Before I shut down my laptop, however, I took a few minutes to further investigate Savannah Lundstrom, and found that the reporter had a long string of historical publications to her name. She grew up in Dallas, Texas, and traveled all around for her job, her bio read, and loved learning new things from the people she interviewed. She also wrote frequently on topics dealing with the South and Southwest.
I skimmed a couple of her articles, but none had the exposé feel of the one from Chronology. Yawning, I closed the lid on my laptop. For now, I was too tired to look any further.
Gathering a purring NPH in my arms, I walked to my front door and let him out. Fluffy tail held high, he trotted downstairs toward the lit-up condo that belonged to Jackson, and I knew he’d be safely home with his human before long.
SEVEN
Sunday was a perfectly blissful day, with neither Ben nor I mentioning our respective jobs even once.
Well, that’s not entirely true. After lunch, we drove the half hour up to Austin’s pretty St. Edward’s Park and went for a leisurely three-mile hike along trails that seemed to have exploded with bluebonnets just for us. Much of our afternoon was spent talking about various conflicts throughout American history, including the Civil War, but Ben seemed to make a concerted effort to skirt the direct topic of Camilla’s ancestor, and so did I. Otherwise, we thought of nothing but enjoying each other.
Monday morning came all too soon, and so did my meeting with Camilla at the Harry Alden Texas History Museum. Ben dropped me off on his way into the office for meetings, though as he and I spent an inordinately long and blissful amount of time saying goodbye, it took a car honking at us for me to finally hop out of his SUV. Nevertheless, it was ten more minutes before I saw Camilla coming toward me outside the museum’s entrance.
Her eyebrows rose slowly but steadily when she saw me, and surprised humor brightened her eyes.
What gives? I thought. Then I remembered Flaco’s and Ana’s expressions had been much the same when Ben and I had turned up at the taqueria for a very, very late breakfast. They’d teased us mercilessly in turn—both in English and in Spanish, I might add. I guess I just had that happy, new-romance glow. And darn it if I don’t deserve it, too. Still, I was already blushed out for the day, so I didn’t respond to her smirk.
“Ready?” I asked, holding the door open for her.
“Are you? Sure you don’t need a nap? Or a cigarette?”
I didn’t respond to that, either, and merely continued on past her, holding out my phone so my online ticket could be scanned. Camilla hadn’t bought a ticket in advance, so I walked in by myself, then stopped in my tracks when I caught sight of myself in a reflective piece of plexiglass shielding a poster announcing an upcoming exhibit.
“Oh, lordy,” I whispered, then scrabbled to send Ben a quick text.
Mayday! Check face for lipstick before going into work.
I got a text back almost immediately.
Too late.
Worth it.
I giggled as I made myself look presentable again, taking a tissue to my smudged lips and smoothing down my mussed hair before I trotted to catch up with Camilla, who was now asking a docent for directions.
A few minutes later, we stood side by side in front of a large exhibit dedicated solely to the life and service of Charles Braithwaite. Today, his descendant’s perfume was applied lightly, thank goodness, and it smelled quite nice. Like magnolias, with a hint of something fruity underneath.
“Well, the curator either hasn’t read the Chronology article or is giving us the benefit of the doubt for now, so I guess that’s a good thing,” Camilla said.
“The curator hasn’t seen it,” I said, gazing up at the nearly life-size photo of Charles Braithwaite. “After you hired me on Saturday, I decided to text my friend who’s the assistant curator here to see if his boss had read it. She hadn’t, and my friend owed me a favor, so he pulled the magazine from his boss’s stack of reading material. He said that should buy us about five business days before his boss notices.”
“What if something starts trending on social media?” Camilla asked. “Or what if someone tweets the museum about the exhibit?” She gave me a look as if she were just now remembering how Chronology articles were known for sparking viral discussions.
“My friend is also the gatekeeper of social media for his boss,” I said as my eyes roamed over Charles’s journal, which was small and leather bound, with a thin leather lace encircling its middle twice before tying in a so-called monk’s knot. “He told me she never looks at their feeds unless something blows up big-time.” I glanced at Camilla. “But if that happens, he has his job to do and we’re out of luck.” When I saw the concern in her eyes, I added, “He doesn’t expect anything to happen, though.”
After a moment thinking about this, she nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Now, I’ll want to go over all this with a fine-tooth comb in a minute,” I said, “but there’s a lot to look at here, so point out the things you think are important for me to see.”
I faced Camilla, hoping my objectivity in the matter was showing. I’d decided that to do my best work and feel like I earned my fee, I needed to look at the problem of Charles Braithwaite without thinking he was either guilty or innocent.
Camilla, though, wasn’t looking back at me, but instead was pointing to two small sheets of paper that had at one time been folded in half. The narrow, slanting script was so small and cramped, the museum had helpfully included a transcription next to it. “There. That’s one of his letters back home to his father, where he details being in battle at Antietam.”
“In September of 1862,” I said, having done a bit of research on the various battles in which Texas troops had been involved. “That was just after the Second Battle of Bull Run. Antietam was a rough one, too, for both sides.”
“Yes, it was,” Camilla said. Still, there was a bit of triumph in her eyes at being able to produce a document written by her ancestor about that conflict. I had to admit, it was hard not to see it and be swayed a bit in Charles’s favor. Then I reminded myself that Antietam had been well reported, meaning Charles could have read up on the battle and fabricated the events in his letter at any point after the war.
“Was the envelope saved?”
She pointed off to the side. An envelope addressed to Mr. Josiah Braithwaite in Houston, Texas, was there, but only a portion of it. The part where the envelope would have been postmarked, usually with a large circular stamp listing the name of the major city it had passed through and the date of receipt by the post office, was missing. The bottom edge of a blue-toned postage stamp, curling up with age, was still visible. I could just make out that the stamp had been for five cents.
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from overthinking the convenience of an envelope torn just right to conceal a missing postmark. I was determined to remain neutral until I had all the facts.
Camilla then pointed to an enlarged photo next to Charles’s journal. It was a very detailed pencil sketch of a young, kneeling soldier who was pointing his rifle at something off the page. At the bottom of the page was another drawing, of a soldier lying dead on the ground, his rifle still in hand and blood oozing from the side of his head. From the wispy goatee and curling hair on both figures, it was clear the two subjects—the kneeling one and the dead one—were the same young soldier. Between the two sketches, Charles had written a few lines of text that made my heart catch.
I knew him, this brave boy, not yet seventeen. He was beside me one moment, smiling through battle, knowing all would be well. The next, he was gone from this Earth, half his skull gone. I have taken his rucksack to return to his poor mother. Farewell, young Powers.
When I read the surname “Powers,” I felt another little swoop of disappointment. In Savannah Lundstrom’s article, she’d mentioned Charles writing about a young soldier named Powers, though she emphasized there had been no soldiers in his regiment with that last name. It was one of a c
ouple of ways she’d illustrated to the readers that Charles had likely fabricated his war service.
It seemed Camilla had glossed over that bit of the article or was choosing to forget it. “And here’s his uniform,” she went on, “with one of the buttons missing. In his journal, he mentions losing the button after the war ended, when he was making his way back home.”
“Did you or the museum curator scan the entire journal?” I asked.
“The museum did,” she said. “It’s available online through their website.”
Now excitement coursed through me, like it always did when I found journals or letters from my clients’ ancestors and got to delve into the thoughts of someone who actually lived in that time. Serena used to tease me about being a voyeur into other people’s lives, and I guess she was right, but I was always careful to treat what I read with the respect it deserved.
“There,” Camilla said again, pointing to a yellowed sheet of paper with Confederate States of America printed in block letters above a logo bearing the image of Confederate president Jefferson Davis between the American flag and the Confederate flag. “That’s Charles’s discharge paper.”
I nodded, looking at it with interest even as I wondered how easy it would have been for Charles to forge a discharge paper after the war. “Your family kept all of this, and it’s just amazing from a historical and genealogical standpoint. I’m so glad.”
Camilla gave me a brief, bright smile and we continued to look awhile longer before Camilla went down the hall to see a couple of other exhibits, leaving me alone to study the Charles Braithwaite artifacts in more detail. I took lots of photos and read the transcribed letter again, along with some of his journal entries that eloquently described the horrors of what he’d experienced out on the battlefield. Even so, the whole time I was vacillating between wanting desperately to believe in Charles Braithwaite’s story and feeling like the chances he had been telling the truth were becoming slimmer and slimmer.
EIGHT
A half hour later, we were in Camilla’s car on I-35, heading north, when we hit Austin traffic and a major stall in our conversation at the same time.
Finally I broke the awkwardness by asking her about her uncle Charlie. “Or your third cousin, twice removed, whom you refer to as your great-uncle, but call Uncle Charlie,” I said with a grin.
When Camilla changed lanes but didn’t reply, I’m afraid I started rambling.
“Speaking of family-relationship terms and uncles, did you know that, back before the fifteenth century, the word ‘avunculus’ was used to mean specifically your uncle on your mother’s side? For instance, you might have said, ‘My avunculus sold his best plow horse last week, the bloody fool’—or Middle English to that effect, naturally—and back before 1400, I would know, without a doubt, that you weren’t referring to your uncle on your dad’s side. No way, no how. You were being clear that it was your mom’s brother who went and sold his best plow horse like a dunderhead.”
Throughout this, Camilla had been slowly hiking her eyebrow, but eventually her lips quirked upward.
“Uncle Charlie never married,” she said finally, “and he was always like an extra grandfather to me—to make the description of our relationship even more confusing. He was in Vietnam and came back with a leg injury that left him needing to walk with a cane, but it’s never stopped him from traveling the world and being really active. Otherwise, he’s been a wine merchant his whole career and never drinks except to taste the wine he sells.” Camilla frowned, but kept her eyes on the road. “He might have been long retired by now if it hadn’t been for his former business partner. The guy stole all Uncle Charlie’s money. Ran off with everything, oh, nearly forty years ago now and Uncle Charlie never recovered a cent of it.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “Is he still working full-time? You said he was in his eighties, right?”
Camilla nodded. “Eighty-four, in fact, but he’s not full-time anymore. He only works a couple days a week, hosting wine tastings throughout Austin and the Hill Country.”
I blinked, a memory resurfacing. “You know, I think I’ve taken a class from him. Just over a year ago now. I signed up last minute with Nick, a guy I was in a serious relationship with at the time. It was the night Nick told me he’d met someone else.”
“Wow, that sucks,” Camilla said as she changed lanes again.
I waved it off. “Oh, it’s water under the bridge, and I’m so glad I’m not with Nick anymore, but he dropped this bombshell on me just before the class started, so you could say it overshadowed the night. However, I do remember our class was taught by a handsome older gentleman who walked with a cane.” I grinned, thinking back. “He could see that Nick had upset me and refused to acknowledge him any time Nick raised his hand with a question. And at least twice, he made sure Nick got the dregs of the bottle we were tasting. It was pretty darn funny, actually.”
I laughed at the memory, and this time Camilla laughed with me.
“Yeah, that sounds like something Uncle Charlie would do,” she said. “He was always my champion. My ex-husband and I are on decent terms now, thankfully, but when we first divorced, Uncle Charlie wouldn’t give Gareth the time of day—and they’d been good friends up until that point.”
“Does he speak to Gareth now that y’all are friendly again?” I asked. Camilla was already divorced when I’d worked with her, so I’d never met her ex-husband. Heck, she’d been so closemouthed about her private life, I hadn’t even known his name until now, nor did I recall ever seeing photos of her two boys, though I’d spoken to them a couple of times on the phone when they’d called the library’s main line to speak with their mom.
“Oh, sure, they’re back to being buds, like they were before,” Camilla said, though without much enthusiasm. I decided not to push the subject further. It wasn’t until we exited the freeway and made a few turns into an older suburb of small but well-kept homes that Camilla spoke up again.
“I’m worried about Uncle Charlie, actually,” she said quietly.
“You told me he hasn’t been well. Are you afraid it may be serious?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the road. “He hasn’t seen a doctor yet, but he’s allowing me to take him this afternoon, after I drive you home.”
“Does he have any other help, or someone to watch out for him when you’re not here?” I asked.
Camilla’s lips thinned as we drove down a street named Fairview Drive. “Until recently, he’s been healthy as a horse and has never needed any help, despite his age and a permanent limp. The only person he’s ever let do anything for him is Elaine, the woman who lives next door, but she’s not my biggest fan, and vice versa.” Camilla’s hands grasped the steering wheel even tighter. “Though as much as I’d like to, I can’t blame her for not alerting me that Charlie’s condition has deteriorated. She’s been out of town for the past two weeks, and Charlie never let on to me that he was feeling off.” Camilla shook her head in consternation. “I didn’t realize how poorly he was until I saw him on Saturday. I should have come sooner.”
She came to a stop in front of a small house with sage-blue lap siding and white accents. On the front porch were two rocking chairs, and flats of spring flowers in four-inch pots were crowding the steps. At the foot of the steps were several bags of potting soil stacked in a haphazard pile. Uncle Charlie clearly liked a riot of color. The flower beds fronting his porch were abloom with a mixture of snapdragons, pansies, dianthus, and chrysanthemums, all in varying bright hues. The rest of the beds had been given fresh, dark soil, and were ready for planting.
The path to the front door was lined with pavers in a herringbone pattern, and as we walked up, I could see dirt spilling out across the bricks from one of the brown paper bags of potting soil with the name Soils from Heaven across the front in a swirly font. Almost the moment we stepped onto the porch, the front door opened and I found myself looking at an elegant woman in her seventies with a steel-gray pixie haircut.
“Elaine, this is my friend Lucy Lancaster.” Camilla’s tone was cordial, if tinged with a hint of frost. “Lucy’s the genealogist I told Uncle Charlie about. She’s come to see the painting done by my ancestor.”
I shook Elaine’s hand, noting that she barely acknowledged Camilla, which made my feathers feel oddly ruffled on my former coworker’s behalf.
“A genealogist?” Elaine repeated as she held the front door open for us. “That’s such an interesting job to have. Do you do it part-time? Surely you can’t make a good living out of researching family trees.”
I heard this question quite a bit, so I pretended I didn’t notice her slightly condescending tone and gave her my usual answer.
“I have to keep up a steady stream of work, yes, but if I do a good job for my clients, that usually gets me the referrals I need to work consistently.” It was easy to change the subject after that, considering what greeted me in Charlie’s living room. “Wow, Camilla, you didn’t tell me your great-uncle also collects photographs.”
Except for two modern sofas facing each other over a glass coffee table, the rest of the room was devoid of any furniture in order to showcase the walls, which were lined from baseboard to crown molding with black-and-white photos in simple black frames. Written in pencil on the white frame mats was each photo’s description and date. There were family photos, landscapes, ones with a stark modernist feel, and others that were city or street scenes capturing a moment in time. They ranged in size from three by five to eight by ten, forming an eye-catching and slightly dizzying mosaic covering every available inch of all four walls.
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