A Fugitive Truth (3 page)

“I haven’t got one yet, I just moved in.” I showed him my house key with the fancy Shrewsbury key chain. “Can I see yours? I don’t think that real security should be harassing people this way.”

I knew he was making the most of his uniform and this flashy car that he didn’t own, and bullies never expect confrontation. That became even clearer when he backed off. “I’ll just take your name, for now.”

I told him my name. “Emma Fielding. That’s Fielding, as in Samuel Richardson’s friend Henry,” I explained helpfully, just in case he was a fan of
Tom Jones
, which I think is one of the funniest novels in the English language. But I was starting to believe that he was beefcake between the ears, too.

“I don’t care who your friends are, you’re not supposed to be on the premises without your
I.D
. badge,” he said, ignoring the fact that I’d just told him I didn’t have a badge. He very carefully clicked a pen and wrote my name down.

What an awful lot of clipboards there seemed to be around here, and all attached to macho idiots. “What’s your name?” With the gate so securely guarded at the front and no one for miles around, and on top of everything else, presumably, he’d been told to expect me. I was determined to report this nonsense.

He stared at me another minute. “Officer Gary Conner. I don’t like your attitude.”

“I guess we’re even then. I don’t like yours.”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at how immediately hostile he became, but I found myself settling into a ready stance out of habit. What the heck was going on around here, that everyone should be so wound up?

Officer Gary Conner suddenly decided to depart from our little tête-a-tête. I jumped back out of the way, but he didn’t, however, pull away fast enough for me to miss the words “just like that other dyke” he spat out on the way past. Obviously he had many other calls of a similar nature to make, possibly kittens that wanted a jack-booted stomping.

I just shook my head and wandered back to the house as the sunlight finally bled away in the west. Talk about falling down the rabbit hole; the acquaintances I’d made in the past several hours were no less strange than Alice’s. And this wasn’t even my first official full day.

I sighed and let myself in the back door. Welcome to Shrewsbury, Emma.

A
S
I
DESCENDED THE STAIRS THE NEXT MORNING
I smelled coffee and was grateful that I wouldn’t have to figure out the kitchen without benefit of caffeine. One good thing about the Shrewsbury library was that it didn’t open until nine in the morning, which meant that I was able to sleep in moderately late. In the field, I was forced to drag my carcass out of bed at the ungodly hour of six, or even earlier, which was anathema to my natural inclination to late nights. As the saying goes, I get more done between 1 and 2
A.M
. than most people do all day.

When I got downstairs, I found Michael sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window with a cup on the windowsill. He was wearing his overcoat over pajama bottoms, and it was abundantly obvious that he wasn’t wearing the matching top. The
Wall Street Journal
and a copy of the
Weekly World News
were spread out in disarray on the table.

I sat down at a corner of the table and let the coffee have its way with me; I could feel the crenellations in my brain deepening as my mind was resurrected from the chaos of dreaming sleep. After about five minutes of comfortably mind-blank silence, Michael spoke without turning around to face me.

“Would you ever, on pain of your life, buy a mug like this?” He held up his coffee mug as if he were saluting the view outside rather than carrying on a conversation; he was funny about making eye contact sometimes, I was learning, either making too much or too little. I looked at my mug, and it had a row of ducks with bows around their necks, some with little galoshes on. One had a jaunty sailor hat.

“Uh, no.”

“Precisely. Made expressly for the aunt market, stocks depleted at Christmas time. Terrifying.”

“What is it you have against aunts?”

“Nothing, in principle. It’s the auntie attitude that I can’t abide.”

Michael continued his contemplation of the world outside, and I put another pot on.

“That’s some choice reading material you’ve got there,” I said, when I finally felt my spinal cord connect with my brainstem. Houston, we have contact.

“Do you know what the worldwide readership of the
Journal
is? Close to two million a day. Do you know what it is for the
News
? Close to three a week.” Michael turned around and I could see that he was wearing his half-rimmed reading glasses. “That means that on any given day for every individual who believes that there is order in the universe and that it can be observed in this world through the laws of economics, history, and geopolitical diplomacy, there are nearly two who believe that a potato chip in the shape of Elvis’s head will tell them their lucky lottery numbers. You, my dear, are presumably one of the outnumbered former group, and it behooves you to pay attention to those other patterns.”

“So which are you?” I asked, not at all convinced that his math or the numbers he was spouting were accurate, but dying to know what he was up to.

“Neither. I sit back and remark, that is all.”

That
little beauty was too good to let go unchallenged. “Oh, c’mon, Michael, confess. Are you secretly hoping that pyramid power and garlic will keep you alive till you’re a hundred and fifty—?”

Coffee sloshed as he shuddered. “Gods forbid!”

“—Or do you think that true immortality lies in the size of your stock portfolio?”

“If you really are that curious, I will tell you.” Michael got up and refilled his cup. “I am—” he took a sip “—a post-post modern, post-Hegelian nihilist.”

I set my coffee cup down abruptly. “Excuse me?”

He mopped up the coffee that he had sloshed onto the table with a handkerchief from his raincoat pocket. “I don’t believe it matters whether truth is personal or universal, and I don’t believe that even if we find out for ourselves, it makes one jot of difference. What I am is merely an ardent admirer of the meaningless cosmic joke.”

“What you are is a bullshit artist!”

Michael smiled beguilingly over his half-glasses and I couldn’t help but notice how the sun caught the blue in his eyes. “Ah, but it is such lovely, deeply considered bullshit. And my publisher cries for it.” He took a sip, pulled his overcoat more tightly around him, and then thought about his words. “Not that that matters either.”

Now awake and eager to begin the day’s work, I went over to the sink and rinsed out my cup. But I couldn’t resist one shot at Michael; he made it too easy. “Hey, Michael?”

He’d begun to settle back into his meditations. “Hmm?”

“Have a nice day!”

The day promised to be a beauty, and even though I had to button up my overcoat all the way, I could tell that spring was chasing the winter cold away. Although I was in such a rush to get at the Chandler journal that I wanted to run to the annex, I forced myself to walk calmly. I’d decided not to drive for a number of reasons: for one thing, Bessy was sounding increasingly rough, and she needed the break. For another, I thought that the walk home would help clear my head at the end of the day, and I also didn’t want to sweat through my good clothes or turn an ankle by hurrying too much on shoes not made for hurrying. There’s some unwritten rule in library or archival research that says the researcher dresses nicely, professionally. This is in spite of the fact that there’s not going to be any real audience to see you, that working with old books can get pretty grubby—what with decaying dyed leather and brittle yellow pages that are turning to dust—and that it would just be more comfortable to wear jeans and a sweatshirt instead of a skirt and heels. I don’t make these rules, I just go along with them when it…suits me.

My walk also gave me a moment to enjoy the scenery and to make my plans for the day. I was afraid that at least a part of the morning would be taken up with introductions to the staff and to the library protocols. With any luck, I’d be able to look at the journal before lunchtime. I resolved to be patient until then, even though I was dying to see it; the only reason I’d found myself able to leave so late was that I knew the library wasn’t open on the weekend. I had been told over the phone that it contained more than cursory entries; this was a relief, as so many early journals were nothing but glorified weather reports rather than what we think of as true diaries.

I’d have to wait and see for myself what I could make of the private thoughts of Margaret Chandler. I knew that a skilled historian could tease facts out of the most innocuous of references and that because I tended to be more aware of mentions of the material aspects of life—archaeologists tend to focus on things they can measure and quantify—I’d lose a lot of information if I didn’t pay attention to nuance.

When the library came into view, I did pick up my pace a little bit—I just couldn’t help it. Archaeologists spend considerably more time doing research and labwork than working in the field, but opening up a volume like the Chandler journal is as much fun for an archaeologist as putting that first shovel to ground. An even better analogy is to mining gold: Even though you might end up with nothing at all, there’s such a thrill in the exploration that you’re willing to pan out a dozen times because it only makes it that much better when you hit that one good vein of data that you can mine for all it’s worth.

I was at the library annex by 8:55 and found that Mr. Constantino was involved in the perusal of the sports section of the paper. He didn’t even say good morning, just wordlessly looked up at the clock, sighed, and carefully folded his newspaper and put it aside reluctantly. Constantino crooked his finger at me, and, ignoring my raised eyebrow, led me down the hall, where I had my photo taken for my badge. Then he lectured me about security for fully ten minutes by the clock. It was then I brought up my complaint about Gary Conner, which was received with boredom and the assurance that I was mistaking harassment for efficiency. Knowing I wouldn’t win that argument, I saved my breath—for the moment. Every moment messing around with Constantino was another moment’s delay in meeting Madam Chandler.

After I finally extricated myself from Constantino’s sterile office, I fled to the library, where I immediately felt more at home. I was greeted by the warm, brown smell of old leather and paper, well-worn carpeting, and wood polish. There were a number of carrelled desks about, and a couple of flat tables on which to spread work. Reference works lined two walls, and a small office was on the third. The last wall had windows that looked out into the dense stand of trees that sprawled out in front of the annex, and I paused there to admire yet another splendid prospect.

“Nice, isn’t it?” I was startled by a man’s voice behind me. “I’m Henry Saunders, the head librarian. You must be Emma.”

The man I faced was a few inches taller than I, and a few pounds lighter, but not weedy, with thinning blond hair and glasses. He was dressed, as are most of the men of my academic tribe, in chinos, a blue oxford shirt, and a tweed jacket. Unlike most of my colleagues, however, the jacket was nicely made out of good wool, and his tie was subtle, interesting, and not spotted with grease stains. Henry Saunders’s glasses weren’t the usual default gold wire rims, either, but a carefully chosen pair of French frames in a brown tortoiseshell that showed off some pretty compelling cheekbones. This was the sort of guy my Maternal Parent would have picked for me: WASPy, refined, and respectful. But unlike most of the boys my mother liked, Henry had a nicely formed chin with the merest hint of a dimple and gray eyes that were anything but vacant.

“Yes, I am, how do you do?” I said, taken unawares. We shook hands. “The, ah, views…around here are very nice.”

He had tremendously sexy hands, broad and dry, strong and careful, and he colored ever so slightly at my last thoughtless remark. Okay, not stupid, a little shy—I stopped myself abruptly. What’s with cataloguing the men lately, Em?

I tried to remember what else I knew about Henry; virtually nothing. When I was working on my Shrewsbury application, I checked out a few books that I knew had been written as a result of other fellowships. Each of the acknowledgments contained profuse thanks to Henry Saunders for all of his help, but I didn’t know anything about his professional background. So far, I knew only that he was good at his job.

Pleasantly businesslike, he began to walk backward, to show me around the facilities. “Let me show you around my kingdom—”

Always alert to Shakespearean possibilities, I seized on this one. “Aha, then that must make you Prince Hal!”

“Actually, my proper title is His Serene Majesty, the Emperor of Bibliopolis,” he answered with a grin, “but you can call me Harry. All personal belongings—books, coats, bags—go into the lockers over there—”

Just then, Michael Glasscock swanned past us, dressed now, but still wearing his overcoat. “Morning, Harry. I got the Armstrong catalogue from Faith and Jack’s seen it. I’m done with it. You guys bid on anything at the sale?”

“There was an auction of important Americana,” Harry informed me. “Well, we tried for a couple of leaflets but the competition was way too tough.”

“Pretty pricey stuff, and me without a spare half a mil,” Michael agreed. “What should I do with it?”

“Just put it on Sasha’s desk, thanks. Oh, and Michael? You really shouldn’t take any of the periodicals back to the residence with you without signing them out. I really have to insist.”

“Sorry Harry. I forgot.” With no real apology in his voice, Michael pulled up a chair and promptly settled in for a nap.

I blinked and looked at Harry, who seemed perturbed. “Michael seems to forget a lot of our policies when it suits him. I asked him repeatedly to leave his coat in the locker, but he keeps ‘forgetting.’ I’m sure that he really does understand about security, but…well. He doesn’t seem to worry about it too much. We finally reached an agreement; he can keep it in the reference room, but not in the manuscript room. It was just…easier that way.”

Harry then dropped the subject. He quickly ran through the standardized speech about using pencil or a computer only, how the catalogs worked, and how to fill out a call slip for the bound volumes and manuscripts.

“You can help yourself to whatever reference books are out here,” he said, gesturing to the shelves, “but no one besides Sasha and me is allowed in the stacks, I’m afraid. We do ask that you limit yourself to one item at a time with the rare books,” he said firmly.

There it was: the first hint of the librarian strain, a manifest urge to control the books. “No problem.” There was only one book I wanted to get my hands on, and I was only just managing to listen to his spiel politely.

“This collection is important on a number of levels, and we all have to cooperate to preserve it for the future. Quite apart from the monetary value, which, I think is on the order of tens of millions—”

“How on earth do you insure a library like this?” I asked, agog.

“We can’t,” Harry said simply. “We can’t replace a lot of the things here, for starters, and for another thing, we’d never be able to get the security to the point where an insurance company would willingly take a risk on us.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Of course, if we loan something to another institution—a library or a museum, say—we insure the object for transport, but we make the other institution pay for it.” Harry resumed his spiel. “In any case, the intellectual and historical significance is utterly priceless, being one of a kind. So you understand why we need to take such care. Unfortunately, it’s not only a matter of conservation and protection issues but outright theft. There’s a rising market for rare books, manuscripts, and incunabula—”

“Great word,” I said, more impressed with Harry every minute. “What’s it mean?”

“In the library sense, books that were published before 1501,” he explained, “though of course, we only deal with books relating to the colonial period and later. The black market is huge. You may have heard about the thefts from the Van Helst Library in Philadelphia recently.”

“I hadn’t,” I said. “I’m mostly tuned into the problems with the antiquities market, but I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise to find it extends to all sorts of rare, old things as well.”