Daisy smiled as she finished the entry in Trudy’s diary. She was enormously pleased that a romance seemed to be budding between Trudy and Thomas and she couldn’t wait to read the next entry. She resisted the urge to flip to the back of the diary to see how it ended. It was just like reading a novel.
While she worked that afternoon on the research materials she had obtained from the flash drive, the thought of seeing Brian at the office was never far from her mind. Again she debated with herself whether to call Mark John and tell him about the incident, but she decided not to call. After all, Brian and Mark John were family and it was not Daisy’s place to be tattling on Brian.
Her mind wandered while she was trying to work. Why had Brian been waiting across the street from the office, watching her? Why did he watch her as she walked away from the building? Why didn’t he follow her if he was so interested in her and where she was going?
This is silly, she chided herself. He was probably there getting a cup of coffee and he simply happened to see me walking around the block. Daisy shook her head as if to rid herself of such thoughts and continued working.
The weekend sped by with all the housework and writing Daisy had to do. On Monday morning she was in the office, putting the finishing touches on the story she had been working on. She waited until Jude was in her office with the door closed before going into Mark John’s office to tell him of her progress on the women’s history.
She gave a peremptory knock on his office door. “Mark John, I just wanted to let you know how my research is coming along,” she said, ducking her head into his office.
“Good,” he said, looking up from his computer. “Sit and we’ll talk.”
She sat down in the chair opposite him and told him what direction she was planning to take for the articles on women’s history. She wanted to start with American women, as Mark John had requested, then branch out to other regions and cultures for comparison. Mark John had a list of questions that he wanted answered in her articles and it was clear she would need to do far more research.
She told him she’d go back to the Library of Congress to take a look at their collection of old diaries, then she stood up to leave. Keeping her voice light, she said casually, “I was surprised to see Brian in here over the weekend.”
“Brian was here?” Mark John’s head snapped up. “What was he doing?”
Daisy shrugged. “Just dropping off some things for you to see, I guess. He said he had texted you about it.”
“He probably thought he did,” Mark John said. “He can be a little absent-minded.” He paused. “I didn’t see anything on the conference table that he might have dropped off. Where did he leave it?”
“I don’t know. I assumed he left it in here. He was in here when I got here.”
Where were the books Brian had dropped off, if they weren’t in Mark John’s office?
“What the hell did he come into my office for?” he thundered, then smacked his hand on the top of his desk. “I’ve told him if he comes into the office on the weekends to drop things off, just leave them on the table in the conference room,” he fumed. “I’ll have to remind him. My office is not public property.”
Though his reaction was a little over the top, Daisy understood how Mark John felt. It would alarm her if she knew someone had been in her office while no one else was around. She hesitated a moment before leaving Mark John’s office, wondering if she should tell him about seeing Brian across the street several minutes after they left the building. She decided against it and returned to her office, then left for the Library of Congress a little while later.
After doing some preliminary research in the Main Reading Room, Daisy was excited to find more diaries to read in the Rare Book reading room. The librarian brought one diary at a time so Daisy could read and take notes. The old leather-bound volumes were beautiful objects in their own right--the handwriting was old and faded, the script fancy and slanted, the animal hide covers supple and soft. No one wrote like that anymore—cursive was barely even taught in schools nowadays. Daisy was dismayed by the thought that diaries like the ones she had the privilege of reading were no longer being written. All the more reason to take care of the ones we have and to let the world know what these women from other centuries had to say about their own lives.
The research was going well and Daisy was almost ready to start putting ideas down in outline form. She made her way back to the Main Reading Room and opened her laptop at one of the wooden desks. She was just opening a blank document to start typing when something made her look up at the gallery above, to the Plexiglass-walled alcove where tourists could gaze into the Main Reading Room without disturbing the researchers below. She was shocked by what she saw.
Mark John was standing in the gallery with the rest of the tourists, watching Daisy work. She held his gaze for a moment, then whipped out her cell phone and texted him.
What are you doing up there?
She looked up again and watched as Mark John realized he had a text and pulled his phone from his pocket.
I was in the neighborhood for a meeting and thought I’d check in.
She grimaced. You could have just texted me.
Mark John replied, I know, but I haven’t been to this library in a while and I wanted to have a look.
Daisy didn’t believe him. Are you sure you weren’t just checking up on me?
Of course.
With that, Mark John frowned at her and stepped aside, out of her sight, so that other people could crowd into the alcove to get a look at the world-famous reading room. She put her phone down and tried to concentrate on the outline in front of her, but she found that her fingers wouldn’t type. She was convinced Mark John had come to the library specifically to check up on her. This was becoming a worrisome habit of his, and one she found invasive and upsetting. She was a professional and intended to be treated as such. She didn’t need him babysitting her—she was capable of doing her job well without supervision. She wondered briefly if he behaved the same way with Jude. It would be hard to tell, because Jude was normally in the office and he could easily check up on her in the normal course of his day. Daisy vowed to discuss the issue with him first thing the next morning.
But the next morning Mark John wasn’t in the office. Jude was perturbed, asking the receptionist at least every fifteen minutes if she had heard from him. She tried calling his cell, his house, and even Brian, to no avail. He finally came into the office around noon, looking bedraggled and wan. Daisy was in her office when he arrived, but she knew he was there because of the commotion Jude caused over his appearance.
“Mark John! Are you all right? What on earth happened to you? We’ve been so worried.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. She hadn’t been at all worried about Mark John and felt Jude’s concern was overblown. Mark John passed her office followed closely by Jude, and they both ignored Daisy. When they were in his office they shut the door and though Daisy strained her ears to hear what they were talking about, she couldn’t hear anything. She had an idea that Mark John was listening to a litany of complaints from Jude about his unexcused absence from her sight.
They were holed up in his office for almost an hour. When Jude emerged, she heaved a deep breath and stalked past Daisy’s office without a word. Daisy didn’t know what was going on with Mark John, but she still intended to speak to him about his suspicious appearance yesterday at the Library of Congress. She knocked on his office door.
“Mark John, I’d like to speak to you if you have a minute,” she said when he called for her to come in.
“What is it, Daisy?” he asked, running both hands over his face.
“If you’d rather wait…” she offered, feeling suddenly that he might actually be having a personal crisis. Maybe the police had learned something new about Fiona’s murder...
“No, I don’t want to wait.” I see he’s just as pleasant as always, thought Daisy.
“I was wondering if there was any particular reason you were at the library yesterday when I was working. I suppose I just want to make sure that you think I’m doing a good job and that you don’t feel the need to be checking up on my work habits.”
He glared at her for a moment, then his face softened. “I’m sorry if you felt that way. I was in the neighborhood for lunch and I thought I’d go have a look at the library.” So was it a meeting or lunch? Daisy wondered. Maybe both. Maybe she had seized upon a trivial discrepancy in his stories and there was nothing to it.
“That’s fine. I just don’t want you to think I can’t be trusted to get my assignments done.”
“Of course I believe you can get your assignments done, Daisy,” he replied in a tired voice. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some phone calls I need to make.” Daisy took the hint and left.
She was fuming when she got back to her desk. She didn’t believe for a minute that he trusted her to get her work done. The Library of Congress was a time-consuming detour even if he had had a meeting—or lunch—in the area, and she had a feeling he was there solely to make sure she was working.
Then a thought occurred to her. Had Jude been putting ideas into his ear, suggesting that Daisy couldn’t be relied upon to do her work like a professional? That sounded like the sort of thing Jude might do. But then again, why would Jude do such a thing? She had asked Daisy for help finding the person who killed Fiona--surely she wouldn’t be attempting to sabotage Daisy’s job. Besides that, Jude had already proven herself the jealous type, and she wasn’t likely to suggest to Mark John that he spend more time keeping an eye on Daisy.
Daisy was developing a tension headache by the time she left work. She called Grover and asked him to come over to her apartment for dinner. He accepted, so she stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up the things she needed to make a quick meal for the two of them. She felt the need to vent about work, but she also wanted to know if the police had contacted him again about Walt.
He arrived a little while later with a box containing two pieces of cheesecake. “I hope whatever we’re having pairs well with this,” he said with a grin. “It was left over from the party Saturday night.”
“Perfect. We’re having BLTs and tomato soup,” she replied.
Grover sprawled out on the couch while he waited for her. He had picked up Trudy’s diary on the end table when she walked into the living room.
“Don’t touch that!” she yelled.
He gave a start and dropped the diary where it had been and put his hands up. “What did I do?”
“You can’t touch that without gloves,” she scolded. “That’s the diary I was telling you about. It’s very old and it doesn’t belong to me and if something happens to it I’m in big trouble. My boss already thinks I can’t be trusted.”
“What?” Grover exclaimed. “Why not?”
“Who knows?” Daisy answered with a sigh. “He showed up at the library where I was working yesterday and I saw him watching me in the reading room.”
“Sounds like a creep,” Grover offered.
“I don’t think he’s a creep. I just think he doesn’t believe I can do the job.”
“Is there anything wrong with that? I mean, if he’s really checking up on you, then he’s obviously finding out that you’re capable of doing the work. Now maybe he’ll leave you alone.”
“But he calls me when I’m out of the office, too, to see what I’m doing.”
“Maybe he’s just a control freak.”
“Maybe,” Daisy said doubtfully.
Over dinner Grover regaled her with tales from the wedding over the weekend. Apparently the bride had a hangover on Saturday and threw up right before the wedding. The groom got lost on the way to the church. Grover had Daisy in stitches before the end of the meal.
“Stop!” she cried, holding her sides from laughing. “You have way more fun at work than most people.” Grover grinned. It was nice to see him smiling, and the worry lines had lifted from his forehead since arriving at her apartment.
“So let’s get down to business,” Daisy said. “I haven’t talked to you in a few days. What do you hear from the police?”
Grover sobered immediately. “I’ve been trying not to think about it. But two officers came to my apartment to see me Saturday morning. They wanted to know more about Walt’s refusal to pay the entire bill.”
“I wonder why they wanted to know that,” Daisy mused.
“I’ll tell you why. Because Melody reported that Walt’s wallet had been stolen. So now they think I took his wallet after I killed him because I wanted the three hundred bucks.”
“You’re kidding,” Daisy said, her mouth hanging open in dismay.
“I’m not. Do you think it’s possible that he was killed in a robbery that went south?”
“I don’t know what to think. I want to believe Melody did it, but a robbery is certainly a possibility. Was anything else stolen?”
“Not that I know of,” Grover replied.
“Did the police ask to search your apartment?”
“No. Do you think they will?”
“I don’t know,” Daisy said. “I’m sure they got a good look around while they were there, but obviously they couldn’t have looked in drawers or anything like that. They might come back with a search warrant.”
“So what do I do then?” Grover asked.
“Call a lawyer.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then let them search. Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Daisy said with a sigh. “What did you tell them about the dispute over the bill?”
“The same thing I told them before. Walt complained, I disagreed, and then I ended up giving him a three-hundred-dollar discount.”
“Did things get heated between you and Walt?” Daisy asked.
“I wouldn’t say so. He was just being a jerk, Daisy. He didn’t want to pay the price he agreed to, and he was trying to put something over on me.”
“So why did you take the three hundred dollars off the bill?”
“Because I didn’t want him to bad-mouth DC Haute Cuisine. My reputation is worth the three hundred bucks.”
“And that’s what you told the police?”
“Yes. Almost word-for-word.”
“We need to find out Melody’s story,” Daisy said. “Let me work on Brian and see what I can learn from him.”
“Okay. Thanks for your help. I should get going. Want help with the dishes?”
“No. You probably spent half the weekend doing dishes,” Daisy replied. “I’ll see you later.”
After Grover left and the dishes were done, Daisy settled down to read more of Trudy’s diary. She was finding that a stillness came over her each time she opened the diary and she was eager to follow Trudy’s days in the early American west.