Murder at the Library of Congress Read online

  “Of course I will. You know I’m incapable of staying away from you or the library

  for more than a day at a time.” He smiled and waited for her response.

  “There are people I want you to meet with today,” the chief of the Hispanic division said flatly.

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Annabel Reed-Smith. You were scheduled to see her yesterday. She’s writing a piece for Civilization.”

  “Poor thing. It must have slipped my mind.”

  “Yes, it must have. And Lucianne Huston.”

  “Who’s she? Oh, wait, that fearless television reporter who’s always reporting from some bloody murder scene or in the middle of a global calamity. Am I her next … calamity?”

  Preferably her next victim, Consuela thought. She said, “She’s doing a story for the Columbus celebration and wants to interview you.”

  “Should I wear a suit? Will there be makeup?”

  “What time will you be here?”

  “On time. I’d punch in if we had a time clock.”

  She hung up with conviction.

  Paul laughed as he pushed Off on the phone. After dressing—a pinched-waist double-breasted blue pinstripe suit that hugged his trim physique, a chalk-white shirt, wide lemon tie, and a new pair of black loafers purchased recently at London’s Poulsen & Skone—he checked himself again in the mirror. M. Paul looked every bit like a man who had found his grail. His honey-colored, oval face had a matte finish, smooth and dry and unwrinkled, except for tiny lines slashing upward from the corners of surprisingly blue eyes, creating the effect of pulling them up into perpetual bemusement.

  He made a final call before leaving, this to the manager of the boathouse on the Potomac where Paul kept a thirty-foot sailing sloop. He was angry at minor damage that had been done to the boat during a recent storm and berated the manager for his lack of preparedness. Satisfied with the manager’s apologies and promise to repair the damage, Paul drove his red Jeep Grand Cherokee from the underground parking garage and headed into the District, eventually pulling into the parking space reserved for him at the Library of Congress, a perquisite granted when Texas University tried to recruit him, and he’d used the offer to better his lot at LC.

  The hard heels on his new shoes reverberated off marble as he walked smartly to the second floor of the Jefferson Building, entered the Hispanic reading room, returned “Good morning” with a nod or grunt, passed the open door to Consuela Martinez’s office without looking in, then climbed the stairs and entered his own personal space on the upper gallery. Richard Kelman, whose space was on the other side of Annabel’s, looked over and said, “Good morning.”

  Paul didn’t reply. He carefully hung his suit jacket on a hook in the wall, sat, and went through a pile of mail on his desk, methodically tossing the envelopes in a waste-basket. He checked the monthly calendar on the desk, picked up a phone, and dialed Consuela’s extension.

  “My day’s getting jammed up, Consuela. What about these women you want me

  to meet with?”

  “Annabel Reed-Smith should be here shortly. I’ve assigned her the space next to you. Lucianne Huston is due at two.”

  “I have a meeting at two.”

  “You can’t change it?”

  “Not without difficulty. I should be back by four.”

  “I’ll see if she can interview you then.”

  “I assume you’re still looking for larger, more private space for me.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “But not very hard, I take it. Have you called Wayne Brennan in Scholarly Programs? Half those offices over there are always empty.”

  “And you know they’re reserved for outside researchers. I can’t be—Oh, here’s Mrs. Smith now.”

  “Send her up to my cell.”

  Kelman gathered up his papers and left the area without another attempt at civility, passing Annabel on his way.

  “You must be Mrs. Smith,” Paul said at her arrival, extending his hand to Annabel and displaying a strong set of white teeth, made more so against his tan face.

  “Yes. And you are Michele Paul.” She took his hand, aware that he held it a little longer than necessary. She didn’t bother mentioning that they’d been introduced before.

  “Welcome to the garret,” he said, indicating the area with a sweep of his hand.

  “An apt description,” she said. “I’m thrilled to have space here.”

  “A badge of honor. I understand you’re writing for Civilization.”

  “That’s right. On Bartolomé de Las Casas.”

  “Please, sit.” He pulled the chair from her area into his. “I should be concerned,” he said after they were seated. “You’re invading my area of expertise.”

  “I wouldn’t view it that way,” she said pleasantly, “but I do want to pick your brain about that expertise.”

  “Pick at any part of me you wish, Mrs. Smith. It’s Annabel, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I insist upon being on a first-name basis with anyone who’s picking my brain.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you may call me Michele. My mother was slightly confused when she named me.”

  Annabel laughed, in spite of herself.

  “Well, Annabel, I’m yours for the next hour. A meeting at ten, lunch with a collector who has the audacity to consider turning over his materials to another institution, and an equally boring afternoon. My hour with you will be the highlight of an otherwise drab day.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Exactly as I intended. What do you wish to know?”

  “Everything you know about Las Casas, I suppose.”

  “Are you planning on spending a few years here?”

  “I’m planning on spending a few months here. Are you convinced the Las Casas diaries exist, based upon your research?”

  “Yes.”

  “Based upon what?”

  “You want me to do your work for you?”

  Remaining civil, Annabel knew, would test her.

  “Mr. Paul—Michele—I’m doing research in order to write an article for Civilization on the Las Casas connection to Columbus. The entire issue will be devoted to Columbus. Because you’re acknowledged as a Las Casas expert, I was hoping you’d be gracious enough to give me a few good quotes, perhaps tell me why you predicted you would prove in two years—that was a year ago—that the diaries do, indeed, exist. Will you?”

  “Give you a quote?”

  “Yes.”

  “The diaries written by Bartolomé de Las Casas exist.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Next year’s federal budget will be squandered on military hardware and not on the arts. It will be a warmer winter in Washington this year than last year. And I will be out of this hovel and in a larger, private office this time next month, even if I have to kill someone to accomplish that. You can quote me on all three subjects.”

  “I’m sorry to have kept you so long,” Annabel said.

  “No, actually you saved me, but I should run. I’d enjoy continuing this conversation. If I come off as slightly prickly, it’s because I am prickly by nature, especially when amateurs intrude on a subject to which I’ve devoted a considerable portion of my adult life.”

  “Thanks for your time.”

  “Dinner tonight? Been to Taberna del Alabardero?”

  Annabel stared at him.

  “The tapas and paella are good, don’t you agree?”

  “I’m having dinner with my husband tonight.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Only tonight? Is it an event?”

  “Every time we meet.”

  She watched him slip on his suit jacket, check himself in a small mirror he’d hung on the wall next to the coat hook, and leave.

  “Bastard,” she murmured as she moved to her desk and went over notes she’d made the day before in the rare manuscripts room. Before she knew it, it was noon, and she was hungry. She went down to Consuela�
��s office. “Feel like lunch?” she asked.

  “Can’t. A division chiefs’ meeting. How did it go with our Dr. Paul?”

  “Hardly the picture of helpful cooperation. He’s so arrogant it’s almost charming. He hit on me, as the saying goes.”

  “I knew he’d like being interviewed by a tall, attractive redhead. Were you flattered?”

  “No.”

  “Mac would be unhappy at the news.”

  “Mac would only be unhappy if I invited it, or fell for it. Paul reminds me of a bullfighter, dangling that red cape, and confident that no matter how strong the bull is, it can be killed at the end.”

  “An image I’m sure he’d enjoy. Rain check on lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  Annabel turned to leave but her way was blocked by a woman standing in the doorway.

  “Hello,” Annabel said.

  “Hello.”

  “Dolores, this is Annabel Reed-Smith,” Consuela said. “I’ve told you about her.”

  “Of course.” They shook hands.

  “Dolores is one of our top specialists in Hispanic,” Consuela said. “Her field is Mexican culture.”

  “More specifically the impact of the pre-Columbian era on later Mexican culture,” Dolores added.

  “Why don’t you two grab lunch together?” Consuela suggested. “Annabel will be here for a few months researching a piece for Civilization.”

  “So I understand. I was just heading out. Join me?”

  “Love to.”

  Dolores suggested they skip the cafeteria on the sixth floor of the Madison Building and “eat on the economy.” They walked to a strip of small restaurants a block away on Pennsylvania Avenue, decided on a place called Hill Street Brews, and were seated by the hostess in a booth.

  Dolores, whose last name Annabel learned was Marwede—“People tend to pronounce it Mar-weed, but it’s really Mar wee-dee,” Dolores said—was one of those individuals to whom Annabel took an instant liking. They were approximately the same height, tall, and might have been mistaken for sisters if their coloring was ignored. The redheaded Annabel was fair-skinned; Dolores was dusky, her hair, which like Annabel she wore long, was inky black. It had crossed Annabel’s mind while walking to the restaurant that the anachronistic stereotype of librarians as granny-goose types, hair in a bun, round glasses, spending their days quieting children and protecting copies of Ulysses beneath the counter, had long ago been dashed. Most librarians she knew didn’t fit that description, and the woman sitting across from her was no exception.

  “… and so I got my doctorate at Columbia in Spanish history,” Dolores said over coffee, “and looked for teaching positions. The Library of Congress had an opening and I grabbed it.”

  “How long have you been there?” Annabel asked.

  “Nine years.”

  “Enjoy working in the LC?”

  “Love it. I split my time between doing my own research and as a reference librarian for people using the Hispanic division. Consuela tells me you have a wonderful husband.”

  Annabel smiled. “Yes, I do. Mac—his name’s Mackensie—is a terrific guy. He teaches law at GW.” She’d noted that Dolores did not wear a wedding ring.

  “And you have that great gallery in Georgetown.”

  “My pride and joy.”

  “I’ve stopped in a few times but never saw you there.”

  “I’ve been fortunate with help. College students. I’ve pretty much turned the place over to them while working on this article. I interviewed Michele Paul this morning.”

  Dolores winced.

  Is there no one who has kind thoughts about him?

  “He was—well, he was somewhat helpful.” No sense adding fuel to the anti-Paul movement. “My article focuses on Las Casas and his reputed diaries and map.”

  Dolores’s tone and mood changed before Annabel’s eyes. A darkness seemed to come over her, causing what had been a face with an almost perpetual smile to pull down at the corners of the mouth.

  “I was warned not to expect much from him but …” Annabel forced a laugh. “Maybe I caught him on an off day.”

  Dolores’s smile didn’t seem genuine either. She looked down at her watch. “Dr. Paul and I don’t see eye to eye. I have to get back,” she said.

  Who would? Annabel thought.

  They split the check and walked back, promising to have lunch again soon. Annabel had wanted to spend the day in Manuscripts poring over Columbus’s Book of Privileges again, but another researcher had reserved it. She took the underground tunnel to the Madison Building and stopped in at Public Affairs to see if they had any biographical material on Michele Paul and a list of his publishers for her article.

  Annabel immediately recognized the woman in one of the offices. It was the TV journalist, Lucianne Huston. Two men sat in the waiting room, one cradling a video camera in his lap, the other perched atop a pile of black cases. Joanne, the woman who’d escorted Annabel the day before, waved her in.

  “Lucianne, this is Annabel Reed-Smith.”

  “Hi,” Lucianne said.

  “You might want to talk to Annabel about Las Casas,” Joanne offered. “She’s researching an article for our magazine, Civilization.”

  “Happy to,” Annabel said brightly. “But there are genuine experts around here.”

  “Sure,” Lucianne said. To Joanne: “You say Dr. Paul won’t be available until four?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  Lucianne looked at Annabel.

  “I’m free now,” Annabel said.

  “Now is good. How about just a talk first?” Lucianne suggested.

  “You two can use this office. I have to escort a reporter to an interview with Dr. Broadhurst.”

  Dr. Cale Broadhurst, the fourteenth Librarian of Congress, had succeeded James H. Billington after being nominated by the current administration and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Mac and Broadhurst had been frequent tennis partners when Broadhurst was dean of GW’s ancient literature department. They still stayed in

  touch, only less frequently now.

  “Before you go,” said Annabel, “do you have a bio of Michele Paul for my article? I think I should know a little more about him.”

  “I don’t have one handy, but I’ll have one sent up to you later today,” answered Joanne with a mixture of surprise and disgust.

  After telling her two-man crew they were free for an hour, Lucianne sat with Annabel. “So,” she said, “tell me why you’re so interested in this de Las Casas character.”

  “I’ve never heard him referred to that way,” Annabel said, smiling. “I was wondering why you’re interested in him. I thought you only covered wars and famine and sensational murder trials and crooked governments.”

  “I was surprised when they sent me on this story, too. Something to do with a rare books underground offering big money for the diaries and maybe a map—if they even exist.”

  “I thought you might be doing this for a special on Columbus for the celebration.”

  “That’s the fallback position to justify sending me here. Do you know anything about this so-called underground interest?”

  “No. I mean, I’m aware there are such things, certain people who’ll pay a lot of money for something rare. No different from the surreptitious art scene. But tell me more.”

  Lucianne shrugged and drew from a half-full bottle of designer water. “I’m supposed to learn all about it from people like you. There was an art theft and murder in Miami that triggered sending me to D.C.”

  “An art theft? Murder? What does that have to do with Las Casas?”

  Lucianne gave a handsome shrug. “That’s what I asked my boss.”

  “What was stolen? Who was murdered?”

  “From what I’ve been told, a second-rate painting by an artist named Reyes, Fernando Reyes, depicting Columbus giving something called a Book of Privileges to the king and queen of Spain. A security guard, his first night on the job, was shot.”
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  “How dreadful,” Annabel said. “There’s a copy of the book here at LC.”

  “LC? Oh …”

  “I spent part of yesterday looking at it. It’s the most important piece of early Americana in the collection. But the painting was second-rate? The thieves must not have known much about art.”

  “I guess not. It was an inside job. Or inside and outside. A maintenance man allegedly left a skylight open for the thieves.”

  “Who was the painting’s owner?”

  “A small museum in the Latin Quarter. Casa de Seville. I’ve never been there.”

  Annabel spent the next fifteen minutes telling Lucianne what she knew of the Las Casas legend. He was alleged to have been Columbus’s sailing companion on the first three voyages, and had been not only the explorer’s close friend, he’d helped him prepare his logs and diaries, according to those who’d spent their professional lives delving into the history. She sensed that the TV journalist was listening more out of

  courtesy than interest. It was obvious that Lucianne was not happy having been

  assigned this story. Annabel could understand. Lost diaries and maps, if there even were such things, paled when contrasted to being in the midst of shell fire, turmoil, and strife in exotic places.