Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

Lock on the remote control. Venturing closer, I studied the books stored inside the sturdy boxlike shelf.
    “Ah,” I whispered, charmed by the set of twelve
Little House
books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I pulled one out at random to examine its condition.
Little House in the Big Woods
. The dust jacket was still in good repair with no tearing, although there were some light stains. Stains weren’t unusual when it came to the covers of children’s books.
    I opened the book to check the copyright page. It stated that the book was a first edition, followed by the letters
F—B.
I’d seen this type of code before in small-press books. The first letter,
F
, indicated the month the book was printed and the second letter,
B
, indicated the year. So if January was represented by
A
, a book with
F
would have been printed in June.
    Figuring out the year was trickier, since it was anyone’s guess what year represented the letter
A
. But judging by the book itself, the style of the drawings, and the font used for the titles, I would have guessed it was printed during the 1930s or ’40s. And if that was accurate, then the book was in excellent condition. I checked the other titles and they all appeared to be in good to excellent condition, as well.
    What a delightful little find. I wondered if the rest of the shelves hanging from the ceiling held complete collections. Only one way to find out. I pressed Ascend onthe remote and sent the Laura Ingalls Wilder collection back up to its place just beneath the ceiling, then pressed Lock.
    This was kind of fun. I found the button for the second shelf and hit Descend, lowering the next shelf.
    The books here were more of an eclectic blend, with a few old, well-read copies of
Tom Sawyer
and
Huckleberry Finn
, some mismatched Earnest Hemingways, and a number of philosophy tomes that had been nicely bound in matching black leather with red-and-gold gilding on the spines. The bindings had been commissioned by a book club, so while they were pretty, they weren’t exceptionally rare or valuable.
    I sent that shelf back up, then lowered the third shelf. It had reached eye level when a huge black creature flung itself at me.
    “Eeeeek!” I screamed, and covered my face with my hands. “Oh, dear God.”
    What was that? I didn’t want to know. I curled up and shuddered in fear that it would attack again.
    “Mrreow.”
    I flinched at the sound, then had to rub away the second layer of goose bumps that had cropped up on my arms. It took a few long seconds to catch my breath, but I finally summoned the nerve to look down.
    It was the black cat, looking very handsome as it sat on the carpet near my feet. “You’re not exactly huge, but you scared the hell out of me. You know that?”
    I could’ve sworn he looked up at me and grinned.
    I was just thankful that my room was far enough away from the other guests’ rooms so nobody heard my pitiful squealing.
    “Hello, Leroy,” I said, bending down to stroke his long, black coat. “You scared the bejeezus out of me. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed quite that loud before.”
    “Meow,” he purred, and rubbed his head against my ankles.
    “I suppose you’re proud about that.”
    He wasn’t exactly the gigantic hobgoblin I’d envisioned, but given my reaction, he probably imagined himself a formidable fiend capable of bringing grown women to their knees.
    I glanced at the ceiling. “How did you climb up there?”
    “Meow.”
    “Hmm.” I guess he wasn’t ready to confess his secrets to me. But, obviously, cats knew how to get from here to there a lot easier than we humans did. “Were you the one making noise in here last night? I’ll bet you were. Do you know that you woke me up?”
    We stared at each other for another long moment. Leroy seemed amused by my one-sided conversation.
    “I’m going to the library now,” I announced. “Feel free to join me.”
    An hour later, Leroy and I were still in the library. I had given the books from my room to Nathan first thing, and told him about the other ones I’d found in the ceiling shelves. He assured me that he would check them out later. I warned him that the cat liked to hide up there, too.
    “Leroy likes to hide in strange places,” Nathan said, smiling as he bent down to scratch the cat’s neck.
    Nathan had set up shop at one of two antique rolltop desks placed at opposite ends of the spacious library. His laptop was set up in the center of the desk and notebooks and