Four

As police and paramedics filed into the coffeehouse, I pulled Esther away, giving her a hug and reassuring her as the first responders went to work.

Mr. Scrib was not the first customer to suffer a medical episode inside our coffeehouse. But our fondness for the old guy, coupled with his disturbing emotional breakdown, had shaken us all.

So, while my report to the police officers was fairly routine, my feelings about the episode were not. I felt as confused and troubled as Esther and Nancy.

Even Matt, with all his experiences, looked distressed. As the paramedics loaded Mr. Scrib’s stretcher onto the ambulance, I touched his shoulder.

“Come to the coffee bar. I’ll get you something to eat, and you can recharge your phone.”

While Matt sipped a hot cup of my Breakfast blend, devoured two of our fresh-baked Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnut Muffins, and read my copy of the Times, I joined Esther and Nancy on the shop floor to clean up.

Leaving Nancy to swab the spilled coffee off the plank floor, I climbed our spiral staircase to rehang the vintage sign that Mr. Scrib had thrown down. Then I roped off the steps. With our dearth of customers, we didn’t need to open the space—and after what happened up there with Mr. Scrib, it didn’t feel right.

“Hey, look what I found!” Esther called.

For a moment I couldn’t see her. Then she popped up from behind a café table.

“It’s Mr. Scrib’s notebook. He must have thrown it over the railing.”

“What should we do with it?” Nancy asked.

“That’s easy.” Esther held the battered book to her ample breasts. “I’ll keep it safe until he returns.”

“What has he been working on anyway?” Nancy asked. “He spends so many hours writing. Is it a novel? Poetry? Is he jotting down great philosophical thoughts? I’ve always wondered, haven’t you?”

“He told me it was a true story that would shake up the whole city. A tale of crime and no punishment.”

“Crime and no punishment?” I asked.

“That’s the way he put it—”

“Oh, then we have to see!” Nancy insisted.

Esther started to open the notebook. Then suddenly she hesitated and shut it again.

“I don’t know if we have the right to pry,” she said. “This notebook might be full of very personal stuff.”

“True,” I said, “but his real name and phone number might be in there, too. Maybe the name of a friend or next of kin, in case he—”

“All right,” Esther said. “Let’s take a peek.”

Mr. Scrib’s notebook was a common type, the kind my daughter, Joy, had used in high school with a spiral binding, brown cover, and the words 500 lined pages emblazoned on the front. Though the cover was worn and stained, there was no writing on it.

Slowly, with an air of anticipation—or was it dread?—Esther lifted the cover. Seeing the first page, she gasped. Immediately, she turned to the second page and made another distressed sound. Then she flipped through page after page, and an expression of distraught confusion twisted her features.

“What’s wrong?” Nancy asked. “What does it say?”

Esther shook her head. “It doesn’t say anything!”

Too curious to stand back, Nancy and I moved in close and peered over her shoulder. Both of us were stunned into silence.

“Maybe it’s code,” Nancy whispered.

“It’s not code,” Esther said, looking devastated. “It’s…It’s nonsense. Gibberish.”