Page 91 of The Happy Month
I wondered how long this would take. Part of me wished I still smoked. If I did, I’d walk back down the steps and stand outside in their well-manicured grounds to have a cigarette. It was a beautiful day, and now that I was a non-smoker I often forgot to enjoy things like that.
Then the receptionist was back with a woman about my age. Her hair was graying. She wore a heavy-rimmed pair of glasses and a rather severe suit.
“I’m Mrs. Brewster. Your name is…”
“Dom Reilly.”
“You’re some kind of investigator, I believe.”
“Yes. As I said, I’m working for the Gill family.”
“Yes, I remember Mr. Gill. I’ve been with the library for nearly fifteen years. The donation came in around nineteen eighty-five. Why don’t you come with me.”
Okay,I thought,I’m lucking out.I followed her. As we walked, she explained, “We have a warehouse. Much of our collection is there. That’s why you normally need an appointment. You request what you want, and it’s brought over in the morning. You may have gotten lucky though.”Had she just read my mind?“A professor from UCLA is writing an article about set designers in the postwar period, so we have quite a lot of Mr. Melchor’s papers on site at the moment. Can you tell me exactly what you’re looking for?”
“Appointment books, desk calendars, diaries of any sort, personal or professional, address books.”
“What years?”
“Oh, of course… nineteen-forty-eight and nineteen-forty-nine.”
“All right. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll see what we have.”
There were plenty of seats. There were no more than ten people in the library at that particular moment. Given that appointments were needed, I doubted it ever got crowded. The room was very, very quiet. So, this was the exciting life of a scholar.
About ten minutes later, Mrs. Brewster returned. In her hands, she carried a shallow blue plastic tub. She now wore a pair of white cotton gloves. When she set the tub down, I saw that there were two identical red clothbound books that said DESK PRIVATE on top. Beneath that was the year.One said 1948 and the other 1949. Also in the tub was another pair of white cotton gloves—for me.
“The Melchor papers are things he kept at his home. Monumental Studios also has a significant collection of his work in their archives. They have not relinquished rights or ownership of materials he generated related to his employment. You cannot publish or profit from your research without their permission. I know that probably has nothing to do with what you’re doing, but I have to say it.”
“Is that as strict as it sounds?”
“Yes and no. If you’re publishing an academic paper in a journal, they’re accommodating. If you wanted to put together a coffee table book of his designs, they’d be a lot stricter.”
“Sorry, just curious.”
“Of course. It’s all fascinating. These desk calendars have been examined by staff. They are business appointments for the most part. Presumably, he brought these home from the studio. We didn’t note any personal appointments, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. When I say ‘examined’ that doesn’t mean read fully cover to cover.”
“I understand.”
“There weren’t any address books for those years. These appointment books each have a section for addresses. Presumably that’s why there are no separate address books. Though, they might also be in the Monumental archives.”
I nodded.
“We ask that you only use pencil in the library. Did you bring anything for note taking?”
“I left my notebook in the car.” And didn’t have a pencil.
“You could go out and get it if you like. We have pencilsif you need one. Or we offer copying if you find something of interest.”
“Thank you. I’ll use the copier if I find something.”
“We do it for you. If you find something you want copied just come to the desk. Please wear the gloves when handling the calendars.”
“I will,” I said, reaching into the tub for them. I slipped them on as she walked away.
I sat and thought for a moment. How did I want to approach this? I knew the day Vera Korenko died. October 1, 1949. A Saturday. I could have gone right to that date. Instead, I picked up 1948 and began flipping through it. I wanted a sense of who Melchor was before I zeroed in on the period surrounding the murder.
Flipping through, I noticed a couple of things right off. First, there were two sets of handwriting in the book. One was square, boxy and printed. The other was curling and steeply slanted to the right. They were so different, it seemed unlikely they belonged to the same person. That told me Melchor had had a secretary—as they called them in the forties—who recorded some of his appointments into the book.
