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  The first page of the novel made it clear that the story was set in colonial America. I heaved a little sigh and then told myself to be grateful for the work. And just maybe she had done her research well and there wouldn’t be much to correct. I resolutely closed the document and went back to my preparation.

  I arrived at the library right at 7:30, feeling a little flustered; I like to get there earlier than that. Most of the attendees were already there, about ten of them of various ages. I was just sorting through my notes and getting them arranged when there was that little bustling sound that happens when people murmur greetings and move their chairs around to make room for a new person in the group. I looked up and saw Todd. He grinned and gave a little wave. It was so unexpected that I just stared at him for a minute. I recovered what was left of my poise and thought rapidly. He must need to talk to me about the case or something. The other people were quietly chatting to each other, so as inconspicuously as I could I approached Todd who was maneuvering a chair into a gap in the circle.

  “Did you get my message?” I said.

  “This morning? Yes. Sorry I couldn’t call you back—it was a hectic day. I thought maybe we could chat after the book club, if that’s ok.”

  “Sure,” I said. “You want to stay for the discussion?”

  He grinned again. “That’s why I came.”

  I glanced at the clock on the library wall and said, “We’d better get started.”

  The discussion began with people sharing their experiences of reading the poetry. Some had struggled with the language, others had rediscovered the beauty of verse. A couple of them had taken the opportunity to learn a little of Browning’s biography, and there was some disagreement as to what her illness actually was.

  “Before we start talking about which poems were your favorites,” I said, “Did anyone have any questions about her life or her poetry in general?”

  “I have one,” said Todd. “I heard that this book had some connection to forgeries. Could you explain about that?”

  I was tempted for a split second to say, “Where in the world did you hear that?” but sanity prevailed.

  “It’s quite a detective story,” I said. “In the early 1930’s two young men named Carter and Pollard who were in the rare book trade found out that they were both puzzled over the same thing. They kept running into first editions of nineteenth century books or pamphlets that were absolutely pristine, which is extremely rare for old books. Also, all of them had been discovered within the past thirty years or so, and they were all published just a year or two earlier than the versions everyone had thought were the first editions. One of the books was the book we read for this club, Sonnets from the Portuguese, only in this version it was just titled Sonnets by E. B. B. The young men were suspicious, as no one in the Brownings’ circle had ever mentioned this first, small, private printing, which seemed very strange as all the other works Elizabeth had published were frequently mentioned.

  “So the young men did something which had not really been done before: they analysed the paper and the type used in this volume. It turned out that the paper was made of chemical wood pulp, something that had not come into use until the 1880s. Also, the type was one of those that is called a kernless font, which was also not in use until the 1880s. Therefore, they knew that the book had not been published in 1847 as it claimed.

  “Their researches into that one book applied to all the pamphlets they were suspicious about, and they discovered that these so-called first editions shared something beyond anachronistic paper and sometimes anachronistic fonts: they had all been mentioned for the first time by the great bibliographer Thomas J. Wise. Does anyone know what a bibliographer is?”

  My audience looked back at me blankly. It is a look I am used to encountering in students.

  “A bibliographer,” I went on, “Is someone who compiles a list of every single thing an author ever published, including each edition and printing. It may sound like boring stuff, but students of literature use these exhaustive bibliographies all the time as they research particular authors. It is also a guide for people in the rare book trade to help them know what is valuable. Wise was an extremely knowledgeable man and really the highest authority in England for that sort of thing.

  “At first they thought Wise had been duped into recognizing these books as valid first editions. After all, he was very, very vocal about how evil forgers were. But the evidence mounted up against him, and they discovered that in the late nineteenth century he had had access to a printer’s store. That store, they found out, contained every single one of the fonts used in those first editions. He had printed off many copies of the pamphlets and then held on to them for years, slipping references to them in his bibliographies and then telling collectors he would keep an eye out on their behalf to see if one could be purchased.

  “When it all came out, he was discredited, of course, and the world of book collectors was shaken to its core. But it started an era of more scientific investigation into forgeries which has continued ever since.”

  I stopped to take a breath. “Well, that’s probably more than you wanted to know, but that’s the connection between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the world of forgeries. Now, who would like to share a poem they particularly liked?”

  The group disbanded at 8:30, and Todd helped me and the librarian put the chairs back where they belonged at the study desks.

  “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or a piece of pie?” he asked. “Sally’s is open late.”

  We sat in a booth at Sally’s and ordered chocolate cream pie and decaf coffee.

  “Now I know I’m getting old,” I said. “I used to be able to drink regular coffee at any time and still get to sleep at night.”

  “Yeah, those were the days,” said Todd. “I remember when it seemed exciting to stay up all night. Now it’s one of the things I dislike most about the job.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “No, thankfully.”

  The coffee arrived with the pie, and I stirred sugar and cream into my cup.

  “So, what did you think of the book club?”

  “I thought it was great. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it.”

  “Yes, I was quite relieved, especially since we don’t do much poetry. It takes a lot more concentration to read old poems than it does novels—even old novels. But they coped very well.”

  Todd took a bit of his pie. “Mmm, that’s good. I thought it was interesting that no one commented on my favorite of the sonnets.”

  “You have a favorite sonnet?” I expected him to be joking and waited for the punchline.

  “Yeah. It’s the one that starts off, ‘If thou must love me, let it be for nought except for love’s sake only.’”

  “Sonnet Fourteen,” I said. “Did you study it for school or something?”

  “No, no, I found it when I was reading the book this weekend. In preparation for the group.”

  “You read all those sonnets this weekend just for the club?”

  He nodded.

  “But you didn’t say anything about it when we were discussing them.”

  “Well, I was new. And I didn’t want to look like I was trying to be teacher’s pet.”

  “You needn’t have worried. Nobody who isn’t anxious about their grade tries to get on my good side. But why did you ask the question about forgeries?”

  “I was interested. This case might have to do with a forged deed, and it’s something I know very little about. The FBI deals with forgeries all the time, but the local police force not so much.”

  “You’d better ask Professor Weatherill about it. He knows way more than I do.”

  “I did talk to him, actually, about the email Frank sent him regarding a forgery. He said that he hadn’t gotten around to answering the email, but he would have told him that he should take it straight to the police.”

  “If he’d done so, what would the police have done about it?”

  Todd
laughed. “Probably contacted someone like Weatherill to see if the document was genuine.”

  “And can you get the deed so it can be analysed?”

  “The wheels are in motion for that, but it will take another day or so. We believe it’s at Frank’s house, but we haven’t finished going through all the papers there.”

  “I see.” I took another bite of the pie. It really was good.

  “And now perhaps you can tell me what you found in that journal.”

  “Oh! I’d almost forgotten about that. Well, have you heard the story of the founding of the town?”

  “I think so. With the flooding and the middle of the night escape?”

  “Right. I’ve had the story told to me three times, and each time it was said that Matthew Wilkes was the one who roused the settlers and got them to their boats. In the journal, though, it was his brother-in-law, Rochester, who did that. And Rochester died that night, falling off the boat.”

  “Well, well,” said Todd, leaning back in his seat and putting his fork down on the empty plate. “You’re right, that isn’t something the family would want known.”

  “Is it worth killing over, though?” I said.

  “It might be. The Wilkes family get a lot of perks for having that man as an ancestor. I don’t know if all that would go away if he wasn’t the hero he was painted, but they’d certainly feel somewhat disgraced. It’s possible they would lose school scholarships, which would be a financial blow.”

  “That’s what I was wondering. I haven’t had time yet today to keep reading and find out why Matthew got the credit, but it’s probably in there.”

  “Well, what you’ve told me is reason enough to bring Matt in for questioning. We’ll do that tomorrow.”

  I looked at my watch. “I’d better get going, actually. I have a class in the morning and one tomorrow night, plus I need to finish reading this journal and get to work editing a novel for someone.”

  “Yes, and I have a couple people to interview tomorrow. We’ll talk to Matt and we’ve also located Linda Johnson—the former sweetheart of Frank. I need to talk to her as well. I’ll take care of that,” he said as I looked at the bill and dug in my purse for my wallet. “Official police business chats mean coffee and pie are provided free of charge.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I’ve finished the journal, and if there’s anything else that seems important.”

  “Great. Let me walk you to your car.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he didn’t need to and then shut it. It was late, it was dark, and to refuse a police escort for a reason like “I don’t want to bother you” would just seem rude.

  In other circumstances the walk across the parking lot might have seemed romantic. There was a full moon and a gentle breeze and we were walking closely enough together that we could have held hands. We didn’t, of course, and I was impatient with myself for even thinking of it. He was a law officer and I was a consultant and he was being protective from habit. That was all.

  No sooner had I determined this than he said, “I wish our every interaction was not so completely professional.”

  I unlocked my car door and opened it. “I didn’t think it was,” I said. “I mean, we’ve talked about faith and foster care and other things. It hasn’t all been police business.” I got into the car and reached for the seat belt.

  He stood there looking down at me with that half smile of his. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” he said.

  I must have looked taken aback, because he gave what I can only call a rueful laugh and said, “Goodnight.” He shut the door gently and waited there while I started the car, gave a little wave, and drove away.

  I hardly had time to eat the next day. Matt was missing from English Comp in the morning, and I wondered if it was because he was at the police station answering questions. Or being arrested. When class was over I drove home to get as much done as I could before my evening class.

  First things first: I speed-read through the rest of the journal and discovered that when the Wilkeses returned to the area after the flood, they found that the other settlers had recognized the horse but not the rider during the middle-of-the-night ordeal. Furthermore, it was known that Rochester did not own a gun, so the families that had been warned simply assumed that Matthew had been their savior. Mrs. Wilkes had wanted to set the record straight, but Matthew persuaded her that their store would benefit from the good press (my words, not his). The “ester” part of “Wilkester” was put in to honor the late brother of Mrs. Wilkes, although the other settlers seemed to have thought it was only to mark his passing as the one life lost in the ordeal. They did not know it was to him they owed their lives.

  While this discovery was fascinating and threw an even less-flattering light on Matthew Wilkes, I didn’t think it would make any real difference to the case. I thought about calling Todd to tell him, but then decided that if I delayed a bit before I called, it would give him time to finish interviewing people first. I wanted to find out what they had said.

  The next order of business was to start editing the novel I’d been sent. Sheila Farnell is a good writer—rarely do I have to correct her punctuation or fix a non-parallel construction. Moreover, she has interesting plots that keep my attention. Nothing is worse than trying to edit a book that is so boring you find your mind wandering to other things even while you read. In my early days of editing, when I took any job I could get, I was sent the draft of a book that extolled the glories of mathematics. You can imagine my difficulty. I kept myself alert—that is to say, conscious—by writing things like “Haha!” or “You can’t be serious!” in the space for review notes. And then I deleted all my sarcastic comments before sending it back to the author. One does what one must to get through it.

  As I read the first chapter of Sheila’s book, I could tell that she had done some research about the time period, which was a relief. However, the problem with writing historical fiction is that you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s easy to make assumptions without realizing it. The first problem showed up in the fourth paragraph. The heroine was at a ball, dancing a waltz. So far, so good, but what Sheila didn’t know was that what she was describing—a man and woman moving together with his arm around her waist and their other hands clasped—was not what was meant by waltz in 1770. I wrote a note in the margin to that effect.

  The next item was the heroine drinking a glass of orange juice at breakfast. I suggested that chocolate (what we call hot chocolate) or tea would have been a more likely drink. Beer would also have been more likely than juice, but I didn’t want to suggest that. A heroine who was chugging down alcoholic beverages at her morning meal would affront the sensibilities of most readers of Christian romance novels, and trying to present it in such a way that readers would understand it to be period-appropriate would render the narrative clumsy and distracting. Best to stick to tea.

  I worked on the novel until almost time to leave for class. Then I reheated some leftover spaghetti, ate it as quickly as I could (my mother would have said I wolfed it down, but that’s such an unflattering image, isn’t it?), and left for the college.

  This was the class I had let out early the previous week. We had a lot to cover, and I whisked the students through my lecture on different ways of arranging information in an argumentative paper at breakneck speed. It was no wonder that a couple of students wanted to talk to me afterwards to clarify just what I had said; several of them were not native English speakers and were understandably confused. By the time I finished talking to the last student, the rest of the class had disappeared.

  It was pretty late when I shut the door of the classroom—it must have been about 9:45. Wilkester is hardly the crime capital of the country (despite the occasional murder), but I was always a little nervous going to the faculty parking lot alone. It’s not terribly well-lit at night, and there is a row of bushes beside the path that makes me nervous. I always try my best to walk with a group of
students as far as I can, and then when we part ways I make a dash for my car, keys in hand. Actually, “dash” is overstating it, but I try to move more quickly.

  The student I had been talking to got onto his bicycle not far from the classroom building and I had to walk alone farther than usual. I walked as briskly as I could, humming a little tune. It’s not at all unusual to have a few people walking around campus at that time, and at first I didn’t particularly notice the footsteps behind me. When I did notice them, they were a good ways behind me—far enough that they weren’t a concern. As I kept listening, though, they seemed to be coming closer.

  Silly, I told myself. You’re being paranoid. All the same, I wished I had followed through in getting some pepper spray to keep in my purse when Kim had suggested it. It flashed through my mind that it could be the killer. And if so, pepper spray would do nothing to protect me from a gun.

  After a moment or two there was no doubt about it—the footsteps were closer. I made a hasty plan. I would get my phone out and dial 911, but not hit send. Then I would turn around and see who it was. If it was someone that was in any way threatening, I would hit send. Then I could shout out a description of the person, and if they shot me … well, then the police would have an exact time of death recorded and a description of the killer.

  Quickly I slid my hand into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone. Since one hand was holding my attaché case, I had to try to unlock the screen and dial the number one-handed. I don’t know if it was because I was starting to tremble or because I am naturally clumsy, but there was a fumble, and I dropped the phone. Involuntarily, I cried out.