James, Miranda - Out of Circulation (CAT IN THE STACKS MYSTERY)

No answers in Essie Mae’s will, either.

It all came down to the journal, then.

I returned the documents to Ms. Sanders. She checked them carefully, one by one, to make sure they were not damaged in any way. After she was satisfied, I thanked her again and left the courthouse.

I checked my watch. It was a quarter to ten. I had accomplished a lot in a surprisingly short amount of time.

On my way out of the courthouse I spotted Hank Beauchamp down the hall. He wore that same rumpled suit, and I recognized it as the one he had worn to the gala. Evidently it was the only one he had. He was busy chatting with someone and didn’t see me, and I had no reason to interrupt his conversation.

Instead, blessing the efficiency and speediness of Ms. Sanders, I hopped into my car and headed for the archives office.

Seven minutes later I sat at my desk, Cecilia’s journal in my hands. I found the place I’d left off and began to read again.

Cecilia professed to be ecstatic over her two darling girls, and Richard adored them as well. There was no mention of Essie Mae for several pages. There were accounts of social events, a short trip to New Orleans with Richard, and then the entries grew more sporadic. Months passed without one, and in a few pages two years sped by. Evidently Cecilia was too busy with the children or with the social activities entailed by her position as Mrs. Richard Ducote to have much time to spare for her journal.

I persisted, however, in hopes that I would find another mention of Essie Mae. The first one I found shocked me.

I am in complete despair. I thought Richard was happy with our two dear little angels, but he confessed to me this morning that he still longs for a son. He needs a son, he says, to keep the Ducote name alive. He owes it to his ancestors to make sure the name goes on. I was furious with him, because I knew what he wanted. Essie Mae is still here, though I do my best to forget her completely, and apparently willing to bear him another child, but I WILL NOT HAVE IT!!!

The next entry occurred on a date I recognized. Cecilia wrote simply that Richard was killed in an accident that day.

Two months passed before she wrote in her journal again.

I still can’t believe that Dick is gone. The house seems surprisingly empty now. There is so much quiet. I hadn’t realized how alive and vital a man he was, the flurry of activity that always seemed to surround him. He was the love of my life, despite his transgressions. What shall the girls and I do without him?

We will do without Essie Mae, however. I will have her out of this house as quickly as possible. There is a local farmer who has been trying to court her, Jedediah Hobson. He is rough and uneducated, but he seems very much in love with her. I have told her that if she will marry him and leave this house and never come back, I will see that she will be rewarded. She does not know that Dick wanted to change his will to settle a large sum on her, in addition to his provisions for me and my darling angels. I managed to stall him, and then he was killed before he had the lawyer draw it up.

Conscience nags at me. I would love to kick her out of this house without a cent, but every time I look at my sweet girls, I would be reminded, and I cannot have her on my conscience. Dick would reproach me from the grave. Therefore I have made her write and sign a statement that once she leaves this house she will never return, nor will she ever have any contact with my daughters. If she does she will forfeit the money she will be paid every month. Now I wait only to hear whether she has decided to marry Hobson, and the sooner she does so, the better.

I turned the page and found a small, folded sheet of paper. I opened it and read the contents—Essie Mae’s agreement to leave River Hill and never return. She stated that she would never see or speak to An’gel or Dickce again, on pain of forfeiting her annuity, as she called it.

I folded the paper and tucked it back inside. I set the journal down. There was something so sad and so touching about that spidery handwriting. A mother renouncing all claim to her children forever.

My heart ached for her.

THIRTY-ONE

I forced myself to pick up the journal and glance through the remaining pages but found nothing of further interest. I put it back in my desk and locked the drawer.

A check of the time alerted me that I had about twenty minutes to get home, pick up Diesel, and make it to the public library if I didn’t want to be late. I didn’t dare go to work without Diesel, because if the staff and the patrons had to choose between the two of us, I knew which one they would prefer.

There was no sign of Azalea or Lily when I entered the kitchen, and I assumed they were upstairs somewhere. I still needed to talk to Azalea, but that would now have to wait until I was done at the library.

I found Diesel and Laura in the den watching television. I explained to Laura that I was in a hurry, and she gave us each a quick kiss good-bye.

My four hours at the library passed quickly enough. Fridays were generally busy, and today was no exception, despite the approaching Christmas holiday. Diesel was in his element, spending time with his friends Bronwyn Forster and Lizzie Hayes, going between the reference and circulation desks. I spent a couple of hours cataloging before finishing up with a stint at the reference desk.

I tried to keep focused on the tasks at hand, but I did find my mind wandering occasionally to the tragic—at least, that’s how it seemed to me—story of Essie Mae McMullen. It wasn’t that I didn’t have sympathy for Cecilia Ducote, because her husband’s determination to carry on his family bloodline at all costs had put her in a nearly untenable position. But she had wealth, social position, and two daughters everyone believed were hers.

Essie Mae had none of those things. She did have another daughter, Vera, and a son, but I couldn’t believe she could completely get over the loss of those two children. I wondered if she ever violated that agreement and spoke to the girls. I could imagine the temptation. She must have been a strong woman to survive such loss.

From the angle of the Ducote sisters and their motives for doing away with Vera, I came to the conclusion that they didn’t have one strong enough. Vera had no claim on their parents’ estate, and with no compelling monetary motive, I didn’t think they would resort to murder. There was no proof that Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce knew the truth about their birth mother, nor that Vera did. She might have suspected something, but I doubted she would have been foolish enough to make claims she couldn’t back up.

It was rather odd, though, that I had found the journal at all. How did it wind up in that box? I should check to see if it was listed as part of the contents of any of the unopened boxes. Perhaps it was simply misplaced.

I would have thought, however, that Cecilia would be careful not to let it be read by anyone else. Why didn’t she destroy it? Had she meant to but simply forgot?

What about Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce? Should I tell them of the journal’s existence? If I showed it to them, I might be able to discover whether they already knew about it.

Then again, if they didn’t know about it, I didn’t think it was my place to give them the means to discover their true parentage. This bore further thought, but like Scarlett O’Hara, I decided to think about it tomorrow.

By the time Diesel and I reached home, shortly after three that afternoon, I had a pounding headache—from tension. The last thing I felt like doing at the moment was talking to Azalea and trying to convince her to confide in me, but I really shouldn’t put it off any longer.