“Really?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter. “How do you know?”
“I can make out a few of the words and they say things like ‘of sound body and mind’ and other familiar phrases,” I said. “I’m a genealogist. I’ve read tons of wills.”
“So then what you’re driving at is somebody burned this copy of her will, thinking they were destroying the only copy of it and nobody would realize that the old one wasn’t the new one,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Any idea who Norville Gross was?”
“Well, I’m limited as to what I can tell you at this point, but I can tell you that he didn’t have a record of any kind, based on his DMV record,” he said. “As far as I can tell, he was an average guy, who just happened to be left a nice sum of money by Clarissa.”
“Was he born here in West Virginia?”
“Yes, as far as I can tell. I believe it was something like 1942.”
“I suppose we’ll find out a lot more when the next of kin is notified,” I said, hoping to glean just a little more information. Like, who was his next of kin?
“His father is coming in to identify the body. I kid you not, that is the only living relative,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s a shame, because then most likely Norville was his father’s only living relative, too, and his father’s on his way to identify him. How far is he traveling?”
“Just from Morgantown,” he said. “He can make the trip in less than four hours,” he said. “Still, I know what you mean. He has to drive all the way down here not knowing if his son is alive or dead. Yeah, it’s a sad situation.”
Just then his phone rang. He picked it up and told whoever it was that he’d call them back in just a minute. Before he even put his phone back in the cradle, he went on talking to me. “We’re waiting on autopsy results from both bodies. In my humble opinion, though, he did not the from a panther attack.”
“What are you looking for in Clarissa’s body?”
“We’re going ahead and doing a toxicology and such,” he said. “She was worth quite a bit of money.”
“She left Torie the boardinghouse,” my grandmother said like some parrot that had been trained to say three or four sentences. This seemed to be one of her sentences.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Look, I know you’re pregnant and all, but I need for you to stick around a couple of days. At least until we get the autopsy results back.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “If you need me any more today, I’m going to be in Quentinton at the library, doing some research.”
“On what?” he asked.
“On the boardinghouse. I’d like to find out a little bit about the place that I’ve inherited,” I said. I stood up and put my hand out for him to shake. He shook it firmly and smiled.
“Why do you think Clarissa left you the boardinghouse?” he asked. It was a fair enough question, and I knew that there was no way that I could get out of being a suspect if Clarissa had indeed been murdered. Even so, it sort of unnerved me.
“I kept asking myself that question over and over,” I said. “Then my aunt told me last night that my great-grandmother actually owned the boardinghouse and left it to Clarissa. Clarissa died before she could tell me why she’d left it to me, but she did say that it was a ‘debt repaid.’ I think, in her mind, she was just returning it to the appropriate family.”
“Interesting,” he said.’
“I’m going to check it out today and make sure,” I said.
He handed me a business card from a square glass dish sitting on his desk. “Let me know what you find out,” he said.
“Sure,” I said and smiled. Wow, a sheriff who didn’t tell me to mind my own business. I kind of liked this guy.
Fifteen
I’ll just sit here and be quiet,” Gert said to me as we entered the library at Quentinton.
It was an old building made of red brick and a few white ones here and there to give it a speckled appearance. I’d say the building was probably about a hundred years old, tall with a white cupola. I got the impression that maybe it had been a courthouse or something else back at the turn of the century. The inside most likely had been redecorated sometime in the 1970s and hadn’t been touched since. All the furniture was made of brown vinyl, which would stick to your skin when you sat on it in shorts or dresses. A distinct smell of mildew was ever-present and wouldn’t go away no matter where in the library I went. I hate mildew nearly as much as I do mold.
Gert literally picked out a brown vinyl throne, sat upon it and never moved. I wasn’t sure if that was so I could actually get something done or if that was to instill pity—derived from guilt, of course—for her having to sit there on such a gorgeous day. I have trouble deciphering her motives sometimes.
I walked up to the front desk of the library after searching the shelves for half an hour. I realize that the Dewey decimal system works no matter what state or city you live in, but sometimes different libraries would have different holding areas for local-interest things. And since I struck out in a half hour for finding what I wanted, I thought I’d go and ask.
The counter was empty until a woman about my age literally popped up from the floor below. She had impossibly curly hair and small, happy green eyes. “Oh, hi,” she said. “I was tying my shoe.”
“That’s okay,” I said and laughed. “I need to know if you have a special holding area for your local-interest stuff. And your local newspapers. Do you have them on microfilm? Oh, and for what years?” .
“Yes, ma’am,” she drawled out. “Local interest is here on the wall, our genealogy department is in the special holdings room behind it. Our newspapers are in the microfilm section on that little balcony area that you see up there.”
My gaze followed to where she was pointing. There was a small balcony above the northeast corner of the library with about four microfilm machines.
“We do have one computer with Internet access, but you have to get on a waiting list,” she said and smiled. Her accent seemed to drawl on forever, yet at the same time, her sheer energy level made it seem like she was babbling. “We have the Charleston newspapers up until about 1950, the Quentinton Gazette from about 1870 to the present. We have some of the smaller papers, like for Ellensdale and Panther Run, but they’re not always complete. You know, we might have 240 out of 365 days one year, or we may have the whole year. Just depends.”
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“Is there something of particular interest to you? I’m guessing you’re not from here,” she said.
“Actually, yes. I was trying to find some information, historical information, on the Panther Run Boardinghouse,” I said.
“Oh?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “My great-grandmother used to own it.”
“How cool,” she said. “Was that. . . that’s not the Hart family, correct?”
“No,” I said. “Bridie Seaborne.”
She got the most peculiar look on her face. Her small eyes tried their darnedest to open wide and look shocked. “Seaborne?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “You know the family?”
“Elliott Seaborne works here in the library and I think he’s related to that family,” she said.
“Elliott Seaborne?” I asked, the excitement rising in my chest. “Elliott? Elliott works here?”
“You know him?”
“Yes, I know him. He’s my cousin. I haven’t seen him in quite a few years, in fact I haven’t even talked to him in close to six months. The last I heard he worked for the archives in D.C.,” I said.
“Ooh,” she sang. “Let me go get him.”
She was gone before I could say another word. I waved to Gert and motioned for her to come over to the counter. Her chair sat just a wee bit too low for her to get in and out of comfortably and it took her several tries before s
he finally managed to rise. “What’s the matter?” she asked as she got closer to me.
“Nothing,” I said. “Elliott works here.”
“Elliott?”
“Elliott Seaborne, your brother’s grandson,” I said. Which made him my second cousin, since his father, who was dead, was my first cousin once removed and my mother’s first cousin. I have this mental chart in my head on how to work all of this out. Some people make grocery lists, I make ancestor charts. There could be worse things.
Before I could explain further, Elliott Seaborne came around the corner out of the stacks, picking up his pace when he saw me. Elliott was about two years younger than me, so in his early thirties. He was fairly short for a man, stocky, with blondish hair and brown eyes hidden behind near Coke-bottle-thick glasses.
“What in heavens are you doing here, Torie O’Shea?” He grabbed me and hugged me, careful not to squeeze me too hard, lest he pop my belly. He then grabbed my grandmother and did the same thing, nearly toppling her over.
“I thought you were in D.C.,” I said.
“Just moved back home about two months ago. Mom’s sick,” he said. “Thought I should be closer. It was a sudden decision and I haven’t had time to write to you to let you know. My God, you are pregnant, aren’t you? You really should get e-mail, so I can e-mail you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Heard that before. I hope your mother feels better.”
“Thank you. So, why are you here and what can I help you find?” I explained briefly what we were doing here and about Clarissa Hart leaving me the boardinghouse and the fact that she was dead.
“Our great-grandmother actually owned that boardinghouse?” he asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I,” I said. He seemed a little put off by this news and, I suppose, by the fact that Clarissa had chosen me to leave it to, when Elliott had the exact same relationship to Bridie McClanahan Seaborne as I had. Why had Clarissa not left it to him? I’m sure he had to be asking himself that question. If he was, he shrugged it off quickly and showed me to the local-interest section.
I pulled out several books on coal mining and local mining history. Elliott had agreed to check them out for me, so I wouldn’t have to speed-read everything in the library and I could concentrate on the stuff I couldn’t check out, which were the newspapers.
As usual, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available in newspapers. And as usual, I was thoroughly discouraged because it can take me six hours to go through three days’ worth of newspapers. Three days out of a time span of about ten years. I needed to scan the papers from 1916 to 1926 when Bridie died. Gee, just three thousand six hundred and forty-seven days left to go through. I never trust that every mention of a specific subject is actually cataloged, which is why, if I have time, I like to go through the newspapers page by page. But I didn’t have that kind of time, so I consulted the card catalog.
I couldn’t even begin to figure out how many entries there were for the Panther Run Coal Company or the boardinghouse bearing the same name. I just started at the top and marked them off as I came to them.
What exactly was I looking for, anyway? What did I think I was going to find? I asked myself that question, not really thinking I could answer it, as I scrolled the machine down page after page.
I wasn’t sure if this is what I was looking for, either. But it looked very interesting:
PANTHER RUN COAL COMPANY SENDS IN THE BIG GUNS
November 21, 1916, Panther Run, West Virginia—In a decision some are calling cautious and others are calling confrontational, the Panther Run Coal Company has sent out its “secret weapon,” Aldrich Gainsborough, to calm the riotous miners in this central West Virginia mining town.
“The situation is explosive,” Gainsborough says. “Every effort to keep the miners happy and working is being made. The company wants nothing but a smooth, efficient mine and mining team.”
When asked if it was true that he was actually being sent to Panther Run to thwart the interest in a union, Gainsborough told reporters that although this was not his business, it was still no secret that Panther Run Coal Company did not want a union. He would not comment further.
It is not known how long Gainsborough will be staying, but he will be at the Panther Run Boardinghouse for this visit.
I knew very little about the coal mine wars, other than the fact that the miners, who dealt with horrible working conditions, desperately needed and wanted a union, and obviously the coal companies wanted the opposite. I knew that the coal companies would hire African or Italian workers for cheaper rates if the local white workers raised a stink about their pay. I also knew that, on occasion, the situation turned violent. There had been literal shoot-outs between the opposing parties, like something out of the Wild West. That was about all I knew.
My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it was well past lunch-time. My baby took that same moment to move, settling low in the front. The blood would be cut off to my legs in a matter of minutes if I didn’t get up and walk around.
After scanning a few more of the earmarked articles on the Panther Run Coal Company, I printed them out, rewound the microfilm, and put it in the return bucket. I picked up the stack of books Elliott had checked out for me and headed down to get Gert for lunch. On the way out, Elliott and I made plans for him to look up some more of the marked articles on the boardinghouse and the coal company. He was also going to come to the boardinghouse tonight and help me go through the stuff in the attic. Now that the body had been removed and the evidence gathered, I was hoping that I could actually get up there and see what Clarissa thought was so important Important enough to give Dexter Calloway specific instructions that I see what was up there.
Sixteen
My feet were swelling, so I decided to go back to the boarding-house and change into my tennis shoes, which I could leave open. My thongs were cutting into my feet and leaving marks on them. I also thought it would be cheaper if we just grabbed something to eat at the boardinghouse, rather than eat out.
Gert planted herself on the couch in front of the television, while I went upstairs to change my shoes. I opened the door to my room and found Craig Lewis, Maribelle’s far too perfectly polite son, rummaging through my suitcase.
What to do in a case like this? If I hadn’t been pregnant I probably would have marched up to him and demanded an explanation. The fact that I was pregnant made me hesitate, because it wasn’t just my well-being that I had to consider. There was somebody else who depended on me breathing and staying alive. And besides, two other people had died recently under mysterious circumstances.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Craig jumped, throwing a handful of my elephant-sized underwear into the air. He turned around and before I could say another word, one of my bras came down and landed on his head. If it weren’t for the fact that I was fuming angry and a wee bit scared, I would have laughed. He tried desperately to speak.
“I—I—I can explain,” he said, as he removed the maternity bra from his head and clutched it to his chest.
“Your suitcases are probably in your room,” I said. “This is my suitcase. My room.”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s just that. . . I. . . “
“I assure you that the ten-dollar nursing bra that you now have clutched ever so lovingly to your breast can be bought right here in West Virginia. It’s from Wal-Mart. You have Wal-Mart, I’m sure,” I said. “There’s no need to steal mine.”
He looked down at his hand and realized that he was indeed clutching my nursing bra for all it was worth. His pale face now turned a flushed red. “But I—”
“I won’t tell a soul what your real preferences are, Mr. Lewis. As long as you get out of my room and stay out,” I said. I’d made my way fully into the room now. He looked far too scared to actually inflict any harm on me, and what would he have done? Beat me with my own maternity bra? Wearing them was indeed torture, but I didn’t think a person could be tor
tured with one.
Slowly, he began backing out of the room, taking my bra with him. “I was, I was looking for—”
“If you want my opinion, Mr. Lewis, you’d be better off to just let me think that you like women’s underwear. Any other explanation you might come up with will most likely be far more damaging than you having a lingerie fetish,” I said.
I really did want to know what he was doing in my room. But was he going to tell me the truth? Whatever excuse or explanation he came up with at this moment was almost certainly going to be a lie. So why bother? I just wanted him out of my room.
“The door was unlocked,” he said.
Okay, I couldn’t really preach at him too much over entering a room that had an unlocked door, because. . . well, I’ve done that myself a time or two. But this was my room, dammit. “An unlocked door is the greatest temptation. But, still. Try and refrain. Or I’ll tell the sheriff, and your mother, and then I’ll tell that very young wife of yours.”
“I thought that. . .” he said, creeping closer and closer to the door until he finally reached it.
“Mr. Lewis,” I said. I held my hand out. “May I please have my bra?”
With that he literally leaped out of my room into the hall, where he disappeared nearly instantly. It was as if he just melted into the walls or something. Which was fine, except he melted into the walls with my bra.
This was definitely one of the more peculiar things that had happened to me since I’d arrived in West Virginia.
I didn’t check to see if anything was missing. I think I’d interrupted him in the act, and the only thing I saw him leave with was my bra. God, that really irked me.
I turned the lock on the knob and shut the door, making my way back down the stairs to the kitchen. About ten minutes later, I sat down to the table with a turkey sandwich, sliced tomatoes, cottage cheese, and a Dr. Pepper. I know, I know. I’m not supposed to be doing the caffeine thing, but a man just stole the only extra maternity bra that I had with me. I was traumatized. I needed Dr. Pepper and his soothing ways. It was medicinal. I think I’d convinced myself enough to actually be able to drink it without feeling too much guilt.
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