“Apologies, Edward.” He moved forward and scratched Eddie behind the ears. The purrs were instantaneous and loud enough to be heard in the next county. “What’s that?” Mr. Valera asked. “No one else has ever rubbed your head to your satisfaction? I’m the first one who has done so? Such a shame. What do you plan to do about it?”

I could answer that. Easily. “Complain about me at the top of his little kitty lungs at four in the morning and then bat something off my dresser and onto the floor and then push it under the dresser so I can’t reach it.”

Mr. Valera gave Eddie’s head one last pat. “Maybe that’s what happened to our sculpture.” He was smiling, but it didn’t quite cover his entire face.

“Sculpture?” I pulled the stack of books he’d ordered from the Reserved shelf and handed them to Hunter to check out. “I didn’t know you were an art collector.”

“Art? Me?” He laughed. “Not in this or any lifetime I can imagine. It was my parents who were the artsy types. My sisters and I grew up . . . Well, it doesn’t matter. In the end my sisters, my cousins, and I were left with the family cottage just down the road and an odd collection of artwork, almost all of which has zero monetary value.”

For a moment I longed to know about the childhood of young Herb Valera. Had his parents been artists? Had the family lived in Paris? New York? Had they met people like Georgia O’Keeffe? Jackson Pollock? But Mr. Valera was a private man, and if he wanted us to know, he’d tell us.

“Just almost?” Hunter was done beeping the books with the scanner: biographies of Shirley Jackson and George Washington, a history of the seventeenth-century tulip mania, the latest Michael Connelly novel, and a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese. He smiled and pushed the pile over to Mr. Valera. “So there’s a painting worth more than its frame?”

“Oh, if only that were true.” Mr. Valera took his books and tucked them under his arm. “The cottage is full of worthless paintings. The rest of the family has a conniption fit at the merest suggestion of getting rid of any of them.” He shook his head. “Worst thing about a family cottage is every decision is made by committee. And I do mean every decision. That’s the odd thing about this sculpture.”

“What’s odd about it?” I asked. “Is it weird-looking?”

“No, that’s not it at all.” He paused, then smiled. “Well, yes, it is weird—all angles and holes—but that’s not the issue. The problem is it’s missing.”

“You mean someone stole it?” Hunter asked. “Did you tell the police?”