A Quandary in Quarantine

Chapter Nine

Ding!

There were those three dots again…

In slow procession they appeared across the bottom of the chat window.

One.

Two..

Three…

It had been a busy day for AskElsewhere. I had answered more than 20 questions and forwarded a patron request for a scan of a chapter entitled “Maintaining Academic Library Services During the Zombie Apocalypse” from the book Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies by Robert Smith? to the Interlibrary Loan Department at the nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus in the past thirty minutes alone. Seriously, I just did not know how anyone could ever think a librarian's job was boring.

People seemed to have generally settled into the knowledge that the library was closed to the public until we told them otherwise. They had resumed asking what I would call “normal” reference questions.

For example:

Question: What’s the name of the latest James Patterson book, and how can I get put it on hold?

Answer: Ooh, that would be Criss Cross, which came out November 25 of last year. I can put our ebook copy on hold for you right now, if you don’t mind sharing your library barcode number with me?

Question: Which county in Wisconsin has the most cows per person?

Answer: Some quick research tells me that Lafayette County had over six cows for each person at last count, which was back in 2017. There may be some debate on this point, though, since there has not been a more recent survey conducted.

Question: What’s a good book for my teenage daughter to read? Oh, by the way - she hates to read!

I triaged this one over to Luce, who was sharing the shift with me. Teens were a unique breed.

And, to round out the afternoon, an oldie but a goody: does this look infected to you? Yes, in case you were wondering dear reader, there was an imaged attached to this one… Though since the appendage in question is usually shoved right under my nose, for this one question alone I was actually thrilled to already be in quarantine.

So, feeling totally back in the swing of things, and ready for the next question - whatever that may be, those three dots had become new friends to me. They may be a bit tentative at times, but they always came around.

Except maybe this time. Again, just like before, those three dots kept appearing and then vanishing. Almost as if the person on the other side of this particular computer screen was not sure if they really wanted to talk to me.

Hi, I typed quickly, hoping to catch them before they logged out of the service. My name is Libby. I’m one of the librarians at Elsewhere Public Library. How may I help you today? You can ask me anything! I would love to help you find what you need.

The three dots appeared again. I waited, my fingers hovering just above the keys, in baited anticipation of a juicy question yet unasked. Sometimes I had to laugh at just how much I looked forward to each question I was asked in the library. It was one of the things that had drawn me to librarianship as a profession originally, and still really did keep me engaged. Some folks got burned out on their jobs - the repetitive qualities at least, but the way I saw it was you never knew who would walk into the library next, or what fascinating things they would want to find out about. Or, by extension, teach me about. I loved the rabbit holes.

I did something bad, and I do not know what to do now. No one knows it was me.

Oh boy. Sometimes I wish I had more information about who exactly was asking each question before I started to answer it. I suppose, in retrospect, I could have added a few basic demographic qualifiers to the chat interaction, but who could have foreseen the volume of questions, or the immediate necessity of the service? I could maybe weed out or at least auto-direct some questions better if I’d had, like for this one - it sounded like a young person, maybe even a child from the sentence syntax, had logged in maybe on accident. I sighed, and began to type.

Well, I’m sure it’s not all that bad. Can you tell me more about what happened, and I’ll do my best to help?

I am the one who killed her.

Immediately after that message came in, I got the notice that the patron had disconnected from the chat service. I stared at my screen in horror, I felt my heart race and my breathing became increasingly rapid. I couldn't believe what had just happened.

*****

I had called the non-emergency number for the Elsewhere Police Department as soon as I had a chance to catch my breath. I had been chatting with Irene’s killer, I was sure of it. The person on the other end of the conversation had not come out and said they were talking about Irene - but they had clearly said they killed HER - who else could they have been talking about? But, that was all the information I had. Darn my sensibilities about protecting the patron’s privacy, because of that I had no idea where the chats are coming from, or who was sending them.

“Deputy Drew, here,” Deputy Drew’s curt voice cut through the phone line. Ugh, I could just picture him with his blue uniform shirt probably half untucked, some stain from his lunch blossoming above the third button. Ever since he had implied that I was on his list of suspects, for the apparent personal gain Irene’s death would bring us, I could not help but picture him in a negative light each time I was forced to think of him at all. But, I had to relay this new development, so I forced myself to press on.

“Deputy James! Oh my goodness, I finally got you on the phone!” I had been on hold for all of thirty seconds before being connected, but time was funny in quarantine - and I supposed, having been the person who not only found Irene in the library - dead at my desk of all places, but also who her killer had decided to confess to, had probably given me a bit of a shock and my internal clock had been thrown a bit off kilter.

“I was just chatting with Irene’s killer! Can you do some technology magic and break into my computer from there, and track who just was chatting with me through AskElsewhere?”

I was babbling, of course; I knew he could not do that. Not from the station, at any rate. And definitely not with the policies the library had in place protecting our patrons - a not-so-quiet way to stand for our patrons rights in response to the Patriot Act.

“Libby, calm down. Let’s take this one step at a time. You’re at home, right? Alone? Did you tell the person you were chatting with who you were? Or, where you were? Do you think you are in any danger? How did you know it was the killer you were speaking to? Did they identify themselves in any way?”

He was one to talk about taking it one step at a time. I tired to answer his questions in order.

“No, I mean - I said it was Libby and that I was one of the librarians, but I don't feel like they were threatening me in anyway. It was more like a confessional; like they needed to get the fact that they’d killed Irene off their chests.”

“Honestly, Libby, they were probably just trying to incite you to panic, which clearly worked. Someone is toying with you.”

“Why though? Why would they use the library’s chat service to do that?”

“Who knows,” Drew sighed. “I mean, come on - how do I know this even really happened? You told me yourself that they way you’d built the system ensures you cannot track the person’s information. They would have to actually provide you with their library card number or their name, for you to know exactly who they were right? Otherwise you are just talking to Polly Patron, or whatever silly name you and Lucy told me you use? What if you made this up and you’re really just trying to shift the blame away from yourself.”

“I did not hurt Irene, as I’ve told you and anyone else who asks a hundred times already! Why would I? She and I were really making headway in our department, and the whole library was benefiting.”

I felt like a broken record, but until I could find some proof that someone else had it out for Irene, enough to do her bodily harm, he would not believe me. He was making that point abundantly clear.

“Well, without any more of a positive identification on who you were talking to, I am afraid there really just is not much I can do. You built a pretty air-tight system, unless they contact you again, and you can get more information out of them - we have nothing to go on here. I cannot go to every house in Elsewhere and just casually ask - hey, did you by chance tell Libby the librarian you were a killer, now can I?”

“Ugh.” I said as I sullenly hung up the phone.

Back to square one.

*****

The next morning, I called Luce for our check in promptly at 10:30. This was something our entire staff did, usually once a month - the either right before or right after our all staff meetings. The idea was to have a running dialog with other staff or key people in the city who’s work overlapped with our own. I had these regularly scheduled conversations with both Luce and Carson, since all of us had a hand in programming and often some of our programs overlapped. We did not want to create anything in a vacuum, or duplicate work unnecessarily. It might have seemed like overkill, especially when we also had all staff meetings, but I found it allowed us to do the brainstorming and the leg work ahead of time in many cases, and bring more fully fleshed out ideas to Maggie at the All-Staffs.

“So, how has AskElsewhere been treating you?” I asked Luce.

“Pretty great! Actually, I think I got a patron you had maybe also talked to - Ava Smith? I think you’d recognize her from the library. She’s that precocious eight year old who had one side of her head shaved?”

I laughed, “Ah, yes. Ava. How’s she handing the lock down? I’m sure she’s driving her parents crazy.”

“Well, considering that she seems to have borrowed her mom’s laptop, figured out how to log into AskElsewhere and has been submitting questions to us - yeah, I can only imagine her parents are being run ragged.”

“How did you know she’d chatted with me too?”

“Well, she actually told me. She said she told you she’d done something bad?”

I froze.

“Luce, I thought that was Irene’s killer! I even called the police and reported it. Oh my goodness, that was Ava? What in the world was she talking about?”

“Well, it turns out she over-fed her goldfish, Daisy. And she thinks she killed it.”

“Oh my word,” I said, as I put down the phone and cradled my head in my hands. I could hear Luce calling me from the tiny speaker. I pushed the speaker button, so I could keep talking to her.

“Luce. I called Deputy James and told him I thought I was talking to the killer. It was AVA?”

“Oops. Well, that’s going to be a fun follow up call. Tell me what happened.”

The added benefit to my check ins’ with Luce was - we were friends outside of work and it allowed us to catch up personally sometimes, too. This was our first check in since we’d been working from home, and also the first since Irene’s murder. It would have been pretty hard for anyone to have stayed to “work only” talk, under the circumstances.

“Well, I called him and told him what she said, and what I had thought she meant by it. Which, obviously, could not have been further from the truth. By the way, I might want to talk to her parents, that chat was a tad disturbing… anyway he actually thought that I made up the story, just to try to shift the blame off myself after I had actually had the bejeezus scared out of me! I mean, for starters, really - what would I have to gain from hurting Irene? Sure, she was one step above me on the library ladder, but it was a very small step. And, she and I were not really at odds over anything. I think he was reaching, honestly.”

“Totally grasping at straws. He’s probably trying to prove himself with a fast arrest. He’s hoping to become Chief one day. Maybe someone should suspect him!”

“Well, I do not think I would go that far,” I said, but I knew she was just commiserating with me. She did not really believe that Drew had any real reason to hurt Irene, either.

“But, where does that leave us? Now that you have asked the Elsewhere Police Department to investigate admission of guilt in the murder case of a goldfish.” Inwardly, I cringed and Luce continued, “what do we know for sure?”

“Well, I know that I heard Sally at the Library Board meeting. I am almost positive she was talking to Susan when I overheard them from the hall. There was a third person there, also female - but I can’t identify the voice. I am not sure what they were talking about, but it was definitely something shady. How can we find out what they were talking about? There isn’t a closed-circuit tv feed in the conference room I’m unaware of, is there?” Now I was the one who was grasping, and I knew it.

“No, there isn’t” Luce muttered, “But, there might be a way. I thought Eliisa had already arrived too, I know she was already in the room when we got there - she didn’t walk past you to go in while you were in the hallway, right?”

“No, no one passed me while the conversation was going on.”

“Well, then she must have been in there already. So, it’s a pretty good bet that you heard Sally talking with Susan and Eliisa. She’s our neighbor on the other side, you know.”

“She is? I did not know that! She’s so mysterious and quiet in meetings, I had no idea where she lived, let alone she lived so close to us! I do not recall ever seeing anyone enter or leave that house for that matter.”

“Well, I know we’re stuck in this quarantine right now, but we all have backyards. Maybe we could get her to talk to us over the fence!”

“I think maybe I’ll try the phone first,” I said.

“Oh, right - good idea.”

“I’ll call her, say I’m checking up with all the library board members on Maggie’s request. That should at least ensure she does not just hang up on me.”


“That’s good. Try that, and get back to me!”

“I will, for sure!”