Dorsey/Cross—murder/shooting—?????

I looked around to see if anyone was using a cell phone. I wanted to make a call but wasn’t sure it would be allowed in a library. When I turned and looked behind me I saw a man standing by a magazine rack quickly turn away and take a magazine off the display without seeming to look at what it was first. He was dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Nothing about him said FBI but it still seemed to me that he had been looking directly at me until I had looked at him. His reaction had been too quick, almost furtive. There had been no eye contact, nothing that suggested any sort of overture. The man clearly didn’t want me to know he was watching me.

Putting my notebook away, I got up from the table and headed toward the magazine racks. I passed the man and noticed that the magazine he had grabbed was called Parenting Today. It was another strike against him. He didn’t look like the parenting type to me. I was pretty sure I was being watched.

Back at the reference desk I put my hands on the counter and leaned over to whisper to Mrs. Molloy.

“Can I ask you a question? Is it okay to use a cell phone in the library?”

“No, it’s not. Is somebody bothering you by using a phone?”

“No, I was just wondering what the rule was. Thank you.”

Before I could turn away she said she was just about to page me because a computer was now available. I gave her back the pager and she led me to a cubicle where the glowing screen of a computer was waiting.

“Good luck,” she said as she headed back to the desk.

“Excuse me,” I said, beckoning her back. “Um, I don’t know how to get to the Times stuff on this.”

“There’s an icon on the desktop.”

I turned back around and scanned the desk. There was nothing on it but the computer and the keyboard and the mouse. The librarian started to laugh behind me but then covered her mouth with her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just . . . you don’t know the first thing about how to do this, do you?”

“Or the second or the third. Can you just help get me started?”

“Hold on. Let me just go check the front desk and make sure there is no one waiting for me.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

She was gone thirty seconds and then came back and leaned over me to work the mouse and click through screens until she was inside the Times archives and at what she called the key word search template.

“So now you type in the key word for the story you are looking for.”