“What a time for silly rumors. I’m sorry,” Marie said. “Why in the world do you suspect Francis?”
“Something the police said.”
“The police?” said Marie.
“A detective became involved with us after Miriam’s disappearance.”
In her distraction, Liesl had forgotten about the bleeding. She looked down to see that the manuscript had been marked, her blood underlining the name “Vesalius.”
“Terrible tragedy, that,” Marie said.
In the background of the call, Liesl could hear the sound of serious medical professionals talking.
“Did you know Miriam well?” Liesl asked.
“Hardly at all.” Marie seemed eager to move on from the subject of the suicide. Liesl figured she was steeped enough in her own misfortune. “I can’t recall ever speaking with her.”
“Well, yes. Miriam could be very quiet,” Liesl said.
“You were going to tell me about Francis,” Marie said.
“A police detective advised me. And based on that advice, I think Francis might be a suspect.”
“It’s all very vague,” Marie said. “Did the police say that they’re investigating him?”
“He and Christopher were writing together,” Liesl said.
“Yes, I remember,” Marie said.
“What they wrote might be a clue,” Liesl said, dog-earing the corners of the manuscript pages on her desk.
“Francis has the manuscript, I think,” Marie said. “I’d have noticed a giant stack of pages.”
“Not the manuscript,” Liesl said. “Just a final chapter or two. I have most of it. I need the ending.”
“I don’t know about my appetite for sleuthing right now, Liesl.”
“Imagine solving this for Christopher,” Liesl said, pushing the pages away from her finally, before she could do further damage to them.
“I’ll look around when I’m back at the house. But for now, I have to go.”
16
Insolvent and anxious, the remnants of the library’s senior team were sitting around and strategizing with Liesl in Christopher’s office about how to pay for a collection of letters from the War of 1812 without any new donor money when the news came. Dan rapped at the door and summoned Liesl to take a phone call, shifting back and forth in his big boots as he waited for her to follow him out. A phone call in the middle of a meeting, a phone call to the front desk rather than one of their private lines. There was every reason to dismiss it and keep at the business of the war letters. Still, she walked with Dan to go answer it because the money conversation wasn’t going anywhere, and at least the phone call would give her a break from feeling desperate.
There was a researcher at the reference desk waiting for service. An elderly man with curly gray hair tied into a low ponytail who was there to view videos from their Holocaust oral history collection. He was waiting for someone to set up the filmstrip machine for him in a private viewing room. It was an instinct, when she heard the news, to turn her back on the waiting man. It was rude, but she didn’t do it to be rude.
She nodded at the phone, though the caller couldn’t see her nodding, the useless action of a helpless woman. Only the old man, who was looking at her back, and Dan, who was looking at her face with a growing sense of understanding. When she hung up, feeling like she had just stepped off the ledge of something and was dangling in midair, she asked Dan to gather the staff in the large reading room, the one that was not used for reading. Francis and Max were still sitting in Liesl’s office, or Christopher’s really, trying to solve the payment-for-letters problem. There were a dozen or so people in the workroom, doing cataloging work, doing preservation work, standing at the paper cutter and slicing bookplates down to size on acid-free paper. It would require choreography to get it right. They would close early. Against the rules, but appropriate given the circumstances.
She wanted to give them privacy. To lock the doors before she said the words aloud so that no one was interrupted to go find a pencil sharpener as the grief—and there would certainly be grief—set in. Liesl pushed through her unmoored sensation, moving with plan and purpose toward that simple goal of privacy. When she returned to her office, it had already emptied. Dan had been there before her to herd Francis and Max. She made a simple sign to hang on the library door explaining the early closure. Should a student or faculty member or member of the public come by to use the library, they would hear the news before the staff did. When she walked back through the workroom with her sign, it was already empty. Dan was fast. She poked her head into the reading room, the one that was actually used for reading, and saw that it too was empty. That made it easier, no one to hustle out. She hung the sign on the door, flipped the lock, and headed downstairs to face the staff.
“Has something terrible happened?” Francis asked when she entered the room.
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Max said.
“If you don’t think things can get worse,” Francis said, “it shows what a soft life you’ve lived.”
“In grade school they used to call me soft too,” Max said, hand immediately going to his collar as he spoke in his own defense. “But I didn’t have a human resources department to turn to in grade school.”
“My goodness, will you stop?” Liesl said.
“No, Liesl, please let them continue,” Dan said. “I love learning from those who outrank me.”
“That’s enough from everybody.”
“Go on then, Liesl. Tell us whatever it is you’ve brought us in here to tell us,” Francis said.
“We’re going to be closing early today.”
“Oh no,” Max said. “Christopher has a policy about that. If someone comes to use the library and you’re closed even a few minutes before your posted hours, they’ll never come back. They’ll feel as if they can’t count on you.”
“Is it Christopher?” Dan asked.
“We’ve had some news,” Liesl said. She almost gagged on the dread, the anxiety of having to be the one to tell them.
Anyone who had been standing sat down. Anyone who had been having a side conversation fell silent. They waited. Turned to her like sunflowers, their quiet faces open for the news that had long been coming. Above their heads, the panopticon of books, the building itself seemed to tense for the blow.
“Christopher passed away this morning.”
“Not really,” Francis said. He had been sitting in a chair, but slid out of it to sit on the floor. Dan moved toward him as if he had fallen, but Francis waved him away. Liesl briefly caught Dan’s eyes, gave a sad half smile, and looked away immediately to stem the unexpected wave of sadness that little bit of eye contact wrought. Ignoring the others, Max was pacing back and forth across the room. He walked to the bust of Shakespeare in the far corner, tapped the head, and then turned around and walked to the door before doing it all over again. Each time he came back to old Will he gave him another tap. With perfect posture he kept at it, back and forth across the room, drawing not a single look from the others until, satisfied with his penance, he dropped into a chair in the back of the room and slouched over to look at his feet. Liesl stared at the unlikely army, amazed at the consistency of their emotion, at how each of them was processing the news as a deep and personal loss.
“Should I go lock the doors?” Dan asked. “I can make a sign.”
“It’s already done,” Liesl said.
After a long silence they walked, one by one, back into the workroom. The old man with the ponytail, clutching an armful of film reels, stood in the center of the empty room, bewildered as to why he had been left all alone.
***