Death Among The Stacks: The Body In The Law Library (2 page)

Detective Sledge walks up the stairs to
the Law Library where he is met by Sergeant Ronnie Willis, his
partner at the department. The front and back doors are wrapped in
yellow police tape and there are several uniformed officers
stationed at every entrance.

“
So tell me what’s going
on,” Sledge asks Officer Willis.

“
Seems like there’s been a
murder—or perhaps a gruesome accident. Some Federal employee was
found crushed between two rows of compact shelves here in the
basement. These ain’t your ordinary shelves either. They are pretty
heavy and motor driven. Anything that gets stuck in them ain’t got
a chance,” Willis says.

“
This place has a basement?”
Sledge asks.

“
No, well, not actually a
basement, basement, but they call it a basement; ah, it’s the
bottom floor,” Willis explains.

“
OK. I guess,” Sledge
answers.

He walks in to find a group of library
employees huddled behind the reference desk whispering to each
other. Beyond the reference desk he could see a group of people in
a glass-walled room, looking out curiously at what is going on.
“Who are they?” Sledge asks Willis.

“
Patrons of the library that
got stuck here after we arrived. We thought you’d like to question
them.”

“
Get their names, addresses
and phone numbers and tell them we may want to talk to them later.
Use your initiative, Willis. After you get the patrons sorted out,
I want every member of the Law Library staff in that conference
room for questioning. We’ll talk to them one at a time in the
Director’s office here. Don’t let anyone go; tell the officers at
all the doors. No one leaves. Got it? Get moving!” Sledge
barks.

“
Yes sir!” Officer Willis
begins herding the patrons off to get information while Detective
Sledge moves towards basement stairs.

Detective Sledge makes his way down to
the basement where he finds a group of officers huddled around the
body of the victim. Dr. Phil Gore, the department pathologist, is
bent over the body of the deceased. “Phil, what’s up? What do you
have for me here?”

“
The victim is a 56 year
old, white, Caucasian male who got stuck between some pretty heavy
compact shelves.” Dr. Gore says. “How the heck would someone get
stuck in these shelves? I gotta think he’d make some sort of noise
as these things closed in on him.”

Sledge says, “Maybe he
couldn’t.”

Dr. Gore adds, “He’s got a nasty bruise
on his forehead that seems to match the pattern on the side of this
book tape dispenser we found over there. This thing is really heavy
and probably knocked him out cold before he got stuck in here. I
imagine he was out before the shelves began to close in on him. He
died of asphyxiation as far as I can tell. The lab reports will
tell us more but I’m pretty sure that’s what got him,” Dr. Gore
says.

“
So when did he die? Today
or when?” asks Sledge.

“
I’d say two maybe three
hours ago. Rigor mortis has barely set in. Also, I found this odd
smell on the body, like peppermint. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe
some cheap cologne or something. We’ll check it out at the lab and
have an answer for you in a day or so.”

Detective Sledge takes the stairs up to
the main level and enters the Director’s office. A vast, roomy
office, it is well-lit by two enormous windows. The room reminds
him of an executive’s office in a large corporation somewhere. This
room seems a bit much--perhaps over the top for a county worker,
Sledge thinks.

Sledge sits down at a small conference
table and begins to collect his thoughts. Just then, the door opens
and an officer says, “I’ve got the Director for you,
sir.”

To which Sledge replies, “Thanks, send
her in.” The Director walks in and appears a bit taken aback that
someone is in her office. She catches her composure and sits down
next to Sledge. The director is a small, slight figure of a woman.
The stress of her job has made her look much older than her 45
years. She is dressed in a simple, smart looking professional suit,
a drab brown color. She has a small American flag broach pinned
uncomfortably to her lapel.

The director is very nervous about
being questioned, feeling that her entire reputation as an
administrator is at stake. She thinks that she must remember every
word of the interview so that she can report them back to her
supervisors, the Board of Trustees. What if she says the wrong
thing? She squirms in her seat as Sledge began to question
her.

“
Thank you for your patience
and cooperation with us. I know you understand the importance of
what we need to do and that it may take some time and hopefully not
inconvenience you or your staff.” Sledge says.

“
Yes, I mean I understand,”
the Director answers, her lip slightly quivering.

“
Can you tell me about your
day and what you remember about what happened prior to 1:30?” asks
Sledge.

“
Certainly,” the Director
answers, trying hard to sound confident and composed. “I arrived at
work at a little after 7:00 and opened up the library. I’m usually
the first to arrive and I had to unlock the doors and reset the
security system. The security system settings are in the basement
so I have to go down there and enter the security code.

“
Did you notice anything odd
or unusual in the basement this morning when you turned off the
alarm?”

“
No, nothing out of the
ordinary. We did have a few extra homeless people sleeping in the
bushes; we can see them out of the basement windows so we’re used
to who is normally there and who’s not.”

“
So you came back up to your
office after that?”

“
Yes, I came up the stairs
and went into the kitchen to get some coffee started and to clear
out the dishwasher from the night before. I will say that it was
quite a mess; the night staff was not very considerate and I needed
to clean up quite a few dishes!”

“
So after that you went to
your office?”

“
Yes, I began to check my
email and get ready for the day. I had several meetings with the
Board of Trustees in the morning and then we had scheduled some
time to sit down with the Federal Depository inspector, that poor
Mr. Gaylord.”

“
What was the purpose of
your meeting with Mr. Gaylord?”

“
He was coming to inspect
the library to make sure that it met the requirements for being
designated a Federal Depository Library.”

“
What exactly is a
Depository Library? The only Depository Library I’ve ever heard of
is the Dallas Depository Library where Lee Harvey Oswald shot
President Kennedy.”

“
The Depository Library is
responsible for keeping government documents and making them
available for the public in various areas of the country. The
Federal Government only selects the finest libraries to be
Depository Libraries. I’m proud to say that we’ve been a Federal
Depository for the entire time I’ve been Director here at the Law
Library.”

“
Sounds like quite an honor.
Do you expect to be renewed this year?”

“
Of course! I have no doubt
about it!”

“
Where were you from noon
until about 1:30?”

“
I was at a judges’ luncheon
at the Old County Courthouse building. We were discussing the
various options for future library expansions and some of the
problems we were having with the new library wing.”

“
You spent the whole time at
lunch?”

“
Yes, I returned at about
1:30 because we had a meeting schedule with Mr. Gaylord to discuss
the inspection.”

“
So you went directly from
the Old Courthouse to the Law Library?”

“
Yes.”

“
Can anyone vouch for you
regarding the time you left the Courthouse?”

“
Of course.”

The Director thinks,
Who does he think he’s dealing with here?
The sides of her face began to feel
warm.

Sledge, detecting her discomfort says,
“I’m sorry ma’am; a man has been murdered and we have to ask these
questions. Can you think of any reason that Mr. Gaylord would be
murdered in your library today?”

“
None—none at all. It comes
as a total shock to me and I’m sure I speak for my entire
staff.”

“
Do you have security
cameras on each floor?”

“
Yes.”

“
We’re going to have to
check the CCTV tapes for today. Can you get us copies of
these?”

“
Yes, I’ll make sure you get
copies as soon as possible. Hopefully, the video will have picked
up the area where the murder took place. If not, I’m going to have
to reevaluate where we are positioning the cameras.”

Sledge decides he won’t put the
Director through much more agony. He thanks her for her time and
asks if she would be so kind as to send in the Depository
Librarian, Yvonne. The Director is uncomfortable being told what to
do in her own office. She reluctantly agrees and goes out to locate
Yvonne.

Chapter Three

The Depository Librarian,
Yvonne enters the room and Sledge shakes her hand and asks her to
sit down. Her handshake is a bit wet and clammy--he’s felt this
before--she’s obviously very uncomfortable and nervous about being
questioned. She looks like she’s on the verge of tears from the
pressure and stress she’s under.
What if
the life she led in Chicago somehow gets unearthed during the
interview with Detective Sledge? Will he ask her personal questions
about her feelings towards men? Will she have to bring up her
divorce and the reasons why she left Chicago, vowing to never
return?

Yvonne has always been very concerned
about her image. She grew up in a house designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright in the famous Oak Park neighborhood near downtown Chicago.
Her father was a successful architect and she went to all of the
finest schools and knew all the best people. She earned her Masters
Degree in Library Science at the University of Chicago. Her biggest
dream was to marry a doctor and live on Lake Shore Drive--the
neighborhood of celebrities like Oprah. When she met a young
psychiatrist who later asked her to marry him, she was thrilled. It
seemed like she had a charmed life with a storybook romance. It
wasn’t until later that she realized that this man had more
“issues” than the patients he counseled. Not only was he
questioning his own sanity, but he was also questioning Yvonne’s.
He was constantly trying to analyze everything she said until she
was a nervous wreck. She felt like she was walking on egg shells
every time she opened her mouth and he took every little incident
about her relationship with her father and twisted it into a child
sexual abuse issue that it never was. She adored her father: he
could never have done the things her husband was
suggesting.

Sometimes he just went too
far. He was so controlling: if she didn’t do exactly what he wanted
her to do, he’d get physically abusive with her. It had gotten so
bad one night that he tried to rape her when they were having a bad
argument. She had actually pulled a knife out of a drawer in the
kitchen and literally “saw red”. Her husband threatened to call 911
and report her. He also told her that he wanted to get a
restraining order against her and report it to all of the
newspapers.
What would all of her high
society friends think of her actions? What would Frank Lloyd
Wright, her father’s muse, think of the actions from a girl who had
grown up in Oak Park?
Horrified at the idea
of scandal, she was forced to leave her life in Chicago and never
come back. The last thing Yvonne wants is to be questioned by
another man who obviously isn’t in the same social orbit she was
in. He appears to be such a common person; he wouldn’t understand
her background or her issues.

“
Thank you for being so
patient, Yvonne. I apologize for the inconvenience; I’d like to ask
you a few questions about today. Where were you today, between 12
and just before 1:30?”

Yvonne, chewing gum said, “I spent the
morning in my office doing some paperwork. We had a meeting
scheduled with Mr. Gaylord, the Federal Depository representative.
We were going to discuss our accreditation. He was supposed to be
here before 11:30 but by 12:00 he still hadn’t arrived. No phone
call, no message. Not very considerate. I finally decided to step
out for some lunch and instructed the reference desk staff to be on
the lookout for Mr. Gaylord should he arrive. I left my office at
about 11:45 and returned at about 1:30. That’s when I saw the
police and all the commotion. “

“
Where did you go for
lunch?”

“
To the deli, across the
street.”

“
Did you eat in or take it
out?”

“
I ate in the
deli.”

“
Weren’t you concerned about
Mr. Gaylord coming and not seeing you?”

“
He was going to have to
wait; he had inconvenienced me and I wasn’t going to change my
schedule to match his. You know, people can be so
inconsiderate.”

Sledge noticed a ratcheting up in
Yvonne’s demeanor. She seemed to enjoy berating Mr. Gaylord even
after he had died. He notices her hand gripping the stack of papers
on the table to the point of almost tearing them. She shifted
uncomfortably in her seat.