by Gen LaGreca
Rachel lifted her head from their embrace and looked up at him. “You won’t be going away now, will you? I mean, the invention . . . it’s over, isn’t it?”
He looked at her, dumbfounded. Was she in a state of shock and not thinking clearly?
“You won’t be fixing to find that machine now, after all that’s happened, will you?”
“I will.”
She pushed away from him. “But hasn’t it caused enough trouble already?”
His head dropped at the stinging remark.
“I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” He told himself that she had a right to resent his invention—and him—after what had happened.
“I only meant that now, more than ever, I need you here with me and not roaming around the country.” Her eyes flashed with a sudden idea. “Why, with Papa gone, there are new opportunities for you right here, Tom.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You can go into politics.”
Tom raised his eyebrows, repulsed by the prospect.
“Papa always said that to get what you want in life, you need to be well connected. I mean, it would be so wonderful, Tom, if you took Papa’s senate seat!”
The thought left him speechless. He wanted to dispel her crazy notions immediately, because he had no intention of entering politics. But surely now was not the time to discuss his future—or his astonishment at how little she seemed to understand of it.
“Why don’t you think about it?” she said to his unsmiling face.
Her voluminous hoop skirt brushed against the furniture as she walked around the parlor. The room had the static neatness of a painting, with every item in place, rather than a living space for active people who moved a chair, opened a book, tossed a hat on the sofa, or otherwise left their mark.
“It’s lonely here.” Rachel sounded pleading, as if Tom were to provide a solution. She paused to stare dreamily through the glass doors of a cabinet that held family mementos. “Aunt Polly’s gone. And now Papa’s gone.” She pointed to pictures of them in the cabinet. Her eyes dropped to the bottom shelf, where a tattered old doll was perched in the corner. “My doll Sis was just a fantasy.” She looked at him sadly. “And now, with you busy all the time with those projects you make for yourself—”
“In Philadelphia you were busy too. Remember how I used to wait for you to finish your classes and rehearsals and performances before you found time to look at me?”
She smiled at the memory.
His eyes brightened with a sudden thought. “Say, let’s start a theater here! You and me. I’ll invest in it, and you can run it—and star in it. I’ll bet you won’t be lonely then!”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
“When you were performing, you weren’t lonely. The theater made you glow, Rachel.”
She gazed out the window, reminiscing. “I don’t know where I got the energy I had then. Why, I was downright delirious. You can’t stay feverish like that for long. You have to come back down to earth.”
“Why is earth a place where you’re bored?”
“Philadelphia.” She pronounced the word affectionately. “My life there seems so distant now, like a dream.”
“You were happy then. We were happy.”
She nodded wistfully.
“Then you went home and somehow things changed. Why didn’t you come back?”
“At first, I intended to. I was angry with Mother when she said she would have Papa cut off my money if I continued in the theater—”
“What? You never told me you were threatened.”
“I was not threatened,” she said indignantly. “They were trying to help me.”
“You could’ve come back to me. I would’ve helped you get by.”
“I didn’t want to just get by. Life in the theater was so . . . grueling. No sooner did I get back home then my friend Margie Gainsworth read me an article about how actors got nervous conditions and ruined their digestion after years of those horrid auditions with all the rude directors. Then if you get the part, there are the nasty critics. The struggle and grind of it all, well, my goodness, it changed the actors. They weren’t themselves anymore. They were ill and . . . unhappy. And Lord knows, the odds they’d ever get the leading roles they wanted were unbelievably slim.” She sighed. “As I listened to Margie reading, I thought that being an actor was like climbing a mountain . . . barefoot.” She gazed out the window introspectively. “I was afraid I’d slip and fall. After all, what was so special about me? Golly, Tom, there were so many other actors to compete with.”
“But you were good, really good. It’s no disgrace to slip and fall, but you stood out from the crowd. I think you would’ve reached the top.”
“But I have reached the top. I’m a star right here!” He wondered if the forced cheerfulness in her voice was to convince him—or herself. “I still sing. I just performed at the Harringtons’ barbecue.”
He listened, confused. His mind wandered to the day that the talented figure before him had performed patriotic songs in a public square at an Independence Day gathering of thousands, with her soaring voice and magnetic presence moving many to tears.
“And I also sang at Mrs. Kipling’s pumpkin-pie contest.”
He had no reply.
“You don’t understand, Tom. When I came back, the people in Greenbriar gossiped about me, with their nasty tongues wagging all the time. I couldn’t stand it!”
“Maybe they were jealous of you.”
“That shriveled old witch Mrs. Garner whispered about the senator’s daughter living wild and loose in Philadelphia. And Mrs. Jeffreys asked me to please assure her that what she’d heard about me wasn’t true. I had such a fright!” Rachel lowered her voice to a whisper. “I thought she had found out about us!”
“Just how would that be her business?”
“Turns out, that wasn’t it. She said she’d heard that I joined a theater. That was worse than an affair. She made it sound as if I’d joined a brothel. You see, the folks here have a different view of things than we did.”
“A very close-minded view.”
“Now, Tom!”
“We don’t have to walk down the same dusty old roads people walked in the past. The world is changing, Rachel.”
“Not here it isn’t.”
He stared at her silently, at a loss to find the magic words that would make her the person she used to be.
“So I left the theater.” She glared at him. “Tell me, Tom, what’s so wrong with that?”
“By all means, leave it. But not out of fear.”
“You make it sound as if I committed treason.”
“Only to yourself. I mean, you shouldn’t betray yourself.”
“I was causing Mother to fall ill, and I was an outright embarrassment to Papa in the senate. And what was I doing to myself? My friend Abby, bless her heart for trying to help me . . . well . . . she told me terrible stories about what happened to a woman she knew in the theater in New Orleans. Her parents downright cut her off for her wayward life. Then crooked managers robbed her and fickle audiences deserted her for a newer star. She was pushed out to walk the streets, penniless.” Her eyes looked dark and troubled. “It was a steep climb and a hard fall. So you see, when my parents offered me anything I wanted to stay in Greenbriar, I realized it was for the best.”
“But you have to live their way.”
“It’s not their way. It’s our traditions. And they serve us well.”
“I just want you to be happy, Rachel.”
“I’m happy.”
She might have said that she was bored or sleepy with the same indifference. This was the girl who had run into his arms, danced with joy, screamed with glee at the smallest of pleasures in Philadelphia—at a dessert she liked, a new play opening, a morning walk through the park. The fire in Rachel had somehow dampened.
“When I decided to stay here, the thing I missed most was you. I missed you terribl
y, you know.” She looked up at him in her alluring way. “But now you’re home too.”
His eyes searched hers as he tried to understand. Was she really happy? he wondered.
“You said you wanted to help Mother and me. You said you felt responsible. . . .”
His eyes closed in anguish.
“I don’t want you to suffer, Tom. I just want you to stay here with us and help us preserve what Papa worked so hard to provide for us. Now that he’s been taken from us . . . so suddenly . . . so horribly.”
His head fell as if a knife in his chest had just been plunged deeper. He took her hands. “Of course,” he whispered painfully, “I’ll stay here with you. For as long as it takes to get you and your mother through this.”
He was relieved when Charlotte appeared at the door.
“We can go out now and talk to the slaves,” said Mrs. Barnwell. “I want to be soothing. That’s how Wiley always spoke to them. He told them he’d look after them and protect them. We must assure them they’ll be fed, clothed, and cared for just as they’ve always been. That’s what’s always kept them . . . manageable.”
A sudden thought struck Tom. Is that what Charlotte and her husband had been doing to Rachel? Keeping her fed, clothed, and cared for so that she would be . . . manageable?
As he walked out of the parlor with Rachel and Charlotte, he paused to notice an oil painting of the senator by the front door. Tom had seen the portrait on many occasions, but this time it held a special significance to him. He looked admiringly at the kind face, the intelligent eyes, and the dignified bearing of the man who lost his life defending the invention. He recognized the signature of a local artist in a corner of the painting.
“Mrs. Barnwell, may I ask the painter if he can make me a reproduction of this portrait? I would love to have a remembrance of the senator.”
“Why, yes, of course, Tom.”
“It would mean so much to me. The senator meant so much.”
“By all means, have a copy made, Tom,” said Charlotte.
“The senator believed in me.”
“We believe in you too, Tom. You’re a good young man. You’ll provide a comfortable life for a wife”—Charlotte’s eyes darted to Rachel—“and a family of your own.” She patted his arm fondly. “You have a solid future here in Greenbriar. We believe you’ll do very well running your father’s bank and plantation.”
“But Senator Barnwell believed in my other work—my invention—and he . . . bravely . . . defended—”
“The vicissitudes of an inventor’s life weren’t what I was speaking of,” said Charlotte.
“Whenever I’ll look at this painting, Mrs. Barnwell, it’ll serve as all the more reason why I must develop my invention, not only for me but now also for the brave man who gave . . . everything . . . for it. My success will be my tribute to your husband’s memory.”
Charlotte stared at him. “Good Lord, Tom, what if that thing of yours is cursed?”
“How can progress be cursed?” Tom asked incredulously.
“What if Wiley’s death is an omen?”
“An omen . . . of what?”
Charlotte seemed to stare through Tom at a disturbing image of her own. “People who tried to defy fate are no longer here.”
“What do you mean?”
Charlotte didn’t seem to hear him, captured by a haunting memory that tugged at her.
“Mrs. Barnwell, are you all right?”
“No one can tamper with our way of life. Those who tried are no longer around to talk about it.”
“Tom,” interjected Rachel, “you’ve been away so long, you don’t remember that our traditions are our soul. You can’t change that. No one can change that.”
CHAPTER 6
The Greenbriar sheriff’s office was barely larger than a slave’s cabin, but the man occupying it didn’t seem to care. His tavern-like furnishings—a desk, a table, and a few chairs made of rustic planks—appeared to provide all the comfort he needed. A copy of the state and local statutes on top of a trunk filled with legal papers composed his library. Sheriff Robert Duran sat at his desk in shirtsleeves, writing notes about the case that consumed him. Out the front window, he could see the main street of the town he protected. Out the back window, away from public view, he could see the means by which he protected it—the brick jail and the courtyard with the scaffold in the corner, ready for use when needed.
His eyes drifted to the jail, where his uncle Ted Cooper stood at the barred window of his second-floor cell. The prisoner seemed to be staring across the courtyard between them, directly into his office—and into his eyes. Could his uncle really see him at that distance, he wondered, or was it his imagination? He lowered his head to his notes, avoiding the window.
It was the second morning since he had been called to the murder scene at the Crossroads. He glanced at his pocket watch. The men he had asked to come to his office to discuss the Barnwell case should be arriving soon. The overseer, Bret Markham, and the plantation’s slaves had said they knew nothing about the invention in the old carriage house or the crime committed there. They had seen guests attending the funeral, but nothing that looked suspicious. The sheriff was unaware of anyone having contact with the invention, aside from the three men to whom Tom had shown it: the senator, Cooper, and Nash Nottingham.
Duran had questioned Tom, who said he was alone in his room, writing, after the senator and Cooper had retired for the night. One servant said he’d brought logs, and another had taken tea to Tom’s room late that night, corroborating his whereabouts. Although a slave’s testimony had no legal standing in a case against a white man, the sheriff had no reason to doubt what he’d heard.
Yesterday he had visited the Nottingham plantation, where he spoke to Nash and his mother. They both seemed genuinely shocked to learn of the senator’s death. Nash explained that after Polly Barnwell’s funeral, he’d left the Crossroads to have supper and spend the night at his own plantation. Mrs. Nottingham confirmed that her son had been at home with her the entire evening; she’d retired early and seen her son before going to bed and again in the morning at breakfast.
Also yesterday, the sheriff had visited Ruby Manor, where he found Tom, who had already broken the news to Barnwell’s wife and daughter. The sheriff had learned that Charlotte and Rachel Barnwell knew about Tom’s invention and its whereabouts at the Crossroads, but they couldn’t conceive of anyone who’d have a motive to commit the horrible crime. After Polly’s funeral, they had returned home, where they had spent the evening in the company of neighbors until past midnight. When he left Ruby Manor, the sheriff dropped in on those neighbors, who verified the story.
Duran uncovered no loose ends and no conceivable suspect for the crime other than his uncle, who had been found standing over the body. Nevertheless, he had called Tom Edmunton, Bret Markham, and Nash Nottingham to his office that day. The inventor and the overseer were at the Crossroads at the time of the murder, and Nottingham was the only other man besides the inventor, the deceased, and the suspect who knew the nature of the device in the old carriage house. Duran had spoken to each of the men separately. Now he wanted to question them together to see if he could learn anything more.
He saw the first of his visitors coming up the front steps to his office and rose to put on his vest. Pinned to it was the silver badge he kept polished and wore proudly. His eyes paused on the emblem on the badge, a replica of a blindfolded goddess holding the scales of justice. He had always thought of her cause as his also. He glanced up at the man in the cell window whose eyes haunted him, the man he loved and couldn’t believe guilty. He silently vowed to uncover any information that might lead to a different interpretation of the crime. But because of his loyalty to the lady on his badge, the facts would have to fall where they might on her scales.
After the three men arrived and everyone took seats around the table, Duran searched the men’s faces. From Nash to Markham to Tom, he saw expressions from coolness to distrust to c
uriosity.
“I called you here to go over some things and ask a few questions,” he said simply. “First, Mr. Edmunton, tell me a little more about how your invention happened to get to the Crossroads on the day of Polly Barnwell’s funeral.”
Tom began his story. “I wanted to start a company that would develop my tractor and later sell it. This was a big venture, and I needed more money than I had, so I entered a contest in Philadelphia that was a showcase for new inventions where I hoped to find backers. I continued to make improvements on my invention until the last moment before I had to depart, which left me with little time to spare. It was at this time that Polly Barnwell died, and her funeral was set for the day I was going to leave on my trip, so I planned to miss the service.”
As he spoke, Tom looked at the sheriff, glancing occasionally at the others.
“The day before the funeral, I went to Ruby Manor to pay my respects to the Barnwells and apologize for having to miss the service. Rachel was upset with me. I had been courting her, but I was also neglecting her to work on my tractor. I hadn’t expected her to respond so . . . unfavorably. I was puzzled for a moment about what to do. The senator, who was present during the discussion, inquired about my plans. He consulted the steamboat schedule in a newspaper that he had handy and came up with a solution.”
“And what was that?” asked the sheriff.
“I could catch another steamer the morning after the funeral, which would get me to Philadelphia in time for the contest. Because the Crossroads is so much closer to Bayou Redbird, he suggested I take the invention there, attend the funeral, stay the night, then immediately head for the docks the next morning. The delay would be inconsequential, he suggested, and I could make Rachel happy while still carrying out my plan. I agreed to his alternative plan, and he sent his most trusted servant on his fastest horse to the docks with a note to reserve a place for me and my cargo on the steamboat leaving the day after Miss Polly’s service. The servant later returned with my new reservation.”