The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(62)

Come Labor Day, the crowds disappeared. The type of person who goes camping in the cold is not the type of person who comes to such a place. There was a park ranger stationed by the gate, but the teen boys, and presumably Miriam, knew that there were ways to sneak in. The boys had been driving a twenty-seven-year-old aquamarine Dodge Shadow that made a high whistling sound as it ran, so they ditched it by the gate and decided they would get high on foot. They were nervous. Scared of what the sensation would be like, scared they would get caught. Neither had ever done drugs, not even marijuana, before. They were good kids.

The park had been well cleaned at the end of the season, but there were still clues to be found. A fire pit containing the charred spine of a John Grisham novel. The outlines in the grass of so many tents and coolers and cars. If they hadn’t been so nervous about the weed, the boys probably wouldn’t have walked so far into the campsite, and if they hadn’t been so nervous about being caught, they probably wouldn’t have been looking so closely for other signs of life.

They were teenagers. They didn’t read the newspaper. If they had, they might have known to be on the lookout for a navy Toyota sedan. In their whispered conversation, they were sure that there were people having sex in the back seat of the car, and they were delighted that they might get to see the act in person.

Miriam had been dead for a long time when the boys snuck over to her car to peek at her. The pills she had taken had caused her to vomit bile and foam all over herself, all over her maroon blouse, but that had long since dried and crusted over. The boys were not looking at her blouse. Law & Order had not prepared them for what her skin would look like. Miriam was blue and black and bloated, and the contours of her nose and mouth were only discernible from the white mold that grew around them. The car doors were closed. The boys did not try to open them, which was a mercy because as much as they were unprepared for the sight, they might not have survived the smell. Like all teenagers they had cell phones, but they were too far from a tower to get any signal, so they wept and shook and tried to call for help but eventually had to stagger all the way back to the Dodge Shadow and drive to the main road before they could call their parents and then the police. They never did smoke the weed.

A police officer who was among the first on the scene found the baggie in the mud. He wasn’t sure if it had belonged to the victim, so he entered it into evidence. The coroner later confirmed that Miriam had been dead for several weeks, likely since the first day she had failed to come to work. The police found no evidence of the books in her car or in her apartment.

If there was solace to be found, it was that Miriam never knew that she stood accused of the thefts.





Forty Years Earlier


The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: fourteen men and Liesl Weiss in a shiny new building attached to the humanities and social sciences library tasked with developing a collection that would bring the British Library to a curtsy. Liesl was on the sidewalk out front, terrified to go in.

“It was a mistake,” she said.

She’d been changing her mind for the twenty-six blocks they’d been walking—twice while waiting at a crosswalk, once while John had stopped to tie his shoe, and every time they’d passed a baby carriage.

A tweed jacket with elbow patches got out of a taxi in front of where they were standing. The wearer flicked a cigarette past the curb and took the library steps two at a time.

“That’s him,” Liesl said.

“He’s very tall,” John said.

They’d done the mental math the whole way there, adding to one column and subtracting from another while they passed all those baby carriages: a full-time salary, health insurance, leadership opportunities, the challenge of doing something brand new, her lack of knowledge of rare books, being the only woman, the challenge of doing something brand new. And then finally, as Christopher Wolfe dashed past them up the stairs, an argument with potential.

“It’s not forever.” John held her arm and took a step toward the stairs. “Just until the baby.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Liesl said.

“No one’s listening. And it’s not as though you’re knocked up now. But you have an out. If it’s not where you think you should be.”

“That’s it, is it? You want me barefoot and pregnant. I should have known.”

“My secret plan. There’s a check for the blue canvases coming. We could be okay.”

“The two of us, maybe. But if we had to buy diapers?”

“And then there were three, and then there were three, how sweet it would be…” John stopped singing and read her face. “Do you want it to be forever?”

“Forever? I don’t know. But it’s a good opportunity, working for a man like that. Getting in at the ground floor. Might get to lead the whole thing one day instead of being a glorified secretary somewhere else.”

John smiled. “My wife, the library director.”

“It’s silly,” she said, straightening her shoulders, experiencing a small rush of excitement. She pictured herself haggling with book dealers, filling the shelves with volumes on horticulture, imagined the treasures she might bring to the university. John continued to hold her as they stared up at the building, but Liesl had forgotten all about him, lost in her imaginings. The picture of a rare books collection built of something more than just old bibles. John studied his wife’s determined face so he could sketch it later, and when he was sure he’d memorized it, leaned over to kiss her smooth cheek.