Jericho's Fall (16 page)

Beck cried. She felt horrible. She had wrecked his life.

He sat her down and told her she had two choices. She could return to Princeton next year and have everybody stare and point, or she could travel with him.

Travel where?

Wherever we want
.

For how long?

For as long as we want
.

Tough choice.

They had done a great deal together, Jericho and Rebecca. They had shopped, they had traveled, they had quarreled vehemently about big things and little ones, and gone back to bed to make everything fine again. She had learned a lot from him, and she liked to believe that he had learned a bit from her, too. Their life up on the mountain had been passionate and full.

But he had never surprised her with a new Ferrari in the garage. They had never partied in Aspen or Vail, and hardly ever took long walks, or sat together on the deck as the evening drew in the day.

Jericho was sending her a message.

CHAPTER 14
The Library

(i)

They clattered down the mountain in the battered abbey van, complete with the graffiti the protesters had spray-painted on the sides, and Audrey talked about her childhood in Virginia with her father never home, and about how to this day she wondered whether she should have stayed with Teddy Gould and had children, and how Beck should study Luke’s Gospel, so much of which is about finding that which is lost. She talked about pretty much everything, except what had happened upstairs with the lawyers while Beck was stuck in the funhouse basement with Pamela. Because, by the time she had made it back upstairs, the Mercedes was gone and Jericho was in bed.

“But have you ever actually read Luke? Really sat down and read it, start to finish?”

Beck admitted she had never had the pleasure.

“Well, it’s full of stories of the lost and found. The lost sheep. The lost coin. The prodigal son. One story after another of God calling home that which has gone astray.”

“You know, Aud, just because somebody doesn’t share your view doesn’t make them lost.”

“It doesn’t make them found, either,” said the nun, with punch, and for a while they rode in silence.

But Audrey was not the sort who could long bear animosity, and so
she hunted for another subject. “So—what exactly are you doing in town?”

“Returning the library book, remember?”

The nun laughed. “Come on, Beck. You jumped at the chance. Tell me who you’re meeting this time.”

“Nobody,” she muttered, feeling adolescent and hot. It was plain that Audrey was the source of her father’s information about Beck’s drink with Pete Mundy The former intelligence consultant had evidently built her own network of informants in the town of Bethel.

“Such a woman of mystery,” said the nun, trying to tease. “Such a busy social whirl.”

“Audrey, come on.”

“My brother says he sees a lot of you.”

Beck, watching thick forest roll past, decided that the double entendre must be coincidence. Audrey was a nun. “I don’t know what your father told you, but—”

“Never mind. None of my business.”

Rebecca was unmollified. “You should know as well as anybody that your father makes things up, just to have fun. To see people’s reactions.”

The nun’s smile faded. “I’ll say he does.”

They reached Main Street a few minutes before three. Audrey’s errands would take her out to the commercial strip where Route 24 brushed the far edge of town. She would be back, she said, in two hours—that is, about five. They would meet at Corinda’s. Rebecca waited until the van was out of sight before crossing the street toward the public library.

Remembering the pain of Stone Heights in the old days, she had forgotten the beauty of Bethel itself. Neither the encroaching of chain stores nor the closing of local businesses had yet managed to dull the luster of the town. The rows of aging Victorians seemed to glisten in the brilliant afternoon sun. In whatever direction she turned, distant mountains watched over Bethel like wise elders.

Walking along Main Street, she let memory catch her. A woman who waved from the bakery turned out to be one of Rebecca’s few
friends from when she had lived here. Old Man Kruger still ran the pharmacy with an iron hand. It occurred to Beck that her months up here had not all been pain; much of it had been wonderful.

Then a cloud passed in front of the sun, and the screen of memory went gray She had not come to town to reminisce. All business again, she checked voice mail on her cell, but Nina’s message about the surprise was not there. Presumably the same magical burst of static that had delivered it had also deleted it. She looked up, but no helicopter dogged her.

Last week there was the break-in at the public library. Miss Kelly tells us nothing’s missing. The sheriff thinks it’s kids, having fun. I think it’s the strangers
.

You know what, Pete? So do I.

One last call to make.

She reached her cell-phone provider, fought through the automated menu, and explained to a human being about the fax tones and the unexpected voice mail. She had to wait on hold, was transferred to someone else, who was no help, and finally reached a personable young man, probably in Bangalore, who took her through a list of useless options and then suggested that she bring the phone in for service.

Beck glanced up and down Main Street. “There’s not really a store in this area.”

Then she could mail it, he said, and, if it could not be repaired, they would send her a new one, free of charge. “Here’s what I am thinking, ma’am,” said the personable young man, once she had further detailed her limitations. “A cell phone is simply a small computer. There are people, these days, who write viruses for cell phones. Yours could be infected.”

(ii)

The library turned out to be not, as Rebecca had expected, an aging relic of the town’s better years, but a sleek new building, of contemporary design, with lots of glass and unusual angles to catch the mountain
sun. Smallish, yes, befitting the size of the town, but the plaque near the door named a famous architect, and an infamous donor: the public library was a gift to the people of the town from Jericho Ainsley, in honor of his parents.

Beck tracked down the librarian in the children’s corner. Story time had ended an hour ago, and Miss Kelly was busy reshelving books and brushing up crumbs. Beck pitched in without being asked.

“They’re not supposed to eat or drink in here,” the librarian explained in apology. She was a black woman, tall, and smart, and nearly without humor. She wore fifties-style dresses, and glasses on a chain, and evidently lacked a first name, because even the plate on her desk called her only Miss Kelly. “But their mothers don’t bother to ask, and the children—well, they’re just so cute.”

“I know,” said Beck, stooping to help.

“We don’t get as many as we used to for story time. It’s been every Tuesday afternoon for the toddlers and Saturday morning for the older kids since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. The old-timers keep telling me the place used to be packed back in the old days, but they also seem to think the snow was deeper and the winters were colder and—well, maybe they’re right,” she concluded, mopping spilled juice from the table as Beck relieved her of the broom and dustpan.

“I don’t suppose Dr. Ainsley came for story time.”

Miss Kelly straightened. Her gaze was ever on the roam, so that half the time she seemed to be speaking not to Beck but to the walls, or the ceiling, or the floor. “That’s right. You’re Beck, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wondered what you’d be like.”

“You did?”

The librarian nodded. Beck felt herself blushing. Everywhere she went in Bethel, it seemed, her story preceded her. But Miss Kelly’s smile neither judged her nor mocked her, and Beck relaxed. The librarian brushed her hair aside, then took her visitor by the upper arm and led her to the side of the room. Colorful bulletin boards proclaimed
the magic of reading. Posters touting books by Stephanie Meyer and J. K. Rowling were prominently displayed.

They sat side by side on low desks. “Everybody in town’s been talking about you.” A grin, half hidden behind all that hair. “Especially after last night.”

“Last night?”

“Your drink with Pete Mundy It’s a small town, Rebecca.”

“It was just a drink.” She tried a smile. “I brought the book back. I don’t think Jericho’s had a chance to read it, but it’s overdue.”

“What book? Oh. Thanks.” Miss Kelly did not even check the due date. She set the tome aside and waited, eyes once more focused on the middle distance.

“Is there a fine?” said Beck.

“I think you should tell me why you’re here.”

“The book—”

“Come on, Miss DeForde. I’m willing to believe that you’re a very fine person. I’m not willing to believe that you would leave the sickbed of a dying man you once loved to return a library book.”

Beck took a minute. “You know Jericho hasn’t been well. I’m out here—well, to visit him. To help out a little. You understand.” The librarian was not saying whether she understood or not. Her gaze continued to roam the room. “To be honest, there have been some strange things going on. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. Going back east. I just want to make sure that”—she hesitated, searching for the word— “that all he has to worry about is getting better.”

Miss Kelly nodded. She was swinging her long legs like an impatient little girl.

“You had a break-in here,” said Beck. “I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions about it.”

The ghost of a smile. “You’re here to nurse a dying man, but you take a couple of precious hours to drive into town because you’re curious about an act of vandalism at the public library?” She shook her head. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Miss DeForde.”

The librarian’s elaborately quaint formality was beginning to throw
her, as was perhaps the intention. Beck realized that in this case, at least, she would be able to buy truth only by paying truth. “I don’t think it was vandalism, Miss Kelly. I don’t think it was local kids or the town drunk. I think it was somebody who’s interested in what Jericho has been up to. I’m thinking that maybe Jericho spent some time here. Reading. Doing research. I’m not sure exactly what, but I’m betting he was in here a lot. I think that’s why there was a break-in. Somebody else was betting the same thing.”

Miss Kelly was on her feet. She had an unusually firm bearing for a woman so tall. “I had a reporter in here the other day. Some kind of writer, anyway.” She was strolling toward her desk. Beck followed. “He asked me the same thing.”

“Lewiston Clark?”

“Sounds right. Big guy, red beard.”

“That’s him.” Although, in Miss Kelly’s austere presence, she felt as if she should have said,
That’s he
. “So—what did you tell him?”

“The same thing I’m going to tell you. Mr. Ainsley has been very good to me. All this”—waving her hand again—“didn’t have to happen. My degree isn’t in library science, Miss DeForde. I was a literature major. But I needed a job. Mr. Ainsley is a power in this town. He got them to hire me.”

“Where were you before this?”

“A foundation back east. I lost my job last year. I had trouble finding another one. Then a friend of a friend called Mr. Ainsley, we met, he thought I was smart—and, well, here I am. A librarian in Nowheresville.”

Rebecca looked at Miss Kelly: tall and competent and hiding something. An accomplished, professional woman, retreating to a little Colorado town. Owing Jericho. Just the sort he would choose to—well, to help him.

Naturally.

Miss Kelly owed him, and Miss Kelly was an outsider. Beck had not seen many African Americans since arriving Sunday night, and her considered prejudices insisted that it was strange for a black woman to move to a Colorado mountain town.

Jericho builds the library, and the library hires an outsider as librarian: no wonder they burglarized the building.

Whoever they were.

Meanwhile, Miss Kelly was still talking.

“There isn’t much to tell. It was—let’s see—the Monday. Eight days ago. I usually get here about seven-thirty on weekdays. We open at eight-thirty. I was a little late that morning. When I arrived, that whole section over there”—she swept a hand—“was a mess. Books on the floor, some of them damaged. We keep DVDs over there, too. A lot of them were out of their cases. A couple were missing.” Another shrug. “I called some of the women from town. We cleaned it up as best we could.”

Beck was on her feet. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” That quick, shy grin. “If you see anything out of place, let me know.”

The corner of the library Miss Kelly had indicated contained books on literature and history. At first Beck was not sure why they would be shelved together. Then she realized that the collection was organized according to the old Dewey decimal system, rather than the Library of Congress system so many major libraries used today. Literature was the 800s, history was the 900s. She roamed the shelves. She could not see why this area would be chosen for—well, whatever it was chosen for. She saw no obvious link to whatever Jericho was hiding.

If he was hiding anything, she cautioned herself.

On the wall just past those shelves were reference books, everything from home-improvement manuals to wildlife guides filled with photographs of flowering plants. Had one of these, she wondered, struck Jericho’s fancy? Was it possible that he had checked out the novel as an act of misdirection? That he had never read it because he had never planned to read it? That he had snatched it off the literature shelf to explain his visits to this corner of the library?

Then something else occurred to her.

Miss Kelly had said this was the only section where there had been vandalism. Perhaps it was just that—vandalism—in which case there was no reason to worry. If, however, the break-in was related
to Jericho, then there had to be a reason the damage was limited to this section.

Whoever the people were who broke in, they knew what they were looking for, which meant they knew which part of the library Jericho used.