Twelve Angry Librarians

by Miranda James

  “Hamburger?” Randi asked, and Marisue nodded. “I’ll have a hamburger,” Randi continued. “You know how I like them.”

  “With fries, potato chips, or steamed vegetables?” Marisue asked.

  “French fries this time,” Randi said. “I think I’ve earned them.”

  I had to smile at that. After what she’d been through today, Randi should have whatever she wanted in the way of comfort food. While Marisue phoned room service, I pulled one of the armchairs nearer Randi’s bed, making sure I was within an easy line of sight for her so she didn’t have to strain her neck to see me. Diesel, now completely relaxed again, lay stretched out beside Randi on the bed.

  “Do you feel up to talking awhile longer?” I asked.

  Randi nodded. “At least until my food comes.”

  Marisue resumed her seat at the foot of the bed. “They said about twenty minutes. That means anywhere from ten minutes to forty-five, probably, depending on how busy they are.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Randi grimaced. “What do you want to talk about, Charlie?”

  “Gavin’s party,” I replied. “I want you to tell me whatever you can remember, both of you.” I glanced in Marisue’s direction, and she nodded.

  “I’ll start,” Marisue said, “and Randi can break in when she has anything to add. We were the last to arrive, except for Lisa Krause who came in for a few minutes and then left, pretty early on.” She paused for a sip of wine. “The whole thing was awkward, of course, because no one really wanted to be there, except Gavin.”

  “And Maxine,” Randi added. “You know she stuck by Gavin like a leech most of the time, when he wasn’t yelling at her to leave him alone.”

  Marisue shrugged. “They definitely had a weird relationship, cooing and holding hands one minute, and the next spitting at each other like a couple of cats. Sorry, Diesel.” She raised her cup at him and then drained it.

  “What mode were they in at the party?” I asked.

  “They were hardly speaking to each other,” Randi said. “In fact, most of the time we were there, Maxine never went near him. Instead she and Sylvia sat together, whispering back and forth.”

  “Were she and Sylvia really good friends?” I wondered whether Kanesha had found out anything useful from talking to Sylvia O’Callaghan.

  “I’m not really sure,” Marisue said. “I think they’d known each other a long time.”

  “They worked together about ten years when they were first out of library school,” Randi said. “Sylvia told me that. But then one of them took another job on the other side of the country, and they didn’t see each other except at the occasional convention.”

  That was enough about Sylvia for the moment, I thought. “How were the other people there interacting with Gavin?”

  Marisue got up to refill her cup. At the rate she was hitting the wine she might soon be a bit squiffy. Not your business. No, it wasn’t.

  Marisue rejoined us. “About what you’d expect. No one was interacting with him willingly, as far as I could see. I certainly wasn’t. Gavin, of course, was going around, poking at each one of us, trying to get some reaction.”

  Randi giggled. “Not literally poking, you understand, but if he’d had a stick, he probably would have.”

  Marisue rolled her eyes at her friend. “Verbal poking. He knew we were all there because we were afraid of what he might do to make our lives uncomfortable.” She frowned. “It was a bit like waiting for a dangerous animal to come after you but hoping he would go after someone else instead.”

  “I’m sorry you had to endure that,” I said. “He really was a piece of work, wasn’t he?”

  “You’re not going to find anyone wearing black on his account, I can guarantee,” Marisue said.

  “No, I guess not,” I replied. “What about the others? Can you give me some specifics about how they were dealing with Gavin?”

  “I talked to a couple of the other women,” Marisue said. “Nancy Dunlap and Cathleen Matera. They were trying to avoid talking to Gavin as much as I was. He did come over at one point and make snide remarks about Nancy being a professor now with tenure.”

  From my research into everyone’s careers, I remembered that Nancy Dunlap had degrees in biology and was a liaison to the chemistry department at her university. Cathleen Matera had no connection to the sciences that I could recall.

  “How did she react to him?” I asked.

  Marisue chuckled. “Nancy brushed him off. I guess now that she’s tenured, she’s not too worried about what he could do to her career. She’s pretty much set. When he started in on Cathleen, Nancy told him to back off. Surprised the heck out of me, but he did. I guess he figured he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Cathleen as long as Nancy was there. He glowered, but then he walked away.”

  “Did he try getting at you?” I asked.

  “Not right then. If Nancy hadn’t been there, he probably would have.” Marisue stared into her cup. “A little later, he caught me by myself. He did the usual things, stood too close, tried to touch my arms, you know the routine.”

  “Disgusting,” I said.

  “I finally used a few words that would have my grandmother spinning in her grave if she even suspected I knew them.” Marisue smiled grimly. “That pissed him off, and he left me alone after that.”

  I decided not to broach the subject of blackmail with them, especially since Kanesha had that spreadsheet and would be working on deciphering it and trying to connect it with Gavin’s victims. That was definitely a task better left to a professional.

  “You know, there was another person who didn’t seem all that bothered by Gavin and his remarks.” Randi shifted in the bed, and the pillow bracing her head and shoulders slipped. “Would you mind fixing my pillow?” She looked at Marisue, but I responded first.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” she said. “Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes, Harlan Crais. He sat in one corner and watched most of the time. Looked to me like he was smirking. What do you think?” She directed her question at Marisue, who nodded.

  “I thought so, too,” she said. “Maybe he’s like Nancy and has tenure. I don’t know, but he didn’t seem all that bothered by Gavin.” She frowned. “And you know, I don’t think I saw Gavin speak to him at all while we were there.”

  “Maybe Gavin was avoiding him then but went after him later, once we’d left,” Randi said.

  “Could be,” Marisue replied. “Well, let’s see, who was there that we haven’t talked about?”

  “The other two men,” Randi said.

  “Right, trust you to remember the men,” Marisue said. “I talked to Mitch Handler for a bit, mostly about his writing. I’ve read most of his books and was curious about a few things. He’s a nice guy, but boy, is he shy. It took a little while to get him to say more than four or five words at a time. I guess it’s a good thing he’s a cataloger so he doesn’t have to deal with the public at work.”

  Mitch Handler interested me particularly, because he had a degree in organic chemistry. He served as liaison for the science departments at his institution, so he obviously had a connection to a chemistry lab. He was a dark horse, however, when it came to his connections with Gavin. They must have worked together at some point. This was another one Kanesha would have to dig further into, unless Randi and Marisue knew something more about him.

  I recalled a remark Randi made during one of our conversations. I reminded her of it. “You said you’d heard something about Gavin and Mitch Handler, but at the time you couldn’t recall it. Can you remember it now?”

  “Did I say that?” Randi asked. “If you say so, I guess I did.” She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry, my brain is too fuzzy right now. If I can recall whatever it was, I’ll tell you.”

  That was frustrating, but I knew I couldn’t push her at the moment. Maybe by the time she felt
ready to talk to Kanesha, she would have dredged it up out of her memory. I glanced at Marisue, but she shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know what it was, either.”

  “Well, then, that leaves us with Bob Coben,” I said.

  Randi giggled again. “The bad boy.” She licked her lips and quirked her eyebrows at me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, though I had an inkling.

  “He looks like a bad boy,” Randi said. “That bald head, all the tattoos, the earrings. You know, like he should come roaring in on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket. That kind of bad boy.”

  Marisue snorted with laughter. “He doesn’t seem anything like that to me.”

  “You have your fantasies, I’ll have mine,” Randi retorted. “I actually talked to him for a little while before Marisue started yanking on my arm to get me to leave.”

  “I did not yank your arm,” Marisue said. There was a knock on the door, and she went to answer it.

  Figuring it was room service, I told Diesel to come down off the bed to sit by me. Randi wouldn’t want to eat with a cat on the bed beside her, I figured.

  The server brought the tray in, and Marisue cleared the nightstand on the side of the bed where Randi sat propped up. She signed the ticket for Randi, and the server left. Marisue began to prepare the food for Randi to eat, adding mayonnaise and mustard to the hamburger and opening the tiny ketchup bottle for the fries.

  I knew Randi was ready to eat by the way she looked at the food tray, but I wanted to hear about Bob Coben before I left her and Marisue. I said as much, and Randi nodded.

  “All right, all kidding about hot bad boys aside,” Randi said, “I talked with him for a while, and he mostly wanted to talk about his plans for his career. He’s a musician, did you know that?”

  I nodded, and she continued. “I thought he wanted to go further into music, but he told me he was working on a master’s degree in chemistry. He wants to go on for a PhD, but he has to work for a couple more years to save up the money.”

  A master’s degree in chemistry? If Bob Coben was taking classes, then he was actively working in a lab—where he would have direct access to all kinds of chemicals, including cyanide.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Neither Randi nor Marisue seemed to understand the implications of what Randi told me about Bob Coben. After a moment, however, Marisue figured it out. Randi, after dropping her bombshell, had reached for a french fry. In the midst of chewing it, her mouth dropped open, and I looked away.

  Randi evidently swallowed quickly, because when she spoke she did so clearly. “No, I don’t believe it. Surely he wouldn’t poison anyone.”

  “How could he expect to get away with it?” Marisue said. “Don’t they have to keep careful track of any chemicals they use in their labs?”

  “I’m sure they do,” I said. “Look, I don’t know that Bob Coben is the one who put the poison in Gavin’s bottle, or in Maxine Muller’s. The thing is, he had easy access to it, or at least easier access than anyone else in the case that I know of.”

  I pulled out my phone and texted Kanesha a quick message about Bob Coben. She might already have found out about his getting a degree in chemistry, but in case she hadn’t, I thought she ought to know right away.

  Moments later my phone buzzed, and I thought I’d received a reply from Kanesha. Instead, the message came from Lisa Krause.

  Where r u? Need u at the party.

  I had lost track of time, talking with Randi and Marisue, and forgotten about the party in Lisa’s suite. I checked the time on my phone. I should have been in Lisa’s suite ten minutes ago.

  I responded that I would be there in two minutes. I explained to Marisue and Randi that I had to leave.

  “Thanks for talking with me,” I said. “I know you’re both exhausted.”

  Marisue nodded, and I noticed that she looked rather wilted now. Randi actually looked perkier, but that was probably because she was eating.

  “I’ll check in on you tomorrow,” I said. “When were you planning to leave?”

  “Not till Monday morning,” Marisue said. “We both took the day off so we didn’t have to rush back tomorrow.”

  “Good, you’ll have time to rest before the drive. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Diesel and I took our leave of my friends and made our way to Lisa’s suite on another floor.

  The door stood open, and when we entered I saw Lisa talking to a couple of women who looked vaguely familiar. That meant I had probably noticed them at some point during the past couple of days here at the conference, but I had no idea who they were. There was no one else in the suite that I could see.

  Lisa saw me, nodded in my direction to acknowledge me, and continued with her conversation. I took the opportunity to glance around the suite. The layout was exactly as I remembered it. The bar against the outside wall, with a large window next to it, a table that could seat six comfortably on one side of the room, and two sofas and a couple of armchairs, with a coffee table in their midst. Small tables at each end of the sofas held lamps, all dark at the moment, because Lisa had the overhead lights on.

  I walked over to the bar and found a can of diet soda in a large basin full of ice and drinks. I found a napkin on the bar to wipe excess moisture from the can, and then Diesel and I walked over to one of the armchairs. He stretched out near my feet while I opened the can and took a sip.

  I knew I should be more sociable and join Lisa and the women with her, but at the moment I wanted to sit and think, at least while the room was still relatively quiet. I needed to consider what I had learned from my conversation with Marisue and Randi.

  Bob Coben had suddenly emerged, at least in my mind, as the chief suspect in the murders. That bothered me, because he had stepped forward quickly after the altercation I had with Gavin on Thursday, offering to support me if Gavin tried to sue or cause any other unpleasantness. The next day, however, after Gavin’s shocking death, I had overheard Coben in conversation with Harlan Crais. From that I’d gathered that Coben thought Gavin had kept him from getting a better job. Given what I’d learned about Coben’s plans for a PhD and the need for money to pay for that degree, I figured he must have been deeply angry with Gavin.

  Angry enough to kill him? That I didn’t know, but I wondered how tempted Coben might have been, working in the chemistry lab, knowing that one solution to his desire for revenge lay so close within his reach. The means was there, but did he avail himself of it?

  That lay in Kanesha’s province, not mine. Working with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, she could contact its equivalent in Alabama, I reckoned, and ask for their cooperation. That might take a time to arrange, but it would no doubt happen.

  Mitch Handler, the librarian-turned-writer, had a degree in organic chemistry and worked as liaison with the chemistry department. What kind of access did he have to dangerous chemicals? Perhaps he had a crony in one of the labs who would help him out, maybe turn a blind eye and cover it up if Handler helped himself to a pinch or two of cyanide.

  Sources of cyanide were always easier in Golden Age English detective stories. Everyone had cyanide on hand in the potting shed to get rid of rats and wasps and other unwelcome intruders. Or they had connections with an industrial concern where cyanide was used in various processes. This case wasn’t that simple.

  Lisa and the other two women interrupted my cogitations on cyanide and murder, and I stood while Lisa performed the introductions. Both women made charming remarks about Diesel, and he, the ham, ate it up. They patted his head and stroked his back, and he adored it. We chatted for a few moments longer, and then the two excused themselves and left the room.

  Lisa, Diesel, and I were alone for perhaps three minutes after that. More people began to arrive, and among them, I was pleased to see, were Cathleen Matera and Nancy Dunlap. They made a beeline for the bar and helped themselves to wine. T
hen Nancy Dunlap spotted Diesel, and she came immediately over with Cathleen Matera.

  I suggested that they take seats on the sofa that stood at a right angle to the chair I’d been occupying. They made themselves comfortable, and I resumed my seat. Diesel, happy with more attention, sat on the floor at their feet and meowed at them while they told him how handsome he was, and so on.

  After a couple of minutes of attention to the cat, though, both women focused their attention on me.

  “We’ve been hearing some interesting stories about you, Mr. Harris.” Cathleen Matera smiled. “Apparently you’re quite the amateur detective.”

  Nancy Dunlap nodded. “We heard about what happened recently at Athena, with the murder in the library.”

  I winced inwardly. I really didn’t like talking with people I barely knew about the murders that I’d had the misfortune to encounter. I had to be polite, however. “Call me Charlie, please. And, yes, I suppose I’ve had more experience with murder than most people. Not something I like to talk about much, frankly.”

  Nancy Dunlap laughed. “No, I imagine not. Don’t worry, we’re not going to press you for the lurid details. I prefer my murders to be fictional. Are you a mystery reader?”

  “Yes, since childhood,” I said. “What about you, Cathleen?”

  She shook her head. “Occasionally I’ll read one, but most of the time I like fantasy and science fiction.”

  We chatted for a few minutes about favorite authors, and I discovered that Nancy and I had similar tastes. She was a big fan of two Mississippi writers, Carolyn Haines and Charlaine Harris. Cathleen agreed that she loved Charlaine’s work as well. When I mentioned a couple of historical mystery writers I particularly enjoyed, Nancy dove into her purse, pulled out a small notepad and a pen, and started jotting down names.