Marcia Talley - A Quiet Death

‘Know her? I dated your daughter, Mrs Ives. Emily Ives. Hannah Ives. I never made the connection. I feel like an idiot.’ While I gaped like a beached fish, grateful that Jud couldn’t see me, he continued. ‘I thought we had a good thing going, too, until Emily met Dan.’

Dan. Daniel. Last name Shemansky. My son-in-law’s given name until he took it into his head that he wanted to be called ‘Dante.’ Just Dante, one name, like Cher or Madonna or Elvis.

‘You must have gone to Haverford, then,’ I said.

‘Right. Emily was my lab partner in Environmental Geology. I met Meredith in German 101. We were all pretty tight.’

A long-ago phone call popped into my head. Emily had needed a science credit so she’d registered for Environmental Geology at nearby Haverford College, not because Bryn Mawr didn’t have a course that would satisfy the requirement, but because the geology class was scheduled before lunch, and the vegetarian food options at Haverford – particularly the lentil casserole – were way better, in Emily’s opinion, than those at Bryn Mawr.

‘So, can you meet me somewhere where we can talk, Jud?’

‘After what happened to Meredith? Do you think I’m nuts?’

The thought that anyone would suspect me of murdering Meredith, or anyone else for that matter, left me temporarily speechless.

‘I’m sorry, Jud. I remember how close the two of you were.’

‘She got me this job, Mrs Ives. I’d been working as a paralegal for a major law firm and not enjoying it much at all. I’d always wanted to break into broadcasting and it was Meredith who gave me that opportunity.’

‘I see what you mean,’ I said after a moment. ‘Let me come to the Lynx offices again, then. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’

‘We have plenty of coffee in the office, but it’s pretty horrible. Pick me up a soy latte at Union Station and you’ll be my friend for life.’

‘Consider it done,’ I said.

‘We can talk, but, soy latte or not, I can’t make any promises, Mrs Ives,’ I could tell there was no way he was going to call me Hannah now.

So I told Jud what I knew about Skip, aka Nicholas Ryan Aupry, and what I wanted him to do.

‘I’ll call you back as soon as I have anything,’ Jud promised.

Nearly a week went by and I was beginning to think that Jud Wilson had blown me off. Then late one afternoon, when I was down in the basement wrestling with a load of laundry, he called.

‘It wasn’t easy, Mrs Ives, but I think we’ve managed to get copies of the Library of Congress security tapes for the date that you asked me about. I don’t know what Nicholas Aupry looks like, of course, so when do you think you can come in and go over the tapes with me?’

Without even bothering to check my calendar, I said, ‘Tomorrow?’

‘Great. Shall we say ten o’clock? Come to the reception desk and ask for me. I’ll escort you up to the viewing room.’

The following day, I presented myself bang on time carrying a soy latte from Starbucks. Jud was waiting for me in the lobby, as promised.

‘How did you manage to get your hands on those tapes?’ I asked as we rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.

He waggled his eyebrows and twirled an imaginary mustache. ‘Ve haf our vays.’

He looked so comical, I had to laugh. ‘You aren’t going to tell me, are you?’

Jud grinned. ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you.’

I raised a hand. ‘Understand completely!’

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. Jud waited for me to step out ahead of him, then escorted me to a double glass door at one end of the elevator lobby where he punched some numbers into an electronic keypad. The door buzzed, clicked and he pushed it open.

Jud led me to a windowless, soundproofed room crammed with electronic equipment. A large, flat-screen television dominated one end. Smaller screens stacked in fours bracketed the larger one and seemed to be carrying feeds from all the major networks. The room pulsed with flickering Technicolor, like a department store Christmas display on meth.

‘I can’t believe you were actually able to lay your hands on these tapes,’ I told Jud as he pointed a remote at a DVD player and cued up the disk he’d just slid in. ‘I’m really impressed.’

‘Thanks, but you’re overestimating my clout, Mrs Ives. ‘I’m about as low on the totem pole as you can get at Lynx News. This is way above my pay grade. It took someone with a lot more pull than I have to make the arrangements. I’m expecting he’ll join us.’

‘Is it possible to get information like this through the Freedom of Information Act?’

Jud shook his head. ‘Security tapes are, in general, exempt from FOIA. I think you can understand why.’

‘Dear US Government Infidels. Please send me tapes of your security procedures. Signed, Osama bin Laden.’

Jud chuckled. ‘Something like that.’

On the large screen, a uniformed guard observed as a briefcase passed through an X-ray machine. ‘This is the Thomas Jefferson checkpoint, around eight thirty when the library opened,’ Jud explained. ‘Do you know when Aupry is supposed to have checked in?’

‘No, I don’t. I’m assuming morning, just as I’m assuming he came to the Thomas Jefferson building because he told me he was researching some family papers and that’s where the Genealogy Research Room is.’

Jud speeded up the video and I watched as the time stamp crept up from eight thirty to nine o’clock to ten. At ten fifteen, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. ‘There! That’s him. That’s Nicholas Aupry!’

Jud slowed the video down, reversed, replayed. I watched as Nicholas Ryan Aupry passed through the library security checkpoint carrying nothing but a notebook.

‘Are you sure this is Tuesday, September seventh?’ I asked. ‘Aupry should have been carrying a distinctive shopping bag, one with Julius Garfinkel written on the side.’

Jud aimed a laser pointer at the screen, highlighting the date, 2010/09/07 with a wavering red dot. ‘What was in the bag, do you know?’

‘Family letters and photographs. The same ones I came to talk to John Chandler about the other day.’

Jud shot me a quizzical glance, but when I didn’t elaborate, he returned his attention to the large monitor.

We continued watching until the tape ended just after five thirty when the last researcher left the building. Nicholas Aupry wasn’t among them.

Jud furrowed his brow. ‘So, who is this guy? Houdini? Or did he just spend the night in the building?’

‘Have you ever done research at the Library of Congress?’ I asked.

‘Not yet. Lynx News has an extensive library right here in the building, with desktop access to an incredible number of online databases. I’ve never felt the need to go anywhere else.’

‘What you probably don’t realize is the three main Library of Congress buildings are connected by underground tunnels. You can walk from the Jefferson Building under Second Street to the Adams Building, and from Adams underneath Independence Avenue to Madison, all without going outside.’

I pulled an old Annapolis Symphony concert program out of my handbag, turned to the back, and sketched the three buildings in the blank space between ‘We Wish to Thank Our Sponsors’ and ‘Upcoming Concerts.’ ‘There’s even a tunnel that leads from the Madison Building to the Cannon House Office building,’ I added as I roughed it in, ‘although you have to be staff to use that one. Tunnels are great when it’s raining, like it was the last time I was here. Can you believe some creep stole my umbrella out of your lobby?’

‘My apologies on behalf of Lynx News,’ Jud said with a crooked grin. ‘So, let me get this straight. Aupry can check in at the Thomas Jefferson checkpoint, but he doesn’t have to stay in that building. Once he has his pass, he can move around pretty freely, building to building.’