Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(11)

Joe groaned. “This is why I bought it for you.”

“I know. I have pepper spray.” Then: “Ten feet.”

She saw the package on the step near the base of the door. It was about a foot by a foot and a half in size and probably four inches thick, messily wrapped in brown paper with the edges taped down.

Written on it in quivering black marker was: For the 12 Sleep County Library Collection.

Marybeth sighed audibly as the tension melted out of her. She quickly dismissed her ludicrous worst-case scenario—that it was a bomb.

“It’s okay,” she told Joe. “Somebody dropped off a package at the front door, is all. It happens all the time. Turn around and go get some breakfast.”

He paused for a few seconds. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Get inside and lock the door. Then I’ll turn around.”

“Okay.”

She swiped her keycard in the lock, opened the door, and pushed the package into the vestibule with her foot. It was surprisingly heavy, but she could tell by experience that it was a large thick book of some kind. That it had even occurred to her that the package might be a bomb was unnerving to her. It was a glimpse into how fragile and conspiratorial her mental state still was.

“I’m in,” she said to Joe as she turned and locked the door behind her.

“What’s in the package?”

“I’ll let you know later,” she said. “I’m not worried about it. People clean out their houses and they don’t know what to do with their books, so they ‘donate’ them to the library. Occasionally, there’s even something of value, but most of the used books get pulped or put into our book sale.”

“They do this anonymously?”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little embarrassed, is all. I’m glad I didn’t call the sheriff. Go home now.”

He said he would.

Before she hit the master lights to illuminate the stacks of the old Carnegie library, she raised her eyes and looked outside through the glass door.

On the corner of the next block, the man who’d left the package stood partly illuminated by the blue glow of an overhead streetlight. He raised his hand tentatively and waved.

She read a message in his wave that might or might not be true. To her, the wave said, It’s your problem now.

Then he turned and walked off into the dark.



* * *



—

After she’d made a cup of strong coffee in the Keurig machine, Marybeth turned to the package in the middle of her desk and took a photo of it—just in case.

As she pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the archive department, she wondered if her precautions were even necessary. But she’d learned over the years from working closely with Joe and other law enforcement personnel that it was better to be methodical when it came to studying unknown objects. The parcel could turn out to be important in some way. The circumstances in which the mystery man had left it there suggested that he placed value on it. Fingerprints or DNA on the wrapping could even help identify him.

Marybeth used an X-Acto knife to carefully slice through the tape—she didn’t want to tear the paper if she could avoid it. She recognized the rough brown wrap as that of a grocery bag from Valley Foods, the local grocery store. Meaning the man who left it was likely from the area.

She peeled back the paper on the top until she could see that inside was, indeed, a very thick book. Not a book, exactly, but a very odd leather-bound binder.

The front cover was wrapped in dark red leather held in place by a heavy silver square, with an X in the middle made of silver as well. A large round medallion was in the center of the X, featuring a full-bodied eagle on a platform, its wings spread and its balled talons curled up as if showing off its biceps. The silver was tarnished with age.

Heavy silver rivets in the shape of four-leaf clovers attached the silver work to the leather. They also separated a series of heavy numbers on the bottom of the cover:

    1 9 3 * 7



Marybeth frowned not only at the date but at the font. It was Gothic Germanic, popular in Germany in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s.

It wasn’t a binder, after all. It was a photo album.

And when she leaned over it to get a closer look, she saw the Nazi swastikas carved into the silver of the X.

Then she opened it and gasped and thought, It’s your problem now.





CHAPTER FIVE


    Marybeth and the Nazis


Marybeth spent the rest of the morning studying each thick page, by turns mystified, enthralled, and enraged.

The binder appeared to be authentic. It had a musty odor, but it was in excellent condition overall. The pages were filled with hundreds of original black-and-white images either glued to the paper or mounted by small corner pockets. There were very few handwritten captions, but it wasn’t long before she realized what she was looking at.

In chronological order, the album memorialized a year in the life of a Nazi government official named Julius Streicher. Marybeth had never heard of him before. The first page of the album was titled simply:


Das

Jahr

1937