“Is there any record of this cabin burning?” Rick listened to the slow glide as the soft lead crossed the white page. He found it a consoling sound.
“If the murder occurred in 1803, as it would appear, Jefferson was in his first term as president. We have no record in his own hand of such an event, and he was a compulsive record-keeper. He’d even count out beans, nails—just compulsive. So, if he were home at the time, or visiting home from Washington, we can be certain he would have made a note of it. I’m sorry to say that the overseer lacked Mr. Jefferson’s meticulous habits,” Kimball replied.
“Unless the overseer was in on it and wanted no attention called to the cabin.” Rick stopped writing.
An edge crept into Oliver’s tone. “I guess after years on the job you would naturally think like that, Sheriff.”
“Mr. Zeve, I understand that at this moment we seem to be in an adversarial position. In as plain a language as I can find: A man was murdered and it was covered up, forgive the pun, for nigh onto two hundred years. I am not the expert that you are on the end of the eighteenth century, the beginning of the nineteenth, but I would hazard a guess that our forefathers were more civilized and less prone to violence than we are today. I would especially think this is true of anyone who would have worked at Monticello, or visited the estate. So, whoever killed our victim had a powerful motive.”
15
In the parking lot the cool, clammy evening air caused Kimball to shudder. Oliver added to his discomfort.
“You weren’t helpful in there.” Oliver tried to sound more disappointed than angry.
“Usually you and I work easily together. Your position is far more political than mine, Oliver, and I appreciate that. It’s not enough for you to be an outstanding scholar on Thomas Jefferson, you’ve got to play footsie with the people who write the checks, the National Historic Trust in D.C., and the descendants of the man. I’m sure I’ve left out other pressures.”
“The people and artisans who work at Monticello.” Oliver supplied this omission.
“Of course,” Kimball agreed. “My one concern is discovering as much as we can about Mulberry Row and preserving the architectural and even landscaping integrity of Monticello at the time of Mr. Jefferson’s peak. My interpretation of peak, naturally.”
“Then don’t offer up theories for the good sheriff. Let him find out whatever there is to find out. I don’t want this turned into a three-ring circus and certainly not before the two hundred fiftieth birthday celebration. We need to make sure that celebration has the correct focus.” He inhaled and whispered, “Money, Kimball, money. The media will turn somersaults on April thirteenth, and the attention will be a godsend to all our efforts to preserve, maintain, and extend Monticello.”
“I know.”
“Then, please, let’s not give anyone ideas about white men sleeping in slave cabins, or with slave women. Smoke inhalation.” Oliver pronounced the two words as though they were a sentence of doom.
Kimball waited, turning this over in his mind. “All right, but I can’t turn away the opportunity to help Sheriff Shaw.”
“Of course not.” Oliver intoned, “I know you well enough to know that. I’m in an optimistic frame of mind and I think whatever comes back from the lab will put this to rest. Then we can put the remains to rest in a Christian burial.”
After saying good-night, Kimball hopped into his car. He watched Oliver’s taillights as he backed out behind him and then sped away. A moment of darkness enveloped him, a premonition perhaps or a sense of sorrow over his disagreement with Oliver, who could bounce him right out of a job. Then again, maybe thinking about murder and death, no matter how far distant, casts a brooding spell over people. Evil knows no time. Kimball shuddered again and chalked it up to the cool, cloying dampness.
16
The biting wind on Monticello Mountain made the forty-five-degree temperature feel like thirty-five. Mim huddled in her down jacket. She wanted to wear her sable, but Oliver Zeve warned her that wouldn’t look good for the Friends of Restoration. The antifur people would kick up a fuss. Made her spit. Furs had been keeping the human race warm for millennia. She did admit that the down jacket also kept her warm and was much lighter.
Montalto, the green spherical anchor at the northern end of Carter’s Ridge, drifted in and out of view. Ground clouds snaked through the lowlands, and they were slowly rising with the advent of the sun.
Mim admired Thomas Jefferson. She read voraciously what he himself had written and what had been written about him by others. She knew that he had purchased Montalto on October 14, 1777. Jefferson drew several observatory designs, for he wished to build one on Montalto. There was no end to his ideas, his drawings. He would return to projects years later and complete them. He needed little sleep, so he could accomplish more than most people.
Mim, greedy for sleep, wondered how he managed with so little. Perhaps his schemes held loneliness at bay when he sat at his desk at five in the morning. Or perhaps his mind raced so fast he couldn’t shut it off—might as well let it be productive. Another man might have gone on the prowl for trouble.
Not that Thomas Jefferson lacked his share of trouble or heartache. His father died when he was fourteen. His beloved tomboy older sister, Jane, died when he was twenty-two. His wife died on September 6, 1782, when he was thirty-nine, after he stayed home to nurse her for the last four painful months of her life. He sequestered himself in his room for three weeks following her death. After that he rode and rode and rode as if his horse could carry him away from death, from the burden of his crushing sorrow.
Mim felt she knew the man. Her sorrows, while not equal to Jefferson’s, nonetheless provided her with a sense that she could understand his losses. She understood his passion for architecture and landscaping. Politics proved harder for her to grasp. As the wife of Crozet’s mayor, she glad-handed, fed, and smiled at every soul in the community . . . and everybody wanted something.
How could this brilliant man participate in such a low profession?
A sound check in the background brought her out of her reverie. Little Marilyn pulled out a mirror for her mother. Mim scrutinized her appearance. Not bad. She cleared her throat. Then she stood up as she saw a production assistant walking her way.
Mim, Kimball, and Oliver would be discussing the corpse on Wake-up Call, the national network morning show.
She was to deflect any suggestions of miscegenation, as Samson Coles put it to her on the phone. Wesley Randolph, when she called on him, advised her to emphasize that Jefferson was probably in Washington at the time of the unfortunate man’s demise. When Mim said that perhaps they’d have to wait for the pathology report from D.C., her rival and friend harrumphed. “Wait nothing. Don’t be honest, Mim. This is politics even if centuries have passed. In politics your virtues will be used against you. There’s private morality and public morality. I keep telling Warren that. Ansley understands, but my son sure doesn’t. You get up there and say whatever you want so long as it sounds good—and remember, the best defense is a good offense.”
Mim, poised at the edge of the lights behind the camera, watched as Kimball Haynes pointed to the site of the body.
Little Marilyn watched the monitor. A photo of the skeleton flashed on the screen. “Indecent.” Mim fumed. “You shouldn’t show a body until the next of kin are notified.”
A hand gripped her elbow, guiding her to her mark. The sound technician placed a tiny microphone on the lapel of her cashmere sweater. She shed her jacket. Her perfect three strands of pearls gleamed against the hunter-green sweater.