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Saturday, September 28th
When Charlotte arrived at Helene’s condo, she found Detective Barnes enjoying tea and cake in the sitting room; Helene invited her to get another cup.
“The detective was wondering if we have seen Donovan since his release, but I said I haven’t, and I assumed you haven’t either,” Helene explained.
“No, I haven’t. Things have been quiet, as far as I know.”
Barnes nodded. “Not surprised. Mr. Targman is probably afraid for his life right now, and laying low.”
“It’s that bad? Life-threatening?”
“Could be. When I told him that Wesley Warren was still alive when his car went into the pond, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy look so surprised—and scared at the same time. Now, the simplest thing would be to think he’s panicking because he’s guilty. But Wesley Warren was a big guy, and if he was a big dead weight guy, Targman would have had to have help loading him up in the car. That, to me, puts a fourth person on the scene—and somebody with a cooler head than he possesses.”
“Mitchell,” said Charlotte, both from instinct and from logic.
“Mitchell.” Barnes took a big gulp of tea and set the cup down on the table. “Or someone similar in the Toley Banks organization.”
“I don’t think they’ll hurt Donovan, though,” said Charlotte, “not if they want anything at all in that house. Right now everything belongs to Helene, but they’ll be able to sift through all the stuff when it’s moved to the auction barn.”
“So can Mrs. Dalmier,” Barnes countered, then looked at Helene. “They don’t want it to get to that point, because once you’ve identified whatever it is they’re looking for, it’s on the record. The time for them to get their hands on it is now, or while it’s in transit.”
Helene looked confused. “But they’re the ones who pushed for the early auction date. They want what Donovan owes them, and they want it now, right?”
Charlotte began to see things from Mitchell’s perspective. “We are obviously looking for something, which increases the likelihood of our finding what I’m fairly certain is another first edition of Least Objects. The sooner our search is stopped, the less likely we will find the book before they do. They’ve got the manpower to sift through everything between the house and the auction barn without our knowing about it.”
“Detective Barnes,” asked Helene, “what would happen if I break that contract, because I want to have more time? Why was Donovan so insistent that I don’t break the contract?”
“He’s afraid they’ll take even more drastic measures, Mrs. Dalmier. I believe your nephew was concerned for your safety, and by extension Charlotte’s.”
“I knew it!” Helene asserted, her fist firmly hitting the arm of the sofa. “If he’s concerned for our welfare, he couldn’t have hurt his mother, either.”
“There is that,” agreed Barnes. “He has had some minor run-ins with the law, but nothing violent, and certainly not against women. His outburst that the two of you witnessed is, in fact, uncharacteristic, and I believe indicates a high level of stress and frustration. We know that he owes Toley Banks money, and he would not be the first to act out from the pressure—or be forced to do things he doesn’t want to do. I’m inclined to advise the same thing, if it is at all possible.”
Charlotte recalled Lola’s frustration at still being forced to do favors for Banks, even after she paid back the money she owed. There were some things, however, that did not add up for Charlotte. “I’ve spoken to a rare book expert about Least Objects, and the auction houses do like to confirm provenance. If that book is what they’re looking for, and they steal it before Helene can confirm that it is part of Olivia’s estate, wouldn’t they have a hard time selling it?”
“Nah,” said Barnes. “Look at the other one, the one Bosley Warren found—how likely a story was that? Yet it was accepted, and sold with great publicity. All they have to do is concoct a similar tale. What matters most is that the book itself is authentic—and that nobody else can prove it was theirs.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” said Helene.
“Not literally, but in the absence of clear and compelling documentation or testimony, the person in possession of property is assumed to be the rightful owner.”
Charlotte saw a now-familiar look of determination on Helene’s face. She was feeling it, herself. “I think,” she said to the detective, “we ought to have one last go at Olivia’s house before they come for her stuff.” Helene nodded in agreement.
Barnes sighed and nodded in resignation. “Got me on speed-dial?”
After the detective left, Charlotte and Helene put together everything they knew about the notebooks and the assumed second copy of Least Objects.
“I have to admit, Charlotte, that after all the grief those loan shark people have caused, I almost want that book as much or more than I want the last notebook. How sure are you that that is what they are looking for?”
“Just short of positive. My reasoning is that Olivia herself contacted Wesley Warren about such a book, after there was so much publicity about the one Bosley sold. This is what Donovan himself said, that she told Wesley that she had a copy ‘even more valuable than the one they sold.’ Now, even if she didn’t know that Donovan had already let go of the copy we know about, it’s reasonable to assume she’s not talking about the same book. The one she has in mind has something to distinguish it from the one that was sold, something to make it more valuable.” Charlotte made certain Helene was following her line of reasoning, then continued.
“That is why I talked to the rare book dealer, to ask him what version of Least Objects would be more valuable than the one sold, assuming Olivia knew what she was talking about. And—given all the years she’d been buying and selling off collectibles—she probably knew what she was talking about more than those people who lined up with their books outside of the pawn shop after Bosley Warren made the news.”
“That would be reasonable to assume, yes,” Helene agreed.
“So Aldo Madiveros—that was the name of the man I talked to, he authenticated the copy that Bosley sold—Madiveros said a more valuable copy would have to be signed by Seamus O’Dair, or be O’Dair’s own copy. The only other possibility was that it was a first edition of the original version in French, but that was highly unlikely, as there were so few.” Charlotte went on to explain to Helene the role of Sibylline Press in publishing Least Objects, and the fact that Mr. Lamont, the founder of Beauregard Books, had by that time purchased the little press from the estate of her Aunt Sasha’s partner, Henriette.
“What a coincidence! Or is it?”
“I don’t think it was,” said Charlotte. “Your aunt was dead, and Henriette was not in the best of health, struggling to keep the book store and the publications going. She might have appealed to your parents, who in turn might have taken the request to Mr. Lamont. We may never know for certain.”
Helene looked thoughtful, as if trying to recall the events of so many years ago. “Let’s write out the dates, so I can see. We have the year Donovan was born, the year Mr. Lamont purchased Sibylline, and the year Least Objects was published. It was published well after Donovan was born.”
“The English-language edition was published after he was born. The French one right before he was born. Beauregard Books had O’Dair write it again in English, because he never translated any of his books, any more than he autographed them.”
“Moins d’Objets?” asked Helene. “That doesn’t sound right for the French title. Do you know what it was? I can’t remember.”
“Madiveros said it was Une Mort non Perçus.”
Helene smiled with satisfaction. “An Uncollected Death. Just like Olivia wrote.”
This time, Charlotte merely scanned the books at Olivia’s house, instead of looking inside one after another. After having spent so many hours looking at those shelves, she recalled seeing a cluster of books in French that she hadn’t paid much attention to, since they were not what she had been looking for. Within five minutes, she found it, the gold-leaf title and Sibylline logo nearly worn off: Une Mort non Perçus. No one would have noticed it if it wasn’t especially looked for.
Charlotte’s hands had developed a recurring tremor over the past few weeks from too much stress, caffeine and fatigue. But this time, her hands trembled at the realization that she was holding an extremely rare book of great value. This very book played such a large role in Olivia’s life, from her choice to abandon her career, to the way she met her death. A distinctive light pencil marking inside the cover showed the price, and Charlotte knew then that Olivia had purchased the book within the last few years from the original stock at Ramona’s Resale.
She handed it to Helene, whose expression relayed the mix of excitement and sadness, relief and fear, that Charlotte felt herself.
“She never read this edition until, perhaps, the past two or three years,” said Charlotte. “At one time, this book might have belonged to a long-ago French professor at Corton.”
Helene thumbed through it carefully, as if to see if Olivia had left any margin notes or other objects inside. “I read a reprint of this that came out when O’Dair won the Nobel, and found it to be quite different than the English version. It was less harsh, more poignant. Perhaps that explains the change in her tone in her final notebook—she’d read what he had written much closer to the time of their parting ways.” She paused and closed the book. “That’s not to say the story line is any different, but the attitude, the difference in perspective—.”
“The passage of time can do that, too,” said Charlotte. “Maybe there’s something in the first notebook that would explain it all.”
“This is it,” said Helene. “If we don’t find that notebook now, it might be lost for good.” Helene offered the book to Charlotte. “I’m putting this in your keeping for the time being. I just know that first notebook will have my sister’s version of what happened.”
Charlotte took a deep breath and put the book in her jacket pocket. “Well, then, let’s give it one more go. Snakes and Ladders. I’ll do the basement, since that is where the last one was found, and it is reasonable to think Olivia would have left the one before it there, too. I don’t know that you’d be too keen on those steps, though.”
“I’d rather avoid them, Charlotte. I’m going to have a look around the garage, there’s at least one ladder out there, and maybe there’s a plumbing snake. I found Olivia’s car keys, so I’ll check the Taurus, and in the trunk, too.”
“I’ll try the game box again. I still can’t shake off thinking it’s Chutes and Ladders.”
“Your guess is as good as mine at the moment,” Helene murmured as she went toward the back door.
Luck, thought Charlotte, maybe our luck will hold out. She looked around the house, as if for one last time, to see if there was anything remotely to do with snakes, ladders, or, as Simon had suggested, good and evil. An odd-looking vase atop one of the dining room curio cabinets reminded her of vines wrapped around a tree trunk, and a closer look revealed it was interwoven snakes. Could this be it? She lifted it down carefully and looked inside: empty, save for dust and a dead moth. Likewise, with a cookie jar in the shape of a fire department ladder truck: nothing inside. She set her tote bag under the table by the puzzles, as there was no room on the chairs or on the table itself, and unlocked the basement door.
Very little had changed since she was there with Simon: there was the same slightly musty basement odor mixed with moth balls, and a hint of damp after all the rain. The boxes of books where they’d found Olivia’s volume of poetry were still where they left them. Charlotte went through them again, this time knowing what to look for, and saw that several of the books had the Sibylline logo. If nothing else, she would bring them upstairs for Helene, in case she would want to keep her mother’s books. After today, Olivia’s thread of clues would no longer function—everything would be in disarray, and everything they didn’t take now would go to the auction barn.
First, she once again confirmed that there was nothing at all like a notebook in the Chutes and Ladders box, nor was there any other edition of the game. What if, she thought, Olivia put the notebook in the Chutes and Ladders box, thinking that Donovan was unlikely to ever play the game again, but he found the notebook and used it like he used his grandmother’s copy of Least Objects? And Olivia simply never knew about it? If that was the case, it could be in any game box or anything Donovan could have played with or utilized.
She started to go through every box of games and toys and models, when she heard footsteps upstairs. At first, she thought it was Olivia, coming back in from the garage, and nearly called out to her, then she heard many heavy steps, loud men’s voices, and the sounds of things being thrashed and knocked over.
The sounds came closer, moving from the front of the house toward the kitchen. Charlotte quickly turned the lights off and moved behind the furnace, suppressing the desire to gasp at the touch of cobwebs against her face and hair. Where was Helene?
“I told you, I don’t know where it is, I don’t knowww,” wailed Donovan.
Charlotte could hear them punching him, and Donovan grunting and gagging. Then the cold, flat voice of Toley Banks cut through: “Take his phone and keys. Throw him down the stairs and lock it up.”
She could just make out a large man, perhaps Bosley Warren—or, perhaps, it was Doc—grabbing Donovan off his feet, and literally throwing him down the stairs. The door slammed shut, plunging the basement into complete darkness, and Charlotte could hear the key turning in the lock. Then the sound of many heavy footsteps going back to the front part of the house.
What is going on? What do I do? Have they killed him? She felt around in her pockets for her cell phone, to call for help, to use the light from the screen to find the light cord, anything—and then realized with dismay she’d left it in her purse upstairs.
She heard Donovan groan in pain. He was alive, at least.
“Donovan?” she whispered. “It’s Charlotte.”
“Wha—” He sounded confused. “Charlotte? Why are you here?”
“I’m going to try to turn the light on.” She felt her way toward the stairs, almost completely blind, following the edge of the workbench. It was just enough to orient her; she flailed her arms around, hoping she was close enough to find the string pull for the light bulb. No go.
She moved forward a little more, and her foot bumped into Donovan, who gasped.
“It should be right over my head,” he moaned quietly. “I can’t get up. My leg’s messed up.”
She flailed again and this time found the cord, and pulled on the light.
Donovan winced in shock at the sudden brightness of the bare bulb. Charlotte, on the other hand, was shocked at the sight of him: blood coming out of his nose and from his lips, his face and eyes swollen from a beating, his hands scraped and bleeding. His glasses were twisted and broken at the bridge. He was leaning on his side, holding his leg.
“Oh my lord! What did they do to you?” She looked around for something to press against his nose, raiding some of the boxes of old linens and towels. She found old throw pillows and quilted bedspreads to give him something to lie on, and he situated himself with difficulty. Towels dampened with water from the laundry tub cleaned him up as much as he could stand her touching him.
“I think my leg’s broke, or I’ve got a very bad sprain.” Donovan’s face was pale from the pain.
“Why have they done this to you? What is going on? Do they have Helene?”
“I didn’t see Helene. I don’t think they know you’re here, either. They’re coming in tonight, going to clear the place out.”
“But they’re not supposed to do that until tomorrow!”
“He’s not—” Donovan winced with pain, and put his hand over his stomach. Charlotte was afraid he might have internal injuries. “He’s not going to take chances.”
“Who? What chances?” She felt it was cruel to badger him with questions in his condition, but she wanted to know what was going on so she could help him.
“Toley Banks. He thinks you’ve been asking about the book, thinks you might be getting too close.”
Charlotte instinctively felt for the book in her pocket, and was relieved that it was still there.
“But why beat you up for it?” she asked.
“They wanted me to find out if you or Aunt Helene found it or knew. I refused. Wanted to buy you time—to find Mom’s notebooks.”
Donovan winced and groaned as another wave of pain struck his abdomen. “Call for help?” he asked.
Charlotte shook her head sadly, and in sympathy when Donovan swore. “My phone’s in my bag, in the kitchen.” She looked around the basement again for an outside exit, but could see none. “There’s no way out of here, is there?”
To her surprise, Donovan didn’t say no. “Maybe. Dad used to lock me down here when I was little. For punishment. I used to get out through the old coal chute. Comes out by the driveway.”
“What coal chute? Where is it?”
“Over there, up at top. Dad blocked it off, but I still got out. When he realized he couldn’t stop me, he just knocked me around.”
Charlotte walked to the area Donovan pointed her, trying to understand what she was looking at among the remains of old ductwork and metal parts that looked like nothing she was familiar with.
“Look for the green board,” he whispered. “Trust me. One way or another, it’s your way out.”
She spotted the faded green board that covered a large rectangular duct, but it was too high up to reach. She grabbed the step ladder resting on the wall opposite the furnace, and opened it up, trying to be as quiet as possible. An old coal chute, she thought, put here when the house was built.
A chute. A ladder. Could it be?
She pulled on the board, but it was stuck, so she pulled harder and harder, determined to get at it, to get at this one last hope of finding Olivia’s first and last notebook, of getting herself and Donovan out of there in one piece—
It popped off with a squeak that Charlotte was sure anyone still upstairs would hear. She peered inside the chute, full of cobwebs and lord only knew what else, but saw nothing. There wasn’t enough light. She held her breath and reached inside until her fingers touched cardboard and paper: a notebook. Maybe two notebooks. The chute was too small for her to crawl through, at any rate.
She started to pull a notebook forward, and into the light, but the floorboards began to creak again. Toley and company were coming back. She shoved the notebooks back, and at the last second, added the copy of Least Objects that was in her pocket. She popped the green board back into place, and quietly folded the ladder and put it back where it had been.
Donovan pointed at the light. She pulled the switch off and sat down next to him in the dark.
If ever there was a time to find out what happened to Olivia that night, it was now, but Charlotte struggled to find the right words. She didn’t think Donovan would have hurt his mother, but she didn’t know, and she was sitting right next to him in the dark, with even more dangerous men upstairs. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place, she thought.
When in doubt, ask outright. “What happened that night?” she asked.
Donovan sighed. “That was probably the worst night of my whole life. Mom had called Warren Brothers to ask for an appraisal, and evidently Wesley offered to come over after work, instead of having her go to the shop.”
Charlotte could hear him trying to shift his position, to take pressure off his leg. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, and with a bit of waning daylight coming through the glass block near the top of the walls where window wells would have been at one time, she could just make out that Donovan was in a lot of pain. But there was nothing she could do for him. They were stuck until help came. “So, that’s why Wesley Warren was here, to do an appraisal?”
“Yeah. I was doing a collection run with Mitchell for Toley Banks. You know I’m having a hard time paying him back. When he says do this, do that, I gotta do it. Somehow Mitchell knew that Wesley was going to be talking to my mother, but he didn’t trust him. He wanted me to go see Mom while Wes was there, maybe listen in on the conversation.”
“Why didn’t he trust Wesley?”
“It’s complicated. Toley Banks is the Warrens’ half-brother, and they’re into him for bailing them out when their hobby shop failed. As far as Toley’s concerned, any big-money items they come across should go into his pocket. When Bosley found that rare book, he claimed it was his to do with as he pleased, because he bought the book with his own money, not the shop’s. Toley suspected Wes was going to try the same stunt, especially since he wasn’t talking to my mother on the shop premises.”
“I see.”
“Anyway,” Donovan continued, “Mitch drove us to Mom’s house and stayed in the car while I went in. Mom was surprised to see me, but didn’t seem to mind I was there. Wes was surprised, too, ‘cause I think he knew I was working for Toley. The thing was, though, Mom was trying to play coy with Wes, and Wes was trying to be persuasive with Mom. She’d probably asked him about the book Bosley found, because he was in the middle of telling the story when I got there, how Bos went to a tailgate sale and bought a box of model train props he wanted, and the book was in the bottom of the box, wrapped and painted like a building. That’s when I realized it was me that sold it to him.” Donovan snorted at his own bad luck. “It was my box of train stuff, and I remembered making that building out of a book when I was a little kid.”
Charlotte could just make out Donovan’s eyes, shiny with emotion, wide open with the disbelief he still felt. “Can you imagine what it is like to stand there, desperate for money, and suddenly realize you’d just given away a small fortune? Can you imagine how utterly stupid you’d feel at that moment? And angry at the whole world, but most of all yourself?”
“It would be horrible,” she agreed, as sympathetically as she could. There was more movement on the floor upstairs, reminding her that their conversation could be interrupted at any moment. “So what happened then?”
“Well, that’s when Mom and Wesley both realized what I’d done. To my surprise, she wasn’t as upset as I was, just did that rolling of her eyes that meant she thought I was dumber than a box of rocks. But Wesley burst out laughing. He was laughing at me, and he got abusive about it, probably because he suspected I was there to spy on him and he wanted to get back at me for it. Mom, though, didn’t know that, and she flipped out. She started railing on him, grabbing at a book he was holding, calling him names, telling him to get out and all. He pushed her away, and she just got madder, and went for her baseball bat. She always kept a baseball bat by the door. I tried to stop her, and she’s trying to lift the bat, but she’s so old, so—.” Donovan choked back a sob.
“Did she hit him?”
Donovan took a deep breath. “No, she just kind of half-swung the bat at his ankles like it was a croquet mallet. But she was cussing a blue streak at him, and he was yelling back, and then she screamed at him that she’s got another book, anyway, and he was never going to get his hands on it. I’d gotten the bat away from her, but she’s poking him in the chest, and that’s when he shoved her even harder, and she stumbled back and fell and hit her head on the coffee table. I ran over to help her, but she was completely gone. Wes came over to check on her, too, and says to me, “Good! The old bitch is dead!” That’s when I got him, I was so angry. Just one big swing, and he was down.”
“You know you didn’t kill him?”
“I didn’t find that out until later, when Barnes told me. I was in shock, you know, I can’t describe the noise and chaos in my head, I was in shock, and—and in a complete panic. At some point, Mitchell came in, kinda took over, and called Toley. He wanted it to look like Mom hit somebody, even asked me which hand she used. Wanted it to look like whoever hurt her had gotten away. Mitch said then I would inherit Mom’s stuff and that way I could pay off Toley. We got Wes loaded up in his car, drove it out to the pond, put him in the driver’s seat and then sent it in. I think Mitch really did think Wes was dead, and I think it was Toley who told him to run the car into the pond.”
“But what about the blood? And you know your mom hadn’t been able to use her right arm in years?”
“I forgot!” he hissed. “And we missed the blood! At night, you couldn’t see it on that rug like you can in the daylight. And we were in hurry. It took so long to get Wes out of there, into the car—my god, I can’t believe I helped with that, it seemed to take all night.” Donovan was wringing his hands and taking short, sharp breaths. “Mitch was going to come back and get rid of our fingerprints and bust a window, make it look more like a break-in, but by that time it was daylight, then you got there, and the police were all over the place. I found out Mom was still alive on the news. But I had to make like I didn’t know and wait until the police or Aunt Helene reached me. By then, it was too late. And then the lawyer said Mom had left everything in the house to Aunt Helene, and there were the stipulations, and—.”
The footsteps were in the kitchen, along with several voices. The men were back, and one of them was opening the basement door. Charlotte ran to hide behind the furnace, and watched as Mitchell came down the stairs and pulled on the light switch. Then Toley Banks and the man named Doc came down, as well.
“Charlotte, dear Charlotte,” Mitchell looked around for her, calling out in a singsong voice. “We know you’re here.” He