The Room Behind the Books
By eight o’clock, the library had become a crime scene without the dignity of one. The rug was pulled back, the books stood in uneven ranks, and black flakes of paper lay in the cracks between the floorboards. Lydia had opened every shutter, letting in a hard white morning that made the room look less like a place of learning than a room where something had been hidden badly.
“Nobody leaves the house,” she said.
Tom gave a small laugh. “You can’t seriously mean that.”
“I mean precisely that.”
“You invited us here.”
“I invited you to remember. I did not invite you to steal.”
Nell watched him absorb the accusation. His face remained composed, but his right hand had closed over the left, as if restraining it. Art stood near the fireplace with his shirt untucked and his eyes fixed on the ruined papers. Mara had not spoken since dawn. Suzie was at the windows, looking out toward the lake, where mist lay over the water like a sheet thrown across a body.
Nell crouched beside the hearth. Among the ashes she found a strip of ledger paper, its edge curled and brown. Most of the writing was gone, but one line remained legible: *transfer to J.W.—October 1956*. Below it was a figure, half burned but unmistakably large.
“Your father,” Tom said.
Nell did not look up. “You knew what was in the ledger.”
“I knew what Daniel claimed was in it.”
“You went to him for the pages.”
“I went because he was frightened and because frightened people make bad bargains.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I intended to help him.”
Art laughed from the doorway. “You intended to own him.”
Tom turned. “And you intended to publish him.”
The accusation struck more deeply than either man expected. Art’s mouth tightened. He looked suddenly older than the rest of them, although he had always been the one who tried hardest to seem young.
“I didn’t publish anything,” he said.
“Not then.”