Миранда Джеймс - Twelve Angry Librarians

“Are any of these friends who worked with him attending this conference?” Kanesha held her pen ready to write.

“Actually, there are two. Marisue Pickard and Randi Grant.” I would have to let them know I had to give their names to Kanesha. “There may be other people at the conference who worked with him. There is one woman who actually seemed to like him. Maxine Muller, I think the name is.” She was the one who probably told Kanesha that I attacked Gavin.

Kanesha nodded. “I’ve talked with Ms. Muller. Anybody else?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, a young man, probably late twenties, early thirties, bald, with earrings and tattooed forearms. He’ll be hard to miss. His name is Bob Coben, I believe. He works at the same college that Gavin did currently.” I frowned. That didn’t sound quite right, but I figured Kanesha would understand what I meant.

“The deceased had received anonymous death threats, according to Ms. Muller,” Kanesha said. “Both in e-mails and through the regular mail. Ms. Muller said the deceased believed the threats came from a man. This Mr. Coben is a possibility.”

I shrugged. “I guess so. There are other men who probably had reason to hate Gavin. Finding them shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Another thing Ms. Muller revealed is that the deceased had applied for several jobs recently, but he didn’t get any of them. He seemed to think he’d been blackballed.”

“That’s entirely possible,” I replied. “Gavin had evidently done it to others, so it was poetic justice if it happened to him.”

“You said the deceased applied for your job.” Kanesha regarded me intently. “Was he a serious candidate for it? Could someone have wanted him out of the way in order to get the job for himself? Or herself?”

“He had no chance at the job, I’m pretty sure.” I might as well tell her. “In fact, the job has already been offered to someone. This morning, to me.”

“I see,” Kanesha replied. “Are congratulations in order?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” I said. “I promised I would let them know on Monday morning.”

Kanesha shot me an amused glance. “I have to say I hope you’ll take it. With a full-time job you’ll be too busy to get involved in any more murder investigations.”

“That would suit me fine,” I said, trying not to feel nettled by her remark. “Do you have any more questions?”

“Not for the moment,” Kanesha said. “I know where to find you.”

I nodded and rose. Once I stepped out of the small meeting room the hotel had assigned to Kanesha, I took a moment to get my bearings. Then I made a beeline for the men’s room. After that, I went to the gift shop to purchase a bottle of water and some aspirin.

With my immediate needs taken care of, I found a spot in a corner of the hotel lobby to sit and think for a few minutes. I checked my watch—a quarter past three p.m. After I downed a couple of aspirin, I sipped at the water and thought about the past several hours. The picture of Gavin Fong’s last moments, before he fell out of sight on the dais, lingered in my mind. I shuddered. I loathed the man, certainly, but I hadn’t wished him dead.

Someone had, however. I wondered what Gavin had done to make a person angry enough to believe that killing him was the only solution. That Gavin had to be erased, as it were.

Dimly I became aware of a conversation nearby. When I looked to see who was talking, I recognized the two men. One of them was the young man I had mentioned to Kanesha, Bob Coben. There was no mistaking the bald head, earrings, and tattooed arms. From where I sat I had a clear view of him on a sofa about six feet away. The man with Coben was the one who had introduced Gavin Fong at the luncheon today. What was his name? I thought for a moment. Harlan Crais, that was it.

“Why are you so certain he was responsible?” Crais asked. “Frankly, I’m finding the whole thing rather hard to believe.”

“You knew him, Harlan. You worked with him for what, three or four years?” Coben sounded impatient. “You can’t tell me he didn’t really chap your hide the way he did everyone else’s.”

Crais shrugged. “Yes, I worked with him, but that was several years ago. I hadn’t had anything to do with him since. He didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother him.”

Coben snorted. “Yeah, right. Then how come I overheard him telling his little toady Maxine that he kept you from getting that job in Tennessee?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Crais waved that away. “Gavin didn’t have that kind of power. He couldn’t stop me from getting that job. As a matter of fact, they offered it to me, but I turned them down.”

“Seriously? You turned them down?” Coben shook his head. “Man, that was a good job. Dean of libraries, wasn’t it? Why would you turn that down?”

Crais shrugged. “I just did, that’s all. It wasn’t the right job for me.”

From what I could see, Coben didn’t believe the older man. I frowned as I tried to remember what Crais had said about himself before he introduced Gavin. He was head of collection development at his current library, I thought.

“In my case,” Coben said, “I wanted the job, but I found out through somebody I know at that library that Gavin had basically told the director I’m too immature for the responsibility the job entailed.” Suddenly he slammed a fist into the sofa cushion beside him. “I could have killed him for that alone.”

THIRTEEN

The violence of Bob Coben’s tone startled me, as did his action in striking the sofa cushion.

Harlan Crais appeared uneasy. “You’d better not talk like that.” He glanced around, and I shifted my gaze to my feet. When Crais spoke again, he lowered his voice so that I could barely hear him. “You don’t know who could be listening.”

I leaned back in my chair, eyes shut, and rested my head. I wanted the two men to think I wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation.

“So what?” Coben said, his tone defiant. “I didn’t kill him, Harlan, and you’d better not be going around telling people I did.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Crais snapped back. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything. If you get into any trouble over this, it will be your own fault.”

I opened my eyelids a fraction, in time to see Coben jump to his feet. He stared down at Crais, who shrank back against the sofa. “I’ll keep my nose clean,” Coben said. “You’d better be worrying about your own.” He turned and walked swiftly away.

I closed my eyes a moment, in case Harlan Crais chanced to look my way. Then I opened them, yawned, and sat up. Crais was on his feet. He didn’t appear to notice me. Instead he seemed absorbed by his thoughts as he wandered away, hitching his canvas bag up on his shoulder.

You do not want to get involved in another murder investigation , I told myself.

But , my self argued back, you just overheard things that could be useful to Kanesha. You have to tell her what you heard .

I sighed. At the moment I felt too tired to make the effort, but before long I knew I would either call or e-mail Kanesha to share the fruits of my eavesdropping. I didn’t care for feeling like a tattletale, but needs must when the devil drives, as the old saying went.

Bob Coben had come up to me after the incident with Gavin yesterday, I remembered, and offered to serve as a witness if Gavin tried to make a fuss or sue me. Evidently he had personal reasons for loathing Gavin—no surprise there—but I didn’t want to see him in trouble if he hadn’t killed Gavin. He had said he didn’t, but naturally the killer would lie about it.

I decided I would e-mail Kanesha when I got home. My dinner with Marisue and Randi was scheduled for tonight, and I planned to take them to Helen Louise’s place. I wanted to get out of my suit and into more comfortable clothes before I came back to the hotel to escort them to the bistro.