Arsenic And Old Books

She wrote little of political events or even of news of the war. Her attention centered on the situation at home. I thought perhaps she avoided recording news of the war because she couldn’t bear confiding such sad tidings to her diary. That would make it all seem even more real. I knew that it would have to me.

I read on.

In November 1862 rumors spread that the Union Army was headed for Athena, and the town, though evidently panicked, did what it could to prepare. Rachel had already hidden many valuables away from the slaves—those who hadn’t run away by then—and hoped they would be safe. Later she recorded that, though the army did come to Athena and cause considerable damage, they did not penetrate far enough south to find Bellefontaine. The Longs escaped the worst of the Union depredations, unlike the poor townspeople.

I skimmed after that because there were no substantial entries to read. Even Rachel’s mention of her father-in-law’s passing in September 1863 merited only two sentences. The privations of wartime had grown even worse by then, and I wondered how they managed to survive. I knew Rachel lived for many years after the war, as did her son. I didn’t know about her husband, though, and whether he survived the war.

I decided to look it up. I did a search on Andrew Adalbert Long, Jr., in the library’s online catalog because I knew the information should be in the record for the collection. The information came up right away. To my surprise I discovered Andrew Junior died in 1863. Before or after his father? I wondered.

I would have to check the diary to see what Rachel recorded about her husband’s death.

The house phone rang, and I set my laptop aside to get to my desk where the instrument sat.

“Good evening, Mr. Harris,” Mrs. Long said. “I hope you won’t mind my calling but I’m afraid curiosity is getting the better of me. Have you been reading the diary?”

“I don’t mind at all, Your Honor,” I said. “I have been reading, and I have discovered a lot of interesting information.” I wondered how she would react to the news about Jasper Singletary’s great-great-grandmother Celeste.

“Excellent,” she said. “Can you give me a summary? I have about twenty minutes before I have to leave for a dinner being held in my son’s honor.”

“Sure,” I said. I gave her a quick, general report about the nature of the entries in the diary. After a pause for breath, I related the strange story of Rachel’s connection with the Singletary family and her attempts to help them.

“Interesting,” the mayor said. “Perhaps this will stop young Mr. Singletary from making some of these wild claims of his.”

“Maybe,” I said. “There is more, however.” I told her about Franklin and Celeste.

When I finished, the mayor’s reaction shocked me.

She laughed. “Oh, this is priceless. He’s been having a fit to get his hands on these diaries, and now he’s going to be sorry I ever found them. His campaign is in big trouble now.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

How should I respond to the distasteful, gleeful malice I heard in Mrs. Long’s voice? She was making the assumption, I supposed, that Singletary would lose votes if it were known that he was of mixed race. One never knew how voters would react to anything. In the twenty-first century I wondered whether this could be a factor in the race.

I had to admit, however, that I’d had some of the same thoughts the mayor expressed to me—only I hadn’t been chortling over them.

Finally I said, “At the beginning you stated that these diaries should be available to the public. I have already discussed the contents of this volume with Chief Deputy Berry. Do you still want the contents publicly available?”

“By all means,” the mayor said. “The public has a right to know the background of the candidates running for office. Then it’s up to them to decide what’s important.”

That sounded smugly self-righteous—not to mention self-serving—to me, but I didn’t care to get into an argument with the mayor over it.

“In that case I will give Mr. Singletary a file of the digitized pages,” I said. “In the event that this could affect his campaign, he should know as soon as possible. I think that’s the only fair thing to do.”

“Agreed,” Mrs. Long said. “Now I really have to get going. I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. I heard the other books will be back in your office sometime in the morning.”

The phone clicked in my ear, and I put the receiver back in its cradle. I didn’t like to think so, but I believed that the issue of class had reared its nasty head. The Longs were among the elite in Athena, if not the entire state of Mississippi, whereas Jasper Singletary came from a poor family. The Singletarys had been in Athena for generations, but they didn’t have money or political clout. Mrs. Long might add a third lack to those two: breeding. The Longs considered themselves patricians, and there came with that status a sense of entitlement, at least on their part. That bothered me, but there was nothing I could do to change it.