The police chief was talking to Mrs. Detweiller. Tabby was nowhere to be seen.
“I gave Tabby a lift,” Mike said to Julie. “She went upstairs. You got a minute?” Julie gestured to her office and shut the door after she followed him in. Then she remembered she hadn’t even spoken to her secretary. She apologized to Mike and went back to the outer office. “Didn’t mean to be rude, Mrs. Detweiller. I know the chief needs to talk to me. How are you this morning?”
“Fine, Dr. Williamson.”
“Great. If Rich calls, you can put him right through.”
Mrs. Detweiller paused and then nodded in the patronizing way she used with her employer, her nod implying that if that’s really what Dr. Williamson wanted, it wasn’t up to her to disagree. No matter how wrong Dr. Williamson might be.
“Pretty interesting conversation,” Mike began when Julie rejoined him in her office.
“I wish I could have been there.”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m only updating you because of your break-in. First,” he said as he opened his leather folder and looked at his notes, “Tabby confirms that Luke Dyer was in the library Wednesday—yesterday. She told him about the new Swanson papers. Said he seemed excited and spent an hour or more looking through the boxes. Can’t say what he actually saw, or didn’t see.”
“Or whether he took one,” Julie interrupted.
“Right. I didn’t exactly ask her that, but I sort of worked around the point enough to get that sense.”
“But then Luke wasn’t likely to say, ‘Oh thank you, Miss Preston, this is exactly what I was looking for; I’ll just take it home with me.’”
“But it’s missing. We know that.”
“Right again. Now do you want me to continue, or have you heard enough?”
Mike’s tone got Julie’s attention. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
His I’ll-believe-that-when-I-see-it laugh eased the brief moment of tension between them. “Okay, then about Frank Nilsson.” Mike consulted his notebook again. “Seems Frank also paid a visit to the library yesterday, earlier than Luke, before lunch. Said he wanted to talk to Tabby about how the historical society preserves papers because his wife was thinking of donating some things from her family.”
“That’s right. The Nilssons mentioned that to me.”
“So anyway,” Mike resumed after clearing his throat, “Frank asked some questions about how papers are handled now and how that will change when the new center is built. Tabby said she showed him the vault to assure him that anything his wife planned to give would be well protected even before the new storage area is ready.”
“Of course the humidity will be controlled in the new area,” Julie couldn’t help interjecting.
“Tabby told him that. Anyway, Nilsson looked around the vault, and Tabby pointed out the Swanson papers and told him they had just been given by Steven and explained about how they would be cataloged.”
“Did he want to see them?”
“Why am I not surprised you asked? It really is a shame you couldn’t conduct the interview with Tabby yourself.”
“I’m sorry! I promise I’ll shut up so you can finish.”
“To answer your question, yes, he did look at them. Tabby said she thought it was okay for him to go through a couple of the boxes so he’d have an idea of the kind of papers the society collects. He brought two boxes out to the table and Tabby said he spent twenty or thirty minutes looking through them. Then he returned them to the vault and told Tabby he was happy with how things are done here and would talk to his wife again about getting the Oakes family papers. And that’s it.”
“So I can ask a question now?”
“Just for a change?”
Julie laughed and continued: “Tabby of course can’t be sure Frank didn’t take the letter?”
“Again, I didn’t ask her quite that bluntly, but I satisfied myself that she wasn’t aware that he did.”
“Of course not,” Julie said. “So what do you think?”
“That both Dyer and Nilsson had the opportunity yesterday to take the letter.”
“Exactly. But there’s another point, isn’t there? Did either one know I made a copy?”
“Ah, I figured you’d get to that. Yes, she did mention the copy to both of them. I had to be real careful in asking her that, but I played dumb about your having the copy—in fact, I didn’t mention the break-in either. Figured that’s best. Anyway, apparently they both asked about copies—Dyer because he wanted to make some himself, Nilsson in his general way of asking about how papers are treated—you know, something like, ‘And could we make copies of my wife’s papers once we gave them?’ So she told both of them that she’d just recently copied one of the letters in the new Swanson materials.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell them which one?”
“What she said was that it was a 1997 letter. I gather she was trying to assure them that it wasn’t old, fragile, whatever.”
“Where?”
“With proof that both Luke and Frank could have seen the letter from Dan Swanson, could have taken the letter, and could have known I had a copy. Giving the date, 1997, would have been enough to identify the letter, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
They were silent. Mike glanced at the page in front of him and then closed the leather notebook. Julie looked out the window toward the Common. She was the first to speak.
“But wait a second, Mike. If Frank came in before Luke and took the letter, then Luke couldn’t have seen it.”
“That’s true.” The policeman flipped back through his notes. “Here. Tabby said Luke seemed excited about the new stuff and looked through it. I guess that doesn’t prove anything; he could have been excited about that particular letter, or just about more Swanson stuff.”
“So either one could have taken it.”
“I guess we’re back to that.”
“So what’s next?”
“Think I better have a talk with Frank and Luke.”
“To check their alibis for last night?”
“Police business, Julie.” He stood and left.