Jo’s hazel-brown eyes brightened. “You did find where Albert moved to. Oh, well done.”
I laughed. “It took me forever, but yes. The 1860 census had him listed as a tobacco farmer in Greenville. But it was the 1870 census that made things interesting.”
I brought up a screen shot I’d taken on my iPad of the exact lines within the 1870 North Carolina census. I handed my device to Serena. “It’s a little hard to read, but what do you see listed for Albert Tanner?”
She used her fingers to enlarge the screen shot at various places, with Josephine looking over her shoulder.
“He’s listed as the head of the household … and my, my, as a gentleman now … he was forty-four years old … his wife was named Mary-Eliza … she was thirty … and they had three kids.”
“Daughters,” Jo read. “The younger two were twins, by their ages, but their names aren’t listed.”
I explained that very young children often didn’t have their names registered, usually due to the high infant mortality rates, but sometimes due merely to the whims of the census taker himself.
“The eldest is listed, though,” Serena said. “She was four and her name was Elizabeth.”
I smiled. “What’s Elizabeth’s middle name?”
Serena squinted again, then her eyes flew open. “Ohmygod. It’s Ayers. Elizabeth Ayers Tanner.”
“Giving a child its mother’s maiden name is still a strong tradition today, so it was a high probability that Mary-Eliza Tanner’s maiden name was Ayers,” I said, “but the kicker was this.” I pointed to another column that read Place of Birth, Naming the State, Territory, or Country, and showed them what it read for Mary-Eliza Tanner.
“She was born in San Antonio,” Josephine read with a grin.
“Yep, and since I’ve never found any kind of marriage license, bond, or contract for Albert and Mary-Eliza, this is what gave me the proof that she was the younger daughter of Cantwell Ayers.”
“Brilliant! High-five to you,” Josephine said and we slapped palms.
“I did more research into Mary-Eliza after that,” I told them. “She and her sister were both left very well off after Cantwell died, with her sister in Tennessee getting money and Mary-Eliza getting both money and control of all the Ayers lands in Texas. I think it’s likely Albert Tanner kept in touch with Mary-Eliza and, sometime after Cantwell passed in 1860, the two started a long-distance courtship. She then moved to North Carolina in 1865.”
“Do you think Albert actually loved Mary-Eliza?” Jo asked.
“Or was he just using her for her money?” Serena added.
“Sadly,” I said, “I think Serena is right.”
Both my girlfriends loved anything scandalous and dramatic, but they were also romantic softies. They put their hands to their hearts almost simultaneously.
“Oh, how terribly sad,” Jo said. “Why do you think that?”
“Because Mary-Eliza left San Antonio a very wealthy woman, but she died very poor, and it was all due to Albert. She’d sold every bit of the land she inherited to Caleb Applewhite in 1865, just before moving to North Carolina to marry Albert—who turned out to have a big ol’ gambling addiction. I found time after time where he was listed in the newspaper as having been jailed for gambling debts. Within ten years, Albert had died and Mary-Eliza and her daughters were living in incredibly reduced circumstances.”
“How could you tell?” Serena asked.
“I could have dug into the tax rolls and all sorts of stuff, but I didn’t have to. The 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses were unique because citizens were asked to list both their estate and personal property values. They were just estimates, but you can still tell a lot from them. In the 1870 census, Albert listed his occupation as a ‘gentleman,’ and the value of Mary-Eliza’s and Albert’s estate was over forty thousand dollars, which was truly significant money back then.” I tapped on my screen until I found another screenshot. “This is what is listed for Mary-Eliza just ten years later in 1880.”
I’d highlighted the line and Serena read, “She’s listed as a widow, with all three girls now in their early teens.” Then she and Josephine both gasped.
“Luce, her property value is listed at two thousand dollars.”
“Yep,” I said, “and in the 1890 census, just five years before she died, she’s listed as a pauper. I found her three daughters and they didn’t fare much better, either.”
“Do you know anything about their descendants today?” Serena asked. Looking the tiniest bit abashed to have gotten so into Mary-Eliza’s real-life saga, she said, “I don’t know, but I’m hoping somebody in subsequent generations found success again.”
“I’m curious, too,” I said, “and I plan to look them up this afternoon to see what I can find out.” Then I got back to the point.
“I don’t know why, but my gut has been telling me that somehow Albert Tanner is connected to the motive for killing Seth Halloran, and now that I know Albert married Cantwell’s daughter, my money is on Cantwell Ayers as C.A. He simply makes more sense because the two men are more closely tied together.”
Serena gave me a curious look. “Does he make more sense because of the evidence or because you like the senator and you don’t want C.A. to be the senator’s ancestor?”
Eventually, I sighed. “Both, if I have to be honest.”
“Well, then, what’s next?” Jo said.
“I’m going to the Archives in a bit to see if I can dredge up any more information. If I can find more links between one of the two C.A. candidates, Albert Tanner, and Seth Halloran, it means there’s more chance of there being a motive for Seth’s murder somewhere in their relationship. And if I can find that motive from the past, I’m hoping it might give me a clue as to why Jeb Inscore’s letter is so important in the present to my attacker.”
I looked to find my friends frowning.
“Is that safe?” Jo said. “Going alone to the Archives, I mean, when that evil man is out there attacking people? Does Agent Turner know your plans?”
I leaned back in my chair, feeling pleased with myself. “Yep, I got the okay from Ben—”
“Oh, he’s Ben now,” Serena cooed. “That’s a good sign.”
Now it was my turn for the eye roll.
“As I was saying … Ben and Detective Dupart are on duty today for Senator Applewhite’s speech, but they’ve cleared my going to the Archives. I sent them an email earlier this morning, telling them I had work to do there.”
I wasn’t entirely specific about what work I needed to perform at the Archives, but tomato, to-mah-toh, right?
“I don’t know, Luce…,” Serena said, but then started with the rest of us when we heard knocking at our office door. Seeing a large figure behind the mottled glass, I unlocked the door and gestured like a game-show hostess displaying a prize.
“Don’t worry. They approved it because he will be taking me to the Archives and seeing me safely into the building. I plan to have the librarians I know keep an eye on me while I’m there and he’ll bring me back here again to work until it’s time to go to the senator’s speech. He’s also stationing a couple of his ah, associates, at the Archives to watch out for my attacker, so I’ll feel very safe.”
With a twitch of his handlebar mustache, Flaco walked in wearing his wrinkled khaki shorts with a hot pink Hawaiian shirt covered in yellow pineapples.
“Hola, hermosas,” he said, holding out a bag. “Since it is still breakfast hours, I brought your favorites.”
The Brit and the blonde happily shouldered past me, giving me up for a bag of breakfast tacos.
TWENTY-FIVE
With so many people watching out for me at the Archives, I was able to concentrate on my research for the rest of the morning without worry—or, at least I could concentrate in between fielding texts every twenty minutes from Serena, Jo, Flaco, and Ben to make sure I was safe and sound. Even Jackson sent me texts about my safety, but his were a mere coincidence.
NPH and I go
ing to your condo. Installing broom sticks in windows. Also deadbolt on your French door.
The next text from him was twenty minutes later. It came in with a photo of NPH sprawled out on his back on my balcony next to Winnie’s gardenia. Jackson wrote:
Taking both these guys with me. One gets planted. Other gets tuna.
I giggled, texting him back my thanks. Another ten minutes later, I saw my phone buzz with a call from Jackson, but I didn’t answer it. I was searching newspaper articles again and didn’t want to stop. Plus, I knew Jackson would do one of two things: hang up and send me a text if it wasn’t important, or call me back again if, for instance, he found a leak or something broken and needed to discuss repairs with me.
Sure enough, he hung up without leaving a message and another text came in.
Call me when you can.
Making a mental note to ring him when I left the Archives, I looked back at the computer screen and, all at once, I’d forgotten everything else but the article in front of me, reading it carefully again before giving myself a satisfied high-five.
Smiling, I printed out the article, and also had the system email it to me. I then got out my iPad and tapped on my email to check that the article came through. It did and I downloaded it, adding it to my file on the Hallorans.
Taking out my phone, I texted Flaco to come get me, and got an instant reply of a thumbs-up emoji. Packing my things into my tote, I nearly leaped out of my skin when the chair next to me moved.
I stood up so fast I almost fell backward, but was caught by a cool hand. Soon, I was smiling with relief. One of the Archives librarians had come downstairs to check that I was still okay. I thanked her and she handed me a small, rolled-up poster, saying in a quiet voice, “We’re having a lecture series next month on the events of the Texas Revolution. Would you have an events board in your building where you could hang this?”
She unrolled the poster to reveal a simple design announcing the lecture series. Underneath was a rendering of the flag known to Texans everywhere. On a white background, a single star hung above the outline of a small cannon, representing the only heavy artillery the soldiers in Gonzales, Texas, had to protect themselves against the better-armed Mexican army during the first conflict of the Texas Revolution. Below the cannon were the words the soldiers used as a show of supreme defiance in the face of incredible odds: COME AND TAKE IT. And at the bottom of the poster, in small letters, was IN MEMORY OF DR. WINNIE DELL.
“This is wonderful,” I said with a watery smile. “I’ll be happy to hang it up in my office building, and I’ll definitely be coming to the series.” I rolled the poster back up and tucked it into my tote bag. “I might even have a new history-buff friend I could bring with me.” She looked pleased and we walked upstairs. By the time I got to the ornate front doors of the building, Flaco was standing there, just like he promised. When we got into his Chevy Tahoe, he handed me a bag containing a box and a small takeout bowl with plastic top.
“Almuerzo, Lucia,” he said, and my stomach rumbled in happiness as it was indeed lunchtime. I opened the bowl to find fresh chunks of mango, watermelon, and cantaloupe, all dusted with his own special recipe of the Mexican classic seasoning of ground chile peppers, salt, and lime.
Pulling out a plastic fork from the bag, I dug in with relish, telling him in Spanish that he spoiled me rotten. His eyes crinkled behind his aviators as he drove me back to the office, where he checked every nook and cranny before heading back to the restaurant. While lunch was being taken care of by Ana and Carmela, he had to prep for the evening rush.
He pointed to the threshold of my office door. “I pick you up here in one hour, Lucia. Now, lock your door.”
“Have you been hanging out with Agent Turner?” I asked, eyeing him.
His mustache twitched, which actually made me wonder if he and Ben were indeed buddy-buddy now, but I smiled and closed the door, locking it firmly.
Opening the to-go box, I was thrilled to find two chalupas—fried, flat corn tortillas topped with refried beans, shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes, and a fluffy mound of finely shredded iceberg lettuce. Chalupas often had other items on them like shredded chicken, a seasoned ground-beef mixture called picadillo, or guacamole, but Flaco knew my favorite was the basic version. I inhaled the first one while signing onto my computer before I realized that I hadn’t gotten myself a drink.
Glancing out my window onto the balcony, I saw another nice surprise. Sometime this morning, one of my officemates had put a big, two-gallon mason jar filled with water and several tea bags out in the sun to slowly brew. It looked the perfect shade of amber already, so I went outside, hefted it up, and walked the heavy glass jar inside. Discarding the tea bags, I dropped some ice cubes into a glass, poured the tea over the ice, and took a long, satisfying drink. Serena and Josephine would no doubt mix sugar syrup in to make sweet tea, but I drank mine straight up.
“Darn it, that’s good stuff,” I said. Topping off my glass, I left the jar on the counter and walked back to my computer.
“Now it’s time to prove my theory and solve a mystery,” I said aloud to no one.
“That sounds fun, Lucy. How ’bout I join you?”
My drink dropped to the floor, crashing at my feet in a spray of ice, tea, and shards of glass. Fear crawling up my spine, I whipped around, looking Winnie’s killer directly in the eyes for the first time, and found them a shockingly lovely shade of sun tea. In his hand he held a black canvas bag.
“How … how’d you get in here?” I asked in a scratchy whisper that came from my throat going dry, even as tea was dripping into the thin, low-cut socks I wore with my booties.
He set his bag on my chair and peered at me like I was the crazy one, jerking his thumb toward our balcony door as if the answer were obvious. “You didn’t lock it when you came back inside.”
Flummoxed, I repeated, “But how?”
He made a tsk noise with his tongue. “Um, the fire escape? You know, the set of stairs at the back of your building a person can literally walk up?” He lifted one knee after the other in exaggerated fashion, mimicking walking upstairs.
“But it’s locked on the inside,” I protested weakly. Only by a latch, yes, but the entire ground-floor door of the escape was essentially a small cage made out of that wrought-iron mesh you saw on outdoor patio tables everywhere. Even a baby would have a hard time getting its little fingers through those slits.
He smiled, dimples and all, and from his back pocket brought out something thin and black, with a silver hinge on one side. His thumb pressed a button and the wickedest stiletto I’d ever seen flew up from the handle and locked into place. The long, thin blade not only graduated down to a malevolently sharp point, but the last three inches slightly undulated, making it look like a shiny silver viper.
“And the latch was so easy to flip with this baby,” he grinned, looking lovingly at the knife. “That’s what it’s made for, you know. Thin enough to fit in between someone’s ribs and do a lot of damage to all the soft bits inside.”
I swallowed, hard, but found my voice when he folded the blade back into its handle.
“What do you want?”
He sighed as if I were being naïve. “I’ve already explained that to you, Lucy.”
He was in jeans, boots, and a gray long-sleeved T-shirt that hugged his muscles. I recognized the outfit and realized with a swallow of bile I’d seen him even before he attacked me at Serena’s party. He’d been in our parking lot on the day we went shopping for my Halloween costume. Inwardly, I shivered at the thought he’d been staking out our building that day, not just innocently using our parking lot as a cut-through.
His overall look was different from the last time I’d seen him, though. He’d shaved his goatee, serving to further define his sharp jawline. His light brown hair had been newly shorn into a buzz cut as well. The entire effect shaved another five years from his face, making him look the epitome of a cute frat boy. Up close, he also reminded me of a
younger version of someone, but exactly who wasn’t coming to me in the current circumstances.
“I haven’t found the letter yet,” I told him. “But since you’re not a Halloran or an Inscore descendant, how could a letter from 1849 possibly offer proof of anything that’s relevant to your family?”
That only earned me a soft chuckle that had his dimples coming out again. It was super creepy.
Suddenly, he gestured toward the front door and said in a genial tone. “Let’s go for a drive.”
“What? Where?”
“To your condo. You’re going to get me that letter. Get your keys.”
I stayed where I was until he grabbed my upper arm and forced me toward my desk.
“I’ve told you,” I managed to say, “I don’t have it and I don’t know where it is.”
Winnie’s killer smiled down on me, his angular chin dipping into a point that seemed almost as sharp as his stiletto. What was it about his face that was so familiar?
“Oh, you do,” he replied. “You just don’t realize it. I’d go there and get it myself, of course, but since you’ve put your friends on alert for me and the police are nearby for the senator’s little speech, you’ve forced me to bring you along for unfettered access.”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of it, which earned me another grin.
On my desk, my phone buzzed with a text. Automatically, I looked down and read the message. He did too, then clicked my phone off and slipped it into my desk drawer.
The text had been from Jackson. It said he was heading out for some errands, but he hoped I would call him soon.
“You look pale, sugar pie.” My assailant picked up my tote bag as if he were a true Southern gentleman. From my tote, he plucked the rolled-up poster and my iPad. “It’s like someone cut the lights on that pretty face of yours. Come on now, what’s wrong?”
Murder Once Removed Page 24
