When I Meet You

by Olivia Newport

  “This has something to do with that name you circled in seven colors,” Nolan said, “and you think is connected to the ranch.”

  “It was one color, and I know the name is connected to the ranch,” Jillian said. “That’s a matter of public record. I just have to connect it to Lynnelle’s trunk.” Nolan couldn’t object. He had agreed Min’s reaction suggested Jillian was on the right trail—as long as she didn’t upset the family until she had something solid.

  They parted at Nolan’s downtown office. Jillian had plenty of time to walk to the library, even stopping for a second morning cup of coffee on the way, before the doors opened. Jillian carried a light bag. No laptop. No pens. Not even an iPad or a purse. Just a narrow-ruled yellow pad and pencils that were safe in the vicinity of volumes and documents that could not be easily replaced. She’d been around enough valuable documents to know she didn’t want to be responsible for accidental defilements. If she found something of value, she could request a photocopy or snap an image on her phone.

  Even dawdling over coffee, Jillian arrived at the library before it opened and was the first person through the door when a staff member unlocked it, and made her way to the Western History and Genealogy section on the fifth floor. Like most archival listings Jillian had come across in her years researching genealogy and historical events, the printout of the Pinkerton’s archives of the historic Denver office that had once been housed in the same block as the famous Tabor Opera House wasn’t exhaustive. Instead, it gave numbers and labels on boxes and the general nature of the contents of each box. Before requesting a box, however, Jillian asked a more general question of the archivist librarian on duty.

  “How would I locate copies of correspondence from the Pinkerton’s Agency to a client in 1909?”

  The librarian looked over the top of her stylish blue-rimmed glasses. “You wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t have any in the collection from that year?”

  “We don’t have any at all,” the librarian said. “Such documents would be rare. Pinkerton’s was scrupulous about confidentiality with private clients. They made their reports to clients when the investigation was complete, but keeping files of any details was out of the question—certainly not any correspondence that could fall into the wrong hands and compromise their reputation.”

  She spoke with the clinical detachment of someone who disbursed information all day. What she said made sense but was of no help to Jillian.

  “Some fragments of correspondence survived,” the librarian said. “They don’t tend to have identifying information, and they’re not organized chronologically, but if you look through the right boxes, you never know what you might find.”

  Jillian glanced at the index she’d printed out. “What about this one about train robberies?” It was the best guess she had at the moment. Lynnelle’s train journey to meet with James McParland was the only clue she had.

  “Give me a few minutes. I’ll bring it to you.”

  Jillian chose a table and spread out her legal pad and pencils. Ten minutes later, she had the train robberies box in front of her. She unpacked the contents, stacking them carefully on the table and looking for some pattern that would have made someone group the items in this box together. A couple of small bound books about train robberies bore faded stamps indicating they had belonged to the Western Regional Office of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency at some point, but as far as Jillian could tell they had not originated with it. Someone had compiled an annotated list of train robberies and the gangs alleged to have perpetrated them, organized by spurs of the major railroad companies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Remarks included the ones Pinkerton’s claimed credit for solving, though it seemed that most went unsolved or unprosecuted. Apparently, finding witnesses who were both reliable and willing was problematic, though when Pinkerton’s agents were aboard a train at the time of the crime, they claimed a higher success rate. Whether that was true or meant to be advertising material, Jillian couldn’t tell. She jotted names on her legal pad, though nothing stuck out as persuasive. The only correspondence in the box was addressed to bank executives, and none of it was dated in 1909. It couldn’t have anything to do with Lynnelle Bendeure, but references to annual reports Pinkerton’s made to the American Bankers Association caused Jillian to ask for a second box.

  The librarian brought it to her with the caveat that it also would likely only contain fragments. Full reports to the American Bankers Association were prepared at the national level, most likely out of New York or Chicago. As far as she knew, they weren’t a primary function of the Western Regional Office, though of course there were cases of bank fraud in the western part of the nation that would have been included if the Denver office succeeded in cracking them.

  Jillian found pieces of reports—as if someone who learned how to write research papers in the days of index cards had made notes about what might or might not go into a first draft, never mind make the cut for a final draft. Some of the documents were typed on machines with ink-clogged letters and faded ribbons on pages yellowed and fragile with age. Others were handwritten notes with the swirls and elongated elegant lettering of the turn of the century. Nowadays so many people didn’t do more than offer an opening letter and an illegible squiggle for a legal signature. When she read historical documents, Jillian admired the disciplined gentility that went into written records. Immediately, however, she knew she’d need to take notes to sift any organization that might emerge from the fragments.

  Names mattered, and then dates. And bank names.

  Some of the names included first and last names. Some were one name only—she presumed last names, but she couldn’t always be certain—and some were merely initials. The person making notes, who presumably might also have written a fuller version that did not survive, at least not in this box, would have known what the abbreviations stood for. Some notes were so sparing that Jillian couldn’t be certain they were meant to refer to a Pinkerton’s operative or a con man. She could do little more than make a list and hope for a pattern. Beside names or initials, she included brief notes identifying the activities of the individuals.

  Mr. Wills seemed to have been quite active in averting several disastrous fraud operations on the New York Central and Union Pacific.

  Later Mr. Willis appeared. Then Miss Willis.

  Lazy typing?

  Jillian underlined the similarity of names in her notes and the frequency with which the same railroads were mentioned, even the same routes.

  Cara Wills.

  Carey Willis.

  She circled both these names the third time they appeared. More careless draft recording? Surely Pinkerton’s knew the names and genders of their own operatives. Carey could be a female name, or a misspelling of Carrie. The ink was faded enough that it was difficult to say whether there was an i in the last name. But none of what she’d come across so far occurred during 1909 anyway. It was all earlier. She would have a hard time arguing it was relevant to Lynnelle’s disappearance.

  The list of banks included fourteen institutions in the Western Region, but as far as she could remember none of them matched anything in the business listings in Lynnelle’s trunk. None of them was even in Denver. What could this have to do with anything?

  By now the librarian had been relieved for a lunch break and returned. Jillian ignored the grumbling of her own stomach. She’d promised Nolan she’d be back at the law firm in plenty of time to get a jump on the afternoon rush hour traffic, and so far she hadn’t turned up anything she could use. As random as it seemed, she kept adding to her list of recurring or similar names as her primary focus for her remaining time.

  Mr. Meade.

  L. Carey.

  K. Willis.

  William.

  Careys.

  C.K.

  K.C.

  H.H.

  Willis.

  Hollis.

  C.W.

  C.M.

  Hank Hi
lls.

  Helen H.

  Krispin.

  Kiplan.

  Caroline.

  Clara Hollis.

  Clarissa Hill.

  Liam Meade.

  Carey K.

  Kipling.

  Jillian flipped back to the page of names from the first box about train robberies. Wills, Willis, and Kiplan were on that list as well. Whoever Meade was, it was hard to discern which side of the law he was on from the descriptions of his activities.

  And still not a single reference to 1909. When she got back to her computer at home, she would dig a little harder into finding full copies of the reports from Pinkerton’s to the American Bankers Association for 1909 and 1910.

  Jillian made a clean listing of the documents she wanted photocopies of, which she had sorted into neat piles, and took them to the archivist.

  “Does the library have copies of the Pinkerton’s reports to the American Bankers Association for 1909 and 1910?” Jillian asked. As long as she was here, she might as well inquire whether she could save herself some research time.

  “I’ve never seen them,” the librarian said. “There wouldn’t be one at all for 1910, because Pinkerton’s lost their contract in September 1909, and the Bankers Association had stopped including the Pinkerton’s reports in their proceedings book before then anyway. A bank officer who wanted the full report had to ask for it. I wouldn’t say that it’s impossible you’d find it in an average collection, but it would be difficult.”

  “Thank you for the information.” Jillian slid her list across the counter and set down her stacks. “Perhaps I could just have these photocopies then.”

  “Of course.” The librarian scanned the list of document titles. “Pinkerton’s in 1909? That’s what you’re interested in?”

  Jillian nodded.

  “You probably want the trial transcript then.”

  “Trial transcript? I didn’t see anything about a trial in the archives index.”

  “I keep telling the powers that be that we need to get the records updated. We have some other boxes stored off-site.”

  “What kind of a trial?”

  “A big banking fraud trial in mid-1910. But the case happened in 1909. Is that what you’re trying to find?”

  “It might be.” Jillian’s heart pounded. “How do I see the transcript?”

  The librarian opened a drawer and removed a form. “Fill this out while I make your photocopies. It will take a few days to get the boxes.”

  Boxes. Plural.

  “Here,” the librarian said, handing Jillian a pen. “Use ink for this.”

  Jillian raced back to Nolan’s truck just in time to see him unlocking the doors.

  “How was it?” he asked as he backed the vehicle out of the spot in the parking garage.

  “Fruitful. I think. Confusing.” It was hard for Jillian to know how to begin an explanation. “There’s a trial transcript, Dad! When I get it, can you help me sort out what it all means?”

  Halfway home, they agreed that in a house full of food, they had nothing to eat for dinner. Every available ingredient and space were waiting for Nolan to organize himself to begin assembling two hundred meals. They stopped and grabbed spicy Asian noodle bowls for an easy meal to take home.

  Later, Jillian picked up a dry-erase marker and started another list of names on her whiteboard. This time, instead of listing names in the order in which she had come across them in her note taking, she reorganized.

  Which initials might refer to the same people as full names?

  Which single names might refer to the same people?

  Which names were similar enough that they might be variants for the same person—code names, perhaps—used on different operations, whether referring to Pinkerton’s operatives or to suspects perpetrating bank fraud?

  Which descriptions of activities might tie unnamed participants to names on her list described elsewhere?

  Several variations, or combinations that could lead to variations, could lead to the name of the man on the 1909 property records of the ranch. Jillian hadn’t found him in a census either. It all smelled fishy. Two people married to each other who both potentially had wide name variants, one of whom turned up in Pinkerton’s reports, and neither of whom was in the census under the names they used to marry?

  They were hiding something.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Four to seven business days. That’s what the archivist told Jillian. There was no way to know how many other requests to fulfill were ahead of hers, and sometimes a priority triage system was applied to determine urgency. Factor in a weekend—or two—and the wait for the mysterious trial transcript could try her patience. In the meantime, she had her photocopied pages, her lists of name variants, Lynnelle Bendeure of Ohio, the couple who bought the ranch in Colorado, and suspicions she couldn’t prove for how everything connected.

  Jillian wasn’t sure which trunk was more distracting, the one in the attic or the one in the living room, but sitting in the rocker on the front porch with a photocopy of the midcentury dissertation and the odds-and-ends box of her Parisi family history, she buttoned the fleece-lined flannel jacket against the chill the spring morning still held in the shade and raised her eyes to the mountain view that daily reminded her why she was in no hurry to relocate to a loft condo in Denver or Chicago or Seattle the way many of her college friends had in the last few years. It was only the first Saturday in May. Snowcaps could greet her mornings well into the summer weeks. She flipped to a clean page in the yellow legal pad assigned to her personal genealogy project and clicked down the blue fine point on her favorite brand of rolling gel pen. In her work, she spent plenty of time staring at screens and crawling around the internet, but the best breakthroughs came when she wrote notes in her own hand. Raising her coffee mug, she fortified herself with a steaming gulp and began making her own manual index of the Parisi references in the dissertation with a record of the nuances of information surrounding them.

  She didn’t look up when the motor cut out on the vehicle that stopped on the street. Only when footfalls found rhythm on the porch steps did she glance up.

  “Drew!” Jillian placed an orange self-stick note on the page she’d been reading to mark her place. She couldn’t help her gaze passing over his shoulder toward his truck. “What brings you here?”

  “Don’t worry,” Drew said. “Aunt Min is still in Wyoming.”

  Jillian’s half smile was sheepish. “Pardon me.”

  “Who would blame you, after the way she spoke to you? Twice.”

  She met his eyes now, finding there the warmth and charm of a week ago when she had charged onto his ranch, past the notices of private property, and he nevertheless welcomed her with Veronica.

  “Excuse my manners.” She gestured to the cushioned double-wide wicker chair beside her rocker. “Please sit down. It’s not quite the open land you’re used to, but we enjoy the view when we can.”

  “As you should.” Drew sat down. His dimple was back, unhindered. “It’s a fine view. The mountains are very in-your-face around here.”

  Jillian laughed. “We like them that way.”

  “I can see why.”

  “Can I get you something cold to drink? Or something hot?”

  He held up a hand. “I didn’t come to trouble you.”

  Jillian waited, counting her breaths, as they stared at the mountains. She wouldn’t have minded staring at Drew, but it would have seemed rude in the silence. She counted his breaths now.

  “You sure I can’t get you something?” Jillian said. “I make incredible coffee. Ask anyone in town.”

  Drew shook his head. “I’m just trying to gather my words.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him now.

  He ran his tongue over his lips. “Aunt Min. I wish there was a way to apologize for her, but I can’t honestly say I understand her all the time myself. Mostly I want to apologize for allowing her rudeness when you’d done nothing to deserve it.”r />
  “I did trespass,” Jillian said.

  “But I invited you into my cabin. And I let her throw you out. And I was behind the wheel, so I could have driven straight to Casper instead of detouring here to let her yell at you again for no reason. Not my proudest moment.”

  A hundred questions tangled together in Jillian’s mind, but she left them unasked.

  “I accept your apology,” she said. “I certainly didn’t expect you’d be passing through again,” Jillian said.

  He chuckled. “No, I don’t imagine you did. I left Aunt Min with my father’s cousin, Michelle.”

  “Min’s daughter?”

  “Right.”

  “I assumed you were staying up there.”

  The dimple reappeared. “I only have so much tolerance. Michelle’s son lives practically next door, and I like him. We spent a lot of time together as kids, so it’s always good to see him. I even like his two little children, but they are of the especially noisy variety, and I find I reach my limit.”

  “Four generations!”

  “It’s great to see them, but I’m used to my peace and quiet. I never promised to stay the whole two weeks. This way Aunt Min can visit as long as she likes, and Michelle can drive her home when she’s ready. Michelle always enjoys a couple of days at the ranch where she grew up.”

  With his apology off his mind, Drew relaxed back in the chair, setting one booted ankle on the opposite knee. The dark curls at the back of his neck and brushing his ears had lengthened since Jillian first encountered him on the horse. It was a good look for him. Jeans. Boots. The plaid shirt. The kind of hair that would let him go a long time between haircuts without looking shaggy. Jillian wondered if he’d ever had a beard.

  She roused herself to return to reality.

  “Somebody has to look after the ranch while Min is gone, I suppose,” Jillian said.

  Drew shrugged. “There’s not too much to look after anymore. It’s not the working ranch it was when Aunt Min and my grandma Gretchen and their brother were little.”

  Jillian’s fingers twitched with the urge to pick up a pen and start recording the genealogical information Drew dripped into the conversation. Surnames would be helpful.