That was promising. The right construction worker could certainly know the rudiments of electrical wiring. I wondered if the police had already gone down this road.
Chloe seemed much calmer now. “Listen, I know this is real pushy, but do you have any job openings here?”
Smart girl, to seize the opportunity. And she had given me some useful information. “I can’t promise anything, but I can certainly ask. It’s likely to be something low level, like shelving books, if that’s okay.”
“After working with Hadley, that’d be great-books don’t yell at you. Thank you, Nell. I mean it.”
I glanced at Eric. “Why don’t you show Chloe the library, and I’ll call Melanie?”
Eric grinned. “I’d love to. Chloe, follow me.”
I watched them leave, and then I picked up the phone. Luck was on Chloe’s side: it turned out we had a short-term slot with grant funding, doing some reorganization of one of our collections. It might not last long, but it would let her get back on her feet. Chloe had helped me, and I was happy to be able to repay the favor.
CHAPTER 21
I headed downstairs in search of Eric and Chloe, to give Chloe the good news, but instead I found Barney waiting in the lobby.
“You got your membership card already?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I did. Shelby hand-delivered it, and I thank you. I had some time between jobs, so I thought I’d check this place out. I’m just waiting for your guy here”-he nodded toward Front Desk Bob-“to track down that librarian you said could help me.”
“Felicity Soames. Bob, I’ll take Barney to the reading room. He’s signed in, right?”
Bob nodded, and I led Barney through the catalog room into the large reading room beyond. Barney studied the soaring ceiling and the tiers of books around the perimeter and on the balcony above, and gave a low whistle. “Wow. Nice place. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“You haven’t looked at our collections before? You said you’d been doing research for a while.”
“On and off. I don’t get much free time, and it’s just kind of a hobby, really.”
Felicity was seated behind her high desk, surveying her domain. The reading room had a few people in it, and one of our shelvers was delivering requested materials to the patrons. I led Barney over to the desk. “Felicity, this is Barney Hogan, the person I told you about who’s interested in what we have on baseball history.”
Felicity’s eyes lit up. “The Quakers, right?”
Barney grinned. “Yup. My great-great-grandfather played for them, and I’m hoping you have some team pictures.”
Felicity looked at him critically. “He must have been a baby when he played for them.”
It took Barney a moment to find the compliment buried in her statement, and then he grinned. “Yep, he was all of eighteen.”
Felicity picked up her phone. “Let me find someone to cover the desk for me, and I’ll show you what we’ve got.” She spoke into the phone, then stood up. “When Nell told me about what you wanted, I started to do some digging, and I’ve already set aside some files about the team in back. Ah, Janie, there you are. If you can hold down the fort for a while, I’ll get Barney started.”
I was clearly superfluous, but since I knew next to nothing about local sports history, I wasn’t insulted. “I leave you in good hands, Barney. Happy hunting!”
I’m not sure he even heard me, as Felicity led him toward the elevator and her office upstairs. It looked as though I’d made at least two people happy today.
As I was trying to figure out what came next on my to-do list, I realized I still needed to tell Latoya about Marty’s offer at the Executive Committee meeting to fund part of the registrar’s position. I was pretty sure that Marty hadn’t discussed the issue with Latoya first; they didn’t get along well. So Marty had told me-and the core board members-first and left me to deal with the fallout. But that was my job now. I squared my shoulders and headed for Latoya’s office on the third floor.
She looked up when I reached her door. “Hi, Nell. Sorry I didn’t make the staff meeting this morning, but I had a problem with my car, and I had to leave it with the mechanic. Did I miss anything?”
I took a seat across from her. “Kind of. At the Executive Committee meeting last night, Marty announced that she’s setting up an endowed fund to supplement the salary for Alfred’s replacement. I gather she still feels kind of responsible for what happened with him. I wasn’t about to turn her down, and she’s going to lean on the rest of the board to contribute. We haven’t had a lot of interest in the registrar position so far, so I think we have time to sort out Marty’s contribution. Do you have someone in mind?”
Emotions flit across Latoya’s expressive features. Annoyance came first, but she smoothed that over quickly. “I have put some feelers out among my colleagues, but being able to offer a better salary should spark some interest.”
So far she was playing nice. “I’ve also asked Shelby to look into any matching grants Do you have a job description for the position handy?”
The always well-organized Latoya reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a piece of paper, then handed it to me. “Of course. This is what I gave Melanie.”
“Thank you. I’ll give this copy to Shelby. Anything else we need to discuss? Do you have the documentation for the cataloging software?”
“I’ll have a complete package together for interviews. I should tell you that I’ve been working with the FBI to refine the list of what’s gone missing. I think we’re making progress, but we shouldn’t expect too much. Sadly, I think some items are gone forever.”
As was Alfred. “I know, but I hope we’ve done all we can.”
“Was there anything else, Nell?” Latoya looked at me expectantly.
I stood up. “No, that’s all. I just wanted you to know about the funding change.”
“Thank you,” she said gravely-and waited for me to leave.
I left. Maybe I was her boss now, at least on paper, but she’d never had much time for me before, and some of that attitude still lingered. We’d have to work on that.
I dropped the registrar job description on Shelby’s desk and went back to my own. The next time I looked up it was three o’ clock, and I hadn’t even remembered to eat lunch-again. I was interrupted by a phone call from Felicity.
“Nell, Barney’s about to leave, but he wanted to thank you first. You have a minute?”
“Sure, I’ll be right down.” I could use the exercise-maybe the blood would return to my brain if I actually left my chair. It seemed to work, because I had a thought as I walked to the stairs, or maybe a series of thoughts. Barney was probably in his sixties and apparently had been an electrician and union member most of his adult life. Could he have known Nolan Treacy? Would he know, or could he find out, if Nolan was actually in Philadelphia at the moment? It was worth asking.
I found Barney and Felicity in the catalog room, still deep in conversation. Barney was clutching a thick sheaf of photocopies, and he looked dazed but happy. Felicity was doing much of the talking, and Barney nodded now and then. They didn’t notice me until I was a few feet away from them.
“You look like you’ve had a successful day,” I said.
Barney nodded vigorously. “Yeah, really. Felicity here was great-she really knows her stuff.”
“Well, of course I do-that’s why I’m head librarian,” she said, softening her statement with a smile. “But I love all that early baseball history. I’m so glad I could help! I’ll keep looking, if you’ve got the time to come back again?”