I almost let it go then. I wanted to let it go, but Lee asked one more question and the unthinkable wafted up between us.
“What do you do when that happens?” he said. “How do you just ‘keep after it’ when it doesn’t want to fit?”
“It always fits, Lee. Usually when it doesn’t seem to it’s only because you’re missing something. So you keep asking questions, you become a pain in everybody’s ass. Most of all you think about it, day and night. You keep asking questions till the fat lady screams.”
“That almost sounds like you’re still at it.”
“I am. I can’t help myself. I want to let it go. I want to be done with it. It would be so easy to let it go, but I can’t.”
He looked away.
“Lee?”
“I’m sorry, I just lost my concentration. It’s this case, it’s got me punch-drunk.”
“I wonder if I could ask you a few questions.”
“You mean now? Tonight?”
“This shouldn’t take long. Otherwise, you see, I won’t be able to sleep, and if there’s one guy in Denver who’s as tired as you, that’s probably me.”
Suddenly the air in the room changed and was charged with conflict. Lee said, “Then by all means go ahead,” but his back had stiffened and the skin around his mouth tightened. I had seen that look many times, when a man says something and means exactly the opposite.
“Archer says the book was his all along,” I said. “He made a pretty convincing case for that to a Baltimore bookseller we met. But the way Erin was negotiating, it’s almost like you all knew he had stolen it.”
“Did Erin tell you that?”
“Erin told me as little as possible.”
“What exactly did she say?”
I found myself losing patience. It was late, I was tired, I was in no mood to be stonewalled. “Are you and Archer somehow related?”
His eyes opened wide. “What on earth does that have to—”
“Just something that occurred to me in the last twenty-four hours. Archer had a grandmother named Betsy Ross. At some point something was mentioned about your own grandma Betts. That would be fairly unusual, two grandmas with such similar names.”
“We’re cousins. This is not exactly a big dark secret.”
“But it’s not something either of you go out of your way to promote.”
“Why should we? What difference does it make?”
“Maybe none at all.” But I pushed ahead. “Betsy Ross married old Archer, but it was her second marriage, is that right? Her first was your grandfather.”
He didn’t confirm or deny: he just looked at me.
“And when the Archer men died young, Grandma Betts got control of the estate. Which included the books.”
Erin had caught the drift of the conversation and now she moved in close. “Is this going somewhere?”
I smiled at her. “That sounds very lawyerly, Counselor. Just calm down. Lee and I are only trying to put this thing to bed.”
“I thought it was to bed.”
“Not as long as there’s an unanswered question.”
“Which would be what?”
“Who killed Denise, and why.”
Lee turned away and went to the bar. “Well, Cliff,” he said, refilling his glass. “I don’t know what more I can tell you. I don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
“I’m looking for a killer, Lee.”
“This is a strange place to be looking for him,” Erin said.
I bypassed her and looked at Lee. “I woke up this morning thinking about Archer and his grandma Betts. Then I remembered that Grandma Betts was actually your grandmother. It took a while but I finally remembered—that first night we met him, Archer told us how you had inherited the books from your grandma Betts. What a dear old gal she was. But the way he said that was anything but dear. He was bitter, almost like he couldn’t stand the thought of her.”
