Library Cat Magical Mysteries Box Set (Books 1-3), page 57
I stashed the Antonello book in my office, inside one of my locking desk drawers. I tapped my wand on the drawer and put a security ward in place. If anyone tried to tamper with this drawer, the room would fill with blinding white light and the sound of a hundred angry monkeys screeching. Sophie taught me this spell—the hard way—after I went in her room one day to put away laundry while she was out.
“I need some records,” I said.
“Like, those big black things you used before you could just stream music on your phone?” Whitney asked.
“No,” I said. “Paperwork. Records. Forms. Even I’m not old enough to have listened to records.” I did, however, have a giant box of cassette tapes in my garage that I couldn’t bear to throw away, even though half of them had been eaten by the cassette player at one point and lovingly re-spooled with a pencil and never quite sounded the same afterward.
“Okay,” she said. “What do we need?”
“Did you crack the laptop password yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “These things take time.”
“The killer knew Konrad and probably had dealings with him. I think it’s safe to assume that he was killed for a reason related to the forged books—either an irate customer or an accomplice.”
“Are we still considering the wife a suspect?” Whitney asked.
“I can’t rule her out,” I said. “And she sold off Konrad’s books for a lot of money, solving her financial problems.”
“But we can rule out Professor Buttonwood?” she said.
“I’m pretty sure,” I said. The professor could have been lying about her meeting with Konrad, but I didn’t think she was. If she’d killed him, she wouldn’t have saved me from Lady Hildegarde’s wrath. “So we’re looking for someone who did business with Konrad but also had been to the Archives. They had to be here to use the mirror in order to shapeshift into Lizzie.”
“And they must have been here within a few days of the murder,” Whitney said. “It’s not like they turned themselves into Lizzie three months ago and just waited for the right time to strike.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Three days maximum?”
“We’ll do our search for five days, just to be safe,” she said. She was tapping at the computer, bringing up the patron database and limiting it to five days before the murder. At the Archives you had to either scan your ID or, if you were from out of town, you had to sign in at the front desk. Lady Hildegarde liked to keep track of the exact number of patrons for budgeting purposes.
Whitney sent the search results to the printer, and we waited while it spit out sheet after sheet of names. “Half the town is on this list,” Whitney said, hovering over the printer. “Lady Hildegarde, Professor Buttonwood, Sophie, Lizzie, Rend, Fintan, Penny, Wren, Kit, half the werewolf deputies, your crazy quilting neighbor. The list goes on.”
“But we can eliminate anyone who didn’t buy or sell books with Konrad,” I said.
“How are we going to know that for sure?” Whitney said. “Maybe Kit bought an antique cookbook called Fifty-One Uses for Featherfly Leaf and it turned out to be a phony.”
“I don’t think Kit would care, so long as she found new ways to foist those foul-tasting leaves on her customers,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Whitney said.
“We’re going to use our judgment. And if we’re not sure, keep them on the list.”
We went through, page by page, and she was right. Half the town had been to the Archives in the five days preceding the murder.
“Hold the phone,” I said, pointing at one name that stood out like a sore thumb.
“Who’s that?” Whitney said. “I don’t even know how to pronounce it.”
“Radislav Smolenski,” I said. “That’s the guy who sold Professor Buttonwood her fake copy of The History of Cauldron Manufacture in the Bronze Ages.”
“It says he was here two days before the murder,” Whitney said. “That fits.”
“But I think I’d have remembered him,” I said. “Professor Buttonwood said that he’s a huge guy, an ex-boxer with a smashed nose. He’s from Diablo Canyon, too.”
“Oh, that guy,” Whitney said. “I didn’t remember the name. But I remember a guy who fits that description to a T. He was an out-of-towner and signed in. He didn’t check out any books, but came and browsed for a while. That was your day off, remember?”
“I remember,” I said.
“And if he’s from out of town,” Whitney said, “maybe he’s still here.”
“But we haven’t seen any muscle-bound ex-boxers around town—” Then it dawned on me. Whitney too, judging from the look in her eyes.
“We wouldn’t have seen him around town,” Whitney said.
“If he was disguised as Lizzie,” I finished.
- - -
The Scarlet Hedgehog Hotel was the only hotel in town. The lobby was decorated with lovely pots of blooming scarlet hedgehog cactuses and was sparkling top to bottom, from the glimmering minerals in the marble floors to the expertly polished wooden accents.
There were no staff in the lobby, however, save for the Quill and the registration Book.
I approached the large behemoth of a wooden table and gently lifted the Quill out of its ink pot. “Hey, that tickles. Put me down before I give you the business end of the nib.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about a recent guest.”
“No can do, lady,” it said. “Here at the hotel, we keep our guests’ information held in the strictest of confidence.”
“No you don’t,” I said. “You love to blab.”
“I’m hurt,” the Quill said. “Shocked. Appalled at the coarse language you would use to—”
“I brought you some ink,” I said and set the small jar on the table.
“Bah, every Tom, Dick and Harry brings ink,” it said.
“It’s a jar of Persian Rose,” I said.
“Surely you jest,” he said. “That stuff’s hard to get.”
“I know,” I said. “I was saving it for a special occasion.”
“Well, now that you mention it,” it said. “I remember several of our recent guests. Which one did you need to know about?”
“Radislav Smolenski,” I said. “Huge guy, ex-boxer—”
“I know the man,” the Quill said. “He was a fine gentleman, impeccable taste and quite debonair, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Are we talking about the same person?” I asked.
“From Diablo Canyon,” the Quill said. “Dashingly handsome, razor-sharp wit, charisma out the wazoo.”
“I’m confused,” I said.
“What about?”
“Your… compliments. Aren’t insults more of your style?”
“Only if the rubes deserve it,” it said.
“Can you playback when Radislav checked into the hotel?” I asked.
“It would be my honor, just to hear him speak. The pure poesy of his words sends a thrill down my calamus.” As commanded, the Quill replayed the hotel security footage on a large monitor for me.
I watched as Radislav—every bit as hulking as I’d expected and twice as ugly—walked into the lobby and approached the Quill. “Name,” the Quill said.
“Radislav Smolenski,” he said.
“Sounds like you forgot a few vowels in there, buddy,” the Quill said.
Radislav picked up the Quill and signed his name. “Goose? Yes, goose. Your nib is remarkable. It’s tempered perfectly, not too hard, not too soft, not a crack to be seen.”
“Of course not,” the Quill said.
“And this ink is silky smooth,” Radislav said. “What is it?”
“Special blend,” the Quill said. “My own concoction.”
“And real vellum,” Radislav said. “Rich and buttery, yet thin and smooth. A rare treat.”
Now I saw why the Quill spoke so highly of this guy. The Quill stopped playback.
“What do you need to know?” the Quill asked me.
“Is he still here?”
“No, he checked out on Thursday.”
“The day of the murder,” I said.
“He said that he saw the writing on the wall,” the Quill said. “You see what he did there? Writing on the wall. I told you, his intellect was peerless.”
“He thought he was going to be killed next?” I asked.
“That’s what he said,” the Quill said. “He said if book dealers were getting murdered, he wouldn’t stay a second longer.”
So Radislav checked out of the hotel right after the murder. But that didn’t mean he didn’t stick around town, disguised as Lizzie.
“Did you see this person at the hotel?” I asked, and held up a picture of Lizzie on my cell phone.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“You didn’t see her? Did she go to Radislav’s room?”
“I didn’t see her,” he said.
I thanked the Quill and left the hotel with a lot to think about.
I shot off a text to Rend, asking him to check the records of who’d entered and exited the birth canal.
Radislav had known an awful lot about quills, inks and parchment—as if he was well-versed in the tools required to create forgeries of rare books.
Had he really left town, afraid that someone was targeting book forgers?
Or had he left before he could get arrested for killing Konrad?
The most chilling possibility, though, was that he’d never left. That he was still in town, disguised as Lizzie—or anyone else.
Chapter 28
My gears were turning from my talk with the Quill. Radislav, known to have sold at least one forgery, was knowledgeable about old-fashioned quills, inks and papers. So if Konrad was producing forgeries, he too would have known about inks and papers.
On the way back to the Archives, I popped into the art supply store, Daft Crafts. It’s a small place, but they stock everything from fabric and yarn to paints and canvas. I found the owner, Ferdinand, sitting at the front, sketching a mountainous landscape. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“Information,” I said.
“If you want to sign up for our Saturday morning painting class, there’s a clipboard hanging on the wall—”
“Not that kind of information,” I said. “I had a question. Has anyone in town been purchasing things like calligraphy ink or different pigment powders like vermilion, ochre or lapis lazuli? Any special orders for authentic calf-skin vellum? That sort of thing.”
“Yes, and it’s a shame,” Ferdinand said.
“Why is that?” I said, trying very hard to keep my cool. He licked his finger and rubbed at the side of the mountain in his sketchbook, creating a beautifully effortless shadow.
“Konrad died right after he’d discovered his late-in-life passion for art,” Ferdinand said.
“Did he?”
“Oh yes, he’d been making art, ordering many pigments and experimenting with different mediums. I wanted to see his works, but he was embarrassed. Only when he was happy with them, he told me.”
I left the store, absolutely stunned by the information. I had been hoping that Konrad had gotten involved in the forgery business peripherally, like selling a fake book here or there if money was tight or if he couldn’t find an authentic copy. But this seemed to prove that he’d actually been the one producing the counterfeits.
I texted Konrad’s wife, asking if he had a bunch of art supplies at the house. Spoiled by most people who always text back immediately, I expected Dotty to do the same, but she didn’t respond. Could she have been in on it? It would explain why she was so quick to sell off his collection—she wanted to ditch the evidence.
I sat on a bench in the shade at the center of town, near the fountain where Konrad was killed. It felt more than a little morbid, but maybe being in this spot would help me think more clearly. And maybe it worked, because I got an idea. I took out my phone again and looked up a number.
“Hello?” the man answered.
“Marvin?” I asked. “This is Francie Vespertine, the Chief Archivist.”
“Yes, I saw you at Konrad’s house the other day,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I was looking for a book,” I said.
“Ah, well, I’m a bit busy at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got a flight to Jakarta next week.”
“It’s not business,” I said. “Konrad had a book right before he died, but now no one can find it.”
“Did he now?” Marvin asked. “Which book was this?”
“It was called The History of Cauldron Manufacture in the Bronze Ages,” I said.
“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” he said, after thinking for a moment.
“It was a counterfeit,” I said. “Konrad had it.” Even with the noise of the fountain, I could hear Marvin gasp.
“He was making fake books?” Marvin asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But it’s looking like it. This book belonged to one of my friends. She bought it from Radislav Smolenski’s shop in Diablo Canyon. Konrad told her it was a fake, but then asked her for the book. She gave it to him. He was killed just the next day and I can’t find the book.”
“Interesting,” he said. “I certainly hope he wanted the book for professional curiosity and not for illicit purposes.”
“I do too,” I said. “I’m trying to clear his name. He was involved with some fake books, but I can’t imagine Konrad forging them.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine that too,” he said. “But it’s a temptation in this line of work. I’ve known a few dishonest dealers in my time.”
“What do you know about the Radislav guy?” I asked. “Could he have made the forgeries?”
“I don’t know Radislav very well,” he said. “But it’s certainly possible, if that’s where your friend bought this cauldron book. Hey, tell you what. If you find that book, can you let me know? If it’s a fake, we want to get it out of circulation. And I can examine it, maybe help you figure out who’s behind the forgery.”
“That would be great,” I said. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Thank you, Francie,” he said. “But keep in mind, if you dig too deep into this, you might not like what you find.”
I hung up and was about to put my phone back in my purse when it beeped, but it was Whitney, not Dotty. “Hey, get Rend and meet me back at the Archives quick,” she said. “We cracked the laptop password.”
- - -
Rend was much less enthusiastic than I was, but agreed to meet us in thirty minutes. I sped down Canal Street and bolted into the Archives. “Where is it?” I asked Whitney.
“Please keep your voice down in the Archives,” Whitney said with a grimace. She pointed upstairs, lowered her voice and added, “Lady Hildegarde is looking at the mirror.”
“Oh,” I said. The laptop would have to wait until she was gone. I didn’t want to do anything to get on the High Adept’s bad side.
I tried my best to find busywork, but I ended up pacing the lobby in anxious circles. “Do you mind?” Kong asked. He was lounging on an overstuffed chair reading the newspaper. “I can hardly concentrate on this riveting article with all your nervous fiddling about.”
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Here and there,” he said and fluffed the newspaper out, lifting it back up to cover his eyes. It wasn’t the Bugle, rather a copy of The Cat Clarion.
The headline read: Clawed Crusader Strikes Catnip Grow House.
“What is that?” I said and snatched it out of his paws.
“I was reading that,” he protested.
“And now I’m reading it,” I said. It was an editorial.
Last night a masked vigilante that catizens are starting to call the Clawed Crusader led an attack on a catnip manufacturing facility. The suburban home located on the 4900 block of Delta Street looked like any other house on the quiet cul-de-sac.
Unless, that is, you got a closer look inside and saw that a platoon of dogs were hard at work, day and night, growing hydroponically enhanced strains of catnip for sale and distribution to the feline population of the city.
Using smoke bombs imbued with the scent from a canine’s anal gland (my humble apologies to any young kittens reading this, but take issue with the vile practices of the dogs, not with my language), the Clawed Crusader single-handedly destroyed all their growing apparatuses, overturned barrels of fertilizer into the street and tore out hundreds of plants by the roots, shredding them into little more than confetti, as if in celebration over the eradication of the vice that has gotten a stranglehold on our cat community as of late.
However, it is the opinion of this cat that while we might appreciate the fact that dangerous catnip has been taken off the streets, we have traded one evil for another—namely, this crazed vigilante.
Law and order exist only if…
“Do you know anything about this, Kong?” I asked, giving him back the newspaper.
“Not a thing,” he said.
“I thought you promised not to take the law into your own hands,” I reminded him.
“I did indeed,” he said. “But I will remind you I am a cat and as such, I do not have hands.”
“Leave it to a lawyer to get you on a technicality,” I muttered.
- - -
After what seemed like forever, Lady Hildegarde left the Archives, leaving me with strict orders not to let anyone near the mirror. She was afraid to move it, lest that trigger a counter-spell. “I simply need to do more research,” she said as she left.
Rend arrived looking uncharacteristically harried. “It’s a madhouse at headquarters right now,” he said. “Between the everyday stuff we have to deal with, the murder, and now some lunatic destroyed a bunch of houseplants on Delta Street.”
I shot Kong a look, but his head was still buried in his newspaper.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “Whitney cracked Konrad’s laptop password.”
