Twelve Angry Librarians

by Miranda James

  “I’m figuring it was cyanide,” I said. “But I can’t figure out how someone would have gotten hold of it. It’s a regulated substance, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it certainly is,” Stewart said. “A person can’t simply walk into the neighborhood drugstore and ask for it over the counter. There are chemical supply houses—that’s how we obtain the cyanide we use in the labs at work. But an ordinary person can’t order it.” He got up from the table to refill his coffee. “The killer could have stolen it from a lab, I suppose, but that wouldn’t be easy.”

  “Is there any other way you can think of?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Online.”

  SEVENTEEN

  I nearly dropped my coffee cup at Stewart’s answer. “Online? You mean you can order poison over the Internet?”

  “Not in this country,” Stewart said as he resumed his seat at the table. “You know that people buy drugs from overseas online, right?” When I nodded, he continued. “Well, there are disreputable firms in other parts of the world that sell chemicals illegally, too, without regulation.”

  “Good heavens.” I felt slightly nauseated.

  “Pretty frightening, I know,” Stewart said. “Another way to get it would be from a college chemistry lab, although it would be a really slipshod lab if they let dangerous chemicals get taken.”

  “Do you have it in the chemistry labs at Athena?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Stewart said. “We keep careful control over it as we do all our chemicals, and access to them is limited.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “Still, the killer got hold of it somehow.”

  “Do you know for sure that the killer used cyanide?” Stewart asked.

  “No.” I felt sheepish when I continued. “I’m basing it solely on how quickly it happened, how he behaved before he fell out of sight, and on reading many mysteries over the years that had cyanide as the murder weapon.”

  Stewart chuckled. “I know it’s not funny, but hearing you say that makes me think of Agatha Christie.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “She worked in a hospital dispensary and became quite knowledgeable about poisons.”

  “I think I read that somewhere,” Stewart said. “Tell me what you saw.”

  I related the scene as I recalled it, and Stewart nodded when I finished. “That sounds like cyanide poisoning,” he said. “Tasteless, soluble in water, and he probably drank so fast he had no idea what he’d swallowed.”

  How vulnerable we are. That thought gave me the shivers.

  “The toxicology report could take several weeks, even longer,” Stewart said. “In the meantime, cyanide seems likely to me.”

  “I think figuring out when the killer got the poison into the water bottle is the key to solving it,” I said. “Once Kanesha knows that, she can probably isolate the suspects and figure out who did it and why.”

  “Plus find out where they got the cyanide in the first place,” Stewart added. “I’m curious about that part.”

  I nodded. “Me, too. I think I know when the killer had the best opportunity to poison the bottle.” I told Stewart about the party Gavin hosted in his suite. “That must be when it was done.”

  “Probably,” Stewart said. “But wasn’t the killer taking a risk that someone else might have gotten hold of that bottle instead?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “Depends on when during the party it was done, I suppose. Gavin wouldn’t have wanted to share his particular favorite brand of water with anyone else, and I’ll bet the others at the party knew that. I’ll have to ask Lisa if she remembers whether there was other water available.”

  “The other thing that strikes me is the fact that this guy drank from the poisoned bottle during the luncheon. If the killer poisoned the water in the suite, he or she had no way of knowing exactly when the victim would actually drink it and die.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Well, Kanesha will have to figure all that out, if she can.”

  I got up to refill my coffee, and I suddenly heard a ruckus coming from the direction of the stairs. Stewart and I looked at each other and grinned. Diesel and Dante were playing one of their favorite games, running up and down the stairs, taking turns chasing each other. Dante barked occasionally, and Diesel meowed loudly. The game usually lasted about five minutes, by which time they had expended enough energy and were ready to rest for another round later. The early stage of the game wasn’t noisy. The longer they went at it, however, the louder and faster they got.

  Stewart and I waited for about a minute, and the two racers came trotting into the kitchen, breathing hard.

  Stewart glanced at his watch. “Time for me to get ready for the gym. Come on, Dante.” The dog trotted over to him, panting, and Stewart scooped him up. “We’ll see you later, guys.” Dante licked Stewart’s face as the two exited the room.

  Diesel stretched out on the floor by my chair and started grooming himself. I prepared a small bowl of cereal and popped two pieces of bread into the toaster. Once I finished my cereal and toast, I contemplated another couple of pieces of toast, but decided on an apple instead. Every once in a while I made a healthier choice.

  My thoughts turned to Laura and Frank. I badly wanted to call Laura to find out what was going on. Had they made a decision yet? Was there still a chance they might choose to stay in Athena?

  I knew I shouldn’t call. Laura knew I’d be stewing over this, anxious to know the outcome. She would talk to me as soon as she and Frank were ready to share their decision. I had to be content to wait. Patience, in matters like this, was never my strong suit.

  I forced my mind to the conference schedule. I had that panel on cataloging to do. Would someone step in to take Gavin’s place? I wondered. I also speculated, somewhat uneasily, how technical the other librarians on the panel would get. With the change from the old Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, known fondly to catalogers as AACR2, to the newer standard, Resource Description and Access, known as RDA, the world of cataloging had changed. Though I was familiar with RDA and some of the important changes, I didn’t have a complete grasp of it by any means. I didn’t want to appear ignorant if the others started spouting rule numbers that meant nothing to me.

  Too late to worry about that now. I would have to wing it and hope not to come off looking like a complete fool. Given everything else going on in my life right now, this panel was a minor thing.

  That realization made me feel better. I put my dishes in the dishwasher, made sure the coffeepot was off, and then Diesel and I headed upstairs. I needed to get ready to face the outside world.

  Half an hour later I was prepared to leave the house, dressed in a suit but without the tie. Five days a week were enough with a tie around my neck, I decided. Most of the men I had seen at the conference yesterday weren’t wearing them, and I might as well go with the trend.

  Before I went to the Farrington House, however, I had to deliver Diesel to Melba Gilley’s house. She had volunteered to take care of him today so that I wouldn’t have to leave him at home with only Dante for company. Both cat and dog tended to make mischief when left without human supervision, and I didn’t care to come home and find every shoe I owned dragged out of my closet and left with teeth and claw marks. Lesson learned.

  I chatted with Melba a moment while Diesel disappeared quickly into the house. He had been here before, and I had no doubt he headed straight to Melba’s sofa. I passed over the harness and leash in case she wanted to run an errand while she babysat.

  The conference started at nine this morning, and I made it to the hotel about ten minutes before nine. I paused in the lobby to scan the program. Nothing in the nine o’clock session appealed to me, and my panel started at half past ten. Might as well visit the vendor exhibits.

  Because the SALA conference was a relatively small meeting, the exhibits occupied only half
the ballroom. I remembered the exhibitors’ hall at the Texas Library Association Annual Meetings, held in convention centers, and the vast space it covered. I could easily make my way around these exhibits in under an hour unless I stopped to chat with vendors at each booth. I did want to speak with salespeople from our chief subscription agent and introduce myself. In case I decided to accept the director’s job, I knew I shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to acquaint myself with these people.

  I quickly found the booth I sought and introduced myself to one of the salespeople, a curly-headed young woman whose name tag read Carol Seiler. We soon discovered that we had mutual librarian friends in Texas and chatted away. She introduced me to several of her coworkers, and we discussed some of the particulars of the Athena College account.

  While we talked I became aware of two women, both strangers who appeared to be in their late seventies, at least. They stood nearby, perhaps seven or eight feet away, staring at me. I glanced sideways several times and saw them whispering to each other, and twice one of the women pointed in my direction. I realized I had lost the thread of the conversation with Carol and her coworkers and made an effort to ignore the women.

  Why were they staring and pointing at me? I wondered while I listened to Carol’s remarks about a new product. Different visitors to the booth claimed the other salespeople’s attention, but Carol continued her conversation with me. I made an effort to listen and comment intelligently, but at the back of my mind I was stewing over the behavior of those two women.

  When I allowed myself a quick sideways glance in their direction, I saw that they were no longer nearby. I wanted to turn around and look for them, but I couldn’t be that rude. Carol, however, noticed my distraction.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked. “Something seems to be bothering you.”

  I hesitated before I answered. “Well, actually, there is. Did you happen to notice those two women who hovered nearby for a few minutes? They seemed to be staring and pointing at me, and I don’t know why.”

  Carol shook her head. “No, sorry, I didn’t notice them. Perhaps they were waiting to speak with you but didn’t want to interrupt.”

  I shrugged. “Well, if that’s the case, I suppose they’ll track me down at some point.” I thanked her for her time, and she gave me her business card. I tucked it into my jacket pocket, wished her a good day, and wandered down the row to survey the other booths.

  At the end of the row I paused at the exhibitor’s table and picked up a brochure that touted their databases, all designed for general academic libraries. I asked a few questions, received a free thumb drive and a couple more brochures, then rounded the corner to go down the next aisle.

  I ran right into the two women who only a little while ago had been watching me and whispering to each other. “Sorry,” I said with a brief smile. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  One of the women uttered a muted shriek and stepped back, while the other stared at me with avid interest. I would have sworn she licked her lips before she said, “If you’re the one who killed that obnoxious Gavin Fong, I’d like to shake your hand.”

  EIGHTEEN

  For a moment I was too taken aback to do anything other than stare blankly at the two women. Then the bizarre nature of the situation struck my often quirky sense of humor, and I was hard put not to laugh.

  Instead I said, “Ma’am, I’d be happy to shake your hand, but it would be under false pretenses. I didn’t kill Gavin Fong.”

  The woman who shrieked a moment ago eyed me with suspicion. When she spoke, her voice came out in a hoarse whisper, and I had to strain to hear her. “Are you sure? I could have sworn someone told me you were the man who beat him up Thursday and nearly put him in the hospital.”

  The woman who had offered to shake my hand glared at her companion. “What idiot told you that, Ada Lou? You saw that jerk Fong at the luncheon yesterday. Did he look like he’d been beaten up anywhere near bad enough to be in the hospital?”

  “Well, no, Virginia, I guess not.” Ada Lou looked confused.

  “Of course not,” Virginia snapped. “We were sitting a couple of tables away from him, and he didn’t look like—or move like—a man who’d been beaten, did he?”

  “I already said he didn’t, Virginia,” Ada Lou said. “I wish you wouldn’t keep on at me like that. My eyesight is better than yours. I could see that table a lot better than you, in fact. I was looking straight at him most of the time, and that man who was sitting next to him. You’re the one who complained that there was a real big head in the way when you tried to look.”

  “Well, there was a big head,” Virginia said. “You were sitting right there. Surely you could see a head that big for yourself, if your eyesight is as good as you keep saying it is.”

  By now several people had paused to eavesdrop on this peculiar conversation, and I was ready to move on before it became even more bizarre. While Virginia and Ada Lou continued to bicker, apparently having forgotten about me, I sidled away. I was curious about why Virginia hated Gavin Fong enough to want to shake my hand, but for the moment, I decided, finding that out could wait. I could always track them down later. In a group this size it shouldn’t be that hard.

  Perhaps my encounter with Virginia and Ada Lou had made me abnormally sensitive, but as I continued to make my way through the exhibits and speak occasionally to vendors, I felt the weight of numerous gazes directed my way. Was I imagining this, or were the starers all thinking I killed Gavin Fong?

  I probably had Maxine Muller to thank for this, I decided. I recalled that she had accused me of murder to Kanesha Berry. She must have been busy spreading the word at the conference. I grew increasingly uncomfortable in the exhibit hall and decided I’d had enough.

  I walked out of the ballroom into the foyer and found a secluded spot behind a pillar near a wall. A check of my watch informed me that I had twenty minutes before my panel started. I debated whether to abandon it and head home for the rest of the day. I knew Lisa Krause would be disappointed in me, not to mention angry, for doing so, and I told myself I had to tough it out.

  Being the center of attention had never appealed to me, although a few times I had done stupid things that briefly put me right in the limelight. The two times I knocked down Gavin Fong were prime examples. I wouldn’t describe myself as self-effacing, exactly, but neither did I seek out attention for the sake of being noticed and puffing up my ego. I preferred getting on with my life without most of the world around me paying any attention.

  Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. This will all pass over as soon as Kanesha solves the case, and all these people will forget who you are. I could almost hear my late wife, Jackie, and my aunt Dottie telling me that in unison.

  Still, I continued to feel a bit nervous. After a brief visit to the restroom I made my way to the room where my panel on cataloging would start in about five minutes. The previous session ended at ten fifteen, but people lingered near the front of the room. I went around the chairs on one side of the room and reached the front. A young man took away the name cards on the table and replaced them with those of the members of the cataloging panel.

  I felt a slight jolt when I spotted one with Gavin Fong’s name on it. Evidently the young man didn’t realize Fong wouldn’t be attending. I wondered whether I should remove it but decided that I would let someone else do it if they wanted to. Even without a name card I knew Gavin’s presence would probably be felt. Given the incendiary tenor of the opening remarks to his keynote speech yesterday, I felt reasonably sure he would have expressed opinions on cataloging that would have angered the audience today. Had he lived long enough to finish his remarks at the luncheon, he likely would have faced a roomful of angry librarians.

  As I waited for the other members of the panel to make themselves known, I speculated whether Gavin’s attitude toward his profession could have anything to do with his mur
der. I didn’t take it seriously as a motive, but it could be a contributing factor, of a sort. Maybe when I got home later this afternoon I would do a little digging, check out some of Gavin’s publications, to find out whether he had expressed these provocative opinions in professional journals.

  I emerged from my woolgathering and looked at my watch. The panel should have started seven minutes ago. I also noticed that the room was nearly empty. I counted three other people besides myself.

  What was going on? Where were the other members of the panel?

  Moments later a harassed-looking Lisa Krause hurried into the room. Her expression forewarned me of bad news.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Am I in the wrong room for the cataloging panel?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No, this is the room.” She hesitated, then plunged into speech. “I’m sorry, Charlie, the other panel members all canceled. I only found out about this a few minutes ago, or I would have let you know sooner.”

  “They all canceled? Why?” I thought I knew why, but I wanted to hear what Lisa had to say. My head started to ache as my earlier feelings of self-consciousness resurfaced.

  “They all suddenly came down with really upset stomachs.” Lisa glowered. “Of all the ridiculously lame excuses I’ve ever heard, this one is the lamest.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it myself.” After a brief pause, I continued in a rueful tone. “I’m pretty sure I’m the cause of those upset stomachs.”

  “Oh, Charlie.” Lisa reached out and squeezed my upper arm, her expression one of sympathy. “They don’t know you like I do, or they would never behave in such a ludicrous way. Frankly I’m surprised they’re not all avoiding me. After all,” she added bitterly, “I’m the one who gave the bottle of poisoned water to Gavin Fong.”

  “But you weren’t the one who knocked him down in front of a lot of people.” I shrugged. “By now I’m sure every single one of the people at this conference knows who I am and what I did.” I told Lisa about my run-in with Virginia and Ada Lou. She rolled her eyes at the mention of their names.