Eight Perfect Murders(41)

Years go by, and Pruitt can’t forget how alive he felt when he’d taken a life. Every semester when he teaches Macbeth, he feels the bloodlust in him grow a little more. He decides that he needs to do it again, commit murder. Inspired by the list of eight perfect murders he begins to look for victims. Maybe he’ll even make it obvious; that way Malcolm Kershaw and he might finally meet.

It made perfect sense, and I was filled with excitement mixed with dread. I needed to meet Nick Pruitt and see how he’d react. But first I wanted to read his book of short stories. I logged on to the Minuteman Library Network to see where the book was available, hoping it was here at Somerville, but it wasn’t. There was, however, a copy listed as available at Newton Public Library. They weren’t open now but would be the following morning at ten.





Chapter 17




I began rereading The Secret History the next morning at the store. I was tired of waiting. Waiting for Newton Public Library to open so I could go get a copy of Nicholas Pruitt’s Little Fish, waiting to hear from Gwen, waiting for more information from Marty Kingship on the murder of Norman Chaney.

I read the prologue and the first chapter and was instantly swept up in the narrator’s obsession with the small coterie of classics students at the fictional college of Hampden. Like Richard Papen, I have always been fascinated by intimate groups, by close-knit families, by sibling bonds. But unlike Richard I never found a group to join, the closest being my fellow antiquarian booksellers, but more often than not, when we gather, I feel like an impostor in their midst.

The temperature had risen that day and snow was melting all over the city. Puddles were forming, and gutters were overflowing, and the pedestrians were out in droves. It was a busy morning, a steady stream of browsers dripping on the hardwood floor.

At just before noon I told Emily that I was going home for lunch and could she cover the register. I’d parked out front at a meter, so I got into my car and took Storrow Drive to Newton, then cut through some back roads to get to the main library, an enormous brick structure close to Commonwealth Avenue. I found Little Fish on the library’s second floor and took the slim paperback volume to a cushy leather chair in a corner of the library near the poetry section. I quickly perused the list of story titles on the contents page, looking, I suppose, for something that might indicate a crime story, something with a murder in it, or some malice, but most of the titles felt either generic or self-consciously literary. “The Garden Party.” “What Was Left After It Happened.” “Hence the Pyramids.” “A Platonic Kiss.” Nothing jumped out, so I decided to read the title story, “Little Fish.” I was only halfway through it when I realized that it was not particularly helpful. In the story a college senior at a thinly disguised Bowdoin College remembers how his father took him on a fishing trip in Upstate New York when he was ten. The lessons of the trip—throwing the little fish back being the most obvious one—reverberate with the narrator’s current relationship. The story was not impressive. At least not to me, and I gave up on it halfway through. Then I scanned the remaining stories in the collection, not finding much. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what I was looking for, but maybe just one story that pointed toward an unhealthy attitude toward revenge or justice. I flipped to the front of the book to see if there was a dedication, and there was, a simple one: “To Jillian.” I got up and wandered until I found an unmanned computer, then opened a browser window and put in Jillian then New Essex University. The name that most frequently came up was Jillian Nguyen, who had been an English professor at New Essex before getting a job at Emerson College, here in Boston. I memorized her name, deciding I’d contact her, but not until I found out some more about Nick Pruitt.

Then I flipped to the back of the book and saw that there was an author photograph, different from the one I’d seen online. It was also a three-quarters profile—clearly Pruitt thought he had a good side—but in this one he was wearing a hat, a felt fedora, the type of hat that detectives wore in old movies. As soon as I saw it, I thought of the man at the end of my street I’d seen on Saturday night, the man I thought was following me. He was wearing a hat similar to this one.

Before leaving I riffled through the pages of the book to see if it had one of those security tags. I didn’t find one, and I considered going to the bathroom and hiding the book under my shirt. But the library was busy, people coming and going, and I simply decided to walk out with the paperback in my hand, as though I’d already checked it out. I didn’t think they’d miss it, and it seemed prudent that there was no record on my library card of me having borrowed a Nicholas Pruitt book.

I walked through the sensors—no alarms sounded—and out into the warm afternoon.

Back at the store I emailed Gwen to find out if she’d gotten photographs yet of the books we’d seen in Elaine Johnson’s house. Then I tried to read some more of The Secret History but couldn’t concentrate. I ended up pacing through the store, trying to figure out what to do next, straightening shelves.

After Brandon came in for his afternoon shift, I decided that I could probably go home. It was Tuesday, and quiet, and I was waiting to speak with Gwen, something that I’d rather not do in a place where people might hear me. I put The Secret History in my messenger bag and asked Brandon if he minded being alone.

He frowned, and said, “Nah, I’m good.”