A Novel Death (23 page)

This is how it happens. There are years of predictability, everything just as expected. You assume that nothing will change. Then one day you leave your car unlocked as usual, or get on a plane, or bring coffee and a bagel to your desk on the ninety-fifth floor. You doze off on a bench in the English countryside. Or you sit isolated in an old barn with the doors locked, but the large-paned windows are flimsy enough for anyone to break one and get inside.

A jumble of thoughts. Hide under the desk. Call 911! As I reached toward the phone, there was the scrape of a foot on the concrete apron. Someone tried the door latch. And then they rapped politely on the door. I stopped in my half crouch. Did killers knock? It was a soft but urgent rapping, three quick taps. Perhaps it was Frank Marselli with more questions? Or some book dealer I knew? Call 911 just to be safe?

Yet remembering my terror in The Old Frigate when it had only been Roger Morris, I pushed myself up slowly. I ignored the image of someone setting fire to my books one at a time.

"Who is it?" I called out when I was close to the door.

"It's me." A woman's voice.

Leaving the chain on, I pulled back the door and almost screamed.

A tall, dim shape, and then Margaret smiling apologetically. Her unbound hair fell lankly around her face. "Delhi? I didn't mean to scare you!"

"No, no." But she had. Was she real? She didn't look real. Was this the visitation people talked about after someone had died? I felt thrown back into the story, "The Monkey's Paw," in which one of the old father's three wishes was that his son would come back from the dead. But when the father opened the door and saw the terrible apparition, he slammed it shut and used up another wish reinterring his child. Next I felt transported to Salem's Lot where the dead returned as vampires, familiar yet horribly strange. It made me think-but this was my friend!

"Wait," I cried, and then closed the door to slide off the chain and reopened it again. She stepped over the old threshold and we hugged. Not a ghost but a solid body, a body wearing an olive-checked shirt and navy linen pants, though very pale. "What are you doing here? How do you feel?"

"I'm fine. Really, I'm fine." We moved back to the desk, into the light, and she half-perched on the table, bracing herself with one slender leg.

I stood on the other side facing her, trying to put it all together. "But-I thought you were in a nursing home!"

"I was. But the whole idea was ridiculous."

"But ... when did you come out of the coma?" And then I understood what Clarisse had been trying to tell me. Margaret had been conscious, at least toward the end. "So you know about Amil?"

She sighed. Her skin was pulled taut around her nose and mouth, giving her an almost grotesque look. Was she real? "The police were talking about it. But I can't remember anything."

"That's not unusual with a head injury," I sympathized. "But I'm so glad to see you talking! I was so afraid ..."

"Delhi, I feel so guilty! If he hadn't come back to apologize, he wouldn't have been in the store when we were robbed"

"Is that what happened? You were robbed?"

"I-yes, but it's so confusing. I keep seeing this one guy in my mind, kind of stocky with curly red hair. But I can't remember anything else."

"You saw him?" It had been Russell! I had to let Frank Marselli know right away. "So they were after money? And not the book?"

"The book?"

"Little Black Sambo? And your other finds?"

She seemed to recoil. "No! They just wanted money. Why would you think they were after the book?"

Didn't she know how valuable it was?

She sighed as if reading my thoughts. "Delhi, I did something really stupid. I called Marty to see if there were specific reference works, price guides for black interest. Because of Sambo. And he wasn't even curious. He acted so patronizing, like I was this old lady bookseller who was so obviously past it, that I-" Her green-gold eyes met mine sheepishly. "I couldn't help dropping a hint or two that I had something really valuable. Then he was all over me, of course."

I laughed. "He has the same affect on me. Like I have to prove I'm good enough to swap stories with him. But where did you get it, anyway?"

"Oh, Delhi, it's complicated. And it's not as valuable as you think. But I've come to pick it up."

"Margaret, I don't have it!"

Before I could explain, she swayed with shock. I thought she would fall and I reached toward her.

"No, no, it's safe. But I was afraid someone would try to steal it from me, so I sent it somewhere to keep it safe"

"It's not here?"

She was not as well as she thought she was.

"It's somewhere very safe. I can get it for you Monday. But I was getting these weird e-mails about it and I was afraid they'd try to steal it from me."

She gave her head a quick toss, like a dog ridding itself of water after a dousing. "Doesn't matter. You can send it to me."

"I'll bring it to you."

"No, I'm going to my sister's cottage for a few days. I've got to try and sort everything out."

"Lily had a cottage?"

"No, no, Eileen. On the Jersey shore."

My Sister Eileen.

"But what about the shop?"

"What about it? It's ruined-Amil was killed there! Anyway, I can't afford it anymore. When I did the renovations, I had no idea that chains like Borders and B&N would be moving in. Or that the Internet would take so much business away."

"I know. I'm sorry." And I was. Even though I had not created the Internet, I had jumped on its shining back and galloped away. I was one of the people who had helped kill The Old Frigate.

"Silly, I don't blame you."

"Anyway, the store's not ruined," I argued. "You'll get past this. People count on its being there. You've got Little Black Sambo to help with the bills. Do you have any idea what it's worth?"

She gave me a penetrating look. "Do you?"

While I scrambled for an answer, she added, "Forget the bookstore. Tell Howard Riggs he can have the stock."

"No! Everything will work out. But you have to tell the police about the red-haired man!"

"I did."

"Good. But how are you getting to your sister's?"

She gave me a teasing smile. "Car?"

"Margaret, you can't drive. You're just getting over a head injury. You were in a coma!"

"Delhi, I'll be fine" She reached over and patted my arm, as if reassuring a child. My mentor again.

"Do you remember anything else? Like the ladder breaking?"

"What ladder?"

Ah. "It looked like you had been climbing up the ladder in the middle room when the rung broke and you fell backward."

"I wasn't near any ladder. I was at the counter with Amil. They made us open the cash register and took the money. Then they attacked us"

It seemed to be coming back to her more. "Maybe that's the last thing you remember. But the money was still there when I went in Monday, and someone had moved you into the middle room. And Amil," it was hard to say, "they put him downstairs in the basement closet."

"In the closet?" The overhead barn light threw a gaunt shadow across her face. I wondered if I looked grotesque to her too.

"I know it's confusing. Why don't you stay here tonight? You can't leave till tomorrow anyway."

"Thanks, but I want to be home. It's been almost a week!"

That made me think of something else. "Was Lily really moving to Atlanta?"

She gave me the coldest look I have ever seen, imperious and frightening. As if I were a child questioning an adult in authority. "Who said that?"

I didn't answer.

"Delhi? Who told you that?"

I could have lied and said it was on the news. Or risked her wrath by saying I had seen Lily's empty closets. "The police asked me about it."

She nodded grimly, as if it was just what she would expect. And then she was moving away swiftly. Before I could call her back, she was out the door.

But it was all wrong. As the sound of Margaret's Volvo died away, I knew I should have never let her leave. Our usual connection had been missing, and that had thrown me off. She thought she was fine; I knew she wasn't. What if she tried to drive to New Jersey tonight?

Locking the barn, I climbed quickly into the van. At least she said she was going home first. I could drive her to her sister's cottage in the morning-if the police agreed that she could go. Would they be able to protect her as easily in another state?

When I parked at the edge of the green sloping lawn, Margaret's silver Volvo was not in the driveway. I hoped it was because she had stopped at the supermarket for food. But I was too restless to just wait and walked over to the front porch. I knocked on the carved oak door in case she was home and had garaged her car, and then peered through the lace panel covering the oval. The irony of looking through another glass door hoping to see Margaret was not lost on me.

But this time I saw nothing but the polished oak floor under beautiful woven rugs and the curving staircase to the bedrooms on the left.

Deciding to wait in the van, I retreated back down the stairs. But I had not even reached the bottom step when a voice from the darkness snapped, "Hold it!"

I know I screamed, though it was more of a startled yelp than a serious cry for help.

"Over here." Detective Marselli did not apologize for scaring me, as he stepped out from behind a tall rhododendron. "Ms. Laine."

I sighed. "Margaret's not back yet?"

"Back from where?"

"She was just at my house."

"She was at your house? Doing what?"

"I had a book she wanted."

He snorted at that, but his laugh was not good-humored. "Did she tell you why she left the nursing home?"

"You mean she wasn't discharged?"

At that moment, a powerfully built, gray-haired policeman approached us, a frowning man who looked ready to bend a steel bar. He glanced at Frank Marselli, excluding me. "Ms. Weller?"

"No. But she was just with her. She was at her house"

"Damn! So where is she now?"

"I don't know," I answered him. "She said she was coming back here."

"She was talking to you?"

"Well, she was confused about some things."

They were both watching me closely. "She tell you anything about that night?"

"Yes! That a red-haired man was there. But I think she already told you that. And the last thing she remembers is being by the cash register, not the ladder."

"What else?"

"I'm not sure. But-Russell Patterson! How would she even know what he looked like if she hadn't seen him? I don't know if he was the one she was afraid of though"

"Why do you think she's afraid of someone?"

"Well, that's what Clarisse-her nurse in the hospital-told me. And I could sense it myself."

"You interviewed her nurse?"

"No! We were just talking when I went to see Margaret. She thought she was afraid of someone coming into her room. I guess she didn't tell you?" My voice trailed away.

"Maybe we should let you run this case" But he waved a hand to indicate he had already moved on. "Ms. Weller has been making herself very scarce where we're concerned" He turned to his partner. "Remind me never to use that nursing home again. All the trouble we went to, then they didn't even know she was gone for two hours! Didn't even notice she was wearing clothes that would have fit a midget." He shook his head, returning his gaze to me. "Tell me exactly what Ms. Weller said to you. Everything."

It was hard to remember sequences, it had been so disjointed. But I tried.

"She didn't tell you where on the Jersey shore?" Marselli asked for the third time.

"No. I didn't even know about this sister."

"Probably miles away by now," the bodybuilder muttered.

"She wouldn't go without Sambo. The book," I added hastily, as his eyes widened at this new traveling companion. "She said she'd let me know where to send it."

Another shared look, then Marselli turned on me. "If Ms. Weller contacts you in any way, you're to let me know immediately. Immediately! Don't mail her any books. Call the precinct, and they'll page me. Three o'clock in the morning? I want to know."

"Okay. I mean, I will."

"You will call me. As soon as she gets in touch with you" He looked at me as if he wished he had a tattoo to press across my forehead.

"I will." I would.

"You can go now." As if he had summoned me there!

I hesitated. I had more questions.

He turned his back on me.

I left.

It was a steamy night with no air in the bedroom. I slept horribly, jerking awake once in terror, startled by the menacing shapes of the dresser and the rocking chair. Even though the intruder outside the barn had only been Margaret, the adrenaline had not dissipated. In one dream I was at the Jersey shore, a child playing "Whacka-Mole" at a boardwalk booth. As each brown plastic head protruded, I smashed it rapidly with the rubber mallet to earn points. Except that the moles became larger and uglier, until at last they had the faces of people. Before I could stop myself I had whacked Margaret with my mallet and screamed in horror as blood spurted out of her eyes.