Hoarded to Death (A Jamie Brodie Mystery) (11 page)

"Do you know anyone who knows him?"

"Personally? I don't believe so. But I can make contact. The information is probably on their website."

I watched Conrad lock the book in the vault area. We left the cage, took off our masks, and went back to Conrad's office. Conrad clicked to open the web browser on his computer and found the Book of Kells website. Under "Contact Us," there was a telephone number and an email address. He nodded in satisfaction, then turned to me. "I will call them tomorrow." He looked at his watch. "It is already 5:30 pm in Dublin, and I doubt that I will find anyone there at this time. I'll come in early tomorrow morning to make the call." He smiled at me. "You may join me, if you like."

"Oh, I like. I definitely like." I grinned. "What time are you thinking about?"

"If we call at 7:30 am, it will be 3:30 pm there. That should suffice. Can you be here that early?"

"I'd be here even if you were going to call at two in the morning."

He laughed. "Fortunately, that won't be necessary." He reached out to shake my hand. We were officially co-conspirators. "I'll see you in the morning."

While I ate lunch I studied my copy of the torn manuscript page, trying to translate the words. I wasn't getting very far. I took the page with me to reference, in case we had a lull and I was able to work on it some more. But there was no lull; we were busy. At 1:30, Clinton appeared. He had to wait a few minutes. Finally we got the three students ahead of him squared away, and he approached the desk.

"Hi, Clinton."

He regarded us gravely. "The word of the day is
abet
." He bowed, but he didn't walk away.

Liz and I looked at each other, then back at Clinton. It was the first time he'd given us a fairly simple word. And the first time he hadn't immediately turned and left after his bow.

To our utter shock, he moved a step closer to the desk, ducked his head down a bit, and spoke again. "To provide assistance."

Our mouths were hanging open. I nodded slowly. Clinton took another step, lowered his head a bit more, and looked directly at me. "I can provide assistance in finding the answers you seek." And he nodded at the copy of the manuscript page that I'd been studying.

"Okay." I was stunned, but completely intrigued. "Can you meet me back here at 3:00?"

"I can and will." And with that, Clinton turned and walked away.

Liz and I looked at each other. Liz finally came to her senses. "
What?
"

I shook my head. "I guess I'll find out."

At 3:00, Clinton returned. We walked in silence up to my office. Liz was dying to join us, but had to go to a meeting. I unlocked my office door and ushered Clinton in. "Please. Sit."

"Thank you." Clinton looked around with interest. "Your office is aesthetically pleasing."

"Thank you. I like it." I sat behind my desk and laid the copied page on the desk between us. "What do you know about this?"

Clinton regarded me serenely and folded his hands across his abdomen. "Perhaps I should first introduce myself."

"Of course. Please do." This was getting weirder by the minute.

"My name is Clinton Kenneally. I am a former Benedictine monk."

Whoa
. "You read Latin."

"Indeed. I also spent years in the study of illuminated manuscripts." He gestured to the copy lying on the surface of my desk. "I believe I can be of assistance in the interpretation of...this."

I shook my head in wonder. "I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me."

Clinton smiled benevolently. "You are a bright spirit, Dr. Brodie. I come to the library at the time I do in order to visit you and Ms. Nguyen. It is often the highlight of my day."

I grinned. "It's often the highlight of ours, too. You've expanded our vocabularies greatly."

He tipped his head slightly in acknowledgement. "I am pleased to serve." He reached out to the copied page. "May I?"

"Of course."

Clinton picked up the page and examined it. "These words are from the Gospel of John. Chapter 19, to be specific. They speak of the burial of Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea."

"Chapter 19." I remembered that Kendall had said that he thought the torn section was from chapter 19. "So..."

"Yes." Clinton glanced up at me. "It is one of the same sections that is missing from the Book of Kells."

I was almost afraid to breathe. "Do you think...this could be one of the missing pages?"

He scrutinized the copy. "The script is in the insular majuscule style of the Book of Kells itself."

"I thought it looked similar, and so did our special collections librarian, but neither of us have training in that area. But it could be, say, an art student's project, or something along those lines."

"It could." Clinton laid the page back down. "Although, if that is the case, it is a
very
well done project." He looked at me intently. "Very close to what the original would have looked like."

I nodded. I had a decision to make, and I was going to make it right now. "We’ve found a second page like this one, intact this time, and put it into the vault in our special collections area. Would you like to see it?"

Clinton had been perfectly composed, but now he sucked in a breath. "I would. Very much."

“Okay. Let me call the special collections librarian and see if he’s available.”

He was. I guided Clinton down to the basement and introduced Clinton to Conrad; Clinton bowed over Conrad’s hand. Conrad was a little taken aback, but pleased by the formality.

Clinton expanded a bit on his background to Conrad. He’d joined the Benedictines as a young man, after graduating from St. Martin’s University in Washington State with a major in history and a minor in English. He had spent thirty years in the order, most of them at an abbey in Oregon, but he had traveled extensively in Europe, studying illuminated manuscripts. He had retired, appalled and disillusioned when the sex abuse scandals had started breaking in the Catholic Church, and moved to LA to live with his sister. He couldn’t afford to travel any more, but spent his days in various libraries around the city, reading to kids at the public libraries and studying subjects that interested him at the academic libraries.

And improving the vocabularies of two very lucky UCLA librarians.

Clinton and Conrad hit it off famously. I had to remind them what we were there for.

“Ah, yes.” Conrad led us back to the controlled area and let us in. We put on masks and gloves, and Conrad guided us to the drawer and opened it.

Clinton sucked in his breath. “Oh my.” He gently slid his gloved hand under the page and lifted it. “This is exquisite.” He studied the page. “This is a passage from the twentieth chapter of John. After Jesus’s resurrection, he appears to the disciples, and Thomas doubts.”

I said, “So it might be the page right after the fragment that the police found.”

“Yes.” Clinton’s face was glowing. “Do you know that the monastery at Iona, where the Book of Kells was written, was a Benedictine abbey?”

“No. Is it still?”

“No, the abbey was closed after the Scottish Reformation. But a spiritual community still exists there.”

“I’d love to visit some time.”

Clinton smiled at me. “You should. It is quite lovely. And it is the burial ground for many Scottish kings. As a historian and a man of Scottish descent, you would appreciate it.”

Conrad cleared his throat. “Brother Kenneally, what do you think about the origin of this page?”

Clinton nodded. “I believe that it is possible. That this may truly be what it appears to be.”

Conrad looked at me. “Perhaps it
is
time to contact Trinity College.”

Clinton looked back and forth between Conrad and me. “I believe that is warranted.”

I got to work an hour early the next morning and went straight to the basement. Conrad placed the call to Trinity College and spoke to a member of the staff of the Book of Kells’s curator. The woman transferred us directly to the curator’s office. Conrad introduced us, then told the curator what we thought we had.

The curator was silent for a moment. Stunned speechless, I was guessing. Then he said, “My goodness.”

Quite possibly the understatement of the century.

“Indeed.” Conrad was all business this morning. “What would you recommend that we do next?”

The curator agreed that someone from his staff should come and examine the page. He suggested that he send his assistant. If she thought it was worth further investigation, she would make arrangements to transport it back to Dublin. “There is no claim from your university on the document?”

“No. We’re just serving as the storage facility. The document was found in the belongings of a young lady, a relative of Dr. Brodie’s as a matter of fact, in a closed box of books that she had inherited from an elderly friend. We have no idea of the provenance.”

“Very well.” The two men made arrangements to set up the assistant curator’s visit, right after the New Year. So the manuscript page would be resting at UCLA for the holidays.

I called Eckhoff and let him know. He said he’d told Belardo about the second page. Since there weren’t any clues from the page we’d found to the identity of the murder suspect, Belardo wasn’t interested.

Fine by me.

Saturday morning, Pete went off with Kevin and Abby early for a hike. At 9:30 on the dot, Eckhoff showed up at the door. He was dressed similarly to me, khakis and a polo shirt, except he was wearing a sportcoat too. Necessary to hide the shoulder holster, I guessed.

I invited him in while I got a bottle of Coke from the fridge. He looked around, appreciatively. “This is nice.”

“Thanks. Pete inherited it.” I grabbed the keys and followed Eckhoff out to his car, a Civic that was his personal vehicle. “What name do you want to use as your alias?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. Something common, that would be easy for you to remember. We can use my real first name.”

I thought for a minute. “Williams.” My college boyfriend’s last name. Why was
that
the first name that occurred to me?

“Okay, sounds good.” We got in the car, and he handed me a list. "These are all of the dealers in town that might handle a manuscript like this. Any thoughts on where to start?"

I pointed to Kendall's name. "I know this guy; he's the one that I already visited. We can go back there first and see if he's heard anything. After that, it doesn't matter. Do you want to save Brashier for last?"

"Yeah." Eckhoff looked at the addresses. "Brashier’s in Brentwood. After we see your friend, we can head out to Porter Ranch and then work our way back this direction."

So we did. It was a long day. We stopped in to see Kendall first; he still hadn't heard anything about a manuscript but was keeping his ear to the ground. At the other shops, we generated quite a bit of interest, but no information. No one had heard of any pre-tenth century manuscripts coming available, but they'd be sure to let us know if they did. Eckhoff had given me a cheap cell phone with a new number and business cards with the number that we were leaving with each of the dealers. If they did hear anything, they'd call me (in my role as the university’s representative) and let me know.

And so it went, until finally it was time to see Quentin Brashier.

Brashier was a small man. His gray hair was just a little longer than you'd expect for a man in his fifties wearing a suit, but it was perfectly styled, curling just over his collar. He was wearing a pinstriped navy suit, a white shirt that I thought was probably silk, and a red and blue striped tie. He wore a tie pin and cuff links. The first word that jumped into my head was
dandy
. An old fashioned word, but one that worked in this situation.

He had a bearing that said,
I am a superior being, but I shall condescend to greet you, as you may amuse me.
Pretty amusing, coming from such a short guy. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a Napoleonic uniform.

He glided up to the entrance where we stood. “May I help you?”

I stuck out my hand just to see what he'd do. He gave me the fingertip handshake.
Yuck
. “I'm Dr. Jeremy Brodie, from UCLA Libraries. I'm looking for illuminated manuscripts.”

“Ah.” His interest was piqued. “Is the university looking for items for its collection?”

“If an item would be of enough value to the collections, it might be possible. Right now we're just trying to get a sense of what's available.”

“I see. Come in, please. I am Quentin, and this is my associate, Paulo.”

Associate, my ass
. Paulo looked barely legal. He was dark haired, long lashed, and wearing a touch of mascara. He wore a skin-tight, midriff-length white t-shirt and equally skin-tight pale denim jeans. He gave me a fingertip wave from across the counter and licked his lips suggestively.

Oh brother.

Brashier missed the little gestures. I thought that was probably a good thing. He stepped behind the counter and consulted a laptop computer that was sitting on it. “Let me see what we have available.” He typed in a search term, then looked at me. “Is there a particular era in which you are interested?”

“Not in particular. But the older, the better. Of course.”

He chuckled a little. “Of course.” He hit enter, and we waited for a second while the search ran. Paulo had come up to where we were standing. He was almost leaning on Brashier, but was making eyes at me. I frowned at him.

“Ah. Here we are. We have several pieces that may interest you.”

I pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Here is a fifteenth century manuscript from Milan. Originally from the Borghese collection. And here is a fourteenth century piece from a monastery in the Rhine Valley. Very nice. And - aha! - here is a twelfth century item, from Canterbury.”

I was making notes. “Those all sound interesting. But...don't you have anything older?”

He glanced at me, then his gaze skittered away nervously. “Older?”

“Yes. Pre-tenth century, in particular.”

“Ah, well, let me take another look...” Quentin looked a bit flushed. Paulo was leaning over his shoulder and Quentin shook him off. Paulo made a pouty face and then made a flirty face at me. Good God.