Page 79 of Killer on the First Page
She swept into I Only Read Murder, with Andrew and Ned scurrying to keep up.
On hearing the jingle of the front door opening, Edgar, who was ensconced behind a stack of mis-alphabetized books, shouted, “We’renot open today.” Then, on seeing it was Miranda charging in, followed by Andrew and the Chief of Police, he said, “Oh. Didn’t realize it was you.”
“We’re closed?” said Miranda.
“Not by choice. Entire joint is crawling with feds, as they might say in a Kane Hamady hard-boil.”
The bookstore was indeed busy with detectives from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Oregon State Police and white-clad forensic investigators from Portland’s Investigative Support Unit, who were coming and going like extras on a movie set.
Before she got any ideas, Ned said, “Miranda, this a crime scene investigation. You can’t interfere.”
“Can’t I?” she said, arching an eyebrow perfectly. “Or can’t Inotnot interfere?”
While Ned—and Edgar—attempted to untangle the byzantine syntax of Miranda Logic, she stood scanning the disheveled shelves of the main room. Edgar had emptied some of the shelves, tackled others haphazardly as he tried to untangle the similarly complex syntax of Miranda’s organizational approach to authors’ names.
“Drat! You shouldn’t have moved the books around, Edgar. You’ve covered up one of the key clues.”
“I had no choice, seeing as how you’d reorganized our entire inventory according to your own inscrutable whim.”
“Kane Hamady’s books. The covers were facing out before.”
“Because he turned them that way. Remember?”
“Oh, I do. As I said, it’s the crux of the case. Kane Hamady kept compulsively rearranging his books, did he not?”
Edgar, dryly: “Yeah, turning them around so they were face-out, an author’s magic trick to push their books onto theNew York Timesbestseller list.”
“Any author worth their salt can spy one of their books from a hundred paces across a crowded room. That’s what you said. Across a crowded room—or tucked in behind a door. Or lying open on the floor, I imagine. Authors zero in on their own works. Their own covers draw them in like a moth to a flame, like an actress to a waiting audience.”
Ned could almost see where she was going with this. “Meaning?”
“The toothpick! Don’t you see, Ned? Kane Hamady was never in the basement. His toothpick was. The grate in the floor of the reading room is covered by air ducts below. These ducts are made of tin, too weak and too narrow for anyone to climb through, and the heavy floor grate above was painted shut. The grate never moved. But surely the tray directly below it can slide aside. Otherwise, how would you sweep it clear of dust?”
“Melvin is the guy who cleans the furnace and ducts,” said Edgar, and Ned nodded.
Andrew, who was still bewildered by Happy Rock after all this time, said, his voice agog, “Melvin Jacobson runs a manure supply/tour companyandfurnace cleaning service?”
“And bakery,” said Edgar. “Don’t forget the bakery. Those shortbread cookies he sells at the farmers market, the ones with the distinct tang.”
“It’s not the cookies but the cleaning I am interested in,” said Miranda. “Ned, get his Royal Pungency down here at once!”
* * *
HE ENTERED ONa waft of pheromones, with a John Travolta strut, to the rhythm of “Staying Alive,” snapping business cards left and right the way a magician might show you the jack of diamonds or the king of hearts, a gangly kid in a retro 1980s ski jacket (retro because he had pulled it out of the dumpster behind the Duchess Hotel).The dumbfounded investigators he passed in the hall accepted his card before they fully processed what was happening.
Melvin “J” (as he liked to be known) gave Miranda a wink and a nod. Fresh out of high school, he’d once played her love interest in the Happy Rock amateur theater production ofDeath Is the Dickens, which he assumed had created an eternal bond between them. It hadn’t.
With a satisfied smile, he looked around the interior of the bookstore. “Ah yes. The Sieve, we call her. This building leaks heat like it was made of Swiss cheese, furnace constantly straining. You know, when the time comes, I also install new furnaces.”
Always trying to upsell, this guy.
“The ducts and grates in the floor,” Miranda said. “You clean those?”
He did indeed. He emptied the dust trays under the grates as part of his Super Elite™ Service.
Edgar: “I signed up for thesuperelite service?”
Melvin: “Yup. Your signature is on the form, so it’s too late now. It’s why I tightened the light bulbs and checked your wall sockets for obstructions. Part of the service.”
