The Paper Mirror (14 page)

As soon as I got back to the office, I called to leave a message for Glen O’Banyon to ask him to call me when he could. And then I stood there, phone in hand, wondering just what I should do about Evan Knight. I definitely wanted to talk with him, but…oh, what the hell, the worst he could do would be to hang up on me. I put the phone back on the cradle long enough to look up his number, then picked it up again to dial.

The phone rang four times, and then, “Evan Knight.” And since it wasn’t immediately followed by an “I’m not in right now,” I guessed I had the real thing.

“Evan, this is Dick Hardesty,” I began. I wasn’t about to mention our run-in in the pool, and I didn’t wait for a response before saying, “I’m calling in regards to my investigation into Taylor Cates’ death and am talking with everyone associated with the Burrows. I wondered if we might get together to talk about it.”

There was an uncomfortably long pause, then, “I suppose. I have nothing to hide.”

Hide?
I wondered.
Who said anything about hiding anything?

“I wasn’t suggesting you did. But the board wants me to look into every angle in order to be completely sure Taylor’s death was accidental.”

“Why would anyone think otherwise?”

“Again, just covering all bets.”

Another long pause. “Can we do this over the phone?” he asked.

I didn’t know whether he thought I might decide to punch him again, or what, and I really wasn’t overly enthused about the idea of seeing him again, but I had no doubt that he knew considerably more about Taylor Cates than any of the other board members, so while a phone conversation with them was sufficient, I wanted to be able to watch Knight’s reactions while I talked to him.

“I think we should talk in person,” I said. I was pretty sure we both would prefer it to be on neutral territory. “We could meet for coffee somewhere.”

Yet another pause. Obviously, he wasn’t any more thrilled with the whole idea than I was.

“I think I’d prefer a drink,” he said. “You want to make it today?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Okay, how about four o’clock at the Carnival?”

“That’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”

I hadn’t been to the Carnival in ages. It was a nice businessman’s-type bar that I used to go to frequently when I lived nearby. I was very glad he hadn’t suggested Hughie’s.

*

I called Evergreen to leave word for Jonathan that I might be a little late getting home. It was about two o’clock, and I had the strong urge to go by the Burrows. Dave Witherspoon’s subtle jibe that maybe I was seeing something that wasn’t there had gotten to me. And for some strange reason, I suddenly wondered if the letters I had gone through were all the letters there were. What if some of them were missing? How would I possibly know?

I made a quick call to the Burrows to ask McGill if it was okay for me to stop by, and he agreed…though with just the right amount of hesitation to let me know he hoped this wasn’t going to become a habit. He told me I could go directly to the cataloging room and he’d tell them to be expecting me.

*

I made it to the Burrows by about two thirty, figuring I’d have an hour before I had to leave for the Carnival.

Janice was there at the same table surrounded by what looked to be the same boxes. After exchanging greetings, I picked up Box #12-A and carried it to the far end of the table. Removing the lid, I took the yellow notepad and began looking through it. There were about four and a half pages of closely spaced writing, the last three and a half in handwriting different from the first. Dave Witherspoon’s first, then Taylor’s, I assumed. Just as Witherspoon had explained, it was a list of dates followed by the name of the person to whom the letter was written and an occasional comment or two regarding any specific references of possible historic interest.

Okay, so if some letters were missing, comparing the list to the letters from the box should show it—at least up to the point the cataloging had reached when Taylor died. A quick thumb-through, comparing the dates of each of the letters to the entries in the notepad showed that every single one of them was there; no letters without a corresponding date on the list, no dates on the list without a corresponding letter. Damn. I noted that beside each of Witherspoon’s entries there was a small check mark, and I’d wager Taylor had gone over every one of Dave’s entries to verify its accuracy.

The catalog list ended with a letter on February 22, 1953—further back than I’d started reading the first time, actually. I pulled out the remaining letters in the box, being careful to keep them in order.

All right, Hardesty
, one of my mind-voices—the one in charge of general impatience—said,
just exactly what in the hell are you doing? You’re spending all this time on a dead guy and some maybe-missing letters from decades ago. Exactly
what do you think you’re looking for? What possible bearing could it have on Taylor Cates’ death?

It does,
my gut told me.
Trust me.

Like a dog unwilling to let go of a bone, I ignored all the letters not to Scot and started reading the ones that were. Maybe I could pick up some indication that some letters were missing. I wished Scot’s letters to Morgan—if there had been any, and I’m sure there were—had been saved. It would have been easier to pick up a sense of flow. I tried to keep my mind objective, but was pretty sure my eye would have picked up some key words if they were there. Nothing. Just that elusive…whatever. Sentences like, “I was thinking of that little restaurant we found in the hills above Genoa, next to the bombed-out church. Remember how the owner’s wife went to the garden and henhouse behind the place to get us fresh eggs and vegetables for that fantastic omelet?” were really totally innocuous on the surface—but why did I insist on finding something underneath? I’m sorry, but I don’t think many straight guys would remember things like that—or mention them to a straight buddy if he did.

I only had a chance to read about five or six letters, spaced over a period of several months, before I glanced at my watch and saw it was time to go. Carefully replacing the letters I’d removed, I laid the notepad on the top and closed the lid. I carried the box back to Janice, thanked her, and left.

But instead of walking out the front door, I found myself climbing the steps to the main floor and going to the general fiction section of the stacks, where books were listed alphabetically by author. Sure enough, they had all of Evan Knight’s books. I picked up
Fate’s Hand
and opened it, turning quickly through the pages until I found what I was looking for. It didn’t take long. The character’s name wasn’t, as I remembered it, “Scott.” It was “Scot.” One
t
.

*

I arrived at the Carnival at about ten till four, early as usual despite having made a quick swing by Steamroller Junction to pick up our tickets for the Hospice benefit. Though I’d not been to the Carnival for a long time—since way before I met Jonathan, I now recalled—it hadn’t changed all that much. Happy hour started at four, and since it got a lot of after-work businessmen who weren’t off work yet, there were very few people in the place. No sign of Evan Knight, so I took a stool at the far end of the bar where I could keep my eye on the door. I ordered a Manhattan and had just paid for it and taken my first sip when I saw Evan walk in. He saw me and came over, not smiling. He took the stool next to me, and neither one of us offered to shake hands.

He all but ignored me until he’d placed his drink order, then turned to me. “So what do you want to know about Taylor Cates?” he asked.

Right to the point. Good
, I thought. Apparently he wasn’t going to mention the night of the party, and I certainly wasn’t.

“How did you meet?” I asked.

The bartender brought his drink and he took a swig before setting the glass down. He was sitting facing straight ahead, his forearms on the bar, and only turned his head far enough toward me to answer. “Well, this whole thing with a separate library for the Collection sort of caught me off guard. I was on a long vacation in Europe, and when I got back it was all a done deal. The final plans were being made to transfer Chester’s collection from the estate to the new library. Apparently, some members of the board felt a little guilty about not having included me in the planning, so they asked me, since I’d done some cataloging for Mr. Burrows, if I would take over the preliminary recruiting and screening of applicants for the library staff. Irving McGill had already hired one, but it was clear he just couldn’t do everything. I was glad to help.

“I contacted Mountjoy’s library sciences department—that’s where McGill had found the first cataloger he hired—and they referred me to the Placement Bureau. I gave them my address for the submission of résumés, and one day less than a week later there was a knock at my front door, and I opened it to find Taylor standing there. He was so eager to get the job, he brought his résumé over in person. You have to give a guy like that credit.”

I nodded. “So you started dating him, then?” I asked, hoping I sounded nonaccusatory.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and gave me a suppressed smile. “I’d hardly consider it ‘dating,’” he said, “but we did get together a couple of times. As I said, he was really eager to get the job.”

Gee,
I thought,
if you can move that semitrailer out of the way, I think I’ll be able to read between the lines here.

“So what else did you know about him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not much. He had a pretty rough childhood, I gathered, and while he had a scholarship, he still had to work hard to make it through school. He had a lot of ambition and he was willing to do whatever it took to get ahead.”

I took another sip of my drink. “Meaning?”

“Meaning nothing,” he said. “He was a pretty serious guy, but he gave me the impression that once he set his mind to something, he kept at it until he got it. That’s one of the reasons I put in a good word for him with Irving McGill, and I was right. Taylor was a damned good cataloger and worked his tail off.”

Well, it sounded like a convincing story.

“So that was it as far as your relationship was concerned?” I asked.

He looked at me and cocked his head slightly. “That was it. And I hardly think our contacts could qualify as a relationship. We both got what we wanted, and that was all there was to it.” Apparently realizing how that last sentence might be interpreted, he hastened to add, “He wanted a job, I wanted to help the Burrows get a qualified staff.”

“Did you have many contacts with him after he got the job?”

“Other than running into him a couple of times at the library, not that I can remember.”

“At the time of Taylor’s death, he was working on the papers of Morgan Butler,” I said. “I understand you’d done some preliminary work on them, too, when they were still at the Burrows’ estate.” I actually didn’t know that as a fact, but I was following a hunch.

“Butler? Yes, I seem to recall I did some work on them. Several others, too.”

“Do you remember finding out anything particularly interesting about Morgan Butler?”

He had both hands around the base of his glass on the bar, and began turning it around, slowly. “Nothing particular that I recall. Like what?”

“Like Morgan Butler possibly being gay?”

The glass continued to turn. “No. Nothing like that. Of course I didn’t have time to read every single letter. Where did you get that idea?”

“I didn’t get it…Taylor did. He approached McGill about it. I looked through some of the letters, but I couldn’t find anything other than vibes that he might have been.”

Knight shook his head, hands still twirling his glass. “I really wouldn’t know about that…and what difference would it make if he were?”

“Point,” I said.

He noticed me looking at his hands and immediately picked up his glass for another long swallow, putting the glass back on the bar and folding his hands.

“What did you think of Morgan’s manuscripts?” I asked.

“I didn’t read them.”

“But you looked through them?”

“Just cursorily,” he replied.

“I was curious as to what you thought of them,” I said, “one writer to another.”

“As I said, I didn’t look at them too closely. I had a lot to do. The writing seemed…competent, as I recall. It’s been a long time…several years.”

“Not too long before your first book came out, if I remember right.”

“I don’t remember,” he said. “But you’re probably right. As soon as I found a publisher for
A Game of Quoits
, my first book, I stopped doing cataloging for Mr. Burrows.”

“Interesting coincidence,” I said, “but a lot of Morgan’s letters—the ones with the gay vibes—were to a guy named Scot. One of the main characters in
Fate’s Hand
is named Scot.”

He looked at me with no expression. “Wow, imagine that,” he said. “I wonder how many books have characters named Scott?”

I looked at him closely. “Spelled with only one
t
? Not many, I’d think.”

I couldn’t really tell in the artificial and dim light of the bar, but I swore I saw him flush for just an instant as he stared into his drink. Finally, he turned to me, the flush replaced by a look of what I can only describe as defiance.