Murder at the 42nd Street Library: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Book) (8 page)

He needed the letters Nelson had written to Emily. She hated her father, so if he could find her, he might persuade her to sell him the letters. That sort of thing worked with estranged family members before.

“That’s a stupid plan,” Laura Lee said. “She hates your guts. Why would she give you anything, even for money?”

“She hated Jim Donnelly, too, and she talked to him.”

“Says your little groupie?”

Here it was again, another hint that Laura Lee knew about him and Kay. Yet she’d never said anything, or even asked, only the snide remark.

“Perhaps you should talk to Emily. It might not be so good for me to see her.”

“A lot of good that would do. The little slut was fucking my husband. You think she’d talk to me?”

“She knew you were going to leave him.”

“How’d she know that, pillow talk with you?” Laura Lee’s laugh was contemptuous. “Both of you fucking a fourteen-year-old—”

Max expression was aggrieved. “That was before you … before—”

Laura Lee rolled her eyes. “Stop whining. It drives me crazy.”

They were eating dinner, delivered from a local Italian restaurant, sitting across from each other at the small dining table in the short-term apartment on West 85th Street Wagner had rented for the three months he planned to spend with Yates’s papers.

“By the way, your librarian friend wants me to persuade you to forget that incident with Kay’s new boyfriend.”

He fought back a rush of anger before he said something stupid. Laura Lee was trying to goad him into saying something about Kay. What did he care what Kay did? He shouldn’t have let it get to him, yet she was hanging all over that punk right in front of him. Thinking about them, he got angry all over again. “Why should I?”

“So you don’t look like jealous idiot,” she said, not looking at him. “He also asked about you and Donnelly.”

He stopped eating. “Why? What did he want?”

“I’ll find out when I talk to him again.” When she looked at Max now, her smile was mocking.

He put down his knife and fork. “He’s no fool, you know.”

“Neither am I.”

Wagner cleaned up the dishes after dinner, throwing out the leftovers. He finished the wine by himself, while Laura Lee went to bed to read, staring out the window at the wall of the building next door. He didn’t like Ambler questioning her. She thought she’d outwit him as she did everyone, underestimating him. It would do no good telling her that or not to talk to Ambler. She’d do the exact opposite.

*   *   *

“‘Chickens coming home to roost’ … what the hell does that mean?” Mike Cosgrove thundered. Ambler heard street noises, the sounds of the city, horns, the diesel whine of buses starting up from the curb, the thump and clang of trucks on the potholed street, behind his voice on the phone. The detective was irritated by the traffic.

“Well, it actually doesn’t have much to do with chickens—”

“I know what it means! What am I supposed to make of it?”

“You asked me to call if I came across anything. Nelson Yates characterized James Donnelly’s murder as ‘chickens coming home to roost.’ He said Donnelly and Max were rivals and didn’t like one another. You’ve got that and the argument between Donnelly and Max Wagner. Seems like it might add up to something. You take it from there.”

Cosgrove absorbed the new information without comment, so Ambler couldn’t tell if he’d questioned Max about the argument yet.

“One more thing.” He told the detective about Yates’s missing daughter. “I’m wondering if you’d run a check on her. Someone in the library was supposed to but he got sidetracked.”

“What’s the girl got to do with this?”

“Nelson asked me to try to find her.”

“It’s not my territory.” Cosgrove didn’t let himself get sidetracked during a murder investigation. Usually, he disappeared from everyday life, barely ate or slept, fixated on the case like a bloodhound, keeping his nose to the trail while it was still warm.

“No. It’s a favor.”

“We’ll see.…” Cosgrove paused but didn’t hang up. After a minute, he said, “Let me ask you something. The room where the murder took place, who can get into it?”

“Not the general public, not tourists. It has a key card entry. Readers need to be approved to get the access card.”

“Staff?”

“Some staff. Not everyone. Why?”

“I want to narrow the pool of suspects.”

“To those with access to the second-floor archives reading room?”

“It’s not a hundred percent. Someone could have gotten a card. It’s still worth checking.”

“That’s your job, right?”

“You could give me a rundown on those who have access.”

“Everyone using the Yates collection.”

“I’m more interested in library employees.”

“Why?”

“That’s not something I can tell you.”

Ambler told Cosgrove he’d see what he could find out. He held onto the phone deep in thought for a moment after Cosgrove disconnected. “More interested in library employees?” That meant something. Mike didn’t speak carelessly; everything he said during an investigation was calculated, had a specific purpose. He had his sights on someone in the library. He didn’t need Ambler to find out who had an access card to the reading room that housed Harry’s office; he could get a list from the library administration. He wanted Ambler to know he had a suspect.

*   *   *

Late Wednesday morning, before lunch, Ambler decided to confront Harry. “I need to talk to you.” Ambler closed Harry Larkin’s office door behind him. The collections director was on the phone. He waved Ambler to a seat, shushing him at the same time.

“I see,” Harry said, his head bobbling. “I understand.” When he hung up, he turned to Ambler. “Nelson Yates is on a bender and missing. That was his wife.”

“Missing?”

“They had an argument yesterday, so she left. When she returned late this morning, he was gone.” He lowered his eyebrows and squinted at Ambler. “Two people from the library brought him home drunk Monday night—a man and woman. She thinks he might come here to the library to see you—something about his daughter.”

“If she knows where he’s going, he’s not missing.”

“He has dementia. She doesn’t know what he’ll do. What’s this about his daughter?”

Ambler told Harry about the missing daughter. “Yesterday, before his run-in with Max Wagner, I asked Benny to search some databases and see if she comes up.”

Harry frowned. “I’m not going to talk about Benny. It’s a union matter now; I’d get my head handed to me. You should stay out of it, too, as you should stay out of this business between Max Wagner and Nelson Yates. I told Mrs. Yates about our conversation with Nelson. She said Nelson isn’t competent. She has his power of attorney and can make the decisions about the collection.”

“We both talked to Nelson. He was perfectly lucid. And she’s—” He started to say Nelson’s wife had been conspiring with Max, but realized he wasn’t supposed to know and would betray Adele’s confidence if he said anything.

Harry waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, he said, “Let them work it out. I swear the Yates collection is cursed.”

“Why didn’t you want Benny to tell the police Max Wagner had an argument with James Donnelly before he was murdered?”

Harry frowned. “I’m sure Max told the police about the argument … if there was one. The murder is a police matter, not an intellectual exercise for you. You have more important things to concern yourself with.”

Something ominous in Harry’s tone stopped Ambler cold. “You mean the reading room closing?”

Harry’s tone softened. “It’s out of my hands. You need to persuade the president and the trustees that the crime fiction collection benefits the library, show that it’s well-used, and used by important people, that it inspires donations and benefactors—”

“Important people, Harry?”

Harry’s cheeks turned bright red; he averted his gaze. “That’s not what I mean. You know what—” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting. Please, if Nelson Yates contacts you, call his wife.” He wrote down a phone number and handed it to Ambler. “I’m late.” He brushed past Ambler but paused at the office doorway. “I’ll do what I can on the reading room. I know what it means to you.”

When he was gone, Ambler stood in front of his desk thinking about what his supervisor had said. Was it a promise or a threat?

*   *   *

Still mad at Harry, Ambler had lunch at O’Casey’s on 41st Street, so he could have a pint of Guinness with his hamburger, think, and cool off. He felt better after the stout and was walking back to the library, in the middle of the block between the library at Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue on 41st Street, when Benny stepped out of a doorway. He looked stricken.

“The cops came to my house.”

“About the assault?”

“What assault?”

“Max—”

“That wasn’t an assault.” He glared at Ambler. “I knew they were coming because Kay told me they would. When they called up from the front door, I left by the back stairs. They’re going to arrest her, too.”

“Did she take off also?”

“No. She got a lawyer after they questioned her about the murder. She knew something was wrong. The police told the lawyer they might arrest her and me.”

“Why would they arrest you?”

“They think I helped her kill the guy.”

“Did you?”

Benny’s eyes went wide. “Do you think I did?”

Ambler looked into his friend’s eyes. “If you tell me you didn’t, I’ll believe you.”

“Why do I got to tell you? Wouldn’t you know?”

Ambler sighed. “No. People who commit murders often don’t know they’re capable of murder until it happens.”

“I don’t know the guy; I never had anything to do with him. Why would I kill him?”

“What about Kay Donnelly?”

Benny’s expression clouded. “She wouldn’t do something like that.”

Ambler rolled his eyes. “We just went through this, Benny. She isn’t the type to kill someone doesn’t cut it. Do you know for sure, know where she was at the time of the murder? Was she with you?”

Benny froze. After a few seconds, he narrowed his eyes and looked at Ambler suspiciously. “Why would you say that? Why would she be with me?”

Ambler smiled. It was good to know his friend was a lousy liar. After a moment, he said, “A friend of McNulty’s is a criminal lawyer, who for some reason owes him favors.”

Ambler put his arm around the shoulder of the frightened younger man and steered him around a couple of corners to the Library Tavern. He ordered a beer for himself and a brandy for Benny, who wasn’t much of a drinker but could certainly use something at the moment.

When McNulty got a break, Ambler explained the situation.

McNulty gave Benny the lawyer’s contact information. “He’s gonna quote you a big number,” McNulty said. “He likes to think of himself as high-priced. You tell him I sent you and to see me about the bill. He’ll curse a lot, but he’ll do it.”

Ambler left Benny outside the bar on the corner calling the lawyer on his cell phone.

*   *   *

When he got back to his desk, he called Mike Cosgrove. “You’ve scared my friend Benny half to death,” he said as soon as he heard “Cosgrove” at the other end of the line.

“That’s not something I can talk to you about.”

“He’s a suspect? You’re going to arrest him?”

“You’re not hearing what I said?” It took a few seconds for Ambler to understand that his friend was embarrassed because he couldn’t talk openly and angry because he was embarrassed.

“I know. You have a job to do. Maybe it’s not even you. Still, let me tell you this. I don’t know about the Donnelly woman. But I can tell you for sure Benny isn’t a guy who comes up on someone from behind. If you spent—”

“Ray, please. I can’t talk about this. But I do have some information on the girl you asked about.”

Ten minutes later, Ambler got off the phone and sat staring in front of him. What Cosgrove told him about Emily Yates hit close to home.

Chapter 7

Nelson Yates needed a drink. Maybe he shouldn’t have started again. But he had, so there it was. Right now, he needed to get the cobwebs out, after that only enough to stay even. The empty pint bottle on the kitchen counter must have been from last night—too bad last night was missing. In the refrigerator, he found a container of yogurt and forced down about half of the contents, remembering he needed to eat; too often, when he was drinking, he didn’t. One break was that Mary wasn’t home. He wouldn’t have to explain. More to the point, he wouldn’t have to argue. A morning without argument, without complaints and disapproval, what more could you ask for? He picked up the paper outside the door—and then stopped.

The last thing he remembered was going down to the library and speaking with Harry Larkin and later talking to the two librarians in the bar. He thought that was yesterday. When he looked at the front page of the
Times,
he realized he’d gone to the library the day before yesterday. It wasn’t only last night; he was missing an entire day.

The Rock of Cashel was two blocks down Broadway. He hadn’t been in since he’d stopped drinking, however long ago that was, unless he was in yesterday. He didn’t recognize the man behind the bar, nor did the guy recognize him, which was fine. The bartender didn’t bat an eye when he ordered a double bourbon. Why would he? At 11:30 in the morning, everyone was there for an eye-opener.

Yates took a healthy slug of the drink. The day before yesterday, the two librarians found him in the park behind the library after another memory lapse. They were okay, though. He liked Ambler, the crime collection guy. The woman—what was her name? Amy? Annette? No. Adele—was with Harry Larkin when he signed the deed of gift for his papers. She reminded him of Emily, somehow gentle and strong at the same time. He wondered if she reminded Harry of Emily, too, and almost asked but Harry was decidedly uninterested in the past.

He finished the drink and ordered a beer when the bartender raised his eyebrows to ask if he’d like another. He nursed beers and thought things over well into the afternoon. He didn’t want to get drunk. He had things to do. It was the memory stuff—the disorientation, the lapses—that worried him, forgetting where he was, not remembering where he lived, mixing the present up with the past. He needed to find Emily before the memory thing got worse.