Sunday
Sunday Morning always saw Ginny in church, unless she was working. On this particular Sunday, the phone was ringing as she and her mother returned home. Ginny grabbed the receiver.
“Ginny? It’s Alex. I was just about to give up on you.”
“Hello, Sandy. Did you forget the time zone again?”
“Drat it. Yes! Well, never mind. I’ve got that information you wanted.”
“About the virus? That was fast!”
“We don’t waste any time when a potential epidemic is threatened. To start with, there’s no reason to think anyone else is going to get sick. We’ve been in contact with people your victim encountered over the last three weeks and everyone’s fine so far. That eliminates a fast incubation period or a high level of infectiousness. It might still be a slow virus, in which case there’s no hope of tracing the source, but I don’t think it is.”
“Why not?”
“Have you seen the autopsy report?”
“No.”
“One of the things that has everyone so upset is the speed with which this bug acted. In less than twenty-four hours almost every nerve cell in this man’s body has been destroyed.”
Ginny caught her breath. “Every one?”
“Just about. None of the other types of tissue were touched. So it must be neuron specific in some way and very fast.”
“Well, that fits with the symptoms. What else have you got?”
“It’s probably been engineered. Nothing in nature fits this profile. I spent some time over at the archives. There are two similar deaths listed in Morbidity and Mortality. In both cases the agent was a virus, and in both cases almost every neural cell in the body had been disrupted.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yes, and in each of those cases, no one else got sick, even though there was a lot of unprotected exposure. I sent that report on to Chip.”
“Can you tell for sure if the virus that caused the other two deaths is the same as the one that killed Professor Craig?”
“Not yet. We need to get our hands on the archived tissue samples from the earlier two victims. It’ll take some time”
Ginny was silent for a minute, chewing her lip. “Can you get me copies of the three files, Professor Craig’s and the other two?”
“Yes, but you’d have to keep them in strictest confidence.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it, Ginny. You can’t show them to anyone or I’ll lose my job.”
“I won’t do that to you, Alex. You just get me those copies and if I suspect anything we’ll make sure it’s ‘discovered’ properly.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I haven’t the foggiest, but there are some very frightened people here and the sooner we can put this to rest the better.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Ginny hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. If Alex was right, then she wasn’t going to come down with some horrible mystery disease and die ignominiously (always a possibility in her line of work, as in his). But if the thing was so hard to catch, how did Professor Craig get it? She jumped as the phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Ginny? It’s Elaine. I just wanted to make sure you were still planning to come down to the library this afternoon.” Every couple of months Ginny took her turn manning the volunteer desk for an afternoon.
“I thought the genealogy section was sealed off?”
“They’ve removed the barriers and told us we can go back to work. We’re expecting an overflow crowd because of the delay. Can you come?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Great. See you this afternoon.”
The next call was from Hal.
“Ginny! Glad I caught you. Can I ask a favor? I just found out they’re letting people back into the library today. Can you pick up my Confirmation papers for me? I know it’s a nuisance, but it will save me a trip and I’d really appreciate it.”
“Will they let me?”
“Elaine said yes. She’ll know where to look.”
“All right. I’ll bring them tonight,” she said.
“That would be great.”
“Will you be going to the Professor’s funeral?” Ginny asked.
“When is it?”
“Tomorrow. Ten a.m. At the Auld Cemetery.”
“Probably not. I’ll ask at work, but since it’s not family I doubt if they’ll let me off. You’ll represent the Society for us?”
Ginny nodded. “Of course.”
“You’re an angel.”
“See you tonight.”
* * *
Ginny smiled at the visitor struggling with pen and bifocals as she tried to put her name on the proper line of the sign-in sheet. The old woman finished her task, patted Ginny’s hand, picked up her briefcase, and shuffled off to find an empty seat at one of the worktables.
The next visitor came in the form of a small boy. Not the regular sort of patron in this department, but tolerated because he was well behaved and the son of one of the librarians.
Walter dumped his pile of loot on the desk in front of Ginny. “Look what I found!”
Ginny looked at the boy in mild surprise.
“I found it on the floor. Look at all this stuff. Can I keep it?”
Ginny picked through the pile of junk with the tip of her finger, sorting it into categories. The first group consisted of lost buttons, single earrings, tie tacks and other bits of wearing apparel. The second group was made up of money and money substitutes; tokens for parking and game machines, and a genuine wooden nickel.
The third category, and by far the largest, consisted of writing implements. She looked them over. There were three disposable felt-tipped pens, all dry; at least a dozen ballpoint pens, in black, blue, red, purple, and green ink; six pencils, of which one had a point and none an eraser; one paint brush; one lipstick (if that could be considered a writing implement); one thin and expensive looking gold-tone pen; one fat and expensive looking fountain pen; and one item which didn’t seem to be a pen at all.
Ginny frowned to herself. It seemed familiar; a plastic cylinder with a button on one end like a ballpoint pen. It looked like the kind one could unscrew and refill. Ginny twisted the instrument at the join and pulled the two pieces apart.
It wouldn’t have meant anything to most people, but Ginny was a nurse. She blanched at the sight of the needle. The device was spring-loaded, designed so that, when the trigger was activated, the needle was pushed out through a hole, into the skin, then withdrawn, back inside the plastic sheath for safe keeping until it could be properly disposed of. This was a medical device used by diabetics to prick their fingers so blood could be tested for sugar content. What was it doing here?
Ginny stared at the lancet and thought hard. Diabetics, like other people, did not like to be stuck by needles. As a result, a lot of research had gone into making the procedure as painless as possible. The lancets themselves were smooth as silk and thin as a whisper. The speed with which the devices struck was legendary. A patient could be watching, expecting the stick and the whole thing be over before he noticed.
“Can I keep them?” Walter demanded. Ginny jumped. She had forgotten he was there. “Yes, you may keep them,” she said. “All except these.” She set aside the two expensive looking pens, the jewelry, and the lancet, then dismissed the boy. He scooped up his treasure and started to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Ginny called. She hurried after him. “Where did you find all this stuff?” she asked.
He pointed to the other end of the room. “It was just lying there,” he told her.
“Will you show me where, please?” she asked.
He led her over and pointed down at a spot on the floor. “Here.”
“Did you get stuff from any other part of the room?”
“No. It was all here, in the dirt. Can I go now?”
“Yes, you may, and thank you very much.” The child ran off.
Ginny went in search of his father.
“Kevin, what’s going on over there?” she asked, pointing to the spot Walter had indicated.
“That’s the new shelving going in. It’s amazing how long it took us to get metal shelves for that part of the stacks. We’ve had those old wooden ones since before the Flood.”
“Walter says he found some stuff in the dirt over there. Do you think they might have been under the old bookcases?”
He nodded. “No one has swept under those things since they went in. I’m always explaining to people, anything that rolls under those old shelves is gone for good.”
“Well, here are a few that have been resurrected” She handed over everything except the lancet, then went back to her post and sat down, staring at the device. She pulled it apart and inspected it closely, noticing it had been ‘fired.’
The cartridge holding the needle was intended to be discarded after each use and a new, sterile, one put in its place. The needle could be used again, but only if someone opened the pen and re-cocked the device first, and patients weren’t supposed to do that. Re-using needles introduced the chance of injecting yourself with something picked up from the skin, like bacteria. Or a virus.
Ginny froze. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe this virus required blood-to-blood contact to be infectious. That might explain why there had been no other cases even among health care providers; no accidental needle sticks.
There was no way to tell how long the lancet had been lying on the floor. It could have been there for years, or only a few days. But Professor Craig’s office was just across the way. He worked here, among the books. Could someone have poisoned (there was no other word for it) the tip of the needle, then injected that lethal virus into him?
Ginny frowned, considering the possibility. The spaces between the shelves were narrow, dark, and quiet. Every now and then, she came across a patron who’d fallen asleep, snoozing, with their back against the shelves. It was not the sort of place where one expected an attack.
Even if there had been some sort of outcry, and she suspected not, who would be close enough to hear? One need only choose a time of day when most of the library patrons were elsewhere, and the remaining ones were concentrating on their work, hearing aids turned off, glasses trained on the microfilm readers. There would be a good chance no one would see or hear a thing.
The Murderer (Ginny had a habit of capitalizing in her thoughts) would have to lure his Victim to the site on some pretext, then attack him when his back was turned. No. That wouldn’t work. She wasn’t dealing with a body left bleeding all over the floor and telling no tales. The victim had been brought to the Emergency Room awake and talking. He never said a word about being attacked by anyone. If he had been injected with a lethal virus, he hadn’t noticed when or by whom.
Ginny let her eyes roam over the department. All available members of the local genealogy society had turned out to help. There were people everywhere, yet no one was paying her the slightest bit of attention. She could have approached any one of them, injected that virus, and been gone before they knew they were hit.
Ginny reassembled the device, and stashed it in her bag, intending to take it to the hospital and dispose of it there.
Murder. A deliberate attack upon a man with the intent to kill. Could such a thing be possible? And if it was, what was her responsibility? Did she have to come forward with her suspicions? To whom?
Ginny’s eyes narrowed. Before she started making accusations, she needed to find out if it was feasible to kill someone that way. Also, she needed to see if there was any reason to rule her theory out, which meant getting a look at the autopsy report. She glanced at the clock. One more hour before she was free to leave and only twenty-four hours until she had to go back to work and put everything else on hold. She would have to move fast.
* * *
Ginny watched the clock for the next hour, waiting for a chance to speak to Elaine. If she didn’t show up soon, Ginny wouldn’t be able to retrieve Hal’s file before leaving. She fidgeted, then decided five minutes less on the desk would neither make nor break the usage statistics. She gathered up her belongings and crossed to Professor Craig’s office. The door was cracked and there was someone moving around inside.
Ginny could not have said why she failed to knock. Perhaps it was the suspicion of murder that had her on edge. She acted on instinct, pulling the door all the way open and stepping inside.
“Hello? Oh. It’s you.” She smiled at Elaine.
The librarian had turned at Ginny’s entrance and stood with her mouth open, one hand on her chest, and one of the guiltiest expressions on her face Ginny had ever seen.
“Ginny!” She recovered her composure. “You gave me a start.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for you all afternoon.”
“How can I help you?”
“Hal’s confirmation papers. He asked me to pick them up for him so he can make sure to meet the deadline for filing.”
“Oh. Of course.” Elaine turned to the desk and started flipping through a pile of folders stacked on the surface. “Here it is.” She turned and offered it to Ginny.
“Thank you.” Ginny glanced around the office, noticing there were papers and piles on every surface and most of the floor. “This looks like quite a job.”
Elaine made a wry face. “Yes, but it has to be done. I’ll manage.”
“I know you will.” She smiled, then waved the folder in Elaine’s direction as she turned. “I’ll make sure Hal gets this.”
Ginny hurried out of the building and into her car. Had she imagined it? No. The guilt had been plain to see. But why on earth should the interim Head Librarian feel guilty about sorting through the documents left by her predecessor? And the guilt had been there before Ginny asked her to hand over a file to someone other than the owner. Ginny frowned. Was there a connection? Could there be? Ginny frowned harder. It was conceivable, of course, but Elaine?
* * *