“I see you’re a man of action rather than one of reflection,” the old man said out of the blue, his twinkling eyes looking over the glasses.
Ty was slightly surprised to be addressed, but he recovered quickly enough to respond with, “I’m prone to paper cuts.”
The man chuckled and closed his book, using a tasseled bookmark.
“Your friend is happy to be here.”
“He’s happy to be anywhere,” Ty grumbled with an unfavorable glance at Zane.
“Perhaps he’ll be better company the rest of the day. Coffee?”
Ty shook his head and glanced at Zane again with a frown. “You can keep him,” he told the man in a grumble as he checked his watch.
Lifting his teacup, the man took a sip and looked over at Zane speculatively. “It changes one’s appearance so, don’t you think?”
Ty looked up at the old man in confusion and then glanced over at Zane again. The agent was practically beaming, another Jekyll and Hyde turnabout in five minutes flat. Ty watched him for a long moment, blinking in surprise at the twist in his chest. Finally, he gave the old man another look and cleared his throat.
“Help yourself to a seat,” the old man offered.
Ty sighed and moved closer cautiously to take the chair. He realized that he wasn’t used to people addressing him at all, especially strangers. Most everyone shied away from him because of his threatening, grumpy air. Was it slipping or was the old dude just crazy?
The man settled back in his seat, picking up his book again. “Perhaps he’ll take pity on you soon,” he said, opening the pages and going back to his reading, looking through the spectacles that sat low on his nose.
“I doubt that very much,” Ty muttered as he turned his attention to Zane and crossed his arms over his chest.
Within a minute, Zane felt Ty’s eyes on him, and he looked over his shoulder to favor Ty with a smile. Then he nodded and looked at the books he held. He chose three and put a couple back, then walked over to the counter.
“Not even going to look, huh?”
Ty suspected that Zane wouldn’t be enjoying this quite as much if he knew Ty didn’t mind watching him. So he maintained his slightly sulky air and shook his head.
Zane glanced to the old man who was reading and apparently paying them no attention. “Okay, I’m happy. We can go after I pay for these.” It hadn’t even been ten minutes.
Ty looked him over and then sighed softly, allowing a small smile to show through. “We’ve got more time,” he murmured in a low voice.
Zane tried not to grin like a fool. He adored bookstores, and it was a welcome distraction from his worries and brooding. “Thanks,” he said softly with an indefinable look in his eyes. Then he turned to disappear in the stacks that led further into the store.
As soon as he was gone, Ty rolled his eyes heavenward and slouched in his chair in defeat. That look in Zane’s eyes would get him anything.
The old man didn’t make a sound or look up from his book. But he was smiling. “Shut up,” Ty muttered to him. He glanced over at him again, reading the gold lettering on the book the man read: The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Ty frowned at the leather-bound volume as something buried deep in his memory began to click. Anyone who lived in Baltimore for any period of time had read at least one Poe story. The only ones Ty could remember were the one about the heart in the floorboards, the guy being bricked up in a wine cellar, and the name of the last one he had read, the Murders in the Rue Morgue.
“Can I see that?” he asked suddenly, sitting up and pointing at the old book.
The man looked up at him, a small smile curling at his lips. “Of course,” he said graciously, putting his bookmark in place carefully before he closed it and handed it to Ty.
Ty flipped to the index, where he found a list of the stories included in the volume. “Have you read all these before?” he asked without looking up.
“Many times,” the man answered.
“Two people locked in a morgue,” Ty murmured.
“That’s one, yes,” the man answered, mistakenly thinking that Ty was still speaking to him.
“Is there one with a blonde woman and a brunette, maybe switching places?” Ty tried as he looked up at the man. “Or one about a painting? A girl getting her teeth all pulled out?”
The old man nodded with a confused look at Ty and then at the book.
Ty stood up quickly, thrusting the book back into the old man’s hands. “Garrett!” he called out excitedly.
Zane appeared around one of the long bookshelves, moving toward him quickly and obviously alarmed. “What?” he demanded worriedly.
“I think you just broke this f**king case,” Ty said to him with a grin.
“Go find a copy of that book,” he ordered as he pointed at the hardback the old man held gingerly in his hands.
Zane watched the activity from between the blinds of a small storefront across the street from the crime scene. He’d been watching for twenty Z minutes, not moving at all. Ty stood beside him, a little further away from the window because he was restless and couldn’t quite stand still.
They watched as the local police set up a perimeter to keep out curious bystanders, cordoned off possible witnesses, and spread plainclothes agents through the gathering crowd to spot possible suspects. They watched Detectives Pierce and Holleman stand and scratch their heads in bewilderment, and they watched Ross and Sears arrive with Henninger and Morrison in tow and scratch their heads, too. They watched the medical examiner arrive—the new one—followed by two techs and a body bag.
“Looks pretty chaotic. I think we can get in and out and never be seen,” Ty murmured to Zane. “The ME is new; he won’t know us. And you know he’s got it pretty cleared out in there now as he examines the body.”
Zane nodded slowly, still watching. He pulled out his phone, hit a few buttons, and waited. Down on the street, Henninger dug out his phone.
“We’re going in with the ME. Keep the rest out,” Zane said shortly.
After a long moment in which the other agent answered, he snapped the phone shut, a grim look on his face. “Let’s go,” he said quietly. “Around the block and through the back. Entrance through the back.”
Ty nodded and followed silently. They’d been leaving the bookstore with their newly purchased collection of Poe stories when they’d received the call, and he was almost eager to see if this newest murder would fit into their theory.