Twelve Angry Librarians

TWENTY-THREE

I was so caught up in my fantasy of playing Hercule Poirot, bringing all the suspects together in the drawing room for the big revelation scene, that I hadn’t really paid attention to one crucial point that finally forced its way to the forefront of my consciousness.

Well, make that two crucial points.

First, one of the people in my house would be someone who had already killed twice. Someone who might still have cyanide in his or her possession.

Second, that person could easily decide to kill again, and who would be the most likely choice to play the victim?

Hercule Poirot, that’s who—otherwise known as Charlie Harris.

Sobered by these thoughts, I rapidly lost enthusiasm for my grandiose idea.

Perhaps if Kanesha and one or two deputies were on hand, that would greatly lessen the chance that the killer would strike again.

I brightened momentarily at that idea, but I realized Kanesha would never go for it. Too dangerous, she would say, and I couldn’t disagree.

So much for my big idea. I deleted the notes I’d made on the app and decided I might as well listen to the presentation going on at the front of the midsize room.

There were about forty people in a room that probably held roughly sixty, I estimated. I checked my program to see who the presenters were and what institutions they represented. I almost dropped my program when I read the names.

The one man among the three was none other than Mitch Handler, the librarian-writer Marisue and Randi had told me about earlier. Now that I finally focused on the presenters, I realized I had met one of the women two days ago. Cathleen Matera, who was talking now, had come up to me after the incident with Gavin on Thursday. She had offered to serve as a witness for me. The other woman wasn’t anyone I knew.

Cathleen Matera seemed to be nearing the end of her part of the presentation when I tuned in.

“So you can see that’s how we make the program function with a group of only five reference librarians. With the help of our colleagues from technical services—four additional librarians, as I stated earlier—we manage to make sure each academic department has a contact person within the library. Now I will turn the program over to my colleague, Mitch Handler.” She closed her presentation on the large screen on the wall and handed a device to Mitch Handler when he reached her. She sat, and Handler busied himself at the podium getting his part of the presentation up on the screen.

I thought about what Cathleen Matera said moments before about each department at her institution having a contact person in the library. Turn that around, and all the librarians had contacts in various departments at their universities.

For example, a contact in the chemistry department, where one of the chemicals kept in stock could be cyanide.

The liaison librarian might even have an undergraduate degree in the sciences, perhaps even chemistry. That was not an unusual scenario. One of the reference librarians at Athena had a bachelor’s degree in biology, for example. Not all librarians were English or history majors, unlike what many people thought.

I knew Kanesha was having background checks done on people, and I was pretty sure she would be focusing primarily on the guests at Gavin Fong’s Thursday night party. I certainly would.

I couldn’t stand it. I had to go do a bit of background checking myself. I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on any presentations until I knew for myself more about the backgrounds of the party attendees.

I sent Melba a text to let her know that I would soon be at her place to pick up Diesel. I would have the quiet I needed at home, and I was more than ready to have my feline pal by my side again. I was so used to having him with me all day, and now that I hadn’t seen him in several hours, I wanted to spend time with him. Even though I knew Melba would never let any harm come to him, I still would feel better when I had Diesel in my sight again.

The main reason I liked sitting at the back of the room for occasions like a conference session was that I could get out quickly and with little fuss. I did so now and made my way downstairs and out to the parking lot behind the hotel in less than two minutes.

Melba responded to my text with a simple OK. When she opened her front door, Diesel stood a few inches behind her. The moment he saw me he started talking. From the slightly indignant tone, I figured I was being scolded for disappearing for such a long time. He loved Melba, but he didn’t like not knowing where I was for more than a few minutes at a time, usually.

“I’m sorry, boy, but we’re going home now, okay?” I reached out to pat his head, and to Melba’s amusement and mine, he drew back and gave me a look loaded with disdain. He didn’t turn his back on me, but he made it clear that I wasn’t forgiven yet.

He did deign to follow me to the car after I thanked Melba for looking after him.

“You know it’s always a pleasure.” Melba grinned. “He was doing just fine until you texted me and I told him you were coming to get him. That’s when he started acting all haughty and peeved.”

“I’ll try to make it up to him.” I thanked her again and then got the cat into the car for the drive home.

All was quiet at the house. Haskell, I knew, was on duty, and Stewart’s car was in the garage. Stewart and Dante were probably on the third floor in their suite, as I had come to call it.

Diesel had thawed enough by now that he let me stroke his head a couple of times. After we each made a bathroom stop, he followed me into the den. I powered up my desktop computer, because I didn’t want to take the time to retrieve my laptop from my bedroom. I hung my jacket on the back of the desk chair, rolled up my sleeves, and started my searches to dig up information on my list of suspects.

I never ceased to be amazed at the amount of information you could find on people. After only a little poking around, I found Nancy Dunlap’s résumé on her library’s website. She had achieved the rank of full professor at her university, and I skimmed through a list of publications and professional activities until I found her degrees listed. She had earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in library science, and a second master’s degree in biology. Though biology wasn’t chemistry, it was still a science, and that made Nancy Dunlap more interesting as a suspect. I checked back through her résumé to find a description of her current position, and there it was: liaison to the departments of biology and chemistry, along with mathematics. Nancy Dunlap obviously had the necessary contacts.

Next on the list to check was Cathleen Matera. I found her information on a social media website for professionals who wanted to network with one another. I supposed if I took the director’s job I might consider creating a profile on it for myself, although I wasn’t sure what purpose it might serve. I pushed that distracting thought aside and focused on Ms. Matera’s background. English major and liaison to the departments of English, foreign languages, and fine arts. I recalled vaguely that cyanide was sometimes used in photography in the developing process, but I doubted it was used much these days because of its extreme toxicity. I left a question mark by Cathleen Matera’s name and moved on to the next person.

Sylvia O’Callaghan, I discovered, had retired three years ago and did not appear to have active connections to an academic library. From what little I could glean about her, she must have been an English major. She didn’t appear all that promising. Besides, I wondered if she would have murdered her friend Maxine Muller. Another question mark. Kanesha would probably find out more about her than I could.

Harlan Crais had been a history major and had a master’s degree in European history, along with his master’s degree in library science. His position as an upper-level library administrator didn’t seem to include liaison work, but if he had been a liaison in the past, I doubted it was for a science department of any kind. Thus, no promising connections there that I could discern.

Mitch Handler, though, turned out to have a bachelor’s degree in organic chemistry along with the obligatory library science degree. He also wrote science fiction. As I would have expected, his liaison duties included the typical science departments at his campus.

Bob Coben, the final person on my list, had what was to me the most interesting background. He had been a music major—his instrument was apparently the oboe—with a minor in biology. Not a combination I would have expected to find. Still, it did give him a bit of a connection, though his liaison duties included the music department, fine arts, and biology at his school.

I was pretty sure I remembered both Marisue’s and Randi’s backgrounds, but I checked to make sure. Both had been English majors in college, and Marisue came to library school right after college, as I had done. Randi, I knew, had worked for about seven years as a secretary before deciding she wanted to be a librarian. I left question marks by both their names, though I strongly doubted either of them had committed two murders.

I had been so absorbed in my research that I had neglected Diesel, and I became aware of a large paw on my thigh. Claws dug into my leg ever so slightly, and I looked down at him, amused by his innocent expression.

“Yes, I know I’ve neglected you terribly today. Come on, let’s sit on the sofa together, okay?”

Diesel understood the word sofa. He climbed onto it right away and waited for me to take my place. Once I was seated, he stretched out, his head and front legs in my lap. I talked to him for a couple of minutes and combined words with suitable physical gestures that soon had him purring loudly.

Once Diesel yawned and appeared to go to sleep, I allowed my thoughts to return to the information I had learned about the librarians who had attended Gavin’s party.

The source of the cyanide—keeping in mind that I didn’t know for sure that cyanide was the murder weapon—was key to the solution. Any of these eight people could have ordered cyanide over the Internet, obviously. But if several of them had sources closer to hand, it was possible they had obtained the cyanide that way.

I realized, of course, that I was spending a lot of time on this—time that no doubt could have been better spent focusing on the major life decision I had looming before me. But I didn’t want to think about that decision right now, or about the decision facing my daughter and son-in-law. It was easier to let myself be distracted by the double murder, even if all my speculation and information gathering turned out to be useless. Kanesha possessed the actual facts in the case—as far as they were known at the moment, that is. I didn’t.

Kanesha. I promised to e-mail her with the information I had received earlier from Marisue and Randi about Gavin’s expensive car and my idea that he could have been blackmailing people to get the money for it. There was the information about the party to share as well, although I hoped Lisa Krause would tell Kanesha about that. I needed to get back to the computer to take care of it. I didn’t like composing e-mails of any great length on my phone. It was simply too tedious.

The cat resting partly on my lap and partly on the sofa deterred me for a few moments longer. I eased Diesel off my lap, got up from the sofa, and let him stretch out. He opened his eyes, yawned, and then closed his eyes again. He seemed content to let me leave him there.

At the computer I opened my home e-mail, and a few minutes later I sent Kanesha a message containing the information I had promised to send her. Whether she would find it helpful, I didn’t know, but at least she had it.

My cell phone rang, and I picked it up to see who was calling. Laura.

My heart started racing. Was she calling to tell me they’d made a decision about Virginia?