One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

cold.
     
    I watched them steal out of the house. Derek moved off toward the fig orchard while Gabriel hustled in the opposite direction, out into the open field.
     
    Max shut the door. “Let’s you and me make some pasta sauce.”
     
    “I thought you were kidding,” I said, gripping the kitchen counter nervously as I stared out the window over the sink. “I can’t cook while they’re out there.”
     
    “You’re not cooking. I am,” he said. “You can talk to me. Tell me what the hell you’re all doing on my farm.”
     
    “I thought it was Robson’s farm.” I sounded like a snotty little sister, which was probably how he’d always thought of me.
     
    “Robson bought this place with my money,” he explained as he pulled a frying pan off the pot rack over the stove. “I signed power of attorney over to him a few weeks before I left and asked him to buy a few more houses, just in case.”
     
    Just in case someone found you and you had to move quickly,
I thought, but didn’t say it. I slid onto one of the stools that was placed next to a beautifully finished, waist-high, dark-stained farmhouse table in the center of the kitchen. “So you had this all worked out before you died? I mean, before you left?”
     
    “Yeah.” He took a chef’s apron off a hook near the door and wrapped it around himself. “I drew up a will making Robson the executor. I had him give some money to a few people and he kept the rest in trust.”
     
    “What in the world happened to make you think you had to go through this charade?”
     
    “It’s a long story, and I need to cook while I talk.” He pulled mushrooms out of the refrigerator and onions out of a bag in the pantry closet, grabbed a head of garlic from a basket on the counter, then cut bits of herbs from several pots perched along the kitchen windowsill. I recognized thyme, oregano, parsley, and basil.
     
    “I never knew you were such a cook.”
     
    “I never was until I moved here,” he said as he briskly chopped the garlic cloves into tiny pieces. “No choice, really. It was learn to cook or starve.”
     
    He scraped all the garlic bits up with the knife and placed them in a small bowl. Then he handed me another knife and a small wood chopping board. “Can you mince the herbs together?”
     
    “Sure.”
     
    He patted my shoulder. “And while you’re at it, tell me why you came here.”
     
    “Oh yeah. Okay.”
Although,
I reminded myself,
it’s
Max
who has the most explaining to do.
     
    Walking back to the pantry, he pulled out two large jars of tomatoes and put them on the counter by the stove.
     
    “Do you can those tomatoes yourself?”
     
    “Yeah,” he said, picking up his knife again. “They taste better that way. Now talk.”
     
    “Right.” I pushed the stool away and stood to work at the center table. Suddenly a great bundle of fur brushed against my ankles and I almost screamed.
     
    “Meow.”
     
    I looked down at the fat orange creature. “What’s this?”
     
    “It’s a cat,” Max said. “That’s Clydesdale. Clyde, meet Brooklyn.”
     
    “Hello, Clyde,” I said.
     
    He blinked at me, wound his way in and out of my legs, then curled into a ball under the table.
     
    I had to concentrate on chopping herbs and not my fingers as I told him the story. “A few days ago, I got a call from Ian McCullough at the Covington Library. He had a book for me to restore for their new children’s wing. I drove over there Friday morning to pick up the book and was surprised to see it was a copy of
Beauty and the Beast
.”
     
    He stopped chopping and I noticed his grip on the knife was so tight, his hand was shaking. “Was it…” He shook his head and rolled his shoulders as if he were in a boxing ring, gearing up for a fight.
     
    “Yes, it was the book I gave you and Emily.”
     
    “So. She sold it.” He clamped his jaw shut, pressed his lips together. After a moment, he let out the breath he was holding and slowly continued his chopping.
     
    Men.
I rolled my eyes, then said, “No, Max, she didn’t sell the book.”
     
    His chopping stopped again and he flashed a suspicious frown at me, but said nothing.
     
    “It’s true,” I insisted. “Two weeks after you
died
, someone broke into Emily’s house and stole the book. It’s been missing for three years and it just resurfaced thisweek.”
Kind of like you did,
I thought, but didn’t say it out loud.
     
    “So…wait. I’m not following you. Explain