Twelve Angry Librarians

TWELVE

I stared at Chief Deputy Kanesha Berry, not sure I had heard her correctly. Then the import of her question sank in.

“And exactly how did I manage to get the poison into his bottle?” I shook my head. “No, not me. I wasn’t anywhere near him or his bottle this morning.

“Besides,” I continued, “what motive did I have to kill him? I’ll admit I loathed the man, but I sure didn’t kill him.” I had to pause for breath.

Kanesha held up a hand. “Personally, I don’t think you did it, but as a matter of routine, I had to ask. Now, I have a witness who claims you attacked Mr. Fong in public yesterday. Is this true?”

“I hit him, yes, but I didn’t attack him. He swung at me three times—and missed, incidentally—before I hit back.” I had to keep my temper under control, especially in front of Kanesha. “Look, let me give you the background on all this. It will take a few minutes.”

Kanesha nodded. “Go ahead. Might as well hear it all now.”

“I first met Gavin Fong in graduate school in Texas, a little over twenty-five years ago.” From there I went on to tell Kanesha why I had disliked him then, and I told her about the incident involving my late wife. “Fast-forward to the present, and this conference. Also, the search for a permanent library director at Athena College. Gavin e-mailed me, basically demanding that I support his application for the job, or else he would tell President Wyatt about that incident back in grad school.”

Kanesha reached for a pad and pen and began to jot down some notes. Next I told her about the incident between Gavin and me yesterday. I hesitated, however, to tell her about the attack on me last night. It could be construed as a motive for getting back at Gavin by poisoning him.

Best to tell her everything, I decided after a moment. “There’s one other thing. Last night someone waylaid me in that alley beside the Farrington House. I was walking through the alley to the parking lot after stopping in to see Helen Louise. Someone struck me from behind and knocked me out for a moment.”

“Did you get a look at your assailant?” Kanesha asked, her eyes narrowed.

“No, but I had seen Gavin Fong peering in the window at Helen Louise’s place not long before I left. I’m pretty sure he followed me back to the Farrington House and attacked me.”

“How badly were you hurt?”

I shrugged. “Not badly, really. Scraped hands, a bump on the head, and a bruised shoulder. No concussion, thankfully. I guess I have a hard head.”

Kanesha snorted. “I’ll say you do.”

I decided not to take offense at that. I knew I had tried her patience on numerous occasions with my stubbornness.

“You went home right afterward?” she asked.

“Yes. Stewart and Haskell were there when I got home, and Stewart kept a check on me during the night to make sure I was all right. I stayed home until I had to leave this morning for a meeting on campus. From there I went straight to the hotel for the conference. I did not see Gavin until we went into the ballroom for the luncheon. I was at a table near the doors with two librarians I know, and he was all the way across the ballroom. Never went near him before he collapsed and died.” After a pause I added, “And I didn’t go near him after that, either.”

By now I had a headache, and I desperately needed a bathroom. I wondered how much longer she intended to keep me here. I did have a question for her, though, and I wondered if she would answer it.

“He died very quickly, from what I could tell, after drinking from that bottle, because he seemed fine up till then,” I said. “What do you think it was? Cyanide?”

Kanesha stared at me for probably ten seconds before she responded. “Possibly, but we won’t know until the appropriate tests have been done.”

I wondered how easily available cyanide was these days. Did they still use it in rat poison? If so, how much rat poison would you have to put in a bottle of water for a lethal dose? And wouldn’t it taste funny? I would have to ask Stewart these questions later. As a chemist, he ought to know.

Another question popped into my mind. “Are you going to close down the conference?”

“No. The ballroom is going to be off-limits for a while, but we will want to be able to question everyone. Best to keep them busy with the rest of the program while we investigate.”

“Good.” I was about to ask whether she was done with me, at least for now, so I could find a bathroom. She forestalled me with another question.

“Do you know anyone—besides yourself, that is—who had any personal animosity toward the deceased?”

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t think Kanesha would find it appropriate. “I think it might be easier to find someone who didn’t. He rubbed almost everyone the wrong way, as far as I know.”

Kanesha wrote in her notebook. “Let me rephrase the question. Do you know anyone who had motive to kill the deceased?”

“No, not really,” I said. “Until this week I hadn’t seen the man, or heard from him, since grad school. I know various friends of mine from those days worked with him over the years, and they might have shared things about him in letters or e-mails. I don’t recall anything serious enough to make a person want to kill Gavin, however.”

“Are any of these friends who worked with him attending this conference?” Kanesha held her pen ready to write.

“Actually, there are two. Marisue Pickard and Randi Grant.” I would have to let them know I had to give their names to Kanesha. “There may be other people at the conference who worked with him. There is one woman who actually seemed to like him. Maxine Muller, I think the name is.” She was the one who probably told Kanesha that I attacked Gavin.

Kanesha nodded. “I’ve talked with Ms. Muller. Anybody else?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, a young man, probably late twenties, early thirties, bald, with earrings and tattooed forearms. He’ll be hard to miss. His name is Bob Coben, I believe. He works at the same college that Gavin did currently.” I frowned. That didn’t sound quite right, but I figured Kanesha would understand what I meant.

“The deceased had received anonymous death threats, according to Ms. Muller,” Kanesha said. “Both in e-mails and through the regular mail. Ms. Muller said the deceased believed the threats came from a man. This Mr. Coben is a possibility.”

I shrugged. “I guess so. There are other men who probably had reason to hate Gavin. Finding them shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Another thing Ms. Muller revealed is that the deceased had applied for several jobs recently, but he didn’t get any of them. He seemed to think he’d been blackballed.”

“That’s entirely possible,” I replied. “Gavin had evidently done it to others, so it was poetic justice if it happened to him.”

“You said the deceased applied for your job.” Kanesha regarded me intently. “Was he a serious candidate for it? Could someone have wanted him out of the way in order to get the job for himself? Or herself?”

“He had no chance at the job, I’m pretty sure.” I might as well tell her. “In fact, the job has already been offered to someone. This morning, to me.”

“I see,” Kanesha replied. “Are congratulations in order?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” I said. “I promised I would let them know on Monday morning.”

Kanesha shot me an amused glance. “I have to say I hope you’ll take it. With a full-time job you’ll be too busy to get involved in any more murder investigations.”

“That would suit me fine,” I said, trying not to feel nettled by her remark. “Do you have any more questions?”

“Not for the moment,” Kanesha said. “I know where to find you.”

I nodded and rose. Once I stepped out of the small meeting room the hotel had assigned to Kanesha, I took a moment to get my bearings. Then I made a beeline for the men’s room. After that, I went to the gift shop to purchase a bottle of water and some aspirin.

With my immediate needs taken care of, I found a spot in a corner of the hotel lobby to sit and think for a few minutes. I checked my watch—a quarter past three p.m. After I downed a couple of aspirin, I sipped at the water and thought about the past several hours. The picture of Gavin Fong’s last moments, before he fell out of sight on the dais, lingered in my mind. I shuddered. I loathed the man, certainly, but I hadn’t wished him dead.

Someone had, however. I wondered what Gavin had done to make a person angry enough to believe that killing him was the only solution. That Gavin had to be erased, as it were.

Dimly I became aware of a conversation nearby. When I looked to see who was talking, I recognized the two men. One of them was the young man I had mentioned to Kanesha, Bob Coben. There was no mistaking the bald head, earrings, and tattooed arms. From where I sat I had a clear view of him on a sofa about six feet away. The man with Coben was the one who had introduced Gavin Fong at the luncheon today. What was his name? I thought for a moment. Harlan Crais, that was it.

“Why are you so certain he was responsible?” Crais asked. “Frankly, I’m finding the whole thing rather hard to believe.”

“You knew him, Harlan. You worked with him for what, three or four years?” Coben sounded impatient. “You can’t tell me he didn’t really chap your hide the way he did everyone else’s.”

Crais shrugged. “Yes, I worked with him, but that was several years ago. I hadn’t had anything to do with him since. He didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother him.”

Coben snorted. “Yeah, right. Then how come I overheard him telling his little toady Maxine that he kept you from getting that job in Tennessee?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Crais waved that away. “Gavin didn’t have that kind of power. He couldn’t stop me from getting that job. As a matter of fact, they offered it to me, but I turned them down.”

“Seriously? You turned them down?” Coben shook his head. “Man, that was a good job. Dean of libraries, wasn’t it? Why would you turn that down?”

Crais shrugged. “I just did, that’s all. It wasn’t the right job for me.”

From what I could see, Coben didn’t believe the older man. I frowned as I tried to remember what Crais had said about himself before he introduced Gavin. He was head of collection development at his current library, I thought.

“In my case,” Coben said, “I wanted the job, but I found out through somebody I know at that library that Gavin had basically told the director I’m too immature for the responsibility the job entailed.” Suddenly he slammed a fist into the sofa cushion beside him. “I could have killed him for that alone.”