Arsenic And Old Books

According to Angeline Long, the girl Celeste was not a slave from the Afton plantation in Louisiana. Instead she was the daughter of the overseer there and had been sent north at her father’s plea to keep her from making an unsuitable alliance with a poor white farmer’s son there. Celeste did work for the Longs—as a seamstress.

No wonder Miss Eulalie’s copy of this little book disappeared, I thought. Lucinda Long couldn’t afford to let anyone get hold of it.

Then another question struck me. What had prompted Marie to take the college library copy and hide it in her carrel?

THIRTY-FIVE

I remembered that Marie Steverton knew about the diaries from the mayor before Mrs. Long brought them in. Marie had made her interest in them plain to me. She was evidently determined that Rachel Long’s diaries would finally help her earn tenure at Athena College, after failed attempts at other schools. So, my reasoning ran, she took the memoir from the library collection and hid it. Then she went to the circulation desk and told them it was missing. After a quick check by one of the staff—that was the usual procedure—the library declared it lost.

On a hunch I decided to call the circ desk and talk to the head of the department, Lisa Krause. She answered right away.

After the preliminaries were out of the way, I said, “I know circulation information—who checks out a particular book—is confidential, but that’s not what I need to know. Here’s the situation. On Monday a book had its status changed to lost, and I wanted to double-check the procedure on that. At what point is the status actually changed?”

Lisa said, “That’s easy enough. A student or professor comes to the desk and says, I can’t find such-and-such book. It’s not on the shelf. We ask them to fill out a search request, and then it gets passed on to one of the student workers, who will go into the stacks to look for the book. About half the time the book is simply mis-shelved somewhere nearby, and a diligent search is all that’s needed.” She laughed. “Professors in particular are usually in too much of a hurry to look beyond the spot on the shelf where the book is supposed to be.”

“I can imagine,” I said, thinking of my own experiences as a volunteer at the public library in Athena and in the days when I was a public librarian in Houston. “How long is it after a person fills out a search request that the student actually goes and looks for it?”

“That depends,” Lisa replied. “Usually they do it in the evenings. Most students are studying, and the desk isn’t that busy. Sometimes, if the person requesting the book makes it sound urgent, I’ll have a student go right away to look for it.”

“That’s really helpful,” I said. “What I am about to ask next needs to be kept in confidence for now. Are you okay with that?”

“Certainly,” Lisa said. “Is it anything to do with the murder of Dr. Steverton?”

“Yes,” I said, and before I could pose my question, she continued.

“Dr. Steverton came to the desk on Friday afternoon—I’ll have to check with the staff, but I’m pretty sure it was Friday—looking for a book. She wasn’t too happy it was missing, but then, she was never happy about anything. I can’t remember the title, but maybe the staff member she talked to will know.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I know the title. A Memoir of Mrs. Rachel Afton Long of Athena. Was that it?”

“Yes, that was it,” Lisa said. “How did you know?”

“Because I have the library copy on my desk right now. I think what happened is that Marie took it herself and then hid it. For some reason she didn’t just want to check it out. Instead she wanted it to look like the library’s copy was missing or lost.”

“How strange,” Lisa said. “She was a strange woman, poor thing.”

“Just to make sure I have all the details,” I said, “when did the student actually look for the book? Do you know?”

“I can’t say for sure without checking, but it was probably over the weekend. Once the student finishes the search, he or she marks the search form accordingly; then it goes to one of the full-time circ assistants who changes the status in the online catalog.”

“In this case, the status was changed on Monday.”

“That sounds about right, for a search request placed on a Friday afternoon,” Lisa replied. “Is there anything else you need? I promise I won’t tell anybody about this.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That’s all for now. Someone from the sheriff’s department may want to verify all this with you later, though.”

I put the receiver down and stared at the little book. My mind kept hopping from one thought to another. Was there any significance in the fact that Marie reported the book missing on the Friday before she was murdered? How long had she known about the diaries?