Whilst here in Europe, I have converted my paper currency, soon valueless, I fear, into something more concrete. Having been offered the purchase of a fabulous emerald necklace purported—without proof—to have belonged to the luckless Marie Antoinette, I acquired it. If we are left with nothing else at the end of this interminable war, its sale will provide us with the means to begin again. And if we retain our fortunes, I can think of nothing so lovely as the gleam of these green jewels around your slender white throat.
Had Wally wanted her to know about this necklace? She was sorely tempted to believe it was the source of the emerald that she had found. A necklace of emeralds fit for a queen would be valuable enough to provoke murder. The possible linkage to Marie Antoinette could only serve to enhance its market value. Was Douglass killed by someone who wanted it? Did the killer know that it lay buried here in the islands off the Florida Panhandle?
Still, no one could have known that Faye had found the necklace. Well, part of it. Was its fate buried in the text of this crumbling book in her hands? It might well be, but closing time had come, and dragon-faced Ms. Slater was standing in front of Faye with hands outstretched, reminding her that rare books didn’t circulate.
***
It wasn’t so far from Tallahassee to Liz’s Marina, where Faye kept her car or a boat, depending on whether she was on land or sea. And it wasn’t so far from the marina to Joyeuse Island. If it weren’t for the problem of changing from land transportation to water transportation, she and Joe could have been home even quicker. Joyeuse Island was snugged close up against the mainland, but there was no place in the surrounding swamp to park a car or leave a boat. Liz’s place was the best option Faye had.
Liz could have charged any amount for parking or docking, and Faye would have had to pay it. Fortunately, Liz was a friend, so she let Faye take advantage of her facilities for free—just as Wally had, back when his empire had included the bar and the grill and the tiny grocery store and the marina. Faye would have squinched her eyes shut to block out the memory of Wally lying dead in the morgue, but she was piloting a boat and needed to see.
She’d made a cell phone call to the sheriff to tell him what she’d learned at the library, but he wasn’t home. It was just as well. Magda was the one who would want to hear every word of what she’d learned about Jedediah Bachelder.
Magda had responded precisely as expected. She’d crowed over Faye’s victory in finding Bachelder’s letters, then she’d shifted into research mode.
“Let me just do a web search for ‘Jedediah Bachelder’ right quick and see what turns up…damn. One measly hit. A web page on a man called Duncan Kenner mentions him in passing. I have no idea why, but I’ll check it out. That’s all I’ve got.” The silence on the other end of the line had been thick with Magda’s frustration. “Well. I guess I’ll have to do some more scholarly research. Check some professional databases. Comb through my personal library. Call some reference librarians. Stuff like that. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Faye had told her not to waste her time with the university’s rare book collection, since Ms. Slater had been quite clear that she had no other information on Bachelder.
Magda’s response had been characteristic. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat. And there are plenty of librarians in this world.”
It was full dark when she and Joe got home. By the time they rustled up something to eat, it was well-past time for bed. He’d disappeared quickly into his bedroom, and neither light nor sound leaked under the door.
Joe seemed to waste neither motion nor thought. He could crouch, relaxed, for hours, waiting for a clear shot at a deer. He could stand utterly motionless when motion wasn’t needed, yet launch himself instantaneously into a full run when it was. She imagined that he had the same relationship with sleep. When he needed to be alert, he was. When he needed to sleep, he did, without having to quiet a humming, singing, nagging brain.
Faye, on the other hand, had the kind of brain that keeps its owner awake at night. It worried over money. It agonized constantly over the evidence surrounding Douglass’ and Wally’s deaths, utterly convinced that those mysteries could be solved by sheer intellect and doggedness. It flitted around the subject of Ross and his invitation for her to come to Atlanta. Why did he want her to come? For fun? For love? Forever?
Her brain wondered if she’d ever finish school. It worried that she would never have children. These days, it dwelled on Douglass and Wally, and on Emma’s pain, and on her own pain. If she didn’t stop her brain in its tracks, she might never sleep again. Perhaps a little work was what she needed.
Wide awake, she opened her laptop and searched for the file she’d uploaded from Joe’s digital recorder. Bachelder’s written letters weren’t accessible to her outside the rare books library, but this recording gave her a few of those letters to study until she returned to the rare book room.
Faye was a visual learner, so she had an almost perfect retention of anything she read, but she didn’t do so well at remembering things she’d heard. It couldn’t be helped. She hadn’t thought to put the voice recognition software on this computer, and she wasn’t about to wake up Joe.
Faye curled up in bed and listened to the words of a man a hundred years dead. At first, she thought that Joe’s Oklahoma accent clashed with the formal language of a wealthy southern gentleman, but then she rethought that impression. Who knew what wealthy southern gentlemen had sounded like at that time? Joe’s twang might be perfectly appropriate.
Joe’s reading was occasionally marred by a stumble over a tricky word, but these mistakes only served to remind her of how far he’d come. Joe had worked hard for every bit of schooling he’d ever gotten. She was glad he was getting the accommodations that could boost him past his learning disabilities. However far he wanted to go in school, even if those plans included a Ph.D., Joe could count on Faye’s help.
***
January 7, 1863
My dearest Viola,
This will be a very brief message, when I consider how much I have to tell you and how much it means to our future. In the shortest and bluntest of terms—I am being sent abroad. I am to be part of a delegation charged with enlisting England to join our side in this war. No doubt, you are as surprised to hear this news as I was. I am no ambassador, and I don’t possess a politician’s gift for crafting words that sway opinions. I am merely a lawyer whose career has been spent in service of the citizens of a small and unimportant town.
Since I came into my father’s properties and amassed properties of my own, even the law has slipped from my daily life. One may graft fancy words onto plain occupations, but words do not change truth. I am a farmer. My farms are large and rich, but a farmer is what I am.
I will speak plainly now, for I will not be able to do so again until I return home to you. Our domestic mail seems still to be secure enough, but the danger of my letters being intercepted on the high seas is too great, so I must tell you now of the way that political realities have impinged on our personal lives.
I feel certain that I was carefully chosen for this duty because of our joint decision to free our slaves.
The English are said to hope that our cause prevails, because the Federals’ tariffs on our cotton is a great burden on their mills. Alas, they are hesitant to help us, because they do not wish to be seen as in support of slavery. My inclusion in the delegation is a not subtle reminder that everyone in our fair newborn country does not own slaves. I feel sure that I will be told to remain silent during negotiations, so as not to offend by my lack of diplomacy.
At the first opportunity, someone will point out that I employ only free people. After that, my presence will speak for itself.
At the second opportunity, I predict that someone will make mention of the fact that General Lee himself has freed his slaves. After that, no more will be said, because no one else in the delegation can claim the same status. Nor do they want to.
I love you, Viola, and I will come home to you.
Your adoring husband,
Jedediah
***
In his basement bedroom, Joe lay staring at the ceiling. He worried about Faye most of the time, but the worries spoke louder in his ear these days.
Was she safe? Was she happy? If she wasn’t safe or if she wasn’t happy, was there anything he could do about it?
He knew she wasn’t sleeping, though an entire floor of the vast old mansion separated them. He knew this because he knew Faye, and he had recognized the signs that she had an obsessive fit coming on. Her eyes were bright. Her voice was tense. She had a knotty problem in her sights—solving the murders of Douglass and Wally—and nothing so unnecessary as sleep would interfere with her efforts to unravel it.
He didn’t know how to help her in that quest, but he did know how to lie still and think calming thoughts. He’d always believed that an undisturbed mind sees straight to the heart of a problem. For the time being, the best thing he could do for Faye was to help her comb the tangles out of her mind. He meditated on the problem and, when he thought Faye was finally asleep, he slept, too.
Chapter Nine
“So you went to Tallahassee yesterday? You took Joe with you?”
Faye took exception to the implication that she was dim-witted or a liar. “I told you I would, and I did. I need to go back and finish yesterday’s research and I’m going the first chance I get. I’ll take Joe then, too. I’m not planning to take a bodyguard everywhere I go for the rest of my life, but I’ll keep him around for the time being, if you think it’s important. Do you really think I’m in so much danger?”
Sheriff Mike glanced around his office as if he’d rather do just about anything than argue with Faye. Such an argument would be a losing proposition, and Faye knew he lost pretty much all of the arguments at his house. He shifted in his desk chair and sighed. “I haven’t the slightest idea. You could’ve been hurt if you’d still been with Douglass when the burglars arrived, but I don’t think you were their target. Since I don’t know who stabbed Wally or why, I can’t say whether the killer would have gone after you if big, strong Joe hadn’t been standing there.”
“Why would they?”
“Well, I don’t know. But it sure doesn’t hurt to have a six-and-a-half-foot-tall man standing next to you when there’s bad guys afoot. Joe’s not complaining. I think he kinda likes looking after you. And having Joe be your bodyguard gives me something to tell your friend Ross when he calls me up, worrying about your safety. Which he does on a daily basis.” He reached in his desk drawer for his cigarettes, which weren’t there and hadn’t been there since Magda made him quit. “You have an interesting effect on men, sugar. I never met a woman who needed a male protector less—other than my wife—yet you’ve got guys fighting for the privilege. I say let them look after you, until we figure out what’s going on. After that…if they get on your nerves, I say you should kick ’em both in the butt. That’s what my charming bride would do.”
Faye pulled a file folder out of her briefcase and tapped its corner on the sheriff’s desk. “Let’s forget about my bodyguard problem. Do you want to hear what I learned in Tallahassee?”
“You bet.”
“Remember I told you that Wally gave me a note on the night he died? Well, it took me straight to an old book—a collection of letters from a Confederate official named Jedediah Bachelder.”
Sheriff Mike leaned forward to hear, reaching for the desk drawer at the same time. He drew his hand back with a sigh and pulled a stick of gum out of his shirt pocket. “What did the letters say? Did they give you any clue about why Wally got killed?”
“Nope. But there was a connection to Douglass’ murder. Remember that newspaper feature? The one that ran the morning before he was killed? Well, the picture that ran with the article was of Douglass holding a silver hip flask…that was engraved with the name J.L. Bachelder. And when I got my hands on the book of his letters…surprise! One of those letters mentioned an emerald necklace.”
“And that triggered the attack on Douglass? How? Nobody knew about the necklace, not unless Douglass called somebody and told them as soon as you left. And I still don’t think they’d have had time to get to his house and kill him, even if he was so foolheaded as to do that.”
“Haven’t got a clue. The flask wasn’t worth enough to be a motive for murder, and nobody knew about the emerald. Yet they’re both linked through Jedediah Bachelder to two people who wound up dead. Now do you understand why I’m going back to Tallahassee, first chance I get, for another look at that book?”
“You can’t just check it out?”
“Not a rare book. And the librarian says it’s too fragile for me to get permission to photocopy it, not until I jump through a few more bureaucratic hoops. One day, somebody’ll transcribe the text and post it on the Internet, and I’ll be able to peruse Mr. Bachelder’s deepest thoughts from the privacy of my own home. But not now. So I’m going back to Tallahassee, but not today or tomorrow. The rare book collection keeps short hours.”
“If I know you, you’ve got some other plans that involve dirt. Library work is so…clean.”
Faye checked her fingernails. She scrubbed them every time she brushed her teeth and every time she went to the bathroom and every time she showered, yet dirt still collected there, even when she couldn’t recall doing any digging. Today, they looked presentable. “It only makes sense for me to go back to the spot where I found the emerald and see what else I can find. And I’d like to lay eyes on Bachelder’s homesite. I’ve got the property records and an aerial photograph, so I’m pretty sure I can find it. Best I can tell, the house is long-gone, and I don’t really know what I hope to accomplish, but it’s something my gut tells me I need to do.”
She left her real reason for visiting Bachelder’s home unsaid. Archaeologists do what they do because they crave a physical connection to the past. If they’d been happy learning out of books, then they would have majored in history and spent the rest of their lives in libraries, museums, and classrooms, all of which are blessed with air conditioning and functional heaters.
Faye felt a bond with Bachelder when she held his hip flask and when she read his personal letters. She knew he’d been a plantation owner, which was just a glorified farmer. He himself had said as much. There could be no closer connection to him than walking over the land that he’d worked. And that his slaves had worked. She could never forget them. Bachelder had owned slaves, and then he had set them free. She needed to understand a man capable of doing both those things in a single lifetime.
“Wherever you wind up going, Bachelder’s land, Joyeuse, the library—I don’t care. Just promise me you’ll take Joe.”
Faye blew an exasperated breath through pursed lips. “I’m not dim-witted and I’m not a liar. I told you I’d take Joe.”
“Speaking of dim-witted, here’s a little something you might want to know. When Ross calls me up—every day—he lets me know exactly why he thinks he should be your bodyguard, and not Joe.”
“And his reason would be…”
“He doesn’t think Joe’s smart enough.”
Faye leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “I’d like to see Mr. High-falutin’ Lawyer shoot a rabbit with an arrow he made himself. Shot from a bow that he’d also made himself. I’d like to see him track that rabbit all the way across Joyeuse Island. I’d like to see him tell time by the sun and predict the weather by the sounds the birds make. I’d—”
&nbs
p; “I hear you, Faye. I know what Joe can do, and I know what he can’t do. I just thought you might want to know what’s going on.”
“I thank you. And when the time is right, I’m planning to explain to Ross Donnelly exactly what’s going on, too.”
Chapter Ten
Faye woke up with three goals driving her. She liked it when she had goals. She could control her approach to reaching those milestones. Focusing on concrete goals distracted her from those messy elements of her life where she had no control.
She couldn’t bring her friends back from the dead, but she could by God do all she could to help the sheriff track down their killers.
Her conversation with the sheriff had solidified in her mind the three things she needed to do. She needed to continue sifting through Bachelder’s letters, trying to find the information Wally had wanted her to have. She couldn’t say why, but she also felt like she needed to go to Bachelder’s homestead, just to get a feel for the man. And, though the search might prove fruitless, she burned to go back to the spot where she found the emerald.
Maybe there were more priceless jewels waiting for her there. Or maybe Jedediah Bachelder had left a letter buried with the emerald, conveniently explaining why his name kept cropping up in connection to murders committed a hundred years after his death. Of course, he’d have had to write it in waterproof ink on paper capable of staying underground for a century without rotting, but hey…stranger things had happened.
So which of these windmills was she tilting at today? Or rather, which of these windmills were she and Joe tilting at today? Because the sheriff had made her promise to keep Joe around as a bodyguard, and Faye kept her promises.
Findings Page 8
