by Ali Brandon
Hamlet, meanwhile, had begun to growl, the sound resembling the rumble of a diesel truck warming up. As for the interloper, it—she?—puffed out her silky fur and gave a couple of tiny hisses that exposed a bright red tongue. They stood another instant that way, with matching emerald gazes locked.
Then Hamlet let loose a hiss of his own . . . a hiss that Darla had, in the past, compared to the sound of a cobra on steroids. At that, the smaller cat leaped up in a veritable explosion of black and made a beeline for the storeroom.
For a moment, Darla feared that Hamlet would give chase. Instead, he settled back on his haunches and gave his front paw a lick as if to say, My work here is done.
Darla and Robert exchanged uncertain glances. Then Robert asked, “Should I, you know, go looking for it?”
Darla shook her head. “If it—she—were still in the storeroom, I’m sure Hamlet would have gone after her and cornered her. Like you said, she probably found some of Hamlet’s secret passages, and she’s already back outside again.”
She shot Hamlet a stern look. The passages in question had been a point of contention between Darla and the wily feline since she’d first moved in. Darla knew that her and Mary Ann’s nineteenth-century brownstones had once been a single house. Over the years, however, the original structure had been internally split into two separate living spaces.
Unfortunately, much of the remodel had been surprisingly careless, perhaps since members of the same original family had continued to live on both sides until well into the twentieth century. Darla had found evidence of cubbyholes, papered-over closets, and various cat-sized openings, all of which allowed Hamlet to stealthily slip from floor to floor. He’d even found his way outside before and had once shown up in Mary Ann’s store.
Darla had finally thrown up her hands, deciding that if Hamlet had safely done his appearing and disappearing act for more than ten years, then she wasn’t going to fret about it. But she certainly hadn’t expected any feline interlopers to use his same unorthodox exits.
“It’s a good thing there weren’t any customers up here to witness the cat fight, or we’d probably be getting a visit from the health department,” she said with a wry smile. “But since this cat seems to be sticking around, maybe we should borrow a trap from your rescue group friends and try to catch her.”
Robert nodded. “I can call them. They could scan her for a chip, and if they can’t, like, find her owner, they’ll get her all vetted and put her up for adoption.” Then his kohled eyes grew wide. “Hey, maybe Ms. Plinski would want her. You know, for company and stuff.”
“Well, you can find out if she’d want to be put on the adopters list when you see her later. Mary Ann asked me to ask you if you’d stop by after work.”
“Yeah, sure. I was planning on doing that, anyhow.”
She left Robert wiping down the table that had hosted the feline fireworks and started downstairs. Hamlet, looking quite pleased with his cat self, padded alongside her. The rest of the afternoon proceeded without incident, for which Darla was grateful. She’d considered sending Reese a text to see if he would share any more information about Hodge’s situation, but ultimately she decided against it. He always hated when she second-guessed him, not that she blamed him. Besides, he’d probably gotten his share of grief from Connie the night before about canceling on another dinner date.
The thought of the future Mrs. Fiorello Reese reminded her that the woman’s plans to purchase “something old” had been superseded by the police investigation. If Mary Ann opened the store tomorrow, she’d stop in and purchase the cute cake topper for Connie as her engagement party gift. That way, if Connie didn’t find something else on her own, Darla’s present would cover that part of the wedding rhyme. And, if not, Connie would have something fun to put on the bridal table.
And Darla reminded herself that she could also see if the vintage pie dish she’d picked out to buy before things had gone terribly wrong was still available.
* * *
Robert had already left for the day, and Darla was beginning the usual closing routine, when she heard James call to her from upstairs.
“I’ll be right up,” she shouted back. “Let me lock up, first.”
She did the quick check for stragglers, politely rousting a middle-aged businessman who’d spent the past hour in the back corner reading a graphic novel. Once she was certain no one else remained, she flipped the sign to “Closed” and locked the front door, and then headed upstairs.
She located her manager working at the table in the storeroom.
“Sorry, I had to kick out a ‘library patron,’” she said, her explanation earning a faintly censuring look from him.
Darla gave him an unapologetic smile. The ironic phrase was one she and Robert had privately coined for customers who had no qualms about camping out in the store and reading without buying anything. Fortunately, some of those same “patrons” did eventually make a purchase. And Hamlet had a habit (which Darla never quite got around to scolding him for) of staring down the nonbuyers until they either whipped out their credit cards or else left the store posthaste.
“So what was the emergency?” she asked him.
James pointed to a cardboard box marked “Estate1507” sitting amid three neat piles of leather-bound and dust-jacketed books.
“Since I had a bit of time, I decided to sort through the books I obtained from Bernard. Many of the volumes proved to be more valuable than I had anticipated, especially for those collectors who specialize in fine bindings. But as I got to this last box, I found something rather . . . unexpected.”
He reached into the box and pulled out a red, clothbound book of indeterminate age, with a publisher’s stylistic gilded marking imprinted onto its front cover. Then he turned it so that she could read the spine. A gold-stamped, almost heraldic design featuring stylized flowers and vines covered three-quarters of the space, with the book’s title and author stamped there in gold, as well.
Slowly, Darla read it aloud.
“The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
“An interesting coincidence, is it not?” James said as he carefully flipped open the front cover. “As you can see by the date, though this edition dates from the turn of the century—1912, to be exact—it is a much newer copy than the one we had for sale. And the facing title pages are exquisite.”
He turned to them, and Darla nodded her appreciation. Rather than simply listing the pertinent information in fancy script, the two pages featured prints resembling Chaucerian-style woodcuts. The left page featured a quote from the Elizabethan courtier Philip Sidney, while the facing page gave the title, author, and publisher.
The endpapers were equally charming with an almost Art Deco feel to their swooping vine-and-leaf design. In one corner, lightly written in pencil so faint as to be almost unnoticeable, were the words V. Modello—doubtless, the previous owner’s name.
“Delightful,” she agreed. “So, how much would this book be worth?”
“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five dollars.”
At Darla’s look of disappointment, he explained, “You should know by now that the mere fact of age has little to do with a vintage book’s value. Someone writing in it who is not the author or a famous personage lowers the value even more. Moreover, the endpapers do not appear to be original to the book. But I am sure we will find a buyer who will appreciate its overall artistry.”
“Actually, I think we already have,” Darla told him with a smile as she held out her hand. “I’ve always had a soft spot for Hawthorne, and with all the hoopla over the book I think I’d enjoy having this copy. Write me up for twenty dollars in the morning.”
“As you wish,” James replied, returning her smile as he handed the book over. “In my view, it is not his finest work—I assign that honor to his short story ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’—but it does have its elegant moments. I will be
interested to hear your opinion once you have finished reading.”
“I’ll put it on my bedside table and start on it tonight.”
With that, Darla tucked the book under her arm and preceded James down the stairs. Once she’d let him out the front door, she shut down the register and called for Hamlet.
“Supper time . . . and I promise, you won’t have to share it with any strange cats.”
Apparently satisfied by that last, Hamlet came trotting out and followed her to the side door. With the lights off, door locked, and alarm set, the pair headed upstairs to Darla’s apartment.
But she’d barely reached the first landing when her cell phone vibrated, and a series of chirps indicated an incoming text. She paused there and, shuffling her new book and her purse, took a look at her phone. The short message was from Jake and, she saw, copied Reese. It read:
Can U meet me & Reese @ Greek place @ 7? Interesting Hodge update.
ELEVEN
“So, I guess you’re wondering why I invited you all here,” Jake said, smirking a little as she gestured around the Greek restaurant where they were sitting.
Darla merely rolled her eyes at the cliché, but Reese shot Jake a sour look.
“It better be good,” he warned her. “I had to put off my dinner with Connie for a couple of hours to be here, and she’s pretty ticked off.
“I think you’ll find it interesting.”
She paused for a sip of ouzo and a stuffed grape leaf. Darla helped herself to one of the dolmas, too, though she’d opted for white wine rather than the anise-flavored aperitif. As for Reese, he was driving, so he’d stuck with a soda and had already downed two of the appetizers.
Jake finished chewing and then, with another sip, set down her icy drink, her expression now determined.
“First off, Reese, I didn’t plan to stick my nose in your case,” she told him. “But Mary Ann stayed with me last night. You already know that the rest of us—me, Darla, James, and Robert—hung out at my place to eat Darla’s excellent casserole and keep Mary Ann company. She had a second glass of wine after everyone left and, well, let’s just say the old girl ended up pretty tipsy.”
Darla gave Jake a surprised look, trying to picture their elderly friend getting—as Darla’s dad would have put it—drunk as Cooter Brown. Understandable under the circumstances, but just about as shocking as it would be to see James tie one on!
Jake, meanwhile, continued, “So I let her talk. I figured it would do her good, know what I mean? But right before I sent her off to bed, she said a couple of things that struck me as odd.”
“If this has to do with Rodger Camden,” Reese mumbled through a mouthful of tzatziki dip smeared on pita bread, “we did a pretty thorough background check on him. You wanna know the name of his sixth grade teacher, I can tell you.”
“Yeah,” Jake countered, “but did you know that Hodge got Mary Ann’s parents arrested for, quote unquote, un-American activities back in the fifties?”
“Yeah. It came up.”
He finished swallowing and said, “Mr. Camden gave us the whole scoop about calling the feds on the Plinskis’ parents about sixty years ago. Water under the bridge. Next.”
“Okay, so you knew that,” Jake replied, obviously disappointed. Still, she persisted, “But that’s not much of a motive for Hodge to want to see Bernard dead.”
Before Reese could reply, Darla lowered the stuffed grape leaf she was about to pop in her mouth. “How about the fact that he doesn’t know that Mary Ann already knows about it?” she chimed in.
Then, earning a surprised look from her companions, she asked, “What? Mary Ann told me the whole story this morning. Maybe Hodge’s motive was that he wanted to make sure Mr. Plinski didn’t try to get back at him by spilling the beans to her and ruining their relationship again.”
And what about Doug’s “merry widower” theory?
She hesitated, remembering that she was on Team Hodge, and decided to keep her mouth shut about that. Instead, she said, “But that’s just off the top of my head. Bottom line, I don’t think Hodge did it, and neither does Mary Ann.”
Reese gave a snort of disgust. “Yeah, well, how about we agree to disagree on this one. Shocking as it might sound, we’ve actually got some pretty good circumstantial evidence that points to Mr. Camden’s guilt. There’s a couple more things I can’t talk about, but let’s just say we didn’t drag him in to chat just because.”
While Darla worried a bit over that last, Jake took a sizable swig of her ouzo, set down the glass, and said, “All right, what about this? Did either of you know that Bernard had a gun stuck under the counter at Bygone Days, and a couple of weeks ago he’d threatened to shoot Hodge with it?”
“What?” Darla and Reese chorused.
But when Darla would have persisted, Reese put up a restraining hand. “Let me ask the questions, Red,” he clipped out. To Jake, he said, “What’s he got, and where is it?”
“Don’t worry, it’s an antique,” the PI replied, “so he wasn’t breaking any laws. From what Mary Ann described, I’d guess it was a Winchester, probably an 1894 lever-action. He had it stuck up underneath the counter. I don’t even know if it’s loaded.”
Reese sighed. “I’ll stop by on Monday and talk to Mary Ann about it.”
“That’s up to you,” Jake replied, “but here’s where I’m going with this. We’ve got Mary Ann’s statement that Bernard threatened Hodge not long before his murder. Bernard might have been old, but he wasn’t a slouch. If their argument that last day had gotten too heated, he’d probably have pulled out that rifle and gone all Lucas McCain on Hodge before Hodge could do anything. So I’m thinking that even if he and Hodge got into it, Hodge isn’t the guy. I’m thinking maybe Bernard’s actual murderer is still out there.”
Darla allowed herself a fleeting smile as the “Lucas McCain” name clicked. She’d watched her share of nostalgia television, and she couldn’t help but be amused the thought of Mr. Plinski imitating The Rifleman of 1950s TV Western fame.
She sobered, however, as she saw that Reese wasn’t buying what the PI was selling. He shoved another stuffed grape leaf into his mouth, washed it down with half his glass of soda, and then pushed back from the table.
“You know what I think? I think you and Darla should quit Monday-morning-quarterbacking me. Just because no one’s brought any charges against the guy yet doesn’t mean he’s off the hook.”
His cell phone chose that moment to vibrate, signaling that he had a text message. He pulled the cell out of his jacket pocket and read the text, then softly swore.
“Bad news?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, you might say so.”
With that cryptic response, he grabbed his tweed overcoat and stalked out of the restaurant without a good-bye. Jake watched him go and then shrugged.
“What do you put your money on, work or Connie?”
“Not Connie,” Darla promptly replied. “He’s got a special sound for her texts, and that wasn’t it. But he sure didn’t look happy.”
“He’s probably got the higher-ups on his back about something. That, or he’s just ticked off he didn’t spot Bernard’s rifle while he was giving the store the once-over.”
“Well, it’s not too surprising he missed it. I mean, who would expect a nice little old man like Mr. Plinski to be packing?”
Though, if this had happened back in Texas, Darla wryly thought, the cops would have been surprised not to find a weapon of some sort stashed beneath the counter. She added, “I’m sure he’ll get over it.”
“Yeah.”
Shaking her head, Jake reached for the dinner menus and handed one to Darla.
“I don’t know about you, but stuffed grape leaves and pita bread won’t do it . . . especially if I plan to have one more of these,” she clarified with a gesture at the chilly glass of ouzo. “My treat
, as long as you promise to entertain me with stories that don’t end with someone dying.”
Once the waiter had taken their orders, Darla obliged with an account of the mystery cat’s confrontation with Hamlet that afternoon . . . complete with sound effects. Jake was an appreciative audience, asking at the end, “So Hamlet has a girlfriend now? I thought that cat was going to remain a bachelor for life.”
“We’re only guessing she’s a girl,” Darla said with a smile, “but she’s a pretty feisty little thing. Robert is hoping that if it turns out she doesn’t have a home, maybe Mary Ann will adopt her.”
“Well, every antiques store needs a resident kitty, just like every bookstore does. And she probably will want the company. It’s hard coming home to an empty house when you’re not used to that.”
“We’ll see what happens. I put out some food and water for her before I left, so hopefully she’ll eat something and then find herself a snug place to stay for the night. Robert should be able to pick up that trap from his rescue friends sometime tomorrow.”
Their food showed up at that point, so for a few minutes she and Jake concentrated on their plates of moussaka. After a few bites, however, Darla was fortified enough to regale her friend with the day’s even stranger story—the one concerning BookBuyer75 and the Marble Faun online auction fiasco.
“I know we get some odd customers,” Darla finished, “but this guy was something else. I was thinking earlier that between him, Connie, and good old Vinnie from the bridal shop, we’ve got a full slate already for Pettistone’s first-ever Actor of the Year award.”
“Wait, you forgot Hamlet,” Jake said, grinning. “Or do you plan a separate Four-Footed Actor of the Year category?”
“Might as well lump them into one award, though I think Hammy should get a Lifetime Achievement trophy instead. That cat is Mr. Drama in fur pants.” Then she sobered. “Is it terrible to be having fun and making jokes like this when Mr. Plinski isn’t even buried yet?”