The Chocolate Book Bandit (18 page)

“Immediately!” I said. “It’s important.”

The dispatcher sighed. “You’re the third person to leave that message,” she said.

I clicked off the phone and ran up the library steps. A young woman I hadn’t seen before was at the circulation desk. I ran past her and went straight to Butch’s office. It was locked. It was twelve forty-five. He was probably at lunch.

I ran back to the desk and pushed in front of an elderly woman checking out mystery novels. “Has Miss Ann Vanderklomp been in today?”

The young woman stared at me, openmouthed. “No. No, I haven’t seen her.”

“Is Butch—is Mr. Cassidy out to lunch?”

She nodded.

“Do you have his cell number?”

She shook her head.

“I desperately need to talk to him. The minute he comes back in, tell him I’m looking for something in the basement, and he needs to know about it.”

I turned away, headed for the basement stairs.

“Wait a minute!” The young woman’s voice was frantic. “Who are you?”

I told her my name, then toyed with the idea of giving a fuller explanation. I gave it up. Any explanation would simply take too long. I just headed for the basement.

Since the crime-scene tape was gone, I went right down—negotiating the steep steps carefully. I found a light switch at the top, and I held the handrail. The staircase still shook. I didn’t want to wind up in a crumpled heap at the bottom, the way Abigail had, and that could happen even without the treatment Abigail had apparently had from a blunt instrument.

I found a second light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but when I clicked it, the bulb hanging over the stairs went off. So I quickly clicked it on again. Then I looked around for other lights. I found the hanging—swinging—bulb I’d turned on the night Abigail was killed, and I looked around until I found two more. I pulled the chains that turned them on, and wished that I’d brought the powerful flashlight from my car. Then I ground my teeth and remembered that I had no car. The van was unlikely ever to be on the road again.

I put that thought out of my mind and turned around slowly, looking the basement over. So I was there. In the place where I was sure some important clue was hidden. But what could I do about it? Where should I search? The whole area just looked—well, it looked like an old basement that’s been accumulating junk for a hundred and seventy-five years.

Not that the area was particularly crowded. Anything that was likely to be needed in the new library had apparently been moved out already. The things that were still down there actually were junk, or maybe antiques. There were broken chairs, piles of dilapidated books, and a few old filing cabinets. Nearly everything had been pushed against the walls. There was nothing exciting, and nothing that could be opened by a skeleton key.

I needed to look systematically. First I circled the room, looking at all the walls, making sure there wasn’t another room behind some of the stuff.

If there was, I saw no evidence of it. Three of the walls and the floor were concrete—old, cracked concrete painted white. Only the back wall, one of the two narrower walls, was wooden. It was paneled with bead board, a material used in the teens and twenties—the 1910s and 1920s. I knew because we had some of it in the kitchen and bathroom in our old house. Old bookshelves and book carts with broken wheels were pushed against it.

I was still standing in the middle of the big room, staring all around, when I heard footsteps on the wooden steps, and Butch came down. “What are you up to?” he asked.

I quickly explained, ending with, “So I feel sure Miss Vanderklomp is looking for something down here, and I’d like to find it before she does.”

Butch nodded. “That confirms my feeling. In fact, I asked Hogan Jones to keep the basement door locked a day longer than he intended to so I could keep her out. But you say you’ve got a key?”

“Yes, and she tried to get it away from me.” I took the key from my pocket and showed it to Butch. He examined it, then handed it back.

“It seems to be for a cabinet or cupboard.”

“Yes, but there isn’t such a thing down here.”

Butch walked over to the bead-board wall. “This would be the only possibility.” He gave a gasp. “You know, there’s a window in that back wall—it’s visible from outside. But there’s no window in here.”

“Come on, Butch! I refuse to think about a secret room.”

“Pretty cornball, I agree. But let’s look behind all this junk.”

We approached the back wall. Butch started at the left end, and I started at the right. We pulled everything away from the wall. Nothing was there. Just more bead board. And lots of old furniture that scraped on the concrete floor as we moved it.

Until we met in the center of the wall. A rolling cart stood there, and when I yanked at it, it easily flew away from the wall and nearly ran over me.

“Oh gosh!” I said.

“And golly darn,” Butch said. “You’ve found it.”

I pushed the cart out of the way and looked where Butch was pointing. There, in plain view, was a keyhole. And once we’d found the lock, the outlines of the door were easy to see. It was made of bead board, just like the wall, and the ridges in the paneling had made the door invisible until we found the lock.

I pulled out the mysterious key that had been stored in Abigail’s fake lettuce. “Do we dare?”

“We don’t dare not to,” Butch said.

“You’re the library director. You open it.” I handed him the key.

“It probably doesn’t fit.”

But it did fit. The skeleton key slipped right into the keyhole, and it turned smoothly.

“The lock’s been oiled recently,” Butch said. He pushed the door open.

Inside was a closet about five feet deep and running both right and left for the full width of the basement. And, sure enough, there was a window high in the center of the outside wall, a window that overlooked the alley. The closet was lined with narrow shelves—four shelves on each side of the area, each of them about a foot deep. A two-foot aisle down the middle gave access to the shelves.

And the shelves were lined with books.

Neither of us spoke. Butch reached for the nearest shelf and took down a book. We both backed out of the closet and turned so that the nearest hanging bulb cast its light on the book.

I began to laugh.

Butch spoke. “My God!” he said. “It’s Nancy Drew!”

Swedish research indicates that eating chocolate bars can help fight strokes.

As reported in the British publication the
Guardian
, Susanna Larsson of the Karolinska Institute looked at food questionnaires from nearly forty thousand men between forty-nine and seventy-five in age. She compared these to hospital records showing how many of these men had strokes.

She then compared their reported chocolate consumption with the number of strokes the group had suffered.

She discovered that men with the highest consumption of chocolate had seventeen percent fewer strokes compared with the men who ate no chocolate at all.

Flavonoids, chemicals found in chocolate, were given the credit by Larsson.

The beneficial effects of chocolate had been reported earlier, but they had largely been linked to eating dark chocolate. However, Larsson’s study used milk chocolate. She said that about ninety percent of the chocolate consumed in Sweden is milk chocolate.

The research dealt only with men—but surely that means “men” in the sense of “mankind.” Right?

“I’ll bet this is one of the Nancy Drew books Lindy gave the library,” I said.

Butch looked puzzled, and I explained that one of my friends had donated her mother’s childhood books for the library’s collection but had never seen them on the shelf. “She was a bit hurt about it.”

“We’ll look the books over,” Butch said.

Under one of the hanging lights, he pulled the book cart that had hidden the door, and we began to sample the books inside the closet. We each pulled about a dozen books from the shelves and piled them on the cart. Then we stood side by side and looked through our collections.

As I had suspected, there had been about twenty-five Nancy Drews on one shelf, and I brought one of them. On a different shelf was a large collection of Hardy Boys books, and I even found a group of ancient Tarzan novels. “These might be valuable to a collector,” I said.

Butch’s sampling included Westerns—he said he’d seen one group of about twenty Zane Grey paperbacks—plus ten-year-old paperback romances, and a graphic novel.

What fascinated me was that we didn’t find any books commonly identified as “dirty,” the ones on those lists of books often removed from library shelves either because of their prurient content or because of the supposedly controversial ideals they supported.

No, the books we found I would have called harmless. The quality of the writing might not be very high. But they weren’t the usual books yanked off the library shelf by self-proclaimed moralists.

The Nancy Drew book
I’d picked up, for example, wasn’t from the 1930s, the editions I call the “sinister Chinaman” versions because of their politically incorrect language and attitudes. No, it was from the 1960s, a version that had been updated for its era.

I remembered Lindy saying that Miss Vanderklomp had once bawled her out in front of the whole school for reading a romance. It appeared that the retired English teacher was still trying to upgrade the reading taste of Warner Pier.

I repeated Lindy’s story to Butch.

“That’s as good an explanation as we’re likely to find,” he said. “I guess Miss Vanderklomp has been going through the donated books and picking out the ones she didn’t think were up to, well, some standard that exists in her own mind.”

We stared at our collection for a long moment, then we spoke at the same time, and we said the same thing.

“I wonder if she had to read all of these books?”

Then we both burst into gales of laughter. I pictured Miss Vanderklomp carefully picking out objectionable books, then having to read each of them to make sure it wasn’t worthy of the shelves of the Warner Pier Public Library. The idea was hilarious.

The two of us stood there laughing until I began to feel weak. I leaned on the book cart, then, without knowing exactly how it happened, I found I was leaning against Butch. And he was leaning in my direction.

I looked up at him. Oh no, I thought. He’s going to kiss me.

We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Then we both looked away.

And from above us, I heard a voice.

“What’s so funny?”

I jumped. Butch jumped. The book cart rolled away. And I whirled toward the sound.

Because it was Joe’s voice. I had nearly kissed the man I’d been lusting after, and my husband had witnessed the whole episode.

Golly!

Fifteen years earlier, when I was in my mid-teens, my parents realized they had a great big, tall, awkward daughter on their hands. They couldn’t do anything to make me short or dainty, but they had the idea that some sort of charm-school classes would help me be less awkward. So that was the present they gave me for my sixteenth Christmas. And I would much rather have had a car, even a used one.

But that was also the year my parents got divorced, and I was trying hard to get along with both of them. I obediently went to the class at the YWCA in suburban Dallas, and I learned how to apply makeup and write thank-you notes and sit and stand gracefully. I did well enough that my teacher took me under her wing and encouraged me to do the beauty—I mean, scholarship—pageant circuit. This eventually led to my becoming what I sometimes refer to as a loser in Miss Texas competitions. Actually, I was in the top ten the final year I competed, which is pretty good news. The bad news was that’s where I met my first husband, and the only reason he was interested in me was that I’d been in the competition. That isn’t a good basis for a marriage. But that’s another story.

What I did get out of all those pageants was what my parents wanted me to have: poise under fire. I may stumble around awkwardly in many of life’s situations, but when the chips are down, I can pretend to handle things.

So when Joe caught me looking longingly into another man’s eyes, I’m proud to say I coped. I pivoted just as if I’d been in the swimsuit competition, and said, “Joe! Great! Come on down and see the weird collection of books we’ve found.”

I moved toward the stairs in what I hoped was a welcoming manner. If anybody jumped and looked guilty, it was Butch. I didn’t look around to see how he was handling it. No, he was on his own.

Joe reacted with complete deadpan. Which was not a particularly good thing. When Joe gets completely deadpan, it usually means he’s trying to hide what he’s thinking. And I would have loved to know exactly what he’d seen and what he thought of it.

I certainly wasn’t going to ask.

In the end, all three of us carried the situation off like adults. Joe came on down the steps, I greeted him, and I explained about the key. Butch showed him the books. And Joe smiled at the idea of Miss Vanderklomp hiding them.

Then he spoke. “Apparently she’d rather be suspected of murder than admit she hid these books.”

“Joe!” I was aghast. “You can’t mean she’s a suspect in the death of Abigail Montgomery!”

“Also the death of Betty Blake. What else were Hogan and Larry Underwood supposed to think after she tried so hard to get into the basement? I don’t know if finding these books will get her off the hook or not.”

“Frankly, it seems like such a minor, well, crime. I’m not even sure it deserves that word. And why would she hurt either Abigail or Betty?”

“I’m speculating, Lee, but it would probably have been because they knew too much. Abigail obviously knew about the books, because she had the key to the closet. And it would have been easy for Betty to know as well, since she was in a hands-on position at the library.”

I shook my head. “It’s just so hard to visualize Miss Vanderklomp doing something like misapplying—I mean, misappropriating!—like misappropriating books. She’s been such a moral force in Warner Pier for so long.”

Butch was frowning. “She’s been much too powerful for far too long.”

Joe agreed. “Yes, to those of us who are her former students, she seemed to be a sort of joke, so we all let her get by with things. Does she have any legal authority with the library?”

“Not as far as I know,” Butch said. “She’s not on the library board. Of course, there’s the Vanderklomp trust. It benefits the library.”

“Who runs it?”

“I haven’t had a chance to read the trust agreement yet.”

I looked at Joe. “Did it come up when you were city attorney?”

“I don’t remember anything about it. Butch, I could take a look at it, just informally. But I don’t want to infringe on your authority.”

“I’d be glad to share that chore.”

Joe, Butch, and I left the basement with the books still scattered around, though we relocked the door to the hidden closet, and I gave the little brass key to Butch.

He locked the basement door. “I’ll try to keep Miss Vanderklomp—and anybody else—out of the basement, but God knows who’s got a key.”

“Miss Vanderklomp said there were only two to the cabinet,” I said.

Joe nodded. “But you said she told you she didn’t know about the second one, so there could be more.”

Butch looked through files in his office until he found one on the Vanderklomp trust. “Here’s a copy of the trust agreement, and a financial report on the trust,” he said. “Also minutes for a couple of meetings. I’d appreciate you looking at them.”

Joe promised to return the documents the next day.

Then he turned to me. “Can you head over to Mom’s office with me? We need to check on our insurance. Since your van is bound to be totaled.”

There’s a certain level of convenience in being married to the son of your insurance agent. Joe’s mom assured us we could start shopping for a new vehicle; then I headed back to my office. I intended to collect pay for that workday, so I needed to put some time in there.

Through all of this looking at books, discussing library business, and walking down the street to his mom’s office, Joe had maintained the same deadpan expression and behavior. He hadn’t once said something like, “What the hell were you doing cheek to cheek and eye to eye with a new guy in town?” Or any other question that a husband is entitled to ask.

Of course, I had a come-back question all prepared. “What the hell were you doing in a lip lock with Meg Corbett right out on the street in front of your office?” And similar questions a wife has the right to ask.

Somehow we had maneuvered ourselves into a tit-for-tat situation, and apparently neither of us planned to bring the whole thing up. But Joe was still quiet. Not sullen. He never gets sullen. But it made me uneasy and I kept stumbling over my words. Usually when Joe and I are alone, I don’t get my tang toungled. With him, I usually feel at ease.

In other words, we were both pretending everything was all right, and we both knew it wasn’t. That’s no way to live your life, even for a few hours.

When we got to my office, Joe didn’t come in. But he told me he’d pick me up at five o’clock. And he squeezed my hand. It was better than nothing.

That evening we were finally alone—choosing food from the cafeteria in our refrigerator for dinner—but the phone rang several times. People were still checking on me, and we didn’t talk a lot.

I told Joe I was well enough to load the dishwasher, and after that was done I worked on the leftover gift food for a while, putting things into smaller dishes and freezing things that could be frozen, plus making a list of who had brought what. Former contestants for Miss Texas always send handwritten thank-you notes.

By staying in the kitchen, I guess I was still trying to avoid the conversation we needed to have. When I left the kitchen Joe was sitting at the dining table, which doubles as a desk at our house. He was surrounded by papers.

“The Vanderklomp trust doesn’t look complicated,” he said.

Hmmm. Maybe Joe was trying to avoid that conversation, too.

He went on. “But I don’t understand the financial statement.”

“Who prepared it?”

“The only person who signed off was Miss Ann Vanderklomp.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” I sat down at the table, and Joe handed me a sheaf of papers. I looked at them for a few minutes. “I’m not an auditor. All I can tell you is that the figures add up.”

“But what’s that grant to TAC?”

I read it again. “They gave ten thousand to the Warner Pier Public Library and five thousand to this TAC. Of course, this type of report doesn’t have any information explaining what TAC is. There’s no reason that it should. I mean, supporting data would be in a different document, and they might not give that to the library director.”

Joe leaned back in his chair. “You know, I was city attorney for two years, and I never knew that this trust existed. It has no direct connection with the city legally.”

“I guess that means that the city has no control over it.”

“I suppose they don’t have to. If the Vanderklomp family wants to put some money aside to benefit the library, of course they’re free to do so. Unless they take the legal steps required to give the fund’s principal to the city, the city doesn’t have any responsibility for the money or its administration.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t the family have some tax benefits if they did it that way?”

“I’d think so. But I’m no tax attorney.”

We both stared at the heap of papers. I sighed. “If Butch Cassidy needs an auditor or a tax attorney to explain all this, he’d better call on two other people.”

“Right.”

Or, as it turned out, he could simply have read his mail.