The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

‘OK, let’s hear it.’

‘Michael figured out who Austin’s killer was, so the killer had to put him down, too, to save his own hide.’ He paused, his brow furrowing. ‘Except if Michael did figure out who killed his kid brother, he would have been so grateful he wouldn’t have said a word to anyone. Then again, the killer wouldn’t necessarily have known that, would he?’ The old man scratched his tufty white head, befuddled. ‘OK, now I understand it.’

‘Understand what, Mr MacGowan?’

‘Why that homicide detective needs your help.’

The Hardy Boys finished their donuts and coffee, wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands.

‘We better get back to work,’ Gas said.

‘Thanks for the donuts, Mr MacGowan,’ Tony said.

‘Any time, fellows.’ He sat there watching them as they went back to painting the storm windows, in no hurry to move himself.

I helped myself to another donut, gazing at a hawk that was circling overhead in search of its breakfast. I immediately flashed on standing with Colin Fielding at Michael Talmadge’s mountain-top lookout watching that other hawk swoop down, pick up that rabbit and fly away with it, the rabbit’s paws flailing helplessly. I was certain I would never forget that moment for the rest of my life.

‘Planning to stick around?’ Mr MacGowan asked me.

‘The doctor wants me to stay off of the highway for a few more days. Figured I’d head back Sunday so I can get back to work bright and early Monday morning.’

‘Will you be OK here by yourself?’

‘I’ll be fine, thanks. That doesn’t mean I won’t miss Merilee.’

Lulu let out a low grumble.

‘We won’t miss Merilee.

‘Well, sure you will. Heck, I miss her myself when she’s not here. She’s like a ray of sunshine.’ He ran a hand over his jowly face. ‘But what if nothing has happened?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Will you still go back to New York on Sunday even if they haven’t caught the killer yet?’

‘Not to worry. This case will be cracked wide open by then.’

‘You sound awful confident for a man who has staples in his head.’

‘I do, don’t I?’ I watched Gas pass one of the heavy storm windows to Tony up on the ladder. Tony took it from him, hung it from its latches and tapped it gently but firmly into place. ‘The Hardy Boys are doing a nice job.’

‘They’re solid workmen, and they’ve got that good, hard yellow pine to work with. You’ve got to have good material. Doesn’t matter how much skill you have if you’re working with crap.’ He gazed admiringly at the farmhouse. ‘They don’t build ’em like this anymore. Why, it’s been standing here more than two hundred and fifty years. You think those vinyl-sided Lego toys they’re putting up now will still be here in two hundred and fifty years? I think not.’ He turned and peered at me. ‘You already know who it is, don’t you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I may look dumb, but I’m not.’

‘Mr MacGowan …?’

‘Yeah, young fellow?’

‘You don’t look dumb.’

The tiny Lyme Library was located next to Lyme’s tiny elementary school on Route 156. I’d paid many visits there over the summer to check out books and fell deeply in love with the place because it smelled exactly like the tiny library of my own small-town Connecticut childhood. The first time I walked in there I immediately wanted to head straight for the children’s section, locate Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, plop down on the rug and start reading it, sorry I hadn’t thought to sneak a Snickers bar in with me. None of this is unusual when it comes to writers. Most of us grew up in public libraries and get a special glow on our faces whenever we sit around talking about the unique smell of an old library book.

Theresa, the Lyme Library’s soft-spoken head librarian, was actually the library’s only librarian. The rest of her ‘staff’ consisted of elderly volunteers and high-school kids. She’d been thrilled all summer long to have me stop by, and was happy now when I came strolling in with Lulu. Bustled over to greet us and fuss over my bandaged head and Lulu’s bandaged paws.

Theresa did have a microfilm reader but, as I’d feared, the Lyme Library was too small to have enough space to store the material I needed. She directed me to the bigger library in Old Lyme, so I steered the Jag down Route 156 to Old Lyme, Lulu riding with her front paws on the armrest and her large black nose stuck out of the window. She was definitely starting to feel like her old self. I turned off of Route 156 at Ferry Road and found myself in Old Lyme’s Historic District, with its steepled white picture-postcard Congregational Church and immaculate center chimney colonial mansions. The Historic District was a place where time had stopped. The town hall, elementary school and grange hall were all from out of another century. The barbershop with its vintage Wildroot sign and barber pole was from out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

The library, which sat up on a rise, was an imposing two-story red-brick Victorian with dormer windows and a slate roof. A fire was going in the fireplace in the main reading room. A snowy-haired geezer was tending it while he read the Wall Street Journal in an overstuffed chair that was parked before it. They had two microfilm readers there. Kept them in the Genealogy Room, which had shelves of books devoted to local history. Also a solid oak door that could be shut so that the whirring noise of those microfilm readers wouldn’t annoy the library’s patrons.

An assistant librarian led me upstairs to the attic where microfilm rolls of the New London Day, Hartford Courant and New Haven Register dating back ten years were stored in boxes. I wasn’t sure of the date I was looking for, beyond the fact that it would be a Monday, or possibly Tuesday, sometime in what I