“We’ll have to learn to love one another as equals,” Harry solemnly said. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ ”
“History. I hated history when I was in college. You two bring it to life.” Cynthia praised them and their short course on Jefferson.
“It is alive. These walls breathe. Everything that everyone did or did not do throughout the course of human life on earth impacts us. Everything!” Mrs. Hogendobber was impassioned.
Harry, spellbound by Mrs. Hogendobber, heard an owl hoot outside, the low, mournful sound breaking the spell and reminding her of Athena, goddess of wisdom, to whom the owl was sacred. Wisdom was born of the night, of solitary and deep thought. It was so obvious, so clearly obvious to the Greeks and those who used mythological metaphors for thousands of years. She just got it. She started to share her revelation when she spied a copy of Dumas Malone’s magisterial series on the life of Thomas Jefferson. It was the final volume, the sixth, The Sage of Monticello.
“I don’t remember this book being here.”
Mrs. Hogendobber noticed the book on the chair. The other five volumes rested in the milk crates that served as bookcases. “It wasn’t.”
“Here.” Harry opened to a page which Kimball had marked by using the little heavy gray paper divider found in boxes of teabags. “Look at this.”
Cynthia and Mrs. Hogendobber crowded around the book, where on page 513 Kimball had underlined with a pink high-lighter, “All five of the slaves freed under Jefferson’s will were members of this family; others of them previously had been freed or, if able to pass as white, allowed to run away.”
“‘Allowed to run away’!” Mrs. Hogendobber read aloud.
“It’s complicated, Cynthia, but this refers to the Hemings family. Thomas Jefferson had been accused by his political enemies, the Federalists, of having an affair of many years’ duration with Sally Hemings. We don’t think he did, but the slaves declared that Sally was the mistress of Peter Carr, Thomas’s favorite nephew, whom he raised as a son.”
“But the key here is that Sally’s mother, also a beautiful woman, was half white to begin with. Her name was Betty, and her lover, again according to oral slave tradition as well as what Thomas Jefferson Randolph said, was John Wayles, Jefferson’s wife’s brother. You see the bind Jefferson was in. For fifty years that man lived with this abuse heaped on his head.”
“Allowed to run away,” Harry whispered. “Miranda, we’re on second base.”
“Yeah, but who’s going to come to bat?” Cooper scratched her head.
46
The Coleses’ library yielded little that they didn’t already know. Mrs. Hogendobber came across a puzzling reference to Edward Coles, secretary to James Madison and then the first governor of the Illinois Territory. Edward, called Ned, never married or sired children. Other Coleses carried on that task. But a letter dated 1823 made reference to a great kindness he performed for Patsy. Jefferson’s daughter? The kindness was not clarified.
When the little band of researchers left, Samson merrily waved them off after offering them generous liquid excitements. Lucinda, too, waved.
After the squad car disappeared, Lucinda walked back into the library. She noticed the account book was not on the bottom shelf. She had not helped Harry, Miranda, and Cynthia go over the records because she had an appointment in Charlottesville, and Samson had seemed almost overeager to perform the niceties.
She scanned the library for the ledger.
Samson, carrying a glass with four ice cubes and his favorite Dalwhinnie, wandered in, opened a cabinet door, and sat down in a leather chair. He clicked on the television, which was concealed in the cabinet. Neither he nor Lulu could stand to see a television sitting out. Too middle class.
“Samson, where’s your ledger?”
“Has nothing to do with Jefferson or his descendants, my dear.”
“No, but it has a lot to do with Kimball Haynes.”
He turned up the sound, and she grabbed the remote out of his hand and shut off the television.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” His face reddened.
“I might ask the same of you. I hardly ever reach you on your mobile phone anymore. When I call places where you tell me you’re going to be, you aren’t there. I may not be the brightest woman in the world, Samson, but I’m not the dumbest either.”
“Oh, don’t start the perfume accusation again. We settled that.”
“What is in that ledger?”
“Nothing that concerns you. You’ve never been interested in my business before, why now?”
“I entertain your customers often enough.”
“That’s not the same as being interested in my business. You don’t care how I make the money so long as you can spend it.”
“You’re clever, Samson, much more clever than I am, but I’m not fooled. You aren’t going to sidetrack me about money. What is in that ledger?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why didn’t you let those women go through it? Kimball read it. That makes it part of the evidence.”
He shot out of his chair and in an instant towered over her, his bulk an assault against her frailty without his even lifting a hand. He shouted. “You keep your mouth shut about that ledger, or so help me God, I’ll—”
For the first time in their marriage Lucinda did not back down. “Kill me?” she screamed in his face. “You’re in some kind of trouble, Samson, or you’re doing something illegal.”
“Keep out of my life!”
“You mean get out of your life,” she snarled. “Wouldn’t that make it easier for you to carry on with your mistress, whoever she is?”
Menace oozed from his every pore. “Lucinda, if you ever mention that ledger to anyone, you will regret it far more than you can possibly understand. Now leave me alone.”
Lucinda replied with an icy calm, frightening in itself. “You killed Kimball Haynes.”
47
The squad car, Deputy Cooper at the wheel, picked up an urgent dispatch. She swerved hard right, slammed the car into reverse, and shot toward Whitehall Road. “Hang on, Mrs. H.”
Mrs. Hogendobber, eyes open wide, could only suck in her breath as the car picked up speed, siren wailing and lights flashing.
“Yehaw!” Harry braced herself against the dash.
Vehicles in front of them pulled quickly to the side of the road. One ancient Plymouth puttered along. Its driver also had a lot of miles on him. Coop sucked up right behind him and blasted the horn as well. She so astonished the man that he jumped up in his seat and cut hard right. His Plymouth rocked from side to side but remained upright.
“That was Loomis McReady.” Mrs. Hogendobber pressed her nose against the car window, only to be sent toward the other side of the car when Cynthia tore around a curve. “Thank God for seat belts.”
“Old Loomis ought not to be on the road.” Harry thought elderly people ought to take a yearly driver’s test.
“Up ahead,” Deputy Cooper said.
Mrs. Hogendobber grasped the back of the front seat to steady herself while she looked between Harry’s and Cynthia’s heads. “It’s Samson Coles.”