“RIO has its place in the overall picture. But, Dr. Journey, I sat in the threat assessment and listened to the FBI say they thought it was all bullshit, that this was some kind of stunt on your part. You tried to tell us, I tried to tell them, and the chief justice was killed anyway. You’re not insane, you’re not making this up, and the document is real. I believe that.”
Journey clenched a fist, then unfolded it slowly. “Why? Why do you believe me when no one does?”
Tolman looked surprised. “Because of your son.”
“What do you mean?”
“You take care of a child that a lot of people probably would be uncomfortable around even for five minutes. You have no motivation to do anything that would take you out of being in a position to raise your son. You have no reason to lie.” Tolman exhaled. “Then again, people are more complicated than that. No one really does something just for one reason, whether they know it or not. I don’t know you well enough to know the other reasons that I believe you.”
Journey shifted around again. “You’re very interesting, Meg Tolman. You’re not what I would expect from someone who works in a place called the Research and Investigations Office.”
“If that’s a compliment, thank you,” Tolman said.
Journey shrugged and began picking his way through some of the flotsam. He could see a set of concrete steps that led up to the deck. After a moment, Tolman followed him. “What are you doing?” she called.
“Thinking,” Journey said. “Something’s not right about all this, about being here.” He looked at his watch. “The interpretive center opens at nine. Maybe they can answer some questions.”
* * *
The team members of Dallas Four had stayed with the professor all the way from Carpenter Center, through the airports in Oklahoma City and St. Louis and Louisville. They had taken shifts in the motel, stayed with him as he entered Falls of the Ohio State Park. Thus far, they were undetected. Nick Journey was, after all, an amateur.
They had split up into two rental cars this morning. Silver was dressed in walking shorts and a dark tank top and new Nikes. She was a tourist. Journey would not be expecting her.
She walked onto the deck, guidebook in hand, camera around her neck, taking in the entire area. Journey was below, picking his way through the driftwood, scant steps away from the river. Then her eyes narrowed as she saw the short woman with the shoulder bag three steps behind Journey who appeared to be talking to him.
Silver turned away from the river and walked to the far end of the deck. She raised her wrist and spoke into the microphone there. “We may have a problem,” she said.
CHAPTER
30
At nine o’clock, the doors to the Interpretive Center opened and a handful of people trickled in. The receptionist, a gray-haired man with a kindly face, gave them a short speech about the center’s theater and exhibits.
Journey continued to look around. The family with the blond toddler was just ahead of them. Several elderly people had come in. A young black woman wearing shorts lagged a little behind.
Journey looked hard at the young woman. Had he seen her before?
He looked at her again. She was studying her guidebook, forehead furrowed. He turned away.
“What?” Tolman asked.
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m more jumpy than I realized.”
They went down a short flight of steps to the auditorium, which held eight rows of seats. The walls were stark and plain. After a few minutes, soft synthesized music filled the room and a video projection appeared on one wall.
Journey squirmed. The film was on the natural history of the area, how in the past this area had been near the Earth’s equator and part of a vast sea. The voice-over launched into a narration about the Devonian era.
There was something here. The Poet’s Penn had led here, to this spot on the Ohio River, a river that was at one time a major commercial highway. But the thought wouldn’t take shape, flitting away from him instead.
“You want to say something,” Tolman said.
They exited the auditorium and walked through the building, looking at the well-developed dioramas and graphics about the area’s history. They wound to the back of the building, and Journey stopped dead in his tracks, causing Tolman to bump into him. He stared at a graphic depicting how the river had been dammed beginning in 1866.
“Nothing’s the same,” he said.
“What?” Tolman said.
Journey didn’t answer her, jogging around the corner. They’d come full circle to the reception desk and a gift shop that sold books on the area’s history, right alongside pens and pencils and plastic boxes full of colorful rocks.
Journey leaned on the counter. The man with the kind face said, “How do you like the exhibits? Sorry the fossil beds aren’t exposed. It’s been the wettest summer we’ve had in thirty years here. Where are you folks from?”
Journey ignored the man’s question. “I’m a historian, and I’m doing some research on the area, particularly with regard to the Civil War era.”
“Oh, the Falls had quite an interesting history at that time. You know, there were Union Army posts here on the Indiana side in Clarksville, and in Jeffersonville, too. There was a real panic during the war when word came back that the Confederates were going to invade Louisville, so civilians were evacuated across the pontoon bridge to Jeffersonville. And you know what the Union Army did?” The man laughed. “They erected logs into the riverbank to look like cannon, which might fool the Confederates into thinking Jeffersonville was fortified. Maybe it worked—Louisville wasn’t ever invaded.”
Journey shook his hand from side to side. “All right … the first dam was built at the falls in 1866, right?”
“Yes, sir. Now the McAlpine Lock and Dam system—”
“But is anything here today the same as it would have been in 1865?”
“Excuse me?”
Journey gestured around the room. “This whole area. With everything that’s been done to the river, none of this is as it was then.”
The man picked at a fingernail. “I can’t say—”
Journey’s mind was racing. “What about the railroad trestle? When was it built?”
“That was 1895. I guess when you put it that way, there wouldn’t be anything just the same. Can’t expect things to be the exact way they were that long ago.”
Journey pulled at Tolman’s arm. “Come on.”
They stepped back outside. A few more clouds had rolled in, and the day had become overcast.
“What?” Tolman said. “What is it?”
Journey leaned against the railing, his back to the Ohio. “Think about this. Tell me … think in terms of 1865. How would this area around Louisville have been different from the area around Fort Washita in Indian Territory?”
“I don’t … I wasn’t a history major.”
“Think! Where was the country at that time? What was going on here? What was going on in Oklahoma?”
“I don’t … I don’t know anything about Oklahoma. Indians, I guess. The Indians were in Oklahoma. This isn’t a classroom lecture, Dr. Journey.”
“But you’re right. Fort Washita was where the first page of the Appomattox document was found. At the time Washita was built in 1842, it was the most remote outpost the U.S. Army had. It was truly the frontier. The Native people who had been brought there on the Trail of Tears from the Southeast were in the area, but there weren’t many white settlers.”
“All right, I get that.”
“But here. How would Louisville compare?”
Tolman thought for a moment. “It was more settled. You said it was a major supply point for the Union in the Civil War.”
“Exactly! It was settled. It was a city, and it was growing. It was a steamboat hub. Things were happening here, things were changing all the time.”
“But I don’t—”
“The man who wrote that document knew that Fort Washita was in the wilderness, a
nd he knew that this was settled. He couldn’t have known what kind of growth the West would undergo after the war. Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory didn’t merge into a state until 1907.”
Tolman looked surprised. “That’s really recent. I didn’t realize that.”
Journey nodded. “We’re a young state. But at the time of Appomattox, no one could tell what was going to happen in the West. So he felt that he could safely bury something in the ground there—he wasn’t expecting it to stay there for nearly a hundred fifty years, after all.”
Tolman began to see it. “So he wouldn’t have done the same thing here. This was a major city. But that still doesn’t tell us anything about your missing pages.”
Journey was quiet for a moment, then started toward the steep concrete steps he’d climbed earlier. There were six sets of nine steps each. At the bottom, he turned back to Tolman and said, “I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. The Poet’s Penn wasn’t to tell where another clue was. It is the clue.”
Tolman sat down on a step. “Explain.”
“He meant to lead whoever found the first page back here, back to Louisville.”
“What do you mean, back here?”
“Because he was from here. He didn’t bury anything or hide anything at the Falls of the Ohio. But this was his home base. He figured that whoever found the Fort Washita page would understand that the whole business about the poem and the river bending and the waters falling would make us understand who he was, and bring us to his hometown.”
Tolman noted his use of the word us, and smiled. “All right, I can see that. But Louisville’s a big city—how do we find someone from 1865 who would have gotten close to Grant and Lee?”
“No, the answer’s right in front of us: The Poet’s Penn.”
“The poet?”
Journey sat down beside Tolman. “No. Not him. The writing style doesn’t match. His writing was very vivid, lots of imagery and description.” He folded his hands together. Far off to their left, a whistle sounded as a freight train started across the trestle.
“I keep thinking of something Sandra told me,” Journey said.
“Wait a minute … Sandra. Who’s Sandra?”
Journey hesitated a moment. Tolman noticed the hesitation. “Sandra Kelly. A coworker of mine,” Journey said. “A friend.”
Tolman nodded and said nothing, watching the subtle shift in his dark eyes.
“When she read the first page of the Washita document, she said it sounded … what was the word she used?” He gazed off across the river at Kentucky, then looked at Tolman again, as if he were in a trance. “Businesslike. She said it sounded businesslike.”
He took his backpack off his shoulder, unzipped it, and pulled out the legal pad where he’d made notes to himself. His slanting cursive filled margins. He slapped the pad against his knee. “This is who we should be looking for.”
“Who?”
“David Stanton published The Poet’s Penn for six years. His money ran out in 1864. But for that entire six years, the journal was funded by a Louisville banker.”
“Holy shit,” Tolman whispered, then in a louder tone, said, “A banker. He would have had money.”
Journey nodded. “It makes a lot more sense for him to get close to Grant and Lee than an itinerant poet.” He thumped the pad again. “This is who we need to find. His name was Samuel B. Williams.”
CHAPTER
31
“Do you trust me?” Tolman asked him.
Journey looked down into her clear blue eyes. A droplet of sweat ran from his hairline, past his cheek, and under his shirt collar. His gaze shifted down, and he pointed at her hands.
“Tell me something. Are you a musician?”
She unfolded her hands, revealing the long, slender fingers and short nails. Tolman nodded. “Pianist. You’re observant.”
“My son has great hands. Are you any good?”
“Pretty good. I get a few paying gigs.”
“How does that work with the government job?”
“I have an understanding boss.”
“You play jazz or classical or what?”
“Classical, mostly. But a little of this and a little of that.”
“They’re good hands,” Journey said. “They remind me of Andrew’s.”
Tolman nodded.
“I guess I don’t have any choice,” Journey said.
“Nope,” Tolman said. “Come on. My laptop’s in the car.”
They took Tolman’s rental to a McDonald’s near I-65 in Clarksville, not far from the park. Both ordered coffee and they sat in a corner booth. When she opened her laptop, it was still on the result of the database search she’d done earlier. Can’t be right, she thought again. She made a mental note to look into it later. Right now she had more concrete, immediate concerns. She saved the search, and she and Journey sat next to each other, Tolman’s hands working the keyboard, Journey scribbling more notes on his pad.
In half an hour, Tolman sat back and said, “So the Williams family founded First Commercial Bank of Kentucky in 1840. Henry Benjamin Williams was the founder. He died in 1858, and his oldest son, Samuel Benjamin Williams, took over. There’s mention of another son, John Jefferson Williams, who was killed in the war.”
“Eighteen fifty-eight is the same year The Poet’s Penn started.”
“A cousin on Samuel’s mother’s side, Estes Atwood, took over the bank in 1864. It stayed with the family until 1901. It’s been through nine mergers and acquisitions since then, but the current River National Bank of Kentucky is its corporate descendant.”
“So Samuel Williams took over running the bank the same year he started funding Stanton and The Poet’s Penn.” He counted on his fingers. “Eighteen sixty-four. The Civil War is winding down. The Poet’s Penn ceases publication. A cousin takes over the bank. Which tells us…”
“That something happened to Samuel Williams,” Tolman said.
“I would say so.”
“I’m beginning to like him for this,” Tolman said. “But how do we find what he may have left behind?”
“I’d say we start with the bank.”
* * *
Journey climbed into her car and Tolman said, “I need to make a phone call.” She called Hudson’s direct line and heard, “You have reached Russell Hudson, deputy director of the Research and Investigations Office.…”
She wasn’t surprised. He was probably somewhere with Díaz from the FBI and God only knew who else. After the tone, she said, “Rusty, I haven’t heard from the local Bureau here in Louisville. I think Journey’s on to something, and we’re tracking it down. But I’m a little nervous, and I’d like that backup as soon as I can get it.”
She broke the connection, then called the office’s main number. The receptionist sounded harried when she answered.
“Tina, it’s Meg. Is Rusty in there?”
“He’s been gone all morning. Things are not very nice around here. I think the Bureau’s blaming us for what happened to the chief justice.”
Tolman sighed. “Have him call me ASAP, okay?”
“Okay, but I think he’ll be at the Hoover Building for a long time. He said he’d be back here late, if at all. You just can’t believe how crazy this is, Meg.”
“Yes, I can. Thanks, Tina.”
She closed her phone and got behind the wheel of the car. Journey was looking at her. “Trying to get us covered,” she said, and pointed the car toward the highway.
* * *
On the Kentucky side of the river, they drove downtown to the corporate headquarters of River National Bank, in its own office tower at the corner of Fourth Street and Liberty.
Fourth Street, between Liberty and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, had been turned into a pedestrian mall and renamed “Fourth Street Live.” An arch-shaped roof covered most of the block and a raised walkway spanned the street. Retail shops, chain restaurants, nightclubs, and a huge bowling alley called X-Bowl fronted the street. Foot traffic
flowed easily.
“Looks like downtown Louisville is doing pretty well,” Tolman said.
In the main lobby of the blue-tinted River Tower, Tolman asked a bored twenty-something man wearing a headset for the bank’s community relations office. He punched a few buttons on a telephone console and directed them to the ninth floor.
On the ninth floor, a blond woman, who in four-inch heels was as tall as Journey and a full foot taller than Tolman, greeted them. “I’m Janine Pierce,” she said. “Assistant vice president of community relations. How can I help you?” Her voice was soft and pleasant, not deep Southern, but neither was it Midwestern. Tolman suspected it was a common accent in Louisville.
Tolman showed her government ID. “Thanks for seeing us, Ms. Pierce. We’re in the midst of an investigation that is connected to the Williams family, who founded First Commercial Bank.”
Pierce was walking in long strides toward a small office. “First Commercial? Hmm, I think you may have the wrong … Oh no, wait a minute. First Commercial was the original bank. Oh my, it hasn’t been First Commercial in a long, long time.”
“I understand that,” Journey said, “but we’re looking for any kind of historical information we can get on the Williams family, who started First Commercial. We thought the bank might have some records.”
“Oh, I don’t think our records would go back that far. We’ve been River National Bank of Kentucky since 1997, and before that we were part of Cornerstone Bank for a long time. Have you looked online?”
“That’s what led us to you.”
“You can find almost anything on the Web,” Pierce said. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? My two girls are seven and nine, and they just can’t imagine a world without computers. And I’m not even that old.”
They waited.
“Let me just check on something,” Pierce said, uncomfortable with the silence. She left the room and returned in a few minutes with a note written in large round printing on a River National Bank notepad. “I asked Donna. She’s been here forever. She said a few years ago there was a man here in town who wanted to write a book, and the bank donated a lot of its historical records to him to help with his research. He passed away a while back, but Donna thinks his son has all those papers. He has an office downtown, not far from here. Maybe he can help you.”
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