A Novel Death (9 page)

"Margaret's still in the hospital. Amil's not here"

His eyes slitted. "And she asked you to run the shop?"

"How could she? She's not even conscious! I'm doing it as a favor."

His eyes raised to heaven put me in the class of little old ladies who arrived with casseroles and hand-crocheted afghans. People who screwed things up and ended with a plaintive, "But I was only trying to help!"

"And you've been eating in here." His small nose wrinkled in disgust. "I smell tuna fish!"

"No, I haven't," I lied. It had been turkey with honey mustard and Swiss cheese.

"Well, you can leave now." As I stared at Howard, he added, "Margaret and I have an understanding to look out for each other. I'll lock up for her."

I didn't know what to say. Marty gave him a mulish glare.

"Will you be here tomorrow?" I asked.

"Of course not! I have my own shop to run. I just stopped by when I saw The Frigate was open. I'll stay until six o'clock."

I didn't like it, but what could I say? He and Margaret had the only bookshops in town and might well have had such an agreement. Technically he was the only one of us with retail experience.

I moved into the side office to get my purse. At least if I left now I would have a chance to mail Margaret's books. But when I came out with an armload of Priority Mail boxes, Howard glowered. "Where are you going with those?"

"I thought I'd try the post office."

"Leave them! You don't know what she wants done."

"Who do you think wrapped them-the book fairy?" As soon as I said it, Marty chortled, at something I'd never meant. "I mean, I wrapped these books. They've got to be mailed." The trouble was that now I didn't dare take the money for postage out of the cash register; Howard would accuse me of stealing. I would just have to charge it on my business credit card and get reimbursed.

Marty helped me carry the boxes outside. "He could care less about Margaret. He just wants a chance to search the place," he said grimly.

Don't all of you?

We stopped at my van and I slid the side door open. I was tempted to reassure him that Margaret would never leave such a valuable book in the shop. Yet as soon as I thought it, I remembered her talking once about a closet she had had installed during the renovations. It was state-of-the-art, fire-walled and dehumidified with its own temperature control, to keep truly rare books safe from sunlight, insects, and mildew. "Not that I have anything to put in it," she had joked. "Talk about overly optimistic!"

I didn't mention the rare-book closet to Marty.

I stopped at the post office to mail Margaret's books and then, on impulse, went to Wild by Nature to buy ingredients for a healthy dinner. But by the time I pulled into the driveway after a day that had started at four thirty A.M., I was in no mood to husk corn or broil salmon. Even lifting the lid off the container of salad bar greens seemed like too much work. Opening a can of Senior Friskies for Miss T and Raj, I listened to my messages instead. The second was from my older daughter, Jane.

"Hey, Mom. I'm calling because the cappuccino maker at our rental broke? And I know you have one you never use? Our ferry leaves from Sayville for Fire Island around five thirty and if you could meet us there with it, I'd appreciate it."

It was not what I wanted to hear. How like Jane to expect me to drive an hour round trip to deliver a coffeemaker! I glanced up at the schoolhouse clock. Thankfully, it was after six. How did she know I never used it, anyway?

But I had been a mother too long not to hear the marching band of guilt, its drumbeats in the distance. Jane never begs you for money the way Jason and Hannah do. She's entitled to a favor once in a while. And shouldn't you be happy to see your own child, even if it's only to hand off an appliance? Think of all those young professionals who will be caffeine-deprived in the morning.

The voice was relentless, even as I yanked out the bottle of Chardonnay. You can spend a whole day doing a favor for a friend and not even spare an hour for your child? Even if her sense of entitlement does remind you of your sister Patsy?

Would Jane still be waiting on the pier, looking the way she used to when I was late to pick her up from Brownies?

The final message told me. "Hey, Mom, I guess you're not home. So don't come! We won't be here. We have Lance's car, and we'll come over sometime to pick it up."

Her cheerful acceptance intensified my guilt, but I managed to pour a glass of wine and carry it out to the backyard chaise. I lay there drinking in the mellow summer night. Stella d'Oro lilies bloomed all around me and the hostas were sprouting antennae. As I watched the goldfish in the small pond to my left, I caught sight of a delicate creature, a tadpole, pressing up through the tiny green circles of duckweed. His brave new legs were stretched out behind him. The enchantment of the start of new life gave me the energy to make dinner.

When I finished eating, I called University Hospital again and insisted on being connected with the Intensive Care Unit. The floor nurse told me that Margaret was still unresponsive, but her condition had been downgraded to "Serious."

I supposed that was something to be thankful for.

I went out to the barn to catalog books, but couldn't concentrate. An annoying tape starring Howard Riggs began an endless loop. Why had I let him order me out of The Old Frigate? Margaret trusted me to work in the shop when she wasn't there; why hadn't I stood up to him? Marty would have backed me up. But instead we'd slunk off like two cats who had peed on the rug-leaving Howard to search the shop.

I jerked awake. It wasn't just Howard who could search the shop. All anyone needed to do was reach through the broken back door window and turn the lock. The outside passageway was so narrow that no sane person would use it. But sane people did not include book dealers. I had thought about getting the glass replaced, had even located the Yellow Pages in the office, but as the day got busier, I had forgotten it. But I could at least cover the window with cardboard temporarily and call the glass company in the morning. Maybe I would have to check what was in the climate-controlled book closet too, to make sure no one had gotten in.

In my line of work, cardboard and masking tape are easy to come by. I dropped a utility knife into my woven bag as well, and minutes later was behind the wheel of the van, fueled by my fury at Howard Riggs. Not only had he made off with Margaret's find, he had probably helped himself to the money in the till as well.

At the top of the hill, the sight of Port Lewis calmed me momentarily. It was a fairyland. Paper lanterns had been hung around the harbor and reflected soft colors in the water. Music floated into the street. Even the teenagers that were crouched at the base of the Unknown Lobsterman looked more wholesome than usual. Rolling down my window, I breathed in the sweetness of cotton candy, the salt tang of seawater, the pungency of fried shrimp.

Yet High Street, two blocks away, was as dark as any basement. I parked the van in front of The Old Frigate with no trouble. I wondered why The Whaler's Arms was deserted at this hour, and then remembered that it was closed on Monday. For a moment, I sat looking at the darkened windows along the street. Then I found the key to the shop's door on my ring and was starting to climb out of the van, when a flash of light shone from the fireplace area in the store. The next gleam was closer to the counter, and then the light disappeared.

I felt unable to move. Someone was in the shop now. I waited for another flash of light, but next there was a more diffuse glow that seemed to be coming from the middle room. Two different flashlights? Immediately I thought of the Hoovers. Paul and Susie's last name was actually Pevney, but people called them the Hoovers because of their habit of arriving at the end of sales when prices had dropped, and vacuuming up everything that was left.

I had talked to Susie two weeks ago after a sale, as she was leaning against their ancient station wagon that was already crammed with books. Paul was bringing out the last of the cartons.

"Looks like you did okay," I said.

"This morning? Not." She brushed dusty hands against a blue and orange Mets shirt that was starting to unravel at the bottom, her brown eyes sardonic behind round glasses. "All we can afford to do now is buy on the cheap. Paul thinks books are this wonderful investment. I'm the one who has to list them all on eBay."

"How's that going?" To have to describe each book and upload a photograph had to be tedious.

"It would be fine if I could do it twenty-four/seven. No, make that forty-eight/seven. Paul does the packing, and he's good about that. But we can't even pay the mortgage! Do you want our books if we end up on the street?"

"If you need some money..

But what was I saying? I had exactly three months before Colin made a final decision. If he decided to stop paying rent on the house, even a small reserve inherited from my parents would not get me a place for all my books. I could probably move into the barn, but not if I started lending people money. It was the kind of offer my father would have made back in the days when he had very little himself.

"No. But thanks. All we need is one good find. Something that's been overlooked by everyone else. It happens to other people-why not us?" She had been near tears.

I thought about Susie now, fortified by huge bags of M&Ms, working way past midnight to upload book descriptions. Why did we torture ourselves this way? Why not just get a job at Walmart or buy lottery tickets? The truth was, we were addicts. Addicted to the heft of a book under our fingers, the wonderful mystery of where it had been. And we were addicted to the hope that one of these days a book, a scrap of paper, a tattered pamphlet, would pay back our devotion by being worth more than we could have imagined.

I prayed that it wasn't the Hoovers inside, looking for a windfall to save them. But other booksellers had secrets too, stresses I did not know about. Howard Riggs couldn't be making a living in that barracks of a shop. Marty had a craving for important books that was close to an illness. His good friend Roger Morris, known professionally as The Bookie, was a dealer in black Americana. Who knew what he had to do to survive in a cutthroat world?

I commanded myself to calm down. None of the dealers I knew would steal books from an injured colleague. No, my cynic countered, but they might search the shop for the find that everyone else knows about. Wake up, Goldilocks, the bears are here.

Even though the July air was still muggy, I felt chilled. If people were in the front of the shop, I could not risk unlocking the door and stepping inside. Not with Margaret's head injury that seemed to have been caused by more than a simple fall. Much as I dreaded it, I would have to use the alleyway again and go in the back door.

Slipping the cardboard and tape into my woven bag, I climbed down, and then looked right and left on High Street. No one. Unfortunately.

The passageway between the bookstore and the gallery looked even narrower than before. Who would leave an opening between buildings only two feet wide? Reminding myself that at least this time I would not be pushed down by a nervous constable, I turned sideways and started through the tunnel, feeling rather than seeing the rough brick. Once, I stumbled where the ground sloped more steeply than I remembered, and caught myself, scraping my arm against the wall.

Reminding myself to breathe, I kept going.

When I burst onto the patio, I realized I had been picturing a small overhead light beside the door. But this area was nearly as dark as the alley. To my right, the ground dropped to a public parking area far below, planted in between with dense evergreens. In the brief headlights of a car that was leaving, I saw that the back door was partly open, the broken-out window like a missing eye.

I was infuriated. Who would have the gall to not even hide what they were doing? Moving across the cement apron, I pushed the door open all the way, stepped just over the threshold, and stopped. I strained to hear a sound, any noise at all, as my fingers skimmed the wall beside me. Where was that light switch? I remembered lighting the room from the opposite wall when I opened the shop yesterday, but I assumed there would be a switch by the back door as well. My fingers scrabbled nervously across the plaster.

It felt like the darkness was filled with people listening. Then, from the middle room there was a creaking sound: a shoe on a wooden plank.

"Hello," I called out. "Who's there?"

For a moment there was absolute silence. Then I heard feet again and the unmistakable tinkle of the bell above Margaret's front door.

They were getting away! Still, if I ran through the shop quickly enough, I might get a look at the car driving away. I started to run and had nearly reached the middle room when an arm snaked around my waist and a forearm crushed my throat. The arms held me fast, dragging me back toward the basement.