Twelve Angry Librarians

TWENTY-FIVE

I was too surprised by Helen Louise’s announcement to respond right away.

“Charlie, are you still there?” Helen Louise asked.

“Yes, sorry,” I said. “What brought this about?” At the back of my mind I was still worried that she was ill and wasn’t telling me.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I promise you I’m not sick,” Helen Louise said. “But I have to face the fact that I’m not thirty-five anymore, and I need to slow down a bit. Otherwise I will wear myself completely out before I’m sixty. And that’s not nearly as far away as it ought to be.” She paused for a breath. “As much as I love what I do, I need more time off than what I have now.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about that myself.”

“I know, love,” she said. “You’ve got this big decision to make, and I don’t want to add to the stress. But I also thought I should tell you this now instead of waiting until later.”

“I’m glad you told me now,” I said. “This definitely affects my decision about the job at the library. If you’re not going to be working as much, I want to have the time to be able to spend with you. Not to mention time with the grandchildren who are on the way.”

“Yes, they’re on my mind, too,” Helen Louise said. “I decided I didn’t want to be working all the time while they’re babies. There are too many moments in their lives I would miss.”

Helen Louise had never married and had no children. I knew she loved Sean and Laura and would love their children as well. Sean and Laura loved her, too, and had already accepted her as their stepmother, even though we weren’t married.

“We have a lot to talk about on Sunday,” I said.

“Yes, we do,” she replied. “Let’s leave it at that for now. We both need time to think about all this.”

“All right,” I said.

We talked for a few moments longer, then said good-bye. I put my phone down and turned to Diesel. He was staring at me intently, and I knew he understood that my emotions were running high right now.

“Everything is okay, sweet boy,” I told him. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

He meowed, and I got up from my chair and went back to the sofa to sit with him. He crawled into my lap and rubbed his head against my chin for a moment.

“How would you like it if Helen Louise came to live with us?”

Diesel warbled loudly in response. Whether he actually understood the question, I had no idea. But even if he didn’t, I think he understood the emotion behind it. I felt almost dizzy over the sudden change that was looming in my life, and I leaned back, Diesel cuddled to my chest. We sat that way for a while.

The news that Helen Louise planned to cut back on the time she spent at the bistro made my decision about taking the full-time job at the library much easier. If I had to choose between more time with family and a full-time job, I would choose family. If I needed the income from the job, I would have to consider this all more carefully. But fortunately for me, I didn’t have to worry about that.

I did want to continue to work part-time at the archive, and I knew Helen Louise would still be spending part of every day at the bistro. We would have to plan out our schedules so that we worked similar hours and had our time off together whenever possible. There would be adjustments, but they would be worth it in the long run.

This significant change meant that the time was approaching when we could finally discuss marriage. For Helen Louise and me, marriage had been a little more complicated than it might have seemed at first. Helen Louise owned a house that had been in her family for several generations, and she loved it. She had grown up there and had returned to it after her parents died. I loved my house, too, even though it wasn’t my childhood home. Aunt Dottie had left it to me, knowing how I felt about it, and I couldn’t let the house go out of the family. I would see that as a violation of her trust in me.

So, where would we live? In this house? In Helen Louise’s? That was a big decision, but thankfully one that could be put off for a while yet.

I took a deep breath. So much going on, suddenly, in my life and in my family’s lives, all of it positive for the most part, but still it was a period of uncertainty. That I didn’t care for much, frankly, but I would have to keep reminding myself that it would all get sorted out.

Kanesha would get the double homicide sorted out, too. I had the utmost faith in her ability to get the job done. Tenacious, astute, perceptive—she was all those things and more. I ought to stay out of her way and let her work. But the nosy part of me, and the part that always wanted to be helpful, probably would defeat my intention to stay out of the way. I had already put my nose in by asking Lisa Krause to try to get certain people to come to her suite tonight.

Diesel wiggled in my arms, and I knew that meant he was ready to change positions. He had been sitting against my chest for longer than he usually did. I realized I was hot, and no doubt he was also. He stretched out on the couch, his head touching my thigh. He then twisted on his back into one of those positions that we humans tend to think are uncomfortable but that cats consider ordinary.

I thought about changing clothes before going back to the hotel for the reception and the after-party in Lisa’s suite but decided I didn’t need to. I grimaced as I glanced down at the front of my shirt and the upper legs of my trousers. I would have to use one of those lint rollers, however, to de-hair myself. I was inured to the fact that I carried cat hair with me wherever I went, no matter how hard I tried to get it off my clothes. But what I had on me at the moment might have been enough to make a small kitten.

“You can rest here if you like, boy,” I said to Diesel as I rose from the sofa. “I have a little chore to do.” He chirped at me and closed his eyes. I left him there and went into the kitchen to find the lint roller.

After I deposited nine of those sticky roller sheets in the garbage, I figured I’d removed as much as I could. I washed my hands, and while drying them I heard my cell phone ringing faintly. I hurried toward the den to grab it before the rings stopped. Diesel opened his eyes and meowed at my sudden return.

Naturally the darn thing ceased its ringing the moment I picked it up. I tried to catch the call, but it had already gone to voice mail. I checked to see who had called and was surprised to see that it was Kanesha. I knew her message would be brief. I waited to listen to it before I returned her call.

The message consisted of six words: Need to talk. Please call soon.

I hit the button to call her and waited for her to pick up. “Hi, Kanesha. Sorry I didn’t get to the phone fast enough just now.”

“No problem,” she said. “First, I wanted to thank you for the tip about the blackmail racket Fong might have been working. I had our computer guy get to work on Fong’s laptop, and he managed to get in somehow and find a spreadsheet that looks suspicious. Dates, numbers, initials. Could be a record of payments. The numbers themselves aren’t that big, but they add up to well over a quarter million dollars.”

I nearly dropped my phone in shock. I fumbled to keep hold of it. “Good heavens,” I said when I had it steady again. “He must have been doing this for quite some time.”

“Maybe as far back as ten, twelve years ago,” Kanesha said. “If I’m interpreting the dates correctly.”

“Have you been able to identify any of the possible victims?”

“A few,” she replied.

“Anyone willing to talk to you about it?” I asked, then added in a rush, “Not that I’m asking for any names, you understand. Simply curious whether you could get one of them to talk to you.”

“Not so far,” Kanesha said. “That’s where I actually might need help from you.” She paused. I knew she didn’t like having to do this. “You have a knack for picking up information in these situations. Have you heard anything that could help me get anyone to talk to me?”

“Have you talked to my friends Marisue Pickard and Randi Grant?” I asked. “I know they could tell you a little.”

“They’re proving a bit difficult to track down,” Kanesha said. “I’ve left messages through their room voice mail, but so far they’re not responding.”

“That’s odd,” I said. “I thought they would have come to talk to you by now.” I gave her a summary of my luncheon conversation with Marisue and Randi.

When I finished, she said, “Talked to Crais, but he didn’t admit to anything. I’ll have to call him back in for more questions.”

“You also need to talk to a young man named Bob Coben.” I ran through the conversation between Coben and Crais that I’d overheard. “Coben certainly sounded threatening to me, even though he told Crais that he wouldn’t actually try to kill Gavin.”

“I’ve talked to Coben, too,” Kanesha said. “Got a little more out of him than I did Crais, but still not enough to get me any closer to verifying the blackmail racket.”

“Maybe now that you have my report of their conversation, you can get further with them. I’ll also try to track down Marisue and Randi. They really should have talked to you already. I’m frankly puzzled.”

“They’re going to have to speak to me at some point,” Kanesha said. “I have to talk to anyone at this conference who ever worked with Fong and the other victim, Muller.”

“What names do you have so far?” I asked.

“Hang on a moment. Yeah, here they are. Nancy Dunlap, Mitch Handler, Sylvia O’Callaghan, your two friends Pickard and Grant, and of course Coben and Crais. I don’t know if that’s everyone, but those are the names I got from Lisa Krause. She said they were all at the party Fong had on Thursday night.”

“About that party,” I said. “Do you think that’s when the killer planted the poisoned bottle of water?”

“That was a good opportunity, provided there were enough distractions,” Kanesha said.

“Do you know yet what poison was used?” I asked.

“We won’t have the toxicology report for several weeks,” Kanesha replied. “But, based on the signs on both victims’ bodies, the doctor who examined them thinks cyanide is the most likely answer.”

“How did Maxine Muller come to ingest it?”

“The same way Fong did,” Kanesha said. “Poisoned water bottle.”