Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [77]
“So,” Chloe said finally, licking her fingers, “what do they teach in the Administrative track at grad school these days, anyway? How To Be An Autocratic Jerk, 101?”
“Don’t ask me. I have no hankering to climb that ladder.”
Which said good things about Byron, Chloe decided. It couldn’t be easy for this twenty-something guy to supervise a huge staff comprised largely of older women. But he took his responsibilities to heart, and she liked that. “Me either. But seriously, what’s Petty’s problem?”
“I have no idea.”
“He’s always been that way?”
“Pretty much.”
Chloe took another bite, chewing slowly, trying to think of another approach. “He doesn’t want me to inventory the site’s collections. He actually ordered me not to. Does that make sense to you?”
“He’s from out east,” Byron offered. His thin nose wrinkled daintily, as if he’d gotten a whiff of rotten pork. “New York City. And his last job was in Las Vegas, running some historic house.”
Ralph Petty might have been God’s gift to the museum world, Chloe thought, but with a resume like that, he had two strikes against him in Wisconsin, Harley motorcycle or no. “They have historic houses in Las Vegas?” she asked.
“I don’t know what they have in Las Vegas.” Byron dipped a French fry in ketchup. “Maybe they interpret the history of gambling.”
“Weird stuff,” Chloe affirmed vaguely. Where had she heard something about gambling lately? From Roelke. Hadn’t he mentioned some gambling problem to Libby, that day of the cookout? But … surely it was ridiculous to think there might be a connection between a director from Las Vegas and a local gambling problem. Wasn’t it?
She decided to change course. “Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask you something. Are there any interpreters left on staff who were working in the Norwegian area in the seventies?”
“Sure. Let me look at the staff list and get back to you.”
“I’d appreciate it.” Chloe took a sip of her water before moving on to the last item on her Byron list. “Do you have keys to the trailers?”
“The artifact trailers?” Byron looked startled. “Why would I?”
“In case you wanted something for one of the site buildings?”
He shook his head. But he suddenly seemed fascinated with his French fries.
“I wondered,” Chloe said, “because someone went in there without my permission last week. And you said something about Norwegian artifacts in the pink trailer that made me think you’d been in there yourself not too long ago.”
Byron flushed. “Well … yes,” he admitted. “I did go in there, the week before you started. I got Stan to let me in.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Reproductions. I need cookware, and garden tools, and—well, you’ve seen the requests, so you know. It occurred to me there might be something stashed away in there.”
Chloe frowned. “Why didn’t you just wait until I got here?”
“We’re desperate for repro stuff on site. I didn’t see any harm in spiriting away anything I could find before you were the wiser. I figured it could take weeks—months—for you to find time to deal with something like that.”
“Did you find anything? Take anything?”
“No. I just took a quick look, and I didn’t see anything that wasn’t accessioned.”
Was he telling the truth? Chloe didn’t know. But she had confirmed that both Nika and Byron had been in the trailers prior to her arrival. Either could have ripped the accession form page from the ledger.
“I know you need reproduction items,” Chloe said finally. “And I’ll gladly work with you on that. But you’re right about the demands on my time, especially since Ralph wants me to focus exclusively on designing the new storage facility.”
Byron leaned back in his chair and regarded her, his eyes sober. “You’ll pay for it. With Ralph, I mean. Taking him on in the staff meeting. Maybe you should … you know. Apologize.”
I’ll lay down in traffic first, Chloe thought. “What’s he going to do, fire me?”
“Well … yeah! New hires are on probation for six months. You’ve got no protection.