James said carefully, “This list goes on for pages, and even I recognize some of the names attached to items here. You’re aware of the cumulative dollar value of the missing items?”
“I did a little research when I first saw the list, but I’m not really sure. We don’t usually think in terms of market value for the collections we own. They’re irreplaceable, for one thing, because many items are unique.”
“Well, I had some of my people look at the list yesterday. They said more or less the same thing you did, but for the purposes of our files, they suggested a total of roughly five million dollars.”
So I’d been right, which didn’t make me happy. Hearing it from an FBI agent made it seem all the more real-and shocking. I still had trouble getting my mind around the concept. Somebody had walked off with several million dollars’ worth of items from our collections? How could that have happened?
James stared over my head at the piles of musty volumes. “Let me review the time line here. Marty came to you on the seventh. You spoke to Alfred that same day, and he set about preparing a list of items he believed to be missing. He left that list on your desk that night, but you didn’t find it until the next day. By then, he was dead. He’d also mailed a copy to Marty. Is that accurate?”
I nodded.
“All right. What took place next?”
“Alfred died, which was something of a distraction, to put it mildly. And then I went to Latoya and described what he had told me, and then I told Charles. He said he and Latoya would handle it. That was Monday. He and Marty met on Tuesday.”
“Do you have any idea why he did not report this possible theft of significant proportions to the managing board of this institution?”
“I imagine that he wanted to make sure of his facts first.”
“I find it hard to believe that an institution that is based on collections has such a shaky grasp of exactly where its collections are.”
“I hate to say it, but it’s not unusual. I mean, think about it-we’ve been acquiring or inheriting things for over a century. The Society has gone through a lot of changes-the original building we occupied was replaced around 1900, and then there were additions after that, and improvements. It’s an ongoing process. We’ve been trying to put the records for some of the easier materials online, so that both we and the public will have better access to them, but at the rate we’re going, it’ll be about thirty years before we’re finished. And of course by then the technology will have changed again, and whatever we’re doing right now will no doubt be obsolete.”
“That’s what Marty told me.” He still didn’t look convinced.
“I know it seems hard to believe that we could be so careless, but from what I’ve heard, it’s to be expected. Look, we’ve got literally millions of items in our collections, and we’re talking about a tiny percentage that aren’t where they should be. Let me ask you: if you had to find a single piece of paper in your house, one that you hadn’t looked at for, oh, five years, how easy would it be for you? Then multiply it by a factor of a million, and maybe you’ll see our problem.”
He smiled reluctantly. “Point taken. You know quite a bit about this.”
“I know the general outlines. I told you-I write grant proposals to fund this sort of thing. And I know what the competition is like among our peer institutions. There are a lot of us in the same boat.”
“You’re not making my job any easier. All right, let’s look at this from a different side. How do people get access to the collections?”
“Apart from staff, you mean? Well, we have members who pay for a varying number of on-site visits. But they don’t get to use the stacks-they have to request the documents they need, and a staff member brings the material to them, in the reading room. The same goes for researchers, who pay by the day. And there is a paper trail for that; we know who has requested which items, so if they go missing, we know who to ask. That is, if they play by the rules-and we all know there are some people who don’t. But there are also some board members like Marty who pretty much have free rein of the place and can go anywhere.”
“Do you have much of a theft problem, day to day?” James seemed genuinely interested.
“To a small extent, but I don’t think any of this comes anywhere near the scale we’re talking about. That almost has to be an insider, doesn’t it?” I stared at him bleakly.
He ignored my question. “Do you search people or their bags on the way out of the building?”
I shook my head. “We don’t let them take their own bags into the collections areas, just pads and notes, and more recently laptops, but out of the case. We’ve talked about stepping up security at more than one board meeting.”
James changed tack. “What’s your staff turnover like?”
“This place has a good reputation, so a lot of people will work here for a year or two, to put it on their résumé or to help them get into grad school or library school. But they usually leave on good terms.”
“You said earlier that you’ve been here, what, five years?”
I nodded. “Yes, and that’s pretty long for this place. There are only a few people who have been around for any length of time-like our librarian Felicity Soames. And Alfred.”
“And your president has been here two years?”
I nodded again. “Going on three.”
“And he brought in some people when he came?”
“Yes-he did some reorganizing, and he created a couple of positions, but nothing sweeping. He inherited a well-run place, and he didn’t want to make changes just for the sake of putting his own stamp on it.”
“No disgruntled employees who have been dismissed?”
“None that I can think of. Oh, we’re not always one big happy family; there are people who complain, but that’s normal for any workplace, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” he said noncommittally. He pulled himself away from the wall. “Well, why don’t we finish our walk-through? What’s the square footage on each floor?”
We talked of neutral things like shelving and HVAC and lighting, and I realized I knew far more about the building than I had thought. I was happy that he didn’t seem critical, but listened with what appeared to be real interest. Or maybe that was just the official FBI manner, intended to elicit confidences. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t hiding anything.
I wondered if James noticed how empty the floor was. Of course, it was Monday, so there were no patrons downstairs demanding research materials, no staffers scuttling around with their shelving carts collecting them. The downside was that anyone could come up here and pocket whatever they wanted, without being observed-assuming they had access and knew where to look. As I had said: an insider.
I was startled by a scuffling, and then Rich emerged from behind a high tier of shelves, looking sheepish. “Hi, Nell.” His eyes darted to James.
James stepped forward. “Special Agent James Morrison. And you are?”
Rich’s eyes widened. “I’m, uh, Rich Girard. I work here.”
“You’re working on the Terwilliger Collection, right?”
I thought for a moment that Rich’s knees were going to give out, and I couldn’t say I blamed him for worrying. He glanced at me; I looked at James, who nodded. “It’s okay, Rich. Agent Morrison is looking into the problem with the Terwilliger Collection, at Marty’s request.”
Rich looked relieved, which in turn made me feel relieved, even as I wondered just how much of our conversation he had overheard. “Hey, if I can help you at all, let me know,” he said.