Twelve Angry Librarians Read online

  All the while we discussed books, I wondered how I could introduce the subject of Gavin and do a bit of discreet probing. Finally, I figured out a way, taking a lead from Cathleen’s mention of two of her favorite writers. Nancy and I had hardly given her time to talk before.

  “Their work does sound interesting,” I said. “I discovered that one of the librarians at the conference writes science fiction. Mitch Handler, that’s his name, but I think he uses a different name for his novels.”

  “Berger Mitchell,” Cathleen said promptly. “I’ve read a couple of his novels. He’s really good, and he writes women characters who are real women, not like the caricatures you find in some male writers’ books.”

  “I’ll have to give him a try,” I said. “I do occasionally read science fiction. I think somebody told me he once worked with Gavin, too. Have either of you ever worked with him?”

  Nancy and Cathleen exchanged a glance, then Nancy spoke. “With Mitch, you mean?” At my nod Nancy continued. “No, I’ve not worked with him, and I don’t believe Cathleen has, either.”

  Cathleen shook her head.

  Nancy smiled briefly. “Look, Charlie, I know you’re wanting to ask us something about Mitch and Gavin, so why not come right out with it?”

  I could all too easily imagine my sheepish expression when I responded. “You’re right. Okay, here it is. Gavin had a habit of doing nasty things to people he worked with when they tried to move on to other jobs. Does that ring any bells?”

  Both women were obviously startled. “How do you know about that?” Cathleen asked, then immediately appeared to regret it.

  “Two friends who worked with Gavin before told me,” I said. “One of them said she’d heard Gavin had done something nasty to Handler, but she couldn’t remember.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened as she seemed to be looking over my shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted before she could say anything. At the same time Cathleen shrank back and stared down at her wineglass.

  A deep voice spoke from somewhere near my shoulder. “I can tell you myself. Although why it’s any business of yours, I don’t have any idea.”

  Startled, I turned in my chair to see Mitch Handler frowning down at me.

  THIRTY

  That’s what you get for sitting with your back to the door, you nitwit. The snide voice in my head made me want to squirm. What an idiot I was sometimes.

  Repressing a sigh, I stood, being careful not to trod on Diesel. “I’m truly sorry, Mr. Handler. My curiosity gets the better of me sometimes.”

  Handler’s response to that was a stony gaze. Behind me, I heard Nancy and Cathleen getting to their feet.

  “Nice talking to you, Charlie,” Nancy said, and Cathleen nodded. “See you later, Mitch.”

  I envied them their quick escape. At the moment I wished I could crawl under the sofa. I looked back at Handler with what I hoped was a suitably hangdog expression.

  The stony gaze softened a minute amount.

  “Why don’t you sit back down?” Handler moved past me to the sofa and seated himself.

  I resumed my former place and waited for Handler to speak. For the moment, he seemed more interested in Diesel than in continuing to chastise me. Diesel, after first trying to hide between my legs and the chair, soon responded to the soft chirps Handler made. He moved close enough to sniff at the stranger’s extended fingers for a moment. He evidently decided Handler was okay, because he allowed the man to rub his head.

  Handler appeared calm when he spoke to me again. “I’ve heard about you and your cat, Mr. Harris. Your penchant for getting involved in murders had gotten around this weekend. Frankly, I’m surprised that local law enforcement hasn’t done something about that.”

  Despite my earlier embarrassment over being caught gossiping about this man behind his back, I was starting to feel irritated at his patronizing tone. I wasn’t about to explain myself to him or share with him the unusual relationship I had with Kanesha Berry. I let his remark go without response.

  Handler shrugged after a silence of several seconds and evidently decided his bait had missed its mark. “You are trying to find out what happened between Gavin and me, I presume because you plan to share it with your law enforcement contact. Deputy Berry, right?”

  I nodded. At the moment I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  “As I’ve already told the deputy my story, I might as well tell you, I suppose. No doubt she will tell you herself eventually. You seem to be in the loop on everything, from what I’ve heard.”

  Now I had to speak, and I did my best to restrain my anger with him. I wanted to wipe that smug expression away. “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Mr. Handler. Yes, I am nosy, and yes, I’ve been involved in a few murder investigations. But let me set you straight on one thing. Kanesha Berry is a principled, ethical investigator. She shares with me only the things that have direct bearing on an investigation when I have provided the basic information that has helped her. I don’t see autopsy reports, the results of forensic tests, or witness statements, ever.”

  Handler had the grace to look slightly abashed by the time I concluded my mini-rant. “Okay, sorry, I went too far. These murders have me on edge, like they do everyone. I didn’t care for Gavin Fong any more than anyone who’d ever worked with him.” Suddenly he grinned. “Evidently you and I have one thing in common, according to a story I heard from one of your old library school friends. I punched him out like you did, and for the same reason.”

  “He was harassing your wife?” I didn’t like the fact that one of my library school friends had gossiped about me, but I couldn’t get on a high horse over that. That horse had no legs in this instance.

  “Girlfriend at the time,” Handler replied. “Now my wife. He was slime when it came to women, and I caught him with his hands all over her and her trying to get away from him. He never made that mistake again.”

  I understood the gleam of satisfaction in Handler’s eyes. “Did he try to retaliate? Sue you, press charges, anything like that?” I asked. “He was threatening me with that after we brangled on Thursday.”

  “He did, at first, but when he found out there was another witness besides me who saw what he was doing, he backed down quickly.” He laughed. “Gavin ignored the library cleaners as if they were invisible, but one of them saw him and spoke up on my behalf. Gavin found another job—with encouragement from our boss, frankly—and was gone six months later.”

  Handler sounded sincere, and I supposed if Kanesha tried to verify the story, she might be able to. It could be a clever fiction, though. This man was a novelist, and apparently a good one, to judge by what Marisue and Cathleen said. He could make up a plausible story without thinking all that hard about it.

  I had to accept what he told me at face value, and he probably was telling the truth. I couldn’t forget his background in chemistry, though, and that left me with a niggling doubt about his story and his motives for sharing it with me. I wondered why he hadn’t simply told me to go to hell and be done with it.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said. I thought about adding another apology but decided I’d apologized enough. He hadn’t acknowledged the first one anyway.

  Handler shrugged before he pushed himself up from the couch. “Whatever,” he said before he walked off.

  The room had continued to fill while I spoke with Handler, and I estimated there must be about twenty people here. A couple, a woman and a man, sat on the sofa away from me and Diesel and chatted with each other after a quick nod in my direction. Diesel seemed not to be stressed by the number of people, and I relaxed a bit.

  I needed to visit the bathroom, however, and I took Diesel with me. We made our way past a small knot of people near the table where the hotel staff had laid out several choices of finger food. I spotted some cream cheese and spinach spirals that I particularly liked, and I
hoped there would be some left when we came back from the bathroom.

  I took my time in the bathroom, which I had fortunately found unoccupied. Despite the lure of food, I was in no hurry right then to rejoin the crowd. Once I’d washed and dried my hands, however, I had no reason to linger. “Come on, boy,” I said. “Back into the fray.”

  The crowd had thinned by five or six people in the few minutes I was in the bathroom. I breathed a little easier as Diesel and I approached the food table. I picked up a plate and napkin and helped myself to two—well, three, since there were still plenty left—of the cream cheese and spinach spirals. Thus far I’d avoided making eye contact because I knew I was too distracted by my thoughts to want to make conversation with strangers. I was sure people thought I was strange or standoffish or both, but I wasn’t in the mood to repeat over and over information about Maine Coon cats and respond to remarks on Diesel’s size. Maybe I was turning into a curmudgeon and didn’t realize it. Or maybe I was just tired.

  I found a seat, this time facing the door, and cleaned my plate. Diesel kept gazing at me with hope in his eyes, but I thought I detected garlic or onion in the spirals, and neither of those was good for cats. I promised him a treat when we got home.

  I finished my diet soda and decided I wanted water now. The bar was near my chair, and I left Diesel where he was while I retrieved the water. Relieved to see that it was a different brand than the one Gavin favored, I brought it back to my chair and resumed my place. Diesel decided to climb into my lap, and suddenly I had large feet treading on tender places. I grimaced until the heavy weight in my lap found a comfortable position, head on one arm of the chair and tail hanging over the other.

  “My goodness, that is the largest cat I think I’ve ever seen.”

  I remembered that voice. It was either Ada Lou or Virginia. I couldn’t remember which was which, but they stood about five feet away from me, staring at Diesel.

  “Don’t you think that’s the largest cat I’ve ever seen, Virginia?” Ada Lou nudged the woman beside her in her ribs.

  Virginia scowled. “How on earth should I know whether that’s the largest cat you’ve ever seen, Ada Lou? You’ve been to a zoo, haven’t you? They’ve got much larger cats there. Surely you’ve seen lions and tigers.”

  “Well of course I have.” Ada Lou appeared cross. “You know what I meant. That’s the largest pet cat I’ve ever seen.” She stared at Diesel, then her eyes seemed to travel upward to his face. “Oh, so you’re the one people have been talking about.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, resigned to conversing on the subject of my cat. “His name is Diesel, and he’s a Maine Coon. They’re the largest American breed of house cat, and the only truly American breed.”

  “You don’t say,” Virginia said. “I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person before. Does he bite?”

  “How much does he eat a day?” Ada Lou talked right over Virginia’s last few words, and for a moment I couldn’t sort out what either of them had asked. Once I did, I answered them.

  “Well, that surely is interesting,” Ada Lou said. “Don’t you think that’s interesting, Virginia? He’s so big he looks like he could be ferocious, but this man is telling us he’s gentle.”

  “If I found everything interesting that you asked me about, Ada Lou,” Virginia snapped in response, “I’d spend every waking hour finding something interesting, and frankly that’s exhausting. I’m thirsty. Do you find that interesting?” She grimaced at her friend and walked around my chair to the bar.

  Ada Lou appeared to be contemplating Virginia’s statement. I wondered if the woman understood sarcasm at all, or whether she was one of those people who are too literal-minded to get it.

  “I don’t think I ask you about finding things interesting that much, Virginia,” Ada Lou said as she walked past me to join her friend at the bar. “You do like to exaggerate, and I’ve never understood that about you, although I do find it interesting.”

  Oh dear Lord, do they go on like this all the time? My head had begun to ache, and I was contemplating getting up and moving when I noticed a new arrival to the party, Harlan Crais, standing in the doorway. I decided to remain where I was and keep an eye on Crais. I wanted to talk to him, and I needed to think up the best approach.

  Virginia and Ada Lou continued to chatter behind me at the bar, and I strove to block out their voices while I watched Crais. He advanced into the room and walked over to a group of three women who stood at the table, casually grazing from the food there. They appeared to know him, and he hugged one of them.

  I thought about possible conversational gambits to use with Crais, all the while Virginia and Ada Lou kept nattering away. Then I realized they were talking about Crais, and I tuned in.

  “I tell you, Virginia, that is the clumsy man we saw at the table where Gavin Fong was sitting at lunch yesterday. Don’t you remember? I think sometimes you’re starting to get dementia when you can’t remember something like that.”

  “I remember him,” Virginia said. “He’s the one who introduced Gavin, Ada Lou.”

  “Yes, that’s right, Virginia, you’re doing good. If you can remember that, then you ought to be able to remember how clumsy he was at the table. After all, you’re the one who pointed it out to me.”

  “Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t,” Virginia replied. “I do remember him knocking those things over on the table. It’s a good thing that the only thing that fell off was that water bottle. At least the klutz didn’t break any of the china.”

  I tensed the moment I heard mention of the water bottle. So Harlan Crais knocked Gavin’s water bottle off the table. Was that how it was done?

  THIRTY-ONE

  I listened, riveted, as Ada Lou and Virginia continued.

  “He did manage to knock that gravy boat over, though, and that gravy went everywhere from what I could see. I don’t guess anyone got it on them, but I remember a couple of people did get up and leave the table. Do you think, Virginia, that they did get gravy on their clothes?”

  “Why on earth would you possibly care whether any of those people got gravy on their clothes, Ada Lou?”

  “Well, it’s happened to me at a conference, and you know how it is at conferences—you don’t always have extra clothes to change into, and of course you don’t want to go around wearing gravy or something else on your clothes all day, especially if you can’t rinse it out in the bathroom sink. I remember a time at ALA in New Orleans . . .”

  At that point I decided I had heard enough. The sound of those two voices had already begun to make me want to butt my head against a brick wall. I eased Diesel off my lap as gently as I could, but I was determined to get out of sound range of Ada Lou and Virginia. I was thankful to them, though, for the interesting information they had unwittingly shared with me. I hoped that Harlan Crais hadn’t heard any of it, and that the two elderly women had sense enough not to talk to him about it. They could be in danger, if what I suspected was the solution to the two murders. Kanesha, however, had promised to make sure they were safe.

  I hesitated. Maybe I should try to talk to them and warn them anyway. There was one point that needed clarification, if I could get it from them. Was Gavin one of the people who’d left the table after the spilled gravy incident? And was that when Crais knocked the water bottle off the table so he could switch it with a poisoned one?

  Another question occurred to me. Why hadn’t Crais stashed the poisoned bottle among the bottles in Gavin’s suite? Was he concerned about the wrong person getting hold of one? If he hadn’t put the poisoned bottle among those in the suite, where did the bottle that killed Maxine Muller come from?

  The solution hinged largely on two things, I thought. How the killer obtained the cyanide and how the two victims ended up with poisoned bottles of water. I wondered if Kanesha was thinking the same thing.

  If only R
andi, Marisue, and I had sat at a table near Gavin’s that day. I could have observed this for myself and immediately have brought it to Kanesha’s attention. I realized that Crais might simply be clumsy and was always knocking things over and so on, and what Virginia and Ada Lou witnessed was normal behavior for him. I’d not seen any signs of clumsiness from him, however.

  At the moment he stood balancing a wineglass atop an empty plate. As I watched he turned slightly to pick up a couple of small wedges of cheese from the table, and when he did so, the plate and glass remained steady.

  As a somewhat klutzy person myself, I would never have attempted that, because as sure as I had, I would have tilted the plate and wine would have gone everywhere. Crais’s balance was better than mine. I continued to watch him for a few minutes longer, but nothing happened in the way of klutziness. I concluded that Crais had staged the little accidents at the luncheon table to suit his own purposes.

  I spotted Nancy Dunlap and Cathleen Matera at the end of the table away from where Harlan Crais stood talking to the same three women he’d been chatting with for probably the last ten minutes. Now would be a good time to rejoin Nancy and Cathleen and finish our conversation.

  “Come on, Diesel,” I said in a low voice. “Let’s go talk to those nice ladies again, okay?” He chirped in response. He still seemed all right, but before much longer, I knew we’d both be ready to head home.

  “Hi, Charlie.” Nancy grinned when Diesel and I walked up to her and Cathleen. “Our little chat earlier got cut off pretty dramatically.” She bent to scratch Diesel behind one ear, and he purred.

  “I’ll say it did.” Cathleen chuckled as she watched Nancy and Diesel. “Your expression was priceless when you realized Mitch Handler had overheard you.” She chuckled again.

  “Not one of my more shining moments,” I said. “It was awkward, but he actually talked to me and told me what I was trying to find out.”