A Novel Death (19 page)

I locked up the barn, crossed the yard, and went into the kitchen through the back door. All I wanted now was a glass of Chardonnay, my tiny frozen pizza, and an evening with Philip Roth. Throw in a cat to cuddle with and I would feel content.

Checking the answering machine, I saw that there were seven phone messages. Seven! Had Colin won an award for Earthworks, with newspapers calling as they had before? But the calls had all been for me. One message was the one Jack Hemingway had mentioned leaving.

The first was from my oldest friend, Gail. "Hey, Del! I'm planning my forty-fifth birthday party, one of those theme jobbies. I'm going to rent out the Egyptian Room of the Metropolitan Museum. We'll try on gold jewelry and be attended by young Nubian slaves in loincloths. Or, if that doesn't work, there's always pizza and a movie. But save the weekend of September 16th. I want you there. Bye!"

I would be there.

"Mom? It's Hannah. I e-mailed you this morning about something wrong with my car? The brakes are like making this weird noise? Can I put it on your credit card?"

You don't have a father?

"Delhi! This is Bruce Adair. I've been intrigued by something you said the other morning and I'd love to explore it over dinner. My treat, of course. You don't have to call me back; I'll try you again. This is just fair warning."

What could I have said, sitting in the Literature Department, that would have encouraged Bruce to ask me out?

"Hi there, I'm calling about a book you have listed: Family Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. Can you tell me if the dust jacket price is in dollars or pounds? I want the book anyway, but I'm curious."

Reaching for a corner of the newspaper, I wrote down the book's name and replayed the message to get the phone number.

Another book message, leaving me credit card information. Some people still didn't like to send their numbers over the Internet.

The last voice began softly but increased rapidly in volume. "Mrs. Laine? This is Shara Patterson. Will you please call me, please? A policeman came and took Russell away! Will you call me please?"

They had arrested Russell Patterson! I dialed her number.

The phone was answered on the second ring.

"Yes, hello?"

"Shara? This is Delhi Laine."

"Yes!"

"What happened? You said the police came?"

"Yes, they came this morning." She sounded slightly calmer than her message had. "They took Russell away."

"Do you know why?"

"It was because of the fight. Devin told them about the fight!" Her voice shook with betrayal.

"What fight?"

Silence.

"You didn't tell me about any fight," I said in my guilt-provoking voice. It had worked when my children were small.

"It was on Friday," she said reluctantly. "Russell got so angry at Amil, I thought he would hit him! But Amil ran and got into his car."

"What happened then?"

"Russell got in his car," she admitted.

I had an unexpected image of a chase scene into Port Lewis, of Amil taking refuge in the bookstore and Margaret attempting to intervene.

"But Russell didn't hurt him!" she insisted.

"How long was he gone?"

"He came back right away."

I didn't believe her.

Why was she defending this bully? Because she was in a foreign country with a baby and no other means of support. Yet I knew very little about her marriage, her personal life, or her relationship with Amil. Actually I didn't know her at all. I wasn't even sure why she had called me. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Oh. No.,,

"Well, call me if I can."

"Yes." She hung up.

When I went out to the barn to check the dust jacket of Family Shoes, I deliberately did not look at my e-mail. Instead, I called the customer back, and left a voice mail for Hannah that it would be fine to charge her car repair. What else could I do? She needed the car to get to her summer program at Cornell, and Colin was paying her other expenses.

I settled in with my wine and pizza, but the serenity I had imagined had gone off somewhere else.

Russell Patterson ruined my sleep. The more I thought about him, the angrier it made me. His petulant anger, his spoiled-boy temper, had ended one life and ruined the other. Even if Margaret recovered, The Old Frigate would never be the way it had been. Why had he let himself lose control and kill Amil? At least, I thought vengefully, he would be in prison forever.

Once, when I jerked awake in the darkness, I thought about how, when I told him Amil was dead, he had pretended not to believe me. But it had probably been an act. Or maybe he honestly didn't think he had hit him that hard. Yet one niggling doubt remained. How had he even known about the book closet in the basement? And why would he put him down there and leave Margaret in the store still alive?

Burrowing into the too-soft mattress of the brass bed, le matrimoniale as Colin called it ironically, I realized, with daylight, that it was already Friday. Some of the weekend sales were starting today and I had not even looked at Newsday. Summer was the time to store up books for the winter when estate sales dwindled to nothing.

Yet I couldn't even imagine leaping out of bed and making a later start. How could I pretend life was the way it had been a week ago? I closed my eyes. When I was younger and things felt all wrong, I would escape into a book as fast as I could. I would put worlds between me and whatever else was happening. Surely there was something downstairs or in the barn ...

Like whiskey for breakfast, my father would have said. He was never dogmatic, never scolding; but when he used his favorite condemnation, "moral fiber like shredded wheat," you wanted to make sure it did not apply to you. My mother too would have tried to nudge me into doing the right thing. Although she could not knit without dropping stitches and made dinners only my father could love, she would have spent the day at Margaret's bedside, stroking her hand and offering encouragement. In the evening she would have folded Shara under her sheltering wing and given her fresh hope. Of course, if Patsy were here, she would have already solved everything: Return Margaret to consciousness-check! Set the police straight-check! Bring Amil back to life-check!

But despite the specter of my own failure, I still didn't move. There was something sinister about today, something unbearably sad, and I wasn't going to let myself think about it. The past was the past. Once the moving finger had writ, not all my wit, nor tears, could cancel out a word of it.

It was only the promise of coffee that finally roused me, though I assured myself that I could lie down on the chaise lounge by the pond to drink it and not think about anything. And by seven thirty A.M. I was lying there, watching snatches of orange fish flash in and out of chartreuse duckweed. Dressed in clean denim shorts and a SAVE THE MANATEES T-shirt, a gift from Hannah, I was listlessly staring at the Times crossword when I remembered Shawn. I needed to try to call him before he left for work!

Quickly I went into the barn and dialed the number Marty had given me.

"Yeah, hello?" It was the same voice! I pictured him finishing a breakfast of Pop-Tarts.

"Hi! This is Delhi Laine from Secondhand Prose? You called me last Friday about some books you were selling?"

"Yeah, right. But I'm not selling them now."

I felt a prickling along my neck. "How come?"

"I'm putting them on eBay. That's where the money is."

"But you sold some of them," I prompted.

"Nah, I just called around to see if anybody was interested."

"Are any of them children's books? The books you found?"

"Kids' books? Un-uh."

"You know. With pictures?"

"Nah. Look, I've gotta boogie."

"So you haven't sold any of those books to anyone," I persisted. "Not even to the lady in the bookstore?"

"No-eBay. I'm putting them on eBay. They're under my seller's name, Book Idiot."

He had that right. But maybe he'd said, "They're under my seller's name book, idiot!"

I said good-bye without clarifying it. Now I was thoroughly confused. I had been sure Margaret had gotten Sambo and other books from him. If he still had the book from the 1600s, I had been ready to make him an offer. But he sounded firm about eBay. And, to be honest, Shawn didn't sound like a person who would go to a bookstore and kill anyone.

No; that had been Russell Patterson.

What I needed to do was see Margaret at the hospital. On the way I would buy a Newsday and at least line up some sales for tomorrow. Should I tell her about the police arresting Russell Patterson? I wasn't sure how much she knew about Amil.

First, though, I had to check my e-mail. As I had feared, there was another message from [email protected]. This time the same large green letters said, YOU KNOW YOU NEED THE MONEY.

How? How did he know? I told myself to calm down, that everyone needed money. And if he had seen my Chevy van, he could have guessed. But Marty drove that vintage Cadillac with several dents, and The Bookie's Toyota was modest. So was the Hoovers' station wagon. More probably the writer had guessed that any used book dealer needed money.

Calming down slightly, I typed back, Who ARE you? I need to know who I'm talking to. I did not know how to trace the origins of messages and doubted that Hotmail would be especially cooperative. To be fair, except for the use of all caps, there was nothing threatening in the messages. I knew there were ways for people to bounce a message off an innocent third party. Unlike some people, I had no computer guru I could call on. Maybe it was time to find one.

I waited for several minutes, dawdling over my other messages, but there was no response.

I left for the hospital a few minutes before ten, stopping to buy Newsday and a cappuccino, and sitting in my car checking off tag sale ads. Then I drove to the hospital and parked, memorizing my van's location in the multilevel garage. Skirting the toll booth, I continued down the path to the lobby. This time I did not stop at the information desk for Margaret's room number.

When I entered room 617, Mrs. Cassidy glanced over from her television show. She was without visitors this morning. And the bed by the window had been stripped.

"Where's Margaret?" I cried.

"They moved her." Mrs. Cassidy returned her gaze to what appeared to be celebrity bowling.

"Moved her where? Is she okay?"

"If you call being in a coma `okay.' I don't."

"I meant alive. Where is she?"

"You'll have to ask her nurse. Or those policemen." She sounded angry.

But why would she be so upset about Margaret? I paused at the door. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay? No, I'm not okay! They can't get this damn disease under control so I'm going to lose a leg!"

"God. I'm so sorry."

"Try losing your leg." She began watching the television screen again.

I waited a minute longer, and then said good-bye and went to find Clarisse. The young West Indian woman was coming out of the nursing station carrying a small metal tray filled with medications.

"Clarisse?" I said.

"That's right." She studied me, her dark face bland, as if trying to remind herself who I was. Our cryptic conversation of yesterday morning might never have happened.

"You were Margaret Weller's nurse," I prompted. "She's gone?"

"Oh, right. She was moved first thing this morning."

"Moved to where?" I knew I sounded frantic.

"They wouldn't say. But the police want the names of anyone who comes in wanting to know where she is."

"Detective Marselli?"

"That his name?" Her expression cleared. "The one who looks like he swallowed a toad?"

I laughed.

She put a hand on my arm before I could leave. "What's this about?"

Didn't anyone but Jack Hemingway read the paper or watch the news? "Margaret owns a bookstore. She was attacked and her assistant was killed. I think the police are afraid someone will try and finish the job."

Clarisse nodded. "She sure was scared."

"Did she say why?"

"No, but I was watching the video screen with that police lady, and when anyone walked into the room she'd jump. She'd seem to be looking at them, ya know?" She made it sound creepy. "There's this man ... he calls every day to find out how she is. He won't tell me his name though. Just said he's her friend."

That was even creepier. "Anything special about his voice?"

She thought. "No. American. I'd know it if I heard it again." She had changed her voice and demeanor to that of Bill Clinton.

I laughed.

"He's easy. So is this guy" Sounding like George W. Bush, she said "I'm good with voices."

"Wow"

"Nurses need to be entertained." She resumed her own Caribbean lilt. "It's easier for me to hear differences, because I didn't grow up in the States." Then she frowned. "Do I need to take your name?"

"It's Delhi Lalne. I gave it to the policewoman yesterday. But the police know I'm trying to see Margaret whenever I can. I'm the one who found her after the attack." I didn't know why I added that, and I wished I could take it back. It sounded self-dramatizing, as if I were trying to be part of the story. "Margaret's one of my best friends," I apologized.

Clarisse tilted her head and gave me a thoughtful look. "She's one classy lady. You give her a hug from Clarisse when you see her."

"I will."

And then I had a terrible thought, one which should have occurred to me sooner.