Sam Watson was waiting for us by the front doors when we arrived.
“You didn’t invite me to see this, Sam,” Connor said. “Whatever it is. Do you want me to wait out here?”
“No need. It won’t take long.” Watson led the way through the station to an interview room. The office was quiet on a Sunday afternoon. Butch Greenblatt was the only other person at work, pounding at a computer keyboard, his fingers almost too big for the keys, and he lifted a hand in a wave as we passed. The air-conditioning was turned up far too high, reminding me I was seriously underdressed.
The interview room was sparsely furnished, but not intimidating and not too dreadfully uncomfortable apart from the temperature. Sam nodded toward a chair and I sat, trying not to shiver too obviously. Connor stood behind me. A plain beige paper folder lay on the table. It wasn’t thick, so it couldn’t contain much more than a few sheets of paper. Watson opened it, took out a sheet of plastic that he laid in front of me, and then he closed the folder.
I leaned in for a closer look, and I felt Connor do the same over my shoulder. “It’s a library withdrawal slip,” I said.
“We found this in a trash can near the boardwalk at the lighthouse. Does this look like the slip you told me was missing from the library?”
I studied it carefully. The card was about four inches square, yellowing with age. The title of the book and name of the author were typewritten across the top. A line of names in different hands and inks ran down the left hand column, and dates were stamped on the right. “It does. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one. The Celestine Prophecy. I suppose it could be a slip from another book with the same title, but that stretches coincidence to the breaking point, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Watson said. Connor muttered his agreement.
The paper had been torn into many pieces. Some of them were smudged with traces of I didn’t want to know what. Someone had carefully reassembled the card as though it were a jigsaw puzzle.
“We put it back together as best we were able, and checked it for fingerprints,” Watson said. “We came up with a lot of prints. Some older than others. One partial’s a match to Helena Sanchez.”
I thought back to Bertie’s party Friday night. The women gathered in the alcove exclaiming over the historical display. “I’m almost certain Helena touched it. She started to take it out of the pocket, and seemed to see something that upset her.”
“Find any other identifiable prints, Sam?” Connor asked.
“Charlene Clayton’s.”
“Natural enough,” I said. “Charlene and I put the exhibit together. I don’t think I touched this particular item, though.”
“Some smudges, some partials that will be too small to identify without a good match. Lucy, you said no librarian would throw something like this in the garbage. Do you still maintain that?”
“Absolutely. No one is more protective of a written legacy than librarians. Not even the police. You’ll destroy this if you don’t need it anymore. We would need a very good reason to do that.”
“Not all the women in Bertie’s class are still working librarians,” Watson said.
“No, but they were trained to be. I’m not saying none of the women at the party threw this away; all I’m saying is no one did it mindlessly. Someone didn’t want it found.”
“Yet you have found it,” Connor said. “What does it mean?”
“Lucy?” Watson asked.
And that was a very good question. Why would someone think they needed to get rid of this common withdrawal slip? I studied it carefully. The title of the book was typed in capital letters, the signatures handwritten in various types of ink, the dates stamped. I didn’t recognize any of the names, and the dates themselves, ranging over six months from the beginning of 1995, were of no significance I could see. “I’ve absolutely no idea. Sorry, Sam.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to show you one more thing. This is a photograph of something our divers found in the water under the pier.” He took another page out of the folder.
I recognized it immediately. “That’s the souvenir letter opener that was part of the exhibit.”
“Or one of the same,” Connor said. “Those things were handed out by the bucketful in 1986 to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Nags Head. There are plenty of them floating around. Pardon the pun.”
“This one hasn’t been in the water long,” Watson said. “No more than a couple days at a guess. Probably less. There are no prints on it, not even any partials, meaning it was probably wiped down before being thrown in the marsh.”
“Is there any … uh … trace of it being used?” I asked.
“It’s in the lab now and they’re checking it over. The blade, as you can see, is completely smooth. No serrations to trap residue in. But we might be able to pull something off. The town’s seal is stamped in the handle.”
“You said Helena’s prints were on the withdrawal slip. Do identical twins have identical prints?”
He grinned at me. “We’ll make an investigator out of you yet, Lucy.”
“Perish the thought,” I said with a shudder that wasn’t entirely because I was half-dressed and the air-conditioning was blowing directly on me.
“The answer to your question is no,” Watson said. “There may be similarities between them, more than between two random people, but one twin’s prints are not identical to the other’s. In this case, however, we only have partials. Which may be important. Or it may not.”
“Why did you ask that, Lucy?” Connor said.
“Helena Sanchez has an identical twin sister,” Watson said.
“Interesting,” Connor said.
“Isn’t it?” Watson picked up the folder and slipped the pages inside. He crossed the room and opened the door. “Thanks for coming down so promptly, Lucy, Connor. I hope I haven’t spoiled your day.”
Connor shifted from one foot to the other.
“No
