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“But he didn’t answer the phone,” Gamay said “If he isn’t in his office, he wouldn’t leave the door unlocked And that is suspicious”

They walked the length of the five-hundred-foot-long building, eventually co on around a corner of the building, they caed up to the top floor

They cli, but all were locked

Paul jabbed the doorjamb on the top floor with his car key The as soft with rot He took a step back and threw his shoulder against the door, felt it give, and slammed it a few more times until the latch ripped out of the ja, and they stepped inside

Their footfalls echoed as they walked across the dust-layered floor The vast space where workers once tended hundreds of looms was as still as a toht was seeping under a door, and eventually caainst it BRIMMER ritten in ink on the boxes

Paul picked up a two-by-four fro it like a baseball bat, and whispered to Gamay to knock on the door She did, softly When there was no answer, she stepped aside, and he did his battering-rae

The floor was littered with books and papers from the shelves, now es stretched across the roooosenecked desk lamp on a table that also supported a co board elevated at the back, and Brimmer’s body The antiquities dealer was sprawled facedown, his hand stretched out toward a cell phone several inches froertips The back of his suit was perforated with a single bullet hole and stained red

Paul put his fingers to the artery in the dealer’s neck

“Noe knohy Brimmer didn’t answer the phone,” he said

Ga board, which held a half-finished document written in ornate script Next to it were soraphy pens and a bottle of ink She read aloud a handwritten note on a sheet of paper next to an open book:

“Call me Ishmael”

“The opening sentence from Moby-Dick?” Paul asked

Gamay nodded

“It appears our Mr Bries from Melville,” she said

“Could that type of thing get him killed?” Paul asked