Deadly Pedigree - By Jimmy Fox Page 0,55

got fucked over. When you prove I can trust you, then I will.”

Nick followed Shelvin back through the maze of deteriorating roads to a convenience store Nick recognized as a reference point from his earlier navigation of the town. Shelvin pulled his thumping truck into a parking place that seemed reserved for him, in front of the ice machine and the pay telephone. He got out of the truck and just stared at Nick, cross-armed, refusing to acknowledge his farewell wave.

.

16

The librarian explained to Nick in numbing detail, while her desk phone warbled annoyingly, that the most recent parish library tax issue had failed, and that workers were being cut right and left, so that even if the genealogical collection had not been transferred to Northcentral College last year, the library wouldn’t be able to serve the public in that area as it should, for the library is a servant of the public, dedicated to the ideals of furthering knowledge and improving the quality of life for…Nick thanked her over his shoulder as he headed for Northcentral College, and the Naomi Gascoin Widdershins Collection.

Because it was summer, there were only a few students on the campus of Northcentral. Tanned and supremely narcissistic, they slouched around in shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts sporting images of the latest counterculture poseurs.

The overcooled air in the Gardner P. Singletoe Memorial Library had the smell of air in most public buildings. It seemed to Nick to have been recycled for thirty years, and suggested industrial-strength cleaners, hidden mold and mildew, countless trapped airborne viruses, and undiscovered carcinogenic materials hidden in the janitorial quarters and embedded in ceiling tiles. Nick stood for a moment in the ground-level lobby, a standard-issue Herman Miller seating area, wondering why anyone would still refer to the sixtyish terrazzo-aluminum-wood style of the decor as modern.

Up a flight of stairs, through several membranes of glass doors, past abused copiers, bad donated sculpture, awful student art, befouled water fountains, and a nasty-looking electronic theft gate, Nick found himself before the desk of Fabian Bunting, M.L.S.

As Nick introduced himself falsely, Bunting looked up from his stamping. Bunting’s body had the delicate insignificance of a small, nervous dog; his head seemed larger than normal because of his scrawniness. Nick detected a tendency toward monkish asceticism in the man’s weary but rapturous blue eyes.

“What a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Underwood,” Bunting said to Nick, in a barely audible voice, as if he were praying in his cell before sunrise. “My favorite time of year. I have the library all to myself, for weeks.” Apologizing for asking, he checked two of Nick’s fake scholarly cards.

“Oh, our Widdershins Collection is quite a triumph for the library and the college, indeed it is, Mr. Underwood. I shall have the honor this coming semester of conducting a seminar for our library-science undergraduates, during which we shall undertake to catalog the material that has so recently been entrusted to us. You are doing research, I believe you said, on…”

He had something of the stealthy inquisitor in his monk’s demeanor; Nick hadn’t yet mentioned why he was here.

“I’m doing an article on the Southern culinary tradition, and I’m looking for authentic plantation recipes in collections like this one.”

“How thoroughly appetizing,” Bunting said, with unconvincing interest. He probably subsists on water and stale bread crusts, Nick thought. “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Underwood, I shall direct you to the section holding the Widdershins Collection.”

Bunting walked like a balloon in a breeze, not quite sure where he would go next. Twice he returned to his desk before they had gone ten feet, once to close his inkpad, then to line up his four extremely sharp pencils. As they continued, he darted to a stack to adjust a book protruding slightly, then to a card file to close a drawer some thoughtless patron had left open. On the stairs to the third floor, he pounced on a crumpled piece of paper, shaking his head, apologizing, lamenting that the children simply would not obey the rules.

He gave Nick a quick description of what he might find in the several dozen lawyer’s cabinets that held the papers and books of the collection. There was a volume on hand, supposedly an index of the material, but Bunting confessed his doubt that it was complete, though it might possibly be useful as a starting place. With some self-effacing words and bows, he left Nick to his work.

Naomi Gascoin Widdershins had been the clerk of court in a neighboring