Rough Riders too much to ask?

  I tried to decide which dedicatee would make the book the most valuable-Teddy's controversial daughter Alice Longworth, or his friend, Mark Twain-and reached the estate sale shaky with dreams and fatigue. As were all the other dealers who had gotten there ahead of me. Headlights shone along the road like predatory eyes. I identified a Town Car and a Lexus as well as a Ford Escort, an ancient brown Cadillac, and several other vans in various states of rust. Mine was easy to identify. Both front doors had GOT BOOKS? and my phone number painted on them in bright blue.

  I headed for the Town Car, which had the driver's side window rolled down. The man inside, a dealer who specialized in antique silver, silently tore the next number off a calendar and handed it to me. I squinted at it in the dawning light.

  "Thirteen," I complained. "It's not even six yet!" Then I remembered Margaret. "I'll need a number for my partner."

  He shook his head. "He's gotta be here. That's the rule."

  "She. She'll be here any minute." Who made up these rules anyway?

  He actually took the trouble to smile, though not in a way I appreciated. "Then I'll give her a number in a minute, won't I?"

  "I guess"

  Instead of whining, why hadn't I tried charm? Despite my lack of sleep, my hair was brushed and I was dressed in clean clothes. On my good days, I fit the book cataloguer's description, "slightly foxed, but still desirable"-a few age creases, but nothing serious. On my bad days, when my light hair hangs lank instead of curling, and my eyes are circled like edited mistakes, I am "a reading copy only."

  Now that I had a number for the sale, I drifted back to my van to go find more coffee. It was still too early to call Amil.

  No one tells people when it is time to line up at a sale. One minute they are dozing in their cars or showing each other yesterday's bargains, and then suddenly everyone is rushing the front door. As soon as I sensed motion, I was out of the van, transferring a slab of bills to my pocket to keep my hands free. I shoved my cell phone in my other pocket, but almost forgot to pick up my vinyl boat bag. Some buyers bring cardboard cartons, but I find a flexible giant-sized bag works better. With boxes you have to bring scarves to drape over them so no one thinks they are part of the sale. Anyone removing books from a green-and-white bag knows it's stealing.

  In the shadow cast by the white stucco hacienda, I edged my way around ceramic planters of geraniums and found my place in line. The positive side of having rules is that most people obey them.

  I stood with my back to the red-tiled mansion, facing the road so that I could see Margaret when she arrived. I rehearsed my apology for not getting her a low number.

  "Delhi?"

  I spun around quickly, though it was a man's voice. Jack Hemingway, brawny and white-bearded in denim overalls, was two places behind me in line. Although Jack might remind you of Papa if you hadn't seen a photograph of Ernest Hemingway in a while, he always said immediately that they were not related-as if that somehow gave him equal claim to the last name. I imagined he had spent years when he was teaching literature at Hofstra University making that distinction for people. During that time he had actually been writing too, turning out hard-boiled adventure stories that no one seemed to want to publish. He had much more success with critical analyses of contemporary fiction.

  "I read your article on California pulps," I told him politely. It had been in one of the university quarterlies, and Margaret had shown it to me. "Very impressive!"

  Jack smiled and swayed a little. "In this business you've got to share what you know. Life's too short for one person to know everything. Unless you're Marty, of course. You hear about his latest adventure?"

  "No. What?" With any luck he had been hit by a bus.

  Jack set down his empty cardboard carton. "Seems there was this dealer who closed up shop around 1975, but held onto his books. Probably sold some occasionally through AB Bookman, answering people's want ads. You know about AB Bookman?"

  What kind of amateur did he think I was? Though it had folded its covers for good, the Antiquarian Booksellers Magazine had been the leading publication of the rare book trade for decades. "Sure."

  "Anyway, after this dealer died, the Neanderthals-his familycame in and started throwing the books in a dumpster. Fortunately s
omeone called Marty."

  Why Marty? Why not me?

  "Lots of thirties and forties novels with dust jackets, Long Island history. Marty knows his books, of course; he researches constantly. But even before he knew anything, he could find books." Pressing his wide arm against his forehead to capture sweat dots, he chuckled fondly at the memory. We were all Jack's proteges, but Marty was the standout. "First time he ever went out looking for books, he picked up something called The Town and the City by a John Kerouac. Who's John Kerouac? But inside it's inscribed, Keep 'em hanging. Jack."

  Jack Kerouac's first book. Signed. I always loved this story. "And he bought it."

  "What's not to buy at twenty-five cents? Even you-"

  "Marty's also all over the place," I reminded him quickly. "God couldn't be at every tag sale, so he created Marty."

  "Isn't that the truth."

  Marty definitely possessed Finger-Spitzengefuhl, that electric current that makes your fingertips tingle every time you are near something rare.

  As if we had conjured him up, Marty Campagna appeared, crossing the driveway as he talked into a cell phone. He had cronies at sales all around the Island and called them constantly to talk strategy. The first time I met Marty with his shock of black hair, heavyrimmed glasses and longshoreman's physique, I was not impressed. But gradually he and his tingling fingers made their way into my nighttime fantasies. I wasn't surprised; I'm rarely attracted to men who can do me any good.

  "Hey," I said, as he passed us on his way to the front of the line.

  "Hey, Blondie."

  "I hear you struck it rich in the dumpsters."

  "What?"

  I started to repeat Jack's story, but Marty waved it away. "The books were in the house and we had to buy all nine thousand. Paid way too much, and threw half of them out."

  "You should have called me for the throwaways."

  He laughed at that. "Nothing there you'd want"

  "Try me." I felt absurdly pleased that he was treating me as an equal.