Arsenic And Old Books

THIRTY-SIX

I sounded none too cordial when I answered the phone. I could have screamed in frustration at the interruption.

“Catch you at a bad time?” Kanesha said coolly into my ear.

“Sort of,” I said. “Sorry if I sound grumpy, but I’m reading the pages that were missing, and I was just about to find out something important when you rang.”

“Sorry about that,” Kanesha said. “I haven’t had a chance to get to them yet. I did, however, read your e-mail. I wanted to alert you to the fact that I’m sending Turnbull to your office to pick up that library book. I am also trying to track down Kelly Grimes. I think it’s time I had another chat with her.”

“Did I sound like a rambling fool in the e-mail?” I asked a bit nervously. “I gave you more questions than facts, I think, but this is the screwiest case I’ve ever seen.”

“I was able to follow it,” Kanesha said. “It is a screwy case, but I’m beginning to see my way clear. As soon as you’ve finished reading those pages, call me.” She disconnected.

She was beginning to see her way clear, she’d said. I wanted to bang something on the desk. That meant she was pretty sure she knew who killed Marie Steverton. I knew I couldn’t really expect her to confide in me before she was ready to make an arrest, but still, it was annoying.

I shrugged that off and went back to the computer. I scrolled down until the beginning of the next entry, dated three days later, was at the top of the screen.

I have been far too heartsick, and too worried about the state of Father Long’s mind and general health, to sit and write. I have no one in whom I can confide, for we cannot allow anyone to know what has befallen us. Though my heart at first rejoiced to have my husband returned to me, and whole of body, if not of spirit, it soon thudded painfully in my breast when my husband confessed his actions.

My eyes went back to that phrase whole of body. According to Angeline Long, Major Andrew Long had been so grievously disfigured by his injuries he would allow no one to see him.

The explanation came in the next paragraph.

Andrew told us of the horrors of the battle that took place in early July near Gettysburg, which is in the Union state of Pennsylvania. The carnage, the bloodshed, the noise, the cries of the wounded and dying, he made them all seem much too real to us. I know Father Long was moved by this recital, and by Andrew’s sobs. The horror of it clearly overwhelmed him, and that I could understand, for what he described to us was a veritable Hell upon earth. Andrew had his own horse shot out from under him, but he was able to roll free and thus not be pinned beneath the dying beast. Andrew said he does not really remember what happened next. At some point he found himself away from the battlefield. How he came to be there he cannot, or will not, say, but he turned his back on his men and General Lee and walked away.

Poor Andrew, I thought. I could not imagine the horror of that battle. Simply reading descriptions of it made me sick to my stomach. Gettysburg was truly the stuff of nightmares. I was not surprised that Andrew had walked away from it, but of course I knew his family and his fellow soldiers would not see it that way. I understood Rachel’s reaction, but my sympathy was with Andrew.

I resumed reading although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know much more.

Andrew begged his father for forgiveness. “You cannot imagine the demons that live inside my head,” he said. “All I knew is that I must find my way home again, in hopes the demons would leave my dreams, my every waking thought.”

Father Long could not speak during Andrew’s confession. When Andrew fell to his knees before him, Father Long turned away from him. “No true son of mine would dishonor his name in such a cowardly fashion.” He walked from the room, and Andrew turned to me. I wanted to comfort him, but I did not know how. I too was stunned by his betrayal of his country and of his family, though my tender woman’s heart ached to see my beloved husband brought to such a state.

Old Mr. Long’s reaction to his son’s desertion didn’t surprise me but it certainly saddened me. Dereliction of duty was a serious thing, and I couldn’t approve of desertion in wartime. I did, however, have compassion for Andrew. I understood the stress that drove him to walk away from the hell of war.

I read on. Rachel’s entries after this one confided more of her distress over Andrew’s state of mind and his desertion from the Confederate Army. Mr. Long remained obdurate and refused even to speak to his son. Rachel came up with the idea to tell people that Andrew had been seriously wounded and had come home to convalesce. She also told them he did not want to be seen until such time as he felt he could face his friends and neighbors with composure.

Rachel wrote several times of the nightmares that terrorized her husband and kept her from sleeping through the night. Andrew’s mental state deteriorated, along with his physical condition. Finally, one night when Rachel was sleeping soundly, Andrew slipped out of their bedroom, found some rope, and hanged himself from the rails of the staircase. Mr. Long found him, and the shock caused the stroke that led to his own death only three days later. Rachel was devastated.

This double loss is almost beyond bearing, but I will trust my faith to see me through. I must remain strong for the sake of my son who is, I pray, still too young and innocent to understand the magnitude of his father’s actions and to feel the shame of them. I pray that Andrew is at peace with Our Lord, despite his taking of his own life, and that the demons that beset him are finally banished. Henceforth we shall put these tragic events behind us, never to be mentioned or recalled as long as I draw breath.

With that entry I reached the end of the torn-out pages and had to consult the book to complete the final sentence. I closed the computer file and turned away from the screen.

I stared at the diary on the desk in front of me. At the moment I did not have the mental energy to read further. Nor the emotional energy, I realized. Rachel’s recounting of the family’s shameful secret and its tragic consequences affected me deeply, even though the events occurred a century and a half ago.

Once my head cleared a bit from the pathos of what I had just read, I found one thought going round and round in my brain.

Lucinda Long obviously hadn’t read these diaries, or she would never have put them in my hands. The family wouldn’t want this made public. The fact that Major Andrew Long had deserted and come home only to commit suicide would constitute a huge embarrassment for a family that for generations had prided itself on its public service and attention to duty.

If either candidate lost the election based on the contents of Rachel’s diary, it would be Beck Long, not Jasper Singletary.

Why wouldn’t the mayor have read the diaries before she allowed someone outside the family to see them? The fact that she hadn’t done so baffled me. I couldn’t understand, then, why she went to the trouble of creating the forgery and making copies of Angeline Long’s memoir unavailable.

Maybe Mrs. Long read the memoir and assumed that the story Rachel told Angeline was the truth, that Andrew had died of his severe wounds. Not a particularly intelligent assumption, but given the pride in their ancestry exhibited by the Longs, the mayor probably never dreamed that the truth was so radically different.

She was a busy woman and didn’t have time to read through the whole diary. It would have been slow going for her, I imagined, to read Rachel’s handwriting straight out of the diaries. I was able to read it more easily because I could increase the size of it on the computer. Also I had more experience reading documents like the diaries and quickly adapted to the cramped nature of Rachel’s penmanship.

Could the answer be that simple?

Maybe.

My thoughts turned to Marie. Had she suspected that the diary held secrets that could embarrass the Long family? She had torn out the pages that revealed Andrew’s desertion. What had she intended to do with them?

The obvious answer was blackmail. She could have threatened to make them public, knowing she had the mayor over a dangerous barrel. The Longs were reputedly worth millions, and Marie could have named a high price.

There was something else she wanted badly, I realized. Tenure, and the respect that came with it.

Professor Howell Newkirk, a power in the history department, was a great friend of the Longs. If Lucinda asked him to support Marie’s bid for tenure and told him it was vital that he do so, he might have done it. Marie would then have had the status she had desperately sought all throughout her academic career.

I knew that would sound ridiculous to anyone outside the halls of academia. I thought, however, that Marie would have wanted both tenure at Athena as well as a nice sum of money from Lucinda Long.

Another memory surfaced. Marie told me, in our first conversation about the diaries, that the mayor would do what she wanted and make sure Marie had exclusive access. She implied that the mayor didn’t dare say no. Why? I wondered.

Perhaps because she already knew about the forgery. I had come up with that thought earlier, but now it seemed more likely to be the truth, or close to it.

Or, I thought, Marie could have taunted the mayor with the story of Andrew Long’s desertion.

I was going in circles. There were too many holes in my scenarios.

One thing was clear, however. Lucinda Long had the strongest motive for killing Marie Steverton.