Tales From the Black Chamber (4 page)

The thought of a pleasant dinner with a guy got Anne dressed and downstairs to the mall for some makeup and toiletries. By the time she met the FBI man, in the lobby of the hotel, she was looking and feeling great.

Hunter was a tall blond with a neat haircut and the athletic stride of a wide receiver; Anne was put in mind of a leopard she'd seen in the Bronx Zoo. He wasn't unattractive, either, with intelligent blue eyes and solid features. However, Anne's incipient attraction evaporated as soon as he opened his mouth; his persona was pure Joe Friday, to the point that she wondered if he was putting her on.

Without any apparent regard for her ordeal, he ran her through the facts of her discovery of the body, her relationship with Mrs. Garrett, and why she'd come looking for her. He then returned to the mysterious man, prodding her on details of his appearance, clothing, and asking a variety of other questions, some of which seemed to Anne to be a bit out of left field, and to all of which she had to confess she had no answers. Ordinarily, she'd have chatted with him a little and tried to glean what he was getting at, but he was such a drip to talk to and her dinner with Ashton so on her mind, she really had no desire to spend any more time in his presence than necessary. They exchanged business cards, and she watched him slink across the lobby.
Too bad the prose is so awful
, she thought, scowling,
because that's one hell of a cover.

Anne hadn't been standing on the corner for more than three minutes when, as promised, a red Honda Accord pulled up to the curb. The driver's door opened, and Anne quickly appraised the man who got out: six feet or so, dark hair, large greenish-brown eyes, and decent dress sense. He wore a smart green blazer with brown twill pants, and a beautiful parchment-colored silk tie that, upon closer inspection, had a pattern that was actually manuscript calligraphy. She thought it might be a Carolingian minuscule hand, but didn't think it'd be a great first impression were she to grab and scrutinize his tie.

“Hi, are you Ms. Wilkinson?”

“Call me Anne.” They shook hands.

“John.” He opened the passenger door for her. “Hop in.”

The car was quite new and had all sorts of sleek instrumentation. “You underplayed how nice your car is, John,” said Anne as he pulled away.

“Hey, thank you. I like it a lot. I've got a bunch of dinner options for you. You have any preferences?”

“Whatever you like. At the risk of appearing indelicate, I'm starved.”

“Do you like steak?”

“Very much.”

Ashton drove them downtown to the Capital Grille, an old-fashioned steak house that catered to Washington's well-heeled population of lobbyists, real-estate developers, and attorneys.

Anne ordered a rare Delmonico, much to Ashton's evident satisfaction.

“Wow, you really do like steak.”

“I do. Rare, like my books.”

“Ow.” He laughed.

“Too cheesy? Actually, I'm a New Mexican. Well-done meat is a Class B felony in the state. Speaking of books, that's a great tie.”

“Thank you. It's
The Death of Simon Magus
from a colored version of the
Nuremberg Chronicle
.”

“Wow, that's really cool. Where did you have that made?”

“I actually found it in a hotel gift shop.”

“Crazy! I actually saw a 1491 Latin first-edition in person once. During my year abroad, by coincidence, I went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen while they were having this exhibit of medieval esoterica. It was just amazing. Did you know that it's possible that a young Dürer worked on the illustrations as an apprentice?”

“I did not.”

“It's true. My girlfriends went off to Tivoli, but I stayed the whole afternoon, even though they only had nineteen books on display. I'd get to the end, then start over. That was probably the moment at which it became inevitable that I'd end up as a rare-book nerd.”

“Oh, so your interest extends beyond their monetary value?”

“Truth be told, as much as I like my job, it's mostly a pretext to get my hands on lost, old, and rare books. It's just for a short time, usually, but there's nothing like actually reading them while you can touch them and smell them and hear the pages turn. It's electric; it's like a little time machine. But I'm babbling. I'm sure working for the Coolidge Foundation, you're no stranger to the charms of old books.”

“Love them. But hey, if you don't mind my saying so, aren't you a bit of a real expert on some of this stuff? I Googled you to find out your contact information, and found you've actually got a bibliography.”

“Well, yeah.” Anne took a drink of her Zinfandel. “I don't really consider myself a scholar, but I got interested in the content first, then the books as art and craft, and finally as a way to make a living.”

“A pretty nice one, I take it. Congratulations on making partner.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I spoke to Richard Edgecombe when I was trying to track you down.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“Back to your articles—they're all about esoteric, occult, and unique books. Is that your thing?”

“Yes. When I was a girl, I was really interested in magic and ghosts and vampires and all of that, and it stuck with me.”

“Really? I find it hard to picture you as a Goth.”

“Oh, hardly, no, I was math team, debate, all that sort of stuff. I got into it all when I was really young, like sixth grade or so. I had enough sense to conceal my continued interest while in high school. And this was before the web took off, so it was a mostly solitary pursuit. Easy to conceal. Not that I was Miss Popularity, but I got through high school pretty unscathed. Except for never asking out the guy I had a crush on. Wow, I'm talking a lot about myself. I'd better slow down on the wine. So tell me about the Coolidge Foundation. Mrs. Garrett never really talked about it much.”

“Well, there's not much to tell. We are a private foundation that acquires the occasional ‘rare' or ‘intriguing' book for a library that we run for the benefit of a small membership.”

“Who's the membership?”

“Can't say. Sorry. Rules.”

“What's in the library? I know Mrs. Garrett was mostly interested in esoterica, though she did buy a couple other books from us that were pretty far afield.”

“I wish I could tell you. The Foundation was set up with very specific and, let me say, strange rules. Still, it's a nice place to work.”

“So, going forward, will the Foundation still be in the market for books?”

“Of the kind you deal in? Absolutely. And I'm sure we'll be happy to work with Hathaway & Edgecombe.”

Business portion of dinner, check!
“That's very nice to hear. We'll be happy to help you or whoever replaces Mrs. Garrett however we can.”

“Thanks. Speaking of Mildred, here's a question I have for you. I know she was excited about a book she was going to buy from you last week, but I hadn't talked to her in a few days. Did she end up buying something?”

“Yes, but to be frank, it's the first one of her purchases I don't quite understand. It was an Aldine breviary once owned by a martyred English Jesuit.”

“Hmm. Doesn't sound too exciting. Any interesting marginalia or inclusions?”

“No, there was some marginalia, but it was pretty much all just religious stuff, the odd practical shopping-list-type note—you know, ‘buy bread,' ‘launder shirt,' that sort of thing—and doodling.”

“So why do you think Mildred wanted it?”

“I couldn't tell you. I mean, it has the very sexy title of
Brevarium dæmonologicum
, but that's not because it relates to witchcraft or demonology, just that it includes a few unusual prayers for exorcism, protection from demons, and the like. There are any number of copies floating around. It was sort of popular in the late sixteenth and early-to-middle seventeenth centuries. I think her purchase price was three thousand, which wasn't out of line, as it was a very well-preserved copy with an interesting history, but it's hardly the stuff of legend.”

“So, did they find the book at her house when she died?”

“No, I don't think so. Why, is it not at the library? Or can't you tell me that?” She smiled, lifting her wineglass to her lips.

He laughed. “No, it never arrived at the library.”

“It wasn't at the house unless there's a hidden safe or something.”

“I doubt it. Mildred almost never kept books at her house for more than a day or two before bringing them into the library. Sometimes she'd bring them straight in. So, do the police think she was killed for the book?”

“No idea. They didn't tell me anything. I had an FBI guy interview me for some reason, though.”

“Really? What did he want to know?”

“Well, there was this creepy guy who showed up at my office after the auction, asking about the breviary, wanting to buy it directly from us, and asking about who won it. I stonewalled him, but it turns out he may have gotten the information off my computer when no one was looking.”

“Oh my God, that's awful.”

“I know.” Anne stabbed at her food distractedly. “And I forgot all about it over the weekend—I
just
made partner, so I was kind of, you know, wrapped up in myself—and by the time I called Mildred on Monday, she might already have been dead. I'm really, really worried that this guy did it, and that I inadvertently helped him.” She sniffled and wiped at an eye. “I'm sorry. Too much wine.”

“Not in the least. Look, don't feel the least bit guilty. If this guy was involved, there was no way you could know he was a murderer, for God's sake. You did everything a reasonable person would to hinder him, anyway. Mildred always thought of you as a good friend, a real up-and-coming expert, and, I don't know, but I always got the sense that she thought of you a little like the granddaughter she never had.”

“Now you're really going to make me cry.”

“I'm sorry. Can I buy you dessert to make up for it?”

“As long as it's chocolate.”

4

A week later, Anne was back into the swing of work. She had a pile of furniture catalogs sitting on the corner of her desk, the sole sign that she'd made partner, but the sight was enough to make her smile. When John Ashton called, she was excited to hear from him. Not only did it mean he was serious when he'd said the Coolidge Foundation would continue to use H&E for esoterica purchases (and potentially sales), but maybe, she thought, he enjoyed dinner as much as she had. They'd gotten along very, very well, talking about books (professional), books (for entertainment), movies (he liked monster movies too!), and even waded a little into politics. He was a Republican, apparently, which gave her pause, but he clearly seemed to be a sane one, so, she'd decided, she was willing to overlook that blemish on his résumé if he ever decided to ask her out.

“How are you holding up, Anne?”
Sincere concern!

“I'm well, thanks, John. It catches up with me a little when I think about Mrs. Garrett, but honestly, it's so crazy at the moment with having made partner and working on the firm's annual general auction, personal thoughts just haven't really been getting much time. Except at home—and I'm not there much. You?”

“About the same. There's the grief, and I'm still shocked and appalled. The police really don't seem to have any leads on the ‘who,' yet, other than there were two sets of men's footprints in the carpet. Near as they can tell, the bad guys were in the library, Mildred surprised them, and they shot her. They were cagey on the details, but I think something about how she was shot—the gun, the bullets, or something—makes them think the killers were professionals. Anyway, because the ‘who' is giving them fits, they've moved on to the ‘why,' and so they keep asking me about the breviary you sold us. I keep telling them that it was an interesting but not uncommon book that Mildred took a fancy to. But, you know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if maybe it was the reason she was killed.”