Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

“But he didn’t answer the phone,” Gamay said. “If he isn’t in his office, he wouldn’t leave the door unlocked. And that is suspicious.”

They walked the length of the five-hundred-foot-long building, eventually coming to another door. This one was locked. Continuing on around a corner of the building, they came upon the black cast-iron fire escape that zigzagged up to the top floor.

They climbed it and tried the door at each landing, but all were locked.

Paul jabbed the doorjamb on the top floor with his car key. The wood was soft with rot. He took a step back and threw his shoulder against the door, felt it give, and slammed it a few more times until the latch ripped out of the jamb. Gamay produced a small halogen flashlight from her handbag, and they stepped inside.

Their footfalls echoed as they walked across the dust-layered floor. The vast space where workers once tended hundreds of looms was as still as a tomb. They headed toward the far end of the room, where light was seeping under a door, and eventually came to a drywall partition. Cartons were stacked against it. BRIMMER was written in ink on the boxes.

Paul picked up a two-by-four from a pile of debris, hefting it like a baseball bat, and whispered to Gamay to knock on the door. She did, softly. When there was no answer, she stepped aside, and he did his battering-ram imitation again. The door popped open at first nudge.

The floor was littered with books and papers from the shelves, now empty, that lined the office. Sheets of paper hung from strings stretched across the room. The light visible outside through the window came from a goosenecked desk lamp on a table that also supported a computer, a small artist’s drafting board elevated at the back, and Brimmer’s body. The antiquities dealer was sprawled facedown, his hand stretched out toward a cell phone several inches from his fingertips. The back of his suit was perforated with a single bullet hole and stained red.

Paul put his fingers to the artery in the dealer’s neck.

“Now we know why Brimmer didn’t answer the phone,” he said.

Gamay bent over the drafting board, which held a half-finished document written in ornate script. Next to it were some antique calligraphy pens and a bottle of ink. She read aloud a handwritten note on a sheet of paper next to an open book:

“Call me Ishmael . . .”

“The opening sentence from Moby-Dick?” Paul asked.

Gamay nodded.

“It appears our Mr. Brimmer was forging manuscript pages from Melville,” she said.

“Could that type of thing get him killed?” Paul asked.

“Rachael Dobbs would be my first suspect. But it was more likely that someone didn’t want him using the phone.”

Paul slid a piece of paper under Brimmer’s cell and flipped it over so the display screen showed.

“He was calling the police,” he said. “He got as far as 91 . . .”

“I think we can conclude that Brimmer was forced to come here,” she said. “He would never have let anyone into his forgery workshop otherwise. And, judging from the mess on the floor, I’d say they were looking for something.”

“The 1848 logbook?”

“As Holmes would say, eliminate the impossible and you have the possible.”

“His body is still warm, Ms. Holmes. What does that tell you?”

“That we had better be on our toes,” she said. “And the murderer knew we were coming to see Brimmer.”

“Doesn’t that seem far-fetched?” he asked.

Gamay pointed to the corpse.

“Tell Mr. Brimmer that it’s far-fetched.”

“Okay,” Paul said with a tight smile. “You’ve convinced me.”

Paul put his finger to his lips and opened a door opposite the one they had come through. He stepped out onto a landing, edged over to the railing, and looked down the stairs. He saw a tiny orange glow and smelled cigarette smoke rising up the shaft. He backed up into the office, shut the door quietly, and turned the lock.

He picked up Brimmer’s cell phone, punched in the second 1 to complete the emergency call. When the police dispatcher answered, Paul said his name was Brimmer, gave the address, and said somebody was prowling around in the building. He suspected they were armed and dangerous.

Paul hung up and put the phone back in Brimmer’s lifeless fingers.