Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [81]
Chloe dutifully marked the date on her own planner. July 18th seemed impossibly far away.
“Any questions?” Leila asked. “I know you got dropped into deep water. But the historic sites division is staggeringly understaffed. You learn to tread water pretty fast.”
Or sink, Chloe thought. “I do have a question,” she said. “Who do I work for?”
Leila looked startled. “Excuse me?”
“Who is the primary person I answer to?” Chloe said. “You, or my site director? Here’s the thing.” She summarized her difference of opinion with Ralph Petty about the collections storage facility plan.
Leila toyed with a button hook while she listened. “Well, that’s tricky. I am responsible for overseeing collections issues at all of the historic sites, though. And I agree that a general assessment of what you’ve got is a logical first step. I’ll talk with the division administrator and let him know that we have a possible scenario.” Possible scenario was evidently historic sites division code for “conflict between site curator and site director.”
Chloe had assumed that her orientation would consume much of the day, but Leila indicated she had a ten o’clock meeting with a paper conservator. “You can call me any time,” she said, as Chloe gathered her things. “And I’ll see you on the eighteenth.”
“Right!” Chloe said brightly, and left. She didn’t mind having most of the day ahead of her. She had projects of her own in mind.
First stop: the microforms room. Margueritte Donovan, Old World’s curator of research, had refused delivery of the wallpaper paste problem, explaining kindly that such issues did indeed fall into Chloe’s domain. She had also explained that the freelance curator who had researched and furnished the Tobler House had left a furnishings plan with specific information about each artifact acquired, but little contextual material to help the interpreters explain the building to visitors. “Next time you’re in Madison, try going through the Green County newspaper,” Margueritte told Chloe finally. “You can learn more about the community. And sometimes you get lucky and find some descriptive detail that can make all the difference in understanding how a building was furnished and used.”
“I’m pretty swamped,” Chloe’d said, trying to look needy.
“Me too,” Margueritte had said firmly. “I’m up to my eyebrows looking for a Polish building to bring to the site. That’s Ralph’s priority.”
Chloe knew all about Ralph’s priorities. She also sympathized with the interpreters’ needs. So after leaving Leila’s office that morning, Chloe made her way to a cramped room tucked behind the main library. She found the proper rolls of microfilm and, miraculously, an empty reader. Huddled in the dark among genealogists and grad students, she rolled through the pages of old newsprint as quickly as she dared, squinting, skimming, hitting “print” whenever anything seemed relevant to the Tobler House. Two hours later she paid for her file of smeary photocopies, and left.
The society building was surrounded by the UW campus. Chloe bought lunch from an Asian man operating a cart on the library mall, and munched a vegetarian spring roll while enjoying the sun. Students in shorts and flip-flops sauntered past. Young men played Frisbee with their dogs. Young women sunned themselves on the grass in front of the historical society building. Across the street, beyond the student union, Lake Mendota sparkled invitingly. Chloe considered squandering more time with an ice cream cone, eaten on the terrace overlooking the lake. Then she remembered her main goal in coming to the society today, and the events behind it. She headed back into scholarly gloom.
The iconographic collections—photographs—were housed in another small windowless room. “Be sure you sign in,” a student worker said impatiently, indicating a clipboard by the door. She was pencil thin and had a snake tattooed in a coil around one arm. How long did it take