Free A Novel Death by Judi Culbertson

Books."

    "Where up the street?"
    I gave her directions. I was happy to send here there. Howard Riggs and I had a history, and it wasn't War and Peace.
    I first met Howard years earlier when I entered his shop to sell him some books. The shop had had a military outpost feel, with dusty wooden floors, books on metal shelves like you'd expect in a Pentagon office, and others imprisoned in glass cases. The front window read Fine First Editions and Rare Art Titles, and the window display showed them attractively. But when you stepped inside, you were in front of a rickety sale table of mistakes labeled FUTURE TREASURES.
    In those days, Howard Riggs had been a wiry man in his early thirties, with sandy hair that was rapidly decamping. He surveyed the world sourly through gold-rimmed glasses.
    I entered the shop hesitantly and asked if he was buying books. It was before I was selling books myself.
    He waved an arm. "Show me what you've got" So I brought in three boxes from my car and put them on the floor in front of his sale table. I realize now that they were not books any dealer would be thrilled to see. But even so ...
    After slipping on a pair of thin white vinyl gloves, Howard knelt and poked at the books like a proctologist, burrowing in with one finger to see the spines beneath. I expected him to tell me they had hemorrhoids. But his diagnosis was worse. Straightening up and peeling off the gloves, he gave me a scathing look. "Don't ever waste my time like this again." As he was heading back behind the counter, he added, "And take this dreck with you!"
    As if I would try to sneak a few onto his sale table.
    I didn't know then that we were far from finished with each other.
    I ordered lunch from the deli three doors down, and a few other customers came in and bought books. None of them questioned the price. I found several books under the counter with credit card slips inside, mail order purchases waiting to be sent out and, after locating the packing supplies in the side room, wrapped them quickly. Margaret had foam peanuts for filler, which I disliked but used anyway.

    At four thirty P.M. Marty Campagna, Finger-Spitzengefuhl in tow, bustled through the door.
    His black eyes rapidly scanned the locked glass cases behind me, taking in the better books, and then came to rest on mine. "Someone told me about Margaret. Bummer. She going to be okay?"
    "I don't know. I hope so. She's still in intensive care."
    "Jeez." He moved a powerful shoulder in a red T-shirt, which had the cuffs tightly rolled. I could imagine a pack of cigarettes in one. But Marty also gave the impression of being involved in the most exciting venture in the world. Books were his life, but not for the money. His grandfather had invented the first waste-dissolving process on Long Island. You still saw Campagna cesspool trucks prowling the roads with their old slogan, YOUR WASTE IS OUR GOLD-but it was the patent for the process that had secured the family fortune.
    "Jack told me Margaret had made a big find," I said immediately. "That you knew about."
    He blinked at the change of subject. "I knew she was researching something. She called to ask me about source books"
    "She called you?" It sounded more insulting than I intended.
    But he only laughed, running his hand along the bristly edge of his black hair. "Hey, Blondie, I research everything. I have a ton of reference books."
    "Margaret didn't ask you to look anything up for her?"
    A curiously tense moment.
    He shook his head. "You didn't find it in here?"
    "I didn't look."
    He made a disbelieving face, eyebrows raised above the frames of his black glasses, a knowing smile.
    "Why would I look? It doesn't belong to me" Yet as I said it, I felt the stirring of book fever, those glowing coals ready to flare up at any gust of information. I doubted though that she would leave it in the store anyway. "She didn't tell you anything?"
    "It's American. I think."
    Emily Dickinson. But I said, "Gee, that narrows it