Rainwater looked at me. “Can you do something?”
“What do you want me to do? She threw her cane at me earlier.” I held my hands up.
Imogene rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What you said came as a shock. It’s just, if Roma is dead, I have no hope now of proving the truth about my family. She was the only one who was willing to do it. No one else will listen to me.”
It could be just me, but I’d postulate that her habit of throwing things at people when she didn’t get her way might be the reason why no one took her seriously.
“Because you’re one of the last people to see Roma alive, I would like to talk to you,” Rainwater said. “We can do it here or at the station.”
Her eyes widened almost to the size of the lenses in her glasses. “Why would the police want to talk to me? How did she die?”
“Ms. Winterbourne fell into the Niagara River last night and died. It seems she hit her head when she fell and drowned.”
“That’s terrible, but I don’t know why you are questioning me. I already told you that I was home last evening and that my son was there. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him.”
Rainwater nodded. “What’s your son’s name and phone number?” He whipped out a small notebook from the pocket of his winter coat.
“His name is Edmund Thorne,” she said and then rattled off a phone number.
“His last name isn’t Thoreau?” I asked.
“He has his father’s last name,” she snapped at me. “It’s the only thing that man ever gave that boy.”
“Did your son know Roma?” Rainwater asked.
“I don’t think he ever met her. He had no reason to, but I did tell him about her.” Then she muttered, “Not that he wanted to hear about it.”
“Why didn’t he want to know about her?” I asked.
“If you must know, it was because he didn’t want to hear anything more about Henry David. He seems to accept the lie that we have been told over and over again from others like you—that Henry David didn’t have any children.”
Rainwater and I exchanged a look.
“And where do you live, Ms. Thoreau?” Rainwater asked.
She pressed her lips together. “I live in a small apartment on Goldfinch Street. It’s the second floor of a townhouse. I have a horrible neighbor in the first-floor apartment who thinks he can play the violin. He can’t.”
“And the address?” Rainwater asked.
She told him her address, and when he asked for her phone number, she told him that too. Despite her prickly attitude, Imogene didn’t refuse to tell Rainwater anything that he needed to know. It made me wonder if she was really telling the truth. Also, why would she hurt Roma when Roma likely had the book? If she did that, she might never see the book again.
“Can I leave now?” Imogene asked.
Rainwater closed his notebook. “You may, but don’t be surprised if you get a call from me later today or tomorrow after I speak to your son.”
She glared at us in turn and then stormed out of the shop. Her cane never touched the floor.
After she left, Rainwater fell on one of the couches. “That was Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-granddaughter?”
“She said she was his great-great-great-great-granddaughter, but it’s simply not true.”
“Why?” He rubbed the back his neck and looked terribly tired.
“Thoreau never married nor had children. None of the four Thoreau children did. They lived most of their lives in New Concord, Massachusetts, and their lives were well-documented by themselves and by others.”
“I don’t think she knew she was going to be telling her story to a transcendentalism scholar.”
I frowned. “It doesn’t matter if I am a scholar or not. It’s well-documented that the siblings didn’t marry or have children in or out of wedlock. It would only take a quick Internet search to verify that on a number of reputable websites. All of them died relatively young too, except for his youngest sister Sophia. She had a longer life. Henry David was forty-four when he died.”
“So he didn’t marry,” Rainwater said, talking through each point to make sure he had the facts right. “That never stopped anyone from having children before.”
“If it were really true, someone from the family would have come forward much sooner than this. His work has been published thousands of times in countless languages. Yes, it’s in the public domain now, but it wasn’t for a long time. Don’t you think an heir would want to cash in on that?”
“Not if they didn’t know they were an heir until after the work was in the public domain.”
I frowned. “I suppose, but why wait until now to reveal who she is? If someone had come forward and said they were related to Thoreau, it would be major news in literary circles. She would be wanted for interviews and talks at colleges all over the country. The Thoreau Society would definitely want to talk to her. I just didn’t buy it. I knew she said she’d already spoken to some scholars, but which ones? I’m sure there would be some out there who would want to hear her story, even just so they could write a paper to tear her claim apart. A paper like that could help them secure tenure at their college or university.”
“Is academia that conniving?”
“More. That’s nothing.” I sat next to him on the couch. “It’s just too far-fetched.”
Another copy of Walden flew across the shop and landed gently in my lap.
Rainwater raised his brow at me. “Too far-fetched? Like a magical bookshop, perhaps?”
He had me there.
“I actually came here with some news about the case,” he said, “but it seems you have been doing a much better job detecting than I have.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Imogene literally stormed in here and accused me of buying the book from Roma.” I scooted closer to him. “What do you have to tell me?”
“The coroner has ruled her death an accident. There is no evidence that she was pushed or kicked into the river. He thinks that she simply slipped on the ice and fell in. Tragically, it happens at least once or twice every winter somewhere along the river.”
“I know,” I murmured, thinking of my friend Colleen again.
Rainwater squeezed my hand.
“But what about the book? What about the message that was written on her palm?”
“Even though the coroner ruled the death accidental, some things don’t add up. There was some unusual debris under Roma’s fingernails.”
“What was it?” I asked excitedly.
“It was brownish green cloth. The coroner said that he had only seen nail scrapings like this one other time, and they were from—”
“The cover of a book,” I interrupted him.
He nodded.
“It has to be Walden. Maybe someone was stealing it from her, and she scratched up the cover as she was trying to get it back.”
“That was my thought too.”
“If she did scratch the book so deeply to have some of the leather under her nails, the value of the book, even being signed, will drop by thousands. It would no longer be in mint condition. Most collectors don’t want books with any tears on the covers.”
He leaned back on the couch and sighed. “This is not how I wanted our first few days as newlyweds to go.” He sat up again. “There are questions about the case, but since it’s not technically a homicide, I can leave for our honeymoon. I will put Officer Wheaton on the case. He can follow up with Imogene and her son.”
I shifted away from him. “You would put Wheaton on this case? He’s the last person who could possibly understand how valuable that book is.”
Rainwater frowned. “He has the most seniority in the department. And it’s no longer a homicide case.”
“Yes, but we don’t know what happened. We still have to find the book!”
Rainwater rubbed his forehead like our conversation was giving him a headache. I didn’t doubt for a second that it was.
“Okay, I’ll give it three more days, but I do want to spend Christmas in those mountains in Vermont with my new bride. Is that too much to ask?”
I took his hand. “It’s not.”
“So, we have a deal? We will look for the book three more days and then let Wheaton take over.”
I didn’t like the idea of Wheaton taking over anything, but I said what only seemed fair, “Deal.”