Page 18 of The Librarians

Sophie does not have an outright fear-and-loathing relationship with the police. Still, they unnerve her—her mother’s car was stopped at least three times a year, leaving the tony private school in Chicago where she taught and Sophie attended.

And that was under the best of circumstances, when she had absolutely nothing to hide.

It is not the case here.

Detective Hagerty makes the hair on the back of her neck stand. As he contemplates her, his silence heavy and broody, he seems to already know everything.

Her toes tremble in her heels.

But her interlaced fingers at the edge of her desk still look steady enough. Her Halloween manicure of slime-green half-moons on deep matte black is five days old yet just might pass muster if no one looks too closely.

People only see what you show them. Right now she needs to show the police Ms. Claremont, library administrator. Ms. Claremont may be unsettled by the situation, even a little vexed—why are there two unnatural deaths associated with her library all of a sudden?—but she is not guilty of anything.

Why, she was barely involved.

The code-switching that has served her well all these years kicks into gear. She receives every question with grave attentiveness. She gives considered answers. She cooperates.

The expression on Detective Hagerty’s face, as he rises to leave, is one of disappointment, but only a mild variety—he did not anticipate game-changing information from Sophie after all!

They exchange parting pleasantries. The detective asks about a good time to speak to Elise.

Elise has a prom committee meeting after school.

Sophie informs Hagerty of it, having no idea whether he will let Elise attend the meeting in peace—and let Sophie have the rest of the evening to prepare the girl for her first police interview.

She closes the door behind him and collapses against it, her mind a blazing blank.

Knocks come, heavy strikes that thud against her spine.

It’s Detective Hagerty again. He appears excited. Her heart is the stock market in 1929, dropping straight down.

“Sorry to take up more of your time, Ms. Claremont. But while we were speaking earlier, Detective Gonzalez had a look around the library and came across Ayesha and Ahmed Khan, who sat at the same table with Jeannette Obermann. Would it be all right if we borrowed your meeting room to interview them? Jonathan said that the English conversation group is done and there is nothing else scheduled in the meeting room the rest of the day.”

Sophie has no reason to refuse him, so she takes the initiative and walks the cops and the Khans, who look reverent, nervous, and more than a little curious, into the meeting room.

She offers a silent prayer for the couple— May they not be innocent bystanders caught up in this country’s justice system . Then she stops by Hazel, on duty at the checkout station, and asks if she’s all right.

Hazel nods with all gravity. “Thank you, I’m fine.”

And then she asks, “And you, Sophie? How are you?”

There is real concern in her eyes and Sophie comes precariously close to blurting out, Oh, God, I’m so scared my face is numb.

She pastes on her most librarian-ish expression. “I’m all right. Except now I’m behind on my emails.”

The cops interview not only the Khans but Jonathan and Astrid, neither of whom spent much time in the meeting room during Game Night. Jonathan at least came in to take some photographs; Astrid didn’t even have that much contact with the attendees.

When the detectives are done at last, Sophie walks them out of the library.

Then she catches up with Astrid in the children’s area.

Thankfully this police interview does not appear to bother Astrid as much as the previous one.

At least when Sophie asks about it, Astrid replies with no small relief that she can feel these cops are just being thorough, that they are not really interested in her.

Sophie wishes she could say the same: Even though she can reason that they haven’t zeroed in on her, she feels her peril.

On her way back to her office, she sees Ayesha Khan at the checkout station, speaking to Hazel.

“I hope this won’t prevent you from coming to other library events in the future,” says Hazel.

“I don’t think so, but it’s spooky, isn’t it?” Ayesha Khan’s features scrunch together in distress. “What a horrible thing to happen. Everything was so nice and normal at Game Night. Now to think that we might have been among the last people to see her alive…”

Hazel nods in sympathy. “It is a very great shock.”

“Will this affect the library? It won’t be closed or anything like that, will it?”

“I don’t think so,” Hazel says slowly. Then she sees Sophie and beckons her over. “Sophie, will the police investigation affect the normal operations of this branch?”

Once again Sophie pastes on her head-librarian-in-charge face. “At the moment, we are not expecting disruptions.”

“Thank goodness,” says Ayesha Khan. “This is such a great place to work.”

“I agree,” says Hazel smoothly. “And we do apologize for any inconvenience.”

Ayesha Khan, after reassuring Hazel and Sophie that she has not been unduly troubled, departs for the work gallery, where her husband is already back before his laptop, typing away.

“This won’t become a publicity problem for the library, will it?” asks Hazel in a low voice.

Sophie shakes her head. Not that she believes the negative publicity that might arise wouldn’t impact the library at all, but people still go to movies and concerts despite the danger of a mass shooting. It will take a lot for patrons to abandon their favorite library. “The library will be okay.”

Whether Sophie will still be here to oversee the library, however, is a very different question.

“Will you be okay?” asks Hazel.

A frisson of chill climbs up Sophie’s inner wrist. This is the second time Hazel has asked whether Sophie is okay. Why? Does she know something?

“Yes,” says Sophie with as authoritative a smile as she can manage. “Now I’d better reply to all those emails in my inbox.”

“Hey, Jonathan!” chirps Maryam. Her toned arms are on display in a sports tank top and her face is flushed and slightly damp—she might have just finished a workout before getting on their Zoom call. “I was wondering when I’d finally hear from you. But of course you met up with Ryan first.”

Jonathan’s heart does a somersault. “Did Ryan tell you?”

“He asked me ahead of time—wanted to know if I’d be cool with it.”

That is not the same as Ryan calling her afterward with all the deets. Jonathan hopes his disappointment isn’t obvious. “I didn’t know you guys kept up all these years.”

“We didn’t. He looked me up after the reunion—‘Hey, why weren’t you there’ and all that—and we picked up from there.” She leans forward, her dark eyes gleaming with curiosity. “So, are you still into him?”

Jonathan, his face burning, can only defend himself with rhetoric. “What do you mean, still into him—when was I ever into him? But enough about me. How are you?”

Maryam, as it turns out, taught middle school for a few years before she decided that seventh graders were the bane of her existence and she’d rather deal with criminals instead. “At least now I can drive past a school without breaking out in hives.”

They chortle over that. Then she says, “So, about your question…”

Sophie, concerned for Elise, who has to speak to Hagerty and Gonzalez, asked Jonathan if he could find out a bit more about the case. Jonathan figured Maryam was the best person to ask.

He pulls his chair closer to the screen. “Yes?”

“Sorry, I don’t have a ton to tell you,” says Maryam. “Theoretically they and we could be working on the same big case—”

“Wait, what?”

“Currently, the link between the two deaths is highly circumstantial but not nonexistent.”

“You mean, they both passed through the library in the final hours of their lives?”

“A bit more than that, but not much. She was found one mile from her apartment, he one-and-half miles from his hotel, and they were found about two miles apart—like I said, not much to go on.” Maryam brings what looks to be a turkey sandwich from offscreen and takes a bite.

“Detective Hagerty has stated, in his professional opinion, that Bathurst was an idiot who trusted the wrong dealer in an unfamiliar city. He doesn’t want to waste his time on Bathurst when the real interesting case is Obermann.

And he has some pull with management so Jones and I got Bathurst instead. ”

Jonathan shoves a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth, which leads to a digression on what they usually eat for dinner and what they can throw together quickly when they don’t feel like either cooking or breaking the bank ordering in.

All at once it doesn’t feel like decades have passed since they last talked.

It’s ten minutes later that Jonathan remembers he’s not there just to chat with an old friend. “Do you also think that Bathurst is a waste of time?”

Maryam dabs her lips with a napkin and drinks from a water glass. “I was definitely not happy to be saddled with the case, but let’s say I’m not as unhappy as I used to be.”

“Oh?”

“Sorry, can’t divulge.” She grins, looking a bit like the Cheshire Cat.

“But to get back to your original question, Detective Hagerty and I agreed to exchange relevant information with each other, but I haven’t heard a thing from him since.

So I can only assume that whatever he’s found out doesn’t impact my investigation.

Do you want me to ask him some questions? ”

Jonathan sucks air through his teeth. If Maryam becomes too curious about Hagerty’s case, Hagerty might wonder why. And Sophie, Jonathan feels, would prefer to fly under Detective Hagerty’s radar. “Have the rest of your dinner. I’ll get back to you on that.”

As he is about to log off, however, Maryam asks abruptly, but with a sly look on her face, “Do you remember my cousin Davoud?”

Where did Jonathan hear that name recently? “Barely—we had one class together in high school. The only reason I remember him at all is because he’s your cousin. Why?”

Maryam grins again. “No reason. Let me know if you want me to speak to Hagerty.”