The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

BY LATE AFTERNOON, the selling day had settled back into normalcy. I’d been checking out a customer when the phone rang.

“Buy the Book, may I help you?”

“Hello, my name is Lars Van Riij, and I’m calling from my office at the United Nations in New York City. A mutual acquaintance, Rene Montour, suggested I get in touch with you in regards to the Phelps editions of Poe.”

“Oh!” I looked around for Sadie, but she was still in the storeroom, examining the Chesley lot.

“I am particularly interested in volume ten, A Descent into the Maelstrom. You do have it at your shop?”

“Yes, Mr. Van Riij, we have it, and I’m familiar with the volume.”

That particular volume contained not only the title story but also several other examples of Poe’s “nautical” works, including his rather nasty review of James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Pilot.”

Just then, I noticed my son walking in the store’s front door. He continued right by me without a word.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I told the caller.

“Hey, Spence,” I said. “I didn’t even see your school bus pull up. How was your first day back?”

Spencer shrugged. “Dunno,” he said and kept walking.

Crap, I thought as he trudged to the back of the store, where a set of stairs would take him up to the apartment we shared with Sadie.

Looks like the kid had a bad day.

“Gee, Jack. You think?”

“I think, madam,” said the man on the other end of the line, “that I am willing to offer five thousand American dollars up front for it.”

“Uh…” I cleared my throat, realizing simultaneously that I’d answered Jack out loud and we’d just gotten another ridiculously high offer for, frankly, an otherwise unremarkable book.

Unremarkable? Jack piped up again. Hold the phone. I mean it. You telling me you don’t truck with your pal’s treasure map theory?

“That’s just it,” I silently pointed out. “It’s only a theory.”

Brainert had asked us to hold onto the set’s remaining twelve books until he could bring his expert by to examine them. But the entrepreneur and bill-paying mother in me really wondered whether it was necessary to have all of the volumes available for examination. We’d already sold one, after all, and a part of me wanted to take this man’s offer on the spot.

“I, uh…” (Stalling brilliantly wasn’t my strong suit.) “Perhaps you should speak to my partner—”

But before I could get my aunt on the line, Mr. United Nations announced, “I shall drive up to you first thing tomorrow morning. If the condition of the volume is satisfactory, I promise you that we will work out a mutually agreeable price. Good day, Mrs. McClure.”

“But, Mr. Van Riij, I don’t think—Hello?”

The line went dead, and I stood there for a moment, unable to believe the man simply had hung up on me. I no sooner dropped the receiver into its cradle when it rang again, and I assumed he was calling back to tell me that we’d been disconnected accidentally.

“Mr. Van Riij?” I answered.

“No. Is this Buy the Book? Is that you, Penelope?”

It was a woman’s voice, vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it in ten words or less. “Sorry, yes, this is Penelope Thornton-McClure. Who’s calling?”

“It’s Susan Keenan.”

“Oh! Sue! Sorry, what’s up? Have you started the new Cornwell?”

“Not yet—tonight though, when the kids are in bed and my husband’s doing his Internet thing—you know how it is…”

I used to…but one thing I did know: if I were Sue Keenan, I’d be making sure my husband’s “Internet thing” was open access. When a man starts locking himself in a room with a computer, he’s probably doing one of two things—neither of which were Googling for tips on home repair.

“Pen, the reason I called was because of Spencer.”

I could hear a dog barking in the background and some kids laughing and playing. Then a door shut and those noises were muted.

“What is it, Sue?” I asked. “You’ve got me worried.”

“I met Danny and Maura’s school bus. They’re on the same bus as Spencer, and I saw one of the boys bullying your son—”

“Aw, no…”

“I had sharp words for the bus driver for not stopping it, but Syd said he can’t be a nursemaid or he’ll risk getting into an accident. He said the road’s his priority, you know? Anyway, this Boyce Lyell, he was pushing Spencer around pretty badly. He ripped up something of Spence’s too. I shouted for them to stop and they did, but I wanted you to know what was going on. I’ve seen at least three TV news specials on school bullies and how bad it can get if it’s not nipped in the bud, and I know I’d go ballistic if my Danny was in that situation, you know?”

It took me a few seconds to digest everything Sue had just said. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. “Thanks, Sue. I mean it.”

“If you need me to talk to anyone at the school to verify what I saw, just give me a call, okay?”

“Okay…Thanks again.”

“No problem. I’d want you to call me if you ever saw my kids in that situation, you know?”

“Of course.”

After hanging up, I found Sadie in the storeroom, let her know about the call from Mr. Lars Van Hang-up, and asked her to cover the front. Then I headed upstairs.

And so, it seemed, did Jack.

You going to tell me how you’re going to handle this?

“No,” I silently answered.

No? Or you don’t know?

“Both, but I don’t want you butting in, okay? Sit this one out.”

I found my son moping in front of the TV set. The Intrigue Channel was on and Spencer was already engrossed in a Jack Shield episode he’d probably seen three times already.

“How about a snack?” I asked.

Spencer didn’t look up, just shook his head. “Not hungry.”

I walked over and sat next to him on the couch. “PB&J? Or how about we take a walk to Franzetti’s Pizza for a slice?”

Spencer just shook his head again.

“You’ve got the right idea. Don’t want to ruin your dinner. I’ve got a delicious beef stew in the Crock-Pot and some fresh-baked bread from Cooper’s Bakery.”

Spencer nodded sullenly, but still refused to talk, so I leaned back and watched television with him for a few minutes.

The original Jack Shield TV show was one of those black-and-white mid-century Dragnetesque crime dramas. It followed a no-nonsense private investigator working the mean streets of New York City. The show was based on a series of blockbuster bestsellers written by the late Timothy Brennan, a former journalist who claimed he’d drawn the Shield stories from the case files of an actual deceased PI—a man he’d personally known by the name of Jack Shepard.

“Do you like this episode?” I asked my son, desperate to start a conversation—any conversation.

“It’s okay.”

“What’s the story about?”

“This mobster guy…” Spencer pointed. “He’s the man in the funny suit with the hat…he hires Jack to find his old girlfriend. Jack finds her in another city, but she’s happy to be away from the mobster guy. Plus she’s about to get married. And she begs Jack not to tell where she is. So Jack goes back and stands up to the mobster and tells him to leave the girl alone. The mobster gets real angry, but Jack won’t tell him where the girl is. Jack’s a real tough guy…”

“A real tough guy. I see.”

“I like that he’s a tough guy, Mom. Nobody pushes Jack around.”

Nuts to that!

Jack’s voice exploded so loudly in my head I nearly cried out. After a few seconds and a deep breath, I calmly addressed him through my thoughts—

“Jack, I asked you to butt out.”

Well, I’m butting in to set the kid straight. “Nobody pushes Jack around?” I got pushed around plenty. This show’s a load of hooey! That bloated barstool raconteur who called himself an author may have stolen my life and made a mint on it, but he got plenty wrong.

“You’re telling me that Timothy Brennan didn’t base this story on your files?”

Lies about my files, sure. I wasn’t hired by some goomba mobster. I was hired by an up-and-up banker. It wasn’t until I tracked down the guy’s honey that I found out he was laundering money for a gambling syndicate on the side. She came clean with me, and I went back to the man and you know what I told him?

“Nothing? Like in the television show I’m watching? Did you stand up to the man and demand he leave his old girlfriend alone?”

I lied, baby. I told the man that his girl was killed in an auto wreck. I even falsified some documents to cover her trail. Then I walked away. Nobody in their right mind butts head directly with a banker connected to the syndicate—not when you want to keep working in the same town. And definitely not when you can buffalo the guy and get away clean.

I thought that over for a few minutes, then I turned to my son. “You know, Spencer, Jack Shield…I’ve, uh…read a lot about his real life, and he’s not just tough. He’s also smart.”

“Yeah…I guess.”

“What I mean is…he doesn’t always have to muscle his way out of a situation. Sometimes he outsmarts the men who want to hurt him—”

“No, Mom! You can’t outsmart guys who are bigger than you.”

“But if you—”

“When a guy’s bigger than you, and he wants to push you around, you get pushed! Unless you’re a tough guy like Jack Shield, you get pushed all over the place! You don’t know what it’s like, Mom. You don’t know anything about it!”

And with that, my son stormed out of the living room and slammed shut his bedroom door.

Got to hand it to you, baby, you know how to clear a room.

I noticed Spencer had left his backpack on the floor. It was partially unzipped and I peeked inside. On top of his books was the Reader’s Notebook, the one Spencer had worked so long and hard on all summer. It was completely destroyed. Every page had been shredded.

I pulled it out and pieces of parchment fluttered to the floor. As I pushed the pieces back together, I was able to make out the scripted letters—

Quindicott Elementary School

First Place Award

Reader of the Year

Spencer McClure