When she said nothing further, Caleb added, “And I think I did reasonably well.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Do you really?”
Hours later Annabelle and Caleb sat back after watching the comings and goings in the reading room before and after DeHaven’s murder.
“It’s just the typical flow of traffic,” Caleb said. “There’s nothing there.”
Annabelle ran a tape over again. “Who’s that?”
“Kevin Philips. He’s the acting director after Jonathan died. He came down to ask me about Jonathan’s death. And there’s Oliver dressed as a German scholar.”
“Nice,” Annabelle said admiringly. “He carries it off very well.”
They looked through some more footage. Caleb pointed at one scene. “That’s when I got the notice about becoming Jonathan’s literary executor.” He stared at the screen more closely. “Am I really that chubby?” He pressed a hand to his stomach.
“Who gave you the notice?”
“Kevin Philips.”
Annabelle watched on the tape as Caleb stumbled and broke his glasses.
He said, “I’m not usually that clumsy. I wouldn’t have been able to read the damn thing if Jewell English hadn’t lent me her glasses.”
“Yeah, but why did she do a switch on you?”
“What?”
“She switched out the glasses she was wearing with another pair in her bag.” Annabelle rewound the tape. “See? It’s a pretty first-rate move, actually. She’d make a good mechanic . . . I mean, she’s very nimble-fingered.”
Caleb watched in surprise as Jewell English palmed the glasses she was wearing and drew out another pair from her bag. It was this pair she gave to Caleb.
“I don’t know, maybe that was a special pair. The ones she gave me worked well enough. I could read the message.”
“Who is this Jewell English?”
“Just an elderly lady who’s a book fanatic and reading room regular.”
“And she has hand moves like a Vegas blackjack dealer,” Annabelle pointed out. “I wonder why that is,” she added thoughtfully.
CHAPTER 50
STONE WAS SITTING IN HIS COT-tage thinking about his conversation with Marilyn Behan. If she was telling the truth, and he had no reason to think that the bitter woman wasn’t, then Stone had been wrong. Cornelius Behan hadn’t killed Jonathan DeHaven or Bob Bradley. However, he’d apparently stumbled on the method used to kill the unfortunate librarian and, in doing so, had prompted others to murder him. So who else benefited from DeHaven’s death? Or Bradley’s, for that matter? He desperately needed something to connect the dots.
“Oliver?”
He glanced up. Milton was standing in the doorway.
Milton said, “I knocked but no one came.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I was preoccupied.”
Milton carried his laptop as usual and a small briefcase. He put them both down on the desk and drew out a folder. “Here’s what I could find on Bradley’s staff.”
Stone took the papers and read through them carefully. There were numerous documents highlighting Bradley’s political career, including the House Intelligence Committee that he’d chaired for years.
“Bradley was a very capable politician, and he instituted many good reforms in the intelligence fields,” Milton said.
“Which maybe got him killed,” Stone commented. “Nice reward.”
Stone started going through the backgrounds and photos of both Bradley’s congressional office staff and his underlings on the intelligence committee. As soon as he finished, Annabelle and Caleb arrived. Stone told them and Milton about his encounter with Marilyn Behan.
“Well, that certainly kills the theory about Behan’s involvement in Jonathan’s death,” Caleb said.
“Appears so,” Stone said. “What did you two find out today with the tapes?”
“Well, our initial hunch that we might see someone coming in or out of the vault that might be helpful didn’t play out. But we did find something else that might be very important.” Annabelle explained about the sleight of hand pulled by Jewell English.
“But where does the murdered Bob Bradley figure into all this?” she asked. “You said you thought that was connected.”
“We know that Bradley was killed by a bullet from a rifle fired through a window in another building. Behan died in the exact same way. That can’t be a coincidence. Indeed, it could very well be the exact same killer. Professional assassins like to use the same method of killing because they become so proficient at it. It reduces the chances of an error in the assignment.”
“You sound like you know a lot about that sort of thing,” Annabelle said.
He smiled innocently. “As Caleb can tell you, I’m a
voracious reader