Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript (30 page)

“Hanlon. It’s Dennis O’Hanlon. And, anyhow, what are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m freaking out from being stuck in the house. Must be getting better.” She reached over the back of the seat and squeezed my shoulder. “Hey, Mom, you’re shaking. Just exactly what did O’Hangman do to you?”

“Yeah,” Sunnye echoed, glancing over at me. “What went down with you two?”

I told them what he’d said about my finances. “It was like some kind of a threat, an
I know where you live
kind of thing. He even knew about my Goddamn college loans! He deliberately let me know that he’s taken the trouble to learn my business. I feel so…violated.” I kept the bit about Avery to myself.

“What a jerk!” Sunnye said. “The guy’s a problem, Karen. You can’t just let him get away with this. Let’s get a drink at Rudolph’s and talk it over.”

“No!”

“Why not? It’s a great bar, and, besides, I think Amanda’s in desperate need of a change of scene.”

“That asshole O’Hanlon might still be there.” And the entire nosy audience of colleagues. “How about Moccio’s?”

“Point the way.”

***

For most Enfield students the weekend begins on Thursday evening. This was Wednesday, but half the football team was drinking at the bar as if classes were already over for the week. I slipped in next to a guy with a full mug in each hand, and asked the bartender for bottled beer. My daughter ordered Jack Daniels, straight up.

“Amanda!”

“Mother!” she snipped back. “I’m twenty-two!”

“But you’re
sick
.”

“So…this is medicine.”

“Give her a break, Karen.” Sunnye turned to the bartender. “Same for me,” she said.

“Yeah, Mom, give me a break.” My daughter grinned at me. It was the first spontaneous smile I’d seen since Amanda had come home. “Look at that dude,” she whispered, tilting her head toward the kid with two beers. “He’s pounding.”

“Pounding?”

“Yeah, if he had another hand, he’d be drinking three beers.”

We took a table in the back of the room, the same table at which I’d sat with Dennis. I shuddered and took a sip from the room-temperature bottle. The warm brew left a sudsy trace on my tongue. “How’s the bourbon?” I asked.

Sunnye shrugged. “It might even really
be
Jack Daniels.”

The tepid beer was awful. I lifted my hand to get the bartender’s attention, then pointed to my companions’ drinks. “The same for me,” I mouthed, then strolled to the bar to pick up the whiskey. The angry beat of rap throbbed from the jukebox.

“Puff Daddy,” I said, as I returned to the table. I tossed it off:
the things I know
.

Amanda cast me an amused look. “Jay-Z,” she corrected me.

The things I think I know.

On top of the martini I’d already had that evening, the bourbon put me in a garrulous mood. I spilled it out: How I’d first run into Dennis at the reunion; how he’d approached me about his investigation into the stolen books; how I’d asked him what he knew about Peggy.

“He’s still working for the college?” Sunnye asked, with narrowed eyes.

“So he said tonight. Investigating the flaws in the library’s security systems. But, it’s funny, Avery told me—”

“He a security specialist?”

“How would I know? Before I ran into him at the reunion, I hadn’t seen the guy in twenty-five years. Why?”

“It’s just that usually they specialize in one or the other—investigation is a whole nother animal than security.” She finished her drink. “Seems to me there’s something more than a little
off
about this O’Hanlon. I’m with Amanda on this one. The minute he walked in I said
uh, oh. A little too smooth
. You’re a smart cookie, Karen. I don’t know why you didn’t see it.”

I shrugged and sipped at the bourbon. “I went to high school with him.”

“Well, duh,” Amanda said. We went back for seconds on the bourbon. My brain began to feel extremely…concentrated. The mention of libraries reminded me of overhearing Rachel’s warning to Nellie to shape up or ship out. So I told my companions about that, even though it had nothing to do with anything. I felt so foolish about Denny, I wanted to change the subject.

Sunnye went up to the bar to order a third round. A husky guy in jeans and a muscle shirt draped an arm around her shoulder. She flashed him a killer smile and snapped her fingers. Trouble bared his fangs. Muscle shirt wimped off. When she returned with the drinks I told them about Peggy Briggs, and how I’d found her car in the field near Elwood Munro’s house. It felt good to get all this stuff off my chest. I drank more bourbon.

“I don’t understand why I worry so much about Peggy. College students do stupid things all the time. If I let them all get to me, I couldn’t do my job. But Peggy…”

“I think you over-identify with her, Mom,” Amanda said. “She’s like you were. All that crap you had to go through just to get an education.”

I frowned at her. Was I so transparent even my daughter could psychoanalyze me?

“And then,” I continued, evading her remarks, “Paul Henshaw—you know, the bookseller—asked me if I thought Peggy was Munro’s accomplice. She had access to keys, maybe even security codes. But I don’t think—”

Sunnye jumped in. “Yeah, working at the library does link Peggy to Elwood Munro. But, he’s connected to a lot of people, including those librarians you were just talking about. Even to Dennis O’Hanlon.”

“Even to you.”

She gave me a funny look. “Even to me.”

My mind clouded up even more.
Elwood Munro and his bibliomania
, I thought,
Elwood Munro
—
his books, his house, his death
. Oh, the man did love his books, especially the mystery novels. All those Ross Macdonalds, Mary Roberts Rineharts, S.S. Van Dines. Strange, though, you’d think he would have had some Brits in his collection. Where was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Where was Dorothy L. Sayers? Ruth Rendell? P.D. James? Colin Dexter? My brain was surfing on waves of inebriated brilliance. Where was Miss Marple when you needed her? When you had a body in your own library?

One of the football players barfed his evening’s beer into a corner. “Damn you,” the bartender bawled. “If you can’t hold it like a man, don’t drink it in my bar.”

Phew!
Time to go.

We donned our coats. The bartender slammed open a closet door, yanked out a pail and a mop.

Definitely time to go.

Halfway out the door, I turned back to Sunnye. There was something I urgently needed to know. “Sunnye? You know what the real question is here?”

“What?”

“The real question is—what would Kit Danger do now?”

Chapter Twenty-five

We returned to the scene of the crime.

It was eleven thirty p.m. when I ushered my companions into the building. With the bug-eyed gape of the celebrity spotter, the student worker on the desk recognized Sunnye and her dog. Trouble entered the library with no trouble. In the reference room, a few students more diligent than those we’d run into at Moccio’s hunched over computers. A half-dozen leafed through scholarly journals in Periodicals. Through the glass door of Reference I spotted a trio of students from my FroshHum class passing around a book. Hmm, it looked like a volume from the
Masterplots
series.

“Excuse me just a moment,” I said to Sunnye and Amanda. I pushed open the door and headed for the one occupied table. Keith Burrell glanced up and choked on the cold Pop-Tart it was illicit to consume on library premises.

“Hey, guys,” I greeted my students. “You’re working late.” I plucked the volume from Samantha McCarthy’s hand. “
Masterplots
, huh? The
S
volume? This wouldn’t be in lieu of actually reading
The Scarlet Letter
, now, would it?”

Frankie Rodriquez was the quickest, and the most glib. “Of course, not, Professor. Simply a preliminary survey of themes and motifs. We wish to approach the text as informed readers.” He could hardly keep the smirk off his face.

Preliminary survey. Informed readers
. Right. The neatly penned words on the open notebook page in front of him read,
prison & cemetery = sin & death.

“You know,” I said, closing the book and setting it on a handy book cart, “I’d really prefer you think for yourselves.”

Frankie grinned at me. “Sure thing, Professor. If that’s what you think we should do.”

***

The green velvet rope was stretched across the top of the stairs that lead down to the Special Collections division. I walked my fellow sleuths past it and into the deserted corner of Periodicals by the literary theory journals.

“Okay,” I whispered, “what now?” All that booze had rendered me just a little bit reckless.

Sunnye sat at the table, made a tent from her fingers, and turned to me with narrowed eyes. She looked as if she were settling in for a prolonged planning session. God help me, I realized with a momentary spurt of clarity, I’d been reduced to functioning as a sidekick to Kit Danger. “Where was the body?” she asked.

“In the Special Collections closed stacks, but we can’t get there. Special Collections shuts down at five.”

“Hmm,” she mused. “There
might
be a way. And the library itself? How late does it stay open?” Sunnye asked.

“Midnight, except during finals, when students have access round the clock.”

“Are there finals this week?”

“No.”

“Good.” She checked her watch. “Twenty minutes until midnight. Where can we hide?”

I started, shocked into sobriety. “Hide! My God, Sunnye, what are you up to? You want to get me fired?”

Trouble was at her side. She reached down and ran a hand over his muscular neck. “I thought you asked me what Kit Danger would do, Karen. I’ll tell you what she’d do. She’d hang around this place until she had an opportunity to investigate the murder scene. She’d search through whatever library records she could get her hands on, especially in Special Collections. And—”

“We can’t do that! It’s against the law!”

“Of course it is. Criminal trespass. And I’m good at it.” Sunnye crossed her arms over her chest and chewed her upper lip. She had strong, white, efficient-looking teeth. “You really don’t have a choice, Karen, because now that you’ve got me in here, I’m going to investigate. I’m under suspicion of murder, and I have a right to exonerate myself.” Her hard dark eyes looked straight into mine. “Unless, of course, you’re planning to turn me in.”

“Sunnye!” I hissed the word. “Don’t do this to me! I could lose my job!”

But Amanda was wide-eyed. “We’re going in, aren’t we?” She practically buzzed with excitement.

I swiveled my head toward her. “
You’re
not going anywhere, young lady!”

Her face went blank. “Mother, you keep forgetting that I’m an adult now. If we can help Sunnye clear herself, we have a moral obligation. And, Mom…this may not be the best time to tell you…but…I want to work in criminal investigation.” She glanced down at her interlaced fingers. “I’ve signed up to take the state police entrance exam. I want to do what Charlie does, Mom. I want to do what Sunnye—well, what Kit Danger—does. And…tonight…this would give me some hands-on experience with a pro.”

“Amanda, no!” I stared at her in horror. I’d sensed a growing distance between us lately as I’d blithely blabbered on and on about graduate school applications, and she’d become increasingly close-mouthed about her future. I should have picked up on it sooner. My worst fears had been realized; my daughter wanted to be a cop. That’s what I got for sleeping with police investigators. That’s what I got for consorting with crime writers. I’d put Amanda in harm’s way.

For one wild moment I wished fervently that she were a toddler again. Then I could shake a finger at her:
no, no, no, no, no.
Instead, powerlessly, I snipped, “Besides, Sunnye’s not a pro. She’s a novelist.”

“Whatever,” Amanda said. Her lips were straight, her clear hazel eyes focused on mine. She’d left her third bourbon untouched on Moccio’s gunky table. “I am very serious about this. I’m not going back to school after graduation. Not now. Maybe not ever. Why does everything have to be about education, education, education? Isn’t there a real world out there?”

My chest was so tight, I could hardly breathe. If my daughter insisted on joining Sunnye in this investigation, I had no choice but to stay with her. To hang with her, as the kids would put it.

And, besides, if I was at her side during this madcap scheme, at least I could protect her—if it came to that. Ridiculous, I knew; what danger could threaten anyone in a library, even after midnight?

But then, as if it were spoken aloud in an actual voice, the thought came to me:
Look what happened to Elwood Munro
.