“Why don’t you explain the cause and why it’s so good.”
So I did. Hubert told me he could help. Even better, he was willing.
“How soon could we do it?” I said.
“I got the software right here. Just need to load it up and we’re good to go.”
“That easy?”
“Scary as it sounds, yes.”
“You around today?”
“Sure, I’m around.”
I pulled up in front of the Chicago Historical Society. My watch had just pushed past nine.
“Hang tight, Hubert. I’ll call you back.”
CHAPTER 39
T een was standing by the front desk, looking for someone to grin at. She was wearing a dark brown long-sleeve sweater, tan chinos, and brown shoes with large gold buckles.
“The man from the Tribune.” She offered a sweaty palm and I took it. “How are you, Mr. Kelly? You know, I missed your article.”
“Actually, it’s not quite ready yet.”
“Oh. Anything I can help you with?”
I nodded and moved her gently off the main lobby. “Actually, there is something you can do.”
A group of seniors drifted by us and into the gift shop. The volunteer automatically smiled at them and then transferred her giddiness back my way.
“How can I help?”
I took out a photo and put it facedown in front of the volunteer. Along with six other pictures.
“The guy who came in to see the Sheehan’s a couple of weeks back.”
“Yes?”
“When I asked you what he looked like, you told me he was dangerous looking.”
Teen lifted her eyes to the ceiling, anxiously looking for the answer to a question I had yet to pose.
“Dangerous looking. Yes, he was.”
“Was the man black, Teen?”
She brightened and nodded. “Actually, he was.”
Then she frowned. “You don’t think I called him dangerous because he was black, do you? That’s just not possible. Last year, a black couple moved into the neighborhood, just a block or so from where I live. I see them every week at the Sunset Foods. Lovely people, although I’ve never actually spoken to them. There are lots of people I don’t speak to in the supermarket.”
“You see the guy here?”
I flipped over the seven photos. Teen pointed at my guy without missing a beat.
“That’s him.”
“No doubt?”
“No doubt. See how big he is?”
“Dangerous looking.”
“Yes, dangerous looking. Who is he?”
“I’ll tell you later. For right now, no questions.”
Teen bobbed her head again. Still panting lightly. Still eager.
“The second thing we need to talk about involves your curator,” I said.
“Mr. Randolph?”
“Yes.”
Teen pressed her lips into a thin line. The first bit of caution crept into our relationship. Not what I needed.
“He’s not in this morning,” the volunteer said. “He teaches a class at Northwestern.”
“I know. Is there somewhere private we can go?”
Teen took me to a small room with beige walls, a table and chairs, a Mr. Coffee, and some vending machines.
“We should be okay in here,” she said, and sat down. I followed suit.
“Now what is it, exactly, that you need?”
“Josiah Randolph’s diary,” I said. “You know about that?”
“Of course. I work on the Omnibus system. Keeps track of all our primary source materials. Would you like to see a demonstration?”
“No.”
I gave my response a little punch. Teen jumped in her seat.
“Oh.”
“Mr. Randolph showed me Josiah’s diary the first time I was here,” I said.
“He’s awfully proud of his ancestor. Do you know Josiah almost lost his life trying to save Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation?”
“I’m happy for him. Thing is, I don’t think Randolph showed me the whole diary.”
Teen shifted in her neatly laundered chinos and ducked my eyes. Exactly what I was hoping for.
“Teen, how long you been working here?”
“Going on sixteen years.”
“As a volunteer?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse the expression, Teen, but do you like getting treated like the shit off Lawrence Randolph’s shoes?”
“Pardon?”
“I saw enough, Teen. You’re here to contribute, consult, be part of the team. Not go get coffee for an academic lightweight. The emperor lost his clothes a long time ago. Isn’t it time someone let him know?”
I waited. Teen fidgeted. Looked at the door to the break room, a door I had had the good sense to shut before we sat down. Then Teen looked back at me. I could see the girl. First in her class at high school. College, a given. A woman of letters. Except it was 1962. Her parents didn’t approve of women going to college. What, really, was the point? So Teen settled down, settled in. Just settled. Married the architect, who, at the time, was just out of school, a friend of the family, and lived down the block. Three kids and some four decades later, it was a good life. A respectable life. But she had more to offer. Much more than a gofer for Lawrence Randolph. Here was her chance. All I had to do was wait.
“What is it you want, Mr. Kelly?”
“I want you to step out, Teen. Help me find the rest of the diary. Find out why primary source materials are being sanitized by your curator. Find out what kind of game Lawrence Randolph is running.”
“He’s a real prick, you know.”
I smiled and moved closer. I thought she’d be willing. I didn’t realize how much so.
“I know all about Josiah’s diary,” Teen said. “Every year, we run internal audits of all our materials. Part of Omnibus. You want to see?”
“No. Tell me about the diary.”
She started up again. Then stopped. Gave me a look she probably figured to be crafty.
“Will I get my name in the papers?”
“You want your name in the papers?”
“Of course.”
“Consider it done. Now, what about the diary?”
“Okay. Each year I help to run an internal audit. It’s done on all the full-time staff, including Mr. Randolph. It’s done without their consent and without their knowledge.”
Teen’s eyes lit up as she dug into the details. “I noticed the discrepancy three years ago. In the society archives, we have more than a hundred thousand primary source documents. More than twenty million pages of material. As I cross-referenced the Omnibus catalogs, I noticed one entry for Josiah Randolph’s diary under ‘Chicago Fire.’ Then I noticed a second entry titled ‘Diary Fragments’ and filed under ‘Miscellaneous.’”
“‘Miscellaneous,’ huh?”
“Yes, ‘Miscellaneous.’ I tracked down the woman who had made the entry into Omnibus. Lovely girl. She’s a senior now at Northwestern.”
“Where did she find her ‘Fragments’?”
“Actually, it’s a funny story.”
“Amuse me.”
“As I said, she was just a college kid. Didn’t know any better. So she sits down at Mr. Randolph’s desk. It was a day like this.”
“He was out of the office.”
“Yes. She opens up his desk and begins to sort through his personal papers.”
“Unheard of.”
“Slightly. Anyway, she found two keys in one of the top drawers. The first unlocked the bottom drawer of the curator’s desk. The second opened a strongbox she found inside.”
“The miscellaneous fragments?”
“She told me they were in the box. She noted their existence, locked up the box, and returned the keys to the curator’s top drawer. Then she made a notation about the materials in Omnibus.”
“That’s it?”
“What else would you expect?”
“What did the fragments say?”
“I have no idea.”
“She didn’t read them?”
“The purpose of an Omnibus audit is to catalog, not evaluate. She noted the number of pages, got a general sense of what she was looking at, and moved on.”
“What about the discrepancy?”
“What about it?”
“Why didn’t anyone follow up?”
“Follow up how?”
“Ask Randolph what the fragments were? Why he kept them under lock and key in his desk? How they were different from the rest of the diary he’d made available to the public?”