Free Death Among The Stacks: The Body In The Law Library by Louise Hathaway

mystery sir.
I spoke to his landlord and he said Gaylord made no noise at all.
Always paid his rent on time. Left early in the morning and came
home late at night. Said he was the best tenant he’s ever
had.”
    “ Well I think you did a
great job, Willis. Sometimes you’ll think you didn’t get much
information but later it will start making sense. You’ll see. It
always comes off this way. I think that it’s time to revisit our
friends at the Law Library.
    Sledge and Willis make plans to meet at
the Law Library in order to ask the staff a few more questions.
They call the Director to ask if they can use the conference room
again. She seems a bit put off, but agrees to rearrange her
schedule so that the room will be free. They would like to talk to
Nic again, since she is the one who found the body.
     
     

Chapter Eighteen
     
     
    Once Nic is seated in a chair in the
conference room, Sledge begins, “Nic; tell us again about how you
found the body.”
    “ Well, as I told you before,
I took the elevator down to the basement to file some microfilm.
Immediately after I got out of the elevator, I noticed that the
heavy book tape dispenser was on the floor, which seemed odd to me
at the time. I mean, who would be so inconsiderate as to be leaving
that where someone could stub their toe or trip over it. It’s as
heavy as a brick and you could really injure yourself. Maybe even
go on Worker’s Comp. OSHA might even have to get
involved.”
    Sledge asks, “Have you ever filed a
worker’s comp claim?”
    Nic is annoyed. “What does that have to
do with this case?”
    “ Nothing personal. Just a
simple question.”
    “ Well,” Nic answers, “it’s
no secret that this is a toxic workplace and lots of us here have
suffered work-related injuries. An elderly lady, Beatrice, who
works here almost got squished in the compact shelving herself.
You’d think the library would have learned something from that
disaster. I can’t believe that it’s happened again. This is
outrageous.”
    “ How did this happen with
Beatrice?”
    “ Well…she was shelving some
books and Kelly pressed a button a few rows away. The sensors
didn’t pick up the fact that Beatrice was already standing inside
one of the rows and the shelves started squeezing together.
Luckily, Kelly was able to stop the movement in time, but Beatrice
screamed, was really scared and was sore from the compression. She
told me, “I thought that I was going to die, and it was okay.” Only
a little old lady like Beatrice would say that she’s okay with
dying. I would’ve sued the library.”
    Sledge and Willis look at each other
with raised eyebrows as Nic continues.
    “ And that’s not the only
incidence of equipment malfunctioning around here. There was
another freak accident. Yvonne was in the elevator and, as she was
getting out of the doors, she bent over to pick up a piece of paper
she’d dropped and managed to get her head stuck between the two
doors.”
    “ Ouch!” Sledge
says.
    “ No kidding. And Yvonne
hasn’t been the same ever since. Between her brother and sister
dying on top of everything that happened to her in Chicago, she’s a
bit of a “nut case.” Oh…I shouldn’t be saying this. She is my boss,
after all.”
    Sledge smiles at Willis and says, “We
won’t tell anyone. What do you mean by ‘what happened in
Chicago’?”
    “ Well, I don’t know the
whole story, but rumor has it that she pulled a knife on her
husband because he was trying to rape her. It was a big scandal and
she had to leave the state.”
    “ That’s interesting. But
probably doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to the
Government Printing Office inspector.”
    “ That’s true,” Nic says,
sounding a little disappointed.
    “ Well, that’s all for now,
Nic. Thank you. Could you ask Kelly to come in; we have a few
questions for her.”
    Sledge notices a smell like peppermint
gum as Nic walks out the conference room. “Did you smell that?”