The Cracked Spine (17 page)

“Well, as you know, we're not the police. It wouldn't hurt to tell us,” I said. A zip of anticipation ran up my spine.

She thought a moment and then shook her head. “No, I don't think so, but I might call the police and tell them. I think that would be a better option.” She smoothed her skirt again. We'd lost her attention. “Look, I need to finish getting ready.”

“Thank you again for your time,” Edwin said just before the door closed.

For a long, silent moment Edwin stood still with his hands behind his back as he stared at the beige carpet on the floor. I remained quiet too and waited.

Shortly, he looked up at me. “Thank you for taking over, Delaney. I'm sorry you had tae be exposed tae a wee bit of my family's dirty laundry, but I assure you the entire story isn't quite what the young lady just intimated.”

I smiled. I don't know why, but it felt like the right thing to do. “She wasn't all that young,” I said quietly just in case she was listening on the other side of the door.

Edwin smiled too. It wasn't the most grown-up behavior, but it alleviated some uncomfortable tension.

“Indeed,” Edwin said. “Come along, I'd like tae try the neighbor on the other side and then we'll be done with this unpleasant duty.”

The other neighbor was not in his robe either, though he didn't wear much more. His name was Waldo (I sensed that wasn't his real name), and he was evidently a weight lifter who thought it was necessary to show off the fruits of his weight-lifting labor. He wore a tight tank top and cutoff denim shorts—way cut off. The whites of his front pockets peeked out from under the frayed legs.

“Ooch, it's shite for certain,” he said. I wasn't sure I'd be able to understand much of what he said so I listened hard. “I dinnae ken her weel a t'all. Nice enough but tae auld fer me tae be friends with, if ye ken what I mean.” He winked.

Edwin stared at him like he couldn't quite understand him either, or he just didn't want to.

“Did you hear anything strange coming from Jenny's apartment recently, or in the last little while?” I asked.

Waldo shrugged—but it wasn't an I-don't-know shrug, it was more an I-don't-care shrug. “Ye hear stuff in the buildin' aaul the time.”

“Really?” I couldn't help but counter. “This place seems very quiet to me.”

“'Tis not. Well, 'tis except for when it 'tisn't.” Waldo scratched his head. “I mean, there's noise and stuff, but 'tis inside and when it's inside it's quieter.” He waved his hand through the air as if to erase everything he'd just said.

“What's going on inside to cause so much noise?” I asked.

“Not a thing,” Waldo said.

But for a brief instant, the big, burly guy looked scared. Maybe not scared, but a little worried. He recovered quickly.

“Look, I 'ave stuff I havta do. I dinna ken her weel and I 'ave no idea what happened tae her. I'm sairry she got herself kil't.”

“Got herself?” I stepped forward, suddenly prepared to put my foot in the door if he made a motion to close it. “How did she ‘get herself' killed?”

“Jest an expression,” he said with too-wide eyes.

Yes, it was an expression, but there was more weight to the words when he'd said them. Perhaps I'd heard frustration or anger, but he'd made it more than just an expression.

I had no idea how to get him to tell me more. I looked at Edwin, who'd already finished with the overly muscled Waldo, his eyes aimed down the hallway. I stepped back.

“'Ave a nice day,” he said, before he shut the door with authority.

And again, it became so very quiet.

What a strange place.

“Come on, Delaney, I wouldn't think anything he said would be reliable,” Edwin said.

I couldn't have agreed more, but I sensed Waldo knew more than he wanted to share. As I walked with Edwin to the elevator, down through the first-floor hallway of the building, and then out to the Citroën, I could not let go of the one thing that I continued to notice: the quiet. It was like one of my insistent characters from a book. It was as if it was raising its hand and waving desperately my direction.
Pick me, pick me.
I wanted to understand it better. I wanted to know the quiet. I wanted it to talk to me. But how does one make the quiet speak?

 

FOURTEEN

Both Hamlet and Rosie were busy when we returned to The Cracked Spine. To Edwin's obvious dismay, Inspectors Winter and Morgan had returned as well. Edwin and I shook off some moisture from the rain that had begun as we left the apartment building. We wiped our feet as we noticed the inspectors standing near the ladder in the middle of the shop. Edwin quietly grumbled some irritation before he spoke to them.

“Inspectors, I was just about tae give you a ring. Come along over tae my office,” Edwin said to the two men who stood with identical thumbs-in-front-belts poses. I wondered if they knew they did that.

“Delaney,” Edwin lowered his voice again. “Just jump in and see what Hamlet and Rosie might need help with. I'll talk tae the inspectors.”

I nodded. Rosie looked to be in the middle of something about numbers with a man in a very wet rain hat. Rosie and the dripping man were both peering at an item on the front desk, their heads so close together that the top of the hat almost touched the top of Rosie's short hair. Hector was standing on the desk in between them and glanced down at the item too, or at least that's what I thought he was doing; hard to tell with the bangs.

Hamlet nodded welcomingly when I looked his direction. He was toward the back corner table. It seemed cloaked in shadow from dark-cloud-diffused light coming in through the stained-glass window. The ceiling fixture's age was showing, the artificial light only
almost
reaching to the back of the shop. I walked over and joined Hamlet and the customer he was talking to. As I approached I heard her say with a soft voice, “Dear lad, ye dinnae seem tae understand, that book is something I must have.”

“I do understand, Mrs. Tuttle,” Hamlet said. “We just haven't been able tae track down a copy for you yet. Delaney, this is Mrs. Tuttle.”

Mrs. Tuttle was short; there was probably less than five full feet of her. She was old, and she wore enough makeup that she either couldn't see well to put it on or she was trying to hide her age, but failing even more than Jenny's neighbor had.

“Delaney?” Mrs. Tuttle turned her full attention to me.

“Yes, ma'am. How can I help?”

“Och, ye sound American.”

“I am. I'm from a small town, but I recently lived in Wichita, Kansas.”

“Kansas! I've been tae Kansas, though never tae Wichita. I was in Topeka for a glassblowers convention.” Her eyes lit brightly, encircled in her thick mascara and cracking layers of bright blue eye shadow.

“I have lots of relatives in Topeka.”

“That makes my day sae much better. Tae talk tae someone from America, who knows a place I visited. Brilliant!” She let the smile sag. “Except Hamlet here still hasnae found my book and I'm old, Delaney. I doubt I'll have much longer tae wait.”

“What's the book?”

“It's called
Boggle the Mind
and it's by an author named Philomena Reyes,” she said slowly, so I could catch each important word.

“I'm sorry, but I've never heard of it,” I said.

“It exists,” Hamlet said. “Well, it existed. It was a book that was published in hardback sixty years ago by a now long-gone publishing house that was located in Glasgow. The first and only print run was one hundred copies, and Mrs. Tuttle received one of the books as a gift when she was younger. Over the years she lost the book and would like tae have a replacement copy.”

“Aye,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “Delaney, the book was given tae me by a boy, my first love. He left Glasgow shortly afterward, and moved to Spain. I never heard from him again, but later I discovered that I hadn't heard from him because my parents destroyed his, well, oor, letters. By the time I knew the truth, 'twas far too late. I couldnae find him. Having a copy of the book would bring me a wee bit of him, enough tae hold on tae for my remaining time at least.”

“That's a great story,” I said. I paused and looked at Hamlet, who only lifted his eyebrows in defeat. I turned back to Mrs. Tuttle. “Have you thought about writing it down, the story of the boy and the book, and the letters? You could write what
might
have been in them.”

“Why, no, I'm not a writer.”

“I bet you are. The way you told just that little part of the story, with so much heartfelt emotion, I have to think that you would write it perfectly. Writing down your story might help until Hamlet finds your book. I have no doubt that he has searched high and low for it, Mrs. Tuttle.” I looked at him.

“And I will keep searching until I find it,” he said as he put his hand on her arm. “I promise.”

Mrs. Tuttle pursed her lips and sighed through her nose. “I believe ye. I'm just impatient for it, that's all. But ye do have a good point, Delaney. Perhaps the story will make a good distraction for a time. But, ye'll help him search, won't ye?”

“I will help Hamlet in any way I can.”

“Oh, guid. That would be very guid. Thank ye, both.” She paused, and didn't seem to want to end the conversation. She pursed her lips, her red lipstick dotting some of the wrinkles around her mouth, and then turned to me again. “Do ye ken aboot the blown-glass store in Topeka?”

“No, where is it located?”

“On Ross Road. I dinnae ken why I remember that, but I do.”

Unfortunately, further conversation about either Mrs. Tuttle's book or the blown-glass store in Topeka was interrupted by the police inspectors.

“He explained that he was at her flat. We knew…,” Edwin said as he followed the uniformed men who were making their way toward Hamlet, Mrs. Tuttle, and me.

However, the inspectors kept their eyes only on Hamlet.

“Young man, would you please come with us?” Inspector Morgan said.

“Why?” Hamlet asked, his eyes wide, his youth showing for the first time since I'd met him.

“We'd like tae talk tae you about your relationship with Jenny MacAlister,” Inspector Morgan continued.

“They were friends, just friends. You make it sound like there could be more. There wasn't,” Edwin said. He turned to Hamlet. “You told the police that you'd visited Jenny the night before she was killed, didn't you?”

“Aye, of course,” Hamlet said.

“See,” Edwin said to the inspectors. “He's told you everything he knows. Hamlet, I'm sorry.”

“It's not a problem, Edwin, I did tell them everything I know. At least I told the other officers, the ones who were at the station when I went in. I didn't call them. I thought going in would be better,” Hamlet said.

“Why do you need to talk to him?” I interjected.

Rosie, with Hector over her arm, and the customer with the wet hat had come up behind and were observing the scene with their own sets of big, round eyes.

“Ma'am, this is police business. If you'll excuse us,” the tall inspector said.

“I told them about our trip to Jenny's flat,” Edwin said to me with a look that I thought emphasized that the police still didn't know about the Folio. “I mentioned that one of the neighbors had seen Hamlet there the night before Jenny died and that the neighbor also mentioned an argument she thought she heard a week and a half ago. I said that's what they should investigate, the argument. I didn't mean for them tae assume those incidents were in any way related, but they jumped tae that conclusion, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, Hamlet,” Edwin said again.

“Please come with us, young man. We just have a few questions for you.”

“Is he under arrest?” I said, though I didn't know if the laws about willingly going with the police were the same in Scotland as they were in America.

“Not yet,” Inspector Morgan said.

“Hamlet, I don't think you have to go with them,” I said.

Hamlet looked at me, at Edwin, and then Rosie, and finally Mrs. Tuttle, who was obviously no shrinking violet. Her arthritis-ridden fists were balled at her sides and she was shooting venomous, blue eye-shadowed looks at the inspectors.

“No, I'll go. I'll straighten it all out,” Hamlet said. “I'll be back shortly. There's nothing tae think I did anything wrong. We didn't fight, Jenny and I. Never. I'll go explain. It'll be better there than here.” He smiled at Mrs. Tuttle.

“I'll go with you,” I said. It wasn't until after the words were out that I looked at Edwin.

He nodded confusingly.

“No, Delaney, you don't have tae go,” Hamlet said.

“I think it is a lovely idea,” Rosie said. “She'll come back tae the shop with ye when ye're done.”

The two inspectors looked at each other but didn't seem to be able to come up with a good reason why I shouldn't join them.

“Very well. Let's go.” Inspector Morgan led the way. He kept his hand on Hamlet's arm and guided him to the police vehicle out front. The rain had stopped, but more was coming if the still-dark clouds were any indication.

Just after Hamlet was deposited in the backseat, Inspector Morgan assisted more than guided me next to Hamlet. As I glanced out the window right before we pulled away from the curb, I saw Edwin, Rosie, the customers, and Hector watching from outside the shop. I also saw one other observer.

In front of the bar of my same name stood a very handsome man, though he wasn't wearing a kilt this time. Tom had probably watched the entire display, including my escorted trip into the police car.

He rubbed his chin as his eyebrows came close together. For a moment I thought I might have ruined any chance to get to know him, but just as the car jutted out into the street I was sure I saw a wave of amusement pass over his face.