Chapter 10 #3
The room is the size of a large closet that has developed aspirations.
It occupies what might have been a storage room attached to the side of the bookshop, accessible via its own street-facing door, and every inch of it has been deployed with the thoroughness of someone who has strong opinions about how a space should feel and the commitment to execute those opinions completely.
Bookshelves line every wall that isn’t a window or a door, floor to ceiling, the books arranged not by any system I can identify but clearly by some internal logic that makes sense to Margaret Finch.
Novels, reference books, what appears to be an extensive collection of true crime, and—taking up an entire shelf—a row of identical forest green journals that have years written on their spines in silver marker going back to 1987.
Thirty-nine years of journals.
A desk occupies the center of the room with the authority of something that has been in that exact position for decades and intends to remain there.
It is buried, not in mess, but in organized accumulation.
Files, folders, a magnifying glass on a stand, a cup of something that steams gently, and a lamp with a rose-colored shade that throws the whole room in warm pink light.
On the desk, facing the door, a small brass nameplate reads: MARGARET ELEANOR FINCH.
And behind the desk, looking at me over the top of a pair of very round spectacles, is Margaret Eleanor Finch herself.
She is approximately eighty years old and approximately five feet tall.
She has the white hair of someone who has made peace with time and the sharp eyes of someone who has not made peace with anything else.
She’s wearing a cardigan the color of moss, a string of amber beads, and an expression of polite expectation.
A large orange cat occupies a velvet cushion on the corner of the desk and regards me with the disdain of someone whose opinion of strangers begins at dismissal and proceeds from there.
“Sit down,” Margaret Finch says pleasantly. “You’re letting the cool air out.”
I close the door. I sit.
The chair across from the desk is deep and upholstered in something that was once green and has become something more complex with age.
A small side table holds a plate of what appear to be homemade shortbreads and a second cup, already poured, which tells me she either expected company or keeps a spare cup on hand.
I suspect the latter. Unless it belongs to the cat.
“Tea?” she asks.
“Sure,” I reply.
She pushes the cup toward me without getting up, the reach of someone who knows every inch of their desk. “You’re the young woman everyone’s talking about,” she says, returning to whatever she was writing before I arrived.
I look at her.
“Don’t look alarmed,” she says. “Everyone talks about everyone in Sweetwater Valley. It’s the primary industry.
” She turns a page. “You’ve been here four days, you’re working Tristan’s stall, you’re staying at Doris Harrow’s, and you’re involved with the Calloway pack, good for you, they’ve needed someone to keep them interesting.
” She looks up over her spectacles. “How am I doing?”
“Disturbingly well.”
“I’ve been doing discreet inquiries in this valley for thirty-nine years.
” She closes her file. “Very little is actually discreet. People just think it is.” She folds her hands on the desk, small hands, precise, with the slightly ink-stained fingers of someone who writes constantly. “Now. What can I do for you?”
I study her for a moment. This is the calculation I run on everyone, the threat-assessment version. What does this person want, what will they do with what I give them, where is the loyalty and where is the gap in it?
Margaret Finch looks back at me through her round spectacles with the patience of someone who has had this calculation run on her before and finds it mildly entertaining.
“How discreet?” I ask.
“Professionally discreet,” she says. “Which is different from personally discreet. Personally, I am extremely curious about everything. Professionally, I have not in thirty-nine years told anyone anything that wasn’t theirs to know.
” She pauses. “The green journals,” she adds, gesturing at the shelf.
“Every case since 1987. Every one sealed. I’ll burn them before I die rather than leave them for someone to rifle through. ”
I look at the shelf of journals. Thirty-nine years of other people’s secrets, kept.
“I need someone found,” I say.
“Location or identity?” she asks, already reaching for a fresh journal from a drawer.
“Identity confirmed, location maybe.” I breathe.
“His name is Daniel. I have a first name only. He attended a gallery opening in the city approximately five months ago. Tall, quiet, careful manner, dark hair going gray at the temples. Possibly connected to financial crime which is organized and technical, the kind that requires infrastructure rather than opportunism.”
Her pen is moving before I finish the sentence.
“Connection to you?” she asks.
“Indirect. He has a connection to someone I used to know. A woman named Amber O’Connor.” I pause. “They may have been in a business arrangement. Or a coercive one. I’m not entirely certain of the nature of it.”
“And you need to find Daniel because…?”
“Because he framed me for a bank robbery,” I reply, unflinching. “Using my former best friend as the mechanism.”
The pen stops. Margaret Finch looks up at me over her spectacles. She meets my gaze for a long moment. It’s not the startled look of someone who has heard something unexpected, but the focused look of someone who has just received information that reclassifies a situation.
“I see,” she says.
“I’m not asking you to do anything illegal. I’m asking you to find out who he is. Full name, background, known associates, financial connections. Anything that pulls enough weight that I can clear my name.”
“And what you do with that information is your business.”
“And my lawyer’s,” I reply. “Yes.”
She looks at me for another moment. Then she writes something in the journal. “Gallery opening. Five months ago. City… which city?”
I tell her. She writes it down.
“Amber O’Connor,” she says. “Spelled?”
I spell it.
“The bank?”