One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

they each went away to different colleges.
     
    While at Stanford, Austin met Ian and brought him home for Thanksgiving dinner. That was how Ian and I met, way back when. I was long over Max by then and started dating Ian, who made me laugh and shared my love of books and art and Monty Python movies. Our relationship got serious for a minute or so when Ian proposed marriage, but it didn’t take long for us to realize we weren’t meant for each other. Happily, we’d remained close friends and book-world colleagues.
     
    Ian had recently proven correct my decision to end our engagement by coming out of the closet. But that was a whole other story.
     
    I walked around the table and over to the window. “You know about Guru Bob and how he first got Abraham to hire me as an apprentice, right?”
     
    “Of course. You were just a kid, right?” Ian said.
     
    “Right. So back then, it was—”
     
    “Wait a minute,” Ian interjected. “Do I need to hearthe entire history of the world or can you skip to the good parts?”
     
    “I promise I’ll keep it as short as I can. So, anyway, Guru Bob did the same thing for Max, asking Abraham to mentor him.”
     
    “I thought Max worked with paper.”
     
    “He did.” I gave Ian the abbreviated history. Max had been helping out Abraham Karastovsky at the same time I was working as his official apprentice. My little heart would go pitter-patter whenever Max came into the studio. I would dream of him and me bookbinding our way to our very own happily-ever-after.
     
    Sadly, though, Max didn’t care much for bookbinding; he was always more interested in the paper itself than in the binding procedures. So instead of helping with binding books, he began to experiment with all sorts of different papermaking techniques.
     
    “It was all good, because Max’s talent with paper fit right in with Guru Bob’s master plan for Dharma,” I said. “Guru Bob wanted to revive as many of the ancient guild crafts as possible, thinking that our finely crafted products would provide income for the fellowship to stay afloat into the future.”
     
    Ian laughed. “And planting a few thousand grapevines didn’t hurt, either.”
     
    “No kidding.” Guru Bob had hedged his bets early on by suggesting that his followers plant grapes across the commune property, adding more acreage over the years. Our vineyards and renowned winery had made the members wealthy beyond even Guru Bob’s expectations. But it was still nice to walk into the boutique shops along Dharma’s Shakespeare Lane and see our members’ artwork and beautifully handmade crafts on display.
     
    “Meanwhile, Guru Bob had seen the level of artistry in Max’s work and suggested that he go to art school.”
     
    So he did. And in the small world of papermaking, Max became a rock star, complete with groupies and an entourage. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and dark andruggedly built, or that he brought his own brash, avant-garde style to the quiet art of making paper, thus catching the attention of everyone in the book arts universe. Some compared him to his hero, Dard Hunter, the legendary papermaker and printer, though Max insisted he could never be that good.
     
    Max ended up teaching at the prestigious Sonoma Institute of the Arts, just a few miles south of Dharma. His acolytes enrolled by the dozens to study at the feet of the master. He gave lectures all over the country and hordes of groupies followed him from city to city, from lecture to art exhibit to papermaking demonstration.
     
    “It was unbelievable,” I said, still a bit awestruck after all these years. “I went to some of his lectures and saw the fanatical adoration for myself. The truly amazing part was that Max seemed unfazed by the attention.”
     
    “That’s all really fascinating, Brooklyn,” Ian said dryly, “but where does this copy of
Beauty and the Beast
come in?”
     
    “I’m getting there,” I groused, even though I could’ve regaled him with another hour’s worth of ancient history. “So the year before he died, Max met and fell in love with a woman, a young schoolteacher, Emily Branigan.”
     
    “Ah, a woman,” Ian said, nodding astutely. “That always spells trouble.”
     
    “Very funny,” I said, backhanding him in the arm.
     
    He chuckled. “Knew you’d like that one. So, what happened?”
     
    “Max had recently broken up with this really bizarre woman who also taught at the institute.” I had to think