Murder at the 42nd Street Library: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Book)

by Con Lehane

  “She ran off with a writer, dear, a man old enough to be her father. The scandal of the year—I can tell you.”

  Adele thanked the woman. “I knew it,” she said. She ran to find Raymond.

  * * *

  Mike Cosgrove knew Ray Ambler was holding back something. It riled him but he understood that he would. All of these librarians and researchers had skeletons rattling around in their closets. He’d gotten better cooperation from car thieves and whiskey hijackers than this crew of seekers of truth. Once again, he was stalled in traffic, getting onto the Queensboro Bridge. He should have known better. Left the car at the precinct and taken the express bus. Then again, right there, idling a couple of cars in front of him was an express bus. He’d be sitting in traffic anyway. Besides, he thought better by himself in the car. Traffic began to move, at a crawl, but steadily.

  Tomorrow was pretty well set. He’d talk to the woman whose husband the Yates girl was with when he was killed. Ford had gone upstate to look through whatever the police from that time had come up with. Kay Donnelly hinted that the professor who was writing the book about Yates, the guy Ray didn’t like—Wagner, Max Wagner—had fooled around with the Yates girl, as James Donnelly had. Grown men, intelligent men, college teachers. You’d think there’d be some virtue in that, that these guys would take the high road, and here they were fucking a fourteen-year-old, something they could go to jail for.

  The first time for him it was with a fourteen-year-old girl actually. Of course, he wasn’t a grown man; he was seventeen and she was in love with him, and he with her. Probably, at seventeen, he shouldn’t have been with a girl that young—a friend’s sister. In just about all ways though, except years, Anne was older and wiser than he was. More to feel guilty about was that he was still in love with her and she with him—both of them married to someone else.

  * * *

  “Adele, you’re sure?”

  “Well, not a hundred percent. I’d say only ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent. Who else could it be, Raymond?” She’d pulled him away from an interview with a new reader.

  “Any number of people. John Updike. Bernard Malamud. Ross Macdonald. Nelson Yates isn’t the only writer someone could have run away with.”

  “Ross Macdonald?”

  He shrugged.

  Adele grabbed Ambler’s arm, turning him toward her. “You can’t be serious. This is too much coincidence even for you.” The expression on her face was magical, color in her cheeks, her eyes glittering with excitement. “I’ll tell you something else. I found a letter from Mary Yates to Lisa Dolloway, a thank-you note after a visit. So she knew her.” Adele became pensive, thinking something through before she spoke. “Or Harry. He would have known all along.”

  “That’s just it. Why would he say anything now?” Ambler looked back into the reading room. “I’ve got to finish here.”

  “Should I wait for you?”

  “You can, or you can go ahead yourself. You’ve gotten this far without me.”

  Adele looked confused for a second. “You mean … Oh my God! I’ll come back at five-thirty.”

  * * *

  Laura Lee hung up the phone and sat thinking. The goddamn detective wanted to talk to her again, and Max afterward. Talk to each of them alone. That’s what the police did to get one suspect to turn on the other one by telling lies to the first one. Anyone who watched television knew that.

  It was probably nothing. Max’s freaking out was the problem. In his panicked state, he’d surely give the cops reason to think he was guilty of something. Ever since he decided Emily killed Jim Donnelly and was out to get him, he was going nuts. Still, he wasn’t nuts enough to tell the detective what he was thinking. He knew what would happen if they arrested her and she told them what she knew.

  If the police talking to Max wasn’t problem enough, the pain-in-the-ass librarian who thought he was Sherlock Holmes was nosing around like he actually knew something. Harry was afraid of what the librarian might find out and scared Max into being afraid of him, too.

  Max was supposed to be so smart—Columbia and all. And here he was scared of this Casper Milquetoast librarian. Though, when she thought about it, something about the librarian—the way he was quietly sure of himself; easygoing; no need to impress anyone—was appealing … quite appealing. She wondered if she could handle him. She’d come across few men she couldn’t handle. He might be different. The odds were he wasn’t.

  As she expected, Max fell apart when she told him he had an appointment with the police. He reached for the Beefeater bottle. “It’s no big deal, Max.”

  “No big deal? He wants to meet us separately?”

  She laughed. “It’s okay, honey. A wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband.”

  He looked at her hollow-eyed and slopped some gin into the glass. “Against me? Against me for what?”

  “Jesus, calm down. It was a joke.” After all this time, he didn’t trust her. He was at least smart enough for that.

  “This is on top of everything else. The world’s going crazy.… I swear to God that was Lisa Dolloway I saw with Ray Ambler.”

  “It couldn’t have been.”

  * * *

  Mary Yates greeted Ambler and Adele in the doorway of the brownstone where they’d dropped off Nelson Yates what seemed such a long time ago. She held the door partially closed. She didn’t recognize them.

  “We knew Nelson from the 42nd Street Library—” Adele began.

  Ambler watched the fury rise in the woman’s face, color in her cheeks, eyes rounding into a glare. Adele wasn’t watching her closely enough and didn’t see it coming.

  “My God, you’re the ones!” she screamed. “You’d come here now after what you’ve done?! After you all but murdered him?!” Her voice increased in pitch and volume with every word.

  Adele froze.

  For Ambler, this was the third time he’d been in the woman’s presence, and the third time she’d been raging against the world, always aggrieved.

  “We’re sorry Mrs. Yates—”

  “He was an alcoholic and you let him drink.”

  Ambler watched the fury rise in Adele’s face—the same fire in the cheeks, blazing eyes. “He wasn’t a child. We didn’t lead him to anything.” She bit off the words.

  Mary Yates turned from Adele’s fury to glare at Ambler. After a moment, she said. “You couldn’t understand what it was like to live with that man.” The rage was gone. “You’re wrong,” she said, turning back to Adele. “He was a child—a vengeful, violent child, who couldn’t be trusted by himself.” Her voice trailed off into almost a whisper. “I guess you couldn’t have known that.” She didn’t invite them in, but seemed less likely to slam the door in their faces. Ambler was content to stay where they were. “What do you want?”

  “Frankly, we want to be clear about your wishes for your husband’s collection,” Adele said. Ambler listened as curiously as Mary Yates did. “Maximilian Wagner is using the collection by virtue of a letter signed by your husband before he died.” Adele asked if her wishes for the collection and for Max to write the biography had changed as a result of Nelson’s death. “We thought you might want to suspend work on the papers until the circumstances around Nelson’s death were cleared up.”

  She seemed to buy what Adele was saying. It even sounded good to Ambler, who knew better. He wondered how she was going to get around to asking about Lisa Dolloway.

  “Did you know Nelson’s daughter Emily?” Adele asked.

  “No. I asked once and he told me never to mention her name again, so I didn’t. He didn’t have any contact with her.”

  “His ex-wife, Lisa Dolloway?”

  Mary Yates shook her head. “Slightly. I met her twice. Nelson had a great deal of past life. After the first few discoveries, I decided I was better off not knowing about it.”

  “Do you know anything of what happened to her?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is it possible she d
ied?” Ambler asked.

  She turned to him with a strange expression. “She’s very much alive, or was a few days ago. She attended Nelson’s memorial service.”

  “I knew it!” Adele said, louder than she intended. She turned red. “Could you describe her?”

  “She’s tall, thin, gray hair. I don’t remember what she was wearing—something expensive. I caught a quick glimpse.”

  * * *

  “Ray?!” Harry squawked into the intercom when Ambler announced himself after leaning on the buzzer to his apartment. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk to you.”

  “You have no right to … to come here.” His voice trembled. “It’s … it’s … a violation—”

  Ambler’s own voice was shaking. “I’m sorry, Harry. This is about Lisa Dolloway.”

  A long silence was followed by the buzzing of the entrance door lock. Ambler and Adele trudged up the stairs.

  Harry sat stiffly on a straight-backed chair at his glass dining room table; Adele and Ambler sat together on the couch. Harry’s expression didn’t change as Adele spoke.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? Lisa Young is Lisa Dolloway. Nelson Yates’s ex-wife provided the funding for the Yates collection.”

  Harry tented his fingers, an unconscious priestly pose; he appeared resigned. Adele tilted her head, bending forward to try to meet Harry’s downcast gaze. “Why the secrecy?”

  “Lisa didn’t want to create a new scandal. She didn’t want anything to do with Nelson. I don’t think her husband knows about that part of her life.”

  “You were the intermediary?”

  “I knew them both, Ray. They trusted me.” Harry shrugged. “I expected difficulties. Who would have thought it would come to this?”

  Adele leaned forward. “When you said her husband didn’t know about that part of her life, did you mean he didn’t know she had a child?”

  Harry nodded. “I suspect he doesn’t know any of it.”

  Adele was about to ask something else, but Ambler spoke over her. “What do you mean difficulties?”

  “Mary, Nelson’s wife, wanted the collection to go to Max Wagner. James Donnelly said Nelson authorized him to write the biography. Em—”

  Ambler and Adele both noticed he’d caught himself.

  “Did Emily contact you about her father’s collection?” Adele asked.

  Harry looked helplessly from one to the other.

  “Are we back to that confession thing again?”

  Adele put her hand on Ambler’s arm. “Don’t, Raymond.”

  Ambler paced the few feet in either direction in the tiny apartment. “This is a murder, Harry. For God’s sake. Religious beliefs are fine. But—”

  “Raymond!” It was a command from Adele.

  Ambler stared at her.

  “You’re wrong, Raymond.” Her tone was softer.

  He didn’t ask again. Nonetheless, there was a connection he hadn’t thought of. The wheels were turning.

  Chapter 19

  “I’m surprised my first husband’s death keeps coming up in—”

  “Someone asked about your first husband’s death?” Cosgrove sat across from Laura Lee, notebook in hand, in an office he’d borrowed from Harry Larkin.

  She brushed off the question. “Oh, it’s nothing. One of the librarians fancies himself an amateur detective.”

  “You mean Ray Ambler?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” She crossed her shapely legs.

  “Yeh, Ray’s a curious guy.”

  She raised her eyebrows, catching the double entendre.

  “Suppose you tell me what you told him, unless you’ve thought of something new in the meanwhile.”

  Her expression changed, the lines in her face deepened; the smile left her lips. “Mr. Ambler had the fanciful notion that Emily Yates might have killed Arthur, my husband. I told him that wasn’t possible.” She met Cosgrove’s gaze. “What I didn’t tell him—what I haven’t told anyone—is that Arthur didn’t fall. He leapt. Arthur committed suicide.”

  Cosgrove moved cautiously. He’d opened up wounds questioning witnesses in the past and had things go bad. He didn’t want her to drift off into a funk of painful memories or break down in tears. He wanted her to keep talking. “That’s a tough load to carry. I’m sorry. The police investigating didn’t consider suicide?”

  Irritation flashed in her eyes. “Of course, they considered it. Of course, they asked. I don’t know what Emily told them. She would have known. I don’t know why Arthur wanted to be with her when he killed himself.”

  “How do you know it was suicide?”

  She took a deep breath. “He told me he would. I didn’t believe him. I thought it was a bluff to save our marriage. Arthur was despondent. He took up with the little tramp because his life was in ruins. His academic career was going downhill. We had financial difficulties. Our real life was behind blank walls. I told Arthur I was leaving him. Not something I’m proud of, after the fact. Nothing I wanted to think about or talk about, that my leaving might have deepened his despair, might have been a cause of his death. I preferred being the wronged woman, as embarrassing as that was, to being seen as the cold-hearted woman who drove her husband to his death.”

  * * *

  “I’m going to ask you some questions,” Cosgrove said. “You’re not charged with a crime. If you think you might say something incriminating, you have a right to have a lawyer present.”

  The man in front of him was a mess, the panicky, hangdog look of the guilty. “How would I incriminate myself? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Good. Tell me about James Donnelly.”

  “I told you the last time you asked.”

  “I’ve found out some things since then, a different side of him, say.”

  “A different side?”

  “What do you remember about Emily Yates?”

  “Emily Yates?”

  This guy was a trip. Talk about evasive. Don’t volunteer anything; you might not get into trouble. Right. Nice for him if it worked like that. “Emily Yates. What do you know about her?”

  Wagner leaned forward, his manner grave. “What do I know about her?”

  Cosgrove almost laughed. Wagner didn’t realize what he was doing and how obvious it was. “You know, Professor, in these things, the truth comes out. If you don’t tell me, someone else will. Then, what do you look like? You look like a man with something to hide.”

  Wagner tried to resemble the most surprised person on earth. “No. I don’t.”

  “You knew James Donnelly. You knew Nelson Yates. You knew Emily Yates. Did you know your wife’s first husband, Arthur Woods?” He’d seen that trapped expression a zillion times before. Usually, he knew why the person he was questioning felt trapped. He knew what he or she was hiding. This time, he had no idea. He didn’t make Max Wagner for either of the killings. No evidence pointed to him, except the academic rivalry Ray talked about. He didn’t buy it. Maybe he’d need to rethink that. More likely, this guy was afraid of something in the past.

  “What are you hoping I won’t find out?”

  Wagner averted his eyes.

  “Did you have sex with Emily Yates when she was a teenager?”

  Wagner went rigid. “Of course not. I don’t have to answer a question like that.”

  “You just did. You don’t want me to find out you’re lying, do you?”

  The first time he’d interviewed Wagner, the guy was arrogant and aloof, as if a dumb cop couldn’t catch the nuances of the answers provided by a learned professor. Now, the professor squirmed like a grade school kid in the principal’s office.

  “Did James Donnelly?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  “I’m pretty sure you would know.” Some liars he could take. This guy wasn’t one of them. “How well did you know Arthur Woods?”

  “Arthur Woods?”

  This time Cosgrove did laugh. “Were you and his
wife having an affair at the time of his death?”

  “Of course not. Our relationship developed much later … after a time. She was devastated by her loss.”

  “She told me she was going to leave him.”

  “She did not.”

  Cosgrove laughed again. Wagner was driving him nuts. “Mr. Wagner or Professor Wagner or whatever you prefer to be called, I don’t care about family secrets or indiscretions. I’m trying to catch a murderer. Why don’t you tell me what went on with Emily Yates? She was a teenager involved with older men. You take it from there.” He watched Wagner wither in front of him.

  * * *

  Ambler waited for Lisa Young in front of the library. Floodlights and arc lights for the film crews gave the white marble of the facade a sense of unreality. Women in deep-colored evening gowns, dripping with jewelry, and men in tuxedos exited taxis and limousines and climbed the steps to the library entrance in the ghostly light via a red carpet that had been unfurled for the occasion. He half expected the lions to climb down from their pedestals. They’d fit right in, strolling among the literati and their patrons.

  She came by herself, stepping out of a limousine, the car door held open by the driver, whose black suit wasn’t so different from Ambler’s. Other men wore suits and ties, so he didn’t feel as conspicuous as he might have among the gowns and tuxedos; some of the younger men didn’t even wear ties. She wore a floor-length evening gown, deep green, maybe satin, a solid color but it seemed to shimmer and change hues as she walked. A black lace shawl over her bare shoulders, her hair framing her face, that shy and flirtatious smile in her eyes and on her lips, taking long graceful strides, she came toward him. Holding out her hand, she leaned forward, brushing his lips with her cheek, as he reached for her hand.

  “Relax, Mr. Ambler—can I call you Raymond?”

  “Ray.”