by M Murphy
“Do you want to look around a bit more, maybe we missed something.”
“We probably did, but I can’t focus until I have answers. Besides, I took pictures of everything for reference.”
You could see her frustration, but also understand her dedication to research. Hannah was the type of woman who fed off of knowledge, and when a question arose that she couldn’t answer she had to find it immediately. The longer she went without finding it only frustrated her more. I respected that, knew it fueled a driven woman.
Chapter 42
I went with Hannah over to the Historical Society library for a little while, but Bryce and Sarah had wanted to see me for a late lunch. The two newlyweds were finally leaving on their delayed honeymoon and wanted to say goodbye. I hoped, and as I’m sure did they, that my business in Charleston would be resolved by the time they returned. We dined at SNOB once again and avoided speaking of Jason’s death, the investigation, or the fact that Mr. Trenholm fired me. I’m sure they both knew about it and simply were trying to avoid any depressing or awkward conversation during our last lunch together.
After lunch and a few heartfelt goodbyes, I decided to walk home and try to relax for the rest of the afternoon. Often a case can consume a person and the brain begins to wear down. When this happens the smallest detail can easily slip past and it can be easy to lose track of the trail, you are following. I was beginning to worry that Hannah’s drive to find answers was tiring her out and she would miss something. I, on the other hand, was a trained professional and knew when I needed a little rest.
Walking south on East Bay Street, I passed a group of tourists standing outside of an oyster bar waiting for opening. I smiled at the power Food Network has on an establishment. Charleston had become a restaurant destination and each time a venue was featured on television it soon had a line out the door…
great for business, but bad for locals who once enjoyed that particular bar or restaurant. About once a month a new bar or eatery would become the new tourist hotspot and Charlestonians would have to retreat and find a new location to unwind after work. It was the price you paid when living in a tourist mecca.
I crossed Broad Street and stared at the magnificent structure of 1 Broad. It was an old bank building, three stories high, and garnished with lion heads as keystones. The building, faced with brownstone, was designed in an Italian Renaissance style and seemed currently abandoned…odd for such a prime location and such a impressive historic structure. I stopped and stared for a bit and began to read a historical plaque attached to the side. The building, built in 1857, was heavily bombarded by Union artillery during the war. It was rebuilt in 1868 by…my mouth dropped as I read…George A. Trenholm. The fact led me to examine the structure further. It was a corner building facing both East Bay and Broad streets. Ornate and detailed craftsmanship could be seen on the outside and through the windows to the elaborate interior. The building did not seem in too bad of shape and it only made me more curious as to why it was unoccupied.
On both street sides there were secondary entrances that appeared to lead to the upper floors, and instead of sidewalk there was grating along the Broad Street side that gave view to the buildings foundation. Looking like a fool to those that past by me I bent down to look through the grating. Nothing seemed out of place or different, but at the same time I couldn’t find the necessity with having grating instead of a typical sidewalk. I pulled out my phone and turned on my flashlight app. The shadows where the
grey foundation met the brown stone lit up and I began to notice graffiti scratched into the surface. At first glance it looked like something the construction workers left behind. Often when building important structures those who worked on its construction would leave something behind as a way to sign their work. At first glance that was all I saw.
My knees were bothering me and I was about to stand up and move along when I noticed something that stood out. At the end bordering the main entrance, the northeast corner of the building, I saw it…the hooked x.
Chapter 43
My excitement was only over-powered by the pain in my knees from squatting the past five minutes. Before looking any further, I knew I had to let Hannah know what I found. I stood up and notice a man staring at me from across East Bay Street. In front of the Exchange Building was Tommy Makem. At first he appeared like a man deep in thought, standing still and staring in my direction, but almost instantly he acknowledged that I saw him with a smile and a nod of his head before moving along south towards the Battery.
Was Makem following me? Probably not. He more than likely saw me squatting along the side of a building like an idiot and was curious. No matter, I had more important things to deal with at the moment.
“Hannah,” I said into my phone. “What do you know about the building at 1 Broad Street?”
“Not much. Why?”
“Dig up what you can quickly and meet me here now.” I said excitedly into the phone.
“What is it?” She asked with a voice that she was curious and a little nervous.
“I’d rather show you. Just get over here.”
Within five minutes, I saw Hannah walking towards me on Broad with a tablet in front of her face. She walked with authority, hair bouncing with each step as her legs moved forward with powerful determination. She did not look up from her tablet once, as the normally clueless tourists moved to the side as she walked. It was like everyone sensed that Hannah was a woman on a mission.
“An impressive building.” Hannah said when she got to where I stood on the front step of the structure. “I’m sure you saw the Trenholm connection and that’s why you called me?”
“No, that’s what made me stop and look around. Look at this.” I moved down off of the first step and knelt down again pointing below the grate. Hannah bent down next to me. “Do you see it?”
“See what?”
I turned my flashlight app on again. “How about now?”
“The hooked x.”
We both stared for a few seconds and a world of other objects appeared. I had previously been too blind to recognize them in my excitement. What I had earlier mistook for the carvings of construction workers now looked more like the tree in St. Phillip’s cemetery. Animals, letters, numbers, and other images appeared along the base of the building. They were so jumbled that at an average glance it seemed like nothing at all, and without a flashlight they would not have been visible in the shadows of the building and the sidewalk grate.
“What does it all mean?” I asked.
“There has to be another message her.” Hannah turned the camera on her tablet towards the carvings. “Move your light
along so I can get all this.” She panned along with the light. “There is another clue here, but what? I don’t see J.A.M. anywhere.”
I stood, knees still in pain. “Why don’t we go somewhere and look over the pictures slowly and try to match something up with what we already know. Besides, I feel awkward and sore bending over to look down a street grate.”
“Good idea. Who knows who might be out here watching us too?”
Hannah’s comment made me think back to Tommy Makem standing across the street. “You might be more right than you know. Come on, let’s go to my place.”
Chapter 44
It was a nondescript blue house, black shutters, and a red roof. The man standing across the street in front of the Carolina Yacht Club putout his cigarette with a frustrated twist of his ankle before crossing over to 53 East Bay Street. The house did not standout when compared to the mansions that lined the street on the west side heading towards the Battery. Instead, the blinds were pulled, the front door was not in use and in need of some paint, and weeds grew up the north corner of the building. The man gave a glance up and down the sidewalk before entering a black iron gate, partially hidden from view, and adorned with a small sign that read: The Charleston Club A.D. 1852.
The man moved down the overgrown alley to the side door of the residence. A
single gaslight was lit beside the entrance that signaled that the house was still occupied. Three knocks…a pause…three more knocks and the door swung open. An older gentleman answered, dressed in a black suit, and wore white gloves. The man at the door took his first two fingers and his thumb and moved them across his lips. The older gentleman waited a moment and then responded with a swipe of his thumb behind his ear.
“Please come in Mr. Makem.” The older gentleman said.
“Thank you, Jefferson.” Makem replied.
Jefferson, the butler, led Makem down a hall adorn with oil paintings of prominent members of the organization. The wood floors creaked below as they walked.
“Everyone else has arrived.” Jefferson said, finally opening a door towards the end of the hallway. “Please ring if you need anything.”
Makem entered the room and Jefferson quietly closed the door behind him. In sharp contrast to the plain exterior of the house, the room was decorated elaborately and in exquisite shape. The wood floors were polished and shimmered in the glow coming from the lights and the marble fireplace. Sky blue walls were adorned with golden framed paintings, and the windows and ceiling were outlined with thick white molding. The room ran the length of the house along its north side, with the outer windows protected from prying eyes by the close proximity of the neighboring building. Large shrubs separated the two.
About a dozen men stood around, holding drinks and conversing quietly in small groups. Makem moved towards two men standing in front of the wet bar on the opposite end from the fireplace. He grabbed a glass at the bar, not looking towards the two men, and filled it with bourbon from a crystal decanter. As he finished his pour a man walked in front of the fireplace.
“I believe we are all here.” George Trenholm said in a voice that echoed across the room. “I now call to order this meeting of the Knights of the Golden Circle, protectors of the South, keepers of American beliefs, and ordered to restore the Union to its previous glory by the powers of Our Heavenly Father. Now everyone please sit. We have an urgent matter to discuss.”
The men began to move around to an array of seats in front of George Trenholm. Each man had a predetermined spot based on their place in the organization. Tommy Makem was not the highest ranking member, that position belonged to Trenholm,
but he still held an important place and found his seat in the front of the group. The noise of a dozen men moving slowly petered off and the room once again became silent.
“I called you all here because we are under attack.” Trenholm began. “We have enemies on two sides. I must take the blame for bringing one of them against us. The other is still a mystery to me. I will ask Mr. Makem to explain further.”
Tommy Makem stood and walked toward Trenholm the two men nodded and then shook, Citadel rings sparkling from each man’s hand. Trenholm took a seat and left Makem alone to address the men.
“The first enemy Mr. Trenholm has spoken of is Jack Francis. He is a private investigator from Cleveland. Former FBI and an Army veteran. He is an admirable foe. Francis was hired to investigate the murder of Jason Trenholm and protect the family’s history. Instead, his curiosity has gotten to him and he has continued to look into the Trenholm past long after he has been dismissed by the family. Francis is working with a woman professor of Southern History from Columbia University. Her knowledge and drive for answers could be an enormous problem, possibly larger than Francis.” Makem paused and tried to catch the feel of the room.
An older gentleman who was head of the South Carolina Savings & Loan spoke up. “What exactly is this Francis investigating?”
“Jason Trenholm was working with the professor during his graduate studies.” Makem answered. “She created a curiosity in the young man to explore his family’s past, and he eventually discovered more than he was supposed to know at his age. I’m not sure how, but Francis and the professor have continued that research in the aftermath of Jason’s mysterious death, and it led them to St. Phillip’s Church and on my walk here I saw Mr. Francis
exploring 1 Broad Street.”
The men throughout the room all expressed great concern with the news. Many reached for their drinks, while others squirmed in their chair.
“And what of the second enemy Mr. Trenholm spoke of?” Another man asked. He was young, energetic, and a promising first-term Senator.
“I believe, as does Mr. Trenholm, that whoever killed Jason did so because of his family’s name. The death of Eliza Dunn confirmed this for me. I’m not sure why they were killed, but it’s too coincidental, especially with Francis poking his nose around. Unlike Francis, I believe our second enemy may be an older one. Someone who knows Charleston, its families, and its history. Jason’s murder was an obvious one, but Eliza Dunn took a little more thought.”
There were murmurs around the room as the men talked the news over with those they sat next to. Finally, after a few minutes George Trenholm stood and rejoined Makem at the front. The other men noticed and grew silent again.
“I have Mr. Makem dealing with these issues.” Trenholm began. “I have only brought this to the attention of the group because of the great risk it may have for us. I ask that each of you express your concerns or solutions to these problems, because it is through the strength of each individual that we have succeeded in the past and how we will prosper in the future.”
The men began to murmur again, and as opinions cultivated, the conversations grew louder. A man stood and surveyed the room, he glanced towards Trenholm and Makem at the front, and then proceeded to the wet bar to refill his drink. He walked back and stood between the two men standing at the front and the group seated. Everyone went silent.
An air of respect filled the room as the man spoke. “We must find out how much Francis knows. We must discover our
hidden enemy. And we must silence their curiosity by all means necessary.”
The men of the group looked to the man they knew as their governor when he sat. Then they glanced to Trenholm waiting for a response. Trenholm didn’t speak. Instead, a smile of satisfaction broke across his face. He knew that the group had now given him permission to use ‘all means necessary’.
Chapter 45
“What’s with the tablet?” I asked Hannah. Pouring some red wine into her glass while we sat on the porch.
“Not sure what you mean?”
“All of a sudden you can’t put it down.”
“Oh.” She said slightly embarrassed. “When I first went to college I took a little notebook around with me everywhere. If I had a question I wanted to find the answer to I would write it down and then go to the library. I would write the answer down and then some of my own thoughts. The notebook would always be by my side in case I ever came up with a question I didn’t want to forget. By the time I went to grad school laptops had become popular with the students, but I was so attached to my notebook that I couldn’t let it go. Grad school was more of a challenge for me and opened up an array of avenues to explore. When I reached my final semester I was carrying a messenger bag with three different notebooks in it.”
“Wow, you were quite the nerd.” I smiled.
Hannah gave me a smirk. “Anyways, while I was doing my doctorate laptops got lighter and they finally began to weigh
less than my notebooks, so I switched. It also helped that they finally became cheap enough for me to afford one. I enjoyed using the laptop, but I still needed notepads for my historical research…most of the historical documents at the time hadn’t been uploaded to the web. About a two years ago Columbia, the University of Chicago, and a few other schools greatly expanded
their online libraries.”
“How so?” I asked, honestly curious.
“They provided access to previous students’ thesis, dissertations, and studies resident instructors had done. Then the libraries at the schools joined with museums to create online databases for historical documents…old manuscripts, diaries, account books, and other pieces of history. Now these dat
abases provide a vast amount of knowledge right at my fingertips. Columbia gave all of its professors these tablets to use in our studies and teachings, and now having all that information, along with ways to explore it, at the touch of a button is too hard to put down.”
“Why are you spending so much time at the South Carolina Historical Society then?”
Hannah frowned a little. “Unfortunately, like most of this state, the Historical Society is stuck in the past and has yet to make their collection available online.”
“So you are combining what you’ve found at their library with what we’ve found in the field and along with what’s already on line to create a picture of our investigations?”
“Exactly.”
“I could get used to having one of those.” I said pretending to reach for her tablet. She slapped my hand away. “It
sounds like you are spending all of your time studying the past for an investigation today. I know there are historical connections, but what are you trying to find?”