Page 70 of Calder Country

Piston nudged Mason and pointed. There was McGill, having a smoke at the fringe of the crowd. With Piston following him like a shadow, Mason approached the man. McGill dropped his cigarette and backed away. “Give me two more days,” he pleaded. “My brother will have the money by then!”

“I’ll pass that along,” Mason said. “But you know the deal you made, and you know what will happen if your family doesn’t pay.”

McGill’s pale eyes shifted toward Piston, who stood at Mason’s shoulder. No more words were needed. The man slunk away to lose himself in the crowd. Message delivered.

Mason and Piston moved to a sheltered spot next to the wall. A guard with a club glanced at them, then turned away. “Where’s Taviani this morning?” Mason asked.

“He’s talking on the telephone with his friend, Mr. Colucci. I heard before he sent me out here,” Piston said.

A chill crawled over Mason’s skin. He couldn’t help wondering about the danger to Ruby. But he’d seen her safely on the train. Right now, he had a little time with Piston alone. He needed to make the most of it.

“You do a lot of things for Mr. Taviani, don’t you, Piston?” he asked.

“Yes. He treats me nice when I help him.”

“Do you hurt people?”

“Just when he tells me to,” Piston said.

“Do you do everything Mr. Taviani tells you to?”

Piston nodded. “He gives me good things. Sometimes I even get ice cream.”

“Do you ever kill people?” Mason held his breath as he waited for an answer.

“I don’t like to. It makes me feel bad.”

“Does Mr. Taviani tell you to kill people?”

Piston pressed his lips together and shook his head. “We don’t talk about that.”

Mason cast his gaze around the yard. There was no sign of Taviani. Playing it safe was getting him nowhere. It was time to take a dangerous risk.

“Do you like books, Piston?” he asked.

“I like pictures. Mostly pictures of animals. But I can’t read the writing.”

“There are some good picture books in the library. Have you seen them?”

“No.” He sounded nervous.

“Let’s go and have a look. Come on.”

Piston followed him inside the main building. The library would be open at this hour. There would be people inside, but having Piston along would give Mason an excuse to paw through the shelves. Finding any solid evidence linked to Art Murchison’s murder would be a long shot. But if that evidence existed, that would be the most likely place to find it.

The library was in a room off the open second-floor walkway. The rows of shelves were all visible from the front counter. An elderly man Mason recognized as one of the lifers was watching the room and checking out books. There were two other prisoners in the library, one reading a newspaper at a long table, the other perusing the shelves. Both of them were past middle age, peaceful men, known and trusted.

It might have been helpful to question the men about the murder, but when Mason walked through the door with Piston, all three of them made a hasty exit. If there was going to be trouble, they wanted no part of it.

“Come on in, Piston. Let’s find you something to look at.” Mason guided the big man to a low shelf that held easy picture books, along with some larger photographic volumes. The books had been donated and were well-worn, some missing pages and covers. At one end of the shelf was a stack of tattered magazines, mostly old issues of The Saturday Evening Post.

Mason began thrusting books toward his companion. “Do you like dinosaurs? Or maybe trains? Here’s a good book about Africa.” It had been Mason’s intent to get Piston interested in the books, while he searched as much of the room as he could, but the big man seemed distracted. Maybe he hadn’t had much exposure to books.

Mason tried again. “Look, Piston. Here’s a big book about ships, or maybe you’d like this one about—” He stopped, his pulse lurching. He had just picked up a book about airplanes.

On the cover was a picture of a Jenny, like the one Art had flown. Surely Art would have held this book in his hands. He would probably have read every page. That he’d left any kind of message was probably wishful thinking. But it was worth looking inside.

Piston had chosen a book about horses and taken a seat to look at the pictures. Mason held the airplane book spine-up and gave it a careful shake. A sheet of torn-off notepad paper fluttered from between the pages and settled to the floor. Pulse racing, Mason picked it up and began to read the neatly penciled script.

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