The Dirty Book Murder (9 page)

She turned around, smiled faintly, and said, “I don’t want to be called as a witness to any admissions against your self-interest. Save the specifics for Tim.”

“I’m innocent.”

“I assumed as much.”

“You’ve always been a trusting soul, Alice.”

“Not necessarily, Mike. I just happen to be your very, very good friend.”

Things got quiet until she brought up something we’d never discussed on any of the occasions when we had found ourselves alone.

“Do you know why Carol insisted that the two of you come home that night?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” I said quickly, caught off guard. “Tulsa’s three hundred miles from here and Highway 169 is treacherous at night. Drunk as I was, I knew that much. The team was staying at the Ramada Inn. I’d paid for a room, but she had to get back. It seemed so important to her and I was too sloshed to talk her out of it.”

Alice turned away, putting her hands to her face.

I got up from the table to put my arms around her.

“What’s the matter?”

“You know perfectly well,” she said softly. “My baby shower was the next day. Carol couldn’t miss your damn rugby match knowing how much it meant to you, but she wasn’t going to miss my party, either. God damn it all.”

We stood clutching each other like we were in love. But when Alice brushed my lips with hers I pulled back.

She shot me a peculiar look; a spiteful glint similar to the one I’d seen long ago when I introduced her to Carol. Just as quickly, it dissolved into a gentle glaze of regret and acceptance. We weren’t in love, it seemed to say. We were merely partners in grief.

Still, I might have returned her kiss for old time’s sake if her husband hadn’t pulled into the driveway. We dabbed our eyes, straightened our clothes, moved into the living room, and practiced smiling.

Tim Winter was my age and just as fit, but his restless eyes and stress-lined forehead made him appear a decade older.

Whether in his study, in a court of law, or on top of Mount Kenya, he presented a rugged, somewhat damaged look: a veteran linebacker eager to start the next series of downs despite a long history of injuries.

This particular morning he wore rubber-soled hiking boots, khaki trousers, and a knit shirt soaked with sweat. A towel hung around his neck like a waterlogged boa constrictor.

He greeted me with what passed for a smile and shook my hand. He had a wrestler’s grip, but I gave as good as I got until both our hands turned white.

He released first.

“You’re too damn competitive, Bevan.”

When Alice stifled a laugh he looked at her as if surprised.

“One of these days I’ll take you on a climb,” he said, looking back to me.

“And afterward we’ll attend the Pope’s wedding,” I answered, mangling Ronan Gill’s line.

“How’s sales at the bookstore?”

“Grand. You should come by more often.”

“Of course. Let me know when you get something I’d be interested in.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” I said, stung by the putdown of my stock.

He was a knowledgeable collector and, while he had put up the seed money for Riverrun Books, he had yet to find anything to match his refined tastes there.

A young man with the buoyant friendliness of a golden retriever and wearing a T-shirt with the Greek letters of Phi Delta Theta fraternity entered the room. His face and manner displayed an attractive combination of confidence and civility. He was deeply tanned and his long brown hair, bound in the back by a rubber band, had bits of red in it from the sun.

He kissed his mother on the cheek, then turned to me, extending his hand.

“Hello, Mr. Bevan.”

“Hi, Mark. How’s college?”

“It’s great. I’ve decided to major in English literature.”

“Followed by law school?”

The room temperature plunged fifteen degrees.

“I don’t think so,” he said, glancing briefly at his father, who returned the look with a face that might have done a dried carp credit.

“Time will tell,” Alice interjected diplomatically.

“I took the rocks out of the packs and put them by the pond,” Mark said to his father. “Will we need them next week?”

“No,” Tim said, rubbing his lower back. “We’ll do some weight lifting instead. It does no good to practice suffering.”

“It wasn’t suffering. It was training.”

“I suppose that’s how it seems from your end of the age spectrum.”

Mark shrugged his broad shoulders and excused himself.

“He’s a fine boy,” I said.

The Winters nodded simultaneously. Their unabashed pride and love for their son was one of the couple’s more endearing qualities. I suspected it was also the glue that kept their marriage intact.

“What brings you here?” Tim asked me.

“A legal question. Could we discuss it in your study?”

Winter looked at his wife with a pained expression. “Will you excuse us, Alice?”

“Sure, but I’m putting away lunch.”

“Don’t,” I said. “This won’t take long.”

She said something about the Pope’s wedding and waltzed into the kitchen.

“Any desire to return to the law?” Tim asked over his shoulder while leading me up a winding staircase to his second floor office. “Bill Evans was just appointed to the state disciplinary board. He asked about you at a bar luncheon last week and said he thought a majority would look favorably upon a motion to reinstate you.”

“Sorry, not interested. I’ve gotten used to running a business where people leave their problems outside the door. Anyway, it appears you’ve done all right by my former clients.”

“I admit it’s added considerable spice to my practice,” Tim said, grinning. “I leave the tits-and-ass trade to others, however. Alice insists.”

“Smart girl. How is everything with you guys? Still madly in love?”

“She’s a fine woman,” he said, and left it at that.

The room he ushered me into was on the second level of a three-story turret where I half-expected to find Virginia Woolf scribbling in a corner. An elk antler chandelier hung from the center of the high ceiling, casting a dusky light that was good for
atmosphere, but not much else.

Bloodred drapes bordered a multipaned window featuring the Winter family crest—a serpent impaled by a lance and the rather odd motto “De Mal Me Paists,” which, if my Latin was correct, translated to “I Feed on Evil.”

Floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves filled with beautifully bound volumes relating to mountaineering, nineteenth-century whaling, and exploration covered a ten-foot section of the concave brick wall. Five years ago they would have been covered with law books, but attorneys no longer needed them with the advent of laptops and Westlaw.

I sat on a worn leather couch while Tim settled behind the desk in a high-backed chair. He looked at his manicured fingernails and then at me.

“Now, what’s your problem?”

“How did you know I have a problem?”

“It’s Sunday afternoon and the Yankees are in town for a double-header. You decided to miss that for a little chat with me. I figure it’s some kind of trouble. Is it Anne?”

“Not this time. She’s put herself into another unfortunate situation, but I’m into something far worse. I need your services, partner. There’s been a murder.”

Winter sighed and looked at me indifferently as if he heard such announcements every day. His hands worked the towel back and forth across the back of his neck.

“Are you a suspect?”

“I will be.”

“Hmm. What happened to place you in this predicament?”

“I attended an auction down at River Market yesterday where some remarkable books were offered.”

Tim leaned forward. My possible indictment for murder didn’t seem to pique his interest, but the mention of rare books did.

“Whose collection was it?”

“It wasn’t announced. The owner wanted it kept private, I suppose because of the erotica.”

“Erotica?”

“Yes. Not the trashy stuff. Lovely Shunga prints and early twentieth-century European illustrated works. It included a book by Colette.”

“The French writer? Which book?”

“Are you familiar with
L’Ingénue libertine
?”

“Of course,” Tim said, slightly offended that I could question his expertise. “In 1922 it established her as not only a scandalous young lady but a distinguished prose
stylist as well. The novel makes flagellation seem rather charming.”

“Is the book rare?”

“Not particularly. She had already become famous with the publication of
Claudine à l’école
in 1900 and then the three
Claudine
sequels. Still, you won’t find many first editions of
L’Ingénue
in this neck of the woods. In Paris or Berlin a fine copy can be found for a hundred euros or more. Colette certainly held nothing back in declaring that women have a right to an orgasm whether it satisfies the male or not. The illustrations by Charles Laborde are delightfully risqué.”

The lawyer fiddled with his thumbs before adding with a touch of envy, “I suppose you bought it for a pittance.”

“It wasn’t for me to own,” I said, moving my chair closer to his desk. “There was considerable competition and I didn’t get it, but not for want of trying. The front end paper contained an inscription on the title page to Sylvia Beach from Colette, followed by an intimate note written to Sylvia by Hemingway.”

Tim’s eyes shone like glossy black buttons. “How intimate?”

“I only saw it briefly, but it made clear that Sylvia and Ernest had shared more than a love of literature.”

He whistled softly. “If it’s the real thing, the inscription alone may be worth tens of thousands. Any chance the buyer will let us have a peek?”

“Not a chance. The man who left the sale with it in his possession was Gareth Hughes. He stole it before the winning bidder knew what had happened.”

“Good Lord. Hughes, you say?” Tim looked puzzled as he tried to place the face with the name.

“You must have met him at some point. He was a Welshman who focused on maritime history and early twentieth-century firsts. He didn’t have an open shop.”

“Oh, yes, that rather large, unkempt fellow. Welsh, you say? I mistook his accent for a speech impediment. He tried to sell me a battered third edition of the
Ethnographical Album of the Pacific Islands
and made a scene when I showed no interest. I had a couple of associates escort him from the building. Tell me more.”

“Gareth enjoyed the Colette for less than a day. If he thought it important enough to steal, someone else thought it worth killing for.”

“So Hughes is the victim?”

“I’m afraid so. The police are going to think I had something to do with it.”

Tim tugged at his ear. “You’d best tell me why a jury shouldn’t think that as well.”

I related that I had witnessed Hughes steal the Colette at the auction, then
confronted him that evening at Fitzpatrick’s where we attempted to settle our differences with fists among spilled pints of stout.

“Lovely. What happened afterward? Please tell me you kissed and made up in front of all those bystanders.”

“Actually, we did calm down and reconcile, but it was on the sidewalk after we’d been kicked out of the joint. He told me the winning bidder was named Rolf Kramm and that he was an associate of a millionaire named Quist.”

“Did Hughes mention why the book was so important to him?”

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it, when you consider that inscription? He also admitted stealing an early Hemingway edition and said something about a Dr. Guffey not wanting a man like Quist to possess the book. He seemed to hint there was more to this than the Colette.”

Tim jerked his head up sharply.

“What Hemingway book?” he asked, putting down his pen.

“It was
in our time
. Title in lowercase.”

Tim hunched forward and when he spoke again his voice was very dry and serious.

“Have you ever heard of Dr. Don Carlos Guffey?”

“Should I? He sounds like an Irish-Mexican chiropractor.”

“Good God, no! Guffey was an obstetrician in Kansas City who delivered two of Ernest Hemingway’s sons—Patrick in 1928 and Gregory three years later—by Cesarean section. It wasn’t all that common a procedure in those days, used only when the mother or child’s life was truly at risk. It’s likely that Hem borrowed those harrowing experiences for Catherine Barkley’s death scene in
A Farewell to Arms
. Dr. Guffey was one of the few close acquaintances to remain on good terms with him.

“Collectors were always knocking at Hemingway’s door and tradition has it that the door was rigidly closed if they sought more than a signature. But to his special friends, of which the good doctor was near the top, he went out of his way to enhance their collections. Guffey was the recipient of letters, signed first editions, and even a partial manuscript of
Death in the Afternoon
.”

“I assume he died years ago,” I said, intrigued. “What happened to his collection?”

“It was sold at auction by Parke-Bernet Galleries in 1958. My father happened to have been there. Hemingway was ill—in three short years he would kill himself—but I’m surprised neither he nor Mary, nor his sons, attempted to reclaim some of his past.”

“What were the titles?”

“Practically everything from
Three Stories and Ten Poems
published in 1923 to the
Esquire
magazine stories and piles of letters. The
Afternoon
manuscript went for thirteen thousand dollars. God only knows what it would go for if the JFK Library ever let loose of it now.”

“What about the
in our time
?”

“It was his second published work after
Three Stories
, but today it’s considered a major Hemingway rarity. Only 170 copies of the original Three Mountains Press version were printed because of a disfiguring watermark in the paper used by the original French printer. Plus, it’s known that Hemingway provided a long inscription to the man who delivered his sons, therefore giving you a remarkable connection to his personal life. It’s completely unique. A simple signed Hemingway copy goes for over sixty thousand dollars, but this particular one would fetch a quarter million today.”