Page 11 of The Librarians

The police call Jonathan into the meeting room next. He has no idea what he can possibly tell them, until they show him an image of Astrid’s “situation.”

Jonathan gives an honest if pared-down version of the Q today she turns around and grips the front of his shirt with both hands. “I don’t know, Jonathan.”

Several parents with young children milling about look curiously in their direction.

Jonathan tucks Astrid under his arm and ushers her into the Den of Calories.

Sophie brought in a bunch of Halloween-themed cupcakes a couple of days ago and there are still a few left in the fridge.

He takes one out, sets it in front of Astrid, and asks, “You want something to drink?”

Startling them both, Hazel pokes her head out of the storage room. “I brought a hot water dispenser from home. If you want tea, now you can have it right away.”

And then, after a moment, “I’m sorry. The gentleman the police wanted to know about, is he okay?”

Like Jonathan, Astrid, and Sophie, Hazel too was interviewed by Maryam and her partner.

Astrid shakes her head. “He’s dead.”

Hazel’s already grave expression turns even more somber. She glances at Jonathan. And when he nods, she comes into the Den of Calories and puts a mug under the hot water dispenser. “Is there anything we can do?”

Astrid tents her hands over her forehead, as if by doing so she can shield herself. She takes several deep breaths and looks up. “Jonathan, you know Detective Shariati, right?”

“We went to high school together.” Jonathan chooses his words carefully. “But before today I hadn’t seen her in ages.”

Maryam was not at the reunion.

“Still, you must be friends, right?”

Maryam was in fact Jonathan’s girlfriend for two years—two Christmases, two Valentine’s Days, two proms. His mom still has their senior prom picture up on her mantel.

He hesitates. “I guess.”

“Can you find out from her what happened? All they’d tell me was that he died, but not when or how or—why.

” Astrid clutches at Jonathan’s arm. Her grip is tight, but her fingers shake.

Her eyes brim with desperation. “Jonathan, do you think the police came here as part of a murder investigation? Am I being investigated for a murder?”

Jonathan sits at the bar of a midtown restaurant, nursing a martini.

The restaurant is a local favorite. To be a favorite in a town trying to hang on to its bohemian roots while swimming in a tsunami of tech money, it doesn’t hurt to be a bit kitschy.

The kitsch here is of the romantic variety: There are twinkling fairy lights everywhere, cascading in garlands and curtains.

And overhead, crisscrossing the beams, hang pendant lights that are orange and red glass bubbles, because Halloween is over and everything has become Thanksgiving-themed.

Two months ago, close to a hundred of Jonathan’s former classmates thronged the banquet room of this very establishment.

Eleven o’clock that night, outside the restaurant, he finally managed to talk to Ryan Kaneshiro for a few minutes.

It was the tail end of a brutally hot day.

Heat still radiated from the asphalt lot, and Ryan’s shirt was open a few buttons at the collar.

Shadow pooled in the hollow of his throat. He placed a hand on his roommate’s shoulder and the motion pulled on his shirt, enough to show the indentation of a collarbone.

And Jonathan hasn’t stopped thinking of him since.

Which is part of the reason that instead of contacting Maryam, he fixed up a time with Ryan. But it’s also possible that Ryan, who works for the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, might be able to tell him just as much.

“Is this seat taken?”

Ryan.

Without waiting for an answer, Ryan settles himself next to Jonathan. He is wearing glasses—and looks so hot it’s a moment before Jonathan can say, “Hey.”

The bartender comes over. Ryan orders a local beer.

And Jonathan wants to roll his eyes at himself.

The dry martini in front of him resulted from half an hour of last-minute online education, in the hope of appearing grown-up and sophisticated.

If he knew Ryan had a beer in mind, he’d have ordered a beer too.

At least he knows what he likes in a beer.

The bartender slides a pilsner glass of pale lager to Ryan, who takes a sip and turns toward Jonathan. He’s waiting for Jonathan to begin, a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.

Jonathan swallows. “Thanks for meeting with me.”

“Sure. I’m sorry for what happened to your colleague,” answers Ryan. “It’s never fun getting mixed up in police business.”

And Jonathan suffers his next bout of regret. He shouldn’t have gone for such a no-nonsense opening, because now he must go straight to the problem, when he’d have preferred to ask Ryan what he’s been up to lately—and in the past twenty years.

Does he still play basketball? When did he start wearing glasses? Has life been kind to him? Has he been kind to himself? Does he ever kick himself for giving the time of day to the dumbass high school quarterback?

“She has a list of questions, my colleague,” Jonathan says, so that he can look down at his phone and stop staring stupidly at Ryan.

“She would like to know the victim’s full name and when and how he died, at least. I know I’m asking a big favor, so please don’t hesitate to say no if anything goes against rules and regulations. ”

“That’s okay. I can tell you a thing or two without getting into trouble.” Ryan, like Jonathan, consults his phone. “Full name of the deceased: Heneage Pericles Bathurst.”

“What?”

Ryan shows him a slightly fuzzy screencap. Jonathan squints to take in the full-throttled nonsense—at least Pericles was an important Athenian; what’s Heneage? No wonder the guy went by Perry.

“Midmorning on Halloween, the police received a call from the management of an apartment complex in Northwest Austin. Mr. Bathurst was judged to have been dead at least ten hours by the time he was found in his rental car.

“As for how he died, I don’t want to say too much, but I can tell you that it was not from natural causes. And I can also tell you that, for the moment at least, it isn’t considered homicide.”

“ Not a homicide—and two detectives interview everyone at the library?”

“From what I understand, his parents don’t believe their kid died of his own fault.”

Not from natural causes . Isn’t considered homicide . The parents refuse to accept their son’s culpability in his death, but the police differ in their assessment.

An overdose, then?

No parents ever want to believe that their precious child is only one bad hit away from being a statistic. But a rich kid filling his existential void with illicit substances is all too common a story.

“The parents apparently have lots of connections. Nobody at APD wants them to hold a press conference saying that the police aren’t doing their job, so the force is looking hard. Or at least they want to appear so.”

Is this good news for Astrid, if the investigators themselves don’t believe that they’re looking at anything more than an accidental overdose? Or does it mean the opposite—that the detectives, under pressure from above, will in turn tighten the screws on Astrid?

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“Okay, you didn’t hear this from me, but at the moment, your colleague is Detective Shariati’s only lead.”

Jonathan swears under his breath.

“I can also tell you that the fried pickles here are pretty good. Try some, if you still deal with gluten.”

Jonathan’s heart thumps. “Will you share some with me? My treat. I don’t think I can handle a whole order.”

“Sure,” says Ryan.

He smiles slightly into his beer and Jonathan’s heart becomes a racquetball ricocheting at a hundred miles an hour.

A large, festive party comes into the restaurant. Ryan gives the newcomers a cursory glance, then leans toward Jonathan. “Do you have a picture of the woman?”

For a moment Jonathan has no idea what he’s talking about.

Which woman? Astrid? Oh, Ryan means the perfect woman for his roommate.

Jonathan finds the group selfie he took on Game Night and texts it to Ryan.

In the picture Hazel stands at the very edge of the frame, almost hidden behind an exuberant Jeannette Obermann, her arms thrown up.

With Perry Bathurst and Jeannette Obermann both dead, it hasn’t been a very good few days for the branch library’s patrons.

“You can hardly see her in the back,” Jonathan says apologetically. “She is beautiful, though, and…”

Ryan looks closely at his phone. “And what? Charismatic?”

“?‘Charismatic’ might not be the right word. ‘Enigmatic,’ I would say.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, because the picture doesn’t convey much.”

Ryan puts away his phone and takes a swallow of his beer. Jonathan’s eyes are glued to the motion of his Adam’s apple, the smooth skin of his throat sliding over the protuberance.

“But even if she’s all that, I’m not sure anything will happen,” Ryan continues.

A second passes before Jonathan hears his words. Hastily he raises his gaze to meet Ryan’s. “And—why’s that?”

Again the gleam of amusement in Ryan’s eyes. Jonathan wishes he evoked a more substantial response in the first man who ever went down on him.

“Remember Conrad telling people about his perfect woman at the reunion?”