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“All the best liars do,” Cassie had joked.
Sure enough, Mr. Kellner had slowly faded as a presence in the shop. He was a man as tall and slight as his wife was short and solid, with disheveled hair and a kindly way about him, but Cassie had only just started to get to know him at the point he had stopped coming tothe store. In the last few years Mrs. Kellner had barely mentioned her husband and Cassie had never felt comfortable asking how he was doing.
“Go get a coffee,” Mrs. Kellner instructed her now. “You look tired.” It was her usual sort of kindness, offered as a mild scolding.
Cassie put her stuff in the back—her coat, and her bag with the Book of Doors within it—and then stopped by the coffee counter. The shop wasn’t busy, just a few students with their laptops at the coffee tables, a couple of regular customers browsing, so Cassie chatted with Dionne for a few minutes while her coffee cooled, describing what had happened the previous evening as dispassionately as she could.
“Poor Mr. Webber,” Dionne said, shaking her head and clucking her tongue.
“You served him yesterday, right?” Cassie asked. “Before you finished up?”
“That’s right,” Dionne said, leaning on the counter.
“Did you notice...?” Cassie hesitated but wasn’t sure why.
“Did I notice what?”
“Did you notice if he was carrying a brown book? Like a little notebook?”
Dionne laughed. “Honey, at the end of my shift you’re lucky I notice if I’m serving a man or a woman or a goddamn alien. I take the order and give them their coffee. I don’t notice what books they’re holding.”
“Right,” Cassie said.
“You okay, honey?”
“Just tired,” Cassie said, lifting the coffee. “Need this.”
Cassie wandered back toward the counter at the front of the store and settled on her stool.
“Mrs. Kellner?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Yes, dear?”
“Did you know Mr. Webber?”
“What do you mean did I know him? I knew him. He came to my store and bought books. Is that what you mean?”
Conversations with Mrs. Kellner were often like this. She had to tell you that you were stupid before she answered your question. There was no malice in it; it was just how she spoke.
“No, I mean did you know anything about him?”
“I know he was old and not eating enough. A man that age and that thin, like he would snap if he fell over. It wasn’t right.”
“Has he always been coming here?” Cassie asked.
“That’s awful English, my dear, ‘always been coming here.’”
Cassie gave the older woman a look, a look she wouldn’t have dared to give her even a few years earlier. Mrs. Kellner sighed and gazed off into the shop.
“Mr. Webber was a good customer,” she said, and Cassie knew that this was high praise. “He’s been coming to this store for as long as I can recall. I remember him when he wasn’t so thin. When he was working. He was a handsome man, tall and strong.” The old woman smiled to herself. “He was always alone,” she said, looking back to her computer. “I don’t remember him ever coming in here with someone else. I wondered if he was gay, actually, but you don’t talk about things like that with customers, do you? But he was a good customer. We’re running out of those.” She was quiet for a moment, lost in her thoughts, and then added, “There was that woman that one time... he went home with a girl once, much too young for him. I think she was homeless or something. Maybe he was trying to help.”
Cassie waited for more.
“Or maybe that was someone else,” Mrs. Kellner said, shaking her head. “I’ve been doing this so long I get mixed up.”
Mrs. Kellner went back to work. Cassie tried to work but found her thoughts constantly turning to the Book of Doors, to its many pages of mystery. She wanted to sit with it and pore over the details.
Izzy turned up at the bookstore in the late afternoon, clattering through the door and kicking snow across the floor. Her hair was dampened down by the cold air and her cheeks were almost comically red.
