Book Club (2 page)

“His housekeeper called us,” Dockerty said. “She found him about an hour ago when she came in to clean. It broke her up bad. Doc Simms has her under sedation.”

“Poor Greta. She doesn't sleep here, does she?”

“She lives with her sister in town. She wasn't here when it happened; the Doc swears to that. He figures Fister was dead at least two hours when he examined him. Blunt-instrument trauma's probably cause of death, but he won't swear to it till the autopsy. I wanted you to see the body before I had it taken away.”

“No need. I took your word for it—he's dead.” Sharecross walked around the room, looking up toward the top of the shelves, where various objets d'art stood in the space between them and the ceiling.

“We thought of that,” Dockerty said. “Maybe one of those doodads fell off and hit him on the noggin. But there wasn't any on the floor, and the angle's all wrong. He was hit on the back of the head with something hard and heavy enough to cave in the skull. Whoever did it didn't leave it behind.”

“I wasn't looking for what killed him.”

“Then, what …?”

The bookseller stepped back to the body, placing the toes of his shoes in line with the soles of Fister's. “He stood here, a few yards inside the door. Either someone was waiting, possibly hidden behind the door, or it was someone he knew and trusted, at least not to attack him. The blow was struck from behind and he fell forward onto his face. Tell me if you think I'm wrong. I'm a bit rusty, I'm afraid.”

Rusty as a brand-new Swiss watch, the chief thought. “Works for me. I sure hope it was someone hiding behind the door, a burglar passing through. I wouldn't want to think we've got a murderer living here.”

“They have to live somewhere. What about that?” He pointed.

Dockerty followed the angle of his finger, but all he saw was a shelf about nine feet from the floor. He said so.

“There's a space between those two books.”

“There's spaces all over. I guess he didn't want to have to rearrange the whole library to make room for a new book. I'll be goldarned if I can figure out his system, but he must've had one. Mr. Fister was tidy about everything.”

“He arranged them chronologically, beginning with the earliest Spanish explorations all the way up to recent changes made by the state legislatures. But as you see, the spaces he left are wider, to accommodate several books at a time. This gap is approximately the width of two books of ordinary width, or perhaps one large one. It's the only example in the room, and it suggests a book's missing.”

“Maybe it belongs to one or two of the books on the desk.”

“No, I looked at those. They're reference works, common to the book trade. I have them as well. They're consulted so often it only makes sense to keep them handy rather than constantly be climbing the ladder to retrieve them; certainly not from a shelf so high up. I'm sure you know where I'm heading.”

“Well, robbery's a motive I can wrap my head around. You think he surprised somebody while he was stealing the book that belonged there?”

“If Lloyd came back unexpectedly, trapping the thief in the library, forcing him to hide behind the door and strike him just after he came in, that certainly suggests itself. It could just as easily be someone he knew; the moment he turned his back, the thief hit him, then stole the book.”

“I like the first theory, and not just because I don't want the killer to be one of ours. It makes it an act of desperation, not planning. He might have wanted just to knock him out so he could make his escape.”

Sharecross took off his glasses to wipe them with a handkerchief. Unlike the case with most nearsighted men, his eyes looked sharper when they were naked; he resembled an old and seasoned eagle.

“The only thing that argues against it is: What became of the weapon? It wasn't one of the objects in this room. I hardly think, having eliminated the threat to his freedom and acquired what he came for, he'd stop to put the weapon back. If, on the other hand, he brought it with him, it becomes a coldblooded act.”

“Fingerprints.”

“I was trained to think like a murderer. I'd wipe them off rather than take the chance of being seen on the street carrying a bronze vase or a marble bust.”

“DNA.”

“Possibly. As I said, I'm far from current.” He hooked on his spectacles. “Wasn't Lloyd interviewed recently by a television crew?”

“Yeah. Big to-do when a network van rolls into a town this little. Some kind of reality show like Hoarders, only high-end: rich collectors. It was what you call a pilot, hoping to become a series.”

“Not an unlikely procession. In many cases, the only difference between a wealthy bibliomaniac and somebody's mother-in-law living in an apartment full of old newspapers and empty pop bottles is the size of the investment.”

“Sort of a nutjob
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
.”

Sharecross looked pained.

“I'd hate to see that adjective applied to Lloyd. The reason I brought it up …”

“For once we're neck-and-neck. I'll see about getting that TV footage and we'll compare it to the crime scene. If the picture's sharp enough, we'll see what was in that gap—if Mr. Fister didn't overhaul the library in the meantime.”

“I doubt it. It looks the same as the last time I visited him, and as we've discussed, he had the foresight to prevent an extensive reorganization.” The bookseller's tone was wistful.

“Cheer up, Avery. One morning you'll hop out of bed, rarin' to give your place a good old-fashioned spring cleaning.”

“That's the pep-talk I've been giving myself for thirty years.”

“I can't believe it. I can't sleep nights thinking I'll be murdered in my bed.”

“Don't concern yourself, Birdie,” said Uncle Ned. “It ain't as if everybody in town ain't dreamt about it as long as they knew you.”

Carl Lathrup used his gavel. “That's enough of that, Ned. Miss Flatt has the floor.”

“She ought to take a mop to it now and again. I been stepping in the same wad of Billy Fred Muster's gum since I voted last.”

Billy Fred, chewing in the back row of chairs in the crowded town hall, shook his head. “That's a lie, you old coot. Lincoln's been dead since before gum was invented.”

“Pipe down, the both of you.” Birdie gave her girdle a mighty tug. “We used to have a nice safe town to raise our children in. The last week alone, the murder rate's gone up a hundred percent.”

“That's because last week it was zero,” Chief Dockerty pointed out. He stood near the door with his thumbs hooked inside his Sam Browne belt, his belly pushing out around them.

Lathrup pointed the gavel his way. “Since you feel like talking, Chief, maybe you can bring this special session up to date on the progress of your investigation.”

“Mr. Sharecross and me—”

“And
I
,” corrected Neil Bonn, principal of the elementary school and a substitute English teacher.

“Well, Mr. Bonn, I didn't know you was putting your heads together when I wasn't present.” Dockerty grinned. “Mr. Sharecross and I are expecting an express package from ZBC headquarters in New York City sometime today. The program director's sending us a DVD of that TV pilot they shot in Mr. Fister's library back in March. With any luck, it'll tell us what book the killer stole.”

“And what good will
that
do, I'd like to know?” asked Birdie. “While I'm at it, what's the purpose of inviting a shopkeeper into a homicide investigation? My nephew Roy, the Eagle Scout”—she stared around the room over the tops of her half-glasses, while the title sank in—” has a badge in tracking, and would seem to me the more appropriate choice, this incident being apparently beyond the talents of the police force we all pay taxes to support.”

Dockerty untucked one of his thumbs to rest that hand on his sidearm; not that he had any intention of blowing Birdie Flatt out from under her Dolly Parton wig. “Apart from his background, which we all seem to keep forgetting, Mr. Sharecross knows books. Once we've established
which
book Mr. Fister was killed for, he'll be able to narrow down the suspects to those collectors who specialize in that particular area. Even if the killer wasn't one of them, they'd be the ones he'd approach to sell the item. I'll be talking to them all.”

“I hope you're right, Chief.” Gordon Tolliver, publisher of
The Good Adviser,
rose to his considerable height. “I'd like to feature some good news for a change; something more diverting than Sherm McDonough's quest for pre-Colombian Indian arrowheads.”

“As opposed to pre-Colombian
European
arrowheads,” put in Neil Bonn, who taught American History in a pinch.

“Go ahead, make fun.” Sherm McDonough left off plucking cockleburs from his socks to address the congregation. “I've got an offer of a thousand bucks from the Smithsonian for a Clovis point I found up on Superstition Overlook.”

Lathrup rapped the podium. “We're drifting away from the reason for this gathering. Where
is
Avery Sharecross?”

“Oh, he's busy,” Dockerty said. “Nobody ever accused Avery of laziness and sloth.”

“Busy doing what?” pressed the head of the council. “Sifting through clues, analyzing evidence, interrogating suspects? The citizens of Good Advice have a right to know how their trust is being invested.”

The chief returned his thumb to his belt, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I can't answer for him right this minute, but when I talked to him this morning he was rearranging his inventory according to the Dewey Decimal System, whatever that is.”

“There!” Sharecross gripped Andy Barlow's shoulder, making the deputy chief wince. He hadn't much more flesh in that area than the bookseller had in his whole body—which Chief Dockerty could lose from his middle without anyone noticing.

Andy hit PAUSE. The picture on the computer monitor in Dockerty's office froze.

“Can you zoom in?” Sharecross asked.

“Sure.” Andy played an adagio on the keys. The shelf in question filled the screen.

“We lucked out there.” Andy reached back to knead his bruised flesh. “Not all of the TV networks have gone over to Blu-Ray. Ten years ago this would've been on videotape, and good luck identifying the printing on the spine from Mrs. O'Leary's cow.”

Sharecross shushed him, sliding his thick spectacles down to the tip of his long nose, back up to the bridge, and back down halfway, like a Chinese cleric manipulating beads on an abacus. At length he straightened, returning them to their customary place.

“Something?” Chief Dockerty was a patient man, but he and the bookseller seemed to live in parallel universes where the value of time fluctuated like foreign currency.

“L'Exploration d'Descubrimientos en Nuevo Espano.
Gentlemen, I'm dumbfounded.”

“Me, too,” Dockerty said. “I don't know if you're speaking Latin or Swahili.”

“Castilian Spanish; in which I assure you I am no expert. Roughly translated, it's
The Exploration of Discoveries in New Spain;
published, if memory serves, in Madrid in 1545.”

Dockerty whistled. “Anything that old's got to be worth something.”

“Not necessarily. Age is not a factor in evaluating a book; if it were, every ancient family Bible in North America would be worth thousands; but no one ever throws them away so they're common as clothespins.

“Nor is rarity, although this particular item certainly qualifies. I doubt more than ten copies were issued, handset in wooden type for the court of Philip II of Spain. Condition is of ten a factor, but not in this case: Missing its covers, and even significant pages from the text, would hardly affect its value. Demand, gentlemen; that thing that drives capitalism tips the balance in this circumstance. I know of ten billionaires who would bid energetically against one another to lay hold of
L'Exploration
in any condition and, from what I see here, this copy is complete, and as close to pristine as you're ever likely to find.”

“This is a murder investigation, not a meeting of your book club. Come to the point this side of when they invented gunpowder.”

“Actually, the
Conquistadors
were well-equipped in that—”

“Avery!”

“Sorry. If I were the murdering kind, I would certainly give it proper consideration in this case. This book was written by Hernando Cortez, conqueror of Mexico. Considering the paucity of copies and the stature of the individuals to whom it was presented, it's more than likely Cortez delivered them in person. He would have held this book in his hands.”

Dockerty slid his Stetson to the back of his balding head.

“I don't see it myself, but I can understand where some folks might covet it at whatever the cost. Give me a list of those folks and I'm on the way.”

“I'll get right on it. Verne Platt knows his way around the computer at the library. He can Goggle—”

“Google,” corrected Andy.

“He can Google the title and find out who's most interested. This could make your career, Chief. The suspects must have access to millions in cash.”

“I like my career as it is. Nice town, decent wages, four acres I can grow sunflowers and entertain my grandchildren, when we have 'em. Be a nicer place with one less murderer in it.”

“You're a good man, Chief.”

“You sell him this book?”

“I wish I had; I could have retired, if I hadn't already from the police department. He must have found it on the Net, despite his distrust of it, or on one of his buying trips. I'm surprised he didn't share the discovery with me. Half the fun of collecting is rubbing other collectors' noses in your best acquisitions.”

“Maybe he'd just got it.”