The Books of the Dead

by Emilia Bernhard

  “And now—” She lowered her head over the Supplementum, peered at the pages flanking the stub, and inhaled as deeply as she had with the psalter, then lifted her head again. “Now you have a book with a page missing. Now it has a new story, perhaps a story that will still ask and answer questions—certainly a story that illuminates something about human nature. But your thief has destroyed a history. On the other hand, of course, he has also created a new one.”

  She pulled off her gloves and glasses, and as she did so it seemed she shed her philosophical skin and resumed a practical one. “Alors. Here is what I can tell you: the lines in your psalter have been drawn with lead, and at least one of the monks who worked on it was blond—a hair was preserved in the binding. Your Supplementum was preserved, but it wasn’t opened very often. The pages show scarcely any wear, and the binding is still very tight. And your thief is clever and careful, as well as very, very discreet, because the pages in both books have been removed with liquid.”

  “Liquid!” Rachel didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but certainly not that.

  “Yes. It’s not unheard of, although I myself have never seen it before. The page is softened with liquid so that it can be pulled away easily and quietly. Hence the little hairs sticking out from the stub. You would need to be familiar with ancient papers and parchments to manage it—one second too short and the page would rip; one second too long and the string might dry to the page. But if done right, no ripping, no slicing, just a soft wiggle, and—” She clicked her tongue. “One shouldn’t admire destruction, but … such ingenuity! I recently read an article in which someone even did it using string. A map seller, I think. He would go to a library with a length of string tucked in his cheek. He would keep it wet with saliva—you know.” She moved her jaw to demonstrate. “And when no one was looking he would take it out, straighten it into the book margin, and rest it there until the saliva softened the page.”

  Rachel went cold. “Say that again.”

  Madame Murat looked confused. “Which part?”

  “The end. Just the end. No, wait, never mind. Saliva!” Rachel held out an arm as if stopping an advancing horde. “I’ve got it. I mean, I get it. I’ve got it. I know who did it.”

  “Who?” Magda sounded breathless. “Was it LouLou? It was the familiarity with papers that made you realize, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t LouLou.” Thank God, she added silently.

  “It was Cavill?” Magda shook her head. “Man, all along! We should stop discounting the most obvious—”

  “Hush! It wasn’t Cavill.” She turned and looked at Magda. “It was Homer Stibb!”

  Chapter Forty

  Of course there wasn’t a taxi, Rachel thought. There was never a taxi when she needed one. She bounced up and down on her toes, looking in both directions with no success. Then Magda, always a taxi-whisperer, stepped to the curb, and a sleek white Peugeot with a lit sign appeared. They tumbled in.

  “Hotel Palais!” Rachel said to the driver.

  “But Madame”—the man turned around—“that hotel is a ten-minute walk from here.”

  “I can’t run and dial a phone.”

  The driver stared, mystified by this explanation.

  “Drive, please!”

  He shrugged and pulled into traffic. Rachel dug into her bag and found her portable. “Boussicault?” she said after a few seconds. “It’s Rachel. I know who did it. Please come to the Hotel Palais. Yes, right away. Yes, I’ll explain. In person.”

  She broke the connection and turned to Magda. “It was the jaw, the thing Madame Murat did with her jaw.” She imitated the conservator’s back-and-forth motion, her lips rolling in and out. “Homer Stibb did that in his interviews. I thought it was a nervous tic, and I suppose it is, but I see now that it’s a tic acquired from moistening the string. He was nervous that his string wouldn’t be wet enough when he used it on the books, so now whenever he’s nervous he automatically tries to produce saliva!”

  “And that’s why there was saliva on Laurent’s neck.”

  “Yes. No one was licking people while they murdered them.” The cab gave a jerk, and Rachel saw the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Stibb used string he kept in his cheek to strangle Laurent, so his saliva was on it, and that transferred. I bet if that police lab ever gets around to testing the string from the bathroom floor, they’ll discover that it’s got saliva all over it.” She sat back in satisfaction just as the cab drew up outside the hotel.

  “Perfect,” she said to the driver, handing him ten euros.

  Like the Hotel Etoiles, the Hotel Palais was clearly a two-star establishment, but this time Rachel didn’t try to figure out how or why. She crossed to the check-in counter and rapped on the marble-look Formica to draw the receptionist’s attention.

  “What room is Homer Stibb in, please?”

  The young man behind the desk jumped slightly. “Homer Stibb?”

  Rachel stifled her impatience. “Yes. I need the room number for Homer Stibb.”

  “But, Madame, Monsieur Stibb is no longer a guest here. In fact, you just missed him. He checked out ten minutes ago. I called a cab to take him to Charles de Gaulle airport myself.”

  “Where was he going?”

  The receptionist stared at her, confused. “To the airport. As I said.”

  “No.” Magda craned her neck over Rachel’s shoulder as she spoke. “Where was he going? Did he say he was going back to America, or somewhere else?”

  “Oh!” The young man gave a little laugh at himself. “No, back to America. Tennessee, I think he said it was?” He pronounced it Tenn-ay-say.

  They recrossed the lobby in a few long steps, Rachel calling “Merci!” as they went.

  Outside, the taxi was standing where they had left it. No wonder she could never find one, if they were all idling by the curbs of their last drop-offs. They climbed in again.

  “Charles de Gaulle! Hurry!”

  The driver looked up from texting. He seemed surprised to see them, although he recovered quickly. “But Madame, you can get to Charles de Gaulle via the TGV. It’s much cheaper than a taxi.”

  “Please just drive.” As the car began to move, she turned to Magda. “The train stops; a cab doesn’t. If we want to have any real hope of catching Stibb, a cab’s best. How much cash do you have?”

  “I don’t take cards,” the cabby called back warningly.

  Magda opened her wallet and counted, held up five fingers, then used two to make a zero. Rachel had twenty. Well, seventy euros was more than enough to get them to the airport. “Don’t you worry,” she said to the driver.

  For a few seconds there was silence. Magda scrolled down her phone’s screen while Rachel unearthed her own phone from the depths of her bag. She dialed Boussicault once again, but this time when he answered, she said only, “He’s already left the hotel. Come to Charles de Gaulle.”

  “What terminal?”

  She had no idea what terminal. Why hadn’t she thought to ask the receptionist what terminal Stibb had asked for? What airlines even flew to Tennessee from Paris?

  Magda’s pad appeared before her eyes. TERMINAL 2, it said, 3:40 FLIGHT. “Terminal two. The flight leaves at three forty.” When she hung up, she turned to face Magda. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “How do you know the flight time?”

  Magda shrugged. “The only flights still left to fly from de Gaulle to Tennessee today are at three forty and six thirty. I assumed it was the three forty. If it’s the six thirty, we’ll have plenty of time to catch him.”

  They sat in tense silence, each staring out her window.

  “A friend has left his passport behind?” the cabby asked at last.

  “What? No.” Rachel shook her head.

  “One of you is trying to reunite with her boyfriend?” He grinned into the rearview mirror.

  “No.”

  Magda leaned forward. “We’re detectives.
Trying to catch our man.”

  His reflected eyes took them in, trying to decide if they were joking. When both their faces remained serious, the car suddenly bucked, then leapt forward. He grinned into the mirror again. “This is every taximan’s dream!”

  Once they regained their composure, Magda turned to face Rachel. “What about the saliva on Morel’s neck? He was stabbed.”

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing it takes a lot of effort to stab someone to death, so maybe the saliva came from exhaling at the exertion.” The cab took a sharp right, then a left, then merged onto the highway at top speed. Rachel began to feel slightly nauseated, and she noticed Magda turning pale. The rest of the trip passed silently.

  They jerked to a halt outside the terminal, and Rachel shoved their money at the driver as they clambered out. “Bonne chance!” she heard him yell as the automatic doors slid open.

  Terminal two was packed. Snaking lines full of disconsolate college students traveling home from summer programs and tourists exhausted by foreign exposure crowded the floor. Exasperated parents tried to corral the small children who ran shrieking across the polished granite, while airport soldiers wandered the edges of the crowds clutching the assault rifles that always seemed like too much to Rachel. Today, though, she hardly noticed the soldiers or their guns. She was too busy wondering how they were ever going to find Stibb in this mess.

  Magda stared at her phone. “He’s checking in at either Delta or Air France. Given these lines, even if he was twenty minutes ahead, he probably hasn’t finished bag drop yet. We should go right to their check-in areas.”

  They looked around desperately, trying to spot a sign that would help. And then suddenly, “There he is!” Magda grabbed Rachel’s arm.

  “Where?”

  “Over there at Air France! See? The bag drop desk all the way over there.”

  Rachel saw. Homer Stibb was standing in front of an Air France economy counter, smiling at the agent while a large suitcase slid down the conveyor belt away from him. As Rachel watched, he tucked his passport and boarding pass in the front pocket of his khaki traveler’s jacket, settled the strap of his satchel more comfortably on his shoulder, and strolled off toward passport control as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Come on!” She grabbed Magda’s hand. “We can’t follow him into security. We need to reach him before he goes through passport control.”

  They tried to move through the crowd as swiftly as they could without drawing attention. They speed-walked by couples standing next to giant suitcases and through clumps of extended families bidding tearful farewells; they overtook a flock of flight attendants whose clicking heels and shiny roller suitcases moved briskly toward the barrier. They were going to reach him, Rachel thought. Her heart soared with triumph just as a tiny girl wobbled into a clear space a few meters ahead of her, stumbled for a moment, then fell flat on the floor.

  The girl’s outraged screams echoed through the terminal. Homer Stibb turned toward the noise. His eyes darted around, looking for its source, and instead fell on Rachel. She had a fleeting glimpse of them widening before Stibb began to run toward security. He zigzagged between people, as fleet as a man could be while a satchel slapped against his hip. She and Magda chased behind him.

  Stibb reached the retractable barriers that marked off the passport control area. Heading for the opening, he turned swiftly to his left, but his satchel, pulled away from his body by the abruptness of the turn, caught on one of the poles. It jerked off his shoulder and fell, its snaps popping and papers flying out. Some scattered, but most stayed in a stack as they hit the floor, where they fanned out. There, in almost their precise center, Rachel saw a yellowed sheet with thick black writing, its entire left-hand side taken up by a square once colored bright red, now softened to a hazy rose.

  It was the missing psalter page.

  Stibb fell to his knees, scrabbling to collect the sheets. He stuffed them in the satchel and scrambled back up, turning to run into passport control. But Rachel stretched out her arm as far as she could—and she just managed to grab the strap of his satchel. Bracing herself, she gave it a jerk. Stibb’s feet slipped on the granite and he stumbled, but he recovered. Grabbing the satchel, he jerked back. Rachel felt Magda grip the back of her shirt to offer added ballast, and she yanked again. Stibb slid a few centimeters across the floor, still gripping his bag.

  Really? Rachel thought. She was playing tug-of-war with a grown man in the middle of an airport and no one was going to intervene? Where are those idiots with the rifles when you need them?

  No sooner had this question formed in her mind than Stibb gave a vicious pull and the strap slid burning out of her hands. He reeled, recovered once more, clutched the satchel to his chest, and began to run the few meters left before the entrance to passport control. Reaching out a hand to steady himself on the first pole, he turned sharply to enter.

  Rachel stooped over. She was prepared to chase him all the way to the border control counter if she had to. She began to slide under a strap, but a figure ran out of the crowd ahead of her, crashed into Stibb, and brought him sprawling to the floor.

  It was Boussicault.

  “Homer Stibb.” He panted slightly. “I am detaining you on suspicion of the crime of murder against Giles Morel on thirtieth July, suspicion of the crime of murder against Guy Laurent on sixth July, and suspicion of thefts from the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, number unknown. You have the right to answer questions, to make statements, or to remain silent. You have the right to an interpreter, if you need one. You have the right to an attorney and the right to notify your embassy, or to have us notify them for you.” He took a breath and snapped the handcuffs closed.

  Chapter Forty-One

  In the holding room of Charles de Gaulle airport, Rachel found all her interrogation-venue dreams come true. Here the furniture was welded aluminum and the floor cement. Here the windowless walls were painted a dull institutional cream and the door had a buzzer that went off each time it unlocked. A small ceiling-mounted camera trained its monocle eye on the table and four chairs that crowded against one wall.

  Homer Stibb sat on one side of the table; she, Magda, and Boussicault had arranged themselves around the other. Between them lay the psalter page, now encased in a plastic protector.

  Stibb stared at it silently for a long moment. Then he said, “Would you believe me if I said I had no idea how it got in my satchel?”

  “Well”—Rachel’s tone was practical—“not now that you’ve asked that.”

  His eyes moved to it again, as if dragged by magnets. After a minute or so he said, “Will I go to prison for stealing it?”

  What a weird opening question, Rachel thought. But when Boussicault nodded, it was as if all the air went out of Stibb. He gave a deep sigh and slumped back in his seat. Tears came into his eyes. “For how long?”

  “Certainly not less than three years.”

  “Three years! Three years without—” Stibb stopped as if overwhelmed. He put his left hand on the table, palm down and fingers slightly spread, like a spider at rest. It was far enough away from the page that there was no fear of his coming into contact with it. He seemed just to want to feel something under his touch.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s so beautiful.” He raised his head and gazed at them across the table as if they were students and he wanted to teach them something very important. “They’re all beautiful. You can look at hundreds of them, over and over again, and they never become ordinary. They always take your breath away.”

  “Do you have hundreds of them?” Boussicault’s voice was mild, but it was determined. If Stibb looked like a teacher, the capitaine sounded like one.

  Stibb smiled. “I have—” A sly look came into his eyes. “I have more than one. If I give you the ones in my suitcase, will I get time off for co-operating?”

  Boussicault’s features revealed nothing. “The French government takes theft of its nat
ional treasures very seriously, Docteur Stibb. I wouldn’t count on the effectiveness of any bargaining.”

  Stibb’s face fell.

  “You got them using string, right?” Rachel couldn’t help breaking in. She needed to know if she’d guessed correctly.

  Stibb stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “I read about it in a magazine. You put the string in your cheek and keep it wet with saliva until you can use it. I had to practice a few times before I got it right; it’s hard to work up the saliva you need.”

  “That’s why you do this.” Rachel mimed Stibb’s convulsive lip and jaw gesture. “To produce the spit. And after a while it just got to be a tic. Maybe to soothe yourself when things got stressful?”

  He nodded again.

  “And then you’d detach the pages by putting the wet string in the margin until the saliva softened the paper enough to remove it easily, right?”

  “Parchment,” Stibb corrected. “Paper is made from vegetable matter. Medieval book pages are usually made of animal skin stretched very thin.” He gave a little smirk at his superior knowledge.

  Boussicault took over once more. “Is that why you used the string to strangle Guy Laurent? Because you had it with you?”

  Stibb turned a blank face in his direction. “Who is Guy Laurent? Is that the man in the stacks? I thought Cavill killed him.”

  Boussicault grew impatient. “Docteur Stibb, you know full well who Guy Laurent is.”

  Stibb grew polite. “I assure you I don’t.” He raised curious eyebrows. “Could you remind me?”

  The capitaine leaned forward. “Docteur, we have saliva in the ligature in Monsieur Laurent’s neck, and we have tested that saliva for DNA. We have a piece of string from the scene of Monsieur Laurent’s murder with saliva on it, and its DNA matches that in the ligature. We have that same DNA in saliva on the neck of Giles Morel. When I apprehended you earlier, the force of our collision caused you to exhale sharply as you hit the terminal floor. An officer I had standing by specifically for this purpose collected the saliva you exhaled, and it’s on its way to our lab. I have no doubt it will match what we found on the string and the victims.”