According to Their Deeds (8 page)

“More than diverse.” John Borchard was studying him. “Oh, you must realize. It wasn’t antiques he was collecting. He collected people! He always was looking. For an interesting vase, for an interesting person. Maybe we should form a society, The Collected Works of Derek Bastien.”

“What an odd thought, Mr. Borchard.”

“Call me, John! Please! Those of us in it, we’d be quite a crew. What do the books on your shelves think of each other?”

“I think they get along,” Charles said. “They have a lot in common.”

“I wonder what we have in common, those of us in Derek’s collection. It would be interesting to know what caught his eye. I expect you’re quite an expert on books.”

“It is my work.”

“You have an interesting profession. That would make you collectable yourself, don’t you think? Do you understand my point?”

“I do. But of course, everyone chooses their own friends.”

“They do. To some extent. And why did you request this visit, Charles? Was it only to reminisce about Derek Bastien?”

Charles braced against the sudden swerve in direction. He frowned a thoughtful frown. “A little more than just that. It was to meet you. I know you were Derek’s boss, and his colleague. And I appreciate having had the opportunity. I know you must be very busy.”

“I am busy.” There was no urgency or busyness in his manner. He seemed very relaxed. “So why did I accept your request?”

“You’ve decided to start collecting antique books?” Charles asked lightly.

The effect was immediate. John’s smile sank into his teeth, and his eyes were pushed out by it. “Might I? Do you think I should? What are you offering?”

The force of the questions was more than necessary, an abrupt acceleration of the conversation. Charles was nearly knocked off-balance.

“Well . . . I have quite a few,” he said. “It would depend on your interests.”

“My interests. I have quite a few.” John was very intent. His smile had been momentarily forgotten.

“Then you might want to come in to visit.”

“I might.” Then John remembered to be jovial. “Now that’s intriguing. Absolutely!” He folded his arms and sank back into the deep chair. “I might. But I’m not sure if you’ve answered my question of why I wanted to meet you. The truth of it is that I was intrigued. You were a friend of Derek, the same reason you wanted to meet me.”

Charles adjusted to match John’s happiness. “As one specimen to another?”

“Yes, yes! That’s it. One specimen to another! It speaks volumes about his collection, doesn’t it? Ha! I apologize, Charles. No pun intended! And tell me, have you found any other of his specimens?”

“I had a short meeting with Karen Liu this morning.”

The eyebrows rocketed. “Well! Derek’s name opens doors, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve noticed that.”

“She’s an impressive person.”

“I was impressed.”

“With good reason. And she has been a great ally of the Department. I’ve greatly enjoyed working with her. She’s a good start, Charles, and I wonder who else you’ll encounter.” The eyebrows came down. “Anyway! It has been very interesting talking, Charles, absolutely so, and I’m very pleased you took the opportunity to call.”

“The pleasure has been all mine.”

“And I’ve done all the talking! It’s my habit to question people, I’m afraid. My old days as a prosecutor.”

“A prosecutor?”

“A life I led long ago. Back in Kansas.” Smile. “I will stop in at your business sometime.”

“I’m in Alexandria. Downtown.”

“Very nice. I haven’t been there in ages.” He was standing. “In the meantime, if there is anything I can do for you, please let my secretary know.”

“I will,” Charles said. “Although I don’t know what it could be.”

“We often don’t. And I do wonder what you mean, that I might start collecting. A very curious thought. I will think about it carefully.”

EVENING

Dorothy had steel in her soft blue stare. “What did Mr. Borchard think of you?”

“He thought well of me. I will tell you all about it.”

“Mr. Beale?” Alice flittered into their presence. “You have a call.”

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Edmund Cane.”

“Oh.” Charles looked to Dorothy.

“He’s called twice this afternoon,” Alice said.

“This will just take a moment.”

“Go ahead,” Dorothy said.

“Thank you, Alice.” He picked up his telephone. “This is Charles Beale.”

“Mr. Beale. This is Edmund Cane.”

“Yes, how do you do, Mr. Cane?”

“I am quite well. I am calling to inquire if you spoke with your employee, as we discussed? You thought perhaps he might have been watching outside the auction house.” At his slow, syllabic pace, the sentences took quite a while.

“Yes, I did speak with him,” Charles said. “I’m sorry I hadn’t called you back.”

“That is quite understandable. Did your employee have any information about the young woman who bought the desk?”

“Not really, I’m afraid. He thinks he may have seen her leaving the building and walking away, but it may not have been that person at all.”

“I see. Well, Mr. Beale, I am sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not at all. In fact, I would be interested myself to know who she was representing.”

“I am sorry I do not know.”

“I’ve become quite interested in that desk myself.” Charles was still looking at Dorothy as he spoke to Edmund Cane. “Perhaps you could tell me who you were representing?”

A short pause. “I’m afraid I can’t give you that information, Mr.

Beale.”

“Oh, too bad. Because I think I’m actually interested in knowing!

Maybe if I can find any information about the blond woman, we could trade.”

“I would . . . I don’t . . .” Mr. Cane was having difficulty answering.

“That would . . .”

“Then never mind,” Charles said. “Just a thought. But if I do find anything, I will certainly call you.”

“As you wish. Thank you for your time, Mr. Beale.”

“Thank you for calling, Mr. Cane.”

“Are you done with your calls?” Dorothy asked.

“I think so.”

“Are you going out to see anyone else?”

“Not right now,” he said.

“Then Charles, dear,” Dorothy said. “What is going on?”

“To tell the truth . . . I have no idea.”

“You have an idea.”

“All right, then, yes. I have an idea. Well . . . no, I don’t. I don’t know whether I do or not.” He paused. “There is an idea, I just don’t know what it is.” He paused again. “It’s not that I have an idea, it’s that an idea has me.”

“Just say it, Charles.”

“I think that you want a cup of coffee.”

“I think that I do. Would I need my jacket?”

“It’s quite pleasant out.”

“Will it still be when we come back?”

“The weather should still be, at least.”

She took her jacket, and he led her down the stairs.

“Have we sold anything?” he asked Alice.

“The whole set of Tom Swift books.”

Two feet of shelf was empty. “What a large space,” he said hollowly.

“It is,” she said, broadly.

“Have Morgan order a new set,” he said, commandingly.

“I did it right away,” she said, quickly.

The evening air was warm and floral. Pots and window boxes were the obvious sources, but there must have been whole gardens hidden behind the houses. The air was patched with the first fragrances of spring.

It was a short walk to the corner and a completely different fragrance.

“I love this smell,” Dorothy said at the open door.

“What would you like?” he asked.

“Something a little sweet.”

She sat, and Charles soon joined her, and they inhaled the dense bouquet of coffee and its café fellow travelers.

“Are you peaceful?” Charles asked presently.

“I think I am.”

“Good. That will help.”

“And I’m ready for you to begin.”

He took one more deep breath. “I am intrigued by the papers that Derek had hidden in the book.”

“Well, of course. Just ‘intrigued’?”

“Tottering on the edge of deeply disturbed.”

“What do you think they mean?”

“That is the point. I’ve decided not to jump to conclusions. I am going to follow the wind.”

“Then where has it led you?”

“Karen Liu and John Borchard are both important, busy people. Both of them dropped everything at Derek’s name and immediately welcomed me into their castles. Does that seem reasonable?”

“I have made my opinions on that known,” Dorothy said.

“Strongly. Why should they? Is it because I’m so interesting?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m not interesting?”

“You are very interesting, dear,” Dorothy said, with deep interest in him, “but they wouldn’t know it.”

“What a nice answer. So it must be because of Derek.”

“Derek couldn’t have been that fascinating.”

“I will tell you about the two meetings. My conversation with Ms. Liu was pleasant and energetic but didn’t tell me much except that she is quite a politician. My conversation with Mr. Borchard was more centered on Derek, and had a few sharp points, but was also not very informative. But both of them were undeniably interested in me.”

“Just because of Derek.”

“Kind of somewhat. The congresswoman particularly asked what I knew about John Borchard and what Derek had told me about him. John Borchard very particularly asked about my selling books to Derek.”

“Selling them?”

“And if I would recommend any to him. That was the part where Oz was the most great and terrible. Those points in both conversations were actually rather tense, and I felt like I was supposed to do or say something.”

Dorothy stirred her coffee. “What would they want you to do?”

“Whatever I must have come for in the first place.”

“But you didn’t go for any particular reason.”

“Not really. Just to meet them.”

“Well,” Dorothy said. “And because of those checks to Karen Liu.”

“And this is where it starts getting repetitive, doesn’t it? And by the way, between the two of them, Ms. Liu and Mr. Borchard, she doesn’t like him, he says he likes her, and they both thought Derek was wonderful.”

“They are politicians. Were they being political?”

“Surely they were. So, that’s where the wind has blown so far, and those are the windmills I’ve tilted at. And, to further tilt the conversation, there is, of course, Mr. Cane and the desk.”

With a sudden growl, a huge locomotive-shaped roaster in the front of the shop roared to life. A man dug a scoop into a burlap bag and began feeding the roaster coffee beans.

“Is Mr. Cane just following the wind, also?” Dorothy said, raising her voice to speak over the thunder.

“Perhaps he is marching to the breeze of a different summer. But I’m holding my finger to that wind, too. Why would two people want Derek’s desk so much, enough that the loser is pursuing the winner?”

“Where is that wind blowing?”

“Back through Norman Highberg, I’m afraid,” Charles said. “So I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Puffs of smoke escaping the roaster blew past them. “And any other winds?”

“There are four winds, aren’t there? And that’s just two. So the wind blows where it wants but we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.”

“You’re sounding biblical.”

Absently, he sipped his drink and looked deep into its swirls. “There’s a feel about this, Dorothy, and I don’t know what. Something deep and far-reaching. I want to not do anything wrong.”

“What could you do wrong?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes were on her now, looking deep. “But reading about that judge in the newspaper, I think about how easy it is to do something harmful.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

He smiled. “Never mind. I will just follow the wind and keep my eyes very open.”

“Don’t follow it too far.”

“It may lead to the Emerald City.”

“That’s the wrong metaphor, dear,” Dorothy said. “We are talking about the wind.”

“All right, then, it might lift your whole house up and carry it to another country.”

“If it gets that serious, you should talk to the police.”

“If you drop a farmhouse, you don’t know who it might land on. And you”—he pointed right at her—“should know that better than anyone.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. And Toto, too.” He looked at his watch. “I think if we linger a bit longer we can get back to the shop just in time to leave for the day.”

“
The Federalist Papers
. Charles, what was it about that generation? Every one of them could write.”

“They had something to write about, perhaps.”

“Revolution. I said it made for good literature.”

“You don’t like revolutions, Derek.”

“All right. I admit they have their uses. But they’re uncontrollable once they’re started and they create terrible vacuums. It took Europe nearly twenty years to rid itself of Napoleon. It’s all about power, Charles. However it starts—even whatever ‘it’ is—it always ends in the hands of the ruthless and powerful.”

“Not always.”

“You’re referring to George Washington? He’s underrated. He understood power, and it did end up in his hands.”

“For the good of the country.”

“Remarkably. But, Charles, he is an example. He had great power, founded on his prestige and success, and used it to good.”

“And then gave it up.”

“When he had accomplished his purpose. I appreciate his example. Rule by power is necessary and it could be used to good purpose even today.”

“Are you a monarchist, Derek?”

“I guess we can’t go that far. But within my own small sphere, it is an example I find very useful.”

THURSDAY

MORNING

“Mr. Beale?”

“Good morning, Morgan.”

“Good morning, sir.” His red hair was really too bright to be growing in a place so hidden from the sun. “I have an answer back from the person on eBay selling the
Odyssey
.”

“Yes, the hypothetical autographed first edition. What does he say?”

“He is moving and getting rid of stuff, and it was in a box.”