Миранда Джеймс - Bless Her Dead Little Heart

Kanesha smiled. “Benjy and Diesel are fine. Benjy insisted on staying there. Clementine and Antoinette are there, too. If I know Clementine, she already has a contractor lined up to come in and take care of getting your kitchen back into shape.”

Dickce felt the tears forming, and this time she let them flow. They were tears of relief and gratitude. Benjy and Diesel were fine, and Clementine—always their rock—would make sure everything was okay with the house.

Dickce glanced at An’gel. The Good Lord willing, An’gel would be fine, too.

She just hoped An’gel wouldn’t have a relapse when Dickce told her about Peanut and Endora.

Time enough for that tomorrow, she decided. She had always liked tomorrow.

Turn the page for a preview of Miranda James’s next Cat in the Stacks Mystery . . .

ARSENIC AND OLD BOOKS

Coming February 2015 in hardcover from Berkley Prime Crime!

I checked my watch, then glanced at the clock on my computer. They both told me that it was seven minutes after one p.m. I resisted the urge to get up and pace around the archive office. Instead I turned my chair and looked at the large feline dozing on the wide windowsill behind my desk.

Diesel, apparently sensing my gaze, yawned and stretched. He meowed and rolled onto his side, head twisted so that he was staring at me almost upside down. He warbled a couple of times, as if to ask, “Why are you so restless, Charlie?”

“The mayor said she’d be here at one, and she’s late. You know how that bugs me,” I told the cat. “I’m curious to find out about these family documents she wants to talk to me about. The Longs have already given so many collections of papers to the archive I have to wonder what they’ve been holding on to.”

The cat calmly began washing his right front paw.

“You may not be curious, but I am,” I told him. “It’s not every day that I get consulted by such an august person as Lucinda Beckwith Long.”

I heard a cough, and it didn’t come from Diesel.

“I beg your pardon. Are you Mr. Harris?”

I swiveled my chair to face the office door, and I could feel the blush starting. The mayor stood in the doorway, her expression puzzled.

I rose from my desk and walked around to greet Mrs. Long. “Yes, I’m Charlie Harris, Your Honor. Please come in. I was, well, I was chatting with my cat. It’s a habit I have, you see.”

Mrs. Long nodded as she extended her hand. “I quite understand. My husband and I have three poodles, and we talk to them all the time.”

“Won’t you be seated?” I indicated the chair in front of my desk, and Mrs. Long moved forward along with her black leather handbag. She set the latter on the floor beside her when she took her seat. Clad in a chic crimson suit with a white silk blouse and colorful scarf knotted loosely around her neck, she looked cool and crisp and ready to get down to business.

I had seen the mayor on several public occasions, but never this close. She was shorter than I expected, probably no more than five-three, when she wasn’t standing on the spike heels I had seen her wear. Though I knew her to be in her mid-sixties, she exuded an air of youthful energy, as if she could barely contain herself. Even now I could hear her toe tapping on the hardwood floor of my office. I figured a mayor’s life must be hectic, even that of the mayor of a small city like Athena, Mississippi.

Mrs. Long appeared to be assessing me as I waited for her to speak. Diesel hopped down from his perch and padded around my desk to approach the mayor. He sniffed at her bags and then attempted to stick his head in the opening of the tote. Mrs. Long touched his head lightly to discourage him. “No, no, kitty, what’s in there is too old for you to play with.”

The cat stared up at her and warbled as if to say, “Are you sure?”

Mrs. Long smiled. “He seems to understand what I said, like our dogs do.”

“He’s a smart cat,” I said. “He’s also extremely curious.” As I spoke, Diesel batted a paw at the tote bag. “No, Diesel, stop that.”

The cat threw a baleful glance my way. He stood, made a circle around Mrs. Long’s chair, and then came back to his perch in the windowsill behind my desk.

“Apparently he understands a firm no when he hears one.” Mrs. Long laughed. “Our dogs aren’t always so compliant.”

“He isn’t either,” I had to admit. “Depends on his mood.” I waited a moment for the mayor to speak again. When she didn’t, I decided it was time to move the conversation to the reason for her visit. “I believe you wanted to consult with me about some family documents.”

Mrs. Long picked up the tote and settled it in her lap. She delved inside and pulled out a large manila envelope. She leaned forward and placed it on my desk. A faint mustiness, overlaid with a whiff of mothballs, wafted out of the open end.

“Inside that you will find a volume of a diary written by Rachel Afton Long. I forget at the moment how many times a great-grandmother she is, but she was born in the late 1820s and died in the mid-1890s, if I am remembering correctly.”

I stared at the envelope before me, my excitement growing over the thought of handling an old document. “How many volumes of her diaries survive?” I pulled open a side drawer of my desk and extracted a pair of cotton gloves. If I was going to be handling a book that was over a hundred years old, I had to be careful with it.

“Four,” Mrs. Long replied. “I have glanced at them, but I find the writing hard to read. From what I could glean, however, I believe she started the diaries a few years before she married my husband’s ancestor. The last diary is dated around 1875.” She shrugged. “I’m not entirely certain. The handwriting is small and cramped, and I got a headache trying to decipher just one page of it.”

“I’ll have a look at it,” I said. I held up my hands to show that I was wearing gloves before I extracted the volume, sliding it carefully out of the envelope. I let it lie on the desk as I put the envelope aside and examined its outward appearance. The cover binding of brown leather was cracked in spots and rubbed thin in others, and the spine was in similar condition. My nose twitched at the strong musty odor. I hoped the diaries hadn’t suffered water damage.

“Where have they been stored?” I asked.

“My son, Beck, discovered them recently in a trunk in the attic while hunting for something else entirely. I’d never seen them before, and I don’t believe my husband was aware of their existence either.”

Andrew Beckwith Long Jr., known as Beck to most, was an aspiring politician. His father, Andrew Sr., had so far served four terms in the state senate. Recently, however, rumors had begun to circulate that Andy intended to retire when his current term expired. Everyone assumed that Beck would easily win his father’s seat, but there appeared to be strong opposition, in the form of Jasper Singletary, a young firebrand who served on the city council. Singletary was openly ambitious, and he had been publicly less than complimentary about the Longs and their political legacy.

“Are you and Mr. Long planning to add these to the collection of Long papers and memorabilia that we already have?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Long said. “They need to be better preserved than they have been. We have no idea how long they’ve been up in that attic, and there could be damage. None of us looked through them much because we were afraid to cause further problems. That’s why I wanted to bring them to you.” She paused. “I’m sure you’re aware of the terrible times that Athena faced during the Civil War and the brief occupation by Union troops. If Rachel Long recorded any of that, her information might be useful to historians.”