by Perry, Meg
“Okay. Let me call the special collections librarian and see if he’s available.”
He was. I guided Clinton down to the basement and introduced Clinton to Conrad; Clinton bowed over Conrad’s hand. Conrad was a little taken aback, but pleased by the formality.
Clinton expanded a bit on his background to Conrad. He’d joined the Benedictines as a young man, after graduating from St. Martin’s University in Washington State with a major in history and a minor in English. He had spent thirty years in the order, most of them at an abbey in Oregon, but he had traveled extensively in Europe, studying illuminated manuscripts. He had retired, appalled and disillusioned when the sex abuse scandals had started breaking in the Catholic Church, and moved to LA to live with his sister. He couldn’t afford to travel any more, but spent his days in various libraries around the city, reading to kids at the public libraries and studying subjects that interested him at the academic libraries.
And improving the vocabularies of two very lucky UCLA librarians.
Clinton and Conrad hit it off famously. I had to remind them what we were there for.
“Ah, yes.” Conrad led us back to the controlled area and let us in. We put on masks and gloves, and Conrad guided us to the drawer and opened it.
Clinton sucked in his breath. “Oh my.” He gently slid his gloved hand under the page and lifted it. “This is exquisite.” He studied the page. “This is a passage from the twentieth chapter of John. After Jesus’s resurrection, he appears to the disciples, and Thomas doubts.”
I said, “So it might be the page right after the fragment that the police found.”
“Yes.” Clinton’s face was glowing. “Do you know that the monastery at Iona, where the Book of Kells was written, was a Benedictine abbey?”
“No. Is it still?”
“No, the abbey was closed after the Scottish Reformation. But a spiritual community still exists there.”
“I’d love to visit some time.”
Clinton smiled at me. “You should. It is quite lovely. And it is the burial ground for many Scottish kings. As a historian and a man of Scottish descent, you would appreciate it.”
Conrad cleared his throat. “Brother Kenneally, what do you think about the origin of this page?”
Clinton nodded. “I believe that it is possible. That this may truly be what it appears to be.”
Conrad looked at me. “Perhaps it is time to contact Trinity College.”
Clinton looked back and forth between Conrad and me. “I believe that is warranted.”
I got to work an hour early the next morning and went straight to the basement. Conrad placed the call to Trinity College and spoke to a member of the staff of the Book of Kells’s curator. The woman transferred us directly to the curator’s office. Conrad introduced us, then told the curator what we thought we had.
The curator was silent for a moment. Stunned speechless, I was guessing. Then he said, “My goodness.”
Quite possibly the understatement of the century.
“Indeed.” Conrad was all business this morning. “What would you recommend that we do next?”
The curator agreed that someone from his staff should come and examine the page. He suggested that he send his assistant. If she thought it was worth further investigation, she would make arrangements to transport it back to Dublin. “There is no claim from your university on the document?”
“No. We’re just serving as the storage facility. The document was found in the belongings of a young lady, a relative of Dr. Brodie’s as a matter of fact, in a closed box of books that she had inherited from an elderly friend. We have no idea of the provenance.”
“Very well.” The two men made arrangements to set up the assistant curator’s visit, right after the New Year. So the manuscript page would be resting at UCLA for the holidays.
I called Eckhoff and let him know. He said he’d told Belardo about the second page. Since there weren’t any clues from the page we’d found to the identity of the murder suspect, Belardo wasn’t interested.
Fine by me.
Saturday morning, Pete went off with Kevin and Abby early for a hike. At 9:30 on the dot, Eckhoff showed up at the door. He was dressed similarly to me, khakis and a polo shirt, except he was wearing a sportcoat too. Necessary to hide the shoulder holster, I guessed.
I invited him in while I got a bottle of Coke from the fridge. He looked around, appreciatively. “This is nice.”
“Thanks. Pete inherited it.” I grabbed the keys and followed Eckhoff out to his car, a Civic that was his personal vehicle. “What name do you want to use as your alias?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. Something common, that would be easy for you to remember. We can use my real first name.”
I thought for a minute. “Williams.” My college boyfriend’s last name. Why was that the first name that occurred to me?
“Okay, sounds good.” We got in the car, and he handed me a list. "These are all of the dealers in town that might handle a manuscript like this. Any thoughts on where to start?"
I pointed to Kendall's name. "I know this guy; he's the one that I already visited. We can go back there first and see if he's heard anything. After that, it doesn't matter. Do you want to save Brashier for last?"
"Yeah." Eckhoff looked at the addresses. "Brashier’s in Brentwood. After we see your friend, we can head out to Porter Ranch and then work our way back this direction."
So we did. It was a long day. We stopped in to see Kendall first; he still hadn't heard anything about a manuscript but was keeping his ear to the ground. At the other shops, we generated quite a bit of interest, but no information. No one had heard of any pre-tenth century manuscripts coming available, but they'd be sure to let us know if they did. Eckhoff had given me a cheap cell phone with a new number and business cards with the number that we were leaving with each of the dealers. If they did hear anything, they'd call me (in my role as the university’s representative) and let me know.
And so it went, until finally it was time to see Quentin Brashier.
Brashier was a small man. His gray hair was just a little longer than you'd expect for a man in his fifties wearing a suit, but it was perfectly styled, curling just over his collar. He was wearing a pinstriped navy suit, a white shirt that I thought was probably silk, and a red and blue striped tie. He wore a tie pin and cuff links. The first word that jumped into my head was dandy. An old fashioned word, but one that worked in this situation.
He had a bearing that said, I am a superior being, but I shall condescend to greet you, as you may amuse me. Pretty amusing, coming from such a short guy. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a Napoleonic uniform.
He glided up to the entrance where we stood. “May I help you?”
I stuck out my hand just to see what he'd do. He gave me the fingertip handshake. Yuck. “I'm Dr. Jeremy Brodie, from UCLA Libraries. I'm looking for illuminated manuscripts.”
“Ah.” His interest was piqued. “Is the university looking for items for its collection?”
“If an item would be of enough value to the collections, it might be possible. Right now we're just trying to get a sense of what's available.”
“I see. Come in, please. I am Quentin, and this is my associate, Paulo.”
Associate, my ass. Paulo looked barely legal. He was dark haired, long lashed, and wearing a touch of mascara. He wore a skin-tight, midriff-length white t-shirt and equally skin-tight pale denim jeans. He gave me a fingertip wave from across the counter and licked his lips suggestively.
Oh brother.
Brashier missed the little gestures. I thought that was probably a good thing. He stepped behind the counter and consulted a laptop computer that was sitting on it. “Let me see what we have available.” He typed in a search term, then looked at me. “Is there a particular era in which you are interested?”
“Not in particular. But the older, the better. Of course.”
He chuckled a little. “Of course.” He hit enter, an
d we waited for a second while the search ran. Paulo had come up to where we were standing. He was almost leaning on Brashier, but was making eyes at me. I frowned at him.
“Ah. Here we are. We have several pieces that may interest you.”
I pulled out a notebook and pen.
“Here is a fifteenth century manuscript from Milan. Originally from the Borghese collection. And here is a fourteenth century piece from a monastery in the Rhine Valley. Very nice. And - aha! - here is a twelfth century item, from Canterbury.”
I was making notes. “Those all sound interesting. But...don't you have anything older?”
He glanced at me, then his gaze skittered away nervously. “Older?”
“Yes. Pre-tenth century, in particular.”
“Ah, well, let me take another look...” Quentin looked a bit flushed. Paulo was leaning over his shoulder and Quentin shook him off. Paulo made a pouty face and then made a flirty face at me. Good God.
Quentin straightened up from the laptop. “I don't see anything in our inventory previous to the tenth century.” But he wouldn't look at me directly.
“Oh, that's too bad. One of our donors heard a rumor that there was a page from a ninth century manuscript available, but so far we haven't found anyone who knows about it.”
Eckhoff chimed in. “My employer – the donor – would be very interested in buying the piece for the university, if it could be found and authenticated. But so far we're not having any luck.”
Quentin looked even more nervous. “Maybe it was just a rumor.”
“Maybe. But my employer said her source was reliable.”
I shrugged. “Oh well. We have a few more dealers to visit.” I closed my notebook and slipped it back into my jacket.
Quentin had developed a few beads of sweat across his upper lip. “If this item did exist, theoretically speaking, how much would your employer be willing to spend?”
Eckhoff said, “We didn’t discuss a price range. It would depend on the item.”
I wanted to make sure Brashier stayed interested. “I do know that she's paid top dollar for several things the university has in its collection.” I pulled out the new business card with the special cell phone number on it. “If you do hear anything, even if it is just a rumor, would you let me know? Our donor is very eager to find this item, if it does exist.”
Quentin took my card. His hand was shaking a little. “I certainly will, Dr. Brodie. I certainly will.”
“I'd appreciate that. Thank you for your time.”
We left the shop and walked down the block to Eckhoff’s car, and got in. I asked, “Success, you think?”
“I think so. He definitely knows something. I bet you’ll be hearing from him soon.” Eckhoff grinned. “Good work. We may have to deputize you.”
The following Saturday was moving day for Kevin and Abby. Pete and I headed over to the apartment early. We wanted to get the big stuff and boxes moved quickly, so they could spend the rest of the day unloading boxes and getting the place arranged.
We started with the bigger furniture as Abby was tossing last-minute items into boxes. As we worked, I told Kevin about my sleuthing with Eckhoff the previous weekend. “So the last guy we visited is the one the cops suspect of knowing something, but he was the one the art theft unit recommended in the first place. So that’s weird.”
Kevin grunted. “Sounds like art theft needs a new expert. What’s the guy’s name?”
“Quentin Brashier.”
Kevin had been carrying one end of their mattress. When I said Brashier’s name, he suddenly dropped it. “What did you say?”
“Quentin Brashier. Why?”
Kevin stared at me. “That body we had, back in October, the night I had to leave right after dinner? It was found on the property of a guy named Quentin Brashier.”
I was temporarily speechless. Pete said, “No shit. There can’t be two guys with that name in LA, can there?”
“I doubt it. So now we have to figure out whether our body has a connection to your case?”
My brain kicked back into gear. “Maybe not. Maybe it’s just coincidence. Or maybe someone else dumped the body on Brashier’s property.”
Kevin shook his head. “If it’s coincidence, it’s a big one. I might buy a body dump, though. But if Brashier is actually your shooter, and not just looking to make big bucks…damn, this is a whole new can of worms.”
“Did you question him?”
“Duh, of course. Extensively. He claimed to know nothing about it, said he’d never heard of the dead guy. Clearly we’re gonna have to talk to him again. I’ll call Tim as soon as we’re done.” He picked the mattress back up, but didn’t move yet. “Does the name Michael Lindsey mean anything to you?”
“No, why?”
“That’s the name of the dead guy on Brashier’s property.” He tugged on the mattress and we started down the hall again. “Just covering all the bases.”
It didn’t take us as long as we thought it might to move everything. We then concentrated on getting all the boxes in the new apartment moved into the rooms where each belonged. We started to help Abby unpack boxes, but she shooed us out. "I want to do this so I'll know where everything is. You guys take a break."
We didn't argue. Pete decided that he’d go to the grocery store, since that was on our list of things to do today as well, then come back to pick me up. He left. Kevin grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge. He and I found the patio furniture and moved it out to the balcony. It was just the two of us - a perfect time for me to talk to Kevin about Jennifer.
I nudged him with my foot. "I never told you how surprised I was when I saw Jennifer's apartment. I couldn't imagine you ever living there. Still can't."
He shook his head. "It wasn't full of crap when I lived there."
"Well, no, of course not. But even the complex itself. It just...it didn't look like your kind of place."
"It wasn't. But at the time, it was all we could afford. We couldn't find a place that was actually in West LA in our price range, and it was so convenient to Jennifer's school, it was going to save us a lot of gas money." He shrugged. "It was okay for a temporary thing. If we'd stayed together, we would have moved eventually."
I hesitated to ask this, but I wanted to know. "When did you know you'd made a mistake?"
Kevin shot me a look, but didn't comment on it. "After about six months. That's when the spending started."
"She'd never done that in college?"
"No. She was living on her parents' money then, and had to account for all of it. Once she was making her own money and had her own credit card, she went nuts with it."
"I know she grew up poor. Was she making up for lost time?"
"Yeah, I think that was part of it. Plus she saw her friends having nice stuff, and wanted to keep up."
"How much debt did she get into?"
Kevin sighed. "When we got divorced, we owed $68,000 plus on the credit cards that were in our names jointly. She had a couple of other cards in just her name - I assume they were at their limits too."
"Fuck." I had no idea it was that much. "How long did it take you to pay all that off?"
He gave me another look and took a drink before he answered. "I'm still paying it off."
That upset me. "Oh, Kev."
He was grim. "Yeah, I know." He shook his head. "Just proof of the old saying, you never really know someone until you live with them." His face relaxed a little. "Fortunately, Abby's the exact opposite. She doesn't spend a dime without talking to me about it first. I've told her she doesn't have to be that careful, but it's just the way she is. She doesn't do it because of my experiences."
"Yeah. Abby's awesome. You all think you'll ever get married?"
"I doubt it. Maybe when we're older. Although, if anything happened to me, I'd like her to get my pension, and we'd have to be married for that."
"Well, it's a lot less likely that anything's going to happen to you, now that you're detective."
"Yep. That's one of the reasons I did it." He gave me a sly grin. "I kind of like not getting shot at."
I laughed. "Yeah, I'd think that would be preferable."
We drank in companionable silence for a few minutes. I said, "I hate to keep bringing this up, but...I’ve been wondering if maybe Jennifer knew more than she's told about what was in those boxes."
"Huh." He thought about that for a minute. "Well, we know she's less than completely truthful sometimes. She never told the truth about how much money she was spending when we were together. If she thinks it's going to get her in hot water, she keeps her mouth shut." He laughed a little. "You’re suspicious of her, huh?"
"Um...yeah. She just doesn’t come across as 100 percent sincere."
"I know she doesn’t." Kevin glanced at me. "I know none of you thought much of her. Especially compared to Val. Jennifer could never hold a candle to Val, and she knew it. That's one of the reasons she didn't like being around the family."
"Yeah. I didn't realize, until I saw the apartment, that I'd never even been there."
"Well, no, you were in England most of that time."
"Yeah, but I came home a couple of times."
"You came home to Oceanside when you did, or to San Francisco if you were going home with Ethan. There wasn't any reason for you to come to LA then."
"No. Guess not."
"Anyway." Kevin finished his beer and stretched out on the Adirondack chair. "If I was Belardo and Eckhoff, I'd have another talk with Jennifer, just to make sure she wasn't leaving anything out. They're at an impasse otherwise, right? It couldn't hurt."
"Yeah. Maybe it’ll turn out that Jennifer knew Brashier somehow."
“Yeah. Speaking of which...” Kevin got to his feet. “I’d better call Tim. We’ve got to talk to Belardo and Eckhoff ourselves.”
So Kevin and Abby moved, and I was officially living with Pete. Of course we’d been living together for nearly six months, and everything had been great. But now there was no going back. And, of course, it was shortly thereafter that we had our first real argument.
Pete and I rarely argued. We agreed on all the big things: politics, religion, Star Trek vs. Star Wars (Star Trek, duh). We both liked the outdoors and all the activities that went with it - hiking, running, fishing. Since we both worked in academia, we understood each other's work issues and schedules. We both read a lot. We were both neat, but not obsessively so. We were both adventurous eaters. Pete cooked, I cleaned. We were a good fit for each other in most ways.