The Collectors

“Oliver?”

He glanced up. Milton was standing in the doorway.

Milton said, “I knocked but no one came.”

“I’m sorry, I guess I was preoccupied.”

Milton carried his laptop as usual and a small briefcase. He put them both down on the desk and drew out a folder. “Here’s what I could find on Bradley’s staff.”

Stone took the papers and read through them carefully. There were numerous documents highlighting Bradley’s political career, including the House Intelligence Committee that he’d chaired for years.

“Bradley was a very capable politician, and he instituted many good reforms in the intelligence fields,” Milton said.

“Which maybe got him killed,” Stone commented. “Nice reward.”

Stone started going through the backgrounds and photos of both Bradley’s congressional office staff and his underlings on the intelligence committee. As soon as he finished, Annabelle and Caleb arrived. Stone told them and Milton about his encounter with Marilyn Behan.

“Well, that certainly kills the theory about Behan’s involvement in Jonathan’s death,” Caleb said.

“Appears so,” Stone said. “What did you two find out today with the tapes?”

“Well, our initial hunch that we might see someone coming in or out of the vault that might be helpful didn’t play out. But we did find something else that might be very important.” Annabelle explained about the sleight of hand pulled by Jewell English.

“You’re sure about this?” Stone asked, looking puzzled.

“Trust me, I’ve seen that move a million times.”

And done it yourself at least as often, Stone thought. He turned to Caleb. “What do you know about this woman?”

“Just that she’s an elderly widow, a regular patron, a lover of old books, very nice and enthusiastic and . . .” He turned red.

“And what?” Stone asked.

“And she’s always hitting on me,” he said in a low, embarrassed voice.

Annabelle had to hold back a laugh.

Stone said, “But presumably, you know all these things about her because she told them to you. They’re not verified.”

“That’s true,” Caleb conceded.

“So why the glasses switch?”

“Oliver, it could simply be that she didn’t want to give me those because they’re special to her for some reason. She lent me another pair so I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into it either, Caleb, except one wouldn’t expect elderly widows who frequent rare book reading rooms to have such exceptional sleight-of-hand skills. If she didn’t want you to wear those glasses, why not just say so and hand you the spare pair?”

Caleb started to say something and then stopped. “I don’t have an answer to that.”

“I don’t either, but I’m starting to believe that we need to find an answer if we’re going to discover what happened to Jonathan DeHaven.”

“You can’t possibly believe that sweet old Jewell English had anything to do with Jonathan’s death,” Caleb protested.

“We can’t rule that out right now. And Behan was killed because he guessed how DeHaven died. I think he discovered that the gas cylinders at the library had been deliberately mislabeled. That may be why he came to the reading room asking questions and wanting to look at the vault, Caleb. He was fishing for information as to why DeHaven might have been killed. Remember, he wanted to know if DeHaven was friendly with everyone at the library. He wasn’t looking to pin the murder on someone else, he genuinely wanted to know if DeHaven had any enemies.”

“In other words, the key isn’t Behan, but DeHaven, and maybe something at the library?” Annabelle said.

“Possibly,” Stone replied. “Or something in his private life.”

Caleb flinched at this remark but remained silent.

“But where does the murdered Bob Bradley figure into all this?” she asked. “You said you thought that was connected.”

“We know that Bradley was killed by a bullet from a rifle fired through a window in another building. Behan died in the exact same way. That can’t be a coincidence. Indeed, it could very well be the exact same killer. Professional assassins like to use the same method of killing because they become so proficient at it. It reduces the chances of an error in the assignment.”

“You sound like you know a lot about that sort of thing,” Annabelle said.

He smiled innocently. “As Caleb can tell you, I’m a voracious reader of thriller novels. I find them not only entertaining but informative.” He looked at Caleb. “Is there any way we can get a look at the woman’s glasses without her knowing?”

Caleb said sarcastically, “Sure, we can burglarize her home in the middle of the night and steal them.”