Twelve Angry Librarians

by Miranda James

  “I know them. They’re retired, have been for probably ten years or more, but I’ve seen them at every SALA meeting I’ve attended. I think they both get weirder every year. I’m sorry you had to deal with them.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll admit it was disconcerting at the time, but now I can laugh about it. A little, anyway.”

  “Good,” Lisa said. “Since you no longer have a panel to do, are you going to hang around for the rest of the day?”

  “Am I going to tough it out, you mean?” I nodded. “Unless people start screaming and running away from me like I’m Frankenstein’s monster, I’ll hang around. I’d like to see more of some friends who are here, and there are some interesting sessions this afternoon.”

  Lisa patted my arm. “I hope you won’t run into any more idiots. Well, I’ve got to go.” She glanced at her watch. “Heck, I was supposed to meet someone five minutes ago.” She turned and sped from the room.

  I noticed that the two people still remaining in the room watched Lisa hurry out. They put their heads together to talk, and I had a feeling they were talking about Lisa. Maybe people were taking more notice of her than she realized.

  I walked toward the man and woman. “Sorry, but evidently the panel is canceled. The rest of the speakers are all under the weather.” I gave them a pleasant smile and left the room without waiting for a response.

  Back in the foyer of the ballroom I debated whether to return to the exhibits and wander around for a while. I didn’t feel like attending any of the sessions going on right now. I didn’t even bother to consult the program because I knew I would be unable to focus on the speakers. I felt too restless, and I didn’t want to sit in a room on an uncomfortable chair for an hour or so and fidget.

  I went to the gift shop in the lobby and paid too much for a diet soda and a small bag of salted peanuts. I found a spot in the hotel lobby, a chair that faced the windows, and made myself comfortable. While I nibbled on peanuts and drank my diet soda, I watched the activity on the square and let my thoughts roam.

  While I had some interest in the solving of Gavin Fong’s murder, I had two other matters that continued to stew in my subconscious. What would Laura and Frank do? I couldn’t help but think that their decision could affect my own decision about the full-time director’s job at the college library.

  I promised Forrest Wyatt and the others, however, that I would give them my decision on Monday morning. I had no idea when Laura and Frank would make theirs. If I had to give an answer about the job before I knew what my children were going to do, I would be deciding without all the facts, in a way.

  These thoughts made me realize that if Laura and Frank by some small miracle remained in Athena I really didn’t want to take on the full-time job. I wanted to be able to spend time with my grandchild. Grandchildren, I corrected myself. Sean and Alexandra were having a baby, too, and in my preoccupation over Laura’s potential move, I had lost sight of the fact that, even if she and Frank relocated to Virginia, I’d still have one grandchild in Athena. I needed to consider that, too.

  Suddenly I felt too restless to sit any longer. I got up, discarded my empty soda can and the peanut bag, and headed to the front door of the hotel. I needed fresh air, and I would also soon be ready for lunch, despite my snack. As long as I was this close, I might as well have lunch at Helen Louise’s bistro.

  The sun warmed my face, but it was not unpleasantly hot. A light breeze made for a pleasant walk around the square. I nodded a few times at people I knew and stopped once to chat briefly with a neighbor who lived three houses down from mine.

  The conversation finished, I resumed my walk toward the bistro. My cell phone rang, and I pulled it out. Lisa Krause’s name came up. I was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but I knew I couldn’t do that to Lisa.

  “Oh, Charlie, where are you?” Lisa broke into speech right away, not even giving me time to say hello. She didn’t wait for an answer to her question, either. “Wherever you are, I need you right away. I think somebody poisoned her, just like Gavin.”

  NINETEEN

  Lisa started sobbing, and I almost had to yell over the phone to get her attention. Passersby stared at me, and one woman made as if to approach me. I held up my hand and smiled to let her know I was okay.

  “Lisa, you’ve got to calm down enough to tell me where you are,” I said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know where you are.”

  I heard her draw a shaky breath. “Sorry, Charlie, you’re right.” She sniffled. “I’m at the hotel. Room 602. Can you come?”

  I had already turned in the direction of the hotel and started walking back. “Yes, I’m on the way. Who is it you’re talking about? Are you sure she’s dead?”

  Lisa sobbed again into the phone, but she caught hold of herself right away. “Maxine Muller. She’s dead. She looks so awful I can’t stand to look at her.”

  “Have you called 911 yet?” I started moving faster, and my calves ached from the strain. I wasn’t used to this pace.

  “No,” Lisa said. “I was so scared I called the first person I thought of. I guess I’d better call them now.”

  “Yes, and then notify the front desk. I’m on the way.” I shut off my phone and stuck it back in my pocket. By now I was only about thirty yards from the hotel. I kept up the pace, despite the pain in my legs, and I almost ran into the front door of the hotel.

  I made it through to the elevator without knocking anyone over, and I muttered under my breath while the agonizingly slow elevator doors opened to admit me. The elevator stopped twice on the way up. The moment the doors opened wide enough on the sixth floor I hurried out and looked for the sign that indicated the locations of the rooms by number.

  Maxine Muller’s room lay almost at the end of the corridor to my right. I could see Lisa sitting on the floor in the hallway. She glanced up as I approached, then struggled to her feet. She fell into my arms when I reached her, and I patted her back awkwardly when she started crying.

  “I know this is a horrible shock for you,” I said in gentle tones, “but I need you to get yourself together. The police ought to be here any moment, and the hotel manager, too. You did call, didn’t you?”

  Lisa pulled away and fumbled in her bag. She extracted a tissue and nodded as she dabbed at her eyes.

  “Good,” I said. The door stood open, and I resisted the temptation to go inside. “You’re absolutely certain that she’s gone?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “She’s dead.”

  “Before everyone else gets here, let me ask you a question or two.”

  Lisa nodded.

  “What were you doing here? Were you meeting her here?” I remembered that she left me earlier in the meeting room, saying she was supposed to meet someone and was late.

  “No, we were supposed to meet downstairs,” Lisa said. “She’s going to be—was going to be—chair of the local arrangements committee for next year’s meeting, and we were going to go over a few things. But she didn’t show up. I thought I’d missed her because I was late.”

  “Surely she could have waited five minutes or so,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought.” Lisa frowned. “I tried calling her, but it went to voice mail. I left a message and waited a few minutes, but she didn’t call back. Then I sent her a text message and told her I’d catch up with her later.”

  “Did she respond to either message?”

  Lisa nodded. “She texted me a couple of minutes after I texted her and said to come up to her room in ten minutes. She had to talk to someone first, but then she’d be ready for our meeting.” She paused for a deep breath. “I waited like she asked me to, even though I was getting really irritated over the delay because I have so many things to check on today. But I came on up. Her door wasn’t closed completely. I knocked and waited. I didn’t hear any response, but I figured she might be in the bathroom. I pushed the door open an
d called out to her.” She shuddered.

  “What happened next?” I glanced down the hall. I’d heard the elevator doors open, and several people stepped out and headed toward us.

  “I s-s-saw her feet and legs sticking out between the beds,” Lisa said. That was all she had time for, because the hotel manager, along with a couple of police officers and another hotel staff member, had reached us now.

  The hotel manager barely acknowledged us. He brushed past Lisa into the room, and one of the policemen and the other hotel staffer went right behind him. The other police officer motioned for Lisa and me to step aside, and he drew us a few feet down the hall.

  Now began the routine I had come to know better than I ever wanted to. The officer, who looked vaguely familiar, spoke gently to Lisa, having identified her as the 911 caller. He appeared to know who I was already, and I tried to remember when and where I might have met him.

  The hotel manager stumbled out of the victim’s room, his face pale and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed. “I might have known you’d be involved in this somehow.”

  I didn’t appreciate the man’s attitude. I tried to keep my tone even as I responded. “I wasn’t the one who found the body. I’m here only because Ms. Krause, who did find it, called me and asked for me to come. She was naturally quite upset.”

  The manager’s gaze softened as he observed Lisa in conversation with the police officer. “Sorry,” he muttered. “This is all too much. First that man dying right in the middle of a luncheon, and now this.”

  The other policeman and the hotel staffer exited the room. He indicated he would remain outside the door until the county crime scene investigators arrived. The policeman who had been talking to Lisa had the rest of us move about ten feet down the hallway before he stopped. He started to question Lisa further, but the elevator doors pinged open, and several uniformed men and women stepped out. Some of them carried bags and equipment. After a quick word they passed us and headed down the hall.

  Accompanied by three deputies, Kanesha Berry stepped out when the doors of the second elevator opened, and her gaze seemed to focus right on me. I knew she wasn’t happy to see me here, but neither was I all that pleased to be here myself.

  She greeted the police officer. “I’ll take over from here.” He nodded and left us to join the group down the hall. She directed the three men with her to keep anyone from getting close to the crime scene. Then she addressed the hotel manager.

  “Mr. Hampton, I’m afraid we’re going to have to take over that part of the floor until the preliminary crime scene investigation is finished. The room will have to be sealed off. Is it a room with a connecting door to another room?”

  Hampton looked at his staffer, who shook his head.

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “How long do you think all this is going to take, Deputy Berry? Our guests in this area aren’t going to be happy about not having access to their rooms.”

  “Yes, I realize that,” Kanesha replied. “We will do our best to finish what we need to do in a timely manner, but that could still take several hours. I’m sure people will understand.”

  Hampton nodded. “Of course.”

  “Please wait here until I’ve had a chance to examine the scene. Then I’ll need to talk to all of you.” Kanesha walked on down the hall, and I watched as she entered the victim’s room.

  We waited in silence for nearly twenty minutes before Kanesha emerged from the room. She paused in the hall to have a brief conversation with another officer, then she rejoined us.

  “Thank you for waiting. Mr. Hampton, I need a space to use while we are conducting the investigation. What do you have available?”

  The manager and his staffer consulted for a moment. “One of our conference meeting rooms on the second floor is open. I believe it will serve your purpose.”

  “Good. Can you take us there now, please?” Kanesha nodded to me and Lisa. “I’d like you both to come with me, Ms. Krause, Mr. Harris.” She motioned for one of her men to join us. I wondered why Haskell Bates wasn’t with her. He was one of her senior deputies.

  “Certainly, Deputy Berry,” I said. We followed her and the others to the elevators. The deputy brought up the rear.

  No one spoke again until we stepped inside the conference room. Kanesha moved immediately to the head of the large table inside. “Would you gentlemen mind waiting at the other end of the room while I talk to Ms. Krause?” Kanesha indicated a chair to Lisa while Hampton, his associate, and I did as Kanesha requested. The deputy remained with Kanesha, standing off to the side behind Lisa.

  The room, I estimated, would comfortably fit thirty people—space for half of them at the table, and the other half in chairs around the walls. A good size, but not so large that I couldn’t hear Kanesha’s conversation with Lisa.

  Kanesha took her through the same questions I asked Lisa earlier, and Lisa responded with the same answers.

  Then Kanesha went further than I’d had time to do. “How well did you know the deceased? Ms. Muller?”

  “Not all that well,” Lisa said. “I mean, I knew her as a colleague from another library. We served on a couple of committees together in the past five years, but we weren’t friends. Only acquaintances.”

  “So your only contact with her was on a professional basis?” Kanesha asked.

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “Exactly.”

  “Tell me more about the subject of the meeting you were supposed to have with her.”

  “Okay.” Lisa nodded. “I was the chair of the local arrangements committee for the meeting this year, and Maxine was going to be chair for next year’s meeting. She was on the program committee for this meeting, and I think she was on it for last year’s meeting, too.” Lisa paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, she was. Anyway, she volunteered to be in charge of local arrangements for next year, and I told her I would meet with her during this meeting to go over some of the things I’d learned.”

  “That seems clear enough,” Kanesha said. “Ms. Muller was a friend of Gavin Fong’s. She spoke to me about him yesterday. Did she happen to tell you anything about him? Or anything she might have known or suspected about his death?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Lisa said. “Really, we hadn’t time to talk much. At the luncheon yesterday she spent most of her time talking to Gavin Fong.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because it probably doesn’t mean anything, but I did hear her say one thing that was pretty odd. I don’t think she realized I could hear her.”

  “What did she say?” Kanesha asked when Lisa didn’t continue right away.

  “I’m trying to remember her exact words,” Lisa replied. “I think I’ve got it now, though. She said, What are you going to do if he doesn’t pay you like he promised? Will you send that letter?”

  I wondered what Maxine Muller had meant. Was Gavin Fong trying to collect on a debt, and if he couldn’t, was he going to write to someone about it? Perhaps a demand letter?

  Kanesha frowned. “Did you hear Mr. Fong’s response?”

  “He just said, Shut up, Maxine. Not now. He gave her kind of an ugly look when he said it. She drew back in her chair, and that was the end of it, I think. At least while we were at the table,” Lisa concluded.

  After I thought about it a moment, I realized there was a more sinister interpretation. Was Gavin Fong blackmailing someone? And what did Maxine Muller know about it?

  TWENTY

  I knew already that Gavin Fong was willing to resort to blackmail—or extortion—to get what he wanted. I wasn’t really surprised that he might have been blackmailing other people. I supposed there could have been a less criminal interpretation put on Maxine Muller’s questions to him, but Gavin had been murdered.

  Blackmail was a powerful motive for murder.

  Kanesha said, “Neither Mr. Fong nor Ms.
Muller mentioned a name in connection with these questions?”

  “Not that I heard,” Lisa said. “I’d been talking to my neighbor to the left just before that. Maxine was on my right. I had turned to say something to Maxine when I heard her ask Gavin those questions.”

  “Let’s go back to your discovery of the victim for a moment,” Kanesha said. “When you arrived on the sixth floor, did you see anyone else?”

  Lisa frowned. “I don’t think so.” She paused. “No, wait a minute. Yes, I did, toward the other end of the hallway. I didn’t see a person, though. I saw one of those housekeeping carts a few doors down from the elevator.”

  “About what time would you say you reached the sixth floor?” Kanesha asked.

  “It was a minute or two before I called Charlie,” Lisa said. “I’m not really sure of the exact time.”

  “Can you check your phone to see what time you made the call to Mr. Harris?”

  “Of course, how stupid of me.” Lisa fumbled in her purse and, after a moment, pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen several times. “I made the call at ten fifty-seven. So I guess I arrived on the sixth floor about ten fifty-five.”

  Kanesha made a note of it on her pad. “All right then, Ms. Krause. You can go. I might have more questions later.”

  Lisa dropped her phone back in her bag and rose quickly from the table. “Thank you, Deputy Berry. I’m happy to help in any way.” She looked toward me, and I nodded and smiled. Then she hurried out of the room.

  I wished I could follow her. I knew Kanesha was annoyed that I was involved in this.

  “Mr. Harris, I’d like to talk with you next. Please join me.” Kanesha indicated the chair Lisa had vacated.

  I did as she asked and kept my expression as bland as possible when I faced her.