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"You know more than you're lettin' on, Bern."
"I know it's hard enough to make a living selling used books. It's impossible if you never open the store."
"There's a killer out there," he said. "Maybe that's somethin' you oughta remember. He killed the Colca
"So?"
"So we'll pick him up before too long. Meanwhile, there's that Colca
"I don't know what you're getting at."
"'Course you don't. Just a couple of suggestions. If you know who did the killin', or if you happen to get wind of it, I'm the person you tell. Got that?"
"Fair enough."
"I'd like to bag whoever did it. Crowe was a nice old gentleman. The two times I met him, we never had anythin' we could make stick, nothin' that even came close, but he was a gentleman all the same. What he was, he was generous." Free with a bribe, in other words. "And there's another thing."
"Oh?"
"There's money in this, Bern. I keep gettin' this sense of money, you know what I mean? I'd say I smell it, but that's not it because it ain't a smell, it's a feel in the air. You know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean."
"Like the feel right before it rains. So the thing is, Bern, if you're out there and it starts rainin' money, don't forget you got a partner."
CHAPTER Eleven
Carolyn came over around twelve-fifteen with a sack of carry-out from Mamoun's. We had a felafel sandwich apiece and split a side order of roasted peppers. They made a nice mint tea there and we each drank a container of it. The stuff comes with the sugar already in it, and that reminded Carolyn of the sugar hangover she'd had the day before, and that reminded her of Abel, and she wondered aloud what he was having for lunch, what sort of yummy good he was ingesting even as we spoke.
"He's not," I said.
"How do you know?"
"He's dead," I said, and while she sat staring at me I told her what I had learned from Ray Kirschma
She listened all the way through, her frown deepening all the while. When I'd finished, and after we had spent a few minutes telling each other what a fine man Abel was and how obscene it was that he'd been murdered, she asked me who did it.
"No idea."
"You think it was the same ones who murdered Wanda Colca
"I don't see how. The police don't suspect a link between the Colca
"Maybe that's the link."
"The coin?"
She nodded. "Twelve hours after we left it with him he was dead. Maybe someone killed him for it."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Who would even know he had it?"
"Somebody he was trying to sell it to."
I thought it over. "Maybe. Say he got up yesterday morning and called somebody to come over and have a look at the coin. Guy comes over, has a look, likes what he sees. More than that-one look and he knows he has to own the coin."
"But he can't afford it."
"Right. He can't afford it but he has to have it, and he gets carried away and picks up something heavy. Like what?"
"Who knows? A bookend, maybe."
A natural object for her to think of, given our surroundings. And, in those very surroundings, she had once picked up a bronze bust of Immanuel Kant which I'd been using as a bookend in the philosophy and religion section, only to bounce it off the skull of a murderer who'd been holding a gun on me at the time.
"Maybe a bookend," I agreed. "He gets carried away, brains Abel with the bookend, puts the 1913 V-Nickel in his pocket, and away he goes. And on his way he locks up after himself."
"Huh?"
"The doors were locked. Remember the police locks with the sliding bolts? The killer locked up after. Now I tend to do that after a burglary, picking the locks all over again, but who else do you know who does? And what passionate numismatist would think to do it, let alone have the ability?"
"Why wouldn't he just lock the door with Abel's keys?"
"Oh," I said.
"Did I say something wrong, Bern?"
"I would have thought of it myself sooner or later," I said sullenly. "In another minute I would have thought of it."
"It's just that you're not used to the idea of locking and unlocking doors with a key."
"Maybe."
"Anyway, it's interesting he thought of it. Most people would just get out of there and be satisfied with the lock that locks when you close the door."
"The spring lock."
"Right, the spring lock. But he must have wanted to keep the body from being discovered for as long as possible, and that mattered enough to him to make him take the trouble to find Abel's keys."
"Maybe he didn't have to look for them."
"Maybe. Even so-"
"Right," I said. "But so what? We still don't know anything much about him that we didn't know before we went through all this, except that he's reasonably clever and that he doesn't let a little thing like murder throw him off-stride. I can't see any reason to suspect either set of Colca
"And the ones who got there after we did?"
"The ones who killed Wanda Colca
"I guess they're out."
"I guess so. And I guess the cops'll have to work this one out for themselves, because I'm stumped. The best thing we've come up with so far is a homicidal numismatist who locks up after himself, and how many of those have you known in your life? I figure they're in the same category as hen's teeth and 1913 V-Nickels. I'm sorry he's dead, dammit. I liked him."
"So did I."
"And I'm sorry Wanda Colca
"I better get back myself. I got a dog to wash."
"Catch you later?"
"Sure."
Five hours later we were continuing our conversation at the Bum Rap, she with a martini, I with Scotch and water. I'd had a long slow afternoon, the store full of customers who browsed endlessly without buying anything. On days like that it's murder trying to keep up with the shoplifters, and I'm pretty sure a studious lank-haired young woman got away with a copy of Sartre's Being and Nothingness. If she reads it, I figure that's punishment enough.