Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript (36 page)

“Oh, yeah?” This I wanted to hear.

“Seems the guy was an orphan. His mother committed suicide when he was a baby. Applegate didn’t say anything about a father, so maybe there wasn’t one in the picture. Munro was raised by his grandmother, some kind of religious nut. They lived one of those narrow, shriveled-up lives some people seem to need. The only book Grandma allowed in the house—that little place in Chesterfield—was the Bible. I mean, I’m no shrink, but this has got to mean something, right? She monitored all his reading, even his school books. Publicly humiliated him in front of his schoolmates by screaming at his English teachers about the books they assigned. She thought—I’m quoting Applegate—‘indiscriminate reading exerted an evil influence on innocent souls.’” He sipped coffee. “When Munro was in his teens, Grandma died, and, surprise, surprise, she had money stashed away—”

“That’s where his trust funds came from.”

“So he dropped out of school and started buying books. He ran out of space, so he bought another house. When the money was no longer enough to support his habit, he figured out a way to get books without paying for them.”

“He became a biblioklept.”

“If that’s what you call a book thief. So Applegate’s statement ties things up pretty good as far as BCI is concerned.” More coffee. “But there’s one loose end that worries me. None of this explains what happened to Peggy Briggs.”

“Oh!” I slapped my forehead. “I didn’t tell you. She’s okay. She showed up here Friday.” I recounted Peggy’s story.

“Well, good, that clears that up. By the way, you’ll be happy to know that, according to Applegate, Peggy’s out of the scene as far as any involvement with Munro goes.”

“I knew that all along,” I said. I heard voices in the hallway and remembered that my office hours started in a few minutes. “But what was her backpack doing at his place? I didn’t ask her.”

“Ms. Nellie stole it for her sweetie. Munro wanted Peggy’s car—get this—because of the bumper stickers. The bumper stickers! He was gonna steam them off, put them in a scrapbook he had.”

“I’d rather be reading,” I recalled slowly. “It makes a crazy kind of sense.”

“The guy had gone big-time squirrelly. That’s the way I see it. To get the car, he needed Peggy’s keys. Which were in the pack. Which Ms. Applegate pinched for him.” He shook his head. “That poor deluded woman even drove the stolen car out to his place for him.” He put the Starbucks cup back on the table. “You know, in my work I see a lot of crap, but this is one for the books. Here’s this sad little mouse of a librarian, and she falls big time for a book crook, breaks the law for him, puts her livelihood in jeopardy, then accidentally gets him dead. Now she’s going to jail. The things people do for love.” He shook his head, this strong, smart man, baffled by the mysterious transgressions of the human heart. “Who was it said, ‘I won’t play the sap for you’?”

I looked over at him with a half-grin. “Don’t worry, Charlie. I won’t ever ask you to.”

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