“I regret that, Mrs. Long,” I said. “I don’t see why Mr. Kittredge and your son can’t use the scans of the pages instead.” The moment I said it, I had the guilty feeling I had forgotten to e-mail the file to Mr. Kittredge. “The scan isn’t any different from a digital photograph. In fact, it might be better, depending on the camera’s resolution.”
“You neglected to send the file to Mr. Kittredge,” the mayor snapped. “Really, I don’t understand this obstructive attitude of yours.”
“I apologize for forgetting to send the file,” I said, “but I have been busy today. I simply got distracted and forgot. I’ll send it right now, if you like.”
She glowered at me. “Yes.”
I turned to the computer and switched it on. “This will take a couple of minutes.”
She did not reply, but I could feel the heat of her gaze on me. While I waited for the computer to boot up, I found the card Mr. Kittredge had given me earlier. As soon as I could open the e-mail program, I prepared the message, attached the file, and sent it. I swiveled my chair to face the mayor. “There, it’s done.” I longed to tell her that if her son and his campaign staff made use of the contents of that diary, they would only be embarrassed, if not sued. But I couldn’t.
“Good,” the mayor said. “Now I want to see that diary. I want to assure myself that it wasn’t damaged after I turned it over to you. You might as well show me the others as well. My husband and I expect these diaries and anything else given to the archive to be handled with the utmost care.”
The more she said, the harder I found it to hold on to my own temper. If I wasn’t careful, I’d let something slip in anger, and Kanesha would have my hide if I did that. If only Kanesha would walk through that door. I was trying to think of a way to stall the mayor, but I wasn’t sure I could keep lying and doing it convincingly enough.
“Good afternoon, Your Honor, Mr. Harris.” Kanesha spoke from the doorway and almost made me jump out of my chair. Thank goodness the cavalry arrived in time.
Mrs. Long twisted in her chair. “Deputy Berry, I didn’t expect to see you here, but it’s just as well that you’ve come. Mr. Harris is not cooperating with me, but perhaps you can persuade him, if I can’t.”
Kanesha regarded the mayor coolly. “Not cooperating? In what way?” She advanced farther into the room.
“I asked him to show me the diaries that my husband and I donated to the archive, and so far he is refusing to do so.” The mayor shot me an angry look.
I didn’t try to defend myself. Instead I waited to see what Kanesha would say.
“Mr. Harris, I really think you should let the mayor see the diaries,” Kanesha said in a gently chiding tone. When the mayor turned to give me a smirk, I saw Kanesha wink.
“As you wish,” I said.
Diesel had remained quiet so far, and that didn’t surprise me. The tension in the room was palpable, and I knew he was uneasy. Before I left the room to retrieve the three diary volumes from the storage room, I rubbed his head and told him everything was okay.
Mrs. Long and Kanesha waited in silence while I went next door. When I came back, diaries in hand, they didn’t appear to have moved. I set the archival boxes on my desk and carefully began to extract each book. When they were all on the desk in view of the mayor, she got up from her chair and moved closer to them.
“Please, if you intend to handle them,” I said, “wear these.” I pulled a pair of cotton gloves from the drawer and handed them to her. I took a pair for myself as well.
“Very well,” she said as she accepted them. She frowned. “There are only three volumes here. Where are the other two?”
“We can get to those in a moment,” Kanesha said smoothly. She joined the mayor in front of my desk. “Why don’t you go ahead and check these three first?”
The mayor looked puzzled, but she did as the deputy suggested once she had her gloves on. I had placed them so that she would be able to open them properly, and she opened the one in the middle first. That happened to be the one with the missing pages, and I wondered how long it would take her to notice the gap.
I glanced at Kanesha. She had her eyes on the mayor.
Mrs. Long carefully flipped pages until she reached the gap. “What is this?” She glared at me. “Someone took pages out. How could this have happened?”
“It happened when they were taken from this office,” Kanesha said. “I’m pretty sure that Dr. Steverton is the one who stole the diaries and then cut out those pages.”
The mayor shook her head. “Why would Marie do such a thing? She was so excited to work on them. I can’t believe she would deliberately damage them.”
“She might if the stakes were high enough,” Kanesha said. “Tell me, Mrs. Long, did you ever read the diaries? All five volumes?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
What was Kanesha’s strategy here? I couldn’t figure out where she was headed with this particular gambit.
The mayor evidently found it strange. She handed me the volume she was holding and turned to face the deputy.
“What does that have to do with Marie vandalizing Rachel Long’s diaries?” the mayor asked. “If you must know, I only read a bit of the first one. The handwriting gave me a headache, and I didn’t have time to read further. What I did read seemed interesting enough to be of potential historical value. That’s why my husband and I decided to donate them to the archive.”
“I see,” Kanesha said. “And the fifth volume? The one you found in a false bottom of the trunk. Did you read any of it?”
“I fail to see what you expect to accomplish with these questions,” the mayor said, her tone increasingly frosty. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Could you please answer my question, Mrs. Long?” Kanesha said.
The mayor stared hard at the deputy, but then Mrs. Long’s glance fell away. “Well, I might have looked at a couple of pages, but the handwriting was too small and cramped, as I’ve said. I was as surprised as everyone else when Mr. Harris told me about that slave woman getting involved with a Singletary.”
Mrs. Long seemed uneasy to me, and I was surprised. She was an experienced politician, and I would have expected her to maintain a calm, poker-like demeanor. Perhaps she didn’t handle guilt well, I thought.
The mayor pointed to the volume I now held. “Have you found the missing pages? If you know Marie took the diaries, surely you know what she did with them.”
“We do have them,” Kanesha said. “Because they’re evidence, though, they will remain in the custody of the sheriff’s department until it’s determined whether they will be needed for the trial.”
“Yes, I understand,” Mrs. Long said. She turned to me. “Did Marie remove pages from any other volume?”
“No, the others are all intact,” I said.
“I would like to see the other two to reassure myself of that,” the mayor said.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Kanesha said. “I’ve sent the fifth book you found along with one of the others to the state crime lab for testing.”
“Testing?” Mrs. Long said. I thought she suddenly looked a bit pale. “Whatever for?”
“We suspect that the one you found in the bottom of the trunk is a forgery,” Kanesha said. “I want to know how recently it was done. Do you have any ideas about that?”
The mayor laughed, a shaky sound. “Now, why would I know about such a thing? It can’t be a forgery.”
Kanesha looked at me, and I realized this was a signal for me to talk.
“I’m certain it is,” I said. “I asked one of the chemistry professors here to compare it to one of the original four.”
“Why would you do that?” The mayor stared hard at me.
“I began to suspect, because of the contents, that something wasn’t right with it,” I said. “The story about Rachel Long’s slave getting involved with the present Jasper Singletary’s ancestor didn’t hold water. I spoke to Mr. Singletary after he’d had a chance to read that volume, and he was puzzled by it. He thought it odd that, if Celeste truly was a slave, no one in the family knew about it.”