Murder at the Library of Congress (8 page)

“And you have that great gallery in Georgetown.”

“My pride and joy.”

“I’ve stopped in a few times but never saw you there.”

“I’ve been fortunate with help. College students. I’ve pretty much turned the place over to them while working on this article. I interviewed Michele Paul this morning.”

Dolores winced.

Is there no one who has kind thoughts about him?

“He was—well, he was somewhat helpful.” No sense adding fuel to the anti-Paul movement. “My article focuses on Las Casas and his reputed diaries and map.”

Dolores’s tone and mood changed before Annabel’s eyes. A darkness seemed to come over her, causing what had been a face with an almost perpetual smile to pull down at the corners of the mouth.

“I was warned not to expect much from him but …” Annabel forced a laugh. “Maybe I caught him on an off day.”

Dolores’s smile didn’t seem genuine either. She looked down at her watch. “Dr. Paul and I don’t see eye to eye. I have to get back,” she said.

Who would? Annabel thought.

They split the check and walked back, promising to have lunch again soon. Annabel had wanted to spend the day in Manuscripts poring over Columbus’s Book of Privileges again, but another researcher had reserved it. She took the underground tunnel to the Madison Building and stopped in at Public Affairs to see if they had any biographical material on Michele Paul and a list of his publishers for her article.

Annabel immediately recognized the woman in one of the offices. It was the TV journalist, Lucianne Huston. Two men sat in the waiting room, one cradling a video camera in his lap, the other perched atop a pile of black cases. Joanne, the woman who’d escorted Annabel the day before, waved her in.

“Lucianne, this is Annabel Reed-Smith.”

“Hi,” Lucianne said.

“You might want to talk to Annabel about Las Casas,” Joanne offered. “She’s researching an article for our magazine,
Civilization
.”

“Happy to,” Annabel said brightly. “But there are genuine experts around here.”

“Sure,” Lucianne said. To Joanne: “You say Dr. Paul won’t be available until four?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

Lucianne looked at Annabel.

“I’m free now,” Annabel said.

“Now is good. How about just a talk first?” Lucianne suggested.

“You two can use this office. I have to escort a reporter to an interview with Dr. Broadhurst.”

Dr. Cale Broadhurst, the fourteenth Librarian of Congress, had succeeded James H. Billington after being nominated by the current administration and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Mac and Broadhurst had been frequent tennis partners when Broadhurst was dean of GW’s ancient literature department. They still stayed in touch, only less frequently now.

“Before you go,” said Annabel, “do you have a bio of Michele Paul for my article? I think I should know a little more about him.”

“I don’t have one handy, but I’ll have one sent up to you later today,” answered Joanne with a mixture of surprise and disgust.

After telling her two-man crew they were free for an hour, Lucianne sat with Annabel. “So,” she said, “tell me why you’re so interested in this de Las Casas character.”

“I’ve never heard him referred to that way,” Annabel said, smiling. “I was wondering why
you’re
interested in him. I thought you only covered wars and famine and sensational murder trials and crooked governments.”

“I was surprised when they sent me on this story, too. Something to do with a rare books underground offering big money for the diaries and maybe a map—
if
they even exist.”

“I thought you might be doing this for a special on Columbus for the celebration.”

“That’s the fallback position to justify sending me here. Do you know anything about this so-called underground interest?”

“No. I mean, I’m aware there are such things, certain people who’ll pay a lot of money for something rare. No different from the surreptitious art scene. But tell me more.”

Lucianne shrugged and drew from a half-full bottle of designer water. “I’m supposed to learn all about it from people like you. There was an art theft and murder in Miami that triggered sending me to D.C.”

“An art theft? Murder? What does that have to do with Las Casas?”

Lucianne gave a handsome shrug. “That’s what I asked my boss.”

“What was stolen? Who was murdered?”

“From what I’ve been told, a second-rate painting by an artist named Reyes, Fernando Reyes, depicting Columbus giving something called a Book of Privileges to the king and queen of Spain. A security guard, his first night on the job, was shot.”

“How dreadful,” Annabel said. “There’s a copy of the book here at LC.”

“LC? Oh …”

“I spent part of yesterday looking at it. It’s the most important piece of early Americana in the collection. But the painting was second-rate? The thieves must not have known much about art.”

“I guess not. It was an inside job. Or inside and outside. A maintenance man allegedly left a skylight open for the thieves.”

“Who was the painting’s owner?”

“A small museum in the Latin Quarter. Casa de Seville. I’ve never been there.”

Annabel spent the next fifteen minutes telling Lucianne what she knew of the Las Casas legend. He was alleged to have been Columbus’s sailing companion on the first three voyages, and had been not only the explorer’s close friend, he’d helped him prepare his logs and diaries, according to those who’d spent their professional lives delving into the history. She sensed that the TV journalist was listening more out of courtesy than interest.
It was obvious that Lucianne was not happy having been assigned this story. Annabel could understand. Lost diaries and maps, if there even were such things, paled when contrasted to being in the midst of shell fire, turmoil, and strife in exotic places.

“I’d like to get some of what you’ve said on tape,” Lucianne said.

“If you wish.”

“This guy, Michele Paul. You know him, I assume.”

“Yes. He’s your best source. No one knows more about Columbus and Las Casas than Michele.”

“Does he have a gender problem?”

A small smile from Annabel. “No, I don’t think so. He’s suave, sure of himself.”

“A Romeo?”

“I suspect so, only you can’t prove it by me.”

“Available after I interview him, Annabel?”

“Uh huh. My husband is attending a going-away party for a teaching colleague. I’m not meeting him for dinner until seven.”

Annabel went to her assigned space in Hispanic and had just begun reading a book about Columbus that Consuela had recommended when young Susan Gomara appeared. She was crying.

“Sue, what’s wrong?”

“Dr. Paul. He’s so nasty. I was looking at some papers he left on a table by my desk. He came by, saw me, grabbed the papers, and started yelling at me.”

“Yelling at you about what?”

“About spying on him or something. I don’t know. I really don’t like him. I wish he’d … break a leg or something.”

Annabel got up and placed her hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Hey, Susan, don’t let it throw you.
He’s a little high-strung, that’s all.” It sounded like the right thing to say.

“I guess so. Sorry to be such a baby.”

“Don’t worry about it. He seems to do a lot of traveling. With any luck, Mr. Paul won’t be around very much.”

“I hope not.”

“You look lovely. A heavy date?”

The intern had changed from her sweater-and-jeans outfit into a pleated gray skirt, teal blouse, and white cardigan sweater.

“No. Whenever I work in the main reading room, I have to dress up. Rules. I’m heading there now, working until closing.”

“Better than going through Cuban newspapers?”

“Much better. Well, see ya. Thanks for playing shrink.”

Annabel watched the young woman leave. The change of outfit made her look more mature and professional. How exciting to begin one’s career as an intern in the library of all libraries. With her determination and spirit, Susan might well end up one day as the Library of Congress’s first woman Librarian, Annabel mused.

8

The Librarian of Congress slowly replaced the phone in its cradle and sat back in his blue leather chair. The wall to his right had bookcases up to the ceiling, as well as a bottom shelf on which rested a television set and framed photographs. Three blue leather chairs with wooden arms were on the opposite side of the desk. A large area to his left was devoted to comfortable furniture including a tan couch and stuffed chairs, another wall of bookcases, and an oversized rotating globe. Doors on both sides of the room gave access to terraces providing sweeping views of the Capitol.

While the stereotypical perception of workaday librarians was demonstrably inaccurate, the image of Dr. Cale Broadhurst as the leader of the world’s largest institution of information might not have been. He looked distinctly academic; that is, were he an actor, he would have been cast as an academician, perhaps as the Librarian of Congress.

He was a small man, almost half size, and bald with the exception of a fringe of salt-and-pepper hair. His half-glasses were tethered to his neck by a colorful strap, and he was fond of tweed jackets, gray slacks, button-down blue shirts, bow ties, which he took pride in tying himself, and sensible brown leather shoes with thick
crepe soles. Beneath it all was a brilliant mind, verbal fluidity, and an occasional flash of pixieish humor. But the phone call he’d just taken had not stimulated amusement. Excitement and shock were more like it.

He checked a clock on the wall. Four o’clock. The reception for Senators Menendez and Hale was at seven, giving him three hours to respond to the call in a meaningful, proactive way.

“I’ll be with Ms. Mullin,” Broadhurst told his secretary, leaving the office and on his way to the office of Mary Beth Mullin, LC’s general counsel. The lawyer was a big woman as women go, rendered more so when standing next to Broadhurst. Although her official role at the library was clearly delineated by her title, over the years she’d become Broadhurst’s confidante of choice. He liked her law school way of thinking even for matters having nothing to do with law. As his confidence in her grew, and she became aware of it, she never hesitated to tell him exactly what she thought, about almost anything, including an occasional personal problem he confided in her. Mary Beth Mullin was no yes-woman, an attribute the Librarian appreciated and needed.

She was on the phone when he arrived, which didn’t deter him from entering and taking a seat across the desk from her. She finished her conversation, hung up, and leaned back in her chair.

“You look satisfied,” he said.

“For good reason. My older daughter aced her government course at Catholic, and the repair estimate for my car isn’t quite equal to the national debt. You?”

“National debt? I thought we had all kinds of surplus. If I didn’t have to play the role of beggar over on the Hill, I’d be considerably happier.”

Along with his duties as the Librarian of Congress, Broadhurst found himself spending more and more time
recently making the case to Congress for library funds. Since 1950, the size of LC’s collections and staff had tripled, and its annual congressional appropriation had soared from $9 million to more than $360 million. Still, there was never enough money, it seemed, to handle more than a half-million research requests from members of Congress and their staffs each year; to keep up with mandatory cost-of-living increases for the four thousand employees; to move forward with the electronic cataloging of almost 114 million items in the collections, swelling each year through the copyright division; and to keep pace with the daily demands of the three glorious buildings and their four thousand inhabitants.

“Somehow, Cale, I can’t see you begging for anything,” she said, looking toward the window. “Looks like rain.”

“I hope it holds off for the reception. Always nice to have cocktails on the terrace.”

Mullin’s laugh was gentle and knowing. “It wouldn’t dare rain on the senators,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I just had a call from David Driscoll.”

“What did he have to say?” She ran fingers through short, dark hair streaked with splendid slivers of gray; she looked like a woman who preferred sand and surf to the sterile atmosphere of a general counsel’s office. She wore just enough lipstick to make the subtle point that her lips were nicely formed. Dark suits and tailored blouses were slimming.

“Driscoll was his usual taciturn self,” Broadhurst said.

“With all that money he can afford to be taciturn.”

“Yes, I suppose he can. And afford to be the supporter he’s been of the library, and the avid collector he is. He called to tell me he’s been in touch with someone who claims to have knowledge of where the Las Casas diaries might be.”

Mullin wasn’t nearly as familiar with LC’s collections as Broadhurst, nor was she expected to be. She was the lawyer, more interested in keeping the Library out of legal trouble than in its more esoteric side. But she’d certainly heard enough about the legendary Columbus-era materials, and the search for them, to realize the importance of what her boss was saying.

“That would be remarkable information. Did he specify?”

“No. I tried to get more information from him but he deflected my questions. He’s good at that. He basically had one question for me. He wanted to know to what lengths we’d go to obtain the diaries if he was able to broker a deal for us.”

“You mean how much would we pay.”

“You might say that.”

“What are the diaries worth, Cale?”

“Depends on a number of factors.
If
they exist. Their condition. What they say. Whether the alleged map is included. And, of course, the source.”

“The source?”

“Yes. If they surface through a reputable dealer with a sense of honor, that’s one thing. If they’re offered up by a shady middleman, that’s another. Agree?”

“Yes, of course. How did you leave it with Driscoll?”

“I said I’d have to think about it.” His grin was impish. “I think you should think about it, too.”