Homicide in Hardcover Read online

  Homicide in Hardcover

  Kate Carlisle

  murder is always a bestseller…

  first in the new bibliophile mystery series!

  The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration.

  With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless – and supposedly cursed – copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

  Brooklyn suddenly finds herself accused of murder and theft, thanks to the humorless – but attractive – British security officer who finds her kneeling over the body. Now she has to read the clues left behind by her mentor if she is going to restore justice.

  Kate Carlisle

  Homicide in Hardcover

  The first book in the Bibliophile Mystery series, 2009

  To Don, who always believed this day would come

  Acknowledgments

  As this is my first book, I owe a debt of gratitude to so many people I can’t begin to name, but please indulge me as I mention a special few.

  My agents, Christina Hogrebe and Kelly Harms of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, for great advice, wonderful enthusiasm, and consummate skill at guiding this new author along the bumpy path to publication. And thanks to my editor, Kristen Weber, whose positive energy calmed all fears and helped make my book shine. Thank you as well to NAL’s art department for creating the most beautiful cover ever.

  Maureen Child for your friendship, love, honesty, and support, and Susan Mallery for your wisdom, encouragement, and excellent taste in wine. I am deeply grateful to call you my dear friends and fellow plotters, and I can never thank you enough for all that you’ve given me.

  Muchas gracias to the remarkable writers who make up the Romance Bandits (http://romancebandits.blogspot.com), whose collective wit, kindness, and dedication to the cause have made this journey so exciting. I am also grateful to Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime for opening doors and providing opportunities to develop friendships and gather knowledge.

  Thanks to master bookbinder Bruce Levy, who first introduced me to the art of bookbinding, and to the San Francisco Center for the Book and bookbinding expert Ann Lindsey for giving me the skills and knowledge necessary to create beautiful books using classic nineteenth-century methods. Also, many thanks to book artist Wendy Poma for teaching me so many different binding techniques, all in one afternoon. Any mistakes with regard to these methods and techniques are my own.

  Finally, I am profoundly indebted to my wonderful family-my husband, mother, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and outlaws-for your love, support, and enduring humor. I swear, any resemblance between you and the characters within these pages is purely coincidental.

  Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.

  – Paul Valéry

  Chapter 1

  My teacher always told me that in order to save a patient you’d have to kill him first. Not the most child-friendly way of explaining his theory of book restoration to his eight-year-old apprentice, but it worked. I grew up determined to save them all.

  As I studied the faded, brittle, leather-bound volume that lay near death on the worktable before me, I knew I could bring it back to life, too. But it wouldn’t be easy. With six hundred pages of crusty, smelly pulp, the book’s once-elegant, gilded spine was nearly severed from its body.

  “Sorry, old thing, but I’m not letting you die on my watch.” I dusted its hinges with a soft brush, then ran a finger along the spine. It came away covered in red powder. Red rot had set in. The leather binding was terminal.

  I picked up my scalpel and pierced the frail calfskin along the aged brown hinge, extricating the bits of thready sinew still clinging to the sticky bits of leather.

  Despite my mother’s misgivings, I was grateful I’d bypassed medical school, because let’s face it, if this book were human, I’d be drenched in blood up to my elbows and probably unconscious. I didn’t do so well around blood.

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. “That’s disgusting!”

  I flinched and the scalpel flew from my hand. I looked up and saw my best friend, Robin Tully, staring at the flaky leather chunks and moldy paper splayed across the table.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, patting my heart.

  “Apparently not,” she said as she retrieved the scalpel off the floor and placed it safely on the table. “A bomb could go off and you wouldn’t notice.”

  I ignored that, jumped off the high stool and grabbed her in a tight hug. “You’re early, aren’t you?”

  She checked her watch. “Actually, I’m right on time, which I suppose is early in your world.”

  I smiled, then held up my camera. “Do you mind? I need another few minutes to map and shoot this stuff.”

  “Procrastinate all you want. I’m in no hurry.” She pulled off her fuzzy black jacket and fluffed her hair.

  “I’m not procrastinating.” I took several close-up shots of the decomposing front foredge, then looked up and caught Robin’s look of profound pity. “What?”

  She held up her hands. “I said nothing.”

  “I can hear you judging me.” I put the camera down and grabbed a handful of chocolate-swirled caramel kisses, a product I personally considered a miracle of modern technology. I popped a few pieces into my mouth, tried to enjoy the warm burst of flavors, but finally threw my hands up in defeat. “Okay, I’m procrastinating. Can you blame me? I could be walking into a trap tonight.”

  She laughed. “We’re going to the library, not sneaking down a dark alley.”

  “I know it.” I scowled. Tonight was a private showing of the most important book collection to open at the Covington Library in years. And the man being honored tonight, the man responsible for the restoration of the rare antiquarian books on exhibit, was Abraham Karastovsky, my lifelong teacher and mentor.

  And nemesis?

  I didn’t know. We hadn’t spoken in six months and I was frankly nervous about seeing him after being estranged for so long.

  Six months ago, after years of indecision, I’d finally given Abraham notice that I’d be moving out from under his shadow to start my own business. He hadn’t taken the news well. He’d never been good at accepting change. He was old school, settled in his ways, determined to fight the modern trends in both book restoration and life in general. When I went off to college to study book restoration and conservation, he declared it was a useless waste of time and I’d learn more on the job, working with him.

  Despite his gruff ways it had been a difficult decision to leave him, even though I’d essentially been working independently for years. Abraham had been furious and had said some things I hoped he might regret now.

  What would happen when we met face-to-face again? Would he treat me like an enemy? Cut me off without a word? Ridicule me in front of friends and colleagues? I was beyond worried. Could anyone blame me for procrastinating?

  “He sent you an invitation,” Robin said. “That proves he wants to see you. He’s not the best communicator, but he loves you, Brooklyn. You know that.”

  I felt tears spring up and I prayed she was right. It was both comforting and annoying to know she usually was.

  We’d been best friends since the age of seven, when my parents joined a spiritual commune up in the wine country north of San Francisco. My mom and dad had dragged me and my five young siblings off to experience the excitement of growing our own vegetables, wearing clothing made of hemp and sharing in the harmony and oneness of nature. I did not go quietly.
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br />   When we arrived at the commune, the first person I noticed among the crowd of strangers was a dark-haired girl about my age, defiantly clutching a bald-headed Barbie doll clad in a red satin dress and black stiletto heels. That was Robin. We bonded immediately, despite the fact that we were opposites in so many ways.

  These days Robin comes across as a glamorous, carefree society girl. You’d never guess she runs her own tour and travel business and is also a brilliant sculptor. She is a curvy brunette with almond eyes and an uncanny ability to cause men to wander off side-walks into oncoming traffic.

  I, on the other hand, am serious, blond, tall, still barely out of my gangly stage and occasionally have men ask me about my revolutionary technique for stretching leather. Sounds kinky but sadly, it’s not.

  I was wearing a somber yet elegant black suit while Robin looked simply smashing, all dressed up for a splashy art opening in a sassy cocktail dress and spiky black heels, her only accessory a classic strand of pearls she’d inherited from her great-grandmother.

  Unfortunately, we weren’t going to a splashy art opening.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” I asked, carefully removing my dust-covered lab coat. Tonight’s private showing for the Covington Library Founders’ Circle would be a quiet affair attended by the library trustees, past and present donors, the board of directors and the wealthiest members of San Francisco society.

  “Hey, there may be nothing but wall-to-wall old farts tonight, but I’m still there to par-tay.”

  “Ah.” I hung the lab coat up in the small closet near the front door. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten where we’re going.”

  “How could I forget?” she said, steering clear of the table, which was covered with brittle hunks of leather and swollen manuscript pages. “Abraham called me again this afternoon to make sure I was coming tonight. He was almost hyperventilating, he was so excited.”

  “He’s been calling you?” I felt a tug of resentment that Abraham had contacted her. But why wouldn’t he? He’d been a commune member as long as Robin and I had lived there. We were all very close, but I’d always been his favorite. Now I didn’t know what I was to him.

  “He never used to call me,” Robin pointed out. “I figure it’s his way of keeping tabs on you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And he never asks directly about you, but I always end up talking more about you than me. Go figure.”

  I refused to get my hopes up. “So, he’s anxious about tonight?”

  “Frantic would be a more accurate word,” she said, as she sat down at my desk. “I guess one of the most important books in the show isn’t finished yet.”

  “The Faust,” I murmured. It was all I could do to keep the woefully bitter jealousy that was yapping inside me from creeping into my voice. “I hear it’s really something.”

  That might’ve been the understatement of the year.

  Here I sat, toiling away on a set of lovely but anonymous old medical treatises, while Abraham had snagged the dream commission of the century-the legendary Heinrich Winslow collection of rare antiquarian books and prints.

  The Winslow book collection was considered one of the finest in the world, and the crowning glory was said to be a jewel-encrusted, gilded edition of Goethe’s masterwork, Faust, commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1880.

  And it was cursed.

  Some attributed the curse to the fact that it had briefly belonged to Adolf Hitler, who apparently had little appreciation for books-no big surprise. Der Führer had passed the priceless Faust on to Heinrich Winslow’s wife as a token gift for a dinner party thrown in his honor.

  Shortly after that fateful dinner, Heinrich Winslow was poisoned and died a gruesome death. The books were distributed among the Winslow brothers, and several other family members died after taking the Faust into their homes. No wonder they thought it was cursed.

  Nobody loved a good book curse more than I did. I was so jealous of Abraham that I could barely think straight.

  “Hallooo? Brooklyn? I come with food?”

  My eyes lit up as a pretty young Indian woman poked her head inside the doorway.

  “Hey, Vinnie, come on in,” I said.

  Her torn 501s and clunky biker-chick boots belied her chirpy voice and delicate features as she walked in carrying a shopping bag stuffed with little white cartons. “I don’t wish to interrupt but Suzie and I agreed you would like our leftover Chinese food. This is true?”

  “God, yes,” I said, practically drooling as the tempting scent of orange chicken and beef with broccoli sauce wafted my way. I turned to Robin. “Vinnie’s one of my neighbors.” To Vinnie I said, “This is my friend Robin.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Robin said.

  Vinnie bowed her head. “I am Vinamra Patel, but please call me Vinnie.”

  Vinnie and her girlfriend, Suzie Stein, lived in a loft down the hall from me. They were wood sculptors and animal activists. Until I moved here, I’d never actually seen two chain-saw-wielding lesbians go to town on a three-hundred-pound hunk of redwood burl. It was impressive.

  “This is really sweet, Vinnie,” I said, staring into the stuffed shopping bag. “Thanks.”

  “We leave tonight for the Sierra Festival and didn’t want to throw food away,” she explained to Robin. “It will not go to waste here.”

  Robin shot me a look. “They know you so well.”

  My eyes narrowed. “They’re attentive neighbors.”

  “She is a good little eater,” Vinnie said with a soft smile. “I will put this in the kitchen.” She disappeared down the hall that led to my living area.

  Robin laughed. “No wonder you love this place.”

  She also knew me well. Yes, I liked to eat. A lot. I wasn’t picky. I loved everything. Especially chocolate. And pizza. Oh, and red meat. I loved a good steak. I blamed it on my parents and the two-year “vegan phase” they’d foisted on me and my siblings during our formative years. I still had the emotional scars and enjoyed reminding them of the pain whenever they lit up the barbecue grill.

  “Everything is in the fridge,” Vinnie said in her singsong voice as she handed me a cluster of keys. Her eyes widened as she noticed the lumpy shards of leather and paper on my table. “This is your new work?”

  “Yes,” I said proudly.

  Her gaze darted to Robin and her forehead creased in distaste. “It is… very nice.”

  Robin snorted. “You mean ‘It’s a pile of rancid crap’?”

  Vinnie nodded. “As you say.”

  “Thanks so much for the food, Vinnie,” I said, shaking the key ring. “You and Suzie enjoy the art festival. I’ll take good care of Pookie and Splinters.”

  Vinnie didn’t seem concerned about the fate of her cats. She just stared at the decrepit book parts as if she were hypnotized or something.

  I jiggled the keys again and she blinked. “You are most kind to attend to our darlings.” Then she bowed one last time and took off.

  Robin’s brown eyes sparkled with amusement. “She left you in charge of her pets?”

  “I can handle two cats for three days.”

  She laughed. “Famous last words from the woman with the largest plot at the commune pet cemetery.”

  “That’s not fair.” I grimaced. “I had goldfish. Goldfish always die.”

  “Come on. They banned you from the pet store.”

  “Shut up, please.” I grabbed my purse. “Let’s go.”

  She glanced down at my feet and her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You can take the girl out of the commune…”

  “Oh dear.” I kicked off my comfy sandals and slid into the pair of black pumps I’d left by the door. “Better?”

  “Marginally.”

  “Such a bitch.”

  She laughed as she opened the door. “Okay, I love the suit and the heels are definitely an improvement. But I can’t believe you still wear Birkenstocks.”

  “Just when I’m working.” I sighed. “It’s like my feet are molded t
o their shape.”

  Robin snorted delicately. “Like a geisha, only not.”

  “Sad but true.” I turned off the light. “But for Abraham, I’ll bite the bullet and wear heels.”

  “Don’t worry; you look great,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s just going to die when he sees you.”

  Chapter 2

  If I hadn’t already decided by the age of eight to work with books, my first visit to the Covington Library would’ve sealed the deal.

  The stately Italianate mansion with its museum and lovely gardens dominated two square blocks at the top of Pacific Heights. Walking through the immense iron doors of the Covington was like entering a Gothic cathedral. You could almost hear the secrets of the universe being whispered by the spirits that inhabited the massive, mahogany-lined room and all the books that sat within its walls.

  There was magic here. Whether or not anyone walking inside would admit to a belief in the sacredness of the room, they would instinctively speak in hushed tones as they wound their way through the various rooms and exhibits.

  The Covington Library collection was one of the largest and finest in the world. It boasted twelve of Shakespeare’s folios on permanent display, as well as Walt Whitman’s letters and one of the first Gutenberg Bibles. There were shimmering illuminations painted by medieval monks, sixteenth-century correspondence between Queen Elizabeth I and the third earl of Covington, and printed accounts of explorers from Christopher Columbus onward.

  Those items shared space with rare first editions of works by Mary Shelley, Hans Christian Andersen, Agatha Christie and Henry David Thoreau. Faulkner, Hemingway and Kingsley Amis shared space with John Lennon’s drawings, Stephen King’s rejection letters, Kurt Cobain’s diaries and an amazing collection of vintage baseball cards. The Covington collection was diverse and often quirky to say the least. To me, that was a major part of its appeal.