Death Leaves a Bookmark by William Link Page A

was a slow afternoon, Uncle Rodney reading at his desk in the back of the store. Troy didn’t know what the hell to do with himself. He could only stare out at the few passers-by on the street, most looking as bored as himself.
    Scanning the store while his uncle was engrossed, he noticed that there was a small space behind the large bookcase on the west wall. The bookcase held a random collection of large art books, crime novels, and some law books. God, what a mess. He would have to reorganize all of those next. If he slipped behind the bookcase and his uncle came looking for him, he might …
    But that meant he had to have a lot of strength in his arms and shoulders, and he had stopped going to the gym because of his money problems. Suppose someone came in at the wrong moment? It just might be worth it, though.
    On an impulse, he closed the blinds on the street door and moved into the space behind the tall bookcase. God, am I really going to do this?
    He gathered his inner strength and then called out: “Uncle Rodney!”
    Querulous: “What do you want?”
    “Could you please come here a moment?”
    He could hear the old man’s footsteps moving toward the front of the store. Annoyed: “Where the devil are you?”
    Troy stood behind the bookcase placing both arms and his strongest leg behind it. It was the most difficult thing he had ever attempted in his soft life. He got the bookcase to move—and then with a push, it toppled over on the old man. The clatter could probably be heard in the adjoining stores and on the street.
    He moved out immediately. He looked down through the empty shelves and saw the old man still twitching, just barely alive. He’d better finish the job and be damn quick about it!
    He anxiously looked around. Several large art books were laying splayed open on the floor. He reached down to grab the heaviest one and almost dropped it. Fumbling again, he picked it up and closed the covers. This would do nicely. Death of a bookseller, ironically by one of his own books, he thought. Then he battered the old man’s head through the space between two of the shelves. Satisfied now that he was dead, he wiped off the blood and his prints on the front and back covers of the volume with his handkerchief. And also the spine, just in case. He threw the book down on the floor, right next to his victim’s head. He would have to remember to get rid of the handkerchief later.
    He stood still, out of breath, listening for a moment, hoping against hope that the clatter went unnoticed and that nobody was too near-by. Then he took a deep breath. Held it for a bit. Waited. Frozen. Thank God there was still no response from anyone outside.
    Knowing he hadn’t left any prints on the back of the bookcase, he grabbed two parcels that had to be mailed, and ran to the back door of the store.
    Outside now in the small parking lot, he moved past Rodney’s Rolls and jumped into his own car, an eleven-year-old Dodge. Only one car had come down the alley, but he had turned away just in the nick of time. He was flying on the wings of luck and there was no better carrier, not even FedEx!
    As he sailed down Melrose on the way to the post office, he saw in his mind’s eye his future. It was lit up like neon. Uncle Rodney’s money, all millions of it, and half of it would be his. And who knew what his future would be with Cousin Marcella? It was about time he got married, anyway.
    At a Dumpster far away from the bookstore he threw away the bloody handkerchief, covering it with the accumulated trash.
    There was nothing that night on the tube about his uncle’s “strange accident.” Marcella called around eleven, worried to death that Uncle Rodney had not returned yet to the house. She had called the store but all she got was his answering machine. “Should I call the police?” she asked him.
    “Definitely. Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
    “I thought … I thought that maybe he had dinner and gone off with a friend to