Brennan also revealed he planned to write his next and last book as a nonfiction investigation into Jack Shepard’s last unsolved case.
“Pen! Can . . . you . . . believe . . . this?!”
I was standing behind the counter next to Sadie, helping her ring up and bag. The Staties had let us reopen at one o’clock, and three hours later, Linda Cooper-Logan was jumping up and down in front of me, trying to lift her head of short, spiky blond hair above the crush of customers crowding the Buy the Book checkout area.
“Linda, what are you doing here?” I called. “Doesn’t Milner need you at the bakery?”
“Closed—an hour ago!”
“Why?”
“Sold . . . everything!”
“For heaven’s sake, Linda, come around the counter.” I lifted the hinged section of heavy oak and shouted into the crowd: “Let this woman through, please!”
Outside, the cobblestone streets of Quindicott were jammed with cars, and Buy the Book’s aisles were packed with customers. I still would have been guessing the reason why if Seymour Tarnish, our mailman (and the biggest local celebrity since his recent win on Jeopardy), hadn’t stopped by to inform us that a tiny Associated Press side-bar about Buy the Book—which included news of inflated bidding on eBay for copies of Shield of Justice purchased at our store—was being featured beside Brennan’s New York Times obituary on one of the most visited of World Wide Web addresses, the Drudge Report.
According to Seymour, local radio stations had started discussing the death of Brennan, the bidding for the books—and our store. This explained the crowds descending, along with local television camera crews looking to interview me and Sadie.
“I brought you all the last of Milner’s five-nut tarts,” said Linda, holding the pastry box high as she swam through the jostling bodies and lunged behind the counter. “I thought you might be hungry over here.”
“Excuse me!” a loud voice called. “Do you have any more copies of Shield of Justice? The display is empty.”
“Empty!” cried a chorus of horrified voices as a new crowd pushed through the front door.
“Keep your pants on, people!” called Sadie. “We have plenty of copies—”
“I have some! I have some!” Spencer called, hurrying toward the front of the store, his arms filled with jacketed hardcovers.
For hours, my son had been helping us behind the counter. Just ten minutes ago he’d taken his first break—to visit the rest room. Obviously, he’d decided to make a side trip to the stockroom. He set down the stack of books and began placing them into the empty display like a seasoned floor manager.
Someone reached over his head to snag a copy.
“Guess they don’t have child labor laws in Rhode Island,” a middle-aged man near the register quipped to his companion.
Lawyer joke. Ha-ha.
“Whoever is driving a black BMW convertible with Connecticut plates, please move it. You’re blocking my SUV!” shouted a woman through the front door.
Spencer appeared at my side, his face flushed. “The display was filled,” he said excitedly, “but it’s going to be empty real soon. I’ll have to bring out more books.”
I handed him a tart from the Cooper Family Bakery box. “Honey, go upstairs, pour a glass of milk, and take a break, okay?”
“I’ll get some milk, but then I’m coming right back down!” he replied. “You need me. I’m your official stamper, you know!”
“I know, honey, but I don’t want you to get too tired,” I said, remembering how sensitive his father had been to any form of exertion.
Calvin never could endure any sort of tension for long. He said hard work was too upsetting for him. Stomach-churning. No way to live. Of course, Calvin had ultimately decided living itself was no way to live, either.
“I’ll be right back. I’m not tired at all.” Then, nut tart raised high, he parted the crowd, announcing, “Don’t worry, folks. We have plenty of copies of that Shield book!”
The transformation from indifferent kid to dedicated bookseller seemed nothing short of miraculous to me.
“He looks happy for once,” said Linda.
“It’s simple,” said Sadie. “Being needed is the best medicine, and right now we need all the help we can get.”
“Ab-sh-o-lulley!” I garbled around the nut tart, stuffed into my cheeks like a famished squirrel.
“Milner says if we have a few more days like this, we can finally afford that new awning,” said Linda as Sadie and I continued to ring up and bag the customers’ purchases.
“It’s entirely possible,” I said. “Sadie and I gave three television interviews so far today.”
“Ohmygod, we’re rich,” said Linda. “Your store’s put Quindicott on the map!”
“Well, tell that to our favorite councilwoman,” I said.
“The Municipal Zoning Witch? Why?” asked Linda.
“She stopped by this morning, primarily to threaten us,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Sadie. “Pinkie was in rare form. She predicted our author appearance fiasco last night would turn the town’s economic clock backward.”
“Well, I never knew this town had an economic clock,” said Linda. “But if it does, I’d say you two set it to running on fast forward. Franzetti’s Pizza and Sam’s Seafood Shack is jammed. The gas station has a line around the block, Colleen’s turning away manicure customers, and Seymour’s ice cream truck looks like a mosh pit.”
“A mosh what?” asked Sadie.
“It’s kind of like when bobby-soxers used to rush the stage at a Sinatra concert,” Linda explained.
“Geez, Louise, you don’t have to go back that far,” said Sadie. “An Elvis analogy would have sufficed.”
“Speaking of mosh pits,” I said, “we’re going to be in the middle of one ourselves if we don’t get more books on the floor.”
“I’ll go,” said Sadie. “Linda, you take over Spencer’s place? Pen can ring up the purchases.”
“Hey, whoever works here!” called a male voice near the floor display. “Your Brennan display is almost empty again!”
Sadie flipped up the hinged counter. “Well, as that Statie detective put it this morning, looks like death is good for business.”
“Okay,” said Linda, “put me to work. What was Spence doing, anyway?”
“Stamping and bagging,” I said.
“Bagging I’ve heard of, but what the heck is ‘stamping’?”
“It’s simple,” I said, slapping the rubber stamper into her hand. As I spoke, I rang up another sale: four copies of Shield of Justice, the latest Janet Evanovich, and a book from our out-of-print section, one of the first U.S. editions of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express—published by Dodd, Mead in 1934 as Murder in the Calais Coach. (I was gratified to see customers buying other titles in addition to Brennan’s book.)
I handed the purchases to Linda, opening the Shield of Justice cover, and pointed.
“Oh, I see!” said Linda as she pressed the stamper down. The ink branded the inside front cover with a simple seaclass="underline" an open book surrounded by a magnifying glass and the words propErtY OF BUY THE BOOK. “Oooo! Nice touch,” she said.
“Spence was the one who thought of it,” I said, ringing up the next customer. “When we first opened today, this nice, soft-spoken gentleman asked for a book plate from the store—he wanted some way to mark the book as having been purchased here. And Spence remembered how we rubber-stamp our incoming cartons—so he stamped the man’s book personally.