Buried Roots

by Cynthia Raleigh

  “I sure did. They had a roll of microfilm with some tax records from the late 1790s that had my 4x grandfather’s name, Claiborne Seamore, listed. I ordered it and it was sent it by interlibrary loan to the local library where I could view it. Then the local library sent it back to Virginia when I was finished with it.”

  “That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know they did stuff like that.” Nina muddled it over for a minute, then asked, “So they sent microfilm. They don’t send the actual records, right?”

  “No, the information might be on microfilm, a digital media of some sort, or photocopied.” Perri checked to make sure Nina’s eyes weren’t glazing over yet before continuing, “They also do conservation at the Library, they have a lab. And they have an education department that holds classes, like in beginning genealogy.”

  “I see, there’s a lot more to it than I thought. If I ever have the time and sanity to check into doing my family tree, which will be in about a billion years, I’m asking you for help.”

  Perri laughed, “I don’t think it will take Aaron a billion years to grow up. It’ll be sooner than that, it just doesn’t seem like it.”

  “Tom hasn’t grown up yet, so what makes you think that?”

  “Come on now, Tom is mostly grown up, he does pretty well. He only does silly toddler stuff occasionally.”

  Nina reluctantly agreed, “Yeah, I know. I can’t admit it though. What would that do to my image?”

  “True. Keep your image intact at all costs. I’ll back you up.” Perri nodded ahead, “There it is. I’m pretty excited to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

  ***

  Perri and Nina stopped in unison as they entered the library. Perri was smiling ear-to-ear, Nina said, “Look at that stairway. It’s like a grand entrance.”

  They moved to the side to avoid blocking the entryway. Perri pointed up to the second-floor area. Aisles of books were visible from the lobby. “Look at all the stacks. I can’t wait.” She looked at Nina, “Sorry, this is awesome to me.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me, I love to read too and this place looks like a whole big chunk of peace and quiet time. Nothing better than that. You stay in that room all day if you want.”

  “I might do that,” Perri was still grinning.

  “Come on, Cheshire, let’s find your Research Room.”

  They climbed the stairway and found the Circulation desk at the top. Nina got comfortable in a seat in a windowed alcove with her own book to read. Perri was directed to the left of the desk, to the Archival Reference area where she filled out the request for the documentation she wanted to examine.

  Some of the records Perri had requested were available in digital format and some on microfilm. She started with the digital media while the microfilm was sent for. Nina had offered to hang on to Perri’s bag and purse, so she didn’t need a locker today. Armed with a stack of note paper, cards, three pencils, her laptop, and a flash drive, Perri settled into her chair.

  Chapter 16

  Roger had been dreading this confrontation and had put it off as long as he could. It wasn’t going any better than he had figured it would. If he could just get through this and have some time to think, maybe he could come up with a solution and be done with it, but he didn’t see any way right now.

  “Tell me you are fooling around and you did find it!”

  Roger shook his head, “I’m not fooling around. It isn’t that I didn’t find it, it isn’t there!!”

  “It sounds to me like you didn’t find it. Do you have it?”

  Roger opened his mouth in exasperation, but simply shook his head.

  “No? No, you don’t have it. You didn’t find it. Did she tell you where it is, since it isn’t in the house?”

  “It was in the house, but she said it was gone, because all the stuff is gone.”

  “What do you mean all the stuff is gone?”

  Roger backed away a few steps. “Look, if you don’t stop getting right in my face, nothing is going to get solved here. You’re treating me like your servant or something.”

  “Alright, tell me.”

  Roger thought about his answer, knowing it wasn’t going to help. “The police confiscated everything. They took it all away to go through it.”

  He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and open them again to find himself somewhere else. Inwardly he sighed and asked himself, ‘How did I get into this shit?’ Right now all he could see were the eyes, filled with rage. The cheeks flushed red and twitching in anger. If he had known it would end up this way, he would have done a runner a long time ago.

  Instead of the verbal assault he was expecting, all he heard was a very measured, “What are you going to do about that?”

  “I don’t know that there is anything we can do about it. I can’t march into the police station and demand it, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah. Alright.” After a tense pause, “What about our other problem?”

  Roger looked at the floor.

  “You let the woman live, and she’s seen you. Why did you leave her alive? She has seen you.”

  “I just couldn’t do it. Not directly anyway. She might not be alive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Roger took a deep breath. “I couldn’t just kill her, just like that. I kind of, kind of hoped she’d suffocate under all the duct tape. She couldn’t breathe very well and I thought maybe…”

  “Oh my god. You thought she’d suffocate. You didn’t put the tape over her nose, though, did you?”

  “No, that’d be killing her directly.” Roger tried to explain his reasons, “That other guy died when he couldn’t breathe. I thought she might too.”

  “It’s not the same thing. Even if that happened, did you think it would matter in the end? You think that would save you? It wouldn’t.”

  “As long as she doesn’t see me again, it won’t matter anyway. No one here knows us. Let’s just go, I say this job is over.”

  “No way. It’s a lot of money and we’re in deep enough to matter now. The police can’t possibly keep all that inventory, something will be done with it. Don’t police departments auction off stuff that’s unclaimed?”

  “Sometimes, but not very often. And it isn’t unclaimed, it belongs to the woman still.”

  “Thought you said she might be dead? Sounds like you are fairly sure she’s not.”

  “Well, we can’t hang around here for months hoping they auction it.” Roger shook his head. “Now who’s being unrealistic? You think they’d miss actual relics in the inventory and just sell it all off? That’s probably why they confiscated the inventory in the first place. What other reason would they have?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. This job was almost complete and now it’s a shambles, thanks to you.”

  Roger turned and left without saying anything else. He had no clue how to fix it, didn’t think it could even be fixed. He wanted to just leave and not come back, but he knew that would be worse than staying. He got in his car. This time he did put the pedal to the metal and spun out before the tires got enough traction to propel him forward and away.

  Chapter 17

  It was after one o’clock when Perri’s stomach began roaring to be fed just as she finished with the third roll of microfilm. She returned it to the desk and submitted a request for the digital information for after lunch. She went in search of Nina and found her absorbed in her book. “Hey, you want to go get something to eat? There’s a café here.”

  Nina unfolded her legs and blinked, “You bet I do. Now that I think about it, I’m ravenous. She stuffed her book into her purse and untangled the straps of Perri’s bags from her own. “Here you go.”

  They left the archive room and found the café. After taking their food to a table, Nina pulled out her phone and noted there was a missed call from Tom. “He knew we were going to be in the library and my phone would be off. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “Hope not, but you might want
to call him back to be sure.” Perri suggested.

  “I don’t want to call from in here, I feel wrong using a phone in a library even if it is in a café. Hang on, I’ll just step outside. I’ll be right back.”

  “Ok. I won’t eat your chips while you’re gone. Not all of them anyway.”

  Nina grimaced a warning and headed out to the lobby.

  When she returned, she blatantly inspected her bag of chips to make sure Perri hadn’t stolen any. Perri feigned offense, “Seriously? You think I’d slit open your bag of chips, steal a few, then rearrange it like you wouldn’t notice?”

  “No, just kidding.”

  “What must you think of me, that I’d steal a couple of your chips. You know if I was going to do that, I’d eat all of them.” Perri wiped her mouth with her napkins and took a sip of her iced tea. “Everything ok with Tom?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s enjoying himself a little too much. He called to tell me about a couple of things Archer brought up with him this morning.”

  Perri had taken a bite of her spinach, avocado, and tomato wrap. She asked for an explanation with, “Hmmm?”

  “Well, first, he said Archer got the video footage from the hotel. It was definitely a man who broke into our room.” Nina made a hash mark in the air with her index finger, “Score one for me. But that was expected anyway. He has a couple of still shots for us to look at just to see if we might recognize the man from anywhere. Tom doesn’t recognize him, and if he doesn’t the chances that we will are even worse. The images are grainy and blurry, typically, because the system is cheap. The guy kept his head down most of the time too.”

  “That figures. What’s the second thing?”

  “Archer told him that he had done some checking on stolen items to see if the side knife and scabbard popped up in the system. It didn’t.”

  “But?”

  Nina was chewing a bite from her own sandwich. Perri waited. “He said that while that item wasn’t flagged, there were several that were. Items stolen from museums, if you can believe that crap.” She shook her head. “Also, there were some items that had been looted from Civil War battle sites. Items like buttons, musket balls, belt buckles, anything they could find in the ground with a metal detector.”

  “Oh, that’s not good. Removing items like that, even if they are recovered, pretty much destroys any information that might have come from documenting them in situ.”

  Perri had been watching Nina struggling to open her bag of chips. “Here, give me that, or you’re going to have them all over the café.” Perri reached in her purse and pulled out a pair of suture scissors. She snipped the bag open and handed it back to Nina.”

  Nina scrutinized the scissors suspiciously, “Those are clean, aren’t they?”

  Perri tipped her head to the left and, “No, I used them last week to remove the sutures from a nasty, gangrenous foot wound. That’s ok, right?” She shook her head. “Eat your chips.”

  Nina pulled out one of the jalapeno kettle chips and crunched. “What do you mean it destroys information, the looting I mean. If they get the item back, how does it destroy it?”

  “It doesn’t destroy the object itself. Here’s an example. Let’s say they recover five buttons, buttons from a military uniform. If they are all of one type, they do know they all came from either Union or Confederate uniforms, but they won’t know if it was from five different uniforms, or from only one. The problem with that is, if it is from one uniform, it could mean the remains of a soldier is out there somewhere that no one knows about. Since the buttons were removed from their context, no one will know where the remains are located and they can’t be retrieved for proper burial.”

  “Oooh, I see. I never thought of that.” Nina chomped through her remaining chips. “Are you about ready to head back upstairs?”

  “I am. I think another couple of hours should do it. You still ok loitering around waiting for me?”

  “Sure am. I’m going to finish this book, I think.” Nina crumpled up her napkins, empty chip bag, and they discarded the paper into the trash can and deposited the trays on top.

  Once back in the research room, Perri quickly scanned through the digital records she had ordered, not really expecting to find anything, and she didn’t. She had an idea and went to the desk to ask for assistance.

  Chapter 18

  The afternoon was muggy, without the breeze of the morning, as Perri and Nina emerged from the Library of Virginia onto Broad Street. They turned right, heading northwest, to return to Ivy House to get the Explorer and pick up Tom.

  “Looks like there might be a storm moving in, it’s awfully still and muggy. I wouldn’t mind hearing a little rain during the night, always helps me sleep better.” Perri remarked as she eyed the greenish blue sky.

  “I agree. A nice dinner, a glass or two of wine, a comfy bed with cotton sheets, fluffy pillows, and the sound of rain. Oh yeah, bring it on.”

  “Makes me sleepy thinking about it.” They walked in silence for a few minutes. Perri said, “It didn’t take me long to go through the rest of the material I ordered at the library. With the extra time, I did some checking on stolen relics, like you mentioned.”

  “Oh yeah? Find anything interesting?” Nina asked.

  “Yes, I did. If you don’t mind, while I tell you about it can we cut over to Grace Street?” Perri asked. “I’d love to stop in somewhere and grab something to drink. My eyes are still crossed from staring at a screen all day and I have cottonmouth from those chips at lunch. They must have been ninety percent sodium. My tongue feels all rough now, like a cat’s tongue.”

  Nina laughed, “You’re right, I love those things but I feel like my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth, it’s dry as dust.”

  They turned left towards Grace Street, one block over and running parallel to Broad Street. As they walked, Perri explained to Nina what she had found. “There have been a rash of looting incidences in national battlefields. There’s a long history of it happening on private land and smaller areas, but now the looters are moving to the battlefield parks with their metal detectors. They dig holes in the fields, lawns, meadows, parks, even right up to displays, wherever they get a signal, and just leave the hole open, turf slung aside.”

  “That’s disgusting!” Nina spat out. “Who thinks it is ok to just dig up a park and take what they want?”

  “Evidently, more and more people all the time. As the items become scarcer, the prices go up, and more people want to cash in. It’s getting to be a big problem.”

  “It’s always something. Very little respect for property, people, even traditions anymore.”

  “It isn’t necessarily young people doing it either. Most of the time, looters, if they are caught, turn out to be middle aged or nearing middle age. They know enough about history and the value of Civil War items that they decide to take what they want and sell it as if it was their own property.” Perri paused, then continued, “Another thing I came across, which is even more disrespectful than looting battlefields, is the increasing frequency of finding evidence of grave robbing.”

  Nina turned to Perri as they stopped outside a small café. “Grave robbing? I thought that went out with the body snatchers of the 19th century.” Overhearing this part of the conversation, a woman carrying a toddler along the sidewalk turned and stared at them as she passed.

  “It did as far as it goes for stealing bodies for sale to medical schools for dissection. That was a huge problem in both the United States and in Europe. The supply of executed criminals and deaths of people in the poor houses wasn’t enough to satisfy the demand of the medical schools. So, the same way the value of relics draws looters, freshly buried bodies drew those willing to dig them up and sell them. Some even less savory individuals murdered people to sell the fresh body. More money for a fresh one.”

  “Oh, come on.” Nina gazed at Perri expecting her to say it was a joke. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. It came to be known as Burking. The term
came from William Burke, one of the most infamous grave robbers who was caught and hanged in 1829. Burkers tended to suffocate the victims because it left no obvious signs of murder, at least not at that time. Today, it would be detected. The schools that bought the corpses probably had a good idea that some of the bodies they purchased had been murdered, especially if they were still warm to the touch, but they wanted the bodies so badly they chose to ignore it.”

  “That’s shocking, that there were people who could resort to that for money.” Nina curled her lip.

  “The fresher the better! Probably hard to learn much from dissecting a body that is already putrid, collapsing, and falling…”

  “That’s good, got the image.” Nina peered inside the café. “On that note, let’s go in and get something to drink. Then you can continue to try to horrify me with your stories.”

  “It works. I already racked up ten points just then when you stopped me. Remember the rules of play. If you can get the other person to call a halt, it’s ten points. Score!” Nina smirked at Perri and Perri sneered in return as they walked up to the counter. “Here we were talking about Tom, but in ways we never grow up either, do we?”

  Back on Grace Street and nearly back to the hotel, Nina asked Perri to tell her more about the grave robbing she’d read about. “It has mostly happened in very rural, unattended, or forgotten cemeteries and burial grounds. It would be much more easily detected if someone tried it in a cemetery still in use or with a lot of traffic. Robbers are locating forgotten family plots that date to the periods anywhere from antebellum to the Art Deco era. They dig up the graves looking for jewelry, war relics, anything of value, but not the actual bodies like the snatchers were doing.”

  They reached the hotel and retrieved the Explorer from parking. As they drove west toward Midlothian, where Tom was at the police station, Nina asked, “Do you think the knife I bought for Tom was something that was looted from a battleground or stolen?”