The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(68)

She looked around the empty office and, certain she wouldn’t be caught, stuck her bleeding finger into her mouth. She had always kind of liked it, the faint metallic tinge of one’s own blood.

“How can you know?” Marie said.

“I don’t yet for certain,” said Liesl.

Marie laughed.

“We’re going in circles, Detective Liesl.”

“I have a suspicion,” Liesl said, looking down at the manuscript’s table of contents, at the listing of magnificent publications. “And a good reason for it.”

“I see,” Marie said. “And I’m to be your Watson?”

“Marie, the theft is upsetting. But the identity of the thief might be even more so.”

“I’m sitting in a hospital next to my comatose husband, Liesl. I’m shockproof at this point.”

Liesl made the consideration and, torn between need for Marie’s help and the consequences of expressing the accusation aloud, decided it best to go all the way in.

“I have reason to suspect Francis.”

“Francis Churchill?” Marie expressed something between a laugh and a cough. “Francis from the library?”

“Well, yes,” Liesl said, tracing the names of other entries in the manuscript with her finger. “Francis Churchill from the library.”

“You and Francis are great friends,” Marie said. “I’ve heard rumors that you and Francis are more than great friends.”

“I’m not even sure what that means,” Liesl said.

“What a time for silly rumors. I’m sorry,” Marie said. “Why in the world do you suspect Francis?”

“Something the police said.”

“The police?” said Marie.

“A detective became involved with us after Miriam’s disappearance.”

In her distraction, Liesl had forgotten about the bleeding. She looked down to see that the manuscript had been marked, her blood underlining the name “Vesalius.”

“Terrible tragedy, that,” Marie said.

In the background of the call, Liesl could hear the sound of serious medical professionals talking.

“Did you know Miriam well?” Liesl asked.

“Hardly at all.” Marie seemed eager to move on from the subject of the suicide. Liesl figured she was steeped enough in her own misfortune. “I can’t recall ever speaking with her.”

“Well, yes. Miriam could be very quiet,” Liesl said.

“You were going to tell me about Francis,” Marie said.

“A police detective advised me. And based on that advice, I think Francis might be a suspect.”

“It’s all very vague,” Marie said. “Did the police say that they’re investigating him?”

“He and Christopher were writing together,” Liesl said.

“Yes, I remember,” Marie said.

“What they wrote might be a clue,” Liesl said, dog-earing the corners of the manuscript pages on her desk.

“Francis has the manuscript, I think,” Marie said. “I’d have noticed a giant stack of pages.”

“Not the manuscript,” Liesl said. “Just a final chapter or two. I have most of it. I need the ending.”

“I don’t know about my appetite for sleuthing right now, Liesl.”

“Imagine solving this for Christopher,” Liesl said, pushing the pages away from her finally, before she could do further damage to them.

“I’ll look around when I’m back at the house. But for now, I have to go.”





16


Insolvent and anxious, the remnants of the library’s senior team were sitting around and strategizing with Liesl in Christopher’s office about how to pay for a collection of letters from the War of 1812 without any new donor money when the news came. Dan rapped at the door and summoned Liesl to take a phone call, shifting back and forth in his big boots as he waited for her to follow him out. A phone call in the middle of a meeting, a phone call to the front desk rather than one of their private lines. There was every reason to dismiss it and keep at the business of the war letters. Still, she walked with Dan to go answer it because the money conversation wasn’t going anywhere, and at least the phone call would give her a break from feeling desperate.

There was a researcher at the reference desk waiting for service. An elderly man with curly gray hair tied into a low ponytail who was there to view videos from their Holocaust oral history collection. He was waiting for someone to set up the filmstrip machine for him in a private viewing room. It was an instinct, when she heard the news, to turn her back on the waiting man. It was rude, but she didn’t do it to be rude.

She nodded at the phone, though the caller couldn’t see her nodding, the useless action of a helpless woman. Only the old man, who was looking at her back, and Dan, who was looking at her face with a growing sense of understanding. When she hung up, feeling like she had just stepped off the ledge of something and was dangling in midair, she asked Dan to gather the staff in the large reading room, the one that was not used for reading. Francis and Max were still sitting in Liesl’s office, or Christopher’s really, trying to solve the payment-for-letters problem. There were a dozen or so people in the workroom, doing cataloging work, doing preservation work, standing at the paper cutter and slicing bookplates down to size on acid-free paper. It would require choreography to get it right. They would close early. Against the rules, but appropriate given the circumstances.