His face was red and he looked like he was ready to spit at his sister.

“She wanted the extra work. She didn’t enjoy it here. This is more like a mausoleum than a library. I was doing her a favor, Minerva. Can you understand that?”

“How far did you go, Tally? That’s all I asked.”

“It’s not what you think,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“You were sleeping with her, weren’t you?”

“Stop it!” he shouted at Minerva. “Don’t be such a fool.”

“A fool to figure it out, or to say it in front of the detectives?”

I’d only seen Tina Barr in the immediate aftermath of her first victimization. It was hard to think of the distraught young woman as anyone’s paramour.

Talbot Hunt started toward the foyer.

“Didn’t figure she was your type, Mr. Hunt,” Mike said, following him. “So what kind of favor did you do for her? How long did your affair go on?”

Hunt stopped long enough to say, “Hardly an affair, Detective. Tina came on to me, that’s all it was. She was lonely-and, well…things happened.”

“I get lonely myself, Mr. Hunt. Doesn’t mean I crawl into bed with the first weasel that comes along,” Mike said. “What kind of things? Did you and she have a sexual relationship?”

He looked past Mike at Minerva, his teeth clenched.

“I won’t tell Josie,” Minerva said. “You must understand, Mr. Chapman, he’s terrified of his wife. He’s already given her far too much stake in Hunt properties, and she dangles that over his head like a sword.”

“Did you sleep with Tina Barr in the bedroom of your apartment?” Mercer asked. “Where you kept the book?”

Hunt took too long to think. The answer must have been yes.

“But where was your wife?” Mike asked.

“One of the cats must have his tongue, Detective. Josie spends most of her weekends in Millbrook. Tally’s to the manor born, of course. And she’s to the barn born-but to the manor well-adjusted. Loves living the grand country life there.”

Mercer stepped closer to Talbot Hunt, pressing Mike’s arm to encourage him to move away. “We need to have this information, sir. Did Tina Barr know about the psalm book?”

“Of course she did. She’s a-she was a very accomplished conservator. It interested her as much as anyone else in our world.”

“Were you intimate with her?”

They were face-to-face, ten steps away from Minerva and me, in the darkened foyer.

“Yes, Mr. Wallace, I was.”

“We’re going to need to know when that relationship started and when it ended.”

“I told you that it wasn’t a relationship. I’ll try to give you any specifics I remember.”

“Did she spend time in the bedroom of your apartment?”

“Yes, Mr. Wallace. Are you through humiliating me? Yes, she did.”

“Did she have a key to your apartment?”

“Of course. She was doing work there for me. I trusted her with my entire collection. Why wouldn’t I give her a key?”

Mercer’s voice seemed to get lower with every question he asked. “Did she know where the drawer was, the one in which you locked the book when you left town?”

Talbot Hunt paused for several seconds. “I-I guess she might have. It’s possible she saw me fetch it from the bureau after a weekend away.”

Minerva turned away, reached for a small silver bell on one of the tables, and rang it. “I think I need a drink.”

“My sister, the virgin queen. Hard to take criticism on this subject from you.”

Mercer tried to keep Talbot focused on Tina Barr. “After you realized the book was missing, did you talk about it with Tina?”

No wonder he hadn’t called the police. He’d first have to explain the probable suspect to his wife.

“I’m really not sure. I must have mentioned it to her.”

Minerva was more incredulous than I was. She didn’t let the appearance of the butler interfere with her response. He stood silently and waited for her order. “How could you not have known, Tally? I don’t even spend time at the library, but I know that she’d lost their trust, too.”

At my first meeting in Battaglia’s office with Jill Gibson, Pat McKinney had called Tina Barr a forger-and a thief.

“A vodka gimlet,” Minerva said.

“Now, madam? At this hour?”

“Now, Bailey. Right now,” Minerva said. “If you didn’t know it, Tally, then you’re the last one in town. The girl shared a bed with the master thief, too, before he got caught. Tina Barr used to run with Eddy Forbes.”

TWENTY-NINE

“If you don’t feed me,” Mike said, “I’m going to put some mustard on my shoe and eat it. Then I might start on your toes.”

It was midafternoon, and the list of things we had to do and people we had to find and interview continued to grow.

“That’s about as dysfunctional a family unit as I can imagine,” Mercer said, shaking his head. “All the money in the world and the two cats are probably the only living things Hunt can trust.”

“Coop’s starving me. I can’t even think, man.”

“Let’s not waste time on a meal. Pull up in front of P. J. Bernstein’s,” I said, referring to my favorite Upper East Side deli. “I’ll hop out and get sandwiches while you call the feds and get an address on Eddy Forbes.”

“Make it two turkey clubs for me, a bag of chips, a cream soda, and you got a deal. Mercer?”

“Ham and provolone on rye toast.”

We were less than five minutes away from the Third Avenue classic deli. Mike double-parked while I ran in and placed my order with the counterman.

“What do you know?” I asked as I climbed into the back seat.

“The lieutenant just called. They had to let Billy Schultz go. His alibi for last night held up just fine. Three other guys working late with him. That’s the bad news.”

“What’s the good?”

“His office is less than ten blocks away from the library. Think they need to work those alibi witnesses a little harder.”

“I still don’t like his DNA in the mask from the first break-in at Barr’s apartment,” I said. “His explanation strikes me as weird.”

“I told you the lab said it’s a mixture, Coop. Enough saliva there to get another profile-it just doesn’t match anyone in the databank.” Mike had spread a napkin across his lap, holding half a sandwich in his right hand as he navigated uptown again with his left.

“Tell her what Peterson said about the phone call,” Mercer said.

“Traces back to a booth on the corner of Sixth Avenue and the Deuce.”

“So this creep lurked around the library and watched until Tina’s body was found-and about to be bagged-and then dialed up her cell?”

“We’re dealing with a freaky-deaky guy, in case you hadn’t figured that,” Mike said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “C’mon, girl, you still gotta eat.”

“The whole damn crew is freaky,” Mercer said. “You got a sister-brother act that’s as ugly as anything in Greek mythology, a too-nosy neighbor whose DNA winds up in an important piece of crime scene evidence, a one-armed guy who lives in the chapel of an old cancer hospital, a library executive who lied to Alex the first time they met, the most successful map thief in recent times now on parole, and a young turk with books bound in human skin who was so anxious to be wheels-up that-”

“I’ll be wheels-up his ass if he neglected to tell us about his visit to Jasper Hunt,” Mike said. “And this dead girl-may she rest in peace-gets more complicated by the hour. What was she doing in bed with Talbot Hunt? And Eddy Forbes?”

“What did you learn about Forbes?”

“Sentenced to only three years, over the objection of just about every library director in the galaxy. Got out seven months ago, with some time off for good behavior. Reports to his parole officer in Maine every week.”

“Didn’t he ever live in the city?”

“Yeah, in Chelsea, but he lost his lease when he went to jail. The feds seized all his books, maps, papers. They’re still in the process of trying to match up the stolen things with libraries that haven’t even missed them yet.”