library. This morning, Jenkins contained both extremes, and the best of times and the worst of times regarded each other warily over the marble busts. I avoided them all and crossed the pile rug to the metal stacks in the back where I found a deserted carrel. I settled in, kicked off my high heels, and began to read.
The file was a mess of yellow legal papers scribbled in a childish scrawl. Celeste had apparently conducted only a few interviews with Eileen, and his notes were filled with incomplete sentences:
apple 35
orange 30
bread 100
Snickers-Fun Size (small) 150
Eggbeaters 150??? (check this)
toast; margarine 80
Baby Ruth-King Size,
but only half-?????
Celeste’s calorie-counting was far more meticulous than his record-keeping. It took me a full two hours to recreate his interview with Eileen, which revealed no clues anyway. The rest of the notes were phone numbers in Los Angeles and New York, with names like William Morris scratched next to them. Evidently not witnesses, but film and book agents. Celeste’s attempts to sell the story of Eileen’s miserable little life. I put the file away in annoyance and pulled out what I hoped would be the gold mine.
The audiotapes. Four plastic cassettes I assumed were the unabridged Eileen. They were unnumbered and unlabeled. I turned them over in my hand. I’d taken a chance swiping them, but so be it, I needed to hear what they said.
I gathered my purse and file from the carrel and prowled around until I found the library’s listening booth. It had a heavy glass window in the door and a tape recorder on a built-in desktop inside. I sat down, put on the earphones, and loaded one of the cassettes.
Eileen was giggling at something Celeste had said, and just the sound of it made me angry. That voice-high, careless, flirtatious. And dangerous, cunning. Eileen had murdered a man and put me solidly on the hook for it. I turned up the volume. The interview was in a question-and-answer format:
Christ. Barbara Fucking Walters. I tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t easy. I struggled to listen to this self- indulgent tripe, but I hadn’t slept all night. And I hadn’t had my coffee. It was criminal working conditions, no pliers and no caffeine.
My head was beginning to pound. I rubbed my eyes to stay awake. The sadness in her story was lost on me. She was a victim, so she victimized. I accept no excuses for murder. An innocent man was dead at her hand and maybe Bill, too.
I shifted in my chair and my gaze fell upon a Daumier sketch on the wall. A lawyer slipping his hand into his client’s pocket or the other way around, but the glass over the print reflected something else. A figure. A man in the library stacks, in a dark suit jacket. He was bent over reading a book. I couldn’t see his head or face, but his back looked familiar. I held my head down to avoid being recognized.
Hunting. I flashed on the cabin in the woods. Bill’s cold body. Was there a connection? My eyes fell on the Daumier sketch. In the reflection, the hunched figure turned the page of his book. Who was he? Did he recognize me? Was he a cop? I tried to remember the cops I knew who worked plainclothes. I covered my face with my
