When I entered the pen and leashed him, the dog went hyperactive, spinning and kicking up dirt.
“Be cool.” I pointed a finger at his snout. “This is against the rules.”
He looked at me, tongue dangling, eyebrows dancing. I led him across the yard and into the house.
Moments later we lay in the dark, Boyd on the carpet beside my bed. I heard him sigh as he settled chin on forepaws.
I fell asleep with my hand on his head.
THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE EARLY, FEELING COLD AND EMPTY but unsure why. It came to me in a thick, dreadful wave.
Primrose was dead.
The combined agonies of loss and guilt were almost paralyzing, and I lay still a long time, wanting nothing to do with the world.
Then Boyd nuzzled my hip. I rolled over and scratched his ear.
“You're right, boy. Self-pity does no one any good.”
I rose, threw on clothes, and sneaked Boyd out to his run. During my absence a note appeared on the door to Magnolia. Ryan would be spending another day with McMahon and wouldn't need his car. The keys I'd left on his bureau were now on mine.
When I turned on my phone, I had five messages. Four journalists and P & T. I called the repair shop, dumped the rest.
The job was taking longer than anticipated. The car should be ready by tomorrow.
We'd gone from “could” to “should.” I was encouraged.
But what now?
An idea rose from deep in my past. The favorite refuge of a worried or restless little girl. It couldn't hurt, and I might uncover something useful.
And for a few hours, at least I would be anonymous and inaccessible.
Following toast and Frosted Flakes, I drove to the Marianna Black Public Library, a one-story redbrick box at the corner of Everett and Academy. Cardboard skeletons flanked the entrance, each with a book held in its hands.
A tall, spindly black man displaying several gold teeth occupied a counter at the main entrance. An older woman worked beside him, securing a chain of orange pumpkins above their heads. Both turned when I entered.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning.” The man showed a mile of precious metal. His lilac-haired companion eyed me suspiciously.
“I'd like to look at back issues of the local paper.” I smiled disarmingly.
“The Smoky Mountain Times?” asked Mrs. Librarian, laying down her staple gun.
“Yes.”
“How far back?”
“Do you have material from the thirties and forties?”
Her frown deepened. “The collection begins in 1895. It was the Bryson City Times back then. A weekly. The older publications are on microfilm, of course. You can't view the originals.”
“Microfilm will be fine.”
Mr. Librarian began opening and stacking books. I noticed that his nails were buffed, his clothes immaculate.
“The viewer is in the overflow room, beside the genealogy section. You may only have one box at a time.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Librarian opened one of two metal cabinets behind the counter and withdrew a small gray box. “I'd better explain the machine.”
“Please, you mustn't bother. I'll be fine. I'm familiar with micro-film viewers.”
I read her expression as she handed me the microfilm. A civilian loose in the stacks. It was her worst nightmare.
Settling at the machine, I checked the box's labeclass="underline" 1931–1937.
An image of Primrose flashed into my mind, and tears blurred my vision.
Stop. No grieving.
But why was I here? What was my objective? Did I have one, or was I merely hiding out?
No. I had a goal.
I was still convinced that the courtyard property lay at the center of my problems, and wanted to learn more about who had been associated with it. Arthur had told me he'd sold his land to one Prentice Dashwood. But beyond that, and the names on McMahon's fax, I was unsure what I was looking for.
In truth, I held little hope of finding anything helpful but had run out of ideas. And I had to do something about the charges against me. I couldn't return to Charlotte until my car was repaired, and I was barred from any other form of inquiry. What the hell. History should teach something.
A poster had decorated Pete's office during his stint in uniform, guiding words embraced by JAG attorneys uncommitted to the military system: Indecision Is the Key to Flexibility.
If the maxim was good enough for officer-lawyers of the United States Marine Corps, it seemed good enough for me. I'd look for everything.
I inserted the film and wound it through the viewer. The machine was a hand-crank model, probably manufactured before the Wright brothers went flying at Kitty Hawk. Text and pictures swam in and out of focus. Within minutes I felt a headache begin to organize.
I flicked through spool after spool, making trip after trip to the front desk. By the late 1940s, Mrs. Librarian relented and allowed me a half dozen boxes at a time.
I skimmed over charity events, car washes, church socials, and local dramas. The crime was mostly petty, involving traffic offenses, drunk and disorderly, missing property, and vandalism. Births, deaths, and weddings were announced, garage and barn sales advertised.
The war had claimed a large number from Swain County. From '42 to '45 the pages were filled with their names and photos. Each death was a feature story.
Some citizens did manage to die in their beds. In December of 1943, the passing of Henry Arlen Preston was front-page news. Preston had been a lifelong resident of Swain County, an attorney, a judge, and part-time journalist. His career was recounted in radiant detail, the highlights being a term in Raleigh as a state senator, and the publication of a two-volume work on the birds of western North Carolina. Preston died at the age of eighty-nine, leaving behind a widow, four children, fourteen grandchildren, and twenty-three great-grandchildren.
The week following Preston's death, the Times reported the disappearance of Tucker Adams. Two column inches on page six. No photo.
The obscure little notice touched something in me. Had Adams enlisted secretly, then died overseas as one of our many unknowns? Had he returned, surprised his neighbors with tales of Italy or France, then gone on to live his life? Had he fallen from a cliff? Run off to Hollywood? Though I searched for a follow-up, nothing more on Adams's disappearance was reported.
The rugged terrain had also claimed its victims. In 1939 a woman named Hilda Miner left home to deliver a strawberry pie to her granddaughter. She never arrived, and the pie tin was discovered beside the swollen Tuckasegee River. Hilda was presumed drowned, though her body was not located. A decade later the same waters took Dr. Sheldon Brodie, a biologist at Appalachian State University. A day after the professor's body washed up, Edna Farrell was thought to have fallen into the river. Like Miner, Farrell's remains were never found.
I leaned back and rubbed my eyes. What had the old man said about Farrell? They should have done better by her. Who were “they”? Done better in what way? Was he referring to the fact that Farrell's body wasn't recovered? Or was he unhappy with the quality of Thaddeus Bowman's memorial service?
In 1959 the fauna claimed a seventy-four-year-old Cherokee named Charlie Wayne Tramper. Two weeks after his disappearance, Charlie Wayne's rifle turned up in a remote valley on the reservation. Bear tracks and spoor suggested the cause of death. The old man was buried with full tribal ceremony.
I'd worked on victims of bear attacks, and knew what had remained of Charlie Wayne. I shook the image from my mind.
The list of environmental hazards courtesy of Mother Nature went on. In 1972 a four-year-old girl wandered from a campground in Maggie Valley. The little body was dragged from a lake the following day. The next winter two cross-country skiers froze to death when caught in a sudden blizzard. In 1986 an apple farmer named Albert Odell went searching for morels and never returned.