“Well, dear, after the man is cuffed, come on down!”
From the day we’d moved in with Sadie, Spence wanted to do little more than watch old cop shows on Sadie’s new digital cable and stroke the marmalade-striped kitten she’d given him.
I loved the kitten, but I was worried about his watching so much television. On the other hand, Spence was still adjusting to a lot, so I saw no harm in indulging him a little—although this cop show obsession was truly peculiar. I couldn’t recall Spence ever having such an interest.
Then again, how would I have known? Calvin had refused to allow a television in any room of our apartment—he claimed it stressed his nerves, but then almost everything did, including Spencer himself.
You know the pathetic truth? The truth I’d never admit to anyone? Calvin Spencer McClure III had been a lousy father. But he’d been the only father Spence had known, and Spence missed him.
So when Spence came downstairs, the three of us brainstormed.
“ ‘Booked’ . . . ‘You’re Booked’ . . . ‘Central Booking’ . . .” I threw out, because our store specialized in mysteries.
“Why not just ‘By the Book’?” suggested Spencer, who’d just heard the phrase on Dragnet.
“That’s it! That’s perfect!” I said. “Only we’ll spell it ‘B-u-y.’ ”
“ ‘Buy the Book.’ ” Sadie shrugged. “Okay, whatever you think will help business, dear. But don’t help it too much. This town’s got parking problems, you know.”
(What Sadie actually said was “pahkin’ problems.” The “Roe Dyelin” accent is sometimes light, sometimes heavy, but pretty much incomprehensible when written out on paper. Car, pocket, pasta, meatballs, letter, chowder, and Europe would sound more like cah, parkit, pahster, meatbowls, letta, chowda, and Yerp. You’ll just have to trust me going with the conventional spellings on this one.)
So anyway, the hip new name on a hip new sign went up on the shop and the rest of the life insurance money went into a new beveled glass door, front window, and awning. Out went the ancient fluorescent ceiling fixtures and old metal shelves. In their place I put track lighting, an eclectic array of antique floor and table lamps, and oak bookcases.
I restored the chestnut-stained wood plank floor, and throughout the stacks, I scattered overstuffed armchairs and Shaker-style rockers to give customers the feeling of browsing through a New Englander’s private library.
Finally, I overhauled the inventory, keeping the store’s original rare book business but adding plenty of mysteries along with some New England travel guides and Yankee cookbooks.
I had hoped the BMWs, Jaguars, and Mercedes rocketing through Quindicott for gas fill-ups on their way to the resort towns of Cape Cod or Newport would pause to check out the “quaint”-looking mystery-themed bookshop. But they hadn’t.
Sadly, the years of economic booms and busts had taken their toll on “Old Q,” and many of the shops on Cranberry had become run down, not just our bookstore.
Empty storefronts didn’t help, either, and we had one right next door. People had taken to calling it “cursed,” not only for hosting the most “going out of business” sales in Quindicott, but also for being “haunted.” (Ridiculous, of course.)
Not yet ready to lie down and die, I decided what we needed were some well-publicized book-related events and the space to stage them. So I mortgaged Buy the Book to purchase the so-called cursed storefront adjoining ours, expanding the bookstore to its original size for the first time in fifty years.
Now Buy the Book occupied the entire freestanding stone building at 122. And, lord, was I proud!
Okay, so it was a huge financial risk. “Like betting on the horsies,” to quote Sadie exactly. But we hit it big right out of the gate because, for some reason, the legendary Timothy Brennan had chosen our little Quindicott shop to kick off his big national book tour, promoting Shield of Justice, the latest novel in his famous series.
Tonight was the make-or-break moment for Buy the Book, and I was determined to see that it came off without a hitch.
I BENT DOWN to adjust Spencer’s blue-and-silver striped tie, which seemed just slightly off center. As I wiggled the knot, Spencer stared at the ceiling and let his hands fall to his sides like a tiny Wall Street rag doll. It reminded me of a remark he’d made last Christmas to one of his little friends in the lobby of our building while Calvin, Spencer, and I waited for a cab to Lincoln Center: “Once my mother starts with the fixing, resistance is futile.”
“Now, Spencer, remember what we talked about,” I said as gently as possible. I was feeling bad enough for making him put on the suit and come downstairs.
“I’ll behave, Mother. I told you already.”
“No tricks.”
“I told you ten times. I did not do anything to the chairs.”
“I know, honey. I just can’t explain it otherwise.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t go blaming me just because you don’t have a perp to fit your profile.”
My eyebrow rose. Maybe Spence was watching too many of those TV cop shows. Well, I thought, at least it’s a sign he might one day show some interest in our store.
With a sigh, I brushed his copper bangs, made a note that they were getting long again, and nodded. When I’d first come downstairs, after showering and changing, I had found all the chairs in the community events space—the chairs I’d painstakingly arranged into rows rectilinear enough for a military parade ground—turned upside down.
I’d raced back upstairs to find Spencer watching an old Mike Hammer episode. My son had claimed innocence. So I went to find Sadie.
Once she’d put on her shoes and found her belt, she came downstairs with me to see “the deed for herself,” as she’d put it. Spencer had already gone downstairs to look, and we’d found him just standing there in the community events space, staring.
“Mom,” he’d said, “there’s nothing wrong with the chairs.”
In no more than five minutes, all the chairs had been righted again.
Now, a seven-year-old boy may have been able to turn over one hundred chairs upside down in forty-five minutes, I’d thought, but not in five.
“Do you think you imagined it?” Sadie had asked me.
“No. I did not,” I’d told her. “I know what I saw. And five minutes ago, those chairs were upside down.”
Sadie gave me a sidelong glance.
“I was not hallucinating.”
“Must be the ghost,” she’d said with a shrug.
“The ghost?” I’d said.
“Sure. Quite a few stories like yours over the years with this part of the building. Even the construction boys had some strange things happen, you have to admit.”
Okay, so during the renovations some of the workmen complained about vanishing tools and unexplained power surges. But I’d chalked all of it up to ancient wiring and maybe Spencer playing a practical joke with the hardware.
“Goes to show how gullible some of us can be,” I’d muttered, annoyed by the accelerated pounding of my stupid heart.
“Some say ghosts can affect your senses,” Sadie had pointed out. “Make you see things that aren’t there . . . see things the way they want you to see them.”
“Humbug” had been my muttered reply. “What are we? Cavewomen? We see lightning and right away think some sky god is angry at us?”
Sadie had just shrugged again. Then we’d searched the entire building for some intruder. But there’d been none. And the doors and windows had all been secure.
“No more ghost talk,” I’d told her when she gave me an annoyingly knowing look. “There is no ghost here. Some hand turned those chairs. Some human hand.”