Kate Carlisle - Homicide in Hardcover

Abraham’s studio was arranged in typical workshop fashion with three wide counters running along the walls and a high worktable in the center. The side counters were jammed with book presses and punches and other equipment. Shelves lined the walls and held hundreds of spools of threads, tools, brushes, more paper, rolls of leather and stacks of heavy cardboard.

“You were always such a mess.” I straightened tools as I went, clumped loose brushes together in an empty jar, neatly restacked an unruly pile of endpapers.

I distracted myself by picking up the cordless phone from its base at the edge of the worktable. Absently, I checked the phone numbers on speed dial and recognized my own as well as my parents’. I put the phone down on the napkin it was resting on, then noticed that it was a cocktail napkin from a restaurant I recognized, the Buena Vista near Fisherman’s Wharf.

I picked it up and saw a note scrawled on the back.

You missed our appt. Are you bullshitting me? You’ve got one more chance. Meet me at the BV this Friday night or all bets are off.

It was signed Anandalla.

Anandalla? What kind of a name was Anandalla? More important, who was she? A date? A client? The note sounded ominous. Was it written by Abraham’s killer?

I was familiar with the Buena Vista, a venerable bar and restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf, down the street from Ghirardelli Square. I hadn’t been there in months but it might be worth a visit this Friday night. Not that I had a clue who this Anandalla might be, but maybe she knew something about Abraham that would help me put the pieces of the puzzle together.

I stuck the cocktail napkin in my pocket and moved to the long counter against the back wall. Here, Abraham had stacked a number of newly sanded, thin birch wood panels for use as book covers, I guessed. Big chunks of bone and seashells lay in a pile next to the wood.

Months ago, Abraham had mentioned teaching a class on Zen and the art of Japanese bookbinding. I’d thought it sounded like great fun. I sifted through the bones and shells, picking out the most solid shapes, thinking they would make beautiful closure clasps. I stuck a few in my bag, neatly lined up the shells and bones, straightened the stack of birch covers, then moved to Abraham’s bookshelf at the end of the counter. This was where he’d always kept his finished projects and samples, along with some of my earliest attempts at bookbinding. I leaned in to see the titles.

“Hey,” I whispered, and pulled out the aged, leather-bound copy of Wild Flowers in the Wind.

I ran my hand over the soft blue leather and simple gilding that bordered the edges of the front cover. Abraham had allowed me to use this ratty old book as my very first restoration project. I’d chosen sky blue leather because it was so pretty.

I smiled at the memory of Abraham laughing about the book’s title since he’d claimed most of the so-called flowers in the book looked like scrawny weeds. The gilded title along the spine was slightly wobbly and I remembered I’d struggled with it so desperately. It was still one of the most difficult parts of the job for me.

As I opened the book, my tears spotted the flyleaf.

“Moisture destroys books.”

“I know, I know.” I shivered. It was as if Abraham were here in the room, giving me grief. I blotted my eyes, then stuck the Weeds book back on the shelf.

“Hey, you.”

I jolted, then turned and saw my mother standing in the doorway.

“Jeez, Mom, scare me half to death, why don’t you?”

“Sorry,” Mom said with a grin. “I figured you heard me clomping across the patio.”

I exhaled shakily. “I guess I zoned out.”

She smiled indulgently. “You do that.”

I bent to pick up a brush that had fallen on the floor. “What are you doing here?”

She wandered into the room. “I saw you driving up Vivaldi, but your car never made it to the house, so I figured you stopped here.”

I glanced around, unsure how to explain what I was doing here. There was no need to feel guilty, but this was my mother, after all. Guilt was a mandatory response.

“Ian asked me to take over Abraham’s Covington work, so I thought I’d try to find some of his notes on the books.”

“Wonderful.” She pulled her sweater snug around her waist and folded her arms. “Chilly in here.”

I hadn’t noticed until now. We were both circling around the five-hundred-pound elephant in the room, but I wasn’t going to go there right now. When she was ready, she’d tell me what she was doing at the Covington the night Abraham was killed.

“Come on, Mom, I’ll walk you back home.”

I locked the door and left my car in Abraham’s drive and we started up the hill.

“So, how is Ian?”

“Fine,” I said. “I told him to come out for dinner sometime.”

“That would be lovely,” she said. “It’s such a shame you two couldn’t make a go of it.”

“Oh, please.” I laughed. “You know we’re both better off as friends than we ever were as lovers.”

She smiled. “I suppose so. It’s just that Ian’s alchemy and body type matched yours so perfectly.”

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “That was the problem.”

Mom placed her small hand against my sternum and closed her eyes. “Your fourth chakra was always so highly developed, even as a little girl. You need someone extremely sexual to stir your heart and passions into action.”

“Oh, thanks for that.” Just the conversation I wanted to have with my mother.

She took her hand away and opened her eyes. “Try adding more back bends to your exercise regime. It’s a powerful way to energize the Anahata within to attract the correct sexual mate.”

“I’ll get right on it,” I said. Nice to know she assumed I had an exercise regime.

“Good. Maybe you’ll meet someone nice while you’re at the Covington.”

Unbidden, a picture of Derek Stone flashed through my mind and I anxiously shook the image away.

“Doubtful, Mom, but I’ll keep you posted.”

She patted my arm. “I’m just so proud that you’re there, and you’re able to make a life for yourself doing this work. I hope Abraham didn’t… Well, I know he was hard on you.”

“He taught me everything I know.”

“I know.” She wound her arm through mine. “And if I never loved Abraham for any other reason, I would have loved him for giving you that world.”

I glanced at her. Were those tears in her eyes? She loved him? Did she mean love, as a friend? Studying Mom’s face, I found it hard to read what she was feeling, thinking. And honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I felt my stomach churn and doubted it had anything to do with the Speedy burger.

I lasted forty-five minutes at my parents’ house. While Austin coerced me into trying short tastes of the pinot he was so psyched about along with the newest cabernet they’d just barreled, Dad filled me in on plans for Abraham’s memorial service that would be held this Saturday at the town hall.

Mom insisted on regaling me with forty or fifty new photos of my sister London’s infant twins. I didn’t say anything to Mom, but for God’s sake, those babies were barely three months old and this made something like six thousand pictures London had sent Mom to ogle and giggle over. Could infants be blinded by overexposure? Could they develop flashbulb dependency?

I endured the picture show grudgingly. London had always been the competitive one, always trying to one-up me with Mom. You didn’t see me foisting shots of my moldy old books onto my mother, did you? Figures London would give birth to twins. I wasn’t about to compete with that.

I finally managed to say good-bye without succumbing to the pot roast dinner my mother tried to tempt me with. The fact that I would turn down my mom’s incredible cooking said something about my desperate need to get back to the City before it rained. I really hated driving in the rain.