I immerse myself in my work, and even when we’re not traveling, I continue my studies into the past so no decade I visit will be unknown to me. It’s purely by accident that I see the story in the newspaper.
The world of my home time has become all but invisible to me. The institute is my life. The only time I leave the grounds is when I go into the past. The world of today is something I never think about.
I’m in the library, where I spend most evenings researching, when I see it. Johnston has told me that tomorrow we’ll be traveling back to 1943, so I’m in the mid-twentieth-century section for a quick refresher.
It’s a tense era. The Russian Empire is dealing with internal revolts that will last until the czar’s army is finally able to squash them in 1948. Closer to home is the growing tension between the British Kingdom and China. The war neither empire really wants is still another decade away, but the people of ’43 don’t know that. For them, the Chinese’s desire to reclaim the coast from north of Shanghai all the way to southeast Asia could turn hostile at any moment.
I roll my head from side to side, trying to work out the ache in my neck and shoulders, but I know the only thing that will make it go away is rest. I could read more but I’m more than prepared for the trip, so I shelve the book I’ve been reading and turn to leave.
The newspaper sits on one of the stuffed chairs along the wall. It catches my attention because it’s the first one I’ve seen since coming to the institute. The paper is folded so that an article on one of the inside pages is showing. The headline is why I pick it up.
PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN HARLAN WALKER DEAD
It’s a name I know very well. Less than two months ago, Johnston and I rewound the man’s history. Though we’ve traced two other families since then, Walker’s has stuck in my mind because of the irregularity we uncovered.
I read the article and learn that Walker — owner of the largest construction company on the East Coast of North America, and the fourth Harlan of his family — was found in his office, dead of natural causes. Unnamed medical sources report he had a hereditary heart condition that resulted in a massive coronary the previous afternoon.
I frown. Someone doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.
Here’s what I know.
Harlan Walker was thirty-seven years old. I’ve seen Walker’s medical records. I have seen his father’s and mother’s medical records. I have seen the medical records belonging to his grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Not a single one of them had a heart condition.
I flip the paper over so I can read the rest, and have to go over the second-to-last paragraph twice to make sure I didn’t read it wrong.
Again, what I know. Harlan Walker was unmarried but on the cusp of becoming engaged. This was the reason he hired the institute. He needed to verify his lineage before he could marry the daughter of a duke. What we found was that his grandmother on his father’s side had an affair. His father, Harlan III, was the result, making Harlan IV the son of an illegitimate heir.
We collected hair samples that the institute’s lab tested to confirm this discovery, and we included the evidence in our report. Though it was never said outright, Johnston all but told me this information would not be given to the client, meaning the official report Harlan IV received would be clean.
The next-to-last paragraph in the news article makes me wonder if what we learned was truly buried.
Walker Construction’s board of directors confirms that ownership of the company will pass to Walker’s cousin Teresa Evans and her husband, Mathew Evans. In addition, a family source reports the estate will be making sizeable donations to several organizations, including the Health Fund of the Atlantic, Catherine University, and the Upjohn Institute.
As a personal historian, albeit one who’s still very new to the job, I’ve been trained to look for connections that will help unearth real stories. So I can’t help but make the connection that’s staring me in the face. Walker hires the Upjohn Institute. The Upjohn Institute — via Johnston and me — uncover a shattering truth about Walker’s past. And now Walker is dead, and the institute has come into a “sizeable donation.”
This is one of those things I desperately want to talk to someone about, someone who can tell me I’m just overthinking. I decide I’ll risk bringing it up with Johnston — very cautiously. After I go back to my room, I lie awake until well after midnight before I come up with an approach I hope will work.
I arrive in our prep room early the next morning and place the newspaper on the counter along the back wall.
Twice I go back and adjust its position. I’m not satisfied that it doesn’t look planted but I finally force myself to leave it alone.
At my closet, I begin changing into the era-appropriate clothing that’s been left for me. I’m buttoning up my shirt when Johnston enters.
“Morning,” I say.
When he glances over and grunts, I think he knows I’m up to something. I turn away so he can’t see my face and I take a deep, silent breath. I listen as my supervisor dons his wardrobe, and when I hear him start tying his shoes, I wander toward the back of the room.
“What’s this?” I say. God, could that have sounded more fake?
I pick up the paper and pretend to read. I’m not so stupid as to have left the article about Walker front and center, so I scan the front page and then open it to take a look inside.
“Where did you get that?” Johnston asks, his tone accusatory.
I glance over and see him walking angrily toward me.
“It was, uh, sitting here.” I point at the counter.
The thumb of my other hand rests right below the headline proclaiming Harlan Walker’s death. As I start to look down so that I can “notice” the article, Johnston snatches the paper out of my hands.
“This shouldn’t be here,” he says and crumbles it up.
“It’s just a newspaper.”
Using the paper to emphasize his words, he says, “Our concern is the then, not the now. The only thing about 2015 that’s important is that it’s where you learn your next assignment. Got it?”
“Of course,” I say, trying hard not to glance at the paper.
I’m hoping he’ll toss it on the floor, and I can lag behind, hide it somewhere, and retrieve it later, but it’s still in his hand as we walk out. As we pass one of the institute’s security men, Johnston shoves the paper into the guy’s hand and says, “Dispose of this.”
The pit of my stomach plummets toward the center of the earth. That did not go anywhere near how I was hoping it would. Not only is the article gone, but I can’t bring up the subject of Walker now without risking Johnston finding out I brought the paper into the prep room in the first place.
I tell myself I need to forget the whole thing, but throughout our assignment I keep thinking about Walker and the money the institute is receiving.
When we return the next evening, it’s bothering me so much that I go in search of Marie. Though I haven’t seen her since graduation, I know she’ll at least listen to my questions. But she’s not around. Over the next several days I continue trying to see her, but either my timing’s bad or she’s avoiding me because I’m always told she’s busy elsewhere.
I decide that if I can’t find her, maybe I can at least find another newspaper. Everywhere I go in the institute, I keep my eye out, but I never see one. This is when it dawns on me that, with the exception of the paper I found in the library, the last one I saw was back in New Cardiff.