Миранда Джеймс - Twelve Angry Librarians

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Miranda James

Cat in the Stacks Mysteries

MURDER PAST DUE

CLASSIFIED AS MURDER

FILE M FOR MURDER

OUT OF CIRCULATION

THE SILENCE OF THE LIBRARY

ARSENIC AND OLD BOOKS

NO CATS ALLOWED

TWELVE ANGRY LIBRARIANS

Southern Ladies Mysteries

BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART

DEAD WITH THE WIND

DIGGING UP THE DIRT

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

Published by Berkley

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2017 by Dean James

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BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: James, Miranda, author.

Title: Twelve angry librarians / Miranda James.

Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2017. | Series:

Cat in the stacks mystery ; 8

Identifiers: LCCN 2016042276 (print) | LCCN 2016048829 (ebook) | ISBN

9780425277768 (hardback) | ISBN 9780698181991 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Librarians—Mississippi—Fiction. |

Libraries—Mississippi—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. |

BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3610.A43 T93 2017 (print) | LCC PS3610.A43 (ebook) |

DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042276

First Edition: February 2017

Cover art by Dan Craig

Cover design by Lesley Worrell and Katie Anderson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

For a decade of unfailing support, encouragement, and enthusiasm, I dedicate this book with boundless gratitude to my wonderful editor, Michelle Vega.

Truly, sine qua non.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks as always to the usual suspects: my agent, Nancy Yost; and her associates: Sarah E. Younger, Natanya Wheeler, and Amy Rosenbaum for all they do; the team at Berkley: Michelle Vega, Bethany Blair, and Roxanne Jones for constant support and help in numerous ways; the art department for consistently beautiful covers; and the copyeditors who always work so hard to catch my mistakes and lapses in logic.

My dear friends Patricia Orr and Terry Farmer read and encouraged as the chapters popped up in their e-mail boxes, and I can never thank them enough for what they do.

Finally, special thanks to Patrick B. Kyle, PhD, DABCC, director of clinical chemistry and toxicology, at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, for graciously answering questions about poison that came to his e-mail inbox out of the blue. He is not responsible for any errors or misinterpretations that I have made based on his answers to my questions.

CONTENTS

Berkley Prime Crime Titles by Miranda James

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

About the Author

ONE

“But I don’t want to do it.”

I glared at my administrative assistant and longtime friend, Melba Gilley. “You know how much I hate public speaking. Why can’t Forrest Wyatt do it? College presidents do this kind of thing all the time.”

“Forrest will be welcoming everyone to open the conference. If you’d actually read the schedule instead of whining like a three-year-old you’d see that.” Melba Gilley glared right back at me.

My Maine Coon cat, Diesel, obviously disturbed by the sudden tension between two of his favorite people, started meowing loudly. He butted his head against my leg, and I immediately felt exactly like the three-year-old Melba labeled me. I rubbed the cat’s head to reassure him. The meowing slowed and softened in volume.

“Sorry.” I sighed as I skimmed the first page of the document Melba gave me a few minutes ago. Surely I wouldn’t be expected to give a lengthy speech. “You’re right. Forrest is speaking before me, I see. How long do I have to talk?”

“Only two or three minutes,” Melba said. “If you look at the times on the schedule, you can see that there’s only ten minutes allotted for both you and Forrest.”

“He’ll probably talk for nine and a half of the ten.” I grinned. “So I can have thirty seconds to say ‘Welcome to Athena and have a nice time.’ That ought to do it.”

Diesel warbled as if he agreed with me, and Melba laughed.

“I think you should say more than that .”

“We’ll see. How many people usually attend this meeting?” I asked.

Melba shrugged. “We hosted it ten years ago, and as I recall, there were about three hundred people. Nowadays with travel budgets being cut, fewer people may attend.”

I glanced at the header of the document. “Southern Academic Library Association. I’ve heard some of the other librarians talk about it.” I shrugged. “I had my fill of library meetings from my days in the public library system in Houston. The Texas Library Association Annual Conference is about the largest of its kind in the country, and I went to over twenty of them. I thought I was done with them when I moved back here.”

“Stop trying to sound so dang pathetic.” Melba cocked her head to the right and frowned at me. I knew that look. No more whining, or she’d get really testy with me.

“Yes, ma’am ,” I said in a pert tone. Diesel chirped, and Melba’s expression relaxed into a grin.

“At least you’ve only got a couple days to worry about what you’re going to say, with everything starting on Thursday.”

I forbore to comment. I skimmed through the schedule. After an opening reception Thursday evening, the conference ran from Friday morning through Sunday at noon. I spotted several names I recognized. People I’d gone to library school with nearly thirty years before. We hadn’t kept in touch, but I figured it might be interesting to see them again.

Then my eyes lighted on the name of the speaker for the Friday luncheon keynote. Gavin Fong .

Surely there couldn’t be two of them, although I hoped there were. The Gavin Fong from library school days had been a jerk, a condescending snot who thought he was intellectually superior to the rest of us. He always talked as if he were slumming by earning a master’s degree in library science.