The Library Fuzz

by James Holding

  “Seems like it,” I said. “I’m sorry. It kind of blows your theory, doesn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Jake, but his disappointment was evident in his tone. “I’ve heard of woman bank robbers before. Like Clyde’s lady friend, Bonnie.”

  Trying to cheer him up, I said, “This Adelaide Westover may have wanted to spend the long weekend with her boyfriend, so she went along with him on the bank job and curled up with a good book while he worked.”

  Waslyck ignored that. After a moment’s silence, he said, “I think we’ll give it a whirl anyway, Hal. We might get lucky.”

  * * * *

  Ten minutes later, my phone rang and it was Jake Waslyck. He said harshly, “You sure that’s the name and address your computer came up with?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “Then your computer has a slipped disk. There’s no such street as Bookbinders Lane in this city or any of its suburbs. And there’s no such person as Adelaide Westover listed in the City Directory or the phonebook.”

  I sighed. “Then the book was borrowed on a phony card, Jake—a card issued to a fictitious person at a fictitious address. Sometimes people lie about their names and addresses when they apply for a library card and show us fake references. We can’t check up on every citizen who applies for a card. But it doesn’t happen often.”

  “I thought it was your job to prevent that sort of thing.”

  “It is. I’ll see what I can do about this. If I come up with anything, I’ll let you know, Jake…

  Four days later I telephoned Waslyck. It was around five o’clock in the afternoon and he’d gone off duty. I called him at home.

  His wife answered the phone. “Hello?” she said in a rich creamy contralto that made me wonder how she ever came to marry a cop with a voice like a bullfrog.

  “I’d like to speak to Jake if he’s there,” I said.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Hal Johnson from the public library.”

  “Hold on.”

  “Hi,” he said when he came on the line.

  I said, “I think I’ve got something for you on that library book, Jake. It’s complicated for the telephone. I better see you.”

  “Okay. Be in my office at noon tomorrow.”

  “Right,” I said. I hung up, feeling unappreciated and put upon.

  * * * *

  I was in his office at noon, sitting on the same shaky chair. Jake greeted me with a short question.

  “What you got?”

  “Well, our library thief might possibly—just possibly—have something to do with your problem. I think I’m onto his real identity. But I’m not sure. I need your advice this time.”

  Waslyck sat back in his creaking swivel chair. “Make it short. Okay?”

  I said, “I questioned all the check-out people at Central Library about Adelaide Westover. Did anybody remember anybody checking out a book called The Eye of the Tiger by Wilbur Smith on a card made out in that name on that date—it didn’t have to be a woman. Nobody remembered anything.”

  “Figures,” said Jake.

  “So then I thought, what if this Adelaide Westover, whoever she really is, borrowed other books by Wilbur Smith with her phony library card? Your library card is good,” I explained parenthetically, “at any of our branches. And you can return borrowed books to any branch you want to. Did you know that, Jake?”

  “To my shame, I didn’t.” Jake tapped his fingers impatiently on his desk.

  “Well, I checked out all our Wilbur Smith titles, both at Central and all our branches—no easy job, since Smith has had six or eight successful books published in this country and some of our branches have as many as six copies of each one circulating. Thank God for our computer.”

  Jake said an unpleasant word.

  I went on blithely, “Which is how I found out that three other Smith titles have gone overdue—although not long enough overdue to have been brought to my attention just yet.”

  Jake was following me closely now. “And the three overdue Smith books were checked out to Adelaide Westover?” he guessed.

  “No, only one of them. A book called The Delta Decision. The other two titles—A Sparrow Falls and Hungry As the Sea—were checked out at our North Side and East Gate branches by two different people entirely. The book from North Side branch was checked out to Alexander Warfield. 15101 Quarto Avenue, the book from East Gate was checked out to Alan Woolfolk, who supposedly resides at 6225 Doubleday Drive.”

  “But doesn’t?”

  “But doesn’t. Nor does any Alexander Warfield reside at 15101 Quarto Avenue. There are no such people and no such addresses in the city.”

  “More phony library cards?”

  “Seems like.”

  Jake mulled it over for a few seconds. “And you figure the three phony library patrons are one and the same person? Because they all borrowed Smith’s books?”

  I nodded. “Sometimes people borrow a book by an author they’ve never tried before and they like it so well they want to read all the other books the author has written.”

  “And this joker who uses fake library cards has gone ape over Wilbur Smith.”

  I shrugged. “Could be. If the three phony names and addresses are the same person.”

  “You think they are?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Look at the names.” I passed him my notebook. “Look at the addresses.”

  “The names have the same initials—Adelaide Westover, Alexander Warfield, Alan Woolfolk.”

  “Right. And as I remember my homicide work, a lot of people use their own initials when they’re dreaming up an alias.”

  “Are you saying your book borrower’s real initials are A. W.?”

  “It seems reasonable.”

  “I’ll buy that. But what about the addresses?”

  “All three street names have something to do with books. The kind of phony names a guy who likes books might come up with. Bookbinders Lane. Quarto Avenue. Doubleday Drive.”

  “Okay. So what’s the phony’s real name then?” Waslyck leaned forward in his chair.

  “Don’t you want to hear how I nosed him out?” I asked innocently.

  “No, I don’t. But you’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “All three phony library cards were issued at our South Side branch,” I said. “That narrowed things down. But naturally nobody at South Side remembered anything about issuing them, so I pulled the application files of all the library volunteers who work at South Side and are authorized by our librarian to issue new library cards. Did you know we have twenty-seven volunteers working an average of four hours a week without pay at the South Side branch?”

  “I know it now.”

  “So after examining the applications of volunteers over the past few years at South Side, I talked with the librarian and her assistant—and came up with a really hot-looking suspect for you.”

  “Who?” asked Jake.

  “A volunteer named Arthur West. Sixty-nine years old, authority to issue new library cards, ready access to the check-out and check-in machines, considered a compulsive reader by his associates. He works twelve hours a week at our South Side branch without pay, has a pleasant personality, a minuscule income from Social Security, and a negligible pension from his former employers.”

  Waslyck interrupted. “But what’s this Arthur West got to do with the First Federal Bank job?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask your advice about,” I said. “He’s got a small checking account at First Federal, for one thing.”

  “So have hundreds of other people.”

  “Our South Side branch is right next door to the bank.”

  That got me nothing but a blank look.

  “Arthur West often brings his lunch to the library in a paper bag—and the lunch invariably consists of peanut-butter sandwiches.”

  “Half the people in the world eat peanut-butter sandwiches for lunch,” Jak
e said wearily.

  “But Arthur West doesn’t eat his crusts,” I said. “Just like one of your bank robbers.”

  “The world’s full of people who don’t eat their crusts.”

  “True, Lieutenant,” I said, “but the world’s not full of library volunteers whose names begin with the letters A and W, who are peanut-butter-sandwich fiends who don’t eat their crusts, who are living on inadequate incomes and who—” I paused for dramatic effect “—were employed before their retirement by the Universal Security Company of Chicago, whose specialty is the manufacture and installation of sophisticated alarm systems for banks.”

  Waslyck acted as though a bomb had exploded under his chair. He shot to his feet. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place? Where can I find this Arthur West? You do know his address, I take it?”

  “He lives in a rented room over The Corner Cupboard Bar and Grill out in Lake Point. You know The Corner Cupboard, Lieutenant?”

  “Who doesn’t? It’s a dive. Some very hard characters hang out there.”

  “Well, that’s where Arthur West does his beer-drinking and eats most of his dinners,” I said. “And maybe it’s where he recruited his help for the bank job.”

  Waslyck yelled for Josie. When she showed up in the doorway, he said, “Get your coat on and check out a car for us—I’ll meet you down in the garage.” He took his own overcoat off the hat rack in the corner. The thermometer was still flirting with zero outside.

  I said, “Aren’t you going to get a search warrant before you go out there? You want to keep things legal, don’t you?”

  Jake gave me an exasperated look. “You know something, Hal?” he asked. “I’m really glad you don’t work here anymore.” He turned for the door. “So now get lost, will you? I’ll let you know how this turns out.”

  * * * *

  The morning newspaper next day told me all I needed to know—under a front-page headline. The police, the story went, acting on a tip from an informer, had arrested an elderly man named Arthur West in The Corner Cupboard Bar and Grill the previous afternoon and charged him with complicity in the sensational robbery, ten days ago, of First Federal Bank on the South Side. According to police Lieutenant Jacob Waslyck, other arrests were imminent. A search of West’s rented room above the bar led to the recovery of almost a third of the loot stolen from First Federal’s safe-deposit vault. The stolen valuables had been found hidden in a sleeping bag under West’s daybed. The police reported that West’s room also contained seven hundred and forty-two books bearing the identification stamp and card pockets of books from the Public Library.

  That last item, I knew, was a direct message from Lieutenant Waslyck to me. His way of saying thanks—or a malicious reminder that I wasn’t any better at my job than he was at his.

  * * * *

  I found a message on my desk when I got to the library that morning. Dr. Forbes, the Library Director, wanted to see me in his office right away. His spacious office is right next to my cubbyhole. He could have yelled for me and usually does. But this morning the message was formal. Dr. Forbes must be upset. And I thought I knew why.

  He looked at me over the newspaper he was reading. Before he could say anything, I blurted out, “Dr. Forbes, I know what you’re thinking and I don’t blame you. But that newspaper article didn’t mention two important facts. One, that Arthur West, the bank robber and library-book thief, is also a trusted volunteer who works at our South Side branch. And two, the informant who tipped off the police to him was me.”

  His expression went from stormy to partly cloudy. “Tell me about it, Hal,” he said.

  I told him everything. When I finished, his expression had gone from partly cloudy to fair and warmer. He said, “No wonder we didn’t realize the books were missing. West checked them out to himself on spurious cards, and before they were overdue he checked the cards back in again without actually returning the books.”

  “Exactly. We were lucky he forgot to check those Smith titles in before they showed overdue on our computer.”

  “Why do you suppose he forgot to do it?”

  “Maybe he was too busy planning the bank robbery—or more likely, after over seven hundred book thefts he began to think his system was foolproof and we’d never get onto him. He got careless.”

  Dr. Forbes smiled.

  “So am I fired, or not?” I ventured to ask him.

  “Not,” he said.

  * * * *

  Two weeks went by. Two weeks during which I carried out my duties as usual. Two weeks during which Arthur West plea-bargained himself down to a charge of petty book theft in return for naming his accomplices in the bank robbery and agreeing to testify against them when their trials came up. Two weeks during which said accomplices—an apprentice plumber and a backhoe operator, both local citizens and regular patrons of The Corner Cupboard Bar and Grill—were duly charged with bank robbery. Two weeks during which, to everyone’s relief, the other two-thirds of the missing loot was recovered almost intact, the plumber’s share from a beat-up suitcase in a locker at the Greyhound Bus Station, the backhoe man’s share zipped into one of his wife’s drip-dry pillow-covers and stashed in the crawl space between his garage ceiling and roof.

  On Saturday night of the second week I took Ellen Thomas out to dinner at Jimmy’s Crab House. Ellen is the girl who holds down the check-out desk at the Central Library. She has promised to marry me as soon as we can acquire an adequate nest egg to see us through any rainy days in the future.

  We were facing each other across a narrow table in a booth. Ellen looked at the prices on the menu and said, “Are you out of your mind, Hal? This place is too fancy for us.”

  I said, “I’m going to have Maine lobster, myself.”

  “Maine lobster?” She hesitated. “If you say so.” Another pause. “Me, too.”

  The waiter took our orders and in due course brought in the lobsters. They were delicious. Not worth the price, but delicious.

  Between bites, Ellen said, “What’s the occasion, Hal? It is one, isn’t it?” She gave me her up-from-under keen look.

  “Yeah,” I said, “a celebration of sorts.”

  “What sort? A celebration of what?”

  “Wait till dessert,” I said. “I want to surprise you.”

  “Okay. I’ll wait.” She worked on her lobster for a bit. Then she said, “I can’t wait any longer, Hal. Tell me now. Why are we blowing a week’s wages at this elegant restaurant?”

  “Because,” I replied, “the First Federal and their insurance people got together and decided to give the Police Benevolent Fund and Hal Johnson from the Public Library a small reward in recognition of their services in solving the robbery and recovering their loot.”

  “Hey!” cried Ellen, her eyes shining. “My hero! How much?”

  “Ten thousand for the PBF, ten thousand for me.”

  She was stunned. She stared at me, her eyes wide with outrage. “Ten thousand dollars,” she said indignantly. “Ten thousand dollars for saving them three and a half million!”

  I agreed. “But ten thousand is better than nothing.”

  She brightened.

  “It’s pretty wonderful when you think about it. We’ve got our nest egg in one fell swoop. Now we can get married.”

  I said, “On ten thousand dollars? You call that a nest egg? It’s hardly enough for a decent honeymoon. Not nearly enough to pay the obstetrician for the sixteen children we’re going to have. Think of the college tuition for only one of the sixteen.” I shook my head. “No way, Ellen. Suppose I lose my job or you lose yours? Suppose one of us has to spend a couple of weeks in a hospital sometime? Or we get divorced and I have to pay alimony and child support? Where would the money come from?”

  Ellen leaned across the table and gave me a buttery kiss. “Well,” she said, “we could always rob a bank, couldn’t we?”

  THE VAPOR CLUE

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December
1961.

  If you want to go to Washingtonville, Pennsylvania, you go east from Pittsburgh on Route 78 for about twenty miles toward the Riverton entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. As you approach Washingtonville, you dip down past a big new shopping center and run along the bottom of a shallow valley past seven gas stations, three roadside markets, two branch banks, a yard full of trailer rigs waiting for assignment, and several fairly clean cafes that cater largely to truck drivers.

  Just before you lift out of this shallow valley over the western ridge, you can quickly look to your left and see the huddle of houses just off the highway that is Washingtonville itself. And because the accident happened on Highway 78 within shouting distance, almost, of Washingtonville City Hall, it was the Washingtonville Police who had jurisdiction and Lieutenant Randall who was largely responsible for handling the case. Randall would never have caught up with the killer without the help of a waitress named Sarah Benson.

  * * * *

  At 5:30 A.M. on December 16th, a 1954 Plymouth sedan, following Route 78 east, labored heavily up the slope of the ridge that formed the western boundary of Washingtonville’s little valley. The car had engine trouble; the motor was running very unevenly and the car jerked and hesitated in its progress. The road had been plowed clean of yesterday’s five-inch snowfall, but piles of snow edged the highway and the still-dark morning was bitter cold.

  Inside the sedan, Hub Grant said to his wife, “If I can coax her up this hill and over, maybe we can find a gas station or garage open on the other side. We’ve sure got to get something done to this baby before we can make Connecticut in it.”

  His wife nodded anxiously. “It’s so early, Hub. I’m afraid nothing will be open yet. We should have stopped at one of those motels back there.”

  “I wish we had,” Hub admitted.

  The car topped the ridge. Washingtonville’s valley lay before them, snow-covered, silent, and marked by only a few lonesome-looking lights along the highway ahead.

  Hub said, “There’s a gas station. Let’s try it.”

  He urged the reluctant car toward Amos White’s gas station halfway down the gentle slope of the hill. And the Plymouth’s engine chose that moment to conk out completely.