The Library Fuzz

by James Holding

  “If Hatfield’s killing is connected with this book, as you seem to think,” Randall said reasonably enough, “there’s got to be something about the book to tell us why.”

  I said, “Maybe there was. Before the back flyleaf was torn out.”

  “Be damned!” said Randall, squinting where I was pointing. “Torn out is right. Something written on the flyleaf that this Conway wanted kept private maybe?”

  “Could be.”

  “Thought you said you looked through this book yesterday. You’d have seen any writing.”

  “I didn’t look through it. I shook it out, that’s all.”

  “Why would a guy write anything private or incriminating on the blank back page of a library book, for God’s sake?”

  “His wife found the book under the telephone in their bedroom. He could have been taking down notes during a telephone conversation.”

  “In a library book?”

  “Why not? If it was the only blank paper he had handy when he got the telephone call?”

  “So his wife gave the book back to you before he’d had a chance to erase his notes. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “Or transcribe them, yes. Or memorize them.”

  Lieutenant Randall looked out Hatfield’s grimy window for a moment. Then he said abruptly, “I’m impounding this library book for a few days, Hal, so our lab boys can take a look at it. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Randall glanced pointedly toward the door. “Thanks for calling us,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

  I stepped carefully around Hatfield’s sprawled body. “Right.”

  “I’ll be in touch if we find anything,” Randall said.

  * * * *

  Much to my surprise he phoned me at the library just about quitting time the next day. “Did you ever see this Mr. Conway?” he asked. “Could you identify him?”

  “I never saw him in the flesh. I saw a photo of him on his wife’s desk.”

  “That’s good enough. Meet me at the Encore Bar at Stanhope and Cotton in twenty minutes, can you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why?”

  “Tell you when I see you.” He was waiting for me in a rear booth. There were only half a dozen customers in the place. I sat down facing him and he said, without preamble, “Conway did write something on the back flyleaf of your library book. Or somebody did, anyhow. Because we found traces of crushed paper fibers on the page under the back flyleaf. Not good enough traces to be read except for one notation at the top, which was probably written first on the back flyleaf when the pencil point was sharper and thus made a deeper groove on the page underneath. Are you with me?”

  “Yes. What did it say?”

  Randall got a slip of paper from his pocket and showed it to me. It contained one line, scribbled by Randall:

  Transo 3212I5I13 Mi Encore Harper 6I12

  I studied it silently for a minute. Randall said, faintly smug, “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Sure,” I said, deadpan. “Somebody named Harper off Transoceanic Airlines flight 3212 out of Miami on May 13th—that’s today—is supposed to meet somebody in this bar at twelve minutes after six.”

  “A lucky guess,” Randall said, crestfallen. “The Encore and Transo gave it to you, of course. But it took us half an hour to figure the meaning and check it out.”

  “Check it out?”

  “There really is a Transoceanic flight 3212 out of Miami today—and there really is somebody aboard named Harper, too. A Miss Genevieve Harper, stewardess.”

  “Oh,” I said, “and of course there is an Encore Bar—could even be a couple of them in town.”

  “Only one that Harper can get to through rush-hour traffic within twenty minutes after she hits the airport,” the lieutenant said triumphantly. “She’s scheduled in at 5:52.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was 5:30. “You have time to check whether Conway had any phone calls Sunday night?”

  “Not yet. Didn’t even have time to find out what Conway looks like. That’s why you’re here.” He grinned. “What’s your guess about why they’re meeting here?”

  I gave it some thought. “Drugs,” I said at last, “since the flight seems to be out of Miami. Most of the heroin processed in France comes to the United States via South America and Miami, right?”

  Randall nodded. “We figure Conway for a distributor at this end. Sunday night he got a phone call from somebody in South America or Miami, telling him when and where to take delivery of a shipment. That’s what he wrote on the flyleaf of your library book. So no wonder he was frantic when his wife gave his list of dates and places to a library cop.”

  I suddenly felt tired. I called over to the bartender and ordered a dry martini. I said to Randall, “So Hatfield’s accident could have been murder?”

  “Sure. We think it went like this: Mrs. Conway gave you the book, got knocked around by her husband when she told him what she’d done, then on hubby’s orders came to you to recover the book for him. When she couldn’t do that, or even get the name of the subsequent borrower, her husband did the best he could with the information she did get—the borrower’s library card number and how you matched it up with his name and address. Conway got the name the same way you did—by phoning what’s-her-name at your main desk.”

  “Kathy,” I said.

  “Yeah. Conway must have gone right out to Hatfield’s when he learned his identity, prepared to do anything necessary to get that book-back—or his list on the flyleaf, anyway.” Randall nodded approval of his own theory. “Conway broke the lock on Hatfield’s apartment and was inside looking for the book when Hatfield must have walked in on him.”

  “And Conway hid behind the door and clobbered Hatfield when he walked in?”

  “Yeah. Probably with a blackjack. And probably, in his panic, hit him too hard. So he faked it to look like an accident. Then he tore the back flyleaf out of your book thinking nobody would ever notice it was missing.”

  “You forgot something,” I said.

  “What?”

  “He made his wife call me off by telling me he’d found his lost check.”

  “I didn’t forget it,” Randall grinned.

  I said, “Of course you can’t prove any of this.”

  “Not yet. But give us time. We get him on a narcotics charge and hold him tighter than hell while we work up the murder case.”

  “If it’s Conway,” I said, looking at my watch, “who shows up here in twenty-two minutes.”

  “He’ll show.” Randall was confident. “Likely get here a little early, even.”

  And he did. At 5:56 the original of Mrs. Conway’s photograph walked in the door of the Encore Bar. Dapper, young-looking, not much chin under a mustache that drooped around the corners of his mouth.

  He sat down in the booth nearest the door and ordered a Scotch-and-soda.

  Randall threw me a questioning look and I nodded vigorously. Then we talked about baseball until, at 6:14, a bouncy little blonde dish came tripping into the Encore and went straight to Conway’s booth, saying loud enough for everybody in the joint to hear, “Well, hello, darling! I’m so thirsty I could drink water!” She looked very pert in her uniform and she had a flight bag over her shoulder. She sat down beside Conway with her back to us.

  Randall got up, went to the bar entrance, and opened the door. He stepped out into the vestibule and casually waved one arm over his head, as though he were tossing a cigarette butt away. Then he came back in and leaned against the bar until three-young huskies appeared in the doorway. Randall pointed one finger at Conway’s booth and the three newcomers stepped over there, boxing in Conway and Miss Harper.

  It was all done very quietly and smoothly. No voices raised, no violence. One of the narcotics men took charge of Harper’s shoulder bag. The other two took charge of Conway and Harper.

  When they’d gone, Randall ordered himself a bourbon and carried it back to our booth and sat down. “That’s it, Hal,” he said with
satisfaction. “Harper had two one-pound boxes of bath powder in her flight bag. Pure heroin. This is going to look very good—very good—on my record.”

  I took a sip of my martini and said nothing.

  Randall went on, “You’re sure Conway’s wife has nothing to do with the smuggling? That she doesn’t suspect what her hubby is up to?”

  I thought about Mrs. Conway’s friendliness, so charming and unstudied. I remembered how the animation and pride I’d seen in her eyes yesterday morning had been replaced by distress and bewilderment in the afternoon. And I said to Lieutenant Randall, “I’d stake my job on it.”

  He nodded. “We’ll have to dig into it, of course. But I’m inclined to think you’re right. So somebody ought to tell her why her husband won’t be home for dinner tonight, Hal.” He paused for a long moment. “Any volunteers?”

  I looked up from my martini into Randall’s unblinking stare. “Thanks, Lieutenant,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

  MORE THAN A MERE STORYBOOK

  Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1973.

  I wasn’t ready for his violent reaction. He hurled the heavy glass ashtray at me from pointblank range with the accuracy of a big-league pitcher splitting the strike zone.

  The tray caught me a stunning blow on the temple and, as they say, I saw stars. Believe me I did. Plenty of them.

  While I sagged on the sofa, dazed and groggy, Campbell scurried into an inner room, came out with an oversize brief case, and ran for the door like a beagle after a rabbit.

  He should have finished me off. By the time he was halfway down the steps to the apartment house lobby I had gathered my few senses together and was able to stand up and then follow him. My whole life recently seemed to consist of following Herbert Campbell.

  I went down the stairway after him two steps at a time. I caught him before he reached the doorway that led outside. When I put a choke hold on him from behind, none too gently in spite of his being an old man, the fight went completely out of him. He chopped his brief case as though its handle were red-hot and began to tear at my forearm across his throat.

  I eased up a little as his face congested. “Pick up your brief case,” I said and released him. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

  He nodded meekly. He picked up the brief case and we climbed up the stairway to his apartment. I held his right arm in a businesslike grip.

  Once back in his living room he collapsed into an easy chair and began to sob weakly. Keeping a weather eye on him, lifted his brief case to the tabletop and opened it up.

  It was full of clothing. Shirts, socks, underwear, slacks. Campbell had been about to leave town when I arrived, it seemed. I rummaged around in the case and at the very bottom, under the layers of clothing, I found two books.

  I pulled them out and looked at them. Volume I and Volume II. Their half-calf covers were soiled and stained and worn; a corner of Volume I was bent; there was a slight tear along the spine of Volume II.

  Not library books, certainly. One look at the title page of Volume I showed me what they were. I turned another page in Volume I, reverently now, and stared at what was written on the flyleaf in faded brownish-colored ink.

  That was when I called Lieutenant Randall of the metropolitan police. I suddenly had the uneasy feeling that Herbert Campbell was too big game for a mere library cop to handle.

  * * * *

  The fourth name on my list for the day was Herbert Campbell at an address on Dennison Avenue. I parked my car a block away and walked to the sleazy apartment house where Campbell lived. The building was a rundown relic of better days.

  I went into the vestibule, found out from the mailboxes that Campbell’s apartment was number 22, on the second floor, and walked up. I played a tattoo on the door panel of number 22, and after a while the door opened to show me a cherubic, ruddy-faced gent with no chin and a white bristly mustache. He was about 60, I figured, give or take a couple of years, and his head was bald except for an inch of fringe around the edges that matched his white mustache.

  Over the raised voices of two women quarreling in a TV soap opera I asked, “Mr. Campbell?”

  “Yes,” he said, giving me a sharp look out of mild blue eyes. “And who are you?”

  “I’m from the public library,” I said politely. “I’ve come about all those overdue library books you have, Mr. Campbell.”

  “Oh,” he said, and his look of inquiry changed to one of guilt. “Oh, yes. Come in, won’t you? I’m very embarrassed about those books. I know I should have returned them long ago. I got the notices, of course.” He stepped back. I went into his apartment.

  It turned out to be surprisingly clean and attractive. There were a sofa and a round coffee table; two easy chairs, one with a tall bridge lamp beside it and a plastic cushion that showed existence of much sitting, and a floor-to-ceiling wall of bookshelves, well filled, opposite the sofa. The TV was in a corner, going full blast.

  He switched off the TV, motioned to a chair, and said, “Won’t you sit down?”

  I said, still politely, “No, thanks. If you’ll just give me your overdue library books and the fine you owe, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Certainly, certainly. I have the books right here.” He gestured at a pile of books on the coffee table. “I was all ready to bring them back, you see.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked. I began to check the book titles against my list. They were all there.

  “I’ve been sick.” He gave me another treatment of his mild blue eyes.

  “Sorry to hear that, Mr. Campbell. You could have renewed the books, you know.”

  Campbell was sheepish. “Well, I must confess, Mr.—ah—”

  “Johnson,” I said.

  “Yes, I must confess, Mr. Johnson that there’s another reason I’m overdue.” He cleared his throat. “You see, I quite literally hate to return library books. Can you understand that? I have this fierce love for books, any books, and when I have them in my possession it takes all my will power to make myself let them go. I’d never borrow books at all if I could afford to own enough of my own. Like these.” He waved a thin hand toward his bookshelves. “I guess I’m what they call a bibliophile. Are you familiar with the term?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I work for the library, remember?”

  “Yes. Well then, you can appreciate the minced feelings I have every time I am compelled to return books to the library! I know they don’t belong to me, but I am terribly reluctant to give them up. You know? Especially, of course, if I haven’t finished reading them.”

  “I know,” I said. I’d run into plenty of book nuts. I began to gather his overdue books into a manageable stack. “You owe us a pretty big fine on this batch, Mr. Campbell.”

  “This is the first time I’ve ever actually ignored the overdue notices,” he explained apologetically. “I did so want to finish this one, this novel, before I brought them back.” He tapped the book at the top of the stack, a current bestseller called Sexless in Salinas. “It’s so fascinating, so well done, that I can’t bear to finish it and end my pleasure. You ever feel that way about a book, Mr. Johnson? Yet I can’t bear not to finish it, either.” He laughed.

  I laughed, too. I’d read that particular book myself. “Listen, Mr. Campbell, I’ll make a deal with you. Pay your fines on all these other books and I’ll leave that one with you so you can finish it. Fair enough?”

  “Oh, would you? How very kind!” He took Sexless in Salinas from the stack, hugged it to his chest, and asked how much he owed me.

  I told him. He dipped his hand into his pants pocket and brought out money. While he counted out the fine I idly ran an eye over his bookshelves across the room. Judging from the few titles I could read from that far away, he had the catholic tastes of a true bibliophile. I saw a book on the flora of Nevada, one on weightlifting, and a home-repair guide, cheek by jowl with numerous fiction titles.

  Mr. Campbell said, “There you are, Mr. Johnson. And t
hanks for being so understanding about my—ah—affliction.” He smiled at me as though at a fellow bibliophile. “I’ll return this one to the library as soon as I finish reading it.”

  I nodded and left.

  I went back to my car, unlocked it, and added Mr. Campbell’s overdue library books to the others I’d already collected. There were a lot of them. Then I crawled under the wheel, started the engine, and headed for the main library downtown. My morning’s work was officially over now, except for turning in the overdue books and the fines.

  After that I hadn’t much to do until lunch except to sit at my desk in the little room, behind the business manager’s office and indulge my curiosity about that old booklover, Herbert Campbell, who had wanted to finish Sexless in Salinas even at the cost of paying another few days’ fine.

  Well, a phone comes with my office, so I figured it wouldn’t cost anything to feed my curiosity. I picked up the telephone and got on to Ellen Corby, one of our librarians who is currently trying to make up her mind whether she’ll marry me or not. I asked her if she’d give me the inventory record on Sexless in Salinas. She said she would.

  She called me back a few minutes later. “Twenty-seven copies, Hal,” she said. “It’s a popular item.”

  “Yeah, no wonder,” I said. “Have you read it?”

  “Of course. Can’t you see my maidenly blush?”

  “How are the twenty-seven split, Ellen?”

  “Six and three,” Ellen said.

  “Thanks.” I hung up. You’re not supposed to engage in social chitchat on the library’s time.

  Twenty-seven copies, split six and three. Six at the main library, three at each of our seven branches.

  My next call was to the checkout desk. “Inventory says you have six copies of Sexless in Salinas circulating,” I said, after identifying myself. “Can you account for all six?”

  “Why?” asked the girl, irritated. “Are you queer for best-sellers, or something?”