by Dana Cameron
That news surprised me. “I didn’t know that the library had reported the thefts,” I said slowly.
“They didn’t,” the detective replied tartly. “So how did you know about them?”
“Sasha confided in me this afternoon. On the way home from the station.”
Pam scrutinized me a moment longer, until she apparently decided that I was telling the truth. “Oka-aay,” she said reluctantly. “Well, when I was called this afternoon, I asked Mr. Saunders about the books we found in the locker, and he admitted that he was about to call me. Apparently, the staff had been trying to determine whether the materials that were missing were actually gone or simply misplaced because of the change in…ah…accessioning policies. That’s whether they keep or sell or buy books,” she explained.
“I know what accessioning means,” I snapped. “So you’re saying Gary stole the books?” I shook my head vehemently. “That doesn’t work for me, not at all. No way.”
“Henry Saunders identified the books as being some of the missing ones and has also furnished me with a list of the ones we haven’t recovered yet.” She smiled confidently. “But I suspect that we’ll uncover the rest in Gary Conner’s apartment.
“The theft from the library, and don’t forget, the vandalism of your room, Emma,” Pam Kobrinski continued, “seems to fit in with Conner’s being the disgruntled employee—”
“He wasn’t disgruntled last I heard,” I interrupted. “And I would say my room was searched rather than vandalized. There’s a big difference, I think. What happened with Conner?”
“He quit after your complaints. Said something about a letter, that he didn’t have to take it…”
“That much does make sense, Emma,” Michael pointed out. “Rather coincides with your accident this morning.”
I turned on him—what did he know about it? “It doesn’t make any sense. This doesn’t jibe with whoever tossed my room. That letter from Brian had nothing to do with Gary, and nothing to do with me. That was all about Constantino.” I described Brian’s encounter with the head of security.
“The letter aside,” she answered, “you’d already had a couple of nasty encounters with Gary, and that makes this make sense. Whoever we were chasing was pretty familiar with the grounds here, whoever stole the books was able to get past the security system.” Kobrinski flipped the cover over her notebook and buttoned it away with a sigh. Contented with the outcome as she seemed to be, she still took out a Tums and started to chew, crunching away like she was grinding Conner’s bones between her teeth. “Well, that’s it for me. I’m heading back to town. I’ll probably be in touch with you tomorrow, depending on what we get tonight. Gonna be another long one.”
We watched in silence as she started up the cruiser and headed down the road. “She’ll be back,” Michael said, as the headlights of the police car snapped on.
I raised one eyebrow and he shook his head, eyes open with disbelief that I should doubt him.
“She craves me. Couldn’t take her eyes off me. You saw it, I practically had to restrain her from climbing up my leg.”
“Get ahold of yourself, Michael.” I couldn’t help laughing at his sincerity, though. It was hard to resist his charming self-involvement.
“I won’t need to, if our valiant maid in blue returns as soon as I think she will,” he said smugly.
“For your information, she’s got a boyfriend the size of a refrigerator,” I told him. “He could snap you like a twig.”
“He’d have to catch me first. And I’m thin but wiry.”
“Try spineless but obnoxious.”
Michael shook his head, dismissing my barb. “I’m heading back to the house. You coming, or are you just going to stand there and malign me?”
“Just let me get my stuff.” I ran in, decided to ignore Mr. Constantino’s request for an audience, and returned within the minute.
“She really has got it all wrong,” Michael said more seriously, once we were in my car and starting down the road. “I hope she figures it out in time.”
“Why do you think that?” I thought so too, but I wasn’t going to say anything to him, yet. Not until I had my thoughts sorted out enough to go straight to Pam Kobrinski with them.
“The books in Gary’s locker didn’t work for me. For one thing, I didn’t see any of the missing manuscripts that I’d needed—”
“They could be long gone by now—” I offered, but Michael just ignored me and plowed on.
“—and there was an encyclopedia in there. Volume GLO–HOP, to be exact. Tucked in all snug and cozy with a first edition of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana and a copy of a ‘Treatise Concerning Religious Affections’ by Jonathan Edwards.”
Michael mentioned all this so pointedly and was so unbearably smug about it that I just had to let him know I knew what he was saying. “Right. I can see Gary walking by and grabbing a random book, just a little ‘screw you’ on his way out. But I doubt that he’d be bothered with two works of important Early American religious writers. I mean, how would he know about them? Though he might have been working with someone who was telling him what to steal, I suppose.” I thought about it, chewing my lip.
Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so. That would mean he knew his way around the library well enough to find the volumes that were locked up—”
“What about the problems with the alarm? That would explain it.”
Michael looked pained. “I can’t believe you think it was Gary, too. You’re killing me, Emma.”
“I don’t think it was Gary, and neither do you,” I retorted. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
“Well?” he challenged.
“It’s all focused around the library,” I explained. “I don’t think that Faith’s death has to do with her freaky relationship with Paul; not that I feel I can trust what she said anymore, after what I saw today…. I just don’t know what to think about that. But I do think she saw something she shouldn’t have. She was killed near the library. And then the murderer killed Jack, because he saw the note he left me. In the library.”
“Why do you say library? I mean, he?” Michael asked. He kept his face carefully blank, but there was an intense gruffness to his voice that caught my attention. “It could be a woman.”
“Could be she,” I agreed slowly. “I’m just using the impersonal pronoun. Unless you prefer shim or he/she?”
“I do not. I just think…” He trailed off, and for once seemed to be gripped with real uncertainty, and genuine distress.
“Michael, what is it?” I waited for him to speak up.
“I don’t like to say it before I know for sure, but neither do I want to find myself with an icepick between my shoulders because of prudence.” He looked up and grinned crookedly. “Veronica, Ayeesha, Marian, yes, but never Prudence.” Michael sobered again and sighed. “This sort of thing seems to be following me around. You may have heard about the theft from Van Helst Library in Philadelphia about a month, six weeks ago?”
My breath caught and I nodded dumbly, recalling what Harry had told me just this morning.
“Well, I was there at the time it happened, though I don’t think the detective knew that, or she wouldn’t have scampered off so happily.” He shook off his distraction. “It was the same thing, a couple of rare manuscripts, Early Americana, priceless. Or at least they had so many zeroes to the left of the decimal point as to make no difference.”
I nodded again, my heart pounding as he confirmed what I already knew about his proximity to that theft. “Go on.”
“I was there,” he said slowly, scratching his chin, “but someone else was there too. Someone who is also here. Now. At the library.”
That made me forget to inhale. So much for what I thought I knew.
Michael polished his glasses thoughtfully, taking a long time to do it. “Like I said. I don’t like to say anything. It’s all so circumstantial.”
“Michael! Will you just tell me!”<
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Finally he put his glasses back in his pocket and looked straight at me. “Sasha. Sasha was there, working at Philly when I was there.”
“How can that be?” I said, amazed. “She’s been here for at least a year.”
He nodded. “And how do you know that?”
“I know it because…” Now it was my turn to hesitate. “I just had the impression that she was new, but not that new. I guess it was because I thought she and Henry had some history, if you know what I mean.” I parked, and we got out of the car.
Michael began to fumble through his pockets for the keys to the kitchen door as we climbed the steps to the house. “I do know what you mean,” he resumed, “but I can only tell you that I know what I know. I saw Sasha Russo working at the rare book room in Van Helst Library when I was there, when those manuscripts were stolen. And now she’s here. In time for me to find her standing over your prostrate body, in time for more manuscripts and books to go missing, in time for far too many things!”
Even with the door open, neither of us went into the house yet. The cool breeze picked up suddenly, the gust dramatically whipping Michael’s overcoat.
“Are you sure it was Sasha you saw there?” I finally said.
Michael brushed past me into the hallway with a look of pure pity. “My dear Dr. Fielding. I collect women. I am entranced by them in every instance, even when they are dancing a collective fandango on my all-too-susceptible heart. I yearn for them, I worship them, I admire what extremes they are capable of making me feel. How could I forget someone who looks like Sasha?”
I remembered the humbling effect that standing next to the Viking Goddess for the first time had on me, in spite of my insusceptibility. “All right, all right, if you say so.”
“I do. Here, let’s settle this right now. The Philadelphia library is open until six. I’ll call.” He dropped his briefcase with a thump and started to dial.
I took off my coat. Michael didn’t bother, of course; bedtime wasn’t for hours yet. “You can remember the number? Just like that?”
He tapped the side of his head meaningfully. “All right here. Everything, always.” He listened briefly, then turned mischievous, suddenly thrusting the receiver into my hand. “Here! You’re the one who’s so curious!”
I tried to shove the phone away, but I could already hear someone answering on the other end. Michael danced away, just out of reach with his hands held high over his head. He sat down on the back of the couch in the parlor, arms crossed over his chest and grinning, to watch me squirm.
“Good afternoon, Van Helst Rare Book,” I heard a disembodied voice say.
“Is this Van Helst?” I said, stalling, scrambling for a ruse. Michael cocked his head to one side, frowning slightly: I was disappointing him so far. Hell, I was disappointing myself.
“Yes, the rare book room. Can I help you?”
“Yes, thank you. My name is,” I took a deep breath, “Margaret, ah, Mallowan”—I could see Michael shaking his head, mouthing my new name, his brow furrowed—“and I am calling for Dr. Michael Glasscock.” I turned away momentarily, gloating, while Michael jumped up from the back of the couch, shaking his head, silently pleading, “No, stop!”
“Ah, yes, he was here just a short time ago. I remember him quite well.” The female voice—gruff, dragonlike, and not at all collectible—chilled noticeably and suggested to me that there had been moments of tension between her and Michael at the time of his visit.
I added just a hint of knowing amusement to my voice. “Oh, well, he’s not the sort you forget in a hurry. In any case, I am cawling”—a generic bit of New York City drifted into my accent—“because Dr. Glasscawk wanted to make certain that he had the cor-rect names for your staff in his acknowledgments and asked me to as-cer-tain whether my list was accurate?”
In the parlor Michael nodded, giving grudging approval to my gambit.
“Just a moment, I’ll check who was on call that month.” I heard the tapping of computer keys as, presumably, schedules were brought up. “Here we are. Let me read them to you…”
She ran down a list and I echoed it, making assenting noises after checking off an imaginary list. I noticed that Michael had brought out his notebook and was writing down the names as I said them aloud; he’d forgotten them himself.
“Oh, de-ah,” I said. “I have one more name, I can’t quite make it out—”
“His handwriting made one grateful for computers,” the librarian grumbled. “I could barely make out his call slips.”
“Oh, his penmanship is just dread-ful,” I agreed. Michael, who had by now sidled up to me to hear the conversation, stuck out his tongue. “This one looks like Sarah, Ruskin, Russian, something like that?”
“Of course. Sasha Russo. She had been with us for quite some time, then left for a new position. She came back for two weeks on her vacation to assist us with a grant project she’d been listed on before she’d left. I’m not surprised he had her name,” the librarian muttered.
“That must be it. Thank you so much for all your help. Good night.” I hung up and looked around for approbation.
Michael nodded. “Okay, okay, but…Margaret Mallomar?”
“Margaret Mallowan,” I corrected. “I was going to use Margaret Chandler, but I figured there was a chance that someone working in a library might have heard of her—”
“Oh, good call,” he said sarcastically, nodding even more vigorously. “That would have given us away, especially after Demi Moore popularized the character in her last film.”
I ignored his caustic remark. “Well, just in case, I used Mallowan, after Max Mallowan, the archaeologist. He also happened to be Agatha Christie’s husband,” I added. I decided to push on. “Michael, so you were down there too, the same time as Sasha, the same time as the thefts—”
“Yes, I was. No, I didn’t do it,” he interrupted in a bored voice. “Don’t you think it’d be stupid to pull the same stunt at two different places? Please, enough. I’m tired. I want to eat.”
In that second, I realized just how skillful Michael was at manipulating situations through force of his character. People made excuses for him because of his genius. I made excuses for him because of his brains, and because he made me laugh. Harry’s words came back to me, reminding me that the activities of my erstwhile colleague might not be able to stand much scrutiny…
The phone rang. I answered brusquely. “Hello?”
A man’s voice asked, “May I speak with Emma Fielding, please?”
My husband sounded so shy and cute and sweet that I would have kissed him to pieces had he been there in front of me. “Brian, it’s me.”
“You sure didn’t sound like you. Look, I checked my machine; I’ve got a few minutes before the cab comes for the airport. What’s wrong? I thought everything was okay.”
Right. I’d forgotten all about Brian’s impending recruiting trip. “It is, but everything’s gotten pretty exciting around here.” I quickly told him what had happened in the past twelve hours.
“Oh God, Emma, I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me feel,” he said after. It sounded like he just took his first deep breath for a long time. “I almost decided to cancel the trip, I was so worried.”
I didn’t bother to tell him about my private belief that this wasn’t as neatly tied up as the detective might have wished. Not when I needed to give Michael Glasscock a little more consideration as a suspect. Not when Brian’s cab was coming soon.
“Tell me about home, I need to hear about home.” Brian obligingly ran down what had been going on at the Funny Farm and I listened to the details hungrily.
“And Marty? The baby?”
“She’s huge and really more than ready to whelp. It should be any minute now.”
“And is Kam still going to look in on Quasi?”
“Yep, he said that if the baby came, he’d get Roddy to do it. Otherwise, he said he’d pop a couple of Benadryl and bring the twelve-gauge along. In exchange f
or a little wine shopping I’m to do for him while I’m out there.”
I chuckled softly. Kam was always so infuriatingly composed—in person and dress—that one of my favorite memories was the sight of him, runny-nosed and teary-eyed, when we discovered that he was violently allergic to our cat. Well, Brian’s cat, really. Ever since Brian brought him home as a feral kitten, when he promptly revealed himself to be a cross between Satan, a Maine coon cat, and who knew what else, Quasimodo’s been a one-man cat. Adoring eyes only for Brian, evil-assed attitude for anyone else. I was tolerated—barely—for my opposable thumb and my ability to use the can opener.
The realization that Brian had been speaking brought me back to the present conversation. “—and so now you can focus on your work, which is why you’re there anyway.”
“Oh yeah, I remember,” I said ruefully, and sighed. “Something about a diary? God, that code’s driving me nuts. What do you know about codes, sugar?”
“What kind of codes? Genetic, Morse, area, zip, bar?” The buoyancy in Brian’s spirits was audible in his enthusiastic chatter. “Did you know that there used to be a journal called Bar Code Weekly? I haven’t looked at supermarket scanners the same since—”
“I’m talking encryption,” I said. “If I’m going to get anything useful from Madam Chandler’s diary, I’ve got to crack it. I’ve tried everything I can think of, which wasn’t much, but I figure the code can’t be too difficult.”
“Yeah, just enough to keep you scratching your head! You’re right though, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.”
“Madam Margaret’s got groups of numbers, nothing higher than twenty-six.”
“So it’s alphabetically based,” Brian said confidently. “Okay. You’ve tried a Julius Caesar code? Just slide each letter, say, four letters forward each time, so A is D, B is E, et cetera?”
“Yep, a couple of times. I couldn’t make any sense out of it—there’s no order.”