Arsenic And Old Books

EIGHTEEN

Enough with the questions, I admonished myself. This fruitless speculation wouldn’t achieve anything. I needed to focus on the task at hand: scanning the diary.

Once I had created a good digital copy, I could take the time to read the contents to discern whether anything in the volume had relevance to the current situation.

The overhead scanner, attached to its own computer, sat on a table against the wall near my desk. I carried the diary over and turned on the computer and the scanner. When they were ready, I positioned the book and opened it to the first page to scan.

As the scanner worked I could see the image on the computer screen. Based on the first five pages I scanned, I thought I would end up with an excellent digital copy as long as all the pages were as readable as these.

My arms tired quickly from the necessity of holding the diary volume in the correct position. I timed myself at roughly sixty seconds per page, and I decided I should probably take a short break every fifteen minutes. At this rate I could probably scan thirty to forty pages an hour. I hadn’t counted the number of pages in the diary that contained writing, but I estimated there were no more than a couple hundred.

Diesel paid little attention while I worked at the scanning station. He had heard the humming noise it made enough times that it held no further interest for him. He did stir when I took my breaks and went back to my desk to check e-mail. Around eleven thirty, when I sat in front of my computer, a large paw tapped me on the shoulder and a loud meow sounded in my ear.

I laughed. “Okay, I give. I’m hungry, too. Let’s go home for lunch.”

The cat slid to the floor and walked over to the doorway, where he waited for me to come attach his harness and leash. I was halfway there when I remembered the diary. I said I wouldn’t leave it in this office when I wasn’t here. I put my cotton gloves back on, fetched the volume, and took it to the storeroom next door. The more up-to-date lock on this door should keep the diary safe until I came back to the office.

That task accomplished, we headed home for lunch.

We found a welcome surprise in the kitchen. Laura sat at the table, busily chatting with Azalea. She broke off their conversation to jump up and greet me with a hug. Diesel received scratches on the head and along his spine, and he purred with happiness.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” I said. “To what do we owe the honor?”

“I have the afternoon free. No classes to teach, no appointments with students, so I thought I’d come by and visit. I was also hoping I could get Azalea to share some of her recipes with me. Frank is a wonderful cook, but I don’t think it’s fair for him to have to do all the cooking.” Laura grinned.

Azalea beamed fondly at my daughter. “Miss Laura, you know you’re welcome to any old thing you want to know about how I cook. You and me can surely come up with something to surprise Mr. Frank.”

“The first surprise will be that I actually made anything without burning it or undercooking it.” Laura’s laugh was infectious, and both Azalea and I joined in. Diesel warbled loudly, determined not to be left out of the fun.

“Mr. Charlie, you sit yourself on down there, and I’m going to have your lunch ready in a minute.” Azalea stared pointedly at me, and I sat. “Miss Laura, how about you? Can I tempt you into having some of my chicken and dumplings?”

Laura groaned. “Azalea, nobody ever made better chicken and dumplings than you, so how I can I turn them down?” She sighed. “I’ll just have to run a few extra miles this week, I guess.”

Diesel, having heard the word chicken, walked over to Azalea and sat down near her. He looked up at her with his most beguiling expression and gave her a couple of plaintive meows.

Laura and I grinned, and I waited to see how Azalea would respond.

Azalea put her hands on her hips and stared down at the cat. “You ought to be ashamed. You so fat already. You think I’m going to waste my good food on you.” She shook her head.

Diesel meowed weakly. He was trying to assure her that he would expire shortly unless he had chicken.

Azalea snorted. “You are the most pitiful cat that ever I did see. I reckon maybe I can let you have a little bit.” She turned back to the stove, and I would have sworn I saw her shoulders quiver. She liked to pretend that Diesel was nothing but a nuisance, but I knew she found him more entertaining than not these days.

Diesel appeared satisfied. He left Azalea’s side and transferred his adoring gaze to Laura. She petted him while we talked.

“So what’s new with you, Dad?” Laura smiled archly. “Any news on the Helen Louise front?”

I shot her a look, the one I’d given her every other minute during her teenage years. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Actually, I’ve been really busy with work. I guess you probably haven’t heard the news about Marie Steverton.”

Laura frowned. “That name is vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her right now. Who is she, and what did she do?”

“She is, or rather was, a professor in the history department. Women’s history.”

“Oh, her,” Laura said with a tinge of exasperation in her tone. “She’s the one Frank told me about. He said there was a woman in the history department who had a fit when the college players put on The Taming of the Shrew. She even went to the president to try to get it stopped.” She paused. “Hold on—you said was. What happened?”

“She was killed in a hit-and-run accident early this morning,” I said.

“How awful,” Laura said. “I heard she drove people nuts, but to think that she died that way. So sad.”

“The worst part is, it probably wasn’t an accident.”

“Another murder?” Laura’s eyebrows rose. “Dad, don’t tell me you’re involved in this.”

“Don’t start on that,” I said, perhaps a bit defensively. I was still sensitive from the ribbing Sean had given me. “If you’ll sit there and be quiet, I’ll tell you all about what’s been going on.”

Laura nodded. “I will.”

Before I could start my recital, Azalea served us both steaming bowls of chicken and dumplings. I was ravenous, and I remembered that I had eaten only about a third of my breakfast this morning. In between mouthfuls of the delicious food, I gave Laura the salient facts about my encounters with Marie.

By the time I finished, I realized I had put away two bowls of chicken and dumplings to Laura’s one. Azalea rewarded Diesel with a small plate of boiled chicken breast, enough to keep him happy for an hour or two before the starvation pangs set in again.

“Those diaries must be hot stuff,” Laura said. “Maybe Athena after the Civil War was a nineteenth-century Peyton Place.”

“There’s no telling what’s in there,” I said. “The diaries are certainly a hot property. I’m praying, though, nobody else gets hurt because of them.”

“Especially you.” Laura shot me a stern look. “You be careful while you’re working on them. I don’t want to get a call from somebody telling me you’re lying on a bed in the emergency room because you’ve been conked over the head.”

“I’ll do my best to avoid your having to get that call,” I said. I pushed back my chair. “I need to get back to work. I want to finish scanning the one volume I have by the end of the day.”

“You just be careful, Mr. Charlie,” Azalea said. “Miss Laura’s right. Ain’t going to do nobody no good if you end up in the hospital over some old books.”

Laura gave me a triumphant smile.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be careful.” Sometimes Azalea made me feel like I was ten years old. I knew she was fond of me in her own way, but I was over fifty, after all. “Come on, Diesel, let’s go.”

Diesel, still seated next to Laura’s chair, looked back and forth between my daughter and me. I could tell he was torn. He loved Laura and didn’t see her often enough these days.

Laura understood. She rubbed the cat’s head. “You’d better go with Dad, boy. I’d love to stay here the rest of the afternoon and play with you, but I have to leave in about an hour. You go on, and I’ll see you again soon.”

The cat chirped a couple of times before he got up and walked over to me. “Good boy,” I told him. I reattached his leash. Laura rose to give me a hug and a kiss, and I bade her and Azalea good-bye.

Ten minutes later I unlocked the office door and let the cat inside and unleashed him. Then I went to the storage room next door to retrieve the diary.

I woke up the computer and scanner and set to work. I really wanted to finish this by the end of my workday, around five o’clock, if not before.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when a voice from the doorway interrupted my concentration.

“Come in, Ms. Grimes,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Oh, really, that’s a switch.” She laughed as she approached me. Her eyes widened when she realized what I was scanning. “You got them back? That’s amazing.”

I closed the book and stood. “I did get the diaries back. I found them here when I came to work this morning.” I ushered her toward the chair in front of my desk. “They are now in the custody of the sheriff’s department, on their way to the state crime lab for examination.”

“That sucks,” she said, obviously disappointed. “How long will they keep them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It could take weeks.”

Ms. Grimes swore, and I shot her a look.

“Sorry,” she said, although she didn’t sound all that penitent. She jerked her head in the direction of the scanner. “So what’s that you’re working on over there? Some other project?”

“No, it’s a fifth volume of the diary that the mayor found last night. She brought it over this morning.”

“When can I have a look at it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “In light of everything that’s happened, I’ll have to discuss that with the mayor and the sheriff’s department.”

Ms. Grimes scowled at me. “You’re deliberately trying to keep me from looking at those diaries. Why are you making this so difficult?”

I heard Diesel shifting around on the windowsill behind me. He had picked up on the tension, and it made him uneasy. I turned to rub his head for a moment in reassurance. Then I faced the writer again and did my best to keep my rapidly escalating temper from erupting.

“Tell you what, Ms. Grimes. I’ll make a bargain with you. You stop lying to me, and maybe I’ll be a little more cooperative.”