The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

OUTSIDE, A HORN blared. Spencer dumped his bowl and spoon into the sink. “That’s the school bus!”

I’d already run a brush through my hair and thrown on a pair of blue jeans and a powder-blue sweater before making oatmeal for Spencer. But I was still bleary-eyed from the terrible events of the night before…and, of course, that strange dream of Jack working a missing persons case in New York City.

“Wait a minute!” I called as Spencer raced for the door. “I’ll walk you downstairs.”

He wheeled, a look of horror on his face.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, kiddo, I’m only going to unlock the front door for you. I’ll stay out of sight.”

Spencer nodded, his sense of relief visible. Together we walked down the stairs. “Do you have your Reader’s Notebook?”

“Duh! I worked on that all summer, Mom. Do you think I’d actually forget it now?”

“Apparently not,” I replied as we crossed the empty bookstore’s main aisle.

The school encouraged reading over the summer by running a contest every year. The student who read the most books would be awarded a grand prize. Spencer had completely filled one spiral-bound notebook with titles, authors, and short descriptions of every story he’d read.

He had nothing on poor Peter Chesley with his fifty volumes, but in my view Spencer’s work had been just as diligent and enthusiastic.

Of course, living above a bookstore might be seen as a blatant advantage, but I didn’t allow him to read a book in our store and put it back on the shelf. I wanted Spencer to get comfortable using the local library and took him there regularly to check out new stacks of books.

When we reached the front door, I unlocked it. “Your first day for the new school year.” I smiled. “Good luck.”

Spencer returned my smile, then darted across the sidewalk. I heard Danny Keenan and a few of my son’s other new friends excitedly shout his name when he entered the bus and I felt my own sense of relief.

My son had gone from a morose little boy who missed his father to a bright and alive young man. He no longer had nightmares about my leaving him like his daddy did. He hardly mentioned missing Calvin anymore.

The early days after his father’s suicide had been awful, and for a long time, I questioned the decisions I was making. But now I was convinced that moving away from New York City and back to Quindicott had benefited Spencer’s peace of mind. It had been the right thing to do—for both of us.

I now had about fifty minutes before our bookstore was scheduled to open, and I went back upstairs to check on my aunt. She was still sleeping. This was unusual for Sadie, who was always the early riser, but considering the previous night’s events, it made me happy to see her get some much-needed rest.

Since I had a little time, I decided to slip on a jacket and head down the block to Cooper Family Bakery for a nosh of something special. The oatmeal was warm but hardly satisfying—and although my size fourteen jeans certainly could have been looser, I sorely needed the fresh air as much as the sugar rush. On the way, I stopped at Koh’s Grocery and bought a Providence Journal.

It took me a few minutes before I found a small item about the accidental death of Peter Chesley. The sparse article simply stated he’d “fallen in his home” after “a long illness.” There were no surprises here. It was clear to me that Detective Kroll had made up his mind before he’d even arrived at the mansion. But I took a deep breath and told myself to stop thinking about it.

“This is Kroll’s case now,” I muttered, “not mine.”

When I got to the bakery, I saw that half the mothers in Quindicott had gotten the same idea I had—send the children off to school and head over to Cooper’s. There was actually a line out the door. I waved to a few mothers who were also good Buy the Book customers.

“Penelope, did you get the new Patricia Cornwell in yet?”

It was Susan Keenan, the thirtysomething mother of Danny, one of Spencer’s new friends. Danny had two siblings: seven-year-old Maura, who was in school at the moment; and two-year-old Tommy, who was sleeping in a stroller by his mother’s side.

“It’s in, Sue,” I called to her, “stop by anytime.”

“Come on, come on, move along ladies,” a man’s voice boomed from the center of the perfumed mob. “Let me out of the pretty store and one of you can get in!”

Holding high his cup of steaming-hot coffee, Seymour Tarnish struggled to escape the packed bakery. As the women moved aside, I could see into the store. Behind the counter, Linda Cooper-Logan looked harried.

She wore a rainbow bandana over her short, spiky, platinum blonde hair (she’d had a thing for Annie Lennox since we were kids back in the eighties), and her husband Milner Logan (fan of noir thrillers) was nowhere in sight. My guess—the talented quarter-blood Narragansett Native American was in the back, doing his best to whip up more of those famous fresh, hot doughnuts that people drove from miles around to snag.

“Hey, Pen.” Seymour looked down at me with a crooked smile on his round face. He jerked his head in the direction of the bakery. “If you’re looking to buck that crowd, beware. Hungry housewives cruising for pastry are a dangerous breed. I almost lost my arm putting cream in my coffee.”

(What Seymour actually said was “almust lahst mah aahm”—using the typical dropped R’s and drawn out vowels of our “Roe Dyelin” patois. We might be the smallest state in the Union but, by golly, we’ve got a sizable accent. Sadie speaks with the accent, too, along with most of the people here in Quindicott. I lost mine somewhere between college and living in New York although the occasional slip—e.g., “You can never find pahkin’ in this town!”—just can’t be helped.)

Not exactly resplendent in his natty blue postman’s uniform with matching coat, his hat askew, Seymour was obviously on his way to his day job.

Although thickwaisted, our big, tactless, fortysomething mailman wasn’t always thickheaded. He’d won quite a bit of money on Jeopardy! a few years back and ever since, the town had its own local celebrity. It was the main reason the people on Seymour’s mail route put up with him. Still, their descriptions of the man spanned from “irascible” to “obnoxious,” depending on how diplomatic they were in choosing adjectives.

Seymour took a loud slurp from his steaming cup and smacked his lips. “Man, I needed that!”

“Late night?” I asked, enviously sniffing the aroma of his freshly brewed French roast.

“The haunted house is open right up until midnight through Halloween. I parked my ice cream truck on Green Apple Road at noon on Sunday and got home at one A.M. Cleaned up, though.”

One of the things Seymour did with his Jeopardy! winnings was purchase an ice cream truck. It had been his lifelong dream to become Quindicott’s one and only roving ice cream man (go figure), which he now was on evenings and weekends. The other thing he did with his prize money was purchase old pulps, usually collector’s items, which is why Buy the Book counted him as one of its most consistent (and, yes, at times, compulsive) customers.

After another gulp of coffee, Seymour gave me the fish eye. “Man you look wasted, Pen,” he observed, ever the charmer. “You got insomnia?”

“I had a late night, too. Sadie and I drove over to Newport and bought some items from a collector.”

Set wide apart, Seymour’s blue eyes gave his regular features an air of perpetual surprise. Now those eyes bulged like a hungry bug. “More swag! What’cha got? Anything hot and collectable?”

I mentioned the Phelps editions of Poe. Seymour shrugged.

“We also acquired an 1807 first edition of Thomas Paine’s An Examination of the Passages in the New Testament.”

Seymour’s bugging eyes quickly glazed over. “Not for me. But I’m sure your pal Brainert will wet his academic pants over them. I’m more interested in that 1931 issue of Oriental Stories your aunt has been tracking down for me. Any sign of it?”

“Not yet. We’ll keep you posted.”

Seymour glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s starting time for the day job. Back to the stamp mines. If I’m late again my supervisor will go postal for sure. See ya later.”

With Seymour gone, I glanced at the crowd around Cooper’s one last time. If anything, the line had gotten longer. Doughnutless and filled with sugary longing, I headed back to brew my own pot of coffee and open the store.

WHEN I UNLOCKED the front door at ten o’clock, there were a few more customers than I expected. They were mothers, mostly, out and about after sending their little ones off to school. They finally saw some quiet time ahead and were buying up new releases.

I rang up purchases, including Sue Keenan’s new Cornwell, and sorted the mail, pointedly ignoring the three cardboard boxes of books neatly stacked behind the counter—the books we’d brought back from Peter Chesley’s mansion in Newport the night before. At quarter to eleven, a local youth named Garfield Platt reported for duty.

“You’re early,” I noted.

Garfield shrugged and hung up his coat. “I left an hour early on Friday, remember Mrs. McClure? I have an hour to make up.”

“Good. The first thing you can do is carry those boxes to the storage room. Put them next to Sadie’s desk. And be careful, those volumes are quite valuable.”

“Can do, Mrs. McClure.”

Young Mr. Platt was our newest employee, hired because Mina could only work weekends due to her college classes. Unlike Mina, Garfield had disliked college and cut the experience short. He returned to Quindicott, and moved back in with his parents. He claimed he was making some money off a Web site he ran out of his home—doing what, I didn’t ask, nor did he volunteer that information—but Garfield needed more capital to move into his own place, so he worked two part-time gigs. He spent weekday afternoons and early evenings at Buy the Book, and the rest of the night doing odd jobs at the twenty-four-hour gas station out on the highway, finishing up at two A.M. The kid was motivated, I had to give him that.

Though Quindicott was a small town, I’d never met and didn’t know Garfield’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Platt. They didn’t attend our church and they didn’t mix socially with anyone I knew in the community, though they’d lived here for over two decades.

Garfield wasn’t as reclusive as his folks; in fact, he was outgoing, well-spoken, and possessed a wry sense of humor that made him fun to have in the store. Sadie and I had figured that out the day of his impromptu job interview.

It was a breezy autumn day in early September, a little over a month ago. I’d hung a HELP WANTED sign at the same time that I placed the new Dan Brown hardcover in the “hot picks” slot in the store window display.

Garfield blew in with a gust of wind fifteen minutes later. The cool, dry air had bristled his curly brown hair and spiked his full beard. He stood an inch shorter than me—though taller than my bantamweight aunt—with a broad shouldered build and a bright, direct gaze.

“My name is Garfield Platt. I’ve come to apply for the job,” he announced, reaching out to shake my hand.

Garfield’s voice rose a notch on the last word, so I thought he was asking a question. That miscommunication, and his lunge across the counter to shake my hand rattled me.

“Excuse me?” I replied, stepping backward.

“I think he’s applying for the job,” Sadie explained.

Garfield nodded, eyes unblinking. “I’d like to work here, if you’ll hire me. I have no experience and I just flunked out of college. But I read mysteries and I know authors, so I can help your customers find the titles they’re looking for. And I can count and make change. Seeing this is a commercial enterprise, I’d say that’s a plus.”

My aunt and I exchanged glances.

“Have you ever worked retail? Do you have experience dealing with the public?” Sadie asked.

Garfield stared blankly. “None at all.”

“Can you use a cash register?” I asked.

For a moment Garfield had that look of a deer before it ends up on the hood of a fast-moving car. Then he cleared his throat.

“Look,” he said. “I have no useful skills—beyond computers, which are kind of like my hobby. I know my prospects don’t seem bright at the moment. In fact, I probably look like a total loser to you and everybody else. Even my parents aren’t proud of me, although, compared to my ex-con brother, I’m golden. But I’ll learn fast, show up on time, and won’t bug you for a raise once a month, so what do you think?”

Sadie and I burst out laughing—and hired the guy on the spot.

“These books smell old,” Garfield observed as he lifted the final box. “Do you think they could be older than the Apple Mac I use for a doorstop?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But, unlike your doorstop, I’m betting books will never become an obsolete tool; otherwise, we’re both out of a job.”

“Do you want me to unpack them?”

“Sure, Garfield. That would be great. Just stack them on Sadie’s desk. But—”

“I know, I know. I’ll be real careful.”

Garfield was only gone a moment when I heard the chimes ringing over the front door. My oldest friend, J. Brainert Parker, rushed to the counter where I stood.

“Pen! I understand you’ve got a Phelps Poe in the store. Why didn’t you inform me at once?” His voice was practically shrill with excitement.

“Ah,” I said calmly, “so your mail was delivered.” J. Brainert Parker (the J. was for Jarvis, a name no one dared call him on pain of a polysyllabic tongue-lashing) was an assistant professor of English Literature at St. Francis College. Like me, he was in his early thirties. He was also exceedingly well read.

Today his slight build was clad in one of his typical preppy ensembles—a salmon-colored V-neck over a pressed white button-down, brown corduroy slacks, and polished penny loafers, with a heavily lined J. Crew windbreaker tossed on to combat the fall chill. I could see he wasn’t teaching today because he was sans tie (bow or any other kind). His straight brown hair was neatly trimmed, the bangs, which he could never decide what to do with, were today slicked back off the forehead of his patrician face.

“Yes, yes, it’s true,” Brainert conceded. “Seymour delivered the news with the gas bill. So which volume is it? Or do you have more than one.”

“I believe it’s a complete set.”

“Gad! Now I must see them. What’s their condition? How much are they worth?”

“A lot, I suspect. But the problem is…” I sighed. “Well, I feel a little funny about the whole deal now.”

Brainert blinked. “Whatever do you mean, Pen? You are selling them, aren’t you?”

“Well—”

I was about to tell Brainert all about last night, when Garfield flew out of the storage room, interrupting us.

“Mrs. McClure! Mrs. McClure!” he cried, waving around a bundle of yellowed papers. “I found these in one of those boxes of books. Letters, or papers, or something. The stuff ’s really old, too.”

Brainert’s eyes widened. “Is he speaking about the Phelps editions?”

I nodded, opened my mouth to speak, and the chimes rang over the front door once again.

The man who entered was such a striking figure, we all stared for a long rude moment. Tall as Lincoln and rail thin, the man’s short-cropped hair was completely silver, a stark contrast against his black suit and overcoat. He strode across the store and up to the counter, carrying a shiny black attaché case in one pale, long-fingered hand.

“Madame. Are you the proprietor of this establishment?”

His French accent was somewhat pronounced, but I had no trouble understanding him.

“Yes, I am. May I help—”

“I am Rene Montour. You are certainly familiar with my name, are you not?”

“Hello, Rene. I, um…w-well—”

He did not smile, nor did he acknowledge my clumsy stammering. Instead, the man frowned down at me, cutting me off with his even baritone. “I believe you have some property that belongs to my client. I am here to retrieve it posthaste.”

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“I am referring, of course, to a certain consignment of rare and valuable books.”