She left Wil Fournier a note to get in touch. Still no message from Stu, and he didn’t pick up his cell phone.
After driving downtown to Parker Center, she smiled her way into the employee parking lot and went up to the third-floor evidence room, where she filled out a requisition for the library book. The evidence warden was a dyed-blond black woman named Sipes who was unimpressed by the fact that the victim was L. Boehlinger-Ramsey and pointed out to Petra that she hadn’t written in the case number clearly. Petra erased and rewrote and Sipes disappeared behind endless rows of beige metal shelving, returning ten minutes later, shaking her head. “That lot number hasn’t been checked in.”
“I’m sure it has,” said Petra. “Last night. Officer Portwine from ID sent it over yesterday at five P.M. ”
“Yesterday? Why didn’t you say so? That would be in a different place.”
Another fifteen minutes passed before Petra had the evidence envelope in hand and Sipes’s permission to take it.
Back in the Ford, she removed the book. Our Presidents: The March of American History.
Bag lady with an interest in government and burglary. Breaking into homes stealing food? Most likely schizo. She flipped pages, looking for notes in the margin, some overlooked bit of scrap. Nothing. Remarkably, the checkout card was still in the circulation packet.
The Hillhurst branch. She remembered that. No activity for nine months.
No activity since Bag Lady had lifted it?
Petra tried to imagine her living on the street, thieving, reading. Stealing food and knowledge. There was a certain crazy romanticism to that.
Squatting to pee on a rock. Schizo Girl-Thoreau.
She drove back to Hollywood, found the Hillhurst branch in a strip mall a few blocks south of Los Feliz. Strange setup, not what Petra thought of as a library. Windowless slab, pure government gray-think, right next to a supermarket. Loose shopping carts nearly blocked the front door. A sign said it was a temporary location.
She went in carrying the evidence packet and her business card. The place was one big room, a gray-haired female librarian at a desk in the corner talking on the phone, a younger woman at the checkout desk, one patron-a very old guy in a cloth cap reading the morning paper, a furled umbrella on the table near his elbow, though the June sky was baby blue and rain hadn’t fallen in months.
Natural-birch bookshelves on rollers, reading tables of the same pale wood. Travel posters trying to take the place of windows-what a pathetic bit of pretense.
The older librarian was engrossed in her phone chat, and Petra headed for checkout. The young woman was Hispanic, tall, well dressed in a budget gray rayon suit that looked better than it deserved to, draped over her slinky form. She had a pleasant face, warm eyes, decent skin, but what caught Petra’s attention was her hair-black, thick, straight, hanging below the hem of her miniskirt. Like that country singer-Crystal Gayle.
“May I help you?”
Petra introduced herself and showed the card.
“Magda Solis,” said the woman, clearly thrown by the Homicide designation.
Petra slipped the red book out and placed it on the counter. Magda Solis’s right hand flew to her left bosom. “Oh no, has something happened to him?”
“Him?”
“The little boy who…” Solis looked over at the gray-haired librarian.
“The boy who stole it?” said Petra. Small body impression, small hands, not a woman, a kid-why hadn’t she thought of it? Suddenly, she thought of the painting she’d begun last night, the tree full of lost children, and fought the shudder that began at her shoulders and snaked its way down to her navel.
Solis scratched her chin. “Can we talk outside?”
“Sure.”
Solis hurried over to the older woman in a slightly flat-footed gait that managed to be graceful, arms bent tensely, glorious hair flapping. She said something that made the boss librarian frown, and returned, gnawing her lip.
“Okay, I’m on break.”
Out in the strip mall, near Petra’s Ford, she said, “I’m a trainee, didn’t want my supervisor to hear. Did something happen to him?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you know, Ms. Solis?”
“I-he’s just a little boy, maybe ten or eleven, at first I wasn’t even sure it was him. Taking the books, I mean. But he was the only one who ever read the ones that were missing-this one especially he kept coming to, over and over, and then it was gone.”
“So he took other books, too.”
Solis fidgeted. “But he always brought them back-such a serious little boy. Pretending to be doing homework. I guess he didn’t want to attract attention. I finally saw him do it-sneak something back. One that I’d marked missing. Something about oceanography, I think.”
“Pretending to do homework?”
“That’s what it looked like to me. Always the same few pages of math problems-he always did math. Algebra. So maybe he’s older. Or just gifted-from the things he read, I’ll bet he was gifted.” Solis shook her head. “He’d do a little math and then head back to the stacks, find something, read for a couple of hours. It was obvious he just loved to read, and that’s so rare-we’re always trying to attract kids, and it’s a struggle. Even when they do come in, they goof around and make noise. He wasn’t like that. So well behaved, a little gentleman.”
“Except for stealing books.”
Solis worried her lip again. “Yes. Well, I know I should have said something, but he returned them, no harm done.”
“Why didn’t you suggest he get a library card?”
“For that he’d need ID and an adult’s signature, and he was obviously a street kid. I could tell from his clothes-he tried to look nice, damped down his hair and combed it, but his clothes were old and wrinkled, had holes in them; so did his shoes. And he wore the same couple of things over and over again. His hair was long, hanging over his forehead; looked like it hadn’t been cut in a long time.” Reaching back, she touched her own locks and smiled. “I guess we were kindred spirits-please tell me, Detective, has something happened to him?”
“He may have been a witness to something. What else can you tell me about him?”
“Small, skinny, Anglo, kind of a pointy chin. Pale complexion, like he’s anemic or something. His hair is light brown. Straight. I’m not sure about his eyes-blue, I think. Sometimes he walks with good posture, but other times he hunches over. Like a little old man-he has an old look to him. I’m sure you’ve seen that on street kids.”
“Did you ever speak to him?”
“One time, in the beginning, I came over to him and asked if there was anything I could help him with. He shook his head and looked down at the table. Got a scared look in his eyes. I left him alone.”
“A street kid.”
“Last year in college I did some volunteer work at a shelter, and he reminded me of the kids I saw there-not that they were into books. The things he read! Biographies, natural history, government-the presidents, this one, was his favorite. I mean, here was a kid society had obviously failed and he still believed in the system. Don’t you think that’s remarkable? He must be gifted. I couldn’t turn him in-does my supervisor need to know?”
Petra smiled and shook her head.
Magda Solis said, “I figured the best way I could help him was let him use the library the way he wanted. He returned everything. Except the presidents book-where did you find it?”
“Nearby,” said Petra, and Solis didn’t press her.
“How long has he been coming to the library?”
“Two, three months.”
“Every week?”
“Two to three times a week. Always in the afternoon. He’d arrive around two P.M., stay till four or five. I wondered if he chose afternoons because most kids are off from school then and he’d be less conspicuous.”
“Good thinking,” said Petra.
The librarian blushed. “I could be all wrong about him. Maybe he’s a rich kid from Los Feliz, just likes to act weird.”
