The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(90)

There was not a secret swinging bookcase that opened to reveal five hundred years of book-printing treasures. For all of his machinations to keep the thefts concealed, Christopher’s hiding place for the books was rather inelegant. He kept a big, beige metal filing cabinet in his office. Liesl recognized it in the photo; he had brought it home from the office nearly ten years earlier when they had rearranged the space. The library had less and less need for filing cabinets as record-keeping became a digital process, and for years they had struggled with what to do with the ugly old pieces of furniture. The old wooden card catalogs were snatched up, usually by an undergraduate library assistant to be used for wine storage, as soon as they were offered. But nobody wanted old metal filing cabinets. It was a relief, then, when Christopher had asked for one to be shipped to his house. In a room full of mahogany and chestnut-colored leather, the filing cabinet was an eyesore. It was one of the last places the police had looked. They had spent a lot of time trying to find the swinging bookcase.

“We checked the filing cabinet as an afterthought,” Detective Yuan said.

The six volumes of the Plantin Bible had occupied the bottom drawer of the cabinet. The Vesalius and the Peshawar were in the middle, and in total there were nine other books recovered from the cabinet and taken to police headquarters for cataloging as evidence.

The rest of the books in the office were a complicating factor. The room was lined with bookshelves, none of which swung to reveal a secret passageway, but all of which were heavy with rare and valuable books of uncertain provenance.

“How did Marie handle that?” Liesl asked.

“That’s where it fell apart,” Yuan said. He took a bite of his noodles, for of course it was only over lunch that he was able to meet with Liesl. She had suggested the restaurant, and he had looked slightly disappointed when they sat down, reminding her that if he wanted spicy noodles he could just go to his mom’s house.

Marie had objected to the removal of the books from the shelves. Christopher had been formed by those books, she argued, and they were all she had left of the man.

Her pleas were ignored, and the books were taken as evidence. They were kept separate from the books that had been recovered from the filing cabinet and under a separate agreement. The filing cabinet books were taken with the presumption they were stolen. If Marie could not prove legal ownership, they would not be returned. The bookshelf books would be sent back to her if no one came forward to claim them. As the books were boxed, Marie had stood in the office doorway and wept, issuing occasional instructions about how to pack a box full of books in a way that would not damage their bindings.

When they were finished with Christopher’s office, all that remained on the shelves were a few hardback John Grisham novels that had been removed from their book jackets, probably so that no one would notice that they were John Grisham novels. If a man was defined by the contents of his bookshelves, then Christopher was nothing more than a few airplane books, trying to pass themselves off as something grander.

***

The Christmas tree was still up in the corner of the reading room. Before even taking off her coat, Liesl walked over and plugged in the string of lights so they could keep her company while she waited. She put her phone on the desk in front of her, so she wouldn’t miss it when the detective called, and sat down to wait. Out the large window, the snow was falling in sheets over the empty campus. She craned her neck to look all the way down the street, and in the distance she could see an unmarked navy van making its way down the slippery road, just as she had been assured it would. At the stop sign before the library, the back wheels of the van slipped slightly, sending the van into a slow-motion fishtail that spun it halfway through the intersection. There was no reason to worry. There was nothing with which the van could collide. They had thought carefully about making the delivery to a totally empty campus. If she had asked, campus security would have opened the library’s loading dock for Liesl; they were working even on Christmas Eve. But she hadn’t asked. As per her instruction, the van slowly made its way over the curb and pulled up directly next to the fire exit of the reading room. Three times the van pulled forward and reversed, pulled forward and reversed, pulled forward and reversed until the van’s back doors were perfectly aligned with the entrance that Liesl had propped open. Finally, the engine and the lights cut out, and Detective Yuan jumped out of the driver-side door.

Liesl greeted him with a hug. He motioned for her to wait and reached back into the van where he retrieved a large box of sweets marked with Arabic script. She pulled it open and selected a honey-soaked pastry.

“You’re a terrible driver,” Liesl said.

He couldn’t immediately respond as his mouth was full of halvah. So he shrugged, indicating that he didn’t necessarily disagree.

“I didn’t think we could eat in here,” he said when he had finally finished chewing. He was right. Eating was strictly forbidden in the library unless one was a donor attending a cocktail reception. But stealing millions of dollars’ worth of rare books was also forbidden, and that had been allowed to go on for years, so she wasn’t going to let herself sweat over some baklava on Christmas Eve. She offered him another piece, but he refused. He could tell she was stalling. He walked with her to the staff area so they could wash the honey off their hands, and then they returned to the van and popped the latch on the back doors, revealing the boxes of books inside.