Emerald Aisle (5 page)
He retraced his steps and came to what would be the door to a hallway leading to the kitchen. Bianca had drawn up a crude floor plan for him, but the designated point of entry was to have been the sunporch. That would have given him almost immediate access to the much-touted collection of books.
“What kind of books?”
“His favorite is Newman.”
“Newman?”
“Cardinal Newman. Dudley, you don't have to understand.”
There were two items on the list, each followed by its location in the library.
“You remember all that?”
“Some things you never forget.”
There was no locked screen door to stop him now. He eased it open, got the right key into the lock, and turned it. The sound of the inner door as he pushed it open was magnified by the fact that he was holding his breath. He got inside, sought and deactivated the alarm, and then stood motionless. The longer he stood there, the more the house spoke to himâfar off murmurs of clocks and air conditioners, a drop of water, creaking. How easy it was to imagine footsteps overhead. What if the curator was not drunk? What if he had noticed someone come up the driveway, go around to the sunporch, come back ⦠?
The choice was between going ahead or facing the mockery of Bianca if he returned without the items on her list. As he moved toward the library, he brought out the cloth bag Bianca had given him. “For the loot,” she'd explained.
“You should be doing this, not me.”
“It's man's work.” And she pressed herself against him.
In the library he followed her instructions and found the items where she had said they would be. The book on the shelf and, in a wooden file cabinet near the window, second drawer from the top, the folder marked PAMPHLET EDITION. With the cloth bag full, he quickly left the house, trying not to run down the driveway. He got behind the wheel of his car and put his head back and breathed deeply for several minutes. Then he started the car and headed back to Bianca and his reward.
ROGER KNIGHT AND HIS brother Phil flew off to Minneapolis in response to a call from Joseph Primero. On their previous visit, Primero had expressed concern about the security of his rare book collection but it had been unclear what service he expected Phil to provide. Now a theft had occurred and he wanted to hire a private investigator.
“Joseph Primero,” Father Carmody had said at table the night before, perking up at the mention of the name.
“You know him?”
“Of course. He is a major benefactor of the university. He refused to have his own name put on the building his money made possible, so we called it Newman Hall. He has a great devotion to Cardinal Newman, as well as an interest in his writings, somewhat unusual for a man who has made his money building resorts on various northern Minnesota lakes.
“There are many Newman items in the Primero Collection,” Roger said.
He knew the collection both from the brief visit he and Phil had made to Minneapolis some weeks before and from the duplicate catalog kept by Notre Dame. This was in anticipation of the eventual transfer of the books to the Hesburgh Library.
“Why on earth does he want to hire a detective?” Father Carmody asked.
The purpose of the first visit had been enigmatic, but the phone
call that took them to Minneapolis a second time could not have been clearer. Primero had been robbed. Several extremely rare items were missing from his Newman Collection, a fact that had been brought to his attention by Waldo Hermes, the librarian and rare book man Primero had hired to preside over and extend his collection.
call that took them to Minneapolis a second time could not have been clearer. Primero had been robbed. Several extremely rare items were missing from his Newman Collection, a fact that had been brought to his attention by Waldo Hermes, the librarian and rare book man Primero had hired to preside over and extend his collection.
“I got the impression he suspects Hermes,” Phil said.
“No!” Roger's impression of Hermes made it difficult to believe that the custodian would have stolen from the collection in his care. “Phil, you have to go up there.”
“Only if you come along. The only Newman I know is the icon of
MAD
magazine.
MAD
magazine.
It said something of the catholicity of Roger's interests that he did not require an explanation of what
MAD
magazine was. And since the midsemester break loomed, Roger agreed to accompany Phil to Minneapolis. This normally would have meant going in the van since Roger and airplanes made an imperfect match. Seats in planes had not been designed for one of his girth, and flying first class was disagreeably more expensive than coach. Unless of course the client paid their way, as Primero insisted on doing. So one day they had set off for the South Bend airport in the van.
MAD
magazine was. And since the midsemester break loomed, Roger agreed to accompany Phil to Minneapolis. This normally would have meant going in the van since Roger and airplanes made an imperfect match. Seats in planes had not been designed for one of his girth, and flying first class was disagreeably more expensive than coach. Unless of course the client paid their way, as Primero insisted on doing. So one day they had set off for the South Bend airport in the van.
Joseph Primero was short but imposing, a man whose manner and dress seemed a conscious negation of the fact that he was extremely wealthy. That he had done so well had come to him almost as a surprise. He had built his first resort in northern Minnesota near Mille Lacs with the intention of managing it and making it his life. He himself did not fish and regarded pleasure boats as he might model airplanes. To set off upon a finite expanse of water with no destination other than, ultimately, the dock from which one had set out seemed
childish to a man who had spent fifteen years in the navy going into harm's way in Oriental waters, engaging in battles he never spoke of. It was the isolation and peace, the distance from the normal ways of menâfor how did most human lives differ from the pointless excursions of pleasure boats?âand the chance for what he would have been embarrassed to call “contemplation” that attracted him to the North Woods. Withdrawal from urban surroundings had been further occasioned by estrangement from his wife, who it turned out had been faithful only in her fashion while he served his country.
childish to a man who had spent fifteen years in the navy going into harm's way in Oriental waters, engaging in battles he never spoke of. It was the isolation and peace, the distance from the normal ways of menâfor how did most human lives differ from the pointless excursions of pleasure boats?âand the chance for what he would have been embarrassed to call “contemplation” that attracted him to the North Woods. Withdrawal from urban surroundings had been further occasioned by estrangement from his wife, who it turned out had been faithful only in her fashion while he served his country.
A year or two after his return, they informally separated. She did not want a civil divorce, and Primero, a Catholic, had reacted with shock to the suggestion that he seek an annulment of his marriage. While it had not taken death to separate him and his wife, in his heart of hearts he remained her husband and thought of himself as still serving in foreign parts, away from her because of the demands of defending civilization and democracy. The country he had served disappointed him now, and in the North Woods it was possible to think that it was still the country he had joined the navy to preserve and protect.
When he received an offer for his resort, he succumbed but immediately built another and then another until he had a list of people for whom he had agreed to design and build resorts. He lived in the penthouse of one of the condominiums that he had built, but for much of the year he enjoyed the quiet and isolation of a monk in the north. He had a study in his apartment and he was electronically in touch with the wider world, so he spent as much time at Lake Constance as he could.
His house in Minneapolis also overlooked a lake, Lake of the Isles. That was the house from which his wife had fled. It was there that his Newman collection was kept, with Waldo Hermes occupying what had once been the servants' quarters over the garage.
When Primero traveled, it was as often as not in search of additions to his remarkable library rather than on business. Investments, where he proved to have the Midas touch, had multiplied many times over the fortune he had amassed as a builder of resorts. There were no living children from his marriage, so he collected books on the assumption that he would leave them, eventually, to someone else. That someone else proved to be Notre Dame.
On a visit to the campus he had met Greg Whelan, a canny archivist who knew and loved Newman. The addition of his Newman Collection to the Notre Dame library's holdings became attractive to Primero, and he liked the phlegmatic self-effacement of Greg Whelan in the university Archives. He also liked the suggestion of duplicating his catalog at Notre Dame so that the eventual transfer of the books would go smoothly. And then one day Hermes told him that the original pamphlet edition of the
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
was missing.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
was missing.
“I noticed it just two days ago,” the luxuriantly bearded curator Waldo Hermes said. His eyes never left Primero's face, as if he were tracking the effect of this loss on his employer. “But I don't know how long it may have been missing.”
“Has anyone asked to see it?”
Knowledgeable scholars had heard of Primero's private collection, and he had authorized Hermes to respond with discretion to requests to visit and peruse the Newman books and papers.
“I have studied the list of visitors.”
But no one had asked to see the
Apologia
pamphlets. Of course anyone who had access to the catalog would know what was in the collection.
Apologia
pamphlets. Of course anyone who had access to the catalog would know what was in the collection.
“I am making a thorough inventory to make sure nothing else is missing.”
There was. A presentation copy of the first book edition of the
Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
A first edition of the
Grammar of Assent.
Primero wished that Waldo would show more despondency at the loss. Since he was responsible, some measure of blame must inevitably attach to him. The question was, how much blame? It would of course occur to anyone that Waldo himself might have removed the missing items from the collection, but that was not an accusation Primero could bring himself to make. He telephoned Philip Knight on the advice of a fellow collector.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
A first edition of the
Grammar of Assent.
Primero wished that Waldo would show more despondency at the loss. Since he was responsible, some measure of blame must inevitably attach to him. The question was, how much blame? It would of course occur to anyone that Waldo himself might have removed the missing items from the collection, but that was not an accusation Primero could bring himself to make. He telephoned Philip Knight on the advice of a fellow collector.
When the Knights arrived at the house by the Lake of the Isles, Philip talked with Primero while Roger renewed acquaintance with Waldo Hermes.
“And you live right here among these treasures?” Roger asked the custodian.
“I am seldom out of the house. When I'm not down here, I am in my rooms over the garage.”
The security of the house ruled out a break-in and theft. Those who had visited the library seemed unlikely suspects.
“I think Mr. Primero thinks
I
took them,” Waldo Hermes said. “Why would I? It's almost as if I own them now. Sell them and thus lose them? Never.”
I
took them,” Waldo Hermes said. “Why would I? It's almost as if I own them now. Sell them and thus lose them? Never.”
A theft without a suspect, or so it had seemed. When Hermes showed Roger the elaborate security arrangements in the house, not even the curator's defective hearing would have enabled anyone to enter unnoticed. Hermes set off the alarm to prove the point, and Primero and Phil rushed into the library. Primero seemed disappointed that it was only a false alarm.
“Who has keys to the house?” Roger asked.
Only Primero, Hermes, and his estranged wife, Bianca. Neither man had ever been separated from his keys.
The obvious explanation occurred to Roger almost immediately. “Where does your wife live?”
“She travels tirelessly.”
“But she has an address.”
Mrs. Primero lived in a high-rise apartment in Highland village, in the same condominium as Joseph, in a section of Saint Paul just across the Ford Bridge from the loveliest part of Minneapolis, Minnehaha Park. Here the creek, which began far off at Lake Minnetonka and was punctuated by the chain of city lakes through which it passed, spilled over the falls and continued to the river.
“How long has it been since she lived here?”
Primero knew to the day. Roger and Phil called on Bianca Primero, who was in her apartment between cruises. She was a willowy woman with golden hair; bright, mean eyes; and a smile that seemed to have come with her toothpaste. Her apartment was furnished in a modern impersonal styleâthe furniture consisting of cushions on steel frames, the rug in the living room looking as if it had been made from the hide of polar bears, the pictures on the wall outrageous denials that art imitates nature. There were no books in evidence, other than one shelf filled with travel guides and cruise brochures.
Bianca was an imposing woman, and at first, even at second, glance it was hard to believe that she was the same age as her husband. All the lesser surgical arts had been enlisted to stave off the effects of time on her flesh. The skin of her face was taut, any sag beneath her jaw had been removed. The general smoothness of her countenance, lightly brushed with cosmetics, and the glistening blue eyes framed by darkened lashes artfully suggested a woman in her late twenties, decades having been skimmed away. But it was a face that needed to be seen in flattering light.
When she stepped dramatically backward into her apartment after opening the door to the Knights, she might have been on a stage with carefully selected lighting.
“So you are the detectives.”
“It's good of you to see us.”
“It would be difficult not to,” she said, looking significantly at Roger, who laughed at this allusion to his avoirdupois.
“I may be seen through but never overlooked.”
Roger was given the couch after being steered away from a divan their hostess apparently thought inadequate to the task of supporting him.
“Now what is all this about Joseph's toys?”
Phil let Roger explain about the missing items. “As you must know, your husband's collection contains priceless items.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“Your husband has asked us to locate the missing materials.”
Her elongated nails were blood red and their length made extracting a cigarette from a package difficult. When she had managed it, Phil rose to light it for her. She looked up at him through a cloud of exhaled smoke. “Joseph thinks I am responsible for the theft.”
“Are you?”
“If I had my way, all that mildewed mumbo jumbo would go there.” A long nail pointed to the fireplace. “Have you any idea what it is like to be married to a man who made a fortune in business but wants to pretend he is a scholar?”
“He hired us to look into the theft,” Phil said, regaining his seat.
“And so you have come here.”
“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”
She made a gesture with the hand that held the cigarette and ashes scattered over the rug. “Joseph himself could have done it.”
“Joseph!”
“To get my attention. To bring about this visit. To annoy me. But he knows I will never again live in that library he has turned our house into.”
“You don't share his interests?” Phil asked.
“My interest in books is probably on the same level as your own. Look around and you will see how different a setting I have made for myself. Only one small shelf of travel books.”
“What about Waldo Hermes?” Roger asked.
“The hairy ape? He was the last straw. Imagine having a live-in librarian in your home.”
No need to admit it to Roger, but Phil felt sympathy with the woman. She had her troubles. She and her husband had money; she wanted a life of leisure, travel, diversion. Not the wickedest of goals. Wasn't the collecting of priceless books self-indulgence of another kind? Why couldn't the Primeros compromise?
Bianca sighed. “Joseph must be devastated.” She drew on her cigarette. “Those books are his children.”
“I wonder who the kidnapper is,” Phil said. “Any ideas?”
“You must know that Joseph and I have not lived together for years.”
There was in her manner the suggestion that she was holding back something she might have told them.
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