The Killer in the Closet

“Tell me, Father, who would want to break in here? Some druggies, you figure?”

The dusty floor of the tiny chapel showed the footprints of a single person, moving from a broken window on the right to an open cabinet built into the wall on the left. How dull was this cop to think this one set of footprints belonged to “some druggies” -- plural. And I had to marvel why the cop did not observe that the footprints only went up to the cabinet and then ended there. Where were the footprints leading back outside, or to a hiding place? Nowhere. The same nowhere in which this cop’s brain was presumably located.

“I don’t know,” the priest said without conviction. “The building was boarded up about 75 years ago. I’ve been responsible for it since I started at Our Lady’s, down the street, in ‘82. I stop by once a month -- just to see it’s still here, I guess. I am sure some smaller religious community would love to have it as their sanctuary, but the building committee won’t sell it, or even let me clean it up and rent it out. Bunch a’ dried up old buzzards, God forgive me for saying so.” Thinking himself clever he loudly whispered, “I don’t think they like the competition.”

“What was in there, Father?” the cop asked without a hint of interest in the answer, or the priest’s cleverness.

“I didn’t even know that was there.” I could hear the priest walk to the cabinet I left open, close its small, square door, and turn in place -- presumably to face the cop -- and then he just waited for the cop’s reaction. I knew from the small black notebook Dmitriy had found, and my own activity a short while earlier, that the cabinet door was framed with molding that blended into a pattern of molding covering the whole wall. When closed, there was no visual cue of the cabinet's existence.

The priest and the cop were so absorbed with this that they didn’t even think to check if there were other hidden compartments in the same wall. I could have closed the cabinet door, and they wouldn’t’ve had a clue, but I loved showing this to them knowing they ​still​ wouldn’t have a clue. People are such idiots! I smiled to myself. Ya gotta laugh, right?

I had watched the church for three months before entering it. If the journal Dmitriy found was right, an antique two-volume set of books was hidden in this church in the 1860's and hadn’t been seen or touched since. Those books weren’t going anywhere now until they went with me, and it was worth investing the time to ensure I wouldn’t get caught.

In these past three months, the priest was the only person I ever saw at the church. He’d come the third Monday of each month, go inside for a few minutes, and then leave. This was the third Tuesday, so I indulged myself in examining my treasure on the spot, and lost track of time. Sure, it’s an embarrassing rookie mistake, but it should have been five weeks before the priest showed up again, and this was no ordinary haul.

When I heard the priest and the cop outside the front door, I was again indebted to Dmitriy’s little black notebook. It said there was a similarly hidden but larger cabinet to the right. That’s where I am now. I have to crouch a bit to stand in it, and I almost have to hold my breath to fit within its small width and depth. Everything is so dusty, and spidery, I’m breathing as little as I can.

I dragged my jacket lightly behind me as I took the few steps from the cabinet I left open to this mini-closet. If those old fools were paying any attention at all, they would have followed my jacket-trail in the dust. But it didn’t look like footprints, and that’s all it took to leave their brains as blank as they were the day they were born. I know it’s not some great accomplishment outsmarting an old beat cop and an old priest, but I smiled again. Ya know, ya gotta take life’s little pleasures where you find ‘em.

“I wasn’t due here again until next month,” the priest informed the cop, “but I was walking by on my way to the pharmacy -- saw one of the boards was off that window and the glass was broken. That’s when I called you. I didn’t come inside until just now when you and I came in together.”

“Okay, Father. Anything else that should go in my report?”

Drones droning on about nothing, imagining they are intelligent. Drives me nuts how much time people spend saying nothing, observing nothing, thinking nothing. It was hard to resist popping out of the closet and shooting them both so I could get going, but I needed to sell the books before anything connected to them came under investigation.

Who is Dmitriy and where did he get the journal? Total mystery. I was laying low. The contract came to me unexpectedly. As usual, I didn’t know or care who was paying for the hit, or why, or who the victim was. I liked Dmitriy for 1 of the 2 minutes I knew him, when he wasn’t sniveling and begging. He vomited out all this information to try to stop me from killing him, offering to split the take. Fool! By the time he was done panic-yakking I didn’t need him, just the notebook I would remove from his body. I had a reputation to protect by honoring the contract I accepted, I needed the $20,000 fee to pay my way for the three months I’d spend casing the church, and a little while longer to sell the books, and, oh yeah, I didn’t want to split the take with Dmitriy when he was nothing to me. Easy decision: bang! Sorry. Not.

Contract work is good money, but antiquities is what I really like. The merchandise is interesting, rich people are interesting, and I’m like, an expert. Richardson! I know more than any damn college professor, but people rely on Richardson to be an objective authenticator. If his college only knew about his side job! He’d be screwed.

Who needs college? Here’s what I know. Most copies of this set were printed on paper. Remains of a few dozen of those survive, but most of them probably disintegrated by the 1700s. This one was made with vellum, like about 25% of the originals -- a luxury item for a rich person -- I like it already. Fakes are easy to spot. Forgers artificially age recently produced vellum, but it’s over-processed. Real antique vellum has remnants of hair follicles and veining. Dumber than that, it’s like they never heard of carbon dating, or they assume the mark hasn't. They don’t even know that vellum books swell with humidity so they always have clasps or straps on their covers. Most forgeries have neither clasps nor straps and yet have no signs of swelling -- because they are new! Idiots! This set, ​my set, has double-clasps. The books are the right size. They have 40 lines on ​pages 1 through 9 and 256 through 265, and 42 lines on the rest​. Forgeries always have 42 lines on every page, like most​ of the legitimate copies, ​but not the ones from the very first printing​. This copy is a rarity within a rarity.

This set will become known as the 50th and undoubtedly the oldest and most complete copy still in existence. To hold it in my hands, to turn the pages, smell them. I am surprised the illuminations are so vivid after 536 years. As much as I hate The Church, I love these actual, physical books. A whole, original run, two-volume Gutenberg in my hands!

I wanted to keep it, but a half-second later, having enough money to retire young, on the beach in Rio, came back to itself rightful place in my priorities. Not to mention the women. Have you seen the women of Rio de Janeiro?

“So, that’s it then, is it, Father? “ the cop asked, wrapping up his so-called investigation. “I guess so,” said the priest.

At last, they were leaving and I could get out of my vertical coffin closet, and on my way to Richardson. I was mentally reviewing the list of people I would contact to find a buyer. Both volumes, all 1,286 pages, great condition, and from the first print run! It’s gotta be at least $6 million. More than I ever thought I’d have, that’s for sure!

I heard the two men walking out, the door closing, and the priest locking it. I was just about to escape the closet when I heard something else. I paused. It was an unusual, low, slow rumble. Then there was a loud bang as the whole building jumped up and slammed back down. It had to either be a bomb or an earthquake. Was it safer to stay sheltered in the closet?

There was a huge sound as everything shook hard again. I could tell from the noise that a large part of the roof had crashed down onto the floor. I decided an earthquake was more likely than a bomb. One more jolt and I felt a beam or something hit the closet door just as I was pushing out to open it, and then a bunch more rubble fell from the roof to the floor, and dust billowed in at me through the small gap between door and frame.

Maybe the closet saved my life but I wasn’t going to stay in there any longer. I had to get out. I tried the door with conviction but it was jammed by fallen debris. I put my back to the back wall and my feet on the door and pushed as hard as I could, still holding the large books in my arms.

The door moved about a half-inch. I squeezed myself away from the tight cabinet walls to turn my back to the door, and pushed again. Nothing.

I repeated this on and off for 15 minutes, a half-hour, two hours, six hours. I slept. I tried again. And again. Such was my existence for a few very long days. By the second day I had to pee and crap on the closet floor, and then there it was and I couldn’t get away from it. I was scared I’d never get out, scared I’d die, crouched over in a tiny closet, with the stench of my own crap, a previously pristine now-soiled Gutenberg bible, no money, and no Rio. By the end of the third day I was exhausted, unable to recover my strength, and dehydration began provoking episodes of hallucinations and terrifying thoughts. On the fifth day, dehydration finished me.

Once I was dead I found I could leave the closet for 1 minute every 4 hours, before being painfully sucked back in. I could not leave the building at all. Most of the windows were broken and only partially boarded now, and a newspaper page blew in through one of them. I grabbed it just as I got sucked back into the closet. Even if I had some light in the closet, I couldn’t hold the paper far enough away to read it until I got out again four hours later. The headline read, “Loma Prieta Earthquake Devastates San Francisco”.

An abandoned church might seem a great place to haunt, but it’s damned boring having no one to be terrified except me, in my tiny closet, forever, with books I will never read, and no Rio, and a pile of poop.

I’m just a regular guy -- what did I do to deserve this?