Arsenic And Old Books

TWELVE

I called myself all kinds of idiot while I waited for the college police to respond to my call. How could I have been so stupid? Leaving the door unlocked, as I must have done, was inexcusable, and thanks to my forgetfulness, someone had been able to walk in and take the diaries.

After a cursory examination I thought nothing else was missing, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I could do a more thorough search. I didn’t want to touch anything until after the police finished investigating.

At least I could give the police a short list of suspects: Marie Steverton and Kelly Grimes. I thought about adding Jasper Singletary’s name, based on what I’d overheard earlier, but I realized that was only hearsay. Both the professor and the writer had made determined efforts to get their hands on the diaries, and I was willing to bet one of them had walked into the office and out again with the four volumes.

But why? What was the urgency?

I couldn’t figure out what could be so important about those diaries that a person had to have access to them today rather than wait just a few days more.

Perhaps I was looking at this from the wrong way round. What if the thief already knew what was in the diaries and didn’t want something in them made public?

The whole thing didn’t make much sense to me. Those diaries recorded events that happened a century and a half ago. I understood, like any reasonably intelligent person, that the past did affect the present. But in this case I was stumped. Until I could read those diaries for myself, I wouldn’t be able to figure this out.

I didn’t want to consider the possibility that the thief took the diaries in order to destroy them, but I couldn’t ignore it. They could already have been destroyed, consigned to a fire, or hacked apart and shredded.

That made me feel sick to my stomach.

“Mr. Harris? You called and reported a theft?”

The deep, authoritative voice brought me out of my self-absorption. I turned to see the college’s chief of police in the doorway.

“Yes, I did, Chief. Thanks for responding so quickly,” I said.

Martin Ford, a grizzled veteran Marine Corps retiree, had been at the helm of the campus police for about six months, I recalled. He had a distinguished record in the Corps, based on what I’d read about him. This was only the third time I’d met him, but I’d found him businesslike and professional in our previous encounters.

“Tell me again what’s missing. Something connected with the Long family, I believe.”

I nodded. “Yes, I think I mentioned that to the dispatcher. Sorry, but I’m still a bit in shock.” I paused for a deep, steadying breath. “Right. Yesterday the mayor brought four volumes of a diary written by one of her husband’s ancestors, Rachel Afton Long. She donated them to the archive to add to the Long family’s already extensive collection. I was in the process of preparing them for use by the public. I hadn’t made much progress, and now they’ve disappeared.”

“When was the last time you saw them?” Chief Ford’s laser-like gaze made me feel like a bug pinned to a board.

“Right before I left for lunch. I was pretty sure I locked the door behind me—I am usually very careful about that—but the door wasn’t locked when I returned from lunch a few minutes ago and found the diaries gone.”

“How long were you out of the office?”

I checked my watch for the current time. “Close to two hours.”

“Plenty of time for the thief to come in here and walk out with the diaries.” The chief nodded. “They had to risk being seen, but I guess y’all don’t get a lot of people in the building most days.”

“No, but Melba Gilley, the library director’s executive assistant, has a pretty good view of the door. She usually sees who comes in and out. But I met her coming back from lunch when I got back, so she was probably out of the building, too, for an hour or so.”

“I’ll check with her on that shortly,” the chief said. “I want to have a look at the lock first.”

“Sure.” I watched as he pulled a small flashlight off his belt and crouched by the door. My nerves tautened while I waited, wondering whether he would find any signs that the lock had been picked or forced. I wouldn’t feel so stupid if the thief had broken in, instead of waltzing in through a door I forgot to lock.

Chief Ford grunted as he stood and put away his flashlight. “That lock should have been replaced twenty years ago.” He shook his head. “Way too easy to pick or force. Looks to me like it was picked recently. Maybe you’re off the hook for leaving it unlocked.”

“I’m glad of that,” I said, “though it disturbs the heck out of me that someone could pick the lock so easily. I’ll talk to the library director right away about installing a new lock. They put in a new one on the door to the storage area about four years ago. I don’t know why they didn’t upgrade this one at the same time.”

I realized I was babbling, so I shut up. The chief’s stern countenance and steely gaze made me feel guilty even if I hadn’t goofed and left the door unlocked.

“Any idea who might’ve done this?” The chief pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Yes, I do. There are two people who have been pretty determined to get access to the diaries. The first is a professor, Marie Steverton. Member of the history department. The other is a writer for the Register named Kelly Grimes. Ms. Grimes,” I added.

“Other than being real interested in these books, why would one of them break in here and steal them?” Again the intense stare.

I shrugged. “The whole thing sounds nuts to me, frankly. The mayor, who’s an old college friend of Dr. Steverton, arranged for her to have exclusive access to the diaries for three weeks. Once I had them ready for use, that is. Ms. Grimes was the first to approach me about them.” I gave the chief a quick summary of the writer’s initial phone call. “Then she showed up here this morning, and she and Dr. Steverton had a bit of an altercation.”

The chief shook his head as if in amazement at such behavior. “And how old are these books?”

“They date back to before the Civil War,” I said. “I couldn’t put a monetary value on them, but they could be valuable as historical documents.”

“I’ll be talking to both those ladies about this,” the chief said. “Anybody else you can think of might want to get hold of the diaries?”

I hesitated. Should I tell Chief Ford what I suspected about the connection between Kelly Grimes and Jasper Singletary?

My poker face evidently failed me.

“You’ve thought of something,” the chief stated flatly.

“It’s hearsay, probably. Something I saw today and then a short snatch of conversation I overhead.”

“I’m listening,” the chief said.

I wondered briefly whether Chief Ford had heard about my previous experiences with the murder cases I’d been involved in, and what he might think about me as a result. With Kanesha Berry, chief deputy in the sheriff’s department, I was on a surer footing. She knew me pretty well, but Chief Ford and I were barely acquainted. I decided that, if necessary, I’d refer him to Kanesha to check my bona fides.

“Okay, here’s what happened.” I launched into a description of the events at the bakery and the epilogue at the bookstore.

“Sounds like you have a knack for being in the right place at just the right time,” the chief commented when I finished. His expression gave me no clue as to whether he was making a joke.

He didn’t wait for a response. “Does sound to me like there’s a connection to the diaries. Pretty logical, based on everything you’ve told me. Looks like I’m going to need to work with either Athena PD or the sheriff’s department on this, though.”

Here was my chance. “If you work with the sheriff’s department, I’m sure Chief Deputy Berry will vouch for me, in case you need any reassurance.”

The chief nodded. “Anything else missing?”

“I haven’t really looked yet,” I said. “I figured I should wait until you arrived. Shall I go ahead now?”

“Yes,” the chief said. “Touch as little as possible, because we’re probably going to check your desk for fingerprints and trace evidence. The diaries were on your desk, right, when you left for lunch?”

I confirmed that they were before I checked around my desk. Without inventorying the shelves in my office I couldn’t say for sure whether anything else had been taken, but I didn’t get the feeling that anything was missing from the shelves. Everything looked as it should.

“I don’t think the thief took anything else,” I said finally.

“Okay,” the chief said. “How about you go wait downstairs in Ms. Gilley’s office? I’ll be down soon to talk to her. Meantime, I’m going to get a couple of my officers over here, and I’m going to contact the locals and see how they want to proceed. I can question Dr. Steverton, but they’ll probably have to track down Ms. Grimes.” He whipped out a cell phone without waiting for a response.

“I’ll be down there if you need me,” I said. I didn’t think he heard me, so I headed downstairs. Melba would be bouncing with excitement when I told her what happened.

Mayor Long, on the other hand, would probably be angry, and I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.