Sophie Medina: Ghost Image Part 8

Thea gave Logan a sharp look. "Kevin knew the entire staff at that museum. If he needed to store something, anyone who worked on the third floor would have let him leave it in their office."

I tried to quash my newly revived excitement and keep my voice calm. "It's also possible the key isn't even his. I found it on the ground by the stone lantern at the Tidal Basin. A couple of women were there just before Kevin and I arrived. One of them could just as easily have dropped it."

Thea fluttered her eyelashes and gave me an ironic nice try look. "I presume you're going directly to the Natural History Museum after you leave here?"

I blushed. "Yes, but first I need the key. You still have it."

She looked startled. "Oh, goodness, so I do. I put it in my pocket when we started to clean up and forgot about it."

She gave it to me, along with her business card, which she took out of her plastic ID holder. "I'd really like to know what you find, Sophie. Would you call me, please? The card has my direct number at the library and my cell number."

I nodded, and she added, "Perhaps you could give me your contact information as well?"

She waited while I got my own card from my camera bag and pa.s.sed it to her. She ran a finger around the edge. "I'm sure we'll be talking soon. And, Logan, dear, I think you should start working on that list of doc.u.ments and books right away."

Logan stood up and when she spoke her voice wavered. "It's going to be sad going through all this and knowing he's gone." To me she said, "He brought Thea and me flowering Lenten roses after he came back from his fellows.h.i.+p at Monticello at the end of January. I thought it was so sweet. He hardly knew me."

"h.e.l.leborus orientalis," Thea said. "They're lovely, though Kevin and I joked about it being a plant that's supposed to cure insanity because he mentioned that he was insanely busy with work." Her voice cracked with emotion when she said that, but then she was all brisk business again. "I'll walk you out, Sophie. We can use the back corridor."

An elevator was waiting. Just before the door closed, she said in a soft voice, "Good luck."

On the ground floor I walked down the corridor to the main lobby and stopped at the guard's desk. Something in my demeanor must have put him on alert because he gave my camera bag an extra-thorough going-over. Finally, he said, "Okay, thanks. Have a nice day."

"Do you also inspect the bags of employees when they come and go?"

"We check everyone," he said. "No exceptions."

I walked down 2nd Street to where I'd left the Vespa, but once or twice I couldn't resist looking over my shoulder, even though there was no one around. Kevin's stalker knew about his study room, I was sure of that. And as for Thea, was it my imagination or had she been reluctant to hand the key over to me, as well as a bit annoyed when Logan suggested the lockers at the Natural History Museum? Though I knew Kevin trusted Thea, it seemed to me that someone in her position at the Library of Congress would have been as familiar with that museum as Kevin had been, and that she, too, would have known about those lockers.

Maybe I wasn't being followed just now because someone already knew where I'd turn up next.

And what I was going to do.

I checked the Vespa's side mirrors and kept glancing over my shoulder, but no car cut in and out of traffic tailing me as I drove down Const.i.tution Avenue until I finally chained the scooter to a bike rack across from the Natural History Museum.

A museum guard checked my bag-again-and I walked through another metal detector. Today school groups seemed to be visiting the museum in force, kids swarming the Rotunda or leaning over the wrought-iron balcony railings on the upper floors to stare at Henry, the enormous African elephant that dominated the room, its trunk raised as if calling to the herd. I found the information desk and asked where the lockers were located.

A man with a pale face looked over the top of his horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and pointed across the room. "Behind the security desk. Over there."

I thanked him and my gaze fell on a rack stuffed with pamphlets and museum maps. Between a glossy photo of the Dom Pedro aquamarine and a brochure on life in ancient Egypt was another brochure, this one with a familiar t.i.tle: "Losing Paradise: Our Endangered Biosphere and the Challenges of Safeguarding It for Our Children." It was an upcoming symposium that would take place at the Botanic Garden in a few weeks, part of an ongoing forum on endangered species and conservation science. This year's topic was the alarming number of plant species disappearing from their natural habitats.

I already knew that the keynote speaker was Brother Kevin Boyle, OFM.

I skimmed the names of the other presenters and panelists. No doubt Kevin had known everyone, but I didn't recognize any of the names, though I did notice that someone from Monticello was one of the speakers. Dr. Ryan Velis, director of horticulture at the Center for Historic Plants.

"Help yourself," the man behind the desk said to me. "The symposium's open to the public. You have to register and there's a small fee. But it's quite good. You might enjoy it."

"Thank you." I didn't want to tell him the news about Kevin, so I smiled and said, "It sounds fascinating. I'll keep it in mind."

I put the brochure in my camera bag and walked across the Rotunda past the security desk. The storage lockers were in a room located behind a partial wall, which acted as a screen, creating a narrow semiprivate corridor and softening the din from the Rotunda. When I finally found it, the corridor was deserted. A locker slammed shut as I pushed open the door. A moment later a man in a Redskins sweats.h.i.+rt came around the corner of a row of lockers holding a small rucksack.

"Sorry," he said with an easy smile, "didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay," I said. "I didn't realize anyone was there."

He left and I checked out the room. Most of the lockers weren't being used; only a few had missing keys, including number 58. I put the key in the lock and turned the k.n.o.b. Something dropped to the ground next to my feet. A quarter. Kevin's quarter. You got your rental money refunded when you returned the key. I picked up the coin and put it in my pocket. The next time I visited the monastery I would put it in the poor box.

The locker door swung open. A canvas bag encasing what looked like a large box sat in the middle of the shelf. At a rough guess, the box was approximately nine by twelve inches and about four inches high. It was heavier than I expected, maybe six or seven pounds. I still had the room to myself, and before I walked out of this building, I needed to know what was in that box.

I set it on a long, low bench, knelt down, and slipped off the bag. The dark gray cloth-covered box was old, centuries old. I lifted the cover, which was hinged to the bottom so it would lie flat when it was open. Inside was a coverless book that fit the s.p.a.ce perfectly. Adam in Eden: or, Natures Paradise. The History of Plants, Fruits, Herbs and Flowers. It was Kevin's, all right, and probably valuable, to have its own purpose-built protective box. The author was someone named William Coles, Herbalist. At the bottom of the t.i.tle page was a quotation from Genesis: Then the Lord took the Man, and put him into the Garden of Eden. Below that, in red and black, was this: London, Printed at the Angel near the Royal Exchange, 1657.

There was more written on the page, including a bit of shameless author self-promotion-a Work of such a Refined and Useful Method that the Arts of Physick and Chirurgerie are so clearly laid open, et cetera. So it was a dictionary or an encyclopedia of plants and their proper use for medicinal purposes.

The box slid easily back inside its protective covering. I removed my camera from my bag, did some rearranging, and set the box inside. Here at the Natural History Museum no one checked your purse or backpack on the way out as they did at the Library of Congress, so getting the book out of here wasn't going to be a problem. n.o.body gave me a second glance as I left the building.

Kevin had taken a vow of poverty, so he wouldn't have had the means or money to buy such a rare book. I suspected Edward Jaine had purchased it, but whether it belonged to Jaine or the Franciscans now was a matter for them to sort out. What I wanted to know was why Kevin had gone to the trouble of hiding it in a museum locker.

So before I did anything else, I was going to call Max Katzer, my neighbor, and ask if I could pay a visit to his antiques gallery in Georgetown. If he couldn't tell me something about the book's provenance and its value, he would know someone who could.

And, more to the point, was this 350-year-old book that seemed to grow heavier as I carried it down the museum steps important enough to be the reason for someone to murder Brother Kevin Boyle?

8.

No one followed me out of the museum to the bike rack where I'd parked the Vespa. Years ago when I began working for International Press Service in London, Perry DiNardo, my boss, sent me and two colleagues to a hunting lodge on the grounds of a semiruined castle in the Scottish Highlands for a week-long intensive training program called Surviving Hostile Environments. The British exSpecial Forces team that taught the course made us work our tails off with endless drills, sending us on excursions to hauntingly beautiful lochs and steep-sided glens where we were ambushed by terrorists, caught up in gunfights, or told that our driver or security guard or a buddy was bleeding to death and help wasn't coming.

What they wanted us to take away from that week was not a set of learned skills but how to keep our wits about us and think fast. "In the military you don't learn, you train," one of them said to me. "Training is what you fall back on in combat."

The habits I developed because of that indelible week were still with me and, on one memorable occasion in Islamabad, saved my life. I put my camera bag with Kevin's seventeenth-century catalog of plants in the hard-sh.e.l.l case on the back of my scooter and checked one more time to see if anyone was paying attention. Then I called Max.

"Sophie, darlin', how are you? Everything all right?" Max had a voice like honey poured over gravel and the faintest hint of an aristocratic Southern drawl. He called every woman he met by some endearment-darling or sweetheart or sugar-and you knew it was just part of his charm.

"I'm fine, Max," I said. "I have a favor to ask."

"Ask away."

A couple of yellow school buses lumbered past me on Madison Drive and I had to raise my voice. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to take a look at a very old book I've come across? From 1657."

"Of course I would, though you know rare books aren't my specialty. I can certainly help you get it to someone who could give you an appraisal, if that's what you want. Where are you, by the way? It sounded like a couple of tanks just rolled by."

"Close. School buses. I'm on the Mall by the Natural History Museum."

"I see. And where is this book?"

"In my camera bag carefully stowed away in the Vespa."

"Good Lord. I hope it's not under your seat. The heat of your engine could do some serious damage."

"Come on, you know I know better. It's in the top case." There were only certain things I could leave under the seat-my helmet, gloves, a rain jacket, items like that. No groceries, unless I wanted the meat and produce to be precooked and the cheese melted when I got home. "Do you think I could stop by now?"

"Sure you can. I'm just catching up on paperwork. What's going on, sugar? Is this something urgent?"

"Yes."

"I see. Would I be correct in a.s.suming the book's not yours?"

"You would, but the owner, or the person I think is the owner, can't ask you about it himself. It's a long story."

"I see. Well, in that case, come on over. I'll make tea."

M. Katzer Fine Antiques was located on upper Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, in a historic district known as Book Hill. A neighborhood of wide brick sidewalks lined with art galleries, antiques shops, and home-furnis.h.i.+ng boutiques, the long block between Q and R Streets had been the home of the late, lamented French Market until twenty years ago. But the Gallic charm lingered, along with the pleasant, unrushed feeling that you'd somehow left frenetic Was.h.i.+ngton behind and wandered into the Latin Quarter of Paris. The name Book Hill came from the nearby Georgetown Neighborhood Library, as well as a pretty hilly patch of green on Reservoir Road called, not surprisingly, Book Hill Park.

Max's upscale gallery at 1605 Wisconsin specialized in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English and continental antiques and decorative arts, Oriental carpets, and an eclectic collection of art. I liked the fact that he wasn't a sn.o.b or a purist, and every now and then he'd display something offbeat like a retro 1950s sofa upholstered in loud avocado and tangerine stripes or, once, a chandelier made of red, yellow, and green Murano gla.s.s gummy bears.

The gallery was a secondary business, opened to appease his many admirers who clamored for it. But he'd made his reputation and his fortune as one of D.C.'s top interior designers, thanks to a client list that included diplomats, politicians, wealthy socialites, and even the First Family.

The Tibetan wind chimes hanging on the front door of his gallery tinkled as I walked in half an hour later cradling my camera bag with Kevin's book inside. Max's business partner-and, if you believed the rumors, a former lover-glanced up from a catalog she was reading behind an antique walnut-and-gla.s.s display cabinet.

She smiled. "Sophie, how nice to see you. Go on through, he's in his office."

Max was sitting at a mahogany desk that dated from one of the Louises-fourteenth or sixteenth, I could never remember-frowning at something on his computer screen. When he saw me in the doorway, the frown vanished and he switched off the display and came around, smiling, to give me a kiss.

He was dressed as though he'd just come from a meeting at the White House: impeccable charcoal suit, pale blue dress s.h.i.+rt, blue-and-yellow silk tie, and black wingtips polished to a military s.h.i.+ne. He was tall and slim, with an air of erudition and seriousness and the bearing of someone who grew up surrounded by privilege and luxury on a grand estate or a historic plantation, a first-cla.s.s private education, summer holidays abroad. The truth-and he was proud of it-was that he was the only child of a single mother who worked in a school cafeteria in rural Kentucky. The military paid for his college education.

"Sweetheart, do come in. Let me take that from you." He set my camera bag on an English sideboard. "I made Earl Grey. And we've got macaroons from Patisserie Poupon."

I'd completely forgotten about eating lunch. "Sounds wonderful," I said. "And thank you again for the note you left this morning about Kevin Boyle."

He shook his head in dismay. "I read his book. A real shame about his pa.s.sing. He wasn't that old." He indicated a chair. "Have a seat, darlin'. Your tea's ready."

I sat in a moss-green velvet slipper chair in front of his desk and took the bone china cup and saucer he handed me. Max sat in the matching twin chair across from me and pa.s.sed me a plate piled with macaroons. When he crossed one leg over the other, I noticed he was wearing socks with a pirate skull and crossbones on them.

"Hazelnut or raspberry?" he said. "Never mind, take one of each."

I took one of each and said, "I love your socks."

"I like 'em, too. Always do one thing that keeps people guessing about you. It's boring being predictable. Suit from Savile Row, socks from Target." He grinned, and stuck out a leg, admiring his sock. "So tell me about this book. We have some time before Bram calls. He won't be free until three o'clock."

"Bram?"

He dipped a hazelnut macaroon in his tea. "Bramwell Asquith. You must know Asquith's, the British auction house? Their Was.h.i.+ngton gallery is on Cady's Alley."

It was one of the oldest auction houses in Britain, founded in the late 1700s.

"Of course." The studio I briefly worked for was also located on Cady's Alley, a little cul-de-sac in lower Georgetown next to the C&O Ca.n.a.l. "When I lived in London I used to stop by their gallery on Bond Street."

Max nodded. "I know it well. Bram is their senior vice president-and heir apparent to take over-but he's also Asquith's expert on rare and antiquarian books. He works here in Was.h.i.+ngton, though. I'm not sure how much he'll be able to tell us over the phone, but at least you might be able to get a rough idea of the value." He gave me a questioning smile. "I'm presuming that's what you're after, isn't it?"

"Yes and no. I believe someone is searching for this particular book, and I want to know why."

"Can you be any more specific?"

"I'm fairly certain it belonged to Kevin Boyle. He hid it in a locker at the Natural History Museum, or at least I think he hid it, though I don't know from whom."

Max brushed imaginary crumbs from his perfectly creased trousers and looked as though we were discussing something as innocuous as what fabric to choose for my living room drapes. "I see," he said in his languid drawl. "Do you believe there's a connection between Brother Kevin's death and the book?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm so curious about it."

Max set his cup and saucer on his desk as though I still hadn't said anything that surprised him. But in his line of work, he probably saw his share of surprises-some of them no doubt jaw-dropping-peeking into the bedrooms, offices, and private lives of his powerful and wealthy clients. I figured he had a lot of practice perfecting that poker face.

"Why don't I pour us some more tea?" he said. "And maybe you can start at the beginning."

I told him everything, including finding Kevin's study room trashed, Thea Stavros's asking to keep the key, and Logan's suggesting it possibly opened a locker at the Natural History Museum.

Max's eyebrows went up when I mentioned Thea. "So you met La Stavros? How interesting. I haven't spoken to her in ages. In fact, I didn't realize she was still at the library."

"You know her?" I asked, as he gave me a practiced innocent grin that fooled no one. "Why am I asking? You know everyone."

"You flatter me. But Thea . . . a fascinating woman, to say the least. We met years ago when a client asked me to create a one-of-a-kind hand-painted wallpaper of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American botanical prints." He picked up his teacup again and drank, his eyes crinkling as he started to laugh. "Let me tell you, Thea saved my bacon. Refused to let me use two of the prints I absolutely loved because she said they would look like we'd put big green phalluses all over the walls once they were enlarged. Lord, it was a distinguished room in a rather famous home."

I laughed, too. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me which rather famous home?"

He gave me a look like a cat that just drank all the cream. "Have another macaroon, Sophie, darlin'."

I took one, and he stood up. "Let me wash my hands and we'll have a look at your book."

I cleaned up our dishes while he disappeared into the small bathroom that adjoined his office. Then I took the book in its canvas cover out of my camera bag. Max returned holding a pair of white cotton gloves. He removed the cloth-covered box from the bag and set it on the sideboard.

"Well, the fact that it's in a Solander box already indicates that it's of some value." He took reading gla.s.ses out of the inside pocket of his jacket and put them on.

"Why is it called a Solander box?" I asked.

"Because it was invented by Mr. Solander." He opened the box. "I don't recall his first name, but he was a botanist, interestingly enough, who needed a st.u.r.dy container to protect a collection of prints . . . let's see what we have here. Adam in Eden: or, Natures Paradise. The History of Plants, Fruits, Herbs and Flowers by William Coles, Herbalist."

He lifted the yellowed book out of the box and set it on a piece of cloth he'd laid out on the sideboard. I took a look inside the box.

"There's an envelope in here," I said. "It must have been underneath the book. No postage stamp and it seems to be quite old. Addressed to Dr. Francis Pembroke of Leesburg, Virginia."