One Book In The Grave

Chapter 18

Late that night, Derek and I spirited Max back to San Francisco. I’d offered my loft as the most secure place to stay, at least for a short period of time. Since my home had been broken into a while back, the building security had been upgraded. The parking garage had a shiny new security gate now, and the front door required a more intricate digital code to enter. I had lots of living space and an extra bedroom and bathroom Max could use. Not to mention the fact that Derek, supersecurity guy, was living with me.

Gabriel decided to remain in Dharma and keep track of Angelica’s and Solomon’s movements during the day. The nights were a different plan altogether. I confess it made my stomach a little queasy to know that Gabriel intended to stay at Jackson’s house during the nights, in hopes of luring the bad guys into a trap.

Of course, after seeing that papermaker’s mallet on the doormat, I wasn’t sure if my stomach would ever be right again.

“I want you to call one of us every four hours,” I demanded before I would give Gabriel the key to Jackson’s place. “I swear I’ll get in the car and drive up here if I don’t hear from you. Then you’ll really be sorry, mister.”

I was channeling my mother again.

“Babe, I’ll be fine,” Gabriel said. “But thanks for worrying about me. It’s sweet.” Then he kissed me solidly on the lips and grinned as I blinked in dazed surprise.

“Must be time to go,” Derek said wryly.

“Definitely,” I mumbled when I was able to speak again.

I was happy to be home.

Derek and I showed Max around the house; then I got him set up in the guest bedroom. Once we were all situated, we met at the dining room table, where Derek called Gabriel and put him on speakerphone so we could discuss what we’d all found out over the last two days.

I recounted everything Mrs. Plumley told me about Emily being on a leave of absence. I told them what her parents’ neighbor had said. It wasn’t much information, but it gave Max some hope that Emily and her family were probably out of town and hadn’t met with foul play, as we’d feared.

I also braved Derek’s ire and confessed to everything I’d seen at the Art Institute. I showed Max the retrospective poster and watched the mix of emotions that crossed his face. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, ultimately. From one angle, it was a huge honor, but, unfortunately, with Angelica putting the whole show together, it was just plain inexplicable.

When I mentioned that Mom and I had gone to Solomon’s classroom, Derek’s eyes turned dark with fury.

“We were in the back,” I said. “He couldn’t see me. And we only stayed a few seconds.” But I knew that was a lie, and gazing at Derek’s face, I could tell he didn’t quite believe me, either.

Derek reported he was looking into Bennie’s criminal record and was also checking into the weapons-arsenal issue. Specifically, he was interested in the buying and selling of guns in the area. If there were more criminals among the Ogunites and other survivalists living in the Hollow, Derek would track them down.

I studied Derek as he spoke and realized he looked exhausted. “Are you all right?”

“You mean besides my irritation with you and your mother for taking chances with your lives?” I gulped as he shook his head and turned to Max. “I apologize for being distracted. We’ve been having a bit of trouble with a new client. Everyone in the office is in a foul mood, and there’s no end in sight.”

That was the problem with having extremely wealthy clients who were used to getting their own way. But this was the first I’d heard of a troublesome client. I guess we’d all been distracted lately.

“That’s okay,” Max said. “I appreciate everything you’re doing.”

Gabriel spoke up from the speakerphone. “I managed to track down Angelica’s apartment. It was still listed under an old roommate’s name from almost five years ago.”

“Good work,” Derek said.

“Did you get inside?” I asked. “Was she there?”

“Did you find a gun?” Max asked.

Gabriel chuckled. “Thanks. Yes. No. No.”

“Sorry,” I said, sitting back in the chair. “Tell us everything.”

“Her apartment was spotless,” he said. “There was no mail piled up or food in the sink. She doesn’t use the place much.”

“Makes sense if she’s living with Solomon,” Derek said.

“But did you get the sense that she uses the place to meet other men?” I asked.

“Hard to say for sure,” Gabriel said. “But I’m leaning toward no.”

“Why?”

“Just a vibe. I’ll check back there in a few days, just to see if I get the same vibe.”

I could almost see his self-deprecating smile. He was the least “vibey” guy I knew.

Later, in bed, I apologized to Derek for going to see Solomon.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, turning onto his back and staring at the ceiling. “I worry about you. I should simply get used to it, or…”

My stomach dropped. What is he saying? I sat up and forced myself to ask. “Or what, Derek?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Or I should hire a bodyguard for you when I’m not around.”

“Oh.” I sighed with profound relief. For a minute there, I was afraid he would leave me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been insecure after all these months of our living together, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. I still occasionally wondered what he saw in me. I’d made so many mistakes in the past. Love made me neurotic, I guess, but I was ready to snap out of it.

He sat up and brushed my hair away from my face in a tender gesture. “Darling, I might have to do a bit of traveling over the next few months.”

“Because of your new client?”

“Yes. One of the partners has reached the end of his rope and I might have to take over for him.”

“Oh. Can you tell me anything about the case?”

He shifted in bed and pulled me closer. “Not yet. There are security risks right now, but I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can.”

“All right.”

He kissed me then and we forgot all about annoying clients and everything else but each other.

Over the next few days, we settled into a routine. Gabriel called twice a day, not at the four-hour increments I’d insisted on, but often enough to keep me from freaking out too much. Derek would drive off to his office each morning, even on the weekend, and that’s when Max and I would go to our separate spaces within the apartment and get started on whatever project we’d planned to work on that day.

One morning, I spent some time rearranging chairs and turned a corner of my living room into a reading nook. I’d been wanting some new bookshelves and now I had a full wall crying out for them, so I ordered a set online. The company guaranteed they’d be delivered within a week.

Clyde and I had bonded nicely. I decided I loved cats and was almost convinced they loved me, too.

It was all so normal, so domestic, I began to wonder if we really had overreacted. Yes, Joe was dead, but maybe his death had been a fluke or a mistake or completely unrelated to Max. Maybe the killer had shown up at Joe’s bookstore and something got out of hand. He hadn’t really meant to kill Joe. It was just a horrible accident. Maybe.

And maybe I’d sprout wings and fly off to Fiji for the day.

It was good to get back to my workshop and start on one of the big jobs I had waiting for me. I’d received the reference for this commission from my neighbor, Suzie Stein. Her aunt Grace was a book lover (a book hoarder, according to Suzie’s roommate, Vinnie, but she’d said it as if that were a bad thing!) and she’d boxed up her shabbily bound set of Wilkie Collins in the hope that I would be able to bring them back to life.

Aunt Grace had insisted on meeting me before I did the work, so a few weeks earlier, I’d driven out to Lake Tahoe with Suzie and Vinnie to meet Grace and pick up the books.

“She is a lovely woman, Brooklyn,” Vinnie had insisted at least six times on the drive east. “Don’t be afraid of her.”

Suzie had finally glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “Vinnie, you keep saying that, and it’s making Brooklyn even more afraid than before.”

“It’s best that she be prepared,” Vinnie said darkly.

But Grace and I had gotten along famously, maybe because we both loved books so much. Grace, unfortunately, loved books in the worst way. Her home was a huge, sprawling mansion on the lake, and every room was stacked with books. There had to be at least twenty thousand books in her house. She had every author and collection known to man. Not just finely bound works, but paperbacks from every era. She was particularly proud of her forties noir collection with their grisly, sensationalist covers.

It was difficult to reconcile everything I knew of Suzie and Vinnie, the chain saw-wielding, animal-loving lesbian wood artists, with Suzie’s eccentric and brilliant aunt, who’d made her money by designing computer games.

We’d had high tea with Grace and her friend Ruth. Grace had assured me she’d Googled my name and been impressed with my professional Web site. She trusted me to do a good job for her kids. By kids, I assumed she meant her Wilkie Collins books. But it wasn’t until we had finished tea and Suzie mentioned that we needed to get back to the city that Grace finally asked the housekeeper to bring out the box of books she’d set aside for me.

Grace wouldn’t allow me to open the box; she simply said that she wanted them rebound and that they contained lots of surprises and I wouldn’t be sorry. I assured her I was very excited to do the work.

Now as I opened Grace’s box of books for the first time, the pungent aroma of musty, moldy pulp wafted up. I picked up the book on top and stared at it in dismay.

“Good heavens,” I muttered, putting it back in the box. “Did she use them for rat bait?”

I hurried over to a side drawer, pulled out several white cloths, and draped them across the worktable’s surface. Taking all the books out of the box, I laid them carefully across the table to study their condition.

Once upon a time, the leather covers had been navy blue. Each book’s front cover featured a miniature painting behind a small glass plate. They must have been exquisite when they were new, but now they were sad and dreary. That was okay; I appreciated a challenge.

I picked up the first book and checked the spine. The Woman in White. Its tiny painting depicted a woman in a billowy white dress standing on the bank of a lake with rippling water in the background. The detail was wonderful. It was lucky that the miniature paintings were protected by glass, because they all appeared to be in perfect condition, unlike the books themselves.

I checked the copyright page and found it was printed in 1860. I quickly looked up the publication date online and realized that this book might be a first edition. I would have to check other sources, but I had no doubt that the book was extremely valuable. While online, I also discovered that Collins had written twenty-three novels. The box Grace had given me contained only six books. I had to wonder whether there were more hidden throughout her rambling home that were in need of rescue.

Closing the cover, I turned the book over and carefully began to thumb through the gilded pages. That’s when I discovered the fore-edge painting.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. Was the entire collection painted? If so, the books were beyond priceless. The set belonged in a museum. I wondered if Grace would consent to donating them to the Covington Library.

The technique of fore-edge painting came into popular practice in the 1800s, and it was done by fanning the pages and clamping the book tightly. Then an artist would paint a watercolor painting on the fanned edge. When dry, the book would be clamped at its normal angle and the fore edge would be gilded in the typical way.

So when the book was closed, it would appear to be a normal, gilt-edged book. The painting couldn’t be seen unless the fore edge was fanned. It was a charming surprise for any antiquarian book lover.

Some of the antiquarian books sold these days contained edge paintings that had been added more recently. There were artists who specialized in edge painting, and I’d worked with one talented but eccentric fellow a few years ago. It wasn’t the sort of art you could hang on a wall and he was a little bitter about that, but his art was his master, or so he claimed.

But the fore-edge painting on this copy of The Woman in White was as old as the book itself and, thankfully, in excellent condition. The cover, however, wasn’t so lucky; it was fully separated from the spine. The back cover was in even worse shape. The leather had disintegrated, the hard board beneath was crumbling, and one edge had been nibbled badly. It hurt my heart.

“Sad little book,” I murmured. Yet when I fanned the fore edge, a sweet bucolic scene emerged of a shepherd boy and a flock of sheep grazing in a vast green field. “Amazing.”

I opened the book and turned the pages slowly. There were a number of beautiful steel-engraved illustrations throughout. Strangely enough, the paper was still in good condition, with only light foxing, as far as I could see. I would have to check the others, but with any luck, they would be in the same decent shape.

I poured myself another cup of coffee, took a quick sip, then left the cup on my desk as usual. I never drank any liquids when I was working. Spilled coffee and old books didn’t play well together.

As I reached for the next Collins, The Moonstone, I was already planning my strategy for restoring the set of six. I had several sheets of beautiful morocco leather dyed a deep navy blue, enough to cover all six books easily. It would be a challenge to resew and rebind them with their original fore-edge paintings, but I looked forward to it. I tested my strongest book press and was confident that it would hold each book in place as I resewed the signatures.

I spent most of that day in my sweats, going through every page of every book in Grace’s Wilkie Collins collection. As with the The Woman in White, most of the paper was in good condition. A good thing, because the less work I had to do on the pages themselves, the less I would upset the natural lay of the fore-edge paintings. A tear or a replaced page would present a real challenge, so I was happy not to have to face that possibility.

After three days of working on the Wilkie Collins collection, I’d finished only two books and I needed a break.

It seemed that all of us were stalled in finding further information about Angelica and Solomon. Derek’s office was in turmoil, so his time spent investigating weapons sales to the survivalists had taken a backseat.

I was happy I had my own work to do, because I would have gone stir crazy otherwise. Max seemed a little closer to the brink, although he managed to keep busy, as well.

Despite Derek’s distractions, he’d taken the time to arrange for one of his assistants to pick up my car from the police, run it through the car wash, and fill it with gas, then deliver it to my home. I was thrilled to have my car back, even though I wasn’t about to leave the house while there was a killer on the loose.

Monday morning, after Derek left for a meeting with clients, I took a break from the Wilkie Collins books and turned my attention to Beauty and the Beast. I’d received permission from Max to restore the book, even though he and Emily had originally insisted they wanted it left in its shabby condition. I gave him all sorts of reasons why it should be cleaned and rebound, but the reason that swayed him most was that the book had spent three years in the hands of someone who had shown ill will toward Max and Emily. Those bad vibes needed to be exorcised, and I was just the bookbinder to wipe them clean.

I didn’t bring up the fact that the book had once belonged to me and part of me felt that it was back where it belonged. I certainly planned to turn it over to Emily and Max if they got back together again, but if the book really was mine, I would want to give it a shiny new cover. So that’s what I was going to do.

That had been Ian’s wish, too. Even if Emily and Max did reunite, I was hoping I could convince them to donate the book to the Covington after all.

In one of my map drawers where I kept sheets of leather, I found a beautiful piece of soft morocco in a spectacular shade of vermilion. I’d been saving it for the perfect project, and this was it. The color reminded me of the crimson paper Max had created from the juice and pulp of his homegrown beets.

I shuffled through the bags from Max’s house and found the red paper among the many sheets I’d collected from his basement.

When I held up the paper next to the piece of leather to compare the colors, I was thrilled. The two shades complemented each other perfectly. I decided at that moment that I would build a storage box for Beauty and use Max’s thick crimson sheets of paper for the lining.

The style of box I had in mind was commonly known as a clamshell because of its construction. A hinge on one side allowed it to spread open completely and reveal its contents, somewhat like the action of a clamshell. Most jewelry boxes opened this way, and many rare books were housed in similar style.

Max, meanwhile, had discovered that one of the doors in my living room led upstairs to my small, private rooftop patio, and he had taken over the space. Moving the patio table and chairs around, he set up a makeshift papermaking studio in the southeast corner, where the walls blocked the worst of San Francisco’s winds.

He laid out his tools and supplies, then went around my house, pruning the plants and small trees I had in pots inside and out on the patio. He gathered quite a selection of twigs and leaves and petals that he would use to work into the sheets of paper he would make. I loaned him a week’s worth of newspapers for turning into pulp, as well as my hair dryer, to speed up the drying process, and he was good to go.

I spent the afternoon in my workroom, studying the endpapers of Beauty and the Beast. They were worth saving. There was a fanciful rendering of a magical forest in shades of green and brown and gold that would work beautifully against the vermilion leather. The details of the forest were charming. Cheerful flowers lined a winding path that led deeper into the woods. Small forest creatures flitted among the trees. The picture was faded but still engaging, so I was extra careful to make a clean, razor-sharp cut along the inner hinge. I would splice the two sides together later and the little work of art would look as good as new.

It always took me a while to get started when I was taking apart a faded, broken book. The first cut was the most difficult. I know it sounds silly, but I felt as though I was cutting open an old friend, and I wanted to make sure that initial slice of the knife was exact and effective. I was always relieved to get past that moment.

I picked up my scalpel and used it to pick at the blobs of glue along the front inside cover. It was a mess and so thick that I wondered if some child had poured glue over the edges and their parent had tried to wipe it up to little avail. Stranger things had happened to books.

My mind wandered to thoughts of Max working upstairs. I hoped he was as blissful at pulping and mashing newspapers up there as I was with ripping apart an old book down here. I pictured the two of us, happy as dancing toadstools, working away in our own private worlds all day long.

Toadstools? I shook my head in bemusement. I’d been staring at that magic forest way too long. I blinked to clear my vision and glanced over at the clock on my desk. It was almost five o’clock. I’d been working for four hours straight.

“And didn’t make it past the endpapers.” Oh, well. I covered my tools and the book with a soft white cloth, slid down off my high stool, and stretched for a minute. Then I flicked off the bright ceiling light over my worktable and headed for the kitchen.

Max came walking out of his bedroom minutes later.

I stared, stunned by the change in him. “You shaved your beard off.”

“I did. I felt like I was shedding an old skin.”

“I love it,” I said, smiling up at him. “You look years younger and very handsome.”

“Shucks. I bet you say that to all the guys.”

I laughed. “Are you ready for a glass of wine?”

“Sure. I’ll open the bottle.”

I pulled three wineglasses down from the shelf just as the phone rang. I answered it, listened and talked for a moment, then hung up. “Derek will be home in fifteen minutes.”

While we waited for Derek to show up, we sipped our wine, a rich, dry Rhône that I’d found on sale at the market and bought a case of last month. And I took the opportunity to beg Max to help me hone my cooking skills.

“I only know a few dishes,” he said.

“But you cook effortlessly. There’s no anxiety or kerfuffles in your kitchen. That’s the part I’d like to learn.”

“Kerfuffles? I’ve never baked those before.”

“Ha-ha. Are you going to give me some pointers or not?”

He grudgingly agreed. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“You really are a beast,” I said, teasing him.

“About time you recognized my true nature,” he said, and opened up my refrigerator to stare at the contents.

“I recognized it years ago, Beast.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” he said, and tweaked my cheek. “Let’s see what you’ve got in the cupboard.”

We made a quickie version of what he called his world-famous chicken Parmigiana recipe from the six ingredients I actually had on hand: frozen chicken breasts, a jar of pasta sauce, bread crumbs, one egg, Parmesan cheese, and linguini. It would’ve helped if I had mozzarella cheese, too, but we worked around that. Because, really, who kept mozzarella on hand, just in case?

Max pointed out that normally, he would have made the sauce from scratch with fresh tomatoes, onions, and garlic grown in his garden. He would have added heavy cream, too, because that’s how he rolled. The consensus was that our quick-and-dirty version might not have been world famous, but it was pretty darn delicious.

The effortless part of cooking was something I still needed to work on. But watching Max, I could see his cooking techniques and his movements around the kitchen had everything to do with enjoying the journey and little to do with the results. He didn’t get hung up if every tiny detail wasn’t perfection. He just had a good time. To my surprise, I realized that this was the same philosophy I used with my bookbinding, and vowed that tomorrow night I would prepare dinner effortlessly.

Later that night, Gabriel called and I put him on speakerphone. Clyde sat on my lap during the conversation.

“I swung by Angelica’s place again,” Gabriel said. “Everything was neat and clean, same as last time, except for one little change.”

I jumped forward in my chair. “What?”

“Did you find a gun?” Max asked.

“No,” he said. “I found every piece of clothing from her closet tossed on the bed.”

“So she probably wasn’t there to meet a guy,” I said.

Derek’s eyebrow jutted up. “Bit difficult to carry on an affair when you can’t find the bed.”

“Were the clothes tossed neatly?” I asked.

“No,” Gabriel said. “It was a mess. Jumbled.”

“Like she was packing in a hurry?” I suggested.

Gabriel paused, then said, “Maybe. At first I was thinking she might’ve stopped by to pick up something different to wear. Except-”

“Except it’s a mess,” I cut in. “So why would she leave everything out in a pile on the bed? Especially when the rest of the place is so tidy?”

“Good question,” Gabriel said.

“You’ll watch for her next move,” Derek said.

Gabriel made a sound of disgust. “I would if I could find her. She’s disappeared.”

“Maybe she did pack for a trip,” I said.

“Maybe,” Gabriel said, but he sounded unconvinced. Changing the subject, he said, “I tracked down Bennie and Stefan. Or maybe I should call them Beavis and Butt-head. Whoever said they weren’t exactly geniuses was right on. Personally, I think they would sell their souls for a box of candy bars.”

“So they should be easy to manipulate,” Derek said.

I had already told them about the conversation with Bennie at the Art Institute store the other day, so now I agreed. “Bennie would be very easy to manipulate. Stefan seemed to be a little more on the ball. Still, Solomon is a master manipulator. He would have no problem with either of them.”

“That was my impression, too,” Gabriel said. “And I took your advice and snuck into one of his classes. Interesting guy.”

“For a psychopath,” Max muttered.

“Exactly,” Gabriel said.

“What else?” Derek asked.

Gabriel paused, then said, “Well, now that I’ve been out to the Hollow a few times, I’ll admit I misjudged the place. Maybe it was because of that name, the Hollow, but I assumed the houses would be shacks and hovels. They’re not. A bunch of them are really nice and some of them are huge.”

“The Ogunites believe in having lots of babies,” I explained.

“That must be why,” Gabriel said. “Anyway, back to Bennie and Stefan. Solomon might be getting those two knuckleheads to do some of his dirty work, but my professional opinion? Neither of them is clever or vicious enough to have killed Joe Taylor.”

Derek leaned one elbow on the table. “So that brings us back to Angelica or Solomon.”

“Right.”

“I’m betting on Solomon,” I said, and felt a chill as I recalled his piercing look that day I walked into his lecture hall. There was little doubt a man like that could manipulate a weaker person into committing murder.