“Think it was like this when Washington was born?” Tazio looked up, smiling.
“Hope not.” Harry chimed in.
“Keeping the fires going had to be a full-time job, plus one needs to be near the fireplace.” Raynell unwound her scarf.
“It’s easy to forget how much effort it took to keep warm or cool or fetch the butter from the springhouse,” Harry added.
“What about cities? Delivering firewood, lighting lamps, then later in time cleaning out gas lamps, gas lines to homes for light. And then what about cleaning up the streets? Can you imagine the tons of horse manure?” Tazio slipped a pencil behind her ear.
Harry laughed. “Actually, I can.”
“At least we developed good sewage systems.” Raynell studied architecture as well as wildlife for Nature First.
“Can you imagine living in London or Paris, even in the eighteenth century? Had to be noxious even as ideas exploded everywhere, and the arts, too.” Harry returned the file to its slot on the bottom shelf.
“How come you’re keeping them?” Raynell asked Tazio. “You can get all that information off the Internet.”
“His notes in the margins are helpful. He has initials, question marks, and sometimes these envelope drawings by construction sites. It’s better to sit down with a pile of papers instead of scrolling back and forth. I need his notes.”
“You’re right,” Raynell agreed. “So what are you writing?” She directed this to Harry.
“Checking against the notes I’ve transcribed.”
“Harry, what do you need with them? Unless you’re going into architecture or construction.”
“I am going to find Gary’s killer.”
“In building codes?” Raynell was incredulous.
“Yes. What if the envelope drawings along with initials in some of the margins mean blackmail?”
“Harry, you have too much imagination.” Raynell winked.
Pewter, eyes now open, put her ear to the crack of the back-room door. “I hear her. Heavy footsteps. Eight of them.”
“Pewter, you’re getting mental.” Mrs. Murphy sighed.
“Getting?” Tucker spoke loudly, which sounded like a yip to the humans.
That fast, the rotund gray cat leapt onto Tucker’s back, boxing her ears. Tucker, surprised, had the presence of mind to roll over so now fatpuss was underneath the corgi. However, cats on their back are formidable, fur flew.
“Dammit.” Harry rose from her kneeling by the bottom shelf, walked over, pulled Tucker off a highly offended cat.
“You always take her part,” Tucker whined.
“Tucker, she’s not taking Pewter’s part she’s just separating you, for which I am grateful.” Mrs. Murphy spoke as Brinkley and Pirate watched, eyes wide open.
“I have been cruelly treated by a tailless wonder,” Pewter spat.
In a flash of what she thought was brilliance, Harry opened the door to the back and the animals did go back there.
“I am not protecting you all from the monster spider. That spider is so big she must be a holdover from prehistoric times. She’s a dinosaur spider and I don’t care if she bites you all.” Pewter looked up at Harry, then glared at Tucker.
Harry, hands on hips, shook her head, kept the door open a crack, then returned to the big room. “Sorry.”
“They are dramatic.” Tazio laughed.
Raynell sat in one of the old ladderback chairs, placing the drawings across her knees. “Back to the codes.”
“Oh.” Harry plopped behind Gary’s desk. “He noted with initials in the margins at the construction sites where workers had died, like Ali Asplundah on June 2, 1983. If I could ever find the 1984 code file I think he would have marked in the margin for the Kushner Building. I think he knew something about Edward Elkins. 1984 was the year Gary left. He put two and two together and got out or possibly was paid off.”
Raynell rested her hands on the rolled-up drawings. “Well, what’s two and two? I don’t get it. I wish Lisa was here. Maybe she would.”
“Lisa, I think, had figured it out. Your boss was maybe over the top about her cause sometimes, my opinion, but she was really smart,” Harry said.
“I don’t think you can do a job like that if you aren’t passionate,” Tazio demurred. “The pay is low, the tasks enormous, and a nonprofit person must continually fundraise as well as educate. Has to be exhausting.”
“Felipe and I miss her very much.” Raynell stood, gave the drawings to Tazio. “We’ve got copies. Thought you’d like the original.”
“Thanks.”
“The monster is on the ceiling!” Pewter hollered.
Sure enough, the spider had crept out from her entrance into the bathroom, stopped, assessed the situation, then crawled up the wall to affix herself to the ceiling, sending Pewter into fits.
“Ignore her.” Harry threw up her hands.
“You know, I still don’t get it. It’s not strange that someone might note worker deaths. If I kept a diary I would. So maybe the codes were his diary,” Raynell said.
“Maybe. I think this has to do with what’s under the buildings.”
“Harry, who cares?” Raynell sounded doubtful.
“Many people would care if they know history, a road map of this area over time is under there. Millions of years of dinosaur bones and some maybe almost intact as whole animals. That’s why Gary and Lisa had all those rubber dinosaurs. Yes, they were fascinated, but both knew that area between Richmond and Danville was home to dinosaurs for about two hundred and fifteen million years. Properly unearthed, the fossils, bones, whatever, would reveal a great deal about evolution and about perhaps what really happened to those creatures.”
“I don’t know.” Raynell’s eyebrows rose.
“If you study the period, the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, you’ll learn that the basin running all the way up to Washington, D.C., even toward Baltimore and down to Danville, is loaded with fossils. The richest area is from Richmond to Danville. I’m pretty sure now and I’m going to drive this over to Cooper at HQ. You know some people would lose fortunes if construction suddenly had to stop or nothing new could be built until this is squared somehow with scientists. Some people have killed and would kill over it. I think those who are dead figured this out, saw bones and wanted some hush money. I really think it led to murder.”