The Shadow of Venus by Judith Van Gieson Read Free Book Online Page A

sculptures, some more successful artistically than others. Claire liked the circle of stone obelisks created by a Korean artist in front of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Building where Lawton Davis worked. She knew him by reputation only as a prominent scholar in the field of archeoastronomy. She hoped his ego wouldn’t turn out to be as large as his reputation but knew that was always a possibility in academia.
    She found his office number in the directory, walked up a flight of stairs, and knocked on Lawton’s door.
    â€œCome in,” he called.
    Claire opened the door and found Lawton sitting at his desk. Instead of the usual framed awards and diplomas, the walls of his office were filled with photographs of the night skies, subtly tinted like the photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope. Lawton himself had the comfortable, rumpled look of an old sweater. His gray hair was long enough to rest on the back of his collar. His amber eyes were full of enthusiasm and light. Claire introduced herself.
    â€œI’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.” He stood up and took Claire’s hand in a combination squeeze and shake.
    â€œYou have?” she asked.
    â€œYes. I admire the work you’ve been doing in collection development. The university needs to continue to expand its rare-book collection.”
    â€œThank you,” Claire said. “I’ve heard good things about your work, too.”
    â€œIs this visit related to your work?” he asked.
    â€œNot exactly. Have you heard about the woman who was found dead in the basement under the library?” She knew news of the death was likely to have spread all over campus by now.
    â€œI did hear something about it,” Lawton Davis replied, rubbing his chin as if feeling for a beard that was no longer there.
    â€œThe police have not been able to identify her. She left no ID. She told a student she met in the library to call her Maia.”
    â€œIn Greek mythology Maia is the brightest star in the constellation Pleiades and the mother of Mercury.”
    â€œA Quentin Valor illustration from Thomas Duval’s Ancient Sites was found in the storage room beside Maia’s body. It had been carefully cut out of the Anderson Reading Room’s first edition.”
    â€œOuch.” Lawton winced. “That hurts. Which illustration was it?”
    â€œSpiral Rocks.”
    â€œDid she take anything else?”
    â€œNot from that book.”
    â€œOdd that she would pick Spiral Rocks. All of Quentin Valor’s illustrations are marvelous, of course. In my opinion he is the premier expedition artist. But if I were going to steal from a first edition of Ancient Sites, I would take an illustration of Chaco Canyon. It’s a far more complex and interesting site. Was she planning to sell the Spiral Rocks illustration?”
    â€œI don’t know. She died of a heroin overdose. There’s always the possibility she was looting valuable books and selling the illustrations for drug money or trading them for drugs.”
    â€œWas the illustration the police found in good condition?”
    â€œPristine,” Claire said. “The razor-bladed edge was precise and perfect.”
    â€œWell,” he smiled, “at least this Maia was a careful thief.”
    â€œUnfortunately I have no idea how many other books she damaged. I examined Ancient Sites and saw that Spiral Rocks was the only illustration taken from that book, but I can’t go through every valuable illustrated book in the library.”
    â€œOf course not.” Lawton shook his head in sympathy.
    â€œPerhaps you can help.”
    â€œI’ll do whatever I can.”
    â€œI talked to Maia by the duck pond last year and she pointed out the Jupiter-Venus conjunction in the evening sky.”
    â€œEverybody was talking about it. It was a marvelous event, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence when the five naked-eyes planets came