I woke early, the blue light just turning to yellow over the hillside through the carriage house windows. I walked downstairs and stood on the front stoop, regarding the mansion across the yard in the sober light of day. There it was, my white whale. We’d get back to work soon, I told myself, and things would settle down. I hoped that was true. I said a quick goodbye to Josh and drove back to the B&B to check in with Carroll. She had taken an early run and was just heading out to work at the library again.
I went back to my car and sat in the driveway with my hands on the wheel, uncertain what to do with myself next. Detective Reynolds had given the all clear to return to work at the mansion, but I’d have to talk to Morgan first to get a read on things. And we’d need a new plumber, I realized. I didn’t even know if Lars would want to stay on the project without his brother around to teach him the trade. What, then, was possible today? I remembered Frances’s invitation to stop by the newspaper office and look at back issues for any clues on Henry Barton’s personal life. Carroll had turned up some helpful facts about Mary’s early years, but the union of Henry and Mary, their real married life together, was still largely a mystery.
I reached the headquarters of the Asheboro Gazette in about two minutes’ drive—Asheboro being, quite literally, a small town. The paper occupied the ground floor of an old brick storefront of the Civil War era, if not older. Tall, arched windows faced the street, and the front entry was shaded by a red awning—clearly a modern addition—displaying the paper’s name in white block lettering. I pushed on the glass door of the vestibule, and it slid open with a wheeze. Frances was seated at a crowded desk in the back, examining something with a large handheld magnifier. She looked up as I shuffled toward her.
“Hello, Kate. How’s the renovation business going?”
I told her about Steve’s death, our hunt for Bethany, the uncertainty clouding the whole project. She pursed her lips in an expression of shock. If she’d had pearls on, she would have clutched them. “My, you don’t get bored, do you?”
“I just can’t seem to.”
“And Steve Abernathy turned up dead? What a shame. Do you think it had anything to do with…?” She seemed to say the old town feud, but just with her eyebrows.
I shook my head. “Well, I don’t think so. Morgan says he wasn’t nearby when it happened, Steve was drunk, Lars was out of town, and Bethany—I don’t think she was there either. Not that she’s from one of the feuding families anyway, as far as I know, but … I don’t know if I should even be talking about this. I thought you might have turned up something in the newspaper about the Bartons—anything? We’ve been wanting to know more about Mary, but facts are hard to come by. Carroll found records to indicate that she was raised in the farmhouse that later became the mansion, her father was gone for, uh, mental health reasons, and she was an only child. But what about Henry and Mary as a couple? Were they really so reclusive? Do they ever appear at a cotillion or something? Or was that still a thing in 1880?”
“Cotillions are still a thing today, my dear. I never had one, let it be said, and you don’t seem the type either, but they do exist. Now, as to your question: no, Henry and Mary did not step out grandly at town events. That doesn’t seem to have been their style. There are a handful of notes in the Gazette about happenings at the Barton factory—a new piece of equipment coming by rail, a notice looking for workers when operations expanded, that sort of thing. But if you want to know anything about Mary … well, you have to read between the lines a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me show you.” Frances spun in her office chair and faced a tabletop machine I hadn’t noticed was behind her. It had a screen like a clunky, old computer, an industrial-gray plastic casing with a series of buttons on one side and a small platform on the bottom, like a microscope.
“Goodness, what is that?” I asked. A dim memory fluttered in the back of my mind.
“This, my dear, is a microfilm reader. These were probably just going out of use when you came of age, eh?”
“I guess so. I might’ve seen one in … middle school? But then the internet happened, and we didn’t need them anymore.”
“Indeed. Well, some of us are still using them in this world, strange as that may seem. Troy and the other interns are digitizing the collections, as I told you, but a lot of our back issues are still stored in microform. It’s not perfect, but it’s a stabler medium than newsprint, by far.” She swiveled to turn off the desk lamp she had previously been using, then turned back to the microfilm machine. She turned on the device, and nineteenth-century Asheboro flickered to life in front of us.
I stared hard at the film as it zipped past, though Frances was flying through it, so it was hard to make out anything definite. Evidently, she knew what she was aiming for on the reel. Days, weeks, and months seemed to be passing before our eyes, whole episodes of the town’s life reduced to images on a squat roll of 35-millimeter film, blown up on the screen in front of us.
“Here.” Frances slowed down the pace of her scanning, getting close to the mark. She came to rest on the front page of an issue from 1875. A top-of-the-fold photo showed a large, blocky building with a small crowd standing somberly in front of it. Frances turned to me. “Recognize that place?” The image was a bit blurry.
“I don’t think I do.”
“It’s the Barton shovel factory.” She pointed at the text on the lower half of the screen. “This photo is from an event marking the expansion of the factory’s production—this is when they moved from just making shovels to producing other small tools, and even light machinery. This expansion was part of what made Henry such a wealthy man.”
“I see.” I scanned through the article, squinting. It didn’t reveal anything personal, at least nothing I could detect. “So … what does this tell us about Henry?”
“It doesn’t tell us anything, exactly. But look at the photo. The caption indicates the event was attended by Henry Barton—and family.”
“Oh.” I strained to make out the faces in the crowd. There was Henry, front and center, shaking hands with a man the caption named as a senator, and there was … a woman, standing to his right. With two small children clinging to her skirts. I gasped. “Is that Mary?”
“I believe so. Of course, she’s not named in the caption itself, but we know from official records that Henry only married once. Although these children have never been part of the local lore. I’m surprised to see them.”
I bit my lip. Should I tell Frances about what Carroll and I had found in the back field of the Barton property? Perhaps she, custodian of the town’s history, ought to know as much as anyone.
“Well, Frances—” I faltered. “The thing is, they did have children. I don’t know why no one talks about that, but … we found them. Carroll and I. Out behind the house, in a small plot, with Henry and Mary. Three of them. And Henry didn’t have an heir to leave the house to because … they didn’t make it.”
“Oh my. And they never appeared on a census?”
“I’m guessing they were born after 1870, and died before 1880. They look small here—two, three years old? So they must never have been counted.”
“Oh, how sad.” Frances sighed. “Three children, you say? There are only two here. Look at those faces—they’re so tiny.”
We both stared at the film in silence for a moment. They were, indeed, tiny people, standing in their Victorian formal wear as close to their mother as they could possibly get, staring dutifully toward the camera. One had a ribbon in her hair, the other a small flat cap on his head. Their expressions looked doubtful, as if the event, the sun above, the day itself were a precarious thing, teetering on a fearful edge. And perhaps it was.
“Maybe the third hadn’t been born yet,” I said. “We don’t know what happened. Just that they died. There’s no detail given on the stones.”
“You may not find any more, dear.” Frances sat back in her office chair. “Henry had a reputation for being private, and it was well earned. I’ve scanned through quite a few papers from this decade, and he very rarely appears. Another man of his stature in the town might have milked it, so to speak—made grand appearances, speeches, run for office even. Some people love to make a show of their wealth and power. But not Henry. He created jobs for many people in the town, and he seems to have had a hand in establishing the electric grid for the region, but he doesn’t appear in Asheboro’s social life. He’s hard to track down. We might just have to live with his mystery.”
“Say it ain’t so, Frances!” I sighed and looked again at the photo in front of us. “Does Mary’s face look … strange to you? Like there’s something on it?”
“That’s hard to say, dear.” Frances leaned closer and put up her magnifier to the screen to enhance our view, not that it did much. “That could be … Well, it could be a smudge or an obstruction on the image, which is frequent enough with these things, or it might be that she had something like a birthmark on her face. Port wine, I think they call that. One of my mother’s younger cousins had one—as a child I used to see her once a year, at Easter—and she was always embarrassed, shying away from the group. In fact, she was quite lovely.”
“Huh. That could be it. But it’s hard to tell. So there’s nothing else about Mary to be found here? No splashy feature stories on the rich man’s wife?”
Frances shrugged. “I’m afraid not, Kate. I’ll keep looking through this time period, and I’ll let you know if I find anything. But don’t hold your breath, my dear.”
“Thanks, Frances. This has been illuminating, in its way.”
“Well, if you want to come back later in your project and look at images of Victorian storefronts for accurate reproduction, you know where to find me!”
“Oh, that’s a great idea, Frances. I know nothing about period-appropriate paint colors. Although … the newspaper wouldn’t have been in color, would it? Shoot. And do you have anything on Victorian kitchens? Or bathrooms?”
“I can’t say I’ve seen many photos of domestic interiors in newspapers of that time, but I’ll keep an eye out. Don’t be a stranger, Kate.”
“I won’t. Thanks again.” I stood and walked out, the glass front door closing with a soft plunk behind me, and then I was back on Main Street, in the bright yellow sunshine. Shabby, dear old Main Street Asheboro. I looked at my watch, and saw that it was almost noon. I walked down the block to Ted’s lunch counter and ordered a ham-and-cheese sandwich, which arrived with a zesty garnish of pickled onions. Delicious. Ted himself was staffing the register, and asked how work on the house was going. I deflected, telling him about my research into cast-iron stoves of the late Victorian era; he narrowed his eyes in thought and kindly didn’t ask any follow-up questions. I’d fill in the board members on our latest development soon, but not until I had answered a few questions for myself. As I was finishing up lunch, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I picked up. It was a woman’s voice.
“Hi, Kate? It’s Bethany. I know we’re not back to work yet, but there’s something at the mansion I thought you should see. Can we meet up?”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. She wanted me to meet her at the mansion? I didn’t really think Bethany had killed Steve, but what could she possibly want to show me in the house—just the two of us, way out there in the sticks?
“Well … okay,” I replied carefully. “Do you want me to call Morgan in too? I know he’s been working on the floor plan—”
“No, I wasn’t thinking to show Morgan. Yet, I mean. I thought you should know first.”
I stared ahead at the menu board mounted on the wall in front of me. Was this advisable? Josh was probably still in the carriage house, working on his book. I could give him a heads-up that I’d be nearby and might need backup. But then again, Bethany was innocent, right? I decided to take a leap of faith.
“Okay, Bethany. Meet you there in half an hour?”
“See you then.”
I hung up the phone, took a long last swig from my glass of lemonade, and stood from my chair. Well, here goes nothing.