The Storage Room

Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Located on the 6th floor of the East Butler Library, the library houses extensive special collections spanning literature, history, and science. An old storage room in the library’s Rare Book section had been locked for years. No one really knew why.

Isabel Gonzalez, a senior librarian on the fifth floor, had come up because of a special request she had received by handwritten note: “Open the 6th-floor storage room.” The note was written in neat block letters. Guy Sanders, the head librarian of the rare books section, was already waiting for her; he had tried his keys and failed to find the right one. She fumbled through her set of keys, but none would fit. They had to call maintenance to open the door. Frederick Jones, the maintenance man, had to use a drill to open the lock because his keys didn’t fit either.

The storage room was cramped and packed with cartons of old library brochures and papers, along with an old Xerox copy machine. A putrid odor washed over them as soon as they opened the door. Behind the Xerox machine, Isabel spotted it. It sat in the corner, up against the back wall, under the Mystery Thriller Books poster.

The stained canvas tarp covered something she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.

“Frederick, will you take a look at that thing in the back?” Isabel said, pointing to the mysterious bundle.

He struggled to squeeze his belly past the Xerox machine and had to stretch to grab the canvas tarp. After two strong pulls, the tarp came off. Isabel screamed as she stared into the empty eye sockets of a desiccated skeleton. Guy fell back, landing on the floor, and Frederick knocked over several cartons that were leaning back.

“Call 911, call 911,” Isabel repeated, her nerves getting the best of her.

Detective Zoe Bailey arrived with her grande latte, extra sweet, in hand. She had to stop for coffee before she could function today.

“Rough night?” Brian Maloney, her partner, asked.

“Apparently not as bad as that guy,” Zoe said.

“What do we have so far?” she asked.

“It looks like it’s been here a while, judging by the decomposition. We found this on the Xerox machine.” He handed Zoe a Xerox copy in an evidence bag: “There Will Be More,” with a pocket watch showing 5 pm overlaid on it.

“What does this mean?” Zoe asked.

They stood outside the storage room, which was buzzing with CSIs in white jumpsuits gathering evidence. Sherry Stein from the ME’s office came out of the room and told them that it was not yet possible to determine the cause of death; she would know more after she had a better look in the Anthropology/Identification area back at the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Back at the ME’s Office, she explained that desiccation occurred once the tarp-trapped moisture had escaped or settled; the room’s low ambient humidity would then begin drying the remaining soft tissue. Rather than stripping the body down to the bare bones, the skin, tendons, and cartilage were dehydrated into a hard, leathery, brownish shell. “Carbon testing has placed it in that room for 30 years,” Sherry said. “She is a female, in her early 20s, blonde and petite—no visible signs of assault,” Sherry said. The bone marrow test indicated she had been poisoned with raw belladonna.

Brian and Zoe took their notes from the ME Office and returned to the station. The crime board was filling up quickly with photos and notes.

Was this an old killer resuming a killing spree? Zoe wrote at the top.

Isabel was ready to retire soon. She had worked at the library for over 40 years and turned 69 in August. She wondered how long the body had been in the locked room. How come no one had noticed the smell before?

It had been two weeks since they found the body, and she had taken some time off to recover from the shock. She stacked returned books on a rolling tray, preparing them for the assistant librarians to replace on the shelves. The last call was made, and the library closed. She was in the cloakroom when a leather-gloved hand with an ether-saturated cloth covered her mouth, and she lost consciousness.

When she woke up, she was in a storage room, tied to a chair. Her mouth was taped.

“Tick-tock. How long before they find you?” the voice behind her said.

She could not see who it was, but it sounded like a man, raspy and old.

“I’m going to leave you here for a while, and then you and I will discuss your future.”

Isabel started to panic. How long is “a while”? She thought about the body in the storage room. How did they die, and how long had they been left there?

“Tick-tock,” the stranger said as he left.

Zoe finished setting another pot of coffee to brew. They had hit a dead end on the storage-closet case. Back at her desk, she found an envelope among the interoffice memos.

What was this? The envelope had no postmark. She opened it and dropped it onto the desk, spilling out an old Polaroid snapshot of Isabel tied to a chair. Isabel appeared to be passed out. And on an old library catalog card, typed in an old school typewriter: Tick Tock to 5 pm.

Brian was watching her from his desk, directly across from hers.

“What’s that?” he said.

“He is teasing us into finding her. We have till 5 pm”

Brian and Zoe went to the library with the police, and they conducted a thorough search. It took all day because there were so many nooks and crannies. Forensics got back to them and said they were unable to obtain any prints from the Polaroid. This person was a ghost without a paper trail.

Exhausted and feeling defeated, Zoe went home. She had just opened a bottle of Chardonnay when Grace, her adoptive mother, showed up, knocking on her door with Chinese takeout.

“I was just in the neighborhood,” Grace said.

“Very funny. You live next door,” Zoe said.

Grace adopted Zoe when Zoe was 10. Grace was a single mom, a professional crime novelist, and a self-proclaimed free spirit. Zoe poured herself and Grace a glass of wine, and they sat down to Chinese chow.

“Something is on your mind,” Grace said after a couple of beats of silence.

“It’s this case; time is running out. I need to find the librarian.” She explained to Grace what they had in terms of clues. Grace was an excellent sounding board and an armchair sleuth.

“It looks like it is tied to the library in some way. Did you check the archives? Any hidden doors?” “Is there a basement?”

“Wow, Grace, you are on a roll.” We did check the basement, but there is a lot of stuff down there. “I would give it a second look and check along the walls.”

Isabel had been sitting in the dark all day; she really had to go. She was thirsty and hungry. She heard the heavy door rattle, then felt a blindfold being tied over her eyes from behind. “You are going to walk with me to the bathroom; don’t try anything.” He untied her and led her to a small basement bathroom with only a toilet and a sink. She had to do her business, still blindfolded and gagged. She thought he was probably watching her, but she was desperate and peed anyway. Once back in the room, he released her gag and gave her bottled water, hot tea, and a cold sandwich. He did not say a word the whole time. Isabel tried to engage him in conversation, but he quickly tied her up again and gagged her.

Zoe and Brian went back to the library and headed down to the basement again. “What are we doing here again?” Brian asked. “Grace gave me an idea; I’m following it up. Let's check along the walls.” They followed the basement walls and reached a section with many boxes and a desk. Behind a dry-erase board, they found a locked door. Brian improvised, using a fire axe to break the handle. Inside, they found Isabel, bound and gagged but alive.

“This whole case reeks of old-fashioned. Old library catalog cards and pocket watches,” said Brian. “And don’t forget the Polaroid; that’s old. Let's look into missing persons cases from the 1960s and ' 70s,” said Zoe.

They returned to the office and had Margaret research old cases. She was really good at it. After much digging, she came up with three names: a missing student from the university near the library, a mother of two, and a librarian. At home, Zoe had their pictures and case files spread across the coffee table. Grace showed up with a rum cake she had bought. “What are these?” she asked, looking at the spread of files. “These are old missing persons from the 60s, all near the library.”

“You think you might have a serial killer?” Said Grace.

“If so, he is pretty old-fashioned; the body in the storage room was killed with Belladonna in its raw form.”

“Tea”

“What?”

“Belladonna Tea. The killer made her a tea.”

“Isabel said her captor gave her hot tea,” said Zoe.

“A gentleman!”

“And who reminds you of an old gentleman?”

“Frederick, the maintenance guy, sports a handlebar mustache!”

Zoe called Brian for backup.

Frederick’s apartment was neat as a pin. He had a worn leather reading chair, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a chess game in progress. Vintage library posters hung in frames on the walls. A thriving belladonna plant sat on the sunny windowsill.

It was July 4, 1966. "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles topped the American charts.

Frederick considered himself a ladies’ man and an intellectual. He carefully waxed his handlebar mustache and wore a tailored Nehru jacket and bell-bottoms. He was a biochemistry student at Columbia University.

Then he met Felicia, with whom he was deeply infatuated. But she rejected his advances, and he took it as an insult. Watching her laugh and talk with the other classmates, he, in his twisted, schizophrenic mind, thought she was conspiring with the others.

Mabel glanced at him in the grocery store, then quickly looked away. Frederick became convinced she had recognized him, knew what he had done, and intended to expose him. He followed her for days.

Diane, a librarian, chatted with him warmly during lunch breaks. Frederick mistook her kindness for affection. When she mentioned she was engaged, he saw it as another deception.

His schizophrenia eventually led to a complete breakdown and his commitment to a psychiatric hospital. Years later, after his release, he accepted a maintenance job at the Columbia University Library. His career was over; the books and the atmosphere provided him comfort.

Until Isabel.

The spirited Latina retiree reminded him of every woman who had ever denied him. When she declined his invitation for coffee with a gentle smile, Frederick's fractured mind heard something entirely different: another dismissal, another insult.

Frederick adjusted the collar of his breathable, short-sleeved travel shirt as he boarded a Caribbean Airlines flight to Costa Rica. His convertible hiking pants and carry-on backpack made him look like any other retiree chasing tropical sunshine.