by Mark Pryor
“Convenient, if you want to murder someone,” Lerens said lightly, then quickly changed her tone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be flippant.”
“It’s OK,” Hugo said. “I thought of that, too.”
Hugo found Michael Harmuth at the bottom of the steps to the basement.
“I didn’t want to stay right there,” Harmuth said. “It was too quiet, and that painting. I’ve never liked it.”
“That’s fine, as long as no one went in.”
“No one’s come down the stairs, no. Is someone coming?”
“The police. I’m pretty sure it was natural causes, but they want to come by anyway and double-check.”
“Sure, OK. Do you need me still, or . . . ? I wouldn’t mind getting some fresh air.”
“Of course, I’ll wait here for the cops.”
“Thanks.” Harmuth paused. “We have cameras, I think they’re operational. Color ones, too. There’s one that would cover the atelier, so let me know if they want footage from this morning. I’ll have someone download it, or do it myself.”
“They might, just to cover their bases. I’ll ask.” Hugo was impressed with Harmuth’s dogged professionalism under the circumstances. The man even knew how to pronounce the word atelier properly, not easy for a foreigner. “Why do you have cameras in a library?”
“You’d be amazed the places people steal from. Libraries aren’t immune, and some of the books down here are quite valuable.” He shook his head sadly. “When I first started working here they told me they didn’t lock the basement doors at night. They still don’t during the day, too much hassle to keep getting the key. Staff come down here a lot, and members of the public could easily find their way down here, too, so cameras seemed like a decent idea.”
Hugo watched as Harmuth shuffled up the stairs, slowly shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. A common reaction to unexpected death, as Hugo well knew.
It took thirty minutes for Camille Lerens and her two crime-scene specialists to arrive. Also with them was the medical examiner, whom Lerens introduced as Doctor David Sprengelmeyer. A wiry man with floppy, dark hair, Sprengelmeyer looked more Italian than French, or, as his name suggested, German.
“Former French national squash champion,” Lerens said. “Now pokes at dead bodies for a living.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Hugo. “You go in first?”
“I’m probably the only one going in. I have to certify the death officially, but unless there’s anything suspicious, these two head back to the office.” He gestured to a short woman and her male colleague, and introduced them as Meike Stuedemann and Charles Allée. “I won’t touch anything, don’t worry.” He said it with a friendly wink. “Done a lot more poking bodies than playing squash these past few years.”
“Hey, if you’re working with Camille, you know what you’re doing. I have no concerns at all.”
They watched as the senior technician, Meike Stuedemann, unzipped her bag and took out a clear packet containing white forensic scrubs. She handed the packet to Dr. Sprengelmeyer, and he dressed quickly and quietly. The scrubs on, he pulled a surgical mask over his mouth and then donned blue latex gloves. He nodded at the watching group, then moved alongside the metal bookshelf toward the door. He opened it and stepped inside. He left the door open, and all four of them shuffled closer to watch, but Sprengelmeyer looked back and his brow creased in what appeared to be a frown. When he spoke, his voice was muffled.
“This isn’t a spectator sport, how about some space for me and some dignity for him.”
Eight feet shuffled backward and Lerens muttered, “We’re a little past dignity at this point.”
Hugo smiled. “No one likes being watched while they work, so I get it.”
“True,” Lerens said. “Dites-donc, how did you manage to be here?”
“I spoke to Paul yesterday. He called me about a sale of books the library’s having, some expensive but a few I could afford. He was holding one in particular for me, a signed Truman Capote.”
“You knew him well?”
“Through a few events the embassy has held or attended here. A couple of visits here outside of work, but we didn’t hang out socially or anything.”
“Bon. So while he’s working, tell me, how’s everything else?” She smiled. “Still dating Claudia?”
“Off and on. Mostly off. You?”
“Enjoying being me still.” She smiled. “Hey, you and I should go out one night,” she joked.
“That’d blow Tom’s mind,” Hugo said. “Lucky I don’t date colleagues.”
“Lucky for whom?”
“Them, usually.”
“With that attitude, I’m sure. Ah, here we are.”
Doctor Sprengelmeyer stood in the doorway of the little writing room. He lowered his mask and stripped off his gloves. “Il est mort.” He’s dead. “No doubt about that.” He held up a warning finger. “But don’t start asking me how long he’s been that way.”
Lerens gave him a wry smile. “It’s my job to ask.”
“And mine is to give you an accurate answer, not make wild guesses.”
“Can’t be that wild,” Lerens said. “Hugo, how long did you say he’d been in that room?”
“He told me he starts around eight or nine, so just a couple of hours. The tape will tell us.”
“What tape?”
Hugo indicated the security camera tucked high in the corner. “The tape from that camera.”
“Oui, if it actually works,” Lerens said, then turned back to Sprengelmeyer. “You’re not going to give me any clue as to cause of death?”
“Would if I could. Nothing stands out, no visible trauma, no indication of anything other than his heart stopped working.”
“No need for the CSU techs?” she asked.
“Not as far as I can see.”
Hugo stepped forward. “Mind if I take a look?”
Sprengelmeyer glanced at Lerens, who shrugged. “You think I missed something?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” Hugo replied. “I’m just curious, that’s all.” The doctor moved out of the doorway and Hugo walked past him into the room. He paused and turned back to the doctor. “His skin. Is it a little blue?”
“Un petit peu,” Sprengelmeyer said. A little bit. “I would imagine it’s from a lack of oxygen, it affects people differently. And, of course, the room color will make the skin look bluer than it really is.”
“Yes, of course,” Hugo said. “Thank you.”
He stood inside the room and took everything in. The body of his dead friend dominated the tiny space, of course, but Hugo knew to look elsewhere, knew that if something was wrong, any clues needed to be discovered before the room was disturbed. He looked at the desk where a laptop sat open in front of the dead man. A plastic water bottle sat on one side of the computer, next to a writing pad and a pen. On the other side of the desk, a large book lay open. Hugo stepped forward and saw it was a reference book, an encyclopedia of handguns. Beside it, another book, a mystery novel by Terry Shames. Hugo checked the notepad but could make little sense of the scribbled notes, the arrows and boxes Rogers had drawn. Character names and plot points? Hugo wondered.
A sound behind him made Hugo turn. Camille Lerens stood by the doorway, watching him intently. Hugo moved to the end of the desk. On the floor behind it lay a crumpled handkerchief. Hugo knelt for a closer look but saw no blood or any other kind of stain; it looked clean, if a little old.
“See something?” Lerens asked.
“Probably not. But maybe.” He stood. “You said your crime-scene person needed training, right?”
“Yes. On an actual crime scene.”
“You’re all here now. Let’s pretend.”
“You wouldn’t say that unless you thought something was wrong.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at Hugo. “What is it? What makes you think this is a crime scene?”
Hugo shrugged. “Nothing. A feeling. And like I said, y
ou guys are all here. You even have a real dead body to work around. As far as training exercises go, I would imagine this one’s pretty good.”
Lerens nodded. “D’accord.” She frowned and looked at Rogers. “He does look blue in here, it’s weird.” She stepped out of the room and spoke to her crime-scene experts. “Bon, treat this as a murder scene. He’s been poisoned by a jealous wife, for his fortune. Don’t miss anything.”
“Bien.” Stuedemann smiled. “But poisoned because she’s jealous or because she wants his money?”
“Both,” Lerens said. “Smartass.”
“And she poisoned him by passing through a locked door.”
“She’s the devil incarnate, so all the more reason to be extra thorough.”
Hugo walked out of the room and stood beside Lerens as Stuedemann and Allée pulled on their white scrubs. Allée stooped and pulled a camera from their equipment bag and checked its settings. He nodded to Stuedemann, and they both snapped on gloves.
“Bon, une question.” Stuedemann pointed to the room. “Did you touch anything? Did anyone else, as far as you know?”
Hugo thought for a moment. “Oui. I touched the door knob earlier, when I tried it and found it locked.Michael Harmuth touched it, too. He had to, to get in.”
“Who’s Monsieur Harmuth?” Lerens asked. She had a notebook open and pen poised.
“He works here, assistant director of the library.”
Lerens wrote in her little book. “Anyone else?”
“Not that I know of.” Hugo indicated the camera overlooking that corner of the library. “But if that thing’s working, it shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
“Security cameras in a library.” Lerens shook her head. “What’s the world coming to?”
Meike Stuedemann smiled and then covered her mouth with a surgical mask. They all waited as Allée took half a dozen photos of the door, then knelt in front of the silver handle and dusted it with a small brush. Stuedemann watched as her colleague applied and then carefully removed tape, which he placed on a square card. He wrote the location and then nodded to Stuedemann who, after a brief and respectful pause, stepped into the little room.
Hugo and Camille stood quietly as Dr. Sprengelmeyer took off his scrubs and gloves, leaving them in a pile on the floor. He wasn’t looking at them, and Hugo had the distinct impression that he wasn’t happy about the crime-scene people going to work in the atelier. He’d heard them say it was a training exercise, but Hugo also knew that they wouldn’t be doing it at all if someone didn’t think something was amiss. And that called Dr. Sprengelmeyer’s expertise into question.
“Who’ll do the autopsy?” Hugo asked.
“I will,” Sprengelmeyer said, without looking at him. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
“No spectators,” the doctor said curtly.
They could hear Stuedemann and Allée moving around the little room, hear the click and see the flash of the camera. Hugo moved toward the doorway, conscious of the painted lady in the turban, watching them all. Stuedemann stood by while her colleague photographed the desk from several angles. That done, Allée picked up the water bottle and dusted the outside for prints. The bottle was three-quarters full of what looked to be water, and, when Allée finished removing prints from the outside, he checked that the lid was on tight and slipped the bottle into a plastic evidence bag. He then moved around the desk and stopped in front of the handkerchief. He photographed it from several angles, zooming in and out, then put the square of cloth into its own evidence bag.
“People still use handkerchiefs?” Stuedemann muttered. “How quaint.”
Allée chuckled, then looked up at her and asked: “I’ve photographed the books and dusted the open pages, but should I bag them as evidence?”
“Do they belong here, to the library?” Stuedemann asked.
Allée checked the spines for library markings and nodded. “They do.”
“Then just photograph them. As long as there’s no blood spatter or other substance on them, I don’t think there’s any need. The detectives will know where to find them.”
“OK. What about his hands, bag those?”
“Might as well, for the practice,” Stuedemann said.
Hugo moved back into the hallway, leaving them to their work. “I think I’ll go grab that surveillance,” he said to Lerens.
“Because watching hours of nothing is fun?”
“I assume you have an intern or lowly someone-or-other who can do that for us.”
“‘Us?’”
Hugo started down the hallway. “Yep. We’re a team, remember?” He started back up the steps to the ground floor of the library, wandering to the front, where he found Nicole Anisse.
“Nicole, have you seen Michael Harmuth?”
“Someone called about the Severin collection. I think he’s dealing with that.”
“Merci bien.”
“Monsieur.” Her eyes were wide and she looked suddenly fragile. “Is everything all right? I saw the police arriving and Monsieur Harmuth is upset. Did something happen?”
Hugo knew it wasn’t his place to tell her, but she’d already seen enough to be worried. “I’m afraid someone has . . . Let me find Monsieur Harmuth. . . . Is he really your supervisor?”
“Oui, he is.” She hesitated. “Or Michelle Juneau, she’s Paul’s assistant, does all the human resources, payroll, that kind of thing. She’s helping him with the collection so I’m guessing she’s with Michael right now.”
“Where is the collection kept, do you know?”
“In the basement. They’ve put in a cabinet for it, to keep everything together. If anyone wants to see all or part of it, they’ll bring it up to the conference room.” She pointed to a door behind the check-out desk. “That’s the other stairway to the basement, the one we use most. They’re probably down there.”
“OK if I use it?” Hugo asked.
“Sure. I’m needed up here but I’ll show you the way.” She led him behind the desk, nodding to the three people manning it that all was fine, and held the door open for Hugo. As he passed her, he saw the worry in her eyes and tried giving her a reassuring smile. He wasn’t sure it worked.
“It’s just to your left downstairs,” she said.
He trotted down the stairs and at the bottom could hear the muffled voices of Lerens and the CSU team at the other end of the basement. But the packed rows of shelves between them might as well have been walls, they seemed so distant; and, not for the first time, Hugo noticed the chill and stale air, and felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.
He moved to his left, into an open area littered with piles of books, carefully stacked to avoid collapse. A woman stood with her back to him as she studied the contents of a closed glass cabinet. As he watched, she rattled the cabinet’s locked doors and put her hands on her hips in apparent frustration when they wouldn’t open.
“Well, hello,” Hugo said. “I didn’t expect to see you down here.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The woman stiffened, then turned slowly to look at Hugo, her eyes wide with surprise. “Hugo. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for Michael Harmuth and Michelle Juneau. You?”
Miki Harrison grimaced. “Trying to avoid Michelle Juneau.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say I’m doing some unauthorized research.”
“And possibly some criminal trespassing.”
“Probably. But asking politely hasn’t gotten me anywhere.”
“Maybe. But you still shouldn’t be down here—the signs are clear this is employees-only. I wasn’t kidding that you’re trespassing.” Hugo softened his tone. “How did you get down here?”
She pointed toward the far side of the basement. “Followed someone down and then wandered this way.”
“Didn’t you see the police activity?”
“I saw some people, didn’t know they were police. I was quiet and trying not to be seen. What’s going on?�
��
“Nothing you need to worry about.” The library was like that, Hugo was beginning to see. Full of narrow spaces and twists and turns, plenty of ways to sneak around and keep from being seen. A hide-and-seeker’s delight. He pointed at the glass cabinet. “The Severin collection, I presume?”
“It looks like it. Some of it, at least,” Miki said. “I didn’t see any of her stuff elsewhere, so presumably whatever I want is in there.”
“Ah, the secret papers. Although I don’t see a dagger. Did you ever talk to Paul Rogers about those?”
“Not yet. I was told he’s busy, so I thought I’d have a look for myself,” Miki said.
“You’ve been at the library all morning?”
“For an hour. Getting the lay of the land, you might say.”
He nodded and said, “Look, I’m afraid I have some bad news about Paul. It’s not public knowledge yet, so please don’t say anything, but there’s no harm in telling you.”
“Telling me what?”
“He passed away this morning. He was writing his novel and appears to have had a heart attack, right here in the library. Those people you snuck past were dealing with that.”
Miki’s mouth opened slightly but she didn’t speak at first, as if she were unsure whether to believe him or not. “Right down here?”
“Yes. He’d created a room for himself over there.” He indicated with a nod of his head.
“Oh no. And he’s . . . he’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh. That poor man. I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, he was a good guy.”
“Does he have family?”
“A long-term girlfriend, yes. No kids as far as I know.”
“How old was he?”
“Not very,” Hugo said. “I understand he had heart trouble in recent years, though.”
Miki nodded, then looked around her. “I suppose I should leave. I know I shouldn’t be down here, and now it seems . . . well, I should leave.”
“Probably a good idea.” He indicated the stairway leading up to the circulation desk. “This way is best.”
She gave Hugo a small smile and walked toward the staircase, stopping when she got there. She turned and said, “You’re staying down here?”