Ask a Librarian
Surprise! A Monday chapter to make up for missing Friday’s installment…enjoy!
Previously: Steph debunks Tally’s excuse.
Need to catch up on The Spring? Find the chapter index right here:
03:45 PM - Wednesday, November 5, 2014
SF Public Library, Presidio Branch, Sacramento Street, Presidio Heights
The top half of the Presidio Branch library gleamed in the rich golden sunlight as only seen in the days after the autumn time change; the bottom half was already in its long oblique shadows. Parking in the loading zone, Jeannie, Mark, and Raj moved up the broad, sloping stairway while dogs exchanged sniffs and wags on the front lawn.
“This is a nice building.” Mark mentioned, noting the stately lampposts and pillars flanking the door. “It looks like a proper library — the way libraries used to look.” The whole building was surrounded by landscaping on all sides, floating at the center of a generous lot extending the full block.
Jeannie smiled a little. “It does. It’s one of my favorites. They renovated it a few years ago and now it’s perfect again. It’s one of the oldest branches in the city. It was even funded by Andrew Carnegie — back when billionaires built libraries instead of whatever they do these days.” She sighed a little, mounting the final group of stairs to the door.
Crossing the threshold, all three set off the metal detector interrupting the snug hush of the room. The golden light from the western windows cast bright rays across the back wall, giving the tall room an extra glow. Badges raised, they approached the surprised librarian at the desk.
“Hi - good afternoon,” Jeannie began, keeping her voice low. The librarian was reaching for some sort of switch to turn off the metal detector’s alarm, which wasn’t exactly loud but was enough of a disturbance to have people looking. A young woman appeared in the doorway of the next room, face bent in concern. The alarm quickly stopped and she gave them all one more look and turned back to the reading room, where the someone began reading out load. Jeannie remembered that was the children’s room which was probably hosting an afternoon reading to a group of kids after school. “So sorry to disturb you,” she began again softly, making introductions. “We need to ask a few questions of whomever was on duty here earlier today? We are working on an investigation and have traced some internet activity to the IP address of the library.” The librarian blinked, mouth slightly agape.
“Um, yes, well that would have been me I suppose.” The librarian said calmly. She looked to be about mid-fifties, with silvery strands showing through her curly bobbed hair. A pair of spectacles hung on a lanyard around her neck. “I’m Janis Rodgers — I’ve been at the desk since 10, except for my lunch from 12:30 to 1…how can I assist?” Of course, a librarian would be accommodating; their entire profession was about assisting others and finding answers to questions.
“Thank you Ms. Rodgers.” Mark began.
“Janis is fine.”
“Janis. May I have my technician examine your computers?”
“Of course, there’s eight over there,” she gestured to the left. “And then another two in the children’s room.”
“And you have two behind the desk? Any others in an office or something?” Janis’ eyebrows rose.
“Yes, just two behind this desk. We do have one in the basement, but it’s just for inventory and keeping track of transfers from the Main Branch — no one would be able to access that one, or these two for that matter. No one would be able to come back here.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I just wanted to be sure. Thank you.” Mark said.
“Do you happen to have some kind of an overall password for all of those PCs? Something that will give me access?” Raj asked. Jeannie noted how gentle and un-Raj-like he sounded.
“Yes, let me find it for you.” Janis donned her spectacles, placing them gently toward the bottom of her nose and then leaned back slightly, lifting her chin to peruse the computer screen. She clicked around and then reached for a slip of paper from the top of a pile on her desk. Jeannie had to smile a little — librarians always had little slips of paper at hand. Writing down a passcode, she handed it to Raj who moved over to the tables to the right that had eight flat screen PCs set up.
Jeannie woke up the iPad and opened the camera roll.
“Do you know who was using those computers a bit earlier today?” Mark asked softly. “Say, around 11:30 this morning? Maybe a high school-aged student?”
Janis’ eyebrows went north once again. “Well, we usually would get a few students around 2:30 or 3 pm, but there hasn’t really been anyone younger this afternoon.”
“Do you mind if I show you a few photos? See if you can identify someone?” Jeannie asked. Janis’ looked at her over the top of her eyeglasses before pulling them off to hang at her chest.
“Of course, I’ll try — I see a lot of people, so I’m not sure — “
“That’s okay, we just want to see if anyone looks familiar.” Mark assured her. Jeannie flipped the iPad around to show the screen, beginning with an image of Tally Briggs. Janis’ eyes narrowed and she shook her head slightly. She kept shaking her head as Jeannie scrolled through their roll of potential Pr3pSF users until the end.
“So — no one here looks like someone who has visited the library lately?” Jeannie confirmed.
“No, I’m sorry. I — I wish I could say otherwise, but we haven’t had anyone that age in all afternoon, and especially not at lunchtime. The only school around here is Academy Prep and they have their own library, so none of those kids ever come down the hill to visit us.”
“Yes, I thought that might be the case.” Jeannie acquiesced. “So no one looks familiar...can I ask if any one else came in around 11:30 this morning and used one of your computers?” She felt like she was imposing on the librarian by following-up in this way.
“Well, there was someone around that time, but I didn’t get a good look at them. They were wearing a hoodie.”
“Really? Can you describe anything at all about them?”
“Well…” Janis began slowly. “Well, they were tall, thin, navy blue backpack. The hoodie was up over their head and I didn’t see a face. They took the computer at the far side of the tables — the one nearest to the wall. I couldn’t see them directly.”
“Could you see if this person was male or female?” Mark asked.
“Honestly, not really. They were tall, and sort of lanky.”
“How did they move?”
“Well, that’s the thing — they kind of hulked around bit. They seemed, just large. They kind of strode in, moved slow, tucked themselves into the computer, and the next time I saw them they were walking out the door. That’s when I noticed the navy backpack.”
“Okay. This is really helpful.” Jeannie said. “But you never saw a hair color or anything?”
“No nothing like that. It was all under the hoodie. I didn’t even see their eyes.” Janis added, looking past them both while she thought of it.
“Janis, do you happen to have any surveillance cameras around here?” Mark followed-up quietly. “Maybe we could see this person?”
“We do…we don’t usually even look at the footage. It’s not like the library is a hotbed of criminal action, you know. But libraries do get a lot of transients, and since we have nice lawns all around us, sometimes they spend the night or hide out in the portico once we’re closed.” Janis began to click around on her computer again. “Let me see what I can find — I haven’t had a look at the cameras in a long time, although I suppose I probably should — Ah, here we go.” Janis turned her flat screen around 180 degrees to try to show it to them on the opposite side of the desk. “This starts around 10:30.”
The recording was in black-and-white and showed an angle above the front door outside, and one directly centered above the door inside in a wide fish-eye view of the room. It didn’t show much detail because of the wide view, but it showed enough of the movement in and out. The film moved along somewhat quickly, with a few mothers coming in with young children in strollers, and then moving into the children’s room beyond.
“Here we’re at around 11:25 —” Janis said quietly. “There - there they are.” She pointed to a tall, lanky figure as it loped through the metal detector and cut a hard right turn toward the tables with computers. They didn’t get close to the librarian desk at all. The hoodie was pulled up around the face, and the backpack was completely nondescript.
“What’s this?” Raj approached from looking over the computers directly.
“Some surveillance of the door. Janis mentioned a tall figure in a hoodie that was working —”
“On the computer over against the wall? On the far side? Yeah, that’s the computer they used.”
“Too bad this basically shows us nothing distinctive.” Mark replied. “Janis, can we see more of the outside, maybe when they leave? How long were they here?”
“Maybe about 10-15 minutes? Here’s the outside angle.” The film moved along to show the figure moving quickly out the front door, head ducked as they approached the outside. The figure loped down the first flight of stairs to the landing, and then turned left.
“That path loops around the building, doesn’t it?” Jeannie asked. “It goes to the Clay Street side. Do you have a camera back there?” Janis nodded, lips pursed, clicking around a bit as she leaned to the side to share the screen with them. The reading in the children’s room was beginning to break up, with voices beginning to raise and people moving back into the main library room. Janis clicked a few more times until a new angle appeared that seemed to connect the path of the hoodie person as they rounded the library from front to back. They moved quickly around the back and then took the wide staircase that mounted the steep hillside two at a time. “So they went up to Clay Street,” Jeannie said. “That would take them a lot closer to Academy Prep.”
“Or somewhere else in Presidio Heights.” Mark added.
A few minutes later the trio moved back down the front stairs to the SUV, the whole place now in shadow as the sky was more and more dim. Even the sconces and streetlamps flanking the stairs were coming to life.
“Wow, ask a librarian, eh?” Mark tossed out.
“Yes. The original investigators. They know where to find everything.” Jeannie countered. “But Janis was impressive.”
“Too bad she didn’t see more.” Raj offered as they got in the car.
“Yeah, but I don’t think whomever it was wanted to be seen. They were just there using the computer.”
“But, what if it was someone from Academy?” Raj countered. “Why would they come down here to do work on a computer? They probably would have their own, or the library there certainly would have some, or a computer lab…I don’t get it.”
“Well, it would take someone about five minutes to walk here from Academy, so they could do it during a free period or at lunch. Plus, based on what you’ve taught me about IP addresses, obviously they didn’t want to use one that would direct someone to the school. But, we still don’t know if this hoodie went back there.”
“I wonder if Academy has surveillance videos.”
“I’m positive they do.” Jeannie answered. “These private schools all have them, not just for security but for their own liability. Like, if kids are fighting or something? They can go right to the tape and see who hit who immediately.”
“But in this case, the hoodie could have come off, swapped out for something else in the backpack…they could be a totally different person by the time they got back to school.” Mark offered.
“That’s true.” All were silent for a long moment.
“You know — “ Raj began, “maybe we let this lie for a minute.”
“What do you mean?” Mark asked him.
“I mean…like you said, Jeannie, they clearly didn’t want to be seen. We aren’t going to get any ID off of any other camera angle, even if we go to the Ring Cams on every house in the neighborhood. If this person did go back to Academy, I guarantee you they looked different by the time they got there. And everyone has navy backpacks in high school.” Raj sighed. “I guess, I’m just saying we see if this IP pops up again — I have a feeling it will.”
“You think they’ll post again to Alexa’s account?” Jeannie asked, turning her head to the back seat.
“Oh I’m pretty sure they will. I mean…between the video and this one this morning…they’re team Alexa, whomever they are. I’d be willing to bet that they’ll post again soon, and that they have plenty to post too. Let’s give it some breathing room and see what they do next. Maybe they’ll do something stupid and reveal themselves more fully — without a hoodie on.”
Jeannie glanced at Mark whose face was pulling a speculative look.
“What are you thinking, Greenberg?
“I’m thinking Raj is making a comeback.”