Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Library

He just stared at me. He didn’t say a word, and neither did anybody else. We were still silent when the front door opened and a group of men trooped through the hall and found their way to the library.

Their leader, the only one not wearing a uniform, was a big fellow in a gorgeous gray suit that looked as though it had been custom-tailored for someone else.

“Well, here we all are,” he said, casting his eyes around the room. “It’s Mrs. Rhodenbarr’s son Bernard, and it looks like you went and rounded up the usual suspects. You got the right to remain silent, all of youse, but I wouldn’t advise it, because the sooner we get this sorted out the sooner we can all get home. And the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned, because I never seen so much snow in my life.”

“My God,” Carolyn said, “it’s Ray Kirschmann, and I’m actually glad to see him. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

But she had, and she’d live to see others, which was more than you could say for Dakin Littlefield. He gave a little cry of abject despair, then stuck the business end of the gun in his cruel mouth and pulled the trigger.

The big problem with automatics, or so they tell me, is that they’re apt to jam. This one didn’t.

Four days later I was perched on a stool behind the counter at Barnegat Books, unwrapping a killer sandwich from the Russian deli around the corner. They use a particularly crinkly waxed paper, except I don’t suppose it’s actually waxed, I suppose it must be some sort of miracle polymer laminate designed to wreak havoc with generations yet unborn. Whatever it is, it’s noisier than the D train, and crumpling it never fails to get Raffles’s attention. He perked up, I feinted left and threw to the right, and he refused to be faked out, pouncing like a champion.

“I thought the layoff might hurt him,” I told Carolyn, “but he’s not the least bit rusty. I’ll tell you, though, he’s glad to be back.”

“He’s not the only one, Bern.”

“You said it. I suppose the country makes a nice change, but I’m a city boy at heart. I’d rather be on a bench in Bryant Park with life going on all around me. Give me the subway at rush hour, a couple of fire engines with their sirens wide open…”

“I know what you mean, Bern. The simple pleasures.”

“Well, you know what Sydney Smith said about the country. He said he thought of it as a sort of a healthy grave.”

“All that fresh air, Bern. If you’re not used to it…”

“Exactly. It was starting to get to me. But all I really needed was a couple of days at home and I’m my old self again. Working in the bookstore, playing with my cat.”

“Same here. Washing dogs all day, then going home and watching my cats wash themselves.” She grinned. “And going out at night for a few pops and the chance of an adventure.”

“An adventure?”

“Last night,” she said, “I got a heavy dose of spring fever, because that’s what it is, spring, even if they haven’t got the word yet up in the Berkshires. So I went for a walk, and where did I wind up but the Cubby Hole?”

“What a surprise.”

“Well, I got smart feet, Bern. They took me there all by themselves, and-” She broke it off at the tinkle of tiny bells over the door, announcing a visitor. “Later, Bern,” she said. “It’ll keep. Look who’s here.”

I looked up, and there she was, the Widow Littlefield. I hadn’t expected her to be wearing black, and she wasn’t, looking quite spiffy instead in a dove-gray suit with a nipped-in waist. Her blouse was white, and her bow tie, floppy and feminine, was the bright red of arterial blood.

“Bernie,” she said. “It’s so nice to see you. And there’s your sweet little cat.” She caught sight of Carolyn and her face darkened. “Perhaps this isn’t a good time.”

“It’s a perfectly fine time,” I said. “You’re looking well, Lettice.”

“Thank you, Bernie.”

“You remember Carolyn.”

“Your wife,” she said. “Except she’s not your wife. It’s very confusing. When you called, I thought you might want to come over to my apartment. Or that you’d invite me over to yours.”

“I thought it would be nice to meet here.”

“So you said. But I didn’t expect there would be three of us.”

“Four,” I said, “if you count the cat. And I can’t guarantee there won’t be more. You might find this hard to believe, but every once in a while I actually have a customer walk in here.”

“How nice for you.”

“But that probably won’t happen,” I said, “and until it does we can talk freely. I didn’t get much chance to talk to you after your husband ate his gun.”

She shuddered. “What an unpleasant expression,” she said. “And I wish you wouldn’t call him my husband.”

“You’re the one who married him,” I said. “I suppose you’ve got grounds for an annulment, but he saved you the hassle of getting one, the same as he saved the state the cost of a trial. You’re single again, and you’re in the clear as far as the cops are concerned. How about Mr. Sternhagen? Is he letting you come back to work?”

“He insisted I take the week off,” she said, “but of course he wants me back.”

“I guess he was happy enough just to get his bonds back.”

“He got them back before he even knew they were gone, Bernie. And he realized that I was as much Dakin’s victim as he was. It was indiscreet of me to give Dakin an opportunity to have a copy of my key made, but Mr. Sternhagen knows I’ll never let anything like that happen again.”

“I guess it must seem like a horrible dream,” I said.

“It does.”

“But your eyes are open now, and it’s all over.”

“That’s right, Bernie. It’s just a good thing the police got there when they did. I still can’t understand how they managed it.”

“They used a helicopter,” I said.

“I know that.”

“So the road conditions didn’t matter,” I said, “and the unplowed driveway didn’t stop them, or the lack of a bridge across the gully. They just flew right over everything.”

“I understand all that part. How did they know to come in the first place? And how did they know they would need a helicopter? And the man in charge-”

“Ray Kirschmann.”

“He was a New York police officer, and he seemed to know you.”

“I noticed that,” I said. “Curious, isn’t it?”

“But how did he…”

“Bernie called him,” Carolyn said. “After he faked his own death by lowering a dummy into the gully, he walked downstream until he found a place where he could wade across.”

“No wading required,” I said. “Cuttlebone Creek was frozen solid. The only wading I had to do was through snow, and I don’t think you call it wading when it’s snow. It’s either trudging or slogging, and it seems to me I did a fair amount of both.”

“Then he doubled back on the other side of the gully,” she went on, “until he got to the parking lot.”

“The parking lot?”

“Right on the other side of the bridge, where everybody left their cars. He figured somebody would have a cell phone, and he opened car doors until he found one.”

“Didn’t people lock their cars? I’m positive Dakin locked ours.”

“I guess I got lucky,” I said. I didn’t tell her that a locked car is not the most challenging obstacle you can place in a burglar’s path. “I found a phone, and I was going to call nine-one-one but I couldn’t figure out what to tell them. So I called Ray Kirschmann, and don’t ask me what I told him. Don’t ask him, either, because I woke him up in the middle of the night and he couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. But he got the important part right.”