Миранда Джеймс - Twelve Angry Librarians

“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 Randi, 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.”

“We aren’t going to ask you what the story was, even though we’re dying to know,” Cathleen said.

“Thanks,” I said. “If you do have a few more minutes to talk, could I ask you a few questions about Gavin’s party the other night?”