The Book Thing Read online

  But when Crow put on the Ergo and shouldered their baby to his chest, the world melted, or at least the female half did. So he stood in the bookstore the next Saturday morning, trying to be polite to the cooing women around him, even as he waited to see if he would observe something similar to what Tess had seen the week before. Once again, Tate arrived when story hour was in full swing, six boxes on his hand truck.

  No dropped box, Crow reported via text.

  Damn, Tess thought. Maybe he was smart enough to vary the days, despite Mona’s conviction that the thefts had been concentrated on Saturdays. Maybe she was deluded, maybe —

  Her phone pinged again. Taking one box with him. Says it was on cart by mistake. I didn’t see anything, tho. He’s good.

  Tess was on her bike, which she had decided was her best bet for following someone in North Baltimore on a Saturday. A delivery guy, even an off-brand one working the weekends, had to make frequent stops, right? She counted on being able to keep up with him. And she did, as he moved through his route, although she almost ran down Walking Man near the Baltimore Museum of Art. Still, she was flying along, watching him unload boxes at stop after stop until she realized the flaw in her plan: How could she know which box was the box from the Children’s Bookstore?

  She sighed, resigned to donating yet another Saturday to The Children’s Bookstore.

  And another and another and another. The next four Saturdays went by without any incidents. Tate showed up, delivered his boxes, made no mistakes, dropped nothing. Yet, throughout the week, customer requests would point out missing volumes—books listed as in-stock in the computer, yet nowhere to be found in the store.

  By the fifth Saturday, the Christmas rush appeared to be on and the store was even more chaotic when Tate arrived—and dropped a box in one of the store’s remote corners, one that could never be seen from the cash register or the story-time alcove on the converted sun porch. Tess, out on the street on her bike, ready to ride, watched it unfold via Facetime on Crow’s phone, which he was holding at hip level. The action suddenly blurred—Mona, taken into Tess’s confidence, had rushed forward try and help Tate. Tate brushed her away, but not before Carla Scout’s sippee cup somehow fell on the box, the lid bouncing off and releasing a torrent of red juice, enough to leave a visible splotch on the box’s side, an image that Crow captured and forwarded in a text. Tess, across the street, watched as he loaded it, noted the placement of the large stain.

  It was a long, cold afternoon, with no respite for Tess as she followed the truck. No time to grab so much as a cup of coffee, and she wouldn’t have risked drinking anything because that could have forced her to search out a bathroom.

  It was coming up on four o’clock, the wintry light beginning to weaken, when Tate headed up one of the most notorious hills in the residential neighborhood of Roland Park, not far from where Tess lived. She would have loved to wait at the bottom, but how could she know where he made the delivery? She gave him a five-minute head start, hoping that Tate, like most Baltimore drivers, simply didn’t see cyclists.

  His truck was parked outside a rambling Victorian, perhaps one of the old summer houses built when people would travel a mere five to fifteen miles to escape the closed-in heat of downtown Baltimore. Yet this house, on a street full of million-dollar houses, did not appear to be holding its end up. Cedar shingles had dropped off as if the house were molting, the roof was inexpertly patched in places, and the chimney looked like a liability suit waiting to happen. The delivery truck idled in the driveway, Tate still in the driver’s seat. Tess crouched by her wheel in a driveway three houses down, pretending to be engaged in a repair. Eventually, a man came out, but not from the house. He had been inside the stable at the head of the driveway. Most such outbuildings in the neighborhood had been converted to new uses or torn down, but this one appeared to have been untouched. A light burned inside, but that was all Tess could glimpse before the doors rolled shut again.

  That man looks familiar, she thought, as she had thought about Tate the first time she saw him. Is he famous or do I know him?

  The man who walked to the end of the driveway, she realized, was Walking Man. No backpack, but it was clearly him, his shoulders rounding even farther forward without their usual counterweight. He shook the driver’s hand and Tess realized why she thought she had seen Tate before—he was a handsomer, younger version of Walking Man.

  Tate handed Walking Man the box with the red stain. No money changed hands. Nothing changed hands. But even in the dim light, the stain was evident. The man took the box into the old stable and muscled the doors back into place.

  Tess was faced with a choice, one she hadn’t anticipated. She could follow Tate and confront him, figuring that he had the most to lose. His job was on the line. But she couldn’t prove he was guilty of theft until she looked inside the box. If she followed Tate, the books could be gone before she returned and she wouldn’t be able to prove anything. She had to see what was inside that box.

  She texted Crow, told him what she was going to do and walked up the driveway without waiting for his reply, which she supposed would urge caution, or tell her to call the police. But it was only a box of books from a children’s bookstore. How high could the stakes be?

  She knocked on the stable door. Minutes passed. She knocked again.

  “I saw you,” she said to the dusk, to herself, possibly to the man inside. “I know you’re in there.”

  Another minute or so passed, a very long time to stand outside as darkness encroached and the cold deepened. But, eventually, the door was rolled open.

  “I don’t know you,” Walking Man said in the flat affect of a child.

  “My name is Tess Monaghan and I sort of know you. You’re the—”

  She stopped herself just in time. Walking Man didn’t know he was Walking Man. She realized, somewhat belatedly, that he had not boiled his existence down to one quirk. Whoever he was, he didn’t define himself as Walking Man. He had a life, a history. Perhaps a sad and gloomy one, based on these surroundings and his compulsive, constant hiking, but he was not, in his head or mirror, a man who did nothing but walk around North Baltimore.

  Or was he?

  “I’ve seen you around. I don’t live far from here. We’re practically neighbors.”

  He stared at her oddly, said nothing. His arm was braced against the frame of the door—she could not enter without pushing past him. She sensed he wouldn’t like that kind of contact, that he was not used to being touched. She remembered how quickly he had whirled around the day she rolled her stroller up on his heels. But unlike most people, who would turn toward the person who had jostled them, he moved away.

  “May I come in?”

  He dropped his arm and she took that as an invitation—and also as a sign that he believed himself to have nothing to fear. He wasn’t acting like someone who felt guilty, or in the wrong. Then again, he didn’t know that she had followed the books here.

  The juice-stained box sat on a work table, illuminated by an overhead light strung from the ceiling on a long cable. Tess walked over to the box, careful not to turn her back to Walking Man, wishing she had a name for him other than Walking Man, but he had not offered his name when she gave hers.

  “May I?” she said, indicating the box, picking up a box cutter next to it, but only because she didn’t want him to be able to pick it up.

  “It’s mine,” he said.

  She looked at the label. The address was for this house. Cover, should the ruse be discovered? “William Kemper. Is that you?”

  “Yes.” His manner was odd, off. Then again, she was the one who had shown up at his home and demanded to inspect a box addressed to him. Perhaps he thought she was just another quirky Baltimorean. Perhaps he had a reductive name for her, too. Nosy Woman.

  “Why don’t you open it?”

  He stepped forward and did. There were at least a dozen books, all picture books, all clearly new. He inspected them carefully.

&nb
sp; “These are pretty good,” he said.

  “Good for what?”

  He looked at her as if she were quite daft. “My work.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Create.”

  “The man who brought you the books …”

  “My younger brother, Tate. He brings me books. He says he knows a place that gives them away free.”

  “These look brand-new.”

  He shrugged, uninterested in the observation.

  Tess tried again. “Why does your brother bring you books?”

  “He said it was better for him to bring them, than for me to get them myself.”

  Tess again remembered bumping into Walking Man on Twenty-Fifth Street, the hard thwack of his knapsack, so solid it almost left a bruise.

  “But you still sometimes get them for yourself, don’t you?”

  It took him a while to formulate a reply. A dishonest person would have been thinking up a lie all along. An average person would have been considering the pros and cons of lying. William Kemper was just very deliberate with his words.

  “Sometimes. Only when they need me.”

  “Books need you?”

  “Books need to breathe after a while. They wait so long. They wait and they wait, closed in. You can tell that no one has read them in a very long time. Or even opened them.”

  “So you ‘liberate’ them? Is that your work?”

  Walking Man—William—turned away from her and began sorting through the books his brother had brought. He was through with her, or wanted to be.

  “These books weren’t being neglected. Or ignored.”

  “No, but they’re the only kind of books that Tate knows how to get. He thinks it’s all about pictures. I don’t want to tell them they’re not quite right. I make do with what he brings, and supplement when I have to.” He sighed, the sigh of an older brother used to a sibling’s screw-ups. Tess had to think that Tate had done his share of sighing, too

  “William—were you away for a while?”

  “Yes,” he said, flipping the pages, studying the pictures, his mind not really on her or their conversation.

  “Did you go to prison?”

  “They said it wasn’t.” Flip, flip, flip. “At any rate, I got to come home. Eventually.”

  “When?”

  “Two winters ago.” It seemed an odd way to phrase it, pseudo-Native American stuff, affected. But for a walking man, the seasons probably mattered more.

  “And this is your house?”

  “Mine and Tate’s. As long as we can pay the taxes. Which is about all we can do. Pay the taxes.”

  Tess didn’t doubt that. Even a ramshackle pile in this neighborhood would have a tax bill of at least $15,000, maybe $20,000 per year. But did he actually live in the house? Her eyes now accustomed to the gloom, she realized the stable had been converted to an apartment of sorts. There was a cot, a makeshift kitchen with a hot plate, a mini fridge, a radio. A bathroom wasn’t evident, but William’s appearance would indicate that he had a way to keep himself and his clothes clean.

  Then she noticed what was missing: Books. Except for the ones that had just arrived, there were no books in evidence.

  “Where are the books, William?”

  “There,” he said, after a moment of confusion. Whatever his official condition, he was very literal.

  “No, I mean the others. There are others, right?”

  “In the house.”

  “May I see them?”

  “It’s almost dark.”

  “So?”

  “That means turning on the lights.”

  “Doesn’t the house have lights?”

  “We have an account. Tate said we should keep the utilities, because otherwise the neighbors will complain, say it’s dangerous. Water, gas and electric. But we don’t use them, except for the washer-dryer and for showers. If it gets really cold, I can stay in the house, but even with the heat on, it’s still cold. It’s so big. The main thing is to keep it nice enough so no one can complain.”

  He looked exhausted from such a relatively long speech. Tess could tell that her mere presence was stressful to him. But it didn’t seem to be the stress of discovery. He wasn’t fearful. Other people made him anxious in general. Perhaps that was another reason that Walking Man kept walking. No one could catch up to him and start a conversation.

  “I’d like to see the books, William.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I—represent some of the people who used to own them.”

  “They didn’t love them.”

  “Perhaps.” There didn’t seem to be any point in arguing with William. “I’d like to see them.”

  From the outside, Tess had not appreciated how large the house was, how deep into the lot it was built. Even by the standards of the neighborhood, it was enormous, taking up almost every inch of level land on the lot. There was more land still, but it was a long, precipitous slope. They were high here, with a commanding view of the city and the nearby highway. William took her through the rear door, which led into an ordinary, somewhat old-fashioned laundry room with appliances that appeared to be at least ten to fifteen years old.

  “The neighbors might call the police,” William said, his tone fretful. “Just seeing a light.”

  “Because they think the house is vacant?”

  “Because they would do anything to get us out. Any excuse to call attention to us. Tate says it’s important not to let them do that.”

  He led her through the kitchen, the lights still off. Again, out-of-date, but ordinary and clean, if a bit dusty from disuse. Now they were in a long shadowy hall closed off by French doors, which led to a huge room. William opened these and they entered a multi-windowed room, still dark, but not as dark as the hallway.

  “The ballroom. Although we never had any balls that I know of,” he said.

  A ballroom. This was truly one of the grand old mansions of Roland Park.

  “But where are the books, William?” Tess asked.

  He blinked, surprised. “Oh, I guess you need more light. I thought the lights from the other houses would be enough.” He flipped a switch and the light from overhead chandeliers filled the room. Yet the room was quite empty.

  “The books, William. Where are they?”

  “All around you.”

  And it was only then that Tess realized that what appeared to be an unusual, slapdash wallpaper was made from pages—pages and pages and pages of books. Some were only text, but at some point during the massive project—the ceilings had to be at least 20, possibly 30 feet high—the children’s books began to appear. Tess stepped closer to inspect what he had done. She didn’t have a craft-y bone in her body, but it appeared to be similar to some kind of decoupage—there was definitely a sealant over the pages. But it wasn’t UV protected because there were sun streaks on the wall that faced south and caught the most light.

  She looked down and realized he had done the same thing with the floor, or started to; part of the original parquet floor was still in evidence.

  “Is the whole house like this?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “It’s a big house.”

  “But William—these books, they’re not yours. You’ve destroyed them.”

  “How?” he said. “You can still read them. The pages are in order. I’m letting them live. They were dying, inside their covers, on shelves. No one was looking at them. Now they’re open forever, always ready to be read.”

  “But no one can see them here either,” she said.

  “I can. You can.”

  “William is my half-brother,” Tate Kemper told Tess a few days later, over lunch in the Paper Moon Diner, a North Baltimore spot that was a kind of shrine to old toys. “He’s fifteen years older than I am. He was institutionalized for a while. Then our grandfather, our father’s father, agreed to pay for his care, set him up with an aide, in a little apartment not far from here. He left us the house in his will and his third wife got everything e
lse. My mom and I never had money, so it’s not a big deal to me. But our dad was still rich when William was young, so no one worried about how he would take care of himself when he was an adult.”

  “If you sold the house, you could easily pay for William’s care, at least for a time.”

  “Yes, even in a bad market, even with the antiquated systems and old appliances, it probably would go for almost a million. But William begged me to keep it, to let him try living alone. He said grandfather was the only person who was ever nice to him and he was right. His mother is dead and our father is a shit, gone from both of our lives, disinherited by his own father. So I let William move into the stable. It was several months before I realized what he was doing.”

  “But he’d done it before, no?”

  Tate nodded. “Yes, he was caught stealing books years ago. Several times. We began to worry he was going to run afoul of some repeat offenders law, so grandfather offered to pay for psychiatric care as part of a plea bargain. Then, when he got out, the aide watched him, kept him out of trouble. But once he had access to grandfather’s house …” He shook his head, sighing in the same way William had sighed.

  “How many books have you stolen for him?”

  “Fifty, a hundred. I tried to spread it out to several places, but the other owners are, well, a little sharper than Octavia.”

  No, they’re just not smitten with you, Tess wanted to say.

  “Could you make restitution?”

  “Over time. But what good would it do? William will just steal more. I’m stuck. Besides …” Tate looked defiant, proud. “I think what he’s doing is kind of beautiful.”

  Tess didn’t disagree. “The thing is, if something happens to you—if you get caught, or lose your job—you’re both screwed. You can’t go on like this. And you have to make restitution to Octavia. Do it anonymously, through me, whatever you can afford. Then I’ll show you how William can get all the books he needs, for free.”