The Dirty Book Murder (11 page)

I went to the restroom in the rear of the shop, splashed some cold water on my face, and headed for the back door, nearly colliding with Josie Majansik as she entered.

“Whoa, big fella! Where’re you headed in such a hurry?”

“I’m going for a sandwich.”

“Mind if I join you? The newspaper’s buying.”

“No thanks. Gotta go.”

“Something’s bothering you,” she remarked with a tug on my elbow that I thought meant she actually cared for me. “Can I be of any help?”

“No, but thanks. I need to handle this alone.”

“Here,” she said, pulling a business card from her wallet. It was bent at the corners and slightly smudged. “Just in case you change your mind. I understand you had an argument with the late Gareth Hughes last night. It’s the talk of the newsroom.”

I took the card and read, “Josephine A. Majansik. Reporter,
Brush Creek Gumbo
,” followed by a street and Internet address, a cell phone number, and the logo
“A Progessive People’s Potpourri.”
It was on one of those flimsy #5 cardboard things printed off a computer.

“Where’s the union bug?” I teased.

“It’s an alternative weekly,” she retorted, “not the campaign headquarters of the Democratic Party. My publisher can’t afford embossed lettering, let alone living wages.”

“And children are starving in the Sudan. It’s a cruel world, Josie. I’m sorry I can’t give you a scoop.”

“Mike, that’s not …”

But I didn’t stop to hear the rest and left the building feeling empty as a church on Monday morning.

After pulling out of the parking lot, I drove onto Brookside Boulevard where the first vehicle approaching in the opposite lane was owned by the Kansas City Police Department. It glided slowly past me, the officers within it obviously looking for the address of a charming used bookstore. I didn’t see much of a future in the rearview mirror so I kept driving to a section of the city named after the martyred patron saint of lovers.

I crossed over Brush Creek on the Main Street bridge and took a left on Westport Road, passing a row of neighborhood taverns, tattoo parlors, and coffee bars until I got to Southwest Trafficway.

After a couple of miles heading north on that gritty, potholed thoroughfare, I made an illegal left turn into the Valentine District, a leafy area where Kansas City’s lumber magnates and grain traders had lived in baronial splendor a century ago. The fine old homes were mostly inhabited by urban pioneers, energetic young professionals willing to live close to shabbier neighborhoods as a trade-off for the old-world charm and quality workmanship one doesn’t often find these days.

I parked the jeep on Belleview directly in front of Thomas Hart Benton’s former house and art studio and walked across the street onto the edge of the Land property. The house sat on a rise overlooking a dry creek bed where the debris of a recent flash flood lay lodged against a stone bridge.

Tendrils of ivy meandered around the windows and chimneys like a monstrous octopus. A sizable number of slate tiles on the roof had become loose and fallen onto the untrimmed bushes below. It was midsummer but the dead leaves of several winters lay in the eaves and gutters. A copper drainpipe hung precariously off the brick front, a loose tin brace the only thing keeping it from collapsing to the ground.

A fence comprised of rusted iron spears topped by pointy fleurs-de-lis guarded the property. Finding the front gate locked, I squeezed through a gap where several rods had rusted away, then stepped across the cobblestones of a circular driveway.

A Bentley S1 Continental, its chassis splotched with bird droppings, squatted on flattened tires under a towering sycamore. At the opposite edge of the driveway, in stark contrast to the Gothic setting, was a spotless, late-model Nissan Sentra. The Kansas plates on it suggested I wasn’t the only visitor.

I flattened my thumb against the porcelain doorbell only to watch it spring from its casing. The brass knocker worked better. Three solid knocks echoed in the chamber beyond the door and soon I heard the clacking of high heels on a wood floor, followed by the sliding of a bolt.

Because of the outside condition of the house, I expected to be greeted by a bedraggled crone, but the tall, elegantly dressed woman who opened the door didn’t look
anything like Dickens’s Miss Havisham. Her silver hair, intricately braided like a Swiss milkmaid’s, was as silken as a girl’s. When she tilted her head in a questioning look, her hazel eyes caught the glint of sun rays seeping past the highest leaves.

She was a beauty, nothing less, and if she had more than a few crow’s-feet around those almond-shaped eyes, it didn’t matter—they just spelled character. She wore a wraparound tweed skirt that stopped above her knees and a matching jacket over a cream-colored blouse. The top two buttons were undone, exposing lightly tanned breasts that I suspect had never nursed a baby.

“Hullo,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Michael Bevan.”

She offered a puzzled smile.

“I’m sorry for barging in when you have guests,” I nodded toward the Nissan, “but it’s important that I see you.”

“How did you get past the gate?”

“It was partly open.”

She furrowed her brow skeptically, but, sizing me up again, decided to let it pass.

“You say your name is Bevan?”

“Yes, Mrs. Land.”

“I knew a Malachy Bevan once; a dear man who was police chief long ago. Any relation?”

“He was my grandfather.”

Her face brightened.

“Well, for goodness’ sake, you should have called first. Do come in. My other visitor is currently engaged.”

From the vestibule we entered a wide hallway with parquet flooring. Mahogany banisters led in long wavy curves to the second floor. It was a grand house, but the first floor was devoid of furniture or paintings.

“I’ve had to sell most everything,” she explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “There is still the Bentley and a few things upstairs. I should have enough to live on for a while and then I’ll sell the place.”

I followed her up the broad staircase to the second floor and down a hallway to a room at the west end of the house. A fireplace, big enough to park a Hummer in, anchored the eastern wall. A parade of windows offered a broad view of the wooded park to the north.

The auctioneer’s gavel had not intruded in this part of the home where a Shakazi rug covered most of the hardwood floor and a pair of Art Deco chairs bordered a Louis
XV four-poster bed. The fireplace mantel held small tokens of foreign visits: a pair of brass bookends in the shape of Indian elephants, a tiny ceramic incense holder with Arabic markings, a Ming vase, and a silver tennis trophy etched with the words “1st Place St.-Tropez 1961.”

A handsomely framed poster from the late nineteenth century hung on the south wall. It portrayed a full-bosomed beauty on a swing, her shapely legs kicking high toward a beaming sun, a glass of champagne in one hand while the other clutched the rope. Beneath her, leaning expectantly against the trunk of the tree, leered a satyr, his attention captured either by the sparkling glass or the charms beneath the spread petticoats of the woman.

The viewer cannot be certain. I suppose that was the point.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Yes, very much.”

“It’s by Jean de Paleologue, known by his signature ‘Pal.’ He produced some of the finest posters during the fin de siècle and his studio printed Toulouse-Lautrec’s work. Something like this would have been pasted to a kiosk in front of the Paris Opera House or on the side of a pissoir near the Folies Bergère. I like them because they weren’t meant for a salon or museum and yet they are extraordinarily beautiful.”

She sat in one of the chairs and motioned for me to do the same. Between us was a hot plate with tea brewing in a pot.

“Let’s see, Mr. Bevan,” she said as she pulled out a calendar book. “I believe I had you scheduled for eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“I’m afraid not. I didn’t make an appointment.”

She frowned ever so slightly. “You didn’t? Oh, dear. I’m afraid such discourtesies, no matter how small, can sometimes create rather large problems. I don’t mean to offend.”

“No, no. I’m sorry about this. I had to make sure that …”

“Yes, Mr. Bevan?”

“… that you would not avoid me.”

“Why on earth would I want to avoid meeting such a handsome young man?”

“Given the nature of my visit, you might. I have some rather difficult questions to ask.”

“Questions?” Her composure slipped a little. “Have you followed in the footsteps of your grandfather? Are you a policeman?”

“On the contrary, ma’am. The police are probably looking for me at this moment.”

“How interesting,” she remarked dryly. “You haven’t killed anyone, have you? I should be very upset if that were the case.”

“No, but circumstances have placed me in a most uncomfortable position.”

“I see. Well, actually I don’t see at all. What can I do for you? I thought you had other reasons for coming here.”

She smiled most becomingly, but there was such sadness in her voice that I couldn’t go immediately to my questions.

“If I may say so, Mrs. Land, you are a lovely woman.”

She touched my hand in tender gratitude.

“Thank you, young man, but it’s not really true anymore. What you see is an attractive illusion. I’m as fragile as a Wedgwood teacup now. There,” she said, pointing at a silver framed photograph of a fashion model stepping from an old twin-propeller airplane, a small handbag in one hand and a tennis racket in the other. The beauty wore a sleeveless khaki blouse strategically unbuttoned to display a string of pearls that hung from neck to sternum. “That is the woman I was before old age and poverty intruded.”

I nodded appreciatively. The model in that photo seemed vibrant and was stunningly beautiful, but her face was tinged with the arrogance of accustomed comfort and compliments too easily captured.

“A woman of my age cannot compete with the costume of youth,” she continued wistfully. “But I don’t envy these young girls of today. In my time, a man swooned at a glimpse of knee. You could play them for all it was worth and sex became an exciting game. Nowadays, what is there to be gained when all one’s cards are faceup on the table?”

She crossed her legs, showing a shapely calf and ankle.

Who was I to disagree? She was certainly making my temperature rise despite having twenty-five years on me. But that wasn’t what I was there for, as I reminded myself twice before starting the interrogation.

“I’m a book dealer and I’m looking for information about the books you had auctioned by Colonel Bender.”

“You were at the sale?”

“Yes. I was outbid for your books. Were you aware of their worth?”

“Oh, I had some idea what George paid for them fifteen years ago. It didn’t seem all that much at the time; certainly nothing like we paid for our paintings or pieces of Lalique. I suppose some had charming illustrations, but most of the words were in French or German and I never could fully appreciate the Japanese prints, brilliant as they were. Given their lewd subject matter, it’s not as if I could have framed them and put them over
the downstairs mantel for George’s business associates to ogle.”

She hesitated, fixing her eyes on me as playfulness brightened her face like a child’s, only not so innocent. “Are you the grimacing Samurai type?”

I responded by picking a peacock feather off the table and studying it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“No, I suppose not,” she said with a coquettish frown. “At any rate, the price paid at the auction was a pleasant surprise. After all those years, I just wanted them out of the house. My husband used them to enhance his libido in the days before Viagra.”

She looked at me slyly again, tilting her head then laughing.

“I shouldn’t think you need much prompting, Mr. Bevan.”

I coughed, laid down the feather, and studied the wall. But her eyes weren’t letting go without an answer.

“I suppose not, Mrs. Land.”

“Beatrice.”

“Who?”

“Call me Beatrice. Of the
Inferno
. Dante’s genius has always comforted me. In my declining years I find him even more relevant.” Her thoughts seemed to drift away and she spoke as if I wasn’t in the room. “There is no greater grief than to remember days of joy when misery is at hand.”

I shuffled my feet until her eyes focused on me again.

“Sorry, my dear, what was it you wanted?”

“Was there anything about your husband’s collection that was unusual?”

“Besides being erotic, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Not really,” she said, arranging a lacquered pin in her braided hair. “It bothered me that George didn’t take better care of some of them. He’d write notes in the margins with a pencil, scribbling things even on the illustrations. I complained that we’d never get a decent price because of the markings, but George didn’t care because he never intended for them to be sold. I suppose it never occurred to him that he might die before me either.”

“Did anyone contact you about the books shortly after his death?”

She nodded and was about to say more when she cocked her head again and stared past me in the direction of the opposite wall from where a soft scratching sound was coming.

I followed her gaze to the faint outline of a closed door that I had not noticed at first because it was covered in the same wallpaper as the rest of the room. Only a keyhole
above a small doorknob betrayed its purpose. Suddenly, Beatrice Land stood, reached into a drawer next to the bed, and pulled out a key attached to a royal blue tassel.

Swinging the tassel slowly back and forth as if weighing a decision, she glanced again at the door and back to me, putting a finger to her lips. I had the uncomfortable feeling that the owner of the Nissan was lurking on the other side, spying on our conversation.

As she slowly crept toward the door, the scratching became louder until it culminated in a whimpering, high-pitched male voice that nearly sent me flying out the window.