Oliver Stark: 88 Killer

‘I can’t. He’s going to do something. He’s taking big risks. He’s feeling the pressure. You’ve got to let me do what I can to try to find him.’

‘The Chief of Detectives has called me in, Harper. You know what he’s saying? I’ve fucked up. I can’t lead my men. And you, Harper, you’ve let this case run away with you.’

‘I’d like to listen to the lecture, Captain, but I’m running out of time.’

‘Don’t you dare hang up. I’ll have you on a charge, Harper.’

‘Then I can’t come in until this is finished, you understand.’ Harper hung up and turned to Denise. ‘This has to work. We’ve got to find out who this killer is.’

‘No one knows if it will or won’t help, but Aaron has been working through the library stacks. He thinks it’s the only link.’

‘What’s he got?’

‘Just like we said — the book on Sturbe was in very few libraries.

He know our killer is local, so we can presume his local library was in Brooklyn. Only one Brooklyn library held his book.’

‘And this is it?’ said Harper, looking up at the dark Gothic façade.

‘Dr Goldenberg’s already inside. We had to get the librarian to come in and open specially for us.’

‘I’ll leave you here,’ said Harper. ‘I’m going to see Eddie and then I’m going to see if those patrol cops got any leads in Bed-Stuy. If there’s nothing, I’ll be talking to the agents selling Nazi memorabilia, see if they got me anything. Call me.’

Aaron Goldenberg brushed a thick layer of dust off an old volume. His face was growing more drawn each day. Denise put her hand out and touched his arm. ‘She’ll be okay.’

‘She’s been missing so long. Be honest with me, Denise, what are her chances?’

‘We got to keep trying, got to keep believing that she’s still alive.’

‘I will try,’ he said. He looked around the room. ‘I spend a lot of time here.’

‘Studying?’

‘Now, yes, but as a kid I didn’t study much. Like Abby. She’s lazy too.’

‘Didn’t think of you as the rebel type.’

He took out his reading glasses and put them on, then he walked along the stacks, saying, ‘Come on, let’s be quick. Abby’s out there, right? The answer’s in here, yes?’

Denise saw a long line of old filing cabinets. ‘Yes, Aaron. In here. We just got to find it. You go that way, I’ll see if they’ve got a catalog.’

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘but it won’t necessarily lead you to the book.’

‘It doesn’t need to, does it?’

‘Guess not.’ Aaron Goldenberg moved slowly down each aisle, moving his eyes up and down the rows. He knew the numbering system. ‘They never moved to Dewey. They never liked Dewey.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Stupid system.’

‘Really?’

‘No. Dewey set up a club. It excluded Jews. Hard to swallow.’

‘The truth often is,’ said Denise. She located the catalog. ‘These aren’t in title or author order. What do I look for?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On the judgment of the librarian. Sturbe’s story could come under a number of headings. Biography, Military History, Holocaust, Infamous Jews, Criminal Minds.’

‘Great.’

‘You just have to use your instinct. If it was here, it’ll be in the catalog. I never knew the book. Not my thing as a boy.’

‘What was your thing? Rabbinical texts? Kabbalah?’

‘You have me down as an academic, Dr Levene.’

‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘I am now. Back then, no. Back then I liked Harold Robbins.’

‘Seriously?’

Aaron nodded. ‘I hid his books in Rabbinical texts.’ His face creased. Every few minutes she could see the horrible thoughts crossing his mind. He was trying to keep himself together, but it wasn’t easy. He was tortured by the imaginings that he couldn’t keep from appearing

Denise felt his pain. She knelt by the side of the first filing cabinet and pulled out the old metal drawers. The whiff of mold and mildew mixed with the puff of fungus dust. She leaned back. ‘I’ll start with Biography.’

‘Please do,’ said Aaron.

Silence fell in the room. Aaron’s slow footsteps continued to move along each shelf, and Denise’s search was punctuated by the squeal of old runners. She flicked through the old cards, her eyes looking for the single word. Sturbe . He wasn’t in Biography, or under Criminal Minds, or under Holocaust. Denise shut the drawer. ‘There’s only a dozen entries under Holocaust.’

Aaron stopped and looked up. ‘Holocaust. Yes. Specifically titles addressing the generic topic. Anything else will be under a more specific title.’

Denise looked down the letters on the front of the cabinets.

She thought about Tom Harper and looked at her watch. He’d be wanting a call by now.

Her eyes stopped on the ‘W’. She opened the drawer and flicked the files forward. She stopped at Warsaw .

‘Aaron,’ she called out. ‘She filed it under the Warsaw Ghetto.’

Aaron moved quickly towards her, with his face full of expectation. ‘You found it! Come on, Denise. We’ve got to be quick.’

Denise held up the card. Sturbe: The Story of a Jew by Malachai Jiresh. The writing was on a pink card that had faded all along the top edge. The typing was old and in two colors, half blue, half red with some letters light on the page. She handed it to Aaron.

‘I didn’t think we’d find it,’ he said. Tears would’ve come, but he shook his head. He let the feelings turn hard and tried to focus his mind. He looked at the number.

‘H.831.33.2,’ he repeated.

Denise and Aaron ran back up the stairs. ‘You don’t want to find the book?’ she asked.

‘I want the bastard’s name, not the book,’ he panted.

‘I understand,’ said Denise.

They rose up the wooden stairs and into the light.

Denise approached the desk. The library wasn’t open but she saw the bright-eyed woman who’d helped get them access to the archives. ‘We found the reference.’

‘Well, then,’ said the woman, ‘if you’ve got the book number, I’ll see what I can get you.’

The woman disappeared. Thirty minutes later she came back. ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.’

‘What? It’s not there?’ said Aaron.

‘No, please, come this way.’

Denise and Aaron followed her down a long corridor. ‘I had hoped that the records would have been put in some order.’ She opened the door marked Archive to reveal shelves of old ledgers.

‘Even for her day, the librarian was an old-fashioned woman, but fastidious. Once you have the reader, you can look through the reader cards and find the whole of his or her reader history. But without a name…’

‘Can we set ourselves up in here?’ Denise asked.

‘Sure, please do. I’m sorry it’s not any easier.’

The door closed. Denise and Aaron stared at the rows of books. Aaron pulled one out. He opened it. ‘All handwritten. There’s a lot of borrowing. We’re never going to be able to find him.’

‘We will. Let’s just try to narrow it down to some dates.’

‘How?’

‘A ten-year slot. He’s in his thirties. He might have started this as a teenager. So, let’s say he’s thirty-five. Twenty years ago he’s fifteen. About the right age, give or take a couple of years. We can go five years either side of thirty-five. So let’s start in 1990. You go five years forward, I’ll go five years back.’

‘I don’t understand your logic, Denise, but it’s a plan.’

Lock-Up, Bedford Stuyvesant

March 15, 7.35 a.m.

Abby pulled herself up slowly and stared out. ‘We can’t sit here like victims. We’ve got to do something.’