Deadly Pedigree - By Jimmy Fox Page 0,20

common for former slaves to take a garbled version of the slave-owning white family’s name, and slavery in the South was alive only fifteen years before this date; but could Ivanhoe Balzar have had a more direct relationship with the family called Balazar?

As he loaded up the appropriate reel of the actual census, which he had slipped out to get without Mrs. Fadge’s helpful interference, he heard several voices near the entrance of the microfilm room. It was Angus, giving somebody a tour. Somebody important, judging from his eagerness to explain everything in the building and beyond. Angus loved to talk, but he was really cutting loose this time.

Nick was more like the cantankerous Coldbread than he would have cared to admit: he hated to be interrupted during his research. He prepared a hard face for the intruders. But turning, he was astonished.

Whoever she was, she was beautiful. A grin of adolescent delight settled on his face.

She stood in the doorway of the darkened room, the faint light of his microfilm machine on her face, the stronger light from the building’s interior giving her long dark hair and her enchanting curves a sort of glowing outline. He’d seen lots of pretty female students pass through his classes, but if this woman had been in one of them, he would have been in more serious trouble a lot sooner.

She was taking notes on one of those digital pads Nick refused to learn anything about. Two young fellows behind her watched her every move; each was glued to a cell phone.

She looked Nick right in the eyes; he felt absolutely transparent. It seemed to him that not only did she know him, but also that she had just read his own listing in some psychic census of character.

“Terribly sorry to disturb you,” she said. “Just be a moment. We’re honored that you’ve chosen the Plutarch Foundation for your work.”

Disturb me! Baby, you can disturb me all day and all night! he wanted to shout. But she was gone already. The two young men were so busy relaying her observations into their cell phones that they missed her departure; finally realizing she was gone, they hurried off to catch up.

This woman was no ordinary tourist, Nick was sure.

Still staring at the empty doorway, he could hear Angus talking about him; he squirmed at this extravagant praise, but hoped she believed at least half of it.

He returned to the spring of 1880.

Sure, he knew he’d be more productive if he just rolled the film to the specific place under investigation; but he never could do it. He was a window shopper, lingering over interesting details and names along the way. Who was related to whom in the household, who could read and write, where were the parents born, age, birthplace, marital status, occupation…each elegant or rudimentary letter from the pen of the enumerator a possible saga in itself, with ramifications that might ripple through centuries.

Nick carefully transcribed the Balzar census information, forming hypotheses as he wrote. Odd thing: in the “Color” column of the “Personal Description” section, the “W” had been overwritten with “Mu” on Ivanhoe’s line. Had the enumerator made a simple clerical mistake, or had Ivanhoe been trying to pass for white under the nose of a public official who knew him in the small community and would have none of it?

Before long, Nick heard a couple of the magnificent clocks in the place chime the hour of four: quitting time. A few other clocks chimed intermittently for the next fifteen minutes. The Plutarch was indeed a welcome refuge from the tyranny of semiconductor exactitude.

When he emerged bleary-eyed from the microfilm room, he saw that Coldbread was packing up, making sure no one got a glimpse of his top-secret project.

Nick made his way to the wide, gracious porch, where Angus stood watching another sudden shower roar down on the steaming street. “Who was that woman?” he asked Angus.

“Oh, I figured you’d want to know, you young wolf, you!” He laughed his belly laugh. Angus considered Nick something of a playboy. On what evidence, Nick wasn’t sure, unless it was his habit of helping attractive women in their research and ignoring others.

“That’s one very important lady, let me tell you,” said Angus. “Miss Zola Armiger. Big executive, manager or vice-president or something or other–I’m not sure what you call her–of the investment company that handles the Plutarch’s finances. You know, the endowment and all that? I forget the name of her company. They