“I guess Joel Hand doesn’t like you too much,” she said to me.
“I expect he doesn’t.” I looked at the Book on the coffee table, and asked Marino, “This name on the cover. Do you know who Dwain Shapiro is?”
“I was about to get to that,” he said. “This is as much as we could pull up on the computer. He lived on the New Zionists’ compound in Suffolk until last fall when he defected. About a month later he got killed in a carjacking in Maryland.”
We were quiet for a moment, and I felt the cottage’s dark windows as if they were big, square eyes.
Then I asked, “Any suspects or witnesses?”
“None anybody knows of.”
“How did Eddings get hold of Shapiro’s bible?” said Lucy.
“Obviously, that’s the twenty-thousand-dollar question,” Marino replied. “Maybe Eddings talked to him at some point, or maybe to his relatives. This thing ain’t a photocopy, and it also says right in the beginning of it that you’re not supposed to let your Book ever leave your hands. And if you’re ever caught with someone else’s Book, you can kiss your ass good-bye.”
“That’s pretty much what happened to Eddings,” Lucy said.
I did not want the Book anywhere near us and wished I could throw it into the fire. “I don’t like this,” I said. “I don’t like it at all.”
Lucy looked curiously at me. “You’re not getting superstitious on us, are you?”
“These people are consorting with evil,” I said. “And I respect that there is evil in the world and it is not to be taken lightly. Where exactly in Eddings’ house did you find this God-awful book?” I asked Marino.
“Under his bed,” he said.
“Seriously.”
“I’m very serious.”
“And we’re certain Eddings lived alone?” I asked.
“Appears that way.”
“What about family?”
“Father’s deceased, a brother’s in Maine and the mother lives in Richmond. Real close to where you live, as a matter of fact.”
“You’ve talked to her?” I asked.
“I stopped by and told her the bad news and asked if we could conduct a more thorough search of her son’s house, which we’ll do tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch.
“Or I guess I should say today.”
Lucy got up and moved to the hearth. She propped an elbow on a knee and cupped her chin in her hand. Behind her, coals glowed in a deep bed of ashes.
“How do you know this bible originally came from the New Zionists?” she said. “Seems to me all you know is it came from Shapiro, and how can we be sure where he got it?”
Marino said, “Shapiro was a New Zionist until just three months ago. I’ve heard that Hand isn’t real understanding when people want to leave him. Let me ask you something.
How many ex-New Zionists do you know?”
Lucy could not say. Certainly, I couldn’t either.
“He’s had followers for at least ten years. And we never hear anything about anyone leaving?” he went on. “How the hell do we know who he’s got buried on his farm?”
“How come I’ve never heard of him?” she wanted to know.
Marino got up to top off our champagne.
He said, “Because they don’t teach subjects like him at MIT and UVA.”
CHAPTER 5
AT DAWN, I LAY IN BED AND LOOKED OUT AT MANT’S ,backyard. The snow was very deep and piled high on the wall, and beyond the dune the sun was polishing the sea. For a while I shut my eyes and thought of Benton Wesley. I wondered what he would say about where I was living now, and what we would say to each other when we met later this day. We had not spoken since the second week of December, when we had agreed that our relationship must end.
I turned to one side and pulled the covers up to my ears as I heard quiet footsteps. Next I felt Lucy perch on the edge of my bed.
“Good morning, favorite niece in the world,” I mumbled.
“I’m your only niece in the world.” She said what she always did. “And how did you know it was me?”