The Unseen

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He picked her up before nine the next morning and they drove in his Prius through the downtown of brick factories converted to condos and bistros and malls, toward Raleigh, the state capital. She couldn’t help teasing him about the car. “How Bay Area is this, anyway?”

“The ozone is shot everywhere, doll face,” he lasered back. “Not just in the People’s Republic of Berkeley.”

“I think it’s sweet,” she said innocently.

“Ahh, she thinks I’m sweet,” he grinned. And just as suddenly he switched gears on her, metaphorically speaking. “So how did you know?”

She knew what he meant, but didn’t respond until he added, “About Folger? That it’s a house?”

She looked out the window beside her at the—well, at the trees, that ever-present wall of green, as she quickly calculated how to respond. After Uncle Morgan’s distressed reaction to her last round of questions, she didn’t want to bring him into this any more than she had to. She felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness toward him. Finally, she said aloud, “I’d rather not say, yet. I have a source, but I’d like to find it this way, if we can.”

Brendan looked at her sideways, one eye still on the road, and finally nodded. “Okay, partner,” he said dryly, giving her exactly the stab of guilt she knew he’d been trying for, but she pretended not to register it.

I promised, she thought to herself. We can spend one day looking without going to Uncle Morgan.

They’d already looked up and printed out the tax records for all Folgers in every county in North Carolina. It was the magic of the Internet: Four hours on the computer last night had yielded 492 property owners named Folger in North Carolina. Brendan and Laurel had eliminated everything built after 1965 and still had 241 properties. They had the addresses for every one.

But Laurel had a feeling the house wasn’t that far from where they were. It was just the way Uncle Morgan had said it, as if he were talking about a neighborhood place, a house he was familiar with. Laurel thought they might get lucky and find an obliging county employee who’d be able to help them narrow the search.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Brendan said from the driver’s side.

She regarded him obliquely. “I hope you’re feeling charming, today,” she said.

“You want charm, lady? I’ll give you charm.”

The courthouse in downtown Raleigh was a square block of marble. Laurel was shocked by the age and alienness of it—a classicist mausoleum of a building on the inevitable town square, canopied by the inevitable centuries-old oaks. And the inevitable Civil War Memorial to boot, some scarily realistic soldiers brandishing guns.

As they climbed the wide steps to the copper-framed doors, Brendan muttered beside her, “We aren’t in California anymore, Toto,” and she shot him an understanding look.

The lobby was all marble. The corridor was all marble. The Office of Records was all marble.

The woman behind the marble counter had on an electric blue dress stretched across a monumental bosom and wore half-glasses perched on a broad, freckled nose. Her hair was straightened and sprayed into an imposing helmet, and the nameplate on that bosom read EUNETTA, and Eunetta looked nohow interested in helping a couple of white professors stick their noses further into someone else’s business than they belonged in the first place.

She listened with a faint air of disbelief and disapproval while Brendan explained that they were looking for any houses owned by anyone named Folger in the year 1965.

“In Wake County?” Eunetta asked warily.

“In any county. Just in North Carolina.”

“Oh, just in North Carolina. Child, there are one hundred counties in North Carolina,” she said with relish.

“That many? That’s a lot.” Brendan flashed that grin at her, undaunted. “Sounds like we’re going to need some professional help here, then.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she remarked in that patented Southern prayer-meeting grumble that Laurel had come to find so charming—when it was not directed at her.

“I don’t suppose there are back tax records that you can look up online,” Brendan said, a tad wistfully.

Eunetta harrumphed. “You are right about that. There surely are not.”

“And there’s no central depository for tax records for the state of North Carolina.” Brendan looked increasingly crestfallen.

“No, sir. None.” Laurel suspected Eunetta was beginning to enjoy herself.

“So if we were looking for a house owned by a Folger somewhere in North Carolina in 1965, we would basically be shit out of luck, records-wise.”

“That’s all you know to be looking for?” Eunetta shook her head. “You best get ready to do some driving, son.”

Brendan glanced at Laurel. “Well, it’s a big house, we know that. There was an attached servants’ quarters.”

“And there was trouble in the house,” Laurel said. “A police report was filed of a—strange—incident.”

“Police got called out?” Eunetta looked at her appraisingly. “You don’t need to go driving around for that. Police reports are public record. You got a date?”

Laurel was momentarily flustered until she realized Eunetta meant the date of the police report.

“Yes,” Brendan practically leapt forward. “March 13, 1965.”

Eunetta shrugged. “So, you call around to the county police departments.”

“Except that we don’t know the town or the county,” Brendan said, frustrated.

Eunetta looked them over. “You have no clue where to start looking in the whole state?” Incredulity dripped from her voice.

Brendan was about to speak and Laurel said, “We think it’s fairly close to Durham.”

Brendan turned to her. Eunetta’s eyes narrowed. “How close?”

“An hour’s drive or less,” Laurel heard herself saying, and had no idea what made her say it. Brendan shot a questioning look at her, which she ignored.

Eunetta considered. “The family was named Folger?”

“We think so, yes,” Laurel said. She had a sudden, uncanny feeling Eunetta was about to be worth her weight in gold.

“And it was a rich family, a big house?”

Brendan and Laurel exchanged a glance. “We think so, yes. Tell me what’s going through that mind of yours, Eunetta, my love.”

Eunetta looked down her nose at them, shaking her head. “Y’all aren’t from the South, are you?”

“What gave us away?” Brendan grinned.

Eunetta smiled and left that unanswered. She leaned back on her stool. “Shug, these small towns, they keep clip files on every prominent family. Richer the family is, the more files they’ll have. You get yourself a map and work out from here. Call around to the libraries and ask for their clip files on the Folger family, see if you don’t get you a fish.”

Brendan leaned over the counter to kiss her and she held up a hand, stopping him. “None of that, now.”