“I’ve been trying to go to Garber, but too much time is passing.”
“The thing has been misplaced.”
“And if it hasn’t?” she asked. She thumbed through the papers on his desk. An expense report from an annual conference in Boston that he should have filed a month ago. They had first met at that very conference years ago, Liesl and Francis had, and they’d reencountered each other there every year, getting acquainted over too many post-lecture whiskeys, ages before Francis had come to work at the library.
“Liesl.”
“Well,” she said. “We have to consider the possibility.”
“You can consider whatever you like. But if you involve the police before the university president? That’ll be the end of you.”
“For doing my job?”
“Your job? Your job is to manage this library. The people and the collection.” Francis’s voice had a slight rise to it that she didn’t want on display for the rest of the staff.
Liesl glanced again at Miriam, then grabbed the expense report off the desk and pulled Francis back toward her office.
“Reporting a theft is part of that responsibility,” she said as they walked.
“You think you’ll be reporting to the police?” He put his palm on her doorjamb and shook his head. “What you’re really doing is reporting to the donors. There’s no way to keep it quiet once you start with police sniffing around.”
“Why are the donors everyone’s primary concern?”
“Don’t be daft.” She looked for humor in his familiar brown eyes but saw only censure.
“I’ll remind you that you’re speaking to a colleague.” She went to her desk, waiting for him to follow. She wanted to be out of the hallway, away from other ears. “Not a friend from the pub.”
“Apologies.”
“Obviously I understand the importance of the donors,” Liesl said. “But not at the expense of everything else.”
“The donors enable everything else. I’m begging you not to go ahead with this.”
“What if I tell Garber and he asks why I haven’t gone to the police yet?”
“That won’t happen,” Francis said. “It’s all a moot point anyway because we’ll find the volumes before it comes to it.”
“Because we’ve had such good luck up until this point?” She threw the expense report on her desk, onto a pile of other things that needed her overstretched attention.
“It’ll start now,” Francis said. The anxiety of the day had him running his hands over his slicked-back hair so often that he’d loosened whatever pomade kept it in place and it was beginning to flop boyishly onto his face.
“You lose half a million dollars, you go to the police. How is this even a question?”
“Liesl,” Francis said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “You have to listen to me. You know I’m on your side here. Just wait to talk to Garber.”
“Why does it matter to you so much?”
Her instinct was to go over and smooth the hair back out of his face, but of course she was trying to emulate Christopher, and Christopher would never do such a thing.
“I’m trying to protect you,” Francis said.
“What protection do I need in all this?” Liesl stayed standing, to try to retain some power, but her face went saggy.
“Your reputation needs plenty. Or it will if people find out we lost the Plantin on your watch.”
“That seems inevitable now,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be. Wait for Garber.”
“What does that even accomplish? He calls the police and not me? What’s the difference?”
“Well,” Francis said. “He can give us the resources to search properly.”
“I don’t believe it was mislaid.” She shook her head while she said it, but she had turned her back to him so he wouldn’t see how undirected she looked, how firmly she was biting the inside of her cheek to stay in control.
“And I don’t believe it was stolen. Wait for Garber.”
“One more day.”
“It’s the right choice, Liesl.” He had risen from his seat and was standing behind her. She still didn’t turn, but he put a hand on her shoulder, and it was a comfort.
“If I can’t get through to him tomorrow,” she said, with more resolve. “I’m going to the police.”
***
That evening, John was standing at the front door to greet her. Their front walk was visible from their kitchen, and she’d lingered there, crouching by her chrysanthemums, picking yellow leaves off sunny centers, the tips of her shoes lodged in the soil. John, who was usually still in his studio at this time of day, must have been watching her from the kitchen window, might have waved at her even as he stood over the sink and poured a glass of water or rinsed brushes and waited for his wife to run into the house and greet him.