Ripped From the Pages (4 page)

The mood was so somber, it felt as though we were attending a memorial service. And
in a way, we were.

Guru Bob had always been as careful as one could be to keep too much negativity from
touching Dharma. I knew it firsthand because I’d once brought a visitor to Dharma
who turned out to be a cold-blooded killer. Guru Bob didn’t blame me, of course, but
I would never forgive myself for being so clueless.

“He is French,” Guru Bob murmured. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” Derek said. “According to the passport I found in his pocket, his name is Jean
Pierre Renaud.”

Guru Bob flinched at the name. It was a subtle reaction, but I saw it. Did he recognize
the name? Or was he simply reacting to the fact that evil had visited Dharma once
again?

But if this man had died here seventy years ago, Dharma hadn’t even existed yet. The
winery hadn’t existed. Who owned this land back then?

“Did you know him, Robson?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, and I wondered if he would answer me. Finally he nodded. “He
was a friend of my grandfather.”

It was my turn to flinch. I had not been expecting that answer. I recovered quickly
and gazed around the enclosure. “Are these his things?” I asked.

“I do not know, gracious.” Guru Bob often used the endearment, hoping to encourage
the person to show a bit of grace.

He turned to Derek. “I would like you to find out as much as you can about this man
and these items. How did such a collection wind up in our caves?”

“I’ll be glad to look into it.”

Guru Bob nodded his appreciation. “I suggest you talk to my cousin Gertrude.” He smiled.
“Although, officially, she is my first
cousin once removed. And you must not call her Gertrude. She goes by Trudy. I believe
she could be of some assistance.”

Derek gave me a curious look, and I realized he’d never met the amazing Trudy.

“I’ll introduce you,” I said with a smile.

*   *   *

A
fter Guru Bob left, I spent a few minutes strolling alone through the vineyards, silently
reflecting on everything that had happened in the last few hours. I was a little ashamed
to admit that the most appalling part hadn’t been the discovery of the cave itself
or the wondrous treasure hidden behind those thick walls. It wasn’t even the fact
that a man may have been murdered there and left to rot for seventy years. No, for
me the worst part was that
I
had been the one to find the body.

I hated to be so self-centered and I promised the sentiment would last for only a
minute, but right then and there, it was all about me. Why me?

I felt a strong, protective arm on my shoulders, and I turned and leaned against Derek.

“Don’t despair, darling,” he murmured.

“Me? Despair?” I tried to smile. “How did you know?”

“It’s a completely rational reaction. Especially when it happens to you with such
frightening regularity.”

“It’s not fair.” I sounded whiny. That would stop in a minute, too.

“No, it’s not.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I’m just relieved that this one won’t
be pinned on you.”

“Thanks a lot.”

He chuckled, and we continued walking along the rows of
thick, healthy plantings. The cabernet grapes were plump and dark, and the leaves
were beginning to curl and turn orange, a sure sign that autumn was closing in on
us. It was my favorite season in wine country, harvest time. I looked up at Derek
and realized that this would be his second harvest since we’d been together. Wow,
time had sure flown by since he first chased me up here. Back then, he’d been fairly
certain I was a murdering vixen who’d killed my mentor for some horrific reason he
couldn’t quite come up with.

Ah, memories.

*   *   *

A
full hour later, two detectives pulled into the parking lot. Derek and I waited to
greet them and lead the way to the storage cave. They introduced themselves as Detectives
Phil Gordon and Hannah Parrish from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, and they
were so pleasant, it was almost scary. I was accustomed to the good-hearted mockery
dished out by Detective Inspector Lee of the San Francisco Police Department, so it
was a shock to be treated respectfully by these law enforcement officers. A shock,
but one I welcomed.

It probably helped when Derek mentioned his bona fides: British Royal Navy commander,
ten years in British intelligence with MI6, and now president and CEO of Stone Securities,
his company that provided security to the wealthiest people and most precious artwork
on the planet.

“And what do you do, Ms. Wainwright?” Detective Parrish asked politely.

“I’m a bookbinder,” I said.

“That sounds fascinating.”

“You have no idea,” Derek murmured.

Twenty minutes later, we were joined by another detective,
this one from the Coroner’s Unit, and an assistant from the same department.

Once we were gathered around the hole in the wall of the cave, Derek and I explained
what had happened here. It quickly became clear to the sheriff’s people that this
was going to be an unusual case. Yes, it was a homicide. That much was obvious. But
as far as determining who the killer might be, Detective Gordon admitted that for
the first time in his experience, figuring out “who” wasn’t as important as first
figuring out “when.”

“Probably the best thing to do,” Detective Parrish said, “is transport the body over
to our Forensics Pathology group in Fairfield. They’ll be able to determine the time
of death.”

“Or rather, the
year
of death,” Detective Gordon amended.

“Yeah, weird,” Parrish muttered as she stared at all the odd and beautiful furnishings
shoved into this small space.

She reminded me of Robin, not just because she kept uttering that word, but because
she was petite and pretty, with dark brown hair and a fun attitude—in spite of the
circumstances.

The coroner’s small staff quickly took charge of Jean Pierre Renaud’s body. They completed
a cursory examination inside the cave and then carried him outside and into their
van in under an hour.

Derek gave them both his phone number and requested that he be kept in the loop if
they found out anything. Everyone from the sheriff’s department promised “Commander
Stone” they would do so.

I had to admit, it was pretty great to have a big hunky commander on my side. And
I knew it would make Guru Bob happy to be kept informed of the details, too.

Parrish and Gordon did a cursory search in and around the small chamber. They contacted
their crime scene techs to find out how soon they could get there to dust for fingerprints
and collect any trace evidence they could find.

While the detectives waited for the CSI team to arrive, they rounded up the witnesses
who’d seen the inside of the room or actually been inside, namely me, Derek, Robin,
Austin, Dad, and Jackson.

I told Detective Parrish everything that had happened that morning: what I’d seen,
what I’d smelled, what we’d assumed or theorized about the body and the ticket and
the passport. Other than that, I didn’t know much.

“I didn’t even know that space existed until this morning,” I said, wishing I’d held
on to my coffee mug from earlier. “And I have no idea how that furniture and all those
expensive items got there.”

“Somebody here must know,” she said.

“I guess. It’s possible that some original members of the commune were storing stuff
in there and the cave got sealed up somehow. My dad mentioned that there was a big
earthquake up here a few years ago. That might’ve done it. I mean, that’s not what
killed Mr. Renaud, but that might explain how his body was trapped there.”

It still didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. An earthquake
would’ve had to have occurred more than fifty years ago, and it would’ve buried Renaud
in rubble along with damaging all the furniture and treasures.

I also wasn’t about to mention Guru Bob’s reaction to seeing Renaud dead on the floor.
I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Guru Bob to the detective, as nice as she
was. That Renaud had been a friend of Guru Bob’s grandfather certainly had plenty
of relevance, but I quickly decided to leave it to Guru Bob to enlighten the police.
Maybe that made me a bad citizen, but I refused to involve Guru Bob until I talked
to him about it.

And that reminded me that I’d completely forgotten about his cousin Trudy. I wanted
to talk to her as soon as possible.

Trudy’s was another name I didn’t intend to bring up with the
cops. I liked Detective Parrish, but my loyalty remained with Guru Bob and Trudy,
who were like family to me.

Detective Parrish gave me an intense look. “Bottom line, Ms. Wainwright. Do you think
there’s something in that chamber that precipitated Mr. Renaud’s death?”

I considered her question. “I have no idea. If he was killed some seventy years ago,
I’m not sure there’s anyone alive who might know what happened in there.”

I felt another twinge as I remembered the Jules Verne book. I’d have to add that to
my list of omissions, because there was no way I would mention that I’d taken it from
the room. And I had to say, I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it.

Okay, that was a lie. If I was breathing, I was pretty much guilt-ridden. I lived
with it. But that didn’t mean I was going to give up the book. From my earliest days
of working with rare books, I’d been instructed that if all else failed, I was to
save the book
. Earlier, I’d tucked it under a blanket in the trunk of my car for safekeeping. Now,
as Detective Parrish finished her questioning, I started to wonder if the book could
possibly have anything to do with the murder of Mr. Renaud. I doubted it, although
I wasn’t sure why. I’d dealt with plenty of rare books that had incited murderous
intentions.

Not that I would mention that fact to Detective Parrish, either. Most law enforcement
officials rolled their eyes whenever I was silly enough to suggest that
a simple book
might be the perfect
motive for cold-blooded murder. It gave me no pleasure to count how many times I’d
been right.

Later that afternoon, Derek hung out with my dad and brothers, drinking wine and discussing
the cave within the cave and all the stuff we’d found inside its walls. I was anxious
to study the Jules Verne book, so I gave Annie a quick call just to let her know I’d
be using Abraham’s studio. She was glad to hear from me and said I was welcome anytime,
so I fished the book out from the trunk of my car and walked down the hill to Abraham’s
house.

I figured that if the brown suitcase was Mr. Renaud’s, and he was a friend of Guru
Bob’s grandfather, then Guru Bob would want this book for his library collection.
And if that was the case, it would need quite a bit of cleanup work before I would
feel good about handing it over to him.

Even though it was obviously a rare book—I could tell by looking at the binding, the
title page, and the date of publication—it had apparently belonged to a rambunctious
young boy, based on the childish scrawls I’d noticed on a few pages. I would have
to examine the book more closely before I would know if I could get rid of the scrawls
and still maintain the book’s integrity.

As I strolled along the sidewalk of the treelined road on which my parents had lived
for more than twenty years, I had to smile at the hodgepodge of home styles that made
up our friendly little enclave. It was typically American for our own rambling, craftsman-inspired
ranch home to live in harmony with the Quinlans’ two-story French cottage next door
and the Westcotts’ modified Tudor across the street behind a sheltering copse of oak
and pine trees.

Two doors down, the Farrell family had a cool-looking California bungalow, and next
door to them, the Barclays had built their house in the prairie style because of their
affection for Frank Lloyd Wright. Carl Brundidge, the commune lawyer, lived in a contemporary
steel-and-glass showpiece that somehow fit perfectly nicely next door to the ���midcentury
modern,” which was how Mr. Osborne described his home, otherwise known as a good old
1950s house complete with plastic flamingoes in the garden. Years ago, he had built
a geodesic dome workshop in the backyard to keep his hippie vibe alive. Next door
to the Osbornes were the Howards, who lived in a glorious three-story Victorian gem.
And near the bottom of the slope was Abraham’s imposing Spanish colonial mansion.

Guru Bob had always encouraged his followers to do their own thing when it came to
choosing their style of house. Once the winery became successful and people started
making money, neighborhoods like ours popped up all over Dharma. Visitors to the area
couldn’t quite wrap their brains around the fact that all these beautiful homes and
shops and upscale restaurants belonged to commune members. It went against their ingrained
image of what a “commune” should look like.

When I reached Abraham’s house, I opened the side gate, skirted the pool and patio,
and continued across the lawn to the studio he’d built for his bookbinding business.

I stared at the locked door and realized that I hadn’t been back here since Abraham’s
death. At the time, yellow crime scene tape had crisscrossed the entrance, blocking
my way. I had hesitated, but had finally torn it off to get into the room. I’d been
a suspect in Abraham’s murder, so ripping away the tape probably wasn’t the smartest
thing I could’ve done, but I’d come up here on a mission to find a clue to his murder.
And I’d found it, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

Now I let out a breath, unlocked the door, and stepped
inside—and realized how completely unprepared I’d been for the overwhelming sensations
that bombarded me.

I could smell Abraham in here. I could hear his voice and see his ink-stained fingers
from the letterpress projects he often took on in addition to the bookbinding. The
scent of leather mingled with the musty fragrance of old paper. An odd waft of peppermint
almost brought me to my knees.

This room held his essence.

No wonder his daughter, Annie, had left it as it was when he died.

I managed to stay on my feet, but decided to grab a high stool and sit for a minute
as a barrage of memories assaulted me. I’d grown up in this room. Abraham was a huge
part of my world. He was my teacher, my friend, my confessor, my taskmaster. I’d dreamed
of being a bookbinder just like him ever since I was eight years old, when I watched
him bring back to life a beloved book that my horrid brothers had tried to destroy.
It was nothing short of miraculous to me.

I could still see him standing by the book press, wearing his black leather apron
over an old white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was a big, strong,
barrel-chested man who had no trouble at all tightening the huge brass book press
down onto a newly rebound masterpiece.

I’d watched him do it so many times that I’d figured it was easy. What a shock it
had been to find out how difficult that sucker was to use. Of course, I was only eight
years old at the time. To this day, I thought of Abraham’s muscular arms whenever
I struggled to press a book.

I pulled the stool over to the center worktable where I set down the Jules Verne book.
Then I had to go through every drawer in the cluttered room to find Abraham’s standing
magnifying glass. After ten minutes, I finally found it jammed in a cupboard with
his punches and brushes and a myriad of other tools.
He’d always been kind of a slob, although he preferred to call himself an unfettered
free spirit.

Under the magnifying glass, the Jules Verne book looked even worse than I’d originally
thought. I could see every little flaw along its spine and knew I would have to reconstruct
it. The six raised bands had become flattened from years of handling, and all the
elaborate gilding had faded away. The crown of the spine was tattered and splitting
away from the front hinge. The morocco leather was in decent condition overall, but
the two leather corners on the front cover had begun to fray along the edges and would
need to be replaced. I anticipated using all new leather on the spine and corners
rather than trying to match what little was worth saving.

Opening the front cover, I could see that the marble endpapers were in remarkably
good condition with no chips or tears. The pattern was a beautiful blend of dark blue
and burgundy swirls and eddies. The flyleaf—those first few blank pages of a book—was
another story. On the front flyleaf, a child had signed his name across the page in
bold, blue ink.

Anton Benoit.

The back flyleaf had suffered much worse abuse. Here, Anton had scrawled a long message
using rust-colored ink. At the end of the message there was a date,
le 6 avril 1906
, and a place,
La Croix Saint-Just, France
. And there were two childish signatures scrawled at the bottom,
Anton Benoit
and
Jean Pierre Renaud
.

Jean Pierre
: The name of the dead man. He’d been a young boy when he signed his name to this
page. What had brought him all the way from France to California? And what had he
been doing here that got him killed? How did he know Guru Bob’s grandfather?

What the heck did it all mean?

The rust-colored ink was uneven and hard to read. Thick and
blotched in some spots, scratchy and thin in others, and in a few places, it faded
altogether. I stared at it through the magnifying glass for a long time, holding the
book closer to the lens to figure out what it was about the ink that bothered me.
Abruptly I figured it out and dropped the book in disgust.

��Blood,” I said. “Ew.”

Since I’d grown up with brothers, I knew it made perfect sense that two boys, probably
nine or ten years old, would want to cut their skin open and draw their own blood
to use as ink.

I shook my head. “Idiots.”

The date and the boys’ names were about the extent of my ability to translate the
page of French. The scratchy handwriting didn’t help, but after staring at the immature
penmanship for another minute, I thought I could make out the first phrase,
Nous promettons solennellement
.

“We promise . . . solemnly?” I shrugged. “Close enough.”

It sounded like the two boys were pledging an oath or something to each other.

I tried to recall my high school French, but it wasn’t coming back to me. Some years
ago, I’d memorized a bunch of French phrases for a trip to Paris. Unfortunately, nowhere
in the boys’ message did it say anything about where to find
les toilettes
, so that didn’t help, either.

Reminding myself of the book’s subject matter, I wondered if maybe Anton and Jean
Pierre had pledged to make their own journey to the center of the earth. Since I had
lived with two brothers, this sounded like something a couple of boys might vow to
do after reading an enthralling adventure story.

But did they really have to destroy the value of this book by writing all over it?
Yes, of course they did. Children were notoriously dangerous to the health of a fine
book.

I made a mental note to ask Derek to translate the French
words for me, and then moved on to study the inner pages. The paper was thick and
white with some foxing throughout. The occasional instance of reddish brown spots
was to be expected on a book this old. Fortunately, there were no more scrawled writings
from Anton or Jean Pierre on any other pages.

I did a quick survey of the rest of the book and discovered an old piece of notepaper
folded and wedged between two pages, marking the beginning of chapter forty-five.
At first I thought it was a bookmark, but when I unfolded it, I found a diagram with
a list of numbers and more words written in French. Again, my pitiful schoolgirl French
didn’t help. I would have to show this to Derek, too. Naturally, he spoke flawless
French among the other hundred or so languages he seemed to know.

The big school clock on the studio wall ticked off the time. That old thing had to
be thirty years old, I thought fondly, realizing I’d spent over two hours here. I
had to go home and get ready for dinner with Austin and Robin, so I found a short
stack of soft cloths in one of Abraham’s drawers, used two of them to wrap around
the book for protection, and slipped the book into my tote bag.

Walking home took longer because it was all uphill, but I made it back in time to
take a quick shower and dress for dinner. Derek had a glass of wine waiting for me.
“Thank you. This is nice.”

“I thought we could relax for a few minutes.” We sat on the comfortable couch in the
Quinlans’ living room. Derek had placed a plate of crackers and a small triangle of
softened Brie on the heavy wood coffee table. “Did you have a chance to examine the
book?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I was hoping you’d look at it, too. I’m in need of your translation
skills.”

“I assume the book is written in French.”

“It is,” I said, smiling. “But you don’t have to translate the book for me.”

“Good, because I’m fairly certain you can pick up an English version somewhere.”

I gave him a look as I swirled my wine and took a taste. “What I hope you’ll translate
are the notes I found inside the book.”

“Notes?” he said, intrigued. “I’ll be happy to look them over first thing tomorrow.
Do they explain everything that happened in the cave?”

I chuckled. “If only. No, the one in the book was written by two little boys long
before the cave incident. And get this, they wrote it in blood.”

Derek laughed, knowing my squeamishness around blood. “You must’ve loved discovering
that.”

“It’s not funny. It’s gross.”

“That’s because you were never a little boy.”

“Nice of you to notice.”

“I’ve definitely noticed.” He sat back and stretched his arm across my shoulders.
“Boys like to do gross things. I thought you knew.”

“I do. The note made me think of Jackson and Austin as kids. They probably would’ve
done something like that. Disgusting creatures.”

“Young boys are morbidly fascinated by blood. My brothers and I tried to stab or slice
one another up at every opportunity.”

“Oh God. And your poor mother had to put up with five of you.”

“She loved every minute of it. We were angels.”

“I can’t wait to hear her version of the story.”

He shrugged. “She might use another term to describe us.”

“The word
hooligans
comes to mind,” I said, laughing.

He grinned. “I suppose that’s more accurate.”

I took another sip of wine. “This is awfully good.”

“It’s the five-year-old pinot noir we tasted today. I begged your brother for a bottle
to bring home.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “My hero.”

“It’s the least I could do, knowing you were hard at work the entire afternoon.”

I sat forward, spread some cheese on a cracker and handed it to him, and then made
one for myself.

“Thanks, love.”

I finished my cracker and took a sip of wine. “Have you heard anything from the detectives?”

“Not yet. The crime scene lads showed up after you left. They dusted for prints and
scoured through everything. We’ll have to wait and see what they turn up.”

“I don’t know what they can tell us. It’s not like they’ll arrest anyone, right? The
man died seventy years ago. Nobody living here now was around back then.”

He swirled his wine distractedly. “So it would seem.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not.” He paused, weighing his words. “Don’t you find it odd that Robson’s grandfather
knew the dead man?”

I frowned. “I suppose. But I was mostly concerned about Guru Bob because he looked
so sad.”

“Yes, he did.” Derek nodded thoughtfully. “According to your father, Robson—Guru Bob—moved
up here only about twenty-five years ago. That was when he bought all this property
and started the Fellowship. But if the dead man’s passport and passenger ticket are
to be believed, Jean Pierre Renaud has been lying dead in that cave for close to seventy
years. So where does Guru Bob’s grandfather fit into those two scenarios? Was it just
a coincidence?”