Rides a Stranger by David Bell

fetch his manager. She turned out to be a middle-aged woman with hair dyed the color of honey. She also wore a store smock with a nametag that said “Patti,” and her authority rested in the set of keys she wore attached to her wrist by a Day-Glo rubber cord. I thought her presence would work in my favor. I had prepared a story—which wasn’t really a lie—and I assumed she’d be more susceptible to it.
    “How can I help you?” she asked.
    I told her about Dad dying and Mom giving the books away. I told her about the box of books that my dad had written—and I left out the part about the books being really rare and potentially valuable. I also left out any mention of Lou Caledonia’s murder and Mary Ann Compton’s confession. I didn’t think she needed to know that.
    While I spoke, Patti’s face remained neutral. I felt like my words weren’t getting through, that they were like darts hitting a brick wall and bouncing away, leaving behind no discernible mark or impact. But I kept talking, hoping that the more I talked the more likely she would be to understand.
    When I finished, Patti remained silent for a few moments. Then she said, “I really can’t let anyone back to see the donations. It takes several days for us to sort them, and lots of people would like to get back there and see what we have before it goes on the floor.”
    “I understand,” I said, although I didn’t. Were people really in such a hurry to get their hands on Goodwill stuff?
    “It’s not unusual for this to happen,” Patti said. “Families donate things and then some other family member comes along and wants it back. It happens at least once a week.”
    “Of course. But …”
    I didn’t know what else to say. I had made my argument. I was at Patti’s mercy, and it looked like she was going to turn me away.
    “Did you say this book your dad wrote was a western?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Hmm,” Patti said. “My grandpa read westerns all the time when I went to visit him. I can picture him in his chair reading Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey. Who was the other one? The one everyone used to read?”
    “Max Brand?” I said.
    “That’s it.” Patti looked lost in thought for a moment. I took that as a good sign. I wondered if she were back in her childhood somewhere, in her grandparents’ house, coloring on the floor or playing with dolls while her grandmother cooked in the kitchen and the old man sat in a chair lost on a cattle drive or a gunfight or a saloon brawl.
    “So what do you think?” I finally asked. “Can I take a peek?”
    She snapped out of her reverie. “Sure,” she said. “But don’t tell anyone I let you do this.”
    The back room was huge. The ceilings were high, the metal beams and girders exposed. The smell I noticed at the front of the store was even more intense back there, probably because the back room held things that weren’t good enough to be put out front. I didn’t want to think about what those things were.
    Patti led me through the racks of clothes, the shelves of toys, the clutter and refuse from who knew how many lives.
    “When were these items brought in?” she asked.
    “A couple of weeks, I guess.”
    “And you’re just looking for books?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I think we keep the books over here before we sort them.”
    We went to the far back corner of the storeroom. There were boxes and boxes of books, and then more books that weren’t in boxes. Hardcovers and paperbacks. Books for kids and books for adults.
    “It’s a lot,” I said.
    “Take your time,” she said. “We’re open until nine.”
    I found a plastic stool and pulled it over by the boxes of books. I sat down and felt my shoulders slump a little.
    Did I really want to do this?
    I thought back over what I knew. A couple of people—one of them a murderer—believed my dad wrote a book. And published it. And it became the rarest book in the land.
    Did any of this make sense?
    I had already stayed an