TWENTY-ONE

Bea Dutton and Jill Gibson sat together at the farthest table from the reference desk, staring off in different directions, like two schoolkids in detention. I had used the landline to call Paul Battaglia, to tell him the latest developments and get his help with Commissioner Scully.

Mercer returned within minutes. “You’re growing quite a crowd outside, Mike.”

“Front steps?”

“The employees come in through the service entrance on Fortieth Street. Seems like most of them hadn’t heard any news reports about the body in the park.”

“Is the detail in place?”

“Yeah. Chief of d’s has everything covered. A fresh Crime Scene crew is unloading now. They should be in the lobby in five.”

Mike walked to where Bea and Jill were sitting. “Bea, I’m going to have a uniformed cop sitting here with you for the day. Just to make sure no one gets past the door and tries to come in.”

She smiled at him wanly. “You mean just so I don’t start doing my own treasure hunt, don’t you?”

“A little of both.”

“I’ve got an appointment-some engineers from the city due at eleven.”

“Why?”

“There’s a problem under the old Penn Station railroad tunnels. They need a footprint-a vertical search-before there’s any structural damage. It sounds pretty urgent.”

“What can you do for them?”

Bea Dutton explained. “I can search the particular property or plot of land back before the time of the Civil War, when maps of the city were created for insurance companies. You can see exactly what structures existed at any location over time, and what the topographical conditions are. There was flooding in the sub-basement of the Empire State Building last spring-”

“Flooding from what?” Mike asked.

“There’s a stream that cuts through the southwest quadrant of the building, way underground. It shows on the old maps, before midtown was built up. Because of all the snow last winter, the stream swelled with the spring melt and dumped six inches of water into that sub-basement. The engineers need to get into the train tunnels before the snowstorms start, to make sure they can prevent any potential for collapse.”

“And you can help them with that, Bea?”

“Like I said, the old maps give you a historical footprint of every inch of the city.”

“They’ll have to wait another day,” Mike said, rolling his eyes at her request as he walked back to the desk. “Give the guy a call and cancel your date. We may need you as we go along.”

“What did the DA say?” Mercer asked.

“Expect this place to be swarming with cops within the hour,” I said. “Between Scully and the mayor, we’ll have everything we need.”

“Let’s get moving,” Mike said to me. “Mercer, you mind going back out to get one of the rookies to babysit Bea?”

“Done.”

“Keep yourself busy, Bea, baby. Do me a historical footprint of Bryant Park. Where the murder was,” Mike said, trying to make her smile again, while he summoned Jill to the desk. “So where exactly was Tina Barr working when she was here?”

“Well, most recently she spent time upstairs in the reading room. And of course she had access to some of the special collections.”

“We’ve been upstairs, Jill. Which collections?” Mike was tapping his fingers on the countertop.

“I can’t be certain. We’ll have to talk with the curators.”

“How about the conservation laboratory?” I asked.

“Well, yes. Tina used to have access there, when she worked here.”

“Do all your employees?”

“Oh, no. It’s kept quite secure. Very few people have clearance to get in there.”

“Why?” Mike asked, heading for the door and waving at Jill and me to follow.

“It’s where the most fragile items in the library are taken for repair. They’re often left out on worktables overnight, with strict environmental controls. We’ve got only four conservators working in there, and a lot of expensive equipment.”

“Take us in,” Mike said, holding open the door.

“I-I can’t. If none of the conservators is inside, I’d have to have the code in my library identification tag to be swiped at the entrance. I’ve no reason to have one.”

“I’ve got Tina’s.” Mike reached into his jacket pocket and removed Barr’s ID-the one he had found with her body the night before. “Just lead the way.”

“That won’t work,” Jill said, clutching at her own plastic card dangling from the chain around her neck. “She was supposed to have surrendered it when she quit. It should have been deactivated.”

“Let’s give it a try.” Mike took out his cell and called Mercer. “We’re going down to the conservation lab. Before you come back in, check at the employees’ entrance, where all the staff is waiting. See if you can scoop up a conservator to give us a guided tour.”

Jill moved into the dark hallway and started a reluctant march to the far end of the building. Uniformed cops had taken up positions inside the front door and at the bottom of each of the grand staircases. We continued to the end of the corridor, and through an exit that led to steep steps down to the basement.

As we descended, I could see where the white marble and granite of the library foundation rested upon the actual rough red brick of the old reservoir walls, built almost two centuries ago.

If there were lights in the corridor, Jill didn’t know where the controls were, so we made our way slowly through this windowless subterranean maze. Metal trolleys and dollies were everywhere, parked on angles against the wall like dozens of abandoned cars. They were obviously used to transport books of every size, and could easily accommodate something larger.

Jill stopped in front of the double doors marked with the conservation lab sign. Mike raised Tina’s pass to the small electronic pad below the bell. As he moved it back and forth, the buzzer sounded, and Mike turned the knob to open the door.

Jill hesitated before stepping over the threshold and flipping on the light switch.

I followed her in and looked around. The grace and elegance of the library rooms above bore no resemblance to this workhorse in the underbelly of the building. Large tables, most covered with tools of all shapes and sizes, filled the center, and along the sides were smaller cubicles that appeared to be stations for the staff.

“Why does it smell so bad?”

“Chemicals, Mike. There are a lot of toxic materials used in this work. Solvents of all kinds, ammonium hydroxide-things that draw acids out of old paper. The students actually have to study organic chemistry before they’re accepted into a conservators’ program.”

Mike was snooping around all the machinery in the room.

“This was the library’s original bindery,” Jill said, pointing to an enormous wooden table straight ahead of us, “so when they have to repair the spine of an eighteenth-century rare book, they’ve still got to dissolve a block of animal glue. Hot animal glue, layers of it, from cattle, rabbits, tigers-more than a century’s worth-adds to the foul odor in here.”

The doorbell rang and Mike turned back to admit Mercer, who was accompanied by a young woman. She was slightly built, with auburn hair, and a long fringed scarf doubled around her neck.

“Good morning, Lucy,” Jill said. “You’ve met Mr. Wallace. This is Alex Cooper, from the DA’s Office, and Mike Chapman, another detective.”

“It’s true about Tina?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said, completing our introductions to Lucy Tannis.

“Why did you want to see me?”

“The detectives need to understand what goes on down here, and whatever you know about what Tina was working on.”

“Or who she was working with,” Mike said.

“I don’t know very much. It’s not like she confided in any of us.”

“Had you known her very long?”

Lucy shrugged. “A few years. There aren’t many of us trained in this field, Detective. The four of us who work here full-time, we’re a pretty tight-knit group. Spend most of our days together in this little hole below ground, which seems odd to most outsiders. But we get to touch some of the most exquisite works on paper ever created.”