It was a rumor I had never heard, so I asked him to fill me in.
“Sometime in the thirties, a woman in Indiana was supposed to have sent a package of Hemingway and Wolfe books to Max Perkins, begging for signatures. The books sat around in Perkins’s office for months. Then one night Hemingway and Wolfe were both there and Perkins remembered the books and got them signed. But both of them were three sheets to the wind and Hemingway thought it would be a great joke if they signed all the wrong books. He sat down and wrote a long drunken inscription in
“Thomas Wolfe never could write a short sentence if a long one would do just as well,” Goddard said sourly.
“But the point is,” Lambert said unnecesarily, for by then even I knew what the point was, “McKinley has all those books, with the handwriting authenticated beyond any question. She seems to look for unusual associations, offbeat sig-natures, and pristine condition. Hey, she’s got a
I had some more questions, mostly insignificant, which they asnwered in terms that were generally inconsequential. Then I had Lambert draw me a map to Rita McKinley’s house and I left them to their unfolding squabble. I called headquarters and talked to Hennessey. Rita McKinley had not yet returned my call. I gave Hennessey the names of additional book dealers to check out, and twenty minutes later I was in the foothills, heading for Evergreen.
It was pretty much as Lambert had said, a waste of time. She lived near the top of a dirt road that snaked up the mountainside. You went through Evergreen, a bustling little mountain town about thirty minutes from Denver; then, eight or ten miles out of town, doubled back onto a road that was clearly marked private. There were half a dozen places up there, McKinley’s being at the far end. She had the entire mountaintop to herself. Her privacy was protected, just as Lambert had said, by a locked gate and a fence ten feet high. I wondered about covenants: I didn’t know you could build a fence like that anymore, but there it was. I looked through the chain links and followed the fence through the woods, until it became clear that I was simply circling the mountaintop and the fence went the distance. At one point the trees thinned out and I could see her house, the glass glistening two hundred yards above my head. I called up through the break—cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted her name—but no one came.
I talked to people on the way down: stopped at each of the houses and asked about the mystery woman at the top. She remained that, a faceless enigma. No one knew her. She never stopped to chat. All people saw as they passed on the road was a figure, obviously female, in a car. One man had put together a Christmas party last year for all the neighbors on the mountain. Everyone had come but Rita McKinley, who had sent regrets.
In Evergreen, I called her number again and got the re-cording. I left her a stiff message, telling her I wanted to see her right away. But I had a hunch that I wasn’t going to hear from the lady, that I’d have to track her to earth and pin her down. I had another hunch, that that might prove to be heavy work.
For all my alleged expertise, it was Hennessey who got the first break in the case. While I was spinning my wheels in the mountains, Neal had hit the streets and talked to more book dealers. He had come to a store on East Sixth Avenue where Bobby had sometimes been seen. The owner was a man in his forties named Sean Buckley. He had a good eye for books and he sold them cheap. His store was dark and was sometimes mistaken for a junk palace, but Buckley was no Clyde Fix. He knew exactly what he was doing. His books were priced intentionally low, sometimes drastically low. People talk when they find bargains like that, and Buckley’s store was always crowded with eager treasure hunters.
It was not a place for a claustrophobic: it was dusty, shabby, disorganized; books were piled on the floor and shoved into every nook. Buckley was a pleasant man, easygoing, shy, well liked, highly intelligent. I had spent a rainy afternoon a year ago talking with Buckley about politics, police work, and the intricacies of the book trade. He had just sold a $250
I had put him fairly low on my list of people to see. Book-scouts didn’t do much business there: they don’t like to sell to a low retail man because the margin just wasn’t good enough. But Bobby had come in about a week ago with his pockets stuffed with cash. He had flashed a wad bigger than a man’s fist, and no small bills either. It looked like all hundreds from what Buckley could see: it must’ve been several thousand dollars at least. After much prodding, Hennessey had pinned Buckley down to a date. Last Tuesday it was, three days before the murder.
There was another thing. Bobby was dressed to the hilt, three-piece suit and tie, hair and beard trimmed and combed, shoes shined. It had taken Buckley some time to recognize him. He had come to the store at quarter to five, just before closing. Buckley had been on the phone and hadn’t paid much attention at first. Bobby just moved back into the store and started browsing the stacks. As time passed, Buckley began getting restless. He was a man who ran by the clock—he opened and closed on time and seldom stayed open late for anyone. At five-fifteen, Buckley began turning off the lights. At last he walked back and said, in a soft, apologetic voice, “I need to close now.”
Bobby looked up and grinned. Buckley had to take a few steps back, so great was his surprise. No one had ever seen Bobby the Bookscout in a coat and tie.
“My gosh, Bobby,” Buckley said. “Where you going, to a funeral?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Tonight I’m burying my old life.”
You could see right away how much he was enjoying it, Buckley said. There was always a tendency in these street people to strut when they got a little money—delusions of grandeur, you know. “Tonight I’m making the biggest
