Arsenic And Old Books

I went back to the laptop and searched for a phone number for Jasper Singletary’s campaign headquarters. I didn’t want to go through Kelly Grimes. Instead I thought I should share the file only with the man himself. Number located, I punched it in on the house phone and waited for someone to answer. A harried-sounding woman picked up after five rings.

I gave her my name and stressed the urgency of my call. “He is interested in this information, and I know he will want to know about it as soon as possible.”

She promised to pass the message along, but I put down the receiver wondering when Singletary might actually receive the news of my call.

I should not have doubted the poor woman, as it turned out. Singletary called me about fifteen minutes later, when I had my head stuck in the fridge trying to decide what I wanted for dinner.

“You have news for me, I hear,” Singletary said after a quick greeting.

“I do. I would like to send you a file with the scanned pages from the diary,” I said. “I think you’ll find the contents interesting.”

“Did you find the evidence I need?”

“No, I didn’t,” I replied. “I really think you need to read this for yourself, rather than have me try to tell it all to you over the phone.”

Singletary expelled a sharp breath. “All right, then.” He gave me an e-mail address, and I jotted it down.

“Does anyone else read the mail sent to this address?” I asked. I wanted to be sure that he, and he alone, read this. He might want to think about the contents before he acted upon them.

“Yes,” he said. “Has anyone else seen this?”

“No one else has seen it,” I said, “but I did share the contents during conversations with Mrs. Long and with Chief Deputy Berry. I don’t see that there’s any connection to the current murder investigation, but there is family history that you should know about, if you don’t already.”

He did not respond for several seconds. “Go ahead and send me the file.” He ended the call.

I speculated that the abrupt hang-up meant he was angry I had talked to Mrs. Long and Kanesha. Well, so be it. I sat down and pulled the computer into my lap. It took less than half a minute to send the file on its way to Jasper Singletary. I powered down the laptop and set it aside. Time for dinner, I decided.

While I ate the chicken salad Azalea left for me and doled out cat treats to Diesel, I thought about the Singletary family and the source of their hatred for the Longs. I could understand that Franklin and Celeste did not want to tell their children about how father traded land for mother and instead might present the transaction as a nefarious deal arranged by Rachel’s father-in-law. But how could the knowledge that Celeste was once a slave be lost to collective memory?

The townspeople would surely have known, and given the mind-set of the time, I couldn’t imagine that there wasn’t gossip about the couple. Gossip that would have persisted over the years, at least for a generation or two.

I hoped Miss An’gel would call soon. In the meantime I had to think of a discreet way to ask her about the Singletary family and what would be considered miscegenation in the family tree. I knew Miss An’gel would not press me for details that I couldn’t share, but I still had to take care with what I said.

By the time she called the kitchen was clean and Diesel and I were upstairs. I was reading while he snoozed beside me on the bed.

“Good evening, Miss An’gel. How are you?”

“Doing fine, Charlie. How are you and that beautiful kitty of yours?”

“We’re fine, too. Diesel is stretched out beside me napping, though he did perk up when he heard your name.”

Miss An’gel laughed. “Give him a few rubs on the head for me and Sister. You said you wanted to talk to me about a local family. What’s going on?”

I gave her a quick précis of the situation with the diaries and the murder of Marie Steverton. “Mrs. Long thought there might be information about the family that could help her son in his election bid. In the one volume I’ve read so far, I haven’t spotted anything.”

“That boy will probably skate through on the family name,” Miss An’gel said. “I don’t think he’ll do any harm in state government, but he certainly won’t accomplish anything significant.” She sighed. “Young Singletary, on the other hand, is bright and capable, but he doesn’t have the cachet of a distinguished family like Beck Long. That could hurt his chances.”

“About the Singletarys,” I said, thankful she had given me a segue to my question, “other than the fact that they have been poor farmers for several generations, is there anything you might know of in their family tree that voters might find, well, objectionable?”

“What a fascinating question,” Miss An’gel said. “I’m sure there is a story behind it, but I suppose you can’t tell me why you’re asking in such a delicate way.”

“No, ma’am, I can’t, at least not yet,” I replied.