Linda Fairstein - Lethal Legacy

“Much to my regret,” Bea said. “Now, I had this conversation well before Eddy got in trouble.”

“You mean before he got caught for all the trouble he’d been causing.”

“Right again, Mike.” Bea closed the large book and rested her hand on its lid. “Eddy told me that when Lord Wardington returned the book to Jasper Hunt, the old boy kept it for a while-he had no intention of ever letting it collect dust in our stacks again. Eventually, he gave the book to his granddaughter, Minerva.”

“What?” Mike seemed stunned.

“I’m only the messenger, Detective. That’s what Eddy said, and he knew Minerva Hunt-they’d had some dealings with each other. Why wouldn’t I believe him? None of this had any significance until you found that panel under the water tank yesterday. Till you told me this map-which I wasn’t even certain existed-might be connected to the murder of Tina Barr.”

Mike was circling the table now, punching his right fist into the palm of his left hand.

“We’ve got to get to Eddy Forbes, Coop. You talk to the feds on Monday,” Mike said. “What else did he tell you, Bea?”

“Of course, my angle was selfish, too. I asked about the map because I wanted to get it back from the family. Have it here, where it belonged,” the librarian said. “Eddy told me that for most of her life, Minerva had kept the atlas in her father’s library. She had no use for it, and no real idea of its value. Then, shortly before his arrest, Eddy Forbes reintroduced her to Alger Herrick, who offered to pay her dearly for the atlas, not withstanding its clouded provenance.”

“For a reason?”

“Herrick’s collection is heavy on Ptolemy,” Bea said. “He’s got the most important library of maps in private hands, now that Lord Wardington is gone.”

“Yes, he told us about his Bologna Ptolemy,” I said. “But Herrick also said Minerva dabbled in maps. Why wouldn’t she have wanted to hold on to it?”

“If you ask me, you’re making too much of the fact that Alger Herrick was after that book. It’s much more like the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees,” Bea said. “Herrick’s a Ptolemy guy. He’s been trying to corner the market on all the great editions of that work.”

“And Minerva?” I asked.

“Strictly Mercator,” Bea said, handing the book back to Mike to reshelve.

“Sorry? I don’t get what you mean.”

“Mercator was one of the greatest sixteenth-century geographers, Alex. Mercator maps? Every schoolkid knows them.”

“Sure,” I said, recalling the famous images of the cylindrical projection maps, with parallels and meridians and perpendicular chartings all neatly aligned.

“Gerardus Mercator. His maps were designed for marine navigation, so that sailors could use a straight line to determine their position at sea, even without instruments.”

“What’s it called when sailors do that?” I asked.

Mike brushed back his hair and answered. “Dead reckoning.”

Bea Dutton wagged her finger at Mike. “That’s just what Eddy Forbes said about that girl. Back then, I thought he was joking. He said she was total Mercator all the way.”

“What did he mean?” I asked.

“If Minerva Hunt is doing the reckoning,” he used to say, “anyone who gets in the way of the straight line between her and whatever she’s after, the odds are they’ll be dead. That’s what he meant by dead reckoning.”

By nine o’clock, curators and cops had been returning to the map division room in rolling waves, like eager kids gathering clues on a scavenger hunt.

Bea was in charge of examining each volume they found in hopes of coming across a panel of the missing map, but none of the rare books and atlases yielded any treasure. Jill Gibson sat glumly in a corner of the room, checking her master list against the items that had been retrieved, noting those that were reported to be missing from their proper places.

“I’m so hungry, I’m losing it,” Mike said.

“There are some places in the neighborhood,” Bea said. “We could take a walk.”

“No time for that. Coop, you got enough cash for about eight pizzas to feed these guys?”

I dug into my pants pocket and handed him my money.

“We can’t eat in here, Mike,” Bea said. “You can lock me up before I let you get food into this room.”

“Deal.” He signaled to one of the rookies. “Send your partner for as many pies as this will buy. Anything but anchovies. Get me some tarps from the Crime Scene wagon. Set them up on the ground at the receiving dock.”

Mike turned to Bea. “A little brisk for an al fresco picnic, but that’s what I’m offering.”

“Accepted.”

While we waited for the takeout order, Bea continued to study the books, most of them from the Hunt Collection. I caught glimpses of the Asian sex lithographs, the Curtis photos, and several versions of Marco Polo’s journals. The erotic drawings were as visually stunning as the sepia prints of Native Americans and the brilliant notations made by the great Italian traveler, but nothing she searched turned up any unexpected bonus.

Twenty-five minutes later, when our dinner arrived, Mike and I-joined again by Mercer-led our bleary-eyed soldiers out to the freight entrance and tried to get our minds off work while we ate.

“I bet you’re real good at trivia,” Mike said to Bea. He was sitting cross-legged on a tarp while she parked herself on one of the steps a few feet away.

“Not many topics. Why?”

“Mercer, the Coopster, and I bet on the Final Jeopardy! question most nights. I’m asking you to be my teammate, okay?”

“I won’t be much help.”

Mike was on his second slice of pepperoni and sausage. “You were taking your crazy cab ride last night, kid, so I know you didn’t see the show. And Mercer was with me. Lucky that I’ve got TiVo and no life. Twenty bucks, everybody. Coop, I’m taking it out of your change.”

“Help yourself. It would have been the first time you ever gave me change.”

“The category is Animals. Animals, ladies and gents.”

“No fair, Chapman. You know the Q and A,” Mercer said.

“Double or nothing. I’ll keep my mouth shut, and if Bea gets it, I’m buying dessert.”

“So what’s the answer?” Mercer asked.

Mike did his best Alex Trebek imitation. “The answer is…Oldest living animal on the planet. Oldest living animal on the planet.”

“Wait a minute, Bea,” I said. “I’ve got another idea, another possible literary hiding place for Jasper Hunt.”

“Hold that thought, Coop,” Mike said. “I’m looking to score.”

“I give up. This is more important. Whales, elephants, rhi-noceri.”

“Bad sport, Blondie. Don’t spoil it for the others.”

Bea was wiping the crumbs from her veggie pizza off her sweater. “Tell me, Alex. What are you thinking?”

“Aw, Bea. Give me an old animal,” Mike said. “In the form of a question.”

“What’s a snail?”

“Bad answer, Bea. You’re letting me down. Mercer?”

“What’s a…?”

“I’ll give you a hint. Coop’s favorite restaurant in the world. Martha’s Vineyard. The Bite.”

The Quinn sisters’ tiny shack by the side of the road in Chilmark served the very best chowder and fried clams I’d ever tasted. But Mike revealed the question before I could shift my train of thought from rare books to shellfish.

“What’s an ocean quahaug?” Mike said. “Trebek said some researchers dredged up a four-hundred-year-old clam near Iceland this year. It’s got growth rings, just like trees, so you can tell its age. Check your chowder next time. Those old quahaugs could get chewy.”