Being the Steel Drummer - a Maggie Gale Mystery

by Liz Bradbury

  Kind of eerie that 2000 years ago the percentage of the population who strongly believed that if I recited this Egyptian prayer out loud this statue would come to life is the about same percentage of people today who believe just as strongly that God will answer their prayers.

  I said, “Yes, I’m sure Farrel would like to see all these things, but...”

  “But can the museum afford to part with items from its collection? Frankly, it can’t afford not to,” said Piper. “The museum has at least twenty similar ushebtis and a great deal of more significant silver flatware. It has more than three dozen Renaissance miniatures and only room to exhibit two or three at any given time. But to keep its doors open, what the museum needs is cash, not items in storage that will probably never go on public view.”

  I nodded, understanding the point.

  Kathryn finished looking at the Snow catalog and readied to go.

  I noticed a door at the far end of the office and asked, “Is that a way out?”

  Piper said, “Well, it’s sort of an old-fashioned fire escape.”

  “Can we use it?” I asked.

  “Uh, well, I don’t recommend it. Frankly, it stinks. It’s tied into the sewer system somehow.”

  “Maggie, we should use the...” Kathryn began as I turned, lifted her canvas bag onto my shoulder and reached for the huge brass door knob. The door was heavy. I had to lean back to open it.

  “The stairs are to the right. The other direction is sealed off,” said Piper.

  We called out our last thank-yous and plunged into the dim hallway.

  The light shaft provided little illumination. Decades of city dust and grime filtered the rays of pale February daylight to a minimum. It was cool in the hall but not as cold as outside. I could feel a slight breeze coming from the left. As our eyes adjusted, we could see another light shaft about 100 feet to the left. There, a pile of rocks and concrete debris effectively blocked the way except for a dark space a foot from the ceiling; that must have been where the air movement was coming from.

  To the right was the staircase. We went for it.

  Kathryn’s eyes darted swiftly to every surface, checking for sewer creatures. Her shoulders relaxed when it was apparent the tunnel-like hallway was not only tight and dry, but vermin free.

  “It doesn’t smell too bad,” she said.

  “Kind of dusty, but it certainly doesn’t reek of shit,” I said.

  “Why did you want to come this way?”

  “I’m drawn to doors people rarely use. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge.”

  “I think it’s that you’re a snoop, but I’m willing to say you just like taking the less traveled path.”

  “You’re right about that, that I’m a snoop. It made me a good investigator, but it also cut down on dinner invitations when my hosts found me peeking in their cabinets.” I stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back along the hall. “It is kind of fascinating, isn’t it, that this perfectly built hallway was put here decades ago and now no one uses it. There’s probably a door to every office down here.”

  “When I was at Central Western, some grad students told me they’d found a whole network of underground passageways that linked every building on campus. They said each door that led to the passages in the buildings was marked with a yellow and black sign that said something like: DANGER RADIOACTIVE.”

  “Did you investigate?” I asked.

  “Would you have?”

  “C’mon, it sounds like so much fun!”

  “Well the doors were alarmed from the outside,” Kathryn laughed softly. “It’s funny, now that I really think about it, those passageways were probably marked with the radioactive signs in the early ’60s when seeing a sign like that would strike fear into anyone’s heart. But it’s absurd to have dangerous radioactive material lying around that someone could accidentally stumble across. Of course the signs were a sham.”

  At the top of the stairs, Kathryn pushed open heavy swinging doors and we found ourselves in a lighted marble hallway. We finally reached the ground floor after another long set of broad stairs.

  “I’m very excited that Piper authenticated the sculptures. I’m so glad I bought them,” said Kathryn.

  “So you’re not going to say more negative things about her hair and make-up?”

  “That was very rude of me. I was emotionally distraught,” she said smiling. “If she wants to wear a lot of make-up and dye her hair in dramatic shades that’s her business. I don’t really understand why though. It must take her an hour to apply and it doesn’t enhance her face. Perhaps she has some sort of skin condition she’s covering. That doesn’t explain the bright eye shadow though. Doesn’t go with her Gucci coat.”

  “Really, Kathryn, it’s not that overdone. It’s not as though she was going to kill Batman,” I laughed. “She was certainly sure about the sculpture. I can’t wait to tell Farrel about it and about the marrow scoop too. Shall we go for a late lunch?” I said, as we got our coats from the museum checkroom.

  Kathryn looked at her watch. “All I have time for is something quick. Then I have to rush off to another meeting that’s going to carry into the evening. I don’t think I’ll be back to the loft until after 9 p.m. I’m sorry. And then tomorrow I have things all morning and afternoon, and then in the evening I told Farrel I’d work with her and the crew on the office.”

  “You know it’s my birthday on Friday,” I said archly.

  “Hmmm, I like that tone of voice. Shall we celebrate your birthday all weekend?” Kathryn ran her fingers up the collar of my jacket, making a pretense of arranging my scarf. She used both hands. She looked into my eyes deeply and said, “Not that we won’t see each other until then. And I won’t be too late tonight. But Friday will be a special date, OK?”

  “OK, I’ll look forward to Friday, but I’m distracted by the thought that you won’t be too late tonight,” I said, appreciating her own provocative tone. “And of course I’ll help tomorrow night on the office construction. I’m good at taping drywall. How did you know it was Gucci?”

  “What?”

  “Piper’s coat?” I asked.

  “I saw the tag... well... I looked at the tag. I can be a snoop too.”

  I shouldered the heavy bag of sculpture and we hurried out against the cold winter wind. We went west toward our neighborhood, while icy gusts blew the speech from our mouths. Snow was in the air, and from the looks of the darkening sky it would soon be on the ground.

  Five blocks later we ducked into Brews on the Mews. We slid into a booth and put our coats in the corners of the red leather seats. I always enjoy this little cafe and not just because it’s warm.

  Mews old-timers still called it Pop’s, its drugstore soda shop name through most of the 20th century. Its stool-lined marble-topped counter, pattern-tiled floor, brass and glass pastry display cases, and large front windows still made it seem ready for a bobby-socks rock ’n’ roll teen movie. But the smell of rich coffee, fresh pastry, and soft jazz music quieted the ambiance and made it more welcoming for the coffee shop culture of the current age.

  Shelly, the server who had worked here for decades, greeted us like old friends. “We have great clam chowder today. Fresh clams and everything,” she said.

  “Sounds lovely. I’ll have that, and a Caffelatte,” said Kathryn.

  “I’ll have the soup too, with... Would it be wrong to have root beer with clam chowder?”

  “Yes,” said Shelly and Kathryn in unison.

  “With hot tea.”

  “Better,” said Shelly. “Say, have you heard about Samson and Lois Henshaw? Breaking up, maybe. Well, no surprise. He’s been acting wacko for a while now. Poor Lois. She’s a good egg. You know she comes in here for coffee every morning like clockwork, weekdays and weekends, hasn’t missed a morning in years. We chat every day. I’ll get your soup.”

  As Shelly padded to the kitchen in her old-style waitress shoes, Kathryn said, “She’s talking about the Henshaws when
there was a murder yesterday? Is the Mews gossip hotline breaking down?”

  “Perhaps the Henshaw story is cutting edge.”

  “And this Henshaw business is something you know firsthand?”

  “Confidential,” I said with a smile.

  “I see. Well, then we’ll talk about something else. I bet the college has Victoria Snow’s papers. I want to see them.”

  “Would they let you take them out of the archives?”

  “I doubt it. They’re very strict about removing things from there, but I’ll see. It depends. The bigger problem is that I just don’t have the time today.”

  Shelly brought two bowls of chowder to our table along with our drinks. The soup was exactly what I’d wanted, piping hot, rich and satisfying, and there were even saltines to crumble in it.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes, letting the warm liquid raise our core temperatures. I was nearly done when I said, “I could go to the archives. I have some work I want to get done today, but it probably won’t take too long.”

  Kathryn looked up at me for a moment. “Yes, you could. I could give you a letter of introduction. The archives are restricted to professors and graduate students, but they also let research assistants in, and underclass students with special permission from their advisors.”

  “So you could be my advisor?” I said as though it was a double entendre.

  Her face transformed and she became feline. She looked at me darkly, with a half-smile. “No, you could be my research assistant,” she said in a tone that would easily have verged on sexual harassment if she’d said it to any real student.

  “Are there perks to this job?” I parried. “Would you care to outline them?”

  “There’s a compensation package. We could have a meeting at 9 p.m. this evening to discuss it.”

  “That’s amenable to me, Dr. Anthony. I follow directions without question.”

  “No, I don’t think you do, but I have some strict teaching strategies that could improve that.”

  I exhaled steam. Kathryn’s eye were bright.

  “Yes, well,” she said. Kathryn took a notebook from her bag and wrote a few sentences outlining what she wanted from the Irwin College Library Collection Archives and that I was working as her assistant in this project and should be given access.

  “It’s very unlikely they’ll let you take anything out of the building, but each professor has a lockable shelf compartment. I’m supposed to get the new combination today. You could call me if you think you need it.” Kathryn finished writing and glanced at her watch. “I’m so sorry. I really have to get going.”

  We paid the bill, muffled up, and hit the frigid streets of Fenchester yet again. We walked together to the campus. We stopped at the back entrance of the English Department building.

  “My meeting’s in here,” she said through the soft scarf covering the lower half of her face.

  We kissed goodbye, not very effectively through scarves, but her eyes warmed me with a smile that promised much more effective kisses later. I still had to go another block to make it to the library. I immediately missed her, and then my mind wandered to what our date might hold on Friday night and I missed her even more.

  Geez you’re sweet on that girl, said a voice in my head. So what are you going to do about it?

  “What indeed.”

  Chapter 9

  “Could you tell me how to get to the archives?” I asked the young man who finally appeared behind the information desk.

  “What?”

  “Can you tell me how to get to the archives?”

  “Which ones?”

  “The ones in this building?”

  “This building? You mean the library?”

  “Yes, the library.” Why does this kind of thing always happen to me at information desks? It’s like someone just turned off the universal translator so the person I’m speaking to can’t understand my alien language. He looked at me blankly while I considered what to say next. And then I was rescued.

  “Good afternoon, Maggie,” Amanda Knightbridge said in her most authoritative tone. “Mr. Sellers, are you helping Ms. Gale?”

  Amanda Knightbridge was wearing a long burgundy wool skirt, a heavy pullover sweater, and an imposing expression that required compliance. After all, she was the head of one of the largest departments at the College.

  “Oh yes... uh, er, Dr. Knightbridge... yes...” He looked back at me. “What was it you wanted again?”

  “I’m Dr. Anthony’s research assistant and...”

  “No need for that,” said Amanda briskly. “I shall escort you to the archives. Please give Ms. Gale an assistant badge, Mr. Sellers. Maggie, you can check your canvas bag here at the desk. Mr. Sellers will keep it in a locked cabinet and he will give you the key. You may take your shoulder bag with your computer in it, along with you.”

  Sellers gently stowed the bag in a locker and gave me the key, then fumbled up a badge. I clipped it on. As Amanda whisked me toward a pair of glass doors, I thanked her for cutting at least a half hour from my quest.

  She stopped briefly by a display of reference materials that was marked ‘Irwin Professors’ Publications,’ and waved her hand over a row. “Did you know that Kathryn has written a number of books?” she asked. “Rather an impressive body of work, you must admit.”

  I began to say that I knew about Kathryn’s books, but when I saw them there all together in a long hard-copy row in real time, I felt a surge of possessive pride. I smiled and nodded.

  “So now you are researching the Victoria Snow sculpture. That’s the task Kathryn has assigned to her new research assistant?” Amanda said with amusement as we began to walk again.

  “Yes, we took the sculpture to Piper Staplehurst at the Museum this morning and she told us there was no record of any of the works Kathryn bought. So Kathryn thought of looking though the papers Victoria Snow left to the College.”

  “Ms. Staplehurst confirmed the figures were by Victoria Snow though, did she not?”

  “No doubt in her mind. She was shocked by the find. Have you seen any of the Snow papers, Amanda?”

  “I do believe she donated everything to Irwin College, including her personal papers, but I’m ashamed to say I haven’t reviewed them. I have read the Carbondales’ book of course. It tells a bit about Victoria Snow’s life. Have you had a chance to look at the book?”

  I felt like a kid in fourth grade who’d been called on to give a report on a book I hadn’t finished. Luckily I’d at least opened it.

  “I read some parts of it this morning. Evangeline certainly was beautiful.”

  “Yes, she was. You know, so much in Fenchester can be traced back to the incredible wealth of Merganser Hunterdon. But then I suppose that’s true in any town where one person controls most of the money.”

  I nodded and added ‘Read the Carbondales’ book’ to my To Do list.

  Glass doors opened into a large space that held a group of work tables. Beyond them were rows of stacks so long I couldn’t see their end. To the right were a few empty glassed-in research rooms with doors that stood open. Only one of the tables in front of us was strewn with books and the papers from three acid-free archive boxes. A young woman was perched on a stool at the table, her eyes swinging back and forth from a dusty pile of papers to her laptop screen, as though watching a slow game of tennis.

  “Now,” said Amanda, “the archives are quite extensive... In the back of the building there is a separate elevator and stairs that will take you to one of the four other archive floors.”

  “There are four more floors like this upstairs?” I asked incredulously.

  “Oh no, Maggie, the four floors are underground and to the east. And each of them is much larger than this. The College tour guides say each is over a city block in size, but I’m not sure that’s accurate. Nevertheless we start here.” Amanda led me to the information desk. It took several moments for a librarian to come out of a back room to the computer station to talk
to us.

  “We would like to see the Victoria Willomere Snow papers,” Amanda Knightbridge said to a young librarian.

  She peered through thick glasses and a long fringe of dark hair to see exactly who was speaking, realized who it was, and rapidly tossed her magazine under the desk. “Oh, Dr. Knightbridge. Uh, yes, of course,” she said whirling toward her computer screen.

  The librarian clicked keys and scanned data. After a few minutes, she said plaintively, “I’m sorry Dr. Knightbridge, but I don’t see a file that has that kind of title.” She clicked a few more times, then shook her head and said, “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “Are you sure there is nothing in the system? Try Fenchester Sculpture, or say... Women Artists,” said Amanda.

  “The system is very carefully cross-referenced. If the name Snow was anywhere in the system. Um, I could ask...” She looked over her shoulder toward to an older man who saw Amanda and rapidly joined us.

  His name badge read Senior Librarian with the single name CURTIS under the title. He looked like a cross between Johnny Depp doing Ichabod Crane and Don Knotts, complete with extra large Adam’s apple. Amanda told him what she wanted and he turned immediately to the computer screen and entered all sorts of codes.

  After nearly five minutes of rapid key work he gulped and said, “Dr. Knightbridge, are you sure this is something the library has?”

  “Quite sure, Mr. Curtis” said Amanda. “I happen to know the book on Fenchester history by the Carbondales cites the library’s addition of the Snow papers to its collection.”

  I reached in my bag and pulled out the book on Fenchester history by Gabriel and Suzanne. In the reference notes at the end, it cited the donation of the papers in 1938 by the library’s notation number. Amanda turned the book around and pointed to the citation triumphantly.