Arsenic And Old Books

I watched them leave with great relief. I went back to my chair and sank down. Diesel meowed and tapped my shoulder with a paw. I turned to face him. He meowed again, and I rubbed his head. “Everything’s okay, boy. No need to fret.”

Diesel and I sat quietly for a couple of minutes, until I heard another knock at the door.

Deputy Turnbull walked in. “Morning, Mr. Harris. Ms. Gilley alerted me that Mr. Long was here, so I waited down in her office until he and his associate left the building.”

“I’m glad to see you, Deputy,” I said. “It’s been a bit nerve-racking the last half hour or so. If you’ll come with me, I’ll retrieve the pages.”

He nodded and then followed me next door to the storage room. I picked up the envelope with the pages inside, and we went back to my office.

“It won’t take me that long to scan these,” I told the deputy. “Please have a seat if you like.”

Deputy Turnbull shook his head. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll stand here in the door to keep an eye out for potential visitors.”

“Good idea,” I said. While I readied the scanning station, Diesel got down from his spot and walked over to the deputy. He sat at the man’s feet, looked up, and meowed. Turnbull grinned and said hello to the cat. He rubbed Diesel’s head, and that apparently satisfied my boy. He left the deputy and came to sit beside me.

I felt tense as I worked on the pages. The cotton gloves I wore made the process a bit slower as I took each page and scanned both sides. I was sweating by the time I finished. I reassembled the pages but did not paper-clip them. The paper clip could damage the pages. I advised Turnbull of this when I gave him the envelope. Then I remembered I should let Kanesha know what I’d told Long and Kittredge about the diary volume they wanted to photograph. “Sorry to load you down with messages for Deputy Berry,” I said when I finished.

“Not a problem, Mr. Harris. I’ll pass it all along to her when I give her the envelope,” Turnbull said. He smiled briefly before he left the office.

Before I shut down the scanning station I e-mailed the file of the scanned pages to myself and to Kanesha.

I returned to my desk, where I collapsed in my chair, Diesel by my feet, and mopped my sweaty brow with my handkerchief. My rampant curiosity about the contents of the missing pages made me want to start reading right away, but my brain needed time to relax from the tensions of the morning.

“I don’t know about you, boy, but I’m ready for lunch,” I said to the cat. “Let’s go home.” A good meal in the quiet of my house was what I needed right now.

Diesel meowed loudly to indicate his approval, adding in a couple of the odd trills he made sometimes.

Downstairs we stopped by Melba’s office to let her know we were going home for lunch.

“I’m about to head out myself,” she said. “I’m going over to the bakery to meet a friend for lunch. Y’all want to tag along? I know Helen Louise would be happy to see you. As hard as she works, I reckon she doesn’t have a lot of free time.”

Hearing Helen Louise’s name gave me a guilty start. Hadn’t I promised her last night we would come to see her at lunchtime today?

I had promised her, I decided. “Thanks, we’d appreciate the ride,” I said. “Saves me from going home to get the car.”

About fifteen minutes later Melba found a parking space on the square across from the bakery. We crossed the street, and I opened the door for Melba. The ever-tantalizing scents from the bakery filled the air.

“There’s my friend,” Melba said, nodding in the direction of a lone woman seated at a nearby table. “Y’all enjoy your lunch, and we’ll head back in about forty-five minutes, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Diesel and I made our way to our usual spot, the table near the cash register Helen Louise always kept reserved for us when we were expected.

I didn’t see Helen Louise and figured she was in the kitchen. I sat, and Diesel stretched out under the table near my feet. We settled in to wait for Helen Louise.

“Mr. Harris,” a voice called out over the low hum of conversation in the bakery. “I was hoping I’d find you here.”

I looked around to see Kelly Grimes advancing toward my table.

“Hello,” I said when she stopped about three paces from me. “What can I do for you?”

She smiled. She held out a slim book. “You can read this and tell me what you think.”

I accepted the book and glanced at the cover. The title read: A Memoir of Mrs. Rachel Afton Long of Athena.

THIRTY-FOUR

“Where did you find this?” I had almost forgotten about Angeline Long’s reminiscences of her grandmother-in-law.

Kelly Grimes pulled out a chair and sat. She set her briefcase on the floor beside her. Once she was settled, she reached over and pulled the memoir from my hands.

“In a place that no one else remembered to search.” She regarded me coolly. “Marie Steverton’s carrel in the college library. I found it there several days ago. The day she was run down in the street, in fact.”