The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(26)

“Am I?” She slumped against the wall then, too, the tiny bit of reassurance melting like a lump of sugar on her tongue.

“You are.”

“What would Christopher do?” she asked.

“Chris? I have no idea. But it would be a hell of a thing to watch.”

“We never agreed,” Liesl said as the elevator chimed at their destination.

“You and Chris? Everyone knows that.”

“Of course they do,” she said. “And they probably think I want to bring the police in because it’s the opposite of how Christopher would have handled it.”

The elevator door opened into the library’s reference area where all 130 pounds of Max was standing by the desk, arms crossed, red-faced, neck veins throbbing against the tightly buttoned collar of his impeccably pressed shirt.

“Max, what’s going on?” Liesl asked.

“Did you forget to tell me something this morning? Fail to deliver a message?”

“A message?”

“Yes. Is there anything you’ve failed to tell me?”

“I have no idea. Can you tell me why you’re upset?”

“I see. Maybe you don’t know. Perhaps you haven’t even checked your messages today. I’m not sure which is worse.”

Francis had extricated himself from the conversation. The traitor. The only one in the library who absolutely had to listen to Max when he was this obstinate was Liesl.

“I checked my messages right before the library opened,” she said.

“So where the hell is Miriam?” Max was nearly shouting. “She was supposed to work the first reference-desk shift today.” He gesticulated toward the desk, to make sure Liesl could see that there was no one there. “I had planned work to do this morning. I can’t just rearrange my whole day on a whim because the acting director forgets to tell me about a sick call.”

“Did she leave a message on the reference-desk phone?” Liesl asked.

“No, Liesl. And she didn’t send a telegram or a carrier pigeon either.”

“Perhaps she’s just late,” said Liesl. “I’ll call her.”

“I’ve already called her,” said Max. “Home and mobile. No answer.”

“Did she mention yesterday that she wasn’t planning to be in today?” said Liesl, inwardly scrambling together the blurry jigsaw image of Miriam, eyes wide, brushing past Garber and begging for attention at the new-faculty reception. But that couldn’t have been about something so mundane as a vacation day.

“Why would she mention it?” Max flung himself into the chair behind the reference desk. “Why would she warn me that she’s planning to ruin my morning?”

“What I’m saying is that she’s probably not sick at all,” Liesl said.

“She just decided not to show up to work?”

“Or she asked Christopher for a vacation day. And he didn’t get a chance to pass the message along.” There was a creeping ache, just strong enough to make Liesl bite her own tongue, that she never had found Miriam to speak with her as she’d promised.

“And she wouldn’t have checked the desk schedule,” Max said, following Liesl’s line of reasoning, “if she thought she had the day off.”

Max was interrupted from his pout by the ding signaling the arrival of the elevator. Max and Liesl both swung their heads toward the door. It was not Miriam.

“President Garber,” Liesl said. “What a surprise.”

Max adjusted his slumped posture in the chair, and then he changed his mind and stood up. Garber nodded at him, then turned his full attention to Liesl. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” he asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Good. Let’s go to your office.” He turned to Max. “Nice to see you as always, Max.”

“Do you mind,” Liesl said to Max, “covering for the first hour until I can figure something out?”

“You know I’m always happy to help,” said Max.

“Is there some other problem I should know about?” asked Garber.

She considered deflecting by asking about the rehabilitation of his calf strain but decided it would be impossible to feign genuine interest. “No. A staff member, Miriam, is unexpectedly away.” She followed Garber into Christopher’s office and closed the door. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Good,” he said. “Listen, I’ve just come from seeing Chris.”

He placed his bicycle helmet on the chair that Liesl had pulled out for him and stayed standing. As he spoke, he performed some sort of stretch focused on the lower portion of his legs.

“I met Marie there this morning,” said Garber. “I was hoping to have a chance to speak with Chris.”

Liesl, who had taken a seat behind Christopher’s desk, slowly stood up. “Is he awake? That’s brilliant. I had no idea.”

“No. What a pity.”

“Oh,” said Liesl. “Then why did you think you’d have a chance to speak with him?”

“An awful lot of time has passed.”

“He had a stroke.” She walked back around the desk and tried to decide what to do with her hands. “That can be a slow recovery.”