The Books of the Dead by Emilia Bernhard

Author:Emilia Bernhard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I can’t believe he said no!” Magda sat on Rachel’s sofa with her arms crossed.

“You said that all the way home, but you didn’t tell me why he said it.” Rachel spoke from the kitchen area, where she was making them both gin and tonics. After Boussicault’s call she had been too excited, and Magda too irritated, to be able to focus anymore on looking for Jean Bernard. Instead they had come straight to Rachel apartment. So she did have something to thank the capitaine for after all, she reflected as she whacked an ice cube tray against the countertop.

“Oh, he said the interview room was too small to fit four people comfortably.” Magda’s tone said she considered this an obvious lie. “You’re going to have to tell me every single thing.” She took the glass from Rachel. “In fact, you can start by telling me exactly what he said to you on the phone. What was this about saliva?”

Rachel sat in the chair across from her. “The coroner found saliva on Giles’s neck, and on Laurent’s.”

“Saliva? The murderer licked him?”

“Or drooled on him, I guess. From the exertion, maybe?”

“Who drooled on whom from exertion?” Alan had appeared behind Rachel, still wearing his suit. He put his keys down on the counter.

“Oh, hey. We don’t know; that’s the point. I was just telling Magda that Boussicault told me the coroner found saliva on Giles Morel and Guy Laurent’s necks.”

“You’re talking to Boussicault again?” Alan had heard all about the second meeting in the capitaine’s office.

“Well, he called me.”

“To tell you someone drooled on a corpse’s neck?” He sat down in an available chair.

“I was thinking they spat on it. On them.”

“Maybe the murderer has a thing for bodily fluids,” Magda said. “That could explain why they killed in a bathroom.”

“But not why they killed in the library stacks,” Rachel pointed out. “Although … I remember reading somewhere that dust is sixty percent dead skin. So if they had a thing for bodily waste—”

“They’d also have to have a thing for librarians.” Alan broke in. “Bodily waste, necks, and librarians. That’s one picky killer.”

Despite herself, Rachel laughed. Magda, however, kept a straight face. “How would you explain the saliva?”

“I wouldn’t. And neither would you, I thought. I thought Boussicault told you you weren’t needed anymore.”

“He did.” Rachel nodded. “But he also told me I could sit in on the second round of witness interviews, remember? He just called to tell me when they are.”

“Which is?”

“Day after tomorrow. Which means we get a day off from trying to track down Jean Bernard.”

“Who’s Jean Bernard?”

Too late, Rachel remembered that she hadn’t told Alan about their search. She took a breath to prepare herself, but Magda got there first.

“Jean Bernard is the name of a man who was in the reading room on Tuesday and on Wednesday morning,” Magda said. She didn’t look at Rachel. “The Bibliothèque found his request slips, but he’d left by the time the police arrived, and Boussicault said

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