I thanked her and walked over to Delbert’s office. He had his back to me, evidently focused on his computer. I knocked on the door and said, “Good afternoon.” He started and swiveled in his chair to face me.
He blinked. “Oh, hi there, Charlie. What brings you here?”
“I need some files from Cassandra’s office. Can you let me in?”
He looked alarmed. “She doesn’t like anyone going in her office. She’ll have a fit. Are you sure you have to get in there?”
The woman apparently had everyone among the library staff cowed. Except me, that is.
“Yes, I am sure. Please unlock the door. I will deal with Cassandra.”
He shrugged. “If you insist.” He rose from his desk and pulled a key ring from his pocket. I stood aside as he exited his office and walked the few paces to Cassandra’s door.
I glanced at Terrie Hall, whose cubicle was nearby, and saw that she was on the phone. She cast a nervous glance at me, then turned her back and continued her conversation. I frowned. I didn’t know why, but I had the feeling she was talking to Cassandra.
“There you are.” Delbert opened the door with a flourish and stood back.
“Thank you,” I said. I advanced into the office and shut the door. Delbert lingered outside a moment before moving away.
Cassandra’s desk was bare of everything except her computer, keyboard, mouse, and mouse pad. Her desk drawers were locked, as were her filing cabinets.
I went to the door, opened it, and approached Terrie Hall’s desk. “Ms. Hall, do you have keys to Ms. Brownley’s cabinets?”
She stared at me, her eyes wide.
“I hope you do,” I said in a pleasant tone. “Otherwise I will have to call the physical facilities department and ask them to send someone here to force the locks. I’d really rather not damage college property, but I will if there’s no other way.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir, let me look. I think I have a set of keys that will work.” She jerked open a side drawer and scrambled through its contents. After a few moments she pulled out a ring with several small keys on it. She handed them to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “I take full responsibility for this. If Ms. Brownley is unhappy, she needs to talk to me. You are not responsible in any way. Are we clear on that?”
Ms. Hall nodded, and looked relieved. “Yes, thank you, sir.”
I smiled before I turned away. Clearly the woman was terrified of Cassandra. I would have to make sure Cassandra didn’t make Terrie Hall the scapegoat for this. It would be entirely like her to try, I knew.
The keys unlocked the filing cabinets. I wouldn’t go into the desk unless I couldn’t find what I needed in the cabinets. I checked the labels on the drawers and found one labeled POS/INVOICES. I pulled it open and scanned the folders.
I pulled out four thick files that covered the past couple of years and set them on the desk. What I didn’t see, however, was a file for the current fiscal year, which ran from July through June.
I glanced around the office, and my eyes lighted on the credenza behind Cassandra’s desk. I had overlooked them earlier, but now I saw a number of folders in a standing wire organizer. I went over to look through them and found the folder I needed. I added it to the stack on the desk. They were bulky, and I knew if I tried to carry them back to my office like that, I would undoubtedly trip, and papers would go flying in all directions.
Ms. Hall supplied a large canvas bag emblazoned with the logo of a library vendor, and I stuffed the files into that. I returned the keys, thanked her, and waved good-bye to Delbert, who had been standing nearby the whole time, I realized. He was mighty curious. Good.
On my way out I encountered Lisa Krause near the reference desk. I paused to chat for a moment. I patted the strap of the bag over my shoulder when I noticed her curious glance.
“Homework,” I said. “Purchase orders and invoices. I’ve got to get a handle on the budget, and I want to be ready for my meetings with you all on Wednesday.”
Lisa grimaced. “Have fun. I hate dealing with budget stuff, especially spreadsheets.”
“I’m not fond of them myself, but I have no choice. Have a good afternoon.”
By the time I reached my office, it was nearly three. Diesel and Melba greeted me, and Melba asked about the bag. I explained, and she nodded. “Better you than me,” she said.
Diesel came with me into my office and proceeded to give me an extensive summary of his activities since I had so callously abandoned him again. Melba brought me a fresh cup of coffee during the feline version of a tirade and grinned broadly. Finally Diesel settled down—after a considerable amount of attention on my part—and I was able to focus on work.
E-mail first, then the files, I decided. I couldn’t let the e-mail get too out of hand. I had to respond to several inquiries about access to archival materials and had to explain there was no access at present. I jotted a reminder to myself to see about getting one of the reference librarians to oversee the archives a few hours a week, and then went back to e-mail.
I pulled out my notes from this morning’s meeting with Forrest and the deans and looked through them. The major concern for the deans was that the resources for their divisions not be sacrificed to make up for the overspent budget. I had assured them I would do my best to ensure that all departments retained access to their most important electronic resources.
That was easier said than done. Cuts would have to come from somewhere. I looked at the staffing budget and made note of the savings from open positions. Those were frozen until further notice. The number I came up with covered almost a third of the overage. Where to find the remaining two-thirds?
I started going through the spreadsheet of library resource expenditures and compared it with the lists available on the library website. I was vaguely familiar with most of them, but since I hadn’t been actively involved in any kind of management for nearly five years now, I felt I didn’t know enough.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. My head ached again.
Cassandra, blast her, was the person I needed to talk to, in the absence of a serials librarian. As long as Cassandra remained uncooperative, I would have to take on the role myself to an extent. I decided that one position had to be filled, and soon. I made a note to discuss it with Forrest.
Back to the spreadsheet. I opened my eyes and leaned forward. I went through one resource after another on the ten-year spreadsheet. I paid particular attention to the increases from year to year, listed in a column for each year. The increases for most items were fairly standard, though there was an occasional higher percentage than in previous years.
One resource, Global Electronic Resources, increased at a steady 12 percent per year. Ten years ago, the amount allocated to it had been a hundred thousand dollars. The amount for the current fiscal year was a bit over two hundred and seventy thousand. That was a significant chunk of the budget.
I had never heard of Global Electronic Resources. The spreadsheet didn’t indicate which resources they provided. I searched for the company website on the Internet, but what I found didn’t help much. The website offered glowing recommendations from a number of colleges, most of which I didn’t recognize, and stated the GER provided access to large collections of electronic books in all academic subject areas.
E-books. Well, that made sense. Over the past decade the Athena Library had beefed up its offerings of e-books, largely in the sciences but in the social sciences and humanities as well. I didn’t know how large the e-book collection was, but I vaguely remembered hearing that it was around fifty thousand.
The problem with electronic resources and their prices that folk outside the library didn’t understand was that, unlike the print edition, the money paid was basically a license. The library didn’t actually own the electronic stuff. We simply had access to it, in varying degrees. Some access
was theoretically perpetual; that is, once we licensed it, we retained access for the years paid. In other cases, if we stopped subscribing, we no longer had access.
Still, over a quarter of a million dollars to license e-books seemed exorbitant to me. I wondered how much new content the library had access to each year. Surely the collection grew over time. It would have to, in order to justify that kind of pricing.
Again, having Cassandra on hand to answer questions would be enormously helpful. She ought to be able to tell me how many e-books were in this collection.
The library cataloged all the e-books, I suddenly remembered. I ought to be able to search the online catalog and get at least a rough count of them. But would I be able to winnow out the e-books from other collections and databases?
One way to find out. I navigated on the Web to the library website and entered Global Electronic Resources enclosed in quotation marks in the search box for the online catalog. I knew it was the practice for many catalogers to include the e-book provider’s name as part of the bibliographic record, so I should get some kind of number. I hit Enter and waited.
The results consisted of one hundred and sixty-three titles. I scanned through several screens of them. All appeared to be math, computer science, and engineering books. Those tended to be expensive, I knew, but for the amount of money there ought to be a lot more. I did a quick calculation, and we were spending over sixteen hundred dollars per book, if those were all the titles. There had to be more.
Since Cassandra was unavailable, I decided to ask Delbert if he had a list of titles from this company. There had to be one somewhere, and since his department had to catalog them, surely he had a list.
I looked up his number and called him. He answered right away. I explained what I wanted, although not why. “If you could scan it and e-mail it to me, I’d appreciate it.”
He didn’t answer right away, and I was beginning to get irritated. Then, all in a rush, he said, “Sorry, but I don’t have one, you’ll have to get it from Cassandra.”
“That is a problem,” I said, my tone barely polite. “Because Cassandra is out, I can’t get hold of her. I need that list ASAP.”
“Um, well, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe she has a list somewhere in her files.”
“Please look. You have my authorization to look in her office. Ms. Hall will give you the keys to her files.”
“I don’t know how long it might take,” he said.
“I hope it won’t take too long,” I replied. “If necessary, I will contact the company and get it from them.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do my best.” He hung up.
What was that all about? The man sounded worried.
After a moment’s reflection, I decided I had better try to contact the company. I suspected it might be faster and easier to get the list from them.
Except that no one answered their phone.
THIRTY-TWO
I double-checked the number on GER’s website and dialed again. Still no answer. Definitely odd. I looked up the area code and discovered it was a New Jersey number.
I went back on the library’s online catalog to have a more thorough look at those expensive e-books. Our default sort in the catalog was by descending publishing date, so the most recent books were listed first.
I blinked and peered at the screen. The first title in the result list had a publication date of twenty-three years ago. Surely that couldn’t be right. I checked the sort, but they had been sorted properly.
After going through every screen of the list, I reached the end. The last title was a math book published in 1899. I clicked on the link for the book and was taken, after nearly thirty seconds, to a screen that informed me, “Resource locked by user.” Then the helpful words “Please try again later.”
These e-books must be on a single-user license, and that meant only one person could use them at a time. I was curious why someone would be interested in a nineteenth-century math book, but research interests varied greatly.
I clicked at random on the link for another e-book and, after a similar wait, ended up at the same screen. My curiosity thoroughly piqued, I started at the end of the list and worked backward, checking access to every fourth title in the list.
Twenty minutes—and an even achier head, with sore neck and shoulders—later I had worked my way to the beginning of the list. Every single e-book I had tried to access was “locked by user.”
I recalled that the ten-year-history spreadsheet included columns for cost-per-use for resources each fiscal year. I went back to it, found the line for GER, and scanned across from present to earlier fiscal years.
After I’d finished, I rubbed my eyes. Usage for these e-books started high ten years ago and increased every year, even as their cost increased. The cost-per-use varied from a high of two dollars and eighty-six cents to a low of twenty-seven cents per use.
That was phenomenal usage, I realized after I did some quick calculations. That would account for the resources being constantly locked.
But it was also suspicious, at least to me. I looked through the spreadsheet and examined the cost-per-use of other resources. None seemed to be as good or as consistent, except for the major journal collections.
A tap on my door pulled me out of my ruminations. I blinked and turned to see Melba standing a few feet away.
“You were so deep into whatever you were looking at I thought you were in a trance,” she said. “What is so fascinating?”
“Budget figures,” I said in a light tone. I wasn’t ready to share my suspicions with anyone else. I wanted to make sure I had evidence of some kind before I said anything.
Melba grimaced. “They’d put me to sleep. Anyhow, that’s not why I knocked. I wanted to let you know it’s five o’clock, and I’m getting ready to leave. Will you be staying much longer? If you are, you may want to shut Diesel in here with you.” She glanced down at the feline rubbing against her legs. “He’s been with me most of the afternoon, but he’s also been out to visit the cop on duty by the front door. They’re buddies now.”
“I’ve lost track of the time completely.” I yawned suddenly. “Excuse me. No, I’m not going to stay. I need to clear my head for a while. Come on, Diesel, come to me and let Melba get going.”
The cat meowed and rubbed against her legs again, but then he ambled around the desk to my side. I scratched his head, and he warbled. “Thanks again for everything, Melba. I’d never get through this without you.”
She merely smiled and said good night before she turned and left the room.
“Okay, boy, give me a moment, and we’ll be on the way home soon.” I gave Diesel’s head one more scratch before I turned back to the computer. I shut down everything except e-mail. I checked to see whether Delbert Winston had sent me anything.
He hadn’t. Perhaps he was having trouble finding what I wanted.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to find it.
“Maybe he doesn’t,” I said. “But until I have a better picture of what’s really going on here, I don’t know.”
Diesel meowed, and I realized he thought I was talking to him. I laughed and logged off the network. It took me a moment to gather my things, and I made sure I had the canvas bag of files with me when we left the office and locked the door.
I closed and locked Melba’s door in turn, and while I did so, Diesel went to bid his new buddy good night. I chatted with the young man for a moment, and then I headed for the car with Diesel.
Azalea had gone by the time we reached home, but she left dinner for Stewart, Haskell, and me. Stewart had the table set, and we ate about thirty minutes later.
I was poor company during the meal because my thoughts kept straying to the issue of Global Electronic Resources. I foresaw a long evening ahead, because I knew I would not be able to go to bed until I had some kind of answer, or at least a glimme
r of one.
I surfaced from my reverie to hear Stewart say to Haskell, “Then the Queen of Sheba turned to me and said I had to stay for dinner and she hoped that I liked stewed goats’ eyes and pickled cow tongue.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
Stewart chuckled at my expression of confusion. “I wondered whether you were really listening.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m preoccupied with work. Not something that has occurred often in recent years.”
“Must be a real mess,” Haskell said.
“I’m beginning to think it’s worse than anyone realized,” I said. “I can’t go into details, but I suspect there’s an embezzler on the staff.” I shouldn’t have said that, I realized a little too late. “You can’t repeat that anywhere.”
“Of course not,” Stewart said. “I would think it was Peter Vanderwhatsit, if it was anybody. Otherwise, why did he just up and disappear like that?”
“Vanderkeller,” I said absently, struck by Stewart’s question. Why had Peter disappeared so abruptly? Because he knew his fraud was about to be uncovered, and he decided to skip the country before he could be caught? That was possible, I supposed, but from what I had learned from the vice president of finance, there wasn’t any money actually missing. Not that they could find evidence of, at any rate.
I had thought he had resigned because he was simply too embarrassed to face the music. Peter had never liked owning up to mistakes. He had that much in common with Oscar Reilly. He had already suffered great embarrassment several years ago when his wife left him. Being blamed for fiscal ineptitude might have been more than he could handle.
“Earth to Charlie,” Stewart said laughingly.
“Sorry,” I said again. “Look, guys, I hate to do this, but would you excuse me? There’s something I really have go to dig into, and until I do and find some kind of answer, I’m going to be distracted.”
“Of course,” Haskell said. “Do you think it’s connected to the murders?”
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