The Cartographers(13)

But his line just rang uselessly a second time and went to voicemail.

Nell sat there for a moment, confused. They hadn’t spoken since she’d been fired, but that had been all her doing. Even years later, Swann had still sent her a birthday card every spring, still mailed a little gift every holiday, to remind her that he was always there and would always welcome her back with open arms, if she ever wanted.

It was very unlike him not to call her back—especially right now.

Her eyes drifted back to the table, where the map sat.

Then she jumped up and made for the shower. If Swann would not call her back, she would go to him.



The subway was a crush of bodies, strollers, backpacks, and buskers somehow managing to sing and dance in the cars even though there was hardly any room to breathe. Once the train passed beneath the river and clattered into Manhattan, Nell escaped a stop early at Thirty-Third Street to walk the last half mile to the library. She needed time to rehearse what she would say to Swann.

The breeze was still chilly, but the sun was out, bright and strong. At each red light, she tried to come up with a speech, but every time it turned green again, she had no more than a few rambling sentences about the mess in her father’s office and the strange database logs. Nothing that would convince Swann it was a map whose origins were worth pursuing.

As she rounded the corner, however, Nell stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

Something was wrong. Again.

Across the street, parked all along the front of the New York Public Library, was an entire squad of police cars.



Inside, the lobby was chaos. Reporters jostled amid a sea of uniforms and librarians, cameras held over their heads. Nell pushed her way through the mass, trying to figure out what was going on. A protest? A fight? A fire? There was no way it could be about her father again. Within those halls he was a legend, but outside them, she doubted a random patron could name even one of the researchers or curators.

As she edged forward, elbow by elbow, the crowd seemed to thicken toward the right side of the building. Please don’t let it be the Map Division, she prayed. Let it be some other collection. But the farther she pushed, the more decisively the clamor in that direction heightened, until there was no other doorway for which she could be aiming but that very exhibit.

And that was when she saw the blood.

Beside the deep crimson stain in the middle of the tile floor, a well-worn navy hat lay on its side. Nell knew there would be golden letters that spelled out SECURITY on the front.

“Henry,” she finally managed.

The crackle of police radios burst louder as a handful of officers turned toward her. “Excuse me, ma’am?” the nearest to her said. She felt hands on her shoulders, moving her away. “Nell, right? It’s Lieutenant Cabe. We met yesterday.”

Nell nodded numbly. The Map Division slowly came back into focus, like a lens shifting. There had been only the two officers when her father had died, but now, it seemed like every cop in the city was there in the room. Detectives were on phones, and forensic specialists were crouching, placing tiny plastic markers or taking pictures. Behind her, a double strip of yellow police tape had been fastened to either side of the doorway to prevent gawkers and journalists from wandering in, but they still clustered right up against it, a big, swarming mass, dispersing slightly only when one of the officers stationed there shouted for them to back off.

Lieutenant Cabe sat her at one of the reading tables. “I’m very sorry about Mr. Fong,” he said. “The hospital said they did everything they could.”

Nell didn’t realize she was clutching his sleeve until he gently patted her hand. “He’s . . .”

“I’m sorry. He made it to the ER, but he passed away on the table.”

She tried to say something, but her throat was clamped tight. Not even air would come out.

Henry was dead. Kind, funny, patient Henry, who always let her skip in the hallway even though it wasn’t allowed, or take more books off the shelves to read than she should, or interrupt him anytime at the front desk and ask where in the building Dr. Young or Swann was—and he always knew—was dead.

And only a day after her father.

“You knew him well?”

She had to find her voice. “Yes,” she croaked. “He worked here since I was a kid.”

Then a horrible thought.

“Was Henry the only—”

“Dr. Swann’s all right,” the officer replied. “He wasn’t here at the time of the robbery. We’re estimating it took place around midnight, after he’d left for the night.”

“Thank God,” Nell said, so overwhelmed with relief she worried she would faint.

Robbery.

Lieutenant Cabe had said “robbery,” she realized.

The magnitude of the situation, what all of this chaos and Henry’s death meant, finally cut through her shock. She spun around, the next most important question after Swann’s safety repeating frantically in her mind.

What did the thieves take?

Her eyes rose to the gallery wall, where the pride and joy of the NYPL’s collection, Abel Buell’s New and Correct Map of the United States of North America, 1784, had hung for years. Nell had been there, just nine years old, filing paperwork for pocket money from her father, when the crate came in from the Chathams, some of the library’s most generous benefactors. There were only seven copies of the Buell map still in existence, and they all had been housed at museums or hanging in private collections for generations—including this one from the Chathams, which they had purchased from another family several decades ago for a million dollars. At the time, Nell had wondered why they were willing to lend such a rare, precious piece to the NYPL, tax break or not. She had been terrified it would be stolen. And now it had been.