Elder's Bookstore, widely renowned as a repository for rare editions of Southern literature, Civil War history and books of local interest, is also at the center of what is a vigorous book theft trade in Nashville. A three-month Nashville Scene investigation reveals that bookstore proprietor Randy Elder has bought books from convicted book thieves and sells many titles identical to those missing from local bookstores. Witnesses, including former Elder's employees and the manager of another local bookstore, have seen book thieves unload stolen merchandise at Elder's. The ex-employees say that Randy Elder then tells the thieves what titles to procure for him.
Elder bought books represented to him as stolen by someone who was acting on behalf of the Scene in an undercover investigation. What's more, Elder requested specific books from the Scene's undercover representative after the individual said he could "steal two of these right now."
In other words, the fact that Elder's stocks an awful lot of new medical textbooks for a shop that deals primarily in used books, and the fact that a lot of new medical textbooks have gone missing from a nearby bookstore, may not be simply a coincidence.
For years, a handful of bookstore managers and employees in Nashville have been abuzz with rumors of Elder's dealings in stolen books. Much of the evidence is circumstantial: anecdotes and whispers abound. But there are lots of missing books out there—most of a few specific genres. And Elder's has been selling a lot of those particular books, making it the center of the much-discussed stolen book trade in Nashville.
Tony Mize is the general manager of Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Green Hills. Told that the Scene was investigating book thievery in Nashville—and that the investigation concerned one bookstore in particular—Mize didn't miss a beat. "Let me guess," he said. "Elder's."
According to Mize, Davis-Kidd experienced a rash of book stealing that began three years ago. In one particularly brazen instance, two men grabbed the contents of an entire shelf of books, carried the stack under their chins and, before Davis-Kidd employees could call police, ran out the back door to a waiting vehicle. "We were being targeted," Mize says. "They were working in a concerted way to steal stuff."
Another manager of a local bookstore, who wishes to remain anonymous because his company doesn't want him talking to the media, also remembers a plague of book theft that began around that time. It was in 2002, he reports, when many books seemed to go missing from his shop—but not the usual ones. Normally, he reports, the store loses books about sex—people are too embarrassed to pay for them, it seems—as well as Bibles, computer books, magazines, CDs and DVDs. But when the store conducted an inventory, the manager realized he was missing professional books, Southern and Civil War history books, medical books, collectors' books and books of local interest.
"We would notice that there would be books stacked in certain areas of the store that didn't belong there," he says, citing history and medical books in particular. If an employee didn't reshelve the books, the stack was liable to be missing the next day.
Mize reports the same pattern. He says many books that vanished from Davis-Kidd were about the Civil War or had to do with local history. During the theft-heavy period starting in late 2001, recalls Mize, and continuing to the present, about 10 copies of a Shelby Foote boxed set vanished. Foote, from Mississippi, is a noted Civil War historian. Theft of that set has become such a problem that Davis-Kidd quit restocking the item.
Amy Masonis of Rhino Booksellers, a local used book dealer, was working for Davis-Kidd in late 2001. She says she spotted the thieves twice over the course of a few months. The first time, Masonis confronted a man loading stolen books into the already book-filled bed of a red Isuzu pickup truck whose license plate had been covered. He drove off. The second time she saw books being heisted, Masonis followed that same red truck and had a fellow employee call police to report the incident.
That led to the arrest of William Coleman Pickel, of Belle Meade, on charges of shoplifting. Pickel pled guilty, according to police and court records, and was sentenced to 11 months, 29 days in prison. He has four theft charges on his arrest record.
That led to the arrest of William Coleman Pickel, of Belle Meade, on charges of shoplifting. Pickel pled guilty, according to police and court records, and was sentenced to 11 months, 29 days in prison. He has four theft charges on his arrest record.
Local used booksellers report the same pattern new book stores have observed. Local history books vanish. Expensive art books walk out the door. Lately, reports one book shop, military books have been popular targets. And in one instance, several books by Alfred Leland Crabb, a former Peabody professor, went missing. Same goes for Harry Potter boxed sets. Lord of the Rings boxed sets. Chronicles of Narnia boxed sets. Copies of Black's Law Dictionary. Medical textbooks. Bibles.
But where do they go?
Often, they go to Elder's Bookstore, according to three former employees, all of whom requested that the Scene not use their names for fear of retribution. (A fourth former employee contacted the Scene to talk about stolen books at Elder's, but later decided not to contribute to the story.) Two of the three ex-employees who spoke with the Scene acknowledge they left Elder's on bad terms. Although the Scene refused to identify them to Elder, the bookstore owner says he suspects two ex-employees "have a revenge motive." In a series of separate interviews, however, all three former employees similarly describe their observations of the stolen books scam.
"It's people who look all sweaty and sick bringing in brand new books," says one of the former employees, who goes on to describe them as "people leading really desperate lives." "It's just obvious" that the books are stolen, he adds. Former employees report that they personally handled medical books, boxed sets still wrapped in cellophane, legal dictionaries and others—all of which they thought were clearly stolen from nearby bookstores. That's because, in some cases, the books had the identifying mark of another local bookseller, reports one of the ex-employees.
"At first I thought the people bringing in new books were in publishing," one of the former employees says. "Then it became clear they were stolen. I didn't say 'no' until I realized they were bringing in books from Dad's Old Book Store," a Green Hills rare and used book dealer. In one instance, the then-employee stumbled upon something troubling. In the course of valuing books to place on sale at Elder's, he looked on abebooks.com, a booksellers' Web site, and saw that all three books he suspected of being stolen were being sold by Dad's online, and were damaged in the same way and had the same prices as the books Dad's had listed for sale. What's more, he says, they had identifying marks that Dad's put in many of its books.
"There was a rhetoric they shared," this ex-employee continues. "[The thieves] would make inside jokes: 'We're going to go shopping. What do you need?' And he'd say, 'Can you get me 10 of those nursing books?' They'd say no, and he would say that they're very popular and he needs them." Sometimes, this source reports, Elder would say, "Don't get caught."
At that point, the former employee reports, he pulled Elder aside, telling him that the books belonged to Dad's. Elder then had a hushed conversation in the back of the shop with the man peddling the books. Later, Elder reportedly told the employee that he had bought the books from this person because he "just would have sold them somewhere else. I'll call Dad's and let them know," he reportedly said. But, the employee says, he believes Elder never made the call. And Ed Penney of Dad's Old Book Store says he has no recollection of ever receiving such a call.
"There was a rhetoric they shared," this ex-employee continues. "[The thieves] would make inside jokes: 'We're going to go shopping. What do you need?' And he'd say, 'Can you get me 10 of those nursing books?' They'd say no, and he would say that they're very popular and he needs them." Sometimes, this source reports, Elder would say, "Don't get caught."
One of the other former employees, although interviewed separately, tells the exact same story. Elder tells people what to get, although he's coy and indirect about it: "He's not that stupid, to blurt it out," says the second ex-employee.
The illicit transactions occurred with great frequency—"two or three times a day" at their height, according to the two employees. They say that Elder worked to cultivate long-term relationships with the people who were selling to him. He loaned them money on a few occasions, they say. "He nursed them," says one of the men. It was a system of patronage, more than a "monetary good-for-good exchange."
Both former employees report that the hot book last Christmas—in more ways than one—was The Complete Far Side. They say Elder had lots of people stealing the massive cartoon anthology for him and that he moved two or three dozen through the store during the holidays alone. "He was putting a lot of pressure on them to bring them in," says one of the former workers. "He'd say, 'Find me one still in the shrink wrap.' "
One day in early 2003, Tony Mize found some books—books identical to ones that Davis-Kidd was missing. "We found that they were all at Elder's," he says. "They had our sticker. They were in new condition. They were our titles.... And we didn't really see them [at any other used bookstores]." Mize says he visited Elder's one day and saw William Pickel, the man arrested for shoplifting from Davis-Kidd. Pickel, says Mize, was actually working at Elder's. "I actually pulled Randy aside and told him, 'We have a lot of trouble with that guy,' " Mize says. Elder acted shocked.
The other local bookstore manager had an even more outrageous experience two years ago. "We noticed that when we visited Elder's, a lot of books we were missing were there," he says. He suspected these were his books not only because they were the same titles he was missing, but also because some of the books he saw at Elder's are sold only through his bookstore. "At first, we thought people were stealing them and [Elder] was purchasing them without knowing." Later, he brought another manager to the store to conduct a more thorough examination. They saw "lots of books" that they suspected had been stolen from their store. But they didn't say anything to Elder because they were hesitant to make accusations without sufficient proof.
Finally, in the summer of 2003, this manager brought two corporate supervisors—including a loss prevention specialist—to Elder's. While they were there, the manager saw a man go into the restricted back area of the bookstore, sit down, open a backpack and start taking out books. Two of the books, he says, were titles that were sold only in his store. And, he realized, the man who was pulling out the books had been kicked out of his store before for behaving suspiciously.
The manager lost his temper. "I know what's going on here!" he recalls angrily saying to Elder. And to the apparent thief: "I don't ever want to see you in my store again!"
The manager's nervous supervisors hustled him out of the used bookstore. Later, they offered to give him invisible markers so he could mark books he suspected would be stolen, a tactic he never followed up on.
Last February, though, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place for this manager. It was a Saturday morning, about 9:30 a.m. His building security guard had found price tags in the bathroom just outside his bookstore. They came from a dentistry book, a history book and a few others. The security guard alerted the manager and soon happened to see the culprit, with a backpack and a brown paper bag, whom he pointed out to the manager.
It was the same man from the earlier confrontation at Elder's.
The manager called the police, who arrested the man for stealing five books with a retail value of $266. The man's name was Ray Anthony Story. It was Valentine's Day. "On that particular Saturday morning, it all just came together," the store manager says.
One of the former Elder's employees described a few of the alleged book thieves to the Scene early this summer. He mentioned three names: Kevin and Angie, who operated together, and a middle-aged woman named Donna Woodside. A local bookseller reports that Kevin Moore, Angie Orrell and Ray Anthony Story are all being prosecuted for book theft, and police records corroborate that they were arrested for stealing books there. (The bookstore wishes to remain anonymous.) Arrest records for Story show he's also been arrested for shoplifting at Borders Books and that the bookseller pressed charges against him. Moore, who has a lengthy arrest record with a Murfreesboro address, is currently serving time at the Davidson County Correctional Development Center for theft of property, and he refused to talk to the Scene. And Donna Woodside, the only one not currently being prosecuted for book theft by a local bookstore—at least not to the Scene's knowledge—has four theft charges on her arrest record. Despite repeated attempts, the Scene could not locate Woodside, Orrell or Story.
In a 30-minute interview with the Scene at the Elliston Place Soda Shop, Elder admits knowing Moore and Orrell and says he has "probably" purchased books from Story before, although he says he has no knowledge of any book thievery accusations against them. He says he is "not familiar" with the name Donna Woodside. And he refused to show the Scene his records of book purchases, saying the Scene wasn't sharing enough information with him about the people making allegations against him. Later, when the Scene contacted him with further questions, Elder never responded.
The two former employees say there's a reason he won't disclose his records. "His checkbook is filled with the same names over and over again," says one. "He'd have a lot of explaining to do. What do you think these people come in here three times a week for?"
Elder denies knowingly buying stolen books, but he admits sometimes loaning money to people selling him books. "On rare occasions I might have loaned a couple of bucks," he says. "Somebody might be needing bus fare or cab fare or something like that. Not on regular occasions, certainly."
The former employees, however, wonder why people who don't have bus fare or haven't seen a shower in a few days would have copies of valuable medical, law and other textbooks.
When caught stealing, Story told police he was meeting Orrell and Moore in the local Blockbuster Video parking lot to hand off the books, says one of the bookstore managers who requested anonymity. "The group that's been hitting us is actually a ring of people. They all are acquaintances of one another, and they all go to the methadone clinic nearby. They specifically come in with a list of books that they're looking for. They come in groups of two; one will distract while the other one steals. They're very professional about it."
This manager reports losing over $2,000 worth of copies of Black's Law Dictionary over three weeks in August and September 2003.
Meanwhile, Elder's inventory, as listed on abebooks.com, features no shortage of books just like the ones missing from other local bookstores. A check of the site last week turned up two sets of Chronicles of Narnia DVDs—"new, still in original box IN ORIGINAL SHRINKWRAP!!!"—as well as a seven-book boxed set of hardback copies "NEW!!! STILL IN PUBLISHER'S SHRINKWRAP!!!" An abundance of medical textbooks "still in publisher's shrinkwrap" are for sale as well. Not to mention textbooks like Fundamentals of Federal Income Taxation, which the Vanderbilt Bookstore reports it is missing. Buy it now "as new" from Elder's for $45.
"There are things that disappear from my shop that I can walk past his store and see in the window," says one of the anonymous managers, citing as an example a shrink-wrapped Chronicles of Narnia boxed set.
Most new books have no distinctive markings, labels or codes that identify an individual book; they only have an International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, identifier for a particular title. Therefore, it's difficult to tell by looking at them whether they're stolen. Moreover, books are often published, then sold to distributors and wholesalers, who sell them to retailers, who may in turn return extra copies to the publisher, who may then sell them to a redistribution company who will sell them as "remainders" to used bookstores and other retailers. Any book, even a shrink-wrapped one, could be purchased legitimately.
But some are more likely to be stolen than others. Take The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible, released just this May by the locally based Thomas Nelson Publishers. Elder's is selling it online for $27, although the brand-new book retails for $42.99, according to the publisher. (At the discount Amazon.com, it sells new for $33.98—$6.98 more than Elder's is letting it go for.) A surprised Joe Powers, executive vice president at Thomas Nelson, tells the Scene that Elder's isn't a direct customer of theirs, that no one would already be selling that book as a remainder and that, moreover, it's unlikely that a small, predominantly used book dealer would be able to make any money selling the book at such a discount. "I'd hate to say anything accusing anybody, but it's fishy," he says. Elder's currently lists 93 books published in 2004, including Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine and The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, both "still in shrinkwrap."
Over the course of about a month this summer, the Scene, in an undercover investigation, sold books to Randy Elder that it either represented as stolen or implied might be stolen. On five visits to the bookstore, Brendan Ryan, a 23-year-old male acting on the Scene's behalf, took various books into Elder's and in most cases sold them to Elder for cash or a check cashed in-store.
On the first visit, the afternoon of July 10, Ryan, under the fictitious name "Daniel Perrota," entered Elder's with an abridged copy of Black's Law Dictionary, purchased by the Scene at the Vanderbilt bookstore for $48. Ryan was dressed sloppily in flip-flops and shorts, with a five o'clock shadow. Elder agreed to buy the book—in pristine condition and bearing a Vanderbilt sticker—for $10. Never asking for identification, he had his wife write a check to "Daniel Perrota" at a fake address that Ryan invented. He cashed the check in-store and gave Ryan a $10 bill from the cash drawer, as well as a flyer listing books the store routinely purchases. The list includes mostly antique or local histories, but also a few books by Alfred Leland Crabb as well as antique or decorative medical textbooks. There's no mention of 2004 textbooks.
On the second visit, six days later, the Scene's undercover man sold Elder a red leather Bible, purchased at Cokesbury for $85. Elder paid $20 for the shrink-wrapped book, in its original box and bearing a Cokesbury sticker. Again, Elder's wife wrote a check, although this time Elder said, "Normally I can't cash this for you. But if you want I can do it." (The two former employees say he almost always cashes the checks in-store, perhaps to contain the proof of the transactions.) Ryan endorsed it under the fake name "Perrota." Then he asked Elder to show him antique Hardy Boys books that might be of value, and Elder said it would be good "if you can find them." Later, he again told the Scene's man to bring them in "if you find them," although this time he said it "out of the side of his mouth."
On July 22, Ryan brought in two Nancy Drew books, published in the 1960s, and asked Elder how much he could get for bringing in larger quantities of the books. He then asked about early Hemingway books. Elder showed him a first edition copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Ryan said, "I can take that from them." Elder interrupted, emphatically saying, "If you can get that, then yeah, definitely you should get that." Eventually, Ryan said, "It's going to take me a couple days, but I can get that from 'em. I gotta know it's worth my while." Later, Ryan said that Elder "definitely heard specifics about stealing, and he had no problem with that."
On the fourth visit, on Aug. 12, Ryan asked in a lowered voice, "Anything you buy that I could get at, like, a Borders? I know you had that list."
"These are mostly older books," Elder replied.
"Something I can get right now?" Ryan asked.
Elder replied, "Some of the newer books I buy are ones you see all over the store." He pointed to The Wizard of Oz, saying, "Some of the children's books...."
"Hardcover nonfiction? New stuff?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah," Elder replied. Then, indicating old Nancy Drew books, "I'm still interested in these."
Eventually, Ryan said of the Nancy Drew books, "I can get two of these." Then, lowering his voice, he said, "I can steal two of these right now."
Elder was very nonchalant. "OK."
Ryan said, "I'll be back with two of these," and left the store.
Not 30 minutes later, Ryan returned with two 1960s-era Nancy Drew books. When he entered, Elder was showing another scraggy-looking young man the same old book sets he showed Ryan. When Elder was finished with the other man, he looked at Ryan's book and said, "The problem with these is they're not very valuable. I'll give you three dollars for them."
Ryan accepted the money and asked about the new Bill Clinton autobiography, which Elder had in the store. "No," Elder replied, "they're not moving for me. I'd take two or three, but I don't really need those.... I buy medical textbooks, you know."
"No," Ryan said, "I can't get those quickly."
Elder suggested The Da Vinci Code, indicating a relatively new book toward the front of the store.
"I know that one," said Ryan. "I can steal that. I can get that."
Again, a nonchalant Elder replied, "Yeah, all right."
This newspaper told Elder about its covert efforts. Then, when specifically asked about the transaction involving The Da Vinci Code, Elder says, "The only time I remember talking with someone about The Da Vinci Code was when he brought up the title. The Da Vinci Code is a book that is widely sold; it's a book that I would purchase from someone." Besides, Elder says, he regularly buys shrink-wrapped books from publishers' representatives. "You don't know everyone who might be a publishers' representative."
Do books with other bookstores' stickers or identifying marks raise a red flag? "Yes," Elder says. After pausing, he adds, "Under some circumstances. On the other hand, the public might leave stickers on that are hard to get off, so that's a matter of judgment, I guess."
Asked whether it would be suspicious if a book peddler were to say to him, as Ryan did, that a particular book is "something I can get right now," Elder says, "Well, yes."
A scruffy-looking young guy with a shrink-wrapped Bible, an untouched law dictionary and hurried promises to steal books? Any one of these would have alarmed other local book dealers. "If somebody brought in something special shrink-wrapped that was recent—or more than one, several of them—I'd be very suspicious," says Ed Penney, the genteel octogenarian owner of Dad's Old Book Store.
"I wouldn't think anybody I know in the book business would buy a book off the street in shrink wrap," says Larry Woods, who owns Bookman/Bookwoman in Hillsboro Village. It is, booksellers say, suspicious. Why hasn't this person ever removed this book from its shrink wrap? Why would someone return a new-looking coffee table book about local history?
"You don't buy something that's a local product and then say, 'You know, I don't need to know any more about the Natchez Trace,' " says one of the anonymous bookstore managers. "Those are books you want to keep in your library."
Amy Masonis of Rhino Books says you can tell when something's not right about a book transaction. Once, William Pickel, the Davis-Kidd thief and onetime Elder's employee, tried to sell a bunch of new books to her store. "They were obviously not books the person had read," she says. "There's just something about it. If people bring in a big stack of new books, it looks suspicious."
Bookman's Larry Woods agrees—sort of. "It's not so much the appearance of the seller; it's the appearance of the book," he says. "If John Smith walked through the door with a $500 book, alarms go off."
That's why, according to one of Elder's former employees, who has a few years of experience in used bookstores, such shops routinely ask for identification. At a previous store where he worked, employees were told to ask for a phone number and verify where people with books worked. "We would be skeptical if someone came in more than once with brand new books." As for Elder's policy, "I'd never seen anything like it before."
Elder tells the Scene that he always requires identification from people attempting to sell him books. But on the three occasions Ryan sold him books under an assumed name, Elder never asked for ID.
All of the used booksellers contacted by the Scene, including Masonis and Woods, say they trust that other local book dealers operate ethically. In fact, Nashville booksellers unanimously report that they maintain a close relationship: they call each other when books go missing or episodes of theft increase.
Even Davis-Kidd's Mize, who guessed exactly which bookstore the Scene was investigating, found his books on Elder's shelves and saw a known thief working in the store, is quick to say he doesn't mean to point fingers. "What Randy's level of complicity is, I don't know," he says. "We had this one experience—and I'd hate to accuse him of anything. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt." Meanwhile, though, Mize says the pattern of books that vanish from Davis-Kidd has remained the same.
Ed Penney of Dad's seems genuinely crestfallen over the prospect that someone would violate twin codes of honor: that of the small bookseller and that of the Southern gentleman. "I'd hate to hear that something like that is going on deliberately," he says. "We can all buy a stolen book by accident. But to do something like that knowingly is just so wrong. I just couldn't imagine a professional bookseller doing something like that."
A HISTORY OF ELDER'S
According to its Web site, Elder's Bookstore opened in 1930 at the location where the L&C Tower now stands. The shop, which claims to be Nashville's "oldest general bookstore in continuous operation," was founded by Charles Elder, "the dean of Nashville booksellers until his retirement at the age of 93." Now owned by the younger Elder, Charles' son Randy, a 1962 graduate of Peabody Demonstration School, the bookstore is currently located on Elliston Place. To this day, Elder's Bookstore commands a national reputation in antiquarian book circles as a preeminent dealer in Southern history and literature. It is Marty Stuart's favorite bookstore.
