The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(93)

“He couldn’t even respect me enough to try to hide it.”

“He did, though,” Liesl said. “They were in the filing cabinet.”

Liesl walked into the room where uniformed officers had removed thousands of books from built-in shelves. They’d left only papers. Piles and piles of papers that Christopher had refused to read on a screen, had refused to save in a folder so that someone after him could make sense of them. Marie staggered forward and grabbed a pile of printouts from the desk, sloppily handing them to Liesl.

They were emails. They were emails from Miriam to Christopher. The old man had set up an email account after all.

“Right here on the desk,” Marie said. “He left that woman’s pleading letters to him right here on the desk under his manuscript.”

Liesl glanced at the stack and almost immediately wanted to look away from the ugliness of what the messages exposed, but in the brief moments she laid eyes on the typed lines, she saw references to embraces held, to promises broken, to a heart shattered, to a mind that was fragmenting, and to a man who didn’t care any longer.

“Marie, I’m so sorry,” Liesl said.

“That poor girl killed herself, and that snake got to die quietly without ever taking any responsibility.”

With that, Marie buckled over and vomited red wine all over the polished wooden floorboards in Christopher’s office.





Twenty-One Years Earlier


The library basement, 3:30 p.m. Liesl had just about made it; ninety minutes and the workday would be over.

Francis was waiting for her by the elevator. “Hello, stranger.”

Liesl pressed the elevator call button. “I have a list I have to pull for a class tomorrow. Head of the history department, he can be a real shark. Sorry to have missed you on your first day.”

“Sorry to have missed me, or sorry to be avoiding me?”

He stepped toward her; she stepped back. “Christopher had a lot planned for you,” Liesl said.

“And I have a lot planned for you, darling,” Francis said, stepping closer still. “I’ve had a lot of time and a lot of miles to think about it.”

“Francis. You can’t call me darling.”

“There isn’t anyone down here to hear.”

Liesl shook her head. “I mean not ever. Not ever again.”

“Liesl, what is this? I haven’t seen you since the Boston conference. You just about arranged this job for me…”

Liesl tucked her head down to recall their last meeting, a long embrace in a small hotel room. Liesl might be reserved, but she was too human to do away with the memories altogether, no matter the decisions she had made after. Those annual encounters, the afternoons in the small hotel room as rare-books scholars spoke in the ballroom downstairs; those afternoons lingered.

“I arranged the interview. Christopher loves you, and your credentials are good. You got the job yourself.”

“Grand. And I admire Christopher, but he’s a bloke, and I didn’t pick up my life to shag him. Nice fellow and all, but I don’t believe he’s ever said he’d leave his wife for me.”

Liesl put her hand on the wall to steady herself. “I didn’t promise that. And if… I shouldn’t have if I did. John doesn’t deserve the things I said. Nor does your wife.”

“What of the things we did? What of those?”

The elevator pinged. The door slid open; Christopher stepped out. He was curtained in shadow. Liesl caught a sway in his posture.

Christopher put his arm around Francis’s neck. “Time to go, plebe. Whiskey and the world await us. If I’m to impart twenty years’ worth of knowledge, we have to get started.”

“Whiskey” spooked Liesl. Francis saw her go gray, saw her eyes change. “Will you be joining us then?” he asked her.

Christopher didn’t laugh; he boomed. “She’s in the family way.”

There it was.

The elevator was about to close. “I’ll grab this lift,” Liesl said. “See you both in the morning.”

Francis was silent, the long silence allowing him the time to count back months should he be so inclined. Christopher said, “You two know each other from the conference circuit. Better to let me get a look under Francis’s covers myself. Spirit and strength to you, Liesl! Isn’t that your standard toast, Francis?”

Liesl nodded as the elevator closed on her.

When he thought she was out of earshot, Christopher said, “I thought I was home free with the old bird and the baby business, but these career women can surprise you.”





19


It was January, and it was all over. The books had been restored to their places on the shelves. The cardboard boxes marked “evidence” had been flattened and taken to the recycling station on the loading dock. Researchers came to do their research, and students came to do their studying, and the library ceased being a crime scene and resumed the role of library. Criminal charges would not be filed against a dead man, and the people outside of the library had long forgotten about any intrigue. It was as though nothing had ever happened.

Liesl leaned back in one of the reading room chairs. Working in Christopher’s office had gone from uncomfortable to untenable, so she had taken to bringing her work out to the public areas of the library. Reading auction catalogs in the reference area, writing the schedule in a study carrel. It made the staff uncomfortable, her constant lurking, but she didn’t care. She didn’t like the feeling of Christopher’s desk against her skin.