Kate Carlisle - One Book In The Grave

“So you’re going ahead with the restoration? That’s great news.”

Yikes. I probably shouldn’t have told him I was restoring the book. If he asked if I’d gotten permission from Emily, I would have to lie. I couldn’t tell him about Max. Not yet, anyway. I hung my head in dismay at my big mouth. “Um, yeah. I decided it needed an overhaul, so I’ve made an executive decision to take care of it while I wait to hear from Emily.”

“So you haven’t talked to her yet?”

“Not yet.” I scrambled for an excuse. “I left a message. She’s, um, out of town right now, but I expect to hear from her soon.”

“You’re still going to ask her to donate it to the Covington?”

“Absolutely.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him I would ask Max about it. I was a terrible liar and almost as bad at withholding information. Of course, Ian was so focused on work at the Covington, I wondered if he’d even heard about Joe Taylor’s murder yet. Oh, he had to have heard by now. The book world was so small and garrulous, the news would have spread like crazy. But I wasn’t about to bring up the topic, and I certainly wasn’t going to admit that I was the one who found Joe’s body.

“Look,” he said, “shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations or something? You know, if you haven’t heard from her in thirty days, the book is mine?”

I smiled. “I’ll look into that.”

“I’m just encouraged that you’re restoring it. Maybe I’ll drop by to see it.”

I almost choked on my Hershey’s Kiss. “Um, I’m not sure I’ll be home, so you’d better call first.”

“I’ll take my chances. See you later, Brooklyn.”

The following day, Ian made good on his warning.

On a whim that morning, I’d made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and put the first two dozen cookies in the oven to bake.

While I waited for the cookies, I mixed up some polyvinyl acetate, or PVA, the archival glue I used for bookbinding and book repair. It had a low moisture content, dried quickly, and remained flexible.

I had my largest cutting board out on the worktable, ready to go. But first I began drawing a template. The vermilion morocco was too precious to cut without measuring it precisely first. After I made the final cut, I would be ready to glue it to the boards and the spine.

I was getting ahead of myself. I still needed to resew the signatures and clean the book thoroughly. But I couldn’t wait. The leather cover made me giddy with excitement. And didn’t I sound like the biggest book geek ever?

The timer went off and I ran back to the kitchen to remove the two cookie sheets from the oven. The cookies were baked to perfection, golden brown with perfectly melted bits of chocolate and still soft to the touch. While transferring them to a rack to cool off, I almost stuffed one into my mouth, but I resisted, barely.

As I slid two more sheets into the oven, my telephone rang. It was two quick rings, then nothing, which meant that someone was at the front door of my building, buzzing to be let inside.

“Max,” I called, but he didn’t respond, so I knew he wasn’t in the apartment. He had to be up on the roof.

I was expecting my new bookshelves to be delivered today or tomorrow, but just in case it wasn’t the delivery man, I needed Max to stay hidden. Feeling a hint of desperation, I grabbed the phone to see who was downstairs.

“Hey, Brooklyn, it’s me,” Ian said.

“Ian, what do you want?” How rude was that? He was going to think I was off my rocker. “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m just a little stressed. What’s going on?”

“I’m right outside,” he said. “Let me in. I want to say hi and see the book.”

“Um, sure. Great. Here you go.” I pressed the code numbers to release the door lock, then raced upstairs to the roof.

“Max,” I yelled, since the wind made it hard to hear. “Someone’s coming to see me, so stay up here, okay? Don’t come downstairs.”

“Okay, no problem,” he said, waving me off, as casual as could be. “Let me know when it’s safe to come down.”

“You got it.” I went running back down the stairs and closed the door that led to the roof, wondering how the hell he could be so laid-back when I was running around like a crazy person.

Ian stayed for almost an hour. I showed him the leather I’d chosen for the cover, and we discussed the ideas I had for gilding the leather. He suggested an elaborately gilded, highly stylized cover with curlicues in each corner. Since the book was from the Victorian era, I went along with his idea for a fancy design.

While he was here, I pulled more cookies out of the oven. Ian grabbed two while they were still warm. Shortly after that, he took off, and by then I was ready to collapse. All this running around and worrying was taking its toll. The PVA had hardened, so I would have to make another batch. But not right away. Just now, I felt like taking a nap. Maybe I would take the rest of the day off, eat cookies, and read a good book.

I was starting up the stairs to let Max know the coast was clear when the phone rang twice and stopped again. Someone else is at the front door? What the heck? I ran to the kitchen phone to answer it.

“Hey, Brooklyn. It’s me, Ian.”

“Did you forget something?”

“Nope, just wanted to let you know a delivery guy is here with a huge box for you. I let him inside.”

“Oh, my bookshelves. Thanks, Ian.”

We hung up, and it was a full minute later before I heard our building’s ancient industrial freight elevator chug into action.

I cleaned off my worktable and tossed the PVA in the trash can.

The elevator shuddered to a stop and a few seconds later there was a knock on my door. That was one speedy deliveryman.

Max was hidden away on the roof and everything was fine. I took a few deep breaths to steady my heart. I really wasn’t cut out for a life of intrigue.

Oh, who was I kidding? I thrived on intrigue, but this day was driving me batty.

“Brooklyn, yoo-hoo!” A voice called through the door. “You are home?”

My neighbor Vinnie? I ran to open the door.

“Hello, my friend,” she said, and stepped inside.

I wrapped her in a warm hug. “Where’s Suzie? How are you? I haven’t seen you all week.”

“We are fine,” she said in her chirpy voice. I held her at arm’s length to take in her outfit of black bustier, denim cutoffs, and army boots. On her it all worked.

Then I realized there was someone standing behind her.

“Delivery for Wainwright?” he said, parking his furniture dolly while he wiped his forehead with his baseball cap. Towering over him was a large brown box, about six feet tall and almost three feet wide. No wonder he seemed out of breath.

“Right,” I said, grinning. “My bookshelves. Come on in.”

I led the way, and Vinnie followed me from my workshop studio, where my front door was, through the short hall that led to my living room. I pointed to the wall on the left that was bare. “You can leave the box right there.”

“That is why I am here, Brooklyn,” she explained in her lilting Indian accent. “I saw this man stepping off the elevator and I told him I would show him the way.”

“Yo, Brooklyn?”

“There’s Suzie,” Vinnie said, then cried out, “We are in here, Suzie.” Suzie and Vinnie were a loving couple as well as business partners in chain-saw artistry.

“I knew it, you sneaky bitch.”

That wasn’t Suzie’s voice. A sharp pain in my neck made me gasp aloud.

Minka?

She pushed her way past the delivery guy, lumbered right up to me, and smacked my arm. “How dare you?”

“Hey,” I said, rubbing my arm. “What are you doing here?”