And eventually he does get to it. “Things have been preying on my mind since Stan died. I only wanted to do right by him, to do what he wanted done.”
“I think you’ve done that, sir.”
He gives me a little smile, gratitude and appreciation, but laced with doubt. Four people, after all, have died. It’s hard to know what to do when you don’t come equipped with a crystal ball.
“Oscar Wilde once said that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Judith and Val have become cynics in just that definition of the word.”
“I’d agree with that.”
“They have not turned out to be good people.”
“No one’s responsible for that but them.”
“Stan felt responsible. He was also horrified. He had a dream one night, not long before he died. They were fighting over his books, tearing them apart. The next morning he told me about it. He said, I don’t care about the house, don’t care about any of it…I just don’t want them to have my books. Give them away, throw them away, I don’t care, but I won’t rest easy unless I know they won’t get them.“
“He had no idea what they were worth, did he?”
“I think he knew, toward the end, that they were worth some money. Enough, at least, that there would be a squabble over them. But you’re right—he had no real idea. He’d be mortified if he knew.”
“He could’ve saved a lot of trouble and just left them to you.”
“Where would I put them? I have my own books, my house is full of books, most of them the same titles he had. Where would I put them?”
“So he figured it the way he always figured—that his library would do the most good by being broken up and given away.”
“Sure: give them to the people. Stan gave away books by the carload. He used the book club as his first line of reading, and gave those books away. Gave them to nursing homes, hospitals, people he knew and people he barely knew. He was especially interested in helping young people discover the world of books. So he gave them away, but the ones he liked he kept for himself. Gave away the club books and bought his own copies in the stores downtown.”
“And the easiest way to break up the library…”
“… was to leave a document proving that the books had no money value. Done by an expert no one would challenge. Only Stan and 1 knew, and he asked me to keep that secret until the last of his estate was disposed of. The house was the last of it.”
And now we all know. Ballard left the appraisal among his papers but tucked a copy for good measure among his books. Emery Neff found that appraisal, scanned it, and jumped to the logical conclusion: that McKinley was a crook, lowballing so she could buy the books for a song. But Bobby had taken the time to actually read the appraisal. He alone knew the truth, that McKinley had been duped. That’s why he was trying to reach McKinley when the deal between Neff and himself had begun to go sour. Maybe a better deal could be struck with McKinley.
Greenwald offers more coffee, served with a sad little smile.
“Stan got the appraisal he wanted. We traded houses the night the appraiser came out. The books she looked at were mine.”
