Death Among The Stacks: The Body In The Law Library

by Louise Hathaway

  He’s had problems with his knees before, so there is always one in the freezer, ready to go.

  He lies on the floor for twenty minutes, holding the ice pack to his knee.

  “I feel really pathetic,” he tells his wife.

  “Maybe we should get you to the doctor’s?”

  “He’s gone home by now.”

  “I’ll take you to the emergency room, then.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s just a sprain.”

  “Okay, then. Try to stand up. Let me help you.”

  He tries to stand and feels a sharp pain shooting up in his leg. “I can’t stand,” he tells her.

  “We’re going to the hospital, then,” she insists.

  Chapter Ten

  The 747 lands heavily on the runway in Baltimore as the rain pounds on the airplane fuselage. Willis has a death grip on his armrest. When he heard that Sledge fractured his knee in two places and needed to stay off his feet for a few days, he inwardly groaned when he was told that he’d have to go in his place. He was in the service and flew around the world many times but has never been comfortable flying. The two rum and cokes don’t do much to calm his nerves either.

  As the plane taxis to the gate, everyone in the plane begins to stand—much to the chagrin of the crew. “Please, will everyone remain seated until the plane is secured at the gate!” the stewardess snaps over the intercom. The chiding catches everyone by surprise as if they were school children being scolded by an angry teacher.

  A passenger who’s standing to retrieve his stuff drops his bag and computer into Willis’ lap sending his notes and bag flying. “These idiots should be busted!” Willis mutters under his breath. “Why me?”

  *******

  Willis finally makes it off the plane and out into the terminal. Just outside the gate he is greeted by a man in a plain suit, dark sunglasses and a sign that reads “Officer Willis”. Who is this? Willis thinks.

  The man approaches him and says, “Are you Officer Willis?”

  “Yes, that’s me; who wants to know?”

  “Easy fellow,” the man returns. “I’m Agent Brewster, FBI. William Brewster. You can call me Bill. Sledge asked me if I could help you out with your inquiries. We go way back. Spent some time in the service together. Man, did we have a time together. Anything you need while you’re here, just ask.”

  Brewster catches Willis off-guard. He feels a bit upset that Sledge thought he needed to have a chaperone. This was his big chance to show he could do some real police work by himself. Boy, I guess he thinks I’m just not ready.

  Brewster senses Willis’ feeling and says, “Don’t worry, pal; Sledge thinks the world of you, don’t take it personal. This is your case, just think of me as a resource. I’m here to help. Sledge has always been like this. You’re not alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Willis says. “I guess I was just caught a bit off guard after the flight and all. I’m not used to flying and the weather was awful.”

  “Get used to it. It’s supposed to be like this for days.”

  Willis collects his bags and he and Brewster are met at the curb by another FBI man in a plain, unmarked car. “Meet Agent Simkins,” Brewster says. “He’s going to help us; I mean help you, get all the information you need on this Gaylord fellow. Sledge emailed me all the information he had on him and Simkins was able to get you quite a folder of stuff from our databases.” Brewster hands Willis a large manila envelope marked “Gaylord” as the car pulls away into the rainy streets of Baltimore.

  “Where they got you staying?”

  “I’m at the Motel 6 on Washington.”

  “Ooh, sounds like you guys are on a budget, eh?”

  “Yeah, things are tight in the department. They’re trying to save every last penny, even limiting our range time, you know, only so many bullets even.”

  “Jeez, it’s too bad. Ever think about working for us? With all the Homeland Security money rolling in, we’ve got whatever we ask for. Pretty nice gig.”

  “It’d be really nice to have all the stuff you guys have. Hell, if we could just get some up-to-date computer systems, I’d be happy.”

  “Feel like something to eat?”

  “Nah, I’m going to have an early night, I want to get started on digging through all this information here. Thanks a lot for the help.”

  “Any time, Willis. We’re here to help. Here’s my number. Call me anytime if you need anything. We’ve got eyes and ears into stuff you can only dream of; so, should you get stuck, give us a ring. Have a good night and good luck with your case.”

  Willis grabs his bag and dashes into the motel lobby, dripping wet.

  The motel room was basic and sparse. The department was certainly not spending excessively. Willis could hear the constant roar of jet engines taking off and landing from his room. The motel was near the airport and what little soundproofing it had barely made a difference. Dropping his bags on the bed, he phoned the department to let them know he made it to Baltimore.

  “Lucy, this is Willis. I made it to Baltimore in one piece.”

  “Wow…Baltimore, Maryland?”

  “Yes, Lucy. Baltimore, Maryland. Remember you got me this tickets right?”

  “Oh sure. Don’t make fun of me. I just forgot. How was your flight?”

  “Piece of cake. No problems at all. I’m used to it. All that flying in the service. It’s raining pretty hard here though.”

  “Sorry to hear about that. Do you need to talk to anyone?”

  “Is Detective Sledge in?”

  “Let me check. Hold on a sec.”

  Willis sits on hold listening to the department’s public service messages while the rain began to come down harder. He hopes he wouldn’t screw this up. Meeting with the FBI guys and getting all the information from them on Gaylord seems to raise the importance level of things a bit higher for him. This could be a chance for him to shine; he hopes he won’t let them down.

  “Willis? How’s it going? How was your flight?” Sledge breaks in.

  “It’s going well. The flight was fine and I’m digging into some information on Gaylord right now.”

  “Did you meet Brewster?”

  “Yes sir I did. Says he knows you and that you go way back.”

  “Yeah, Brewster and I were in the Corps way back when. We had ourselves a time, we did. Got into some situations in the desert. Brewster saved my life more than once.”

  “Wow, I had no idea. He gave me an envelope full of information on Gaylord. I had no idea they had so much information about people.”

  “You’d be surprised what they have, Willis.”

  “That’s what Brewster said.”

  “So what’s your schedule look like?”

  “I’m going to see Gaylord’s two sisters tomorrow morning. Then I want to talk to his coworkers at the Government Printing Office. Finally, I’ll take a look at his apartment. Hopefully I can get some more information about this guy for us.”

  “Sounds good, Willis. Let me know if you need anything from us. I want you to get some good information for us on this case. I have a feeling there’s a lot we don’t know yet that you’ll pickup there.”

  Willis feels his stomach churn and his throat close up a bit from the pressure of expectations. “I’ll find out everything there is to know about him. You can count on me, sir.”

  “Great. Well, I’ve got to go now, I’m checking with an old buddy on one of the library employees, Kelly, who used to be in the Corps. Seems she might have a bit of a past that we need to know about. In the meantime, don’t work so hard. Enjoy a bit of the nation’s capital. It’s quite a historical place you know.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

  Willis hangs up thinking, when the heck would I have time to visit Washington D.C.? They only gave me two nights here and put me in this cheap motel. He lies back on the bed and opens the envelope Brewster gave him. He spends the rest of the night reading and absorbing as much as he could about Gaylord. He fa
lls asleep to the distant roar of jet airplanes taking off.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, Willis awakes to a knock on the door.

  “Room service,” a voice pleads.

  “Room service, Mr. Willis.”

  “Hold on, I’ll be right there.”

  Willis stumbles out of bed searching for his pants. Pants on, he opens the door to find Agent Brewster doing his best room service imitation.

  “Thought you might like a little breakfast.” Brewster holds out some coffee and bagels with cream cheese.

  “Boy, you had me there. I didn’t think Motel 6 had room service. Sorry for the mess, I haven’t gotten unpacked yet. I spent my entire night reading the information you put together on Gaylord. It’s really something all the information you have on people.”

  “Everyone is on the radar after 9/11. I hope it has something that will help you.”

  “Actually, it raises more questions for me than it answers. But hey—that’s police work right?”

  “Ain’t that the truth? This fellow has quite a bit of mystery about him; even compared to people we’re used to dealing with. A real odd character. I have to admit that part of the reason we’re helping out on this one is that the agency Gaylord worked for was one that was very close to the FBI in ways I cannot reveal. There are people in the Bureau who would like nothing better than to have this case closed as quick as possible and without any fanfare, if you know what I mean?”

  “Wow, I had no idea. I guess this is bigger than I thought.”

  Willis feels the pressure of the case start to ratchet up. Why in the world was the FBI so interested in this person and or the Law Library? Why did they care?

  “So what are your plans today?”

  “I’m going to start with talking to Gaylord’s sisters this morning. I’m hoping to visit the Government Printing Office and see if I can get any information about him there. Tomorrow I want to visit his apartment in Baltimore. The guys in the department promised me I could see it before they remove everything.”

  “So do you need a lift anywhere this morning, Willis?”

  “Ah, no thanks. I’m going to grab a rental.”

  “Can we at least drive you to the car rental?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  *******

  While Brewster spreads out the bagels and slathers cream cheese on them, Willis gets dressed and ready to go. The day looks stormy and grey. The paper says there is a 70% chance of rain. He tells Brewster, “I have a question about Gaylord from the material you gave me. I noticed that he had numerous run-ins with the law, mostly fights and bad behavior in bars.”

  “Yes, we noticed that, too.”

  “My question is, ‘How could he get his GPO job with all that on his record? I mean, it doesn’t make sense.’ The government shouldn’t have hired him, right?”

  “You would tend to think so. Let me let you in on something that you won’t find in his official records. Gaylord was unruly and did cause a lot of problems for the D.C. police. He seemed to be on a hair-trigger sometimes according to what we’ve been able to find out. I don’t know what caused him to snap so often, maybe PTSD from Nam, maybe something else. Despite his behavior, he got that job mainly because he had someone in his corner—his father. His dad was an Annapolis grad and was good buddies with someone very senior in government. They were both in the same class at the Academy. Seems Gaylord was given an ultimatum; they’d give him the job if he stopped all his reckless behavior. I can’t tell you much more than that but I think that answers your question.”

  “So he got a sweetheart deal?”

  “Yeah, and you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “From the looks of things, the deal worked.”

  “Yes, he seemed to have sorted things out. No arrests or bad behavior since. Finish your bagel and let’s go. Don’t you have a car to rent?”

  “Oh man, I do. Thanks.”

  Willis scarfs down a bagel with a gulp of coffee. He grabs his coat and bag and follows Brewster down to the lobby where Agent Simkins is waiting to take him to get his rental car. They jump in and head toward the airport to get Willis his rental. Willis still can’t get the military problem out of his head while they drive through the streets.

  “Would you like us to come with you to talk to the sisters?”

  “No, but thanks a bunch, you guys have been a great help. I think I’ve got this one. I’ve got your number, if I need any help, I’ll give you a call.”

  *******

  Willis dreads meeting Gaylord’s next of kin—his two sisters. They are both single ladies who live together in a house in Georgetown—the ritzy neighborhood in the Nation’s Capital. Both women are professionals: one is a librarian and another is a lawyer. Willis feels intimidated by them already, and he hasn’t even met them yet.

  At a prearranged time of 10:00 a.m., he knocks on their door. The lawyer, Violet, is a large, imposing woman who looks like she suffers no fools. She invites him inside and asks him if he’d like any coffee or water. Willis has a very dry mouth, so he gladly accepts her offer of a glass of water. He had already notified them by phone of their brother’s death, so the two sisters have had some time to get over the shock of his brutal murder.

  The other sister, Phyllis, comes into the front room to join Willis and Violet. She is wearing her glasses on a beaded chain around her neck, reminding Willis of “Marian the Librarian”. She speaks very softly as she asks Willis if they are getting any closer to figuring out who killed their brother. Willis responds that the law enforcement team is still gathering information. Violet says, “Ask us anything at all that may prove helpful to this investigation.”

  Willis first asks them if they have any idea who might have killed their brother. Phyllis passionately responds, “We can’t think of anyone who would do such a ‘dastardly deed’.”

  Willis inwardly chuckles at her response, thinking that only a librarian would use the words “dastardly deed.”

  She also adds, “It is so difficult for me to imagine that this would happen in a library, of all places”. She sees libraries as “hushed reading rooms” where people can have the peace and quiet to do their reading and research.

  Willis asks both of them if they knew of anyone who held a grudge against their brother. Violet impatiently responds, “As my sister just told you, we have absolutely no idea who might have done this!”

  “Calm down Ma’am; I’m just doing my job.” He next asks if they had noticed any unusual behavior or activities that their brother was involved in during the last few years.

  Both sisters look at each other, thinking, should we really open up that Pandora’s Box? They give each other a silent signal that they will “spill the beans” about their brother if it will help solve the mystery of his death and lead to the arrest of the “evil person” who committed this horrible crime.

  Phyllis is the first to speak, knowing from past experience that Violet tends to “fly off the handle” whenever she gets stressed out and angry. This is going to be very difficult to divulge the family’s dirty linen, the sisters think. In a soft and measured voice, Phyllis tells Willis that their brother was never the same after he was drafted and told to go to Viet Nam. He was very upset that he would have to risk his life fighting in a war he didn’t believe in. He knew of friends coming home from the war suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. One of his closest friends committed suicide when he came back from the war. The sisters had received very few letters while their brother was fighting in Viet Nam. The last one he wrote said that his tour of duty was over and he was on his way home.

  Gaylord didn’t come home right away, after all. For several years, the sisters received no correspondence from him whatsoever and became increasingly afraid and anxious, desperately making inquiries as to his whereabouts. Nobody knew what had happened to him. When he finally did arrive back home after the fall of Saigon, he refused to talk about where he had disappeared to during all of the t
ime he was missing. Violet was very frustrated with him for keeping it a secret. She remonstrated, “If you can’t tell your family, who can you tell?”

  Willis asks the sisters about their brother’s employment history after he came back from the war. Violet says, “He didn’t work; he did nothing but drink and get into bar fights. We were totally disgusted and disappointed with him.”

  Phyllis interrupts her sister saying, “We knew that he needed some space and healing before he could get back to his old self.” Both sisters agreed that their parents would be rolling over in their graves if they’d known how their only son had been squandering all of that Harvard education. They were both relieved when he finally got a job at the Government Printing Office.

  Willis continues, “I understand that he was living in Baltimore before he came to Colorado to inspect the library. When was the last time you saw him?” The sisters reply that they hadn’t seen him for about a month. Willis tells them that he plans to go look at Gaylord’s apartment tomorrow, and asks them if they knew of anything at his home that might be helpful to the investigation. When they answered that they didn’t know of anything, he gives them his card and tells them to call him if they can think of anything further.

  Chapter Twelve

  Willis makes his way through the D.C. traffic to the Government Printing Office. He pulls up to the security gate and greets the security guard. He’s armed too.

  “Hello, I’m Sergeant Ronnie Willis. I’m here to speak to some GPO employees about a crime we’re working on.”

  Willis proudly flashes his badge.

  “Do you have a blue permit card?”

  “Blue permit card? Ah, no, I spoke with the director, Carole Seton, a few days back and she said to just come on by. Nothing about a blue permit card.”

  “I’m sorry Sergeant Willis, you’ll need to park your vehicle over there and then obtain a blue permit card from the security office up over the ridge there.”

  The guard points to an office building off in the distance.

  “Please pull ahead and make a U-turn to exit towards the security office.”