Deadly Pedigree - By Jimmy Fox Page 0,56

parish from 1931 to 1970. Being of plutocratic background herself, she made a point of rescuing whatever was left when crumbling plantations were boarded up or torn down, as the old families died off or scattered. But then old Naomi went too far: when she retired, she took her precious collection with her, out of the public domain.

Nick knew this was not unusual; he’d run into such situations before, in other parts of the country. Clerks sometimes were unwilling to relinquish control of their beloved documents, or to allow profane hands to touch them. After their deaths, these irreplaceable hoards of information might end up in a historical collection, with luck; or, less fortunately, they might be piled in garbage bags at the curb, mistaken for run-of-the-mill personal papers of the deceased clerk.

Free of the solicitousness of the emaciated Mr. Bunting, Nick quickly located a promising case of bundled papers and lifted the glass door. The bundles seemed to have been kept separated according to plantation. For Nick, the names were evocative of the juleped euphemisms that finally could not sweeten the bitter reality of the antebellum South. Bonneheure, Montclair, Shadowick, Heatherdowns, Canebreeze…ah, Mitzvah! Finding it did indeed feel like a good deed, a commandment to do the right thing, as Nick knew the word connoted in Jewish tradition.

Now there was no time to linger over the tantalizing items–letters, bills of sale, household papers, most slightly charred. He checked around for surveillance cameras. Finding none, he smoothly slid his discoveries into his briefcase.

“Well, Mr. Underwood–”

“Ralph, please,” Nick said, standing again before Fabian Bunting’s desk, beaming with scholarly collegiality.

“Very well, Ralph. You aren’t leaving already?”

“I’m afraid I can’t work up there, Fabian. The conditions, positively deplorable. You see, there’s a fluorescent light that’s incredibly noisy. If there’s one thing I cannot tolerate it’s a noisy place of research. No offense to you personally, Fabian, but as a fellow academician, I am shocked. Shocked, that your fine facility would be marred by such…such…well, such gross incompetence!”

He was devastated. “Oh, my! Please, Ralph, have a seat for a moment. I am going to summon maintenance immediately. But it’s summer. Oh, dear me!” He put a hand to his temple, as if some throbbing pain had just erupted there in his conspicuous veins. “There is only one maintenance man on duty. Not our best, I’m afraid. Well, I’ll just make the call anyway, and go up myself to investigate.”

“Thank you, Fabian. You are most kind. I knew you would understand.”

“Oh, completely, completely. I am the same way. The least little noise or…disorder can make me lose my concentration.”

Fabian stood up, looking as if he didn’t know exactly what to do; then he caught a breeze and was off, stepping softly as if on eggshells toward the stairway, his concentration apparently back..

When he was safely out of sight, Nick walked over to the electronic theft device, slid his briefcase through the narrow gap between one of the posts and the wall, and made his escape.

.

17

Gwen was a retired paralegal from a small north Louisiana town. “Nine months,” she said, affectionately patting the stacks and stacks of notecards in her briefcase. “Nine months to compile this stuff, and I’m only halfway through my survey of northwest Louisiana. It’s my baby; it’s all right here. Can’t bear to be separated from it.” She tittered apologetically.

“My publishers in Little Rock are always on me to speed up, but I want it to be right, you know?”

In retirement, she’d finally been able to devote herself to her lifelong interest: the study of family Bibles and small cemeteries throughout Louisiana, those often overlooked places where the passages of life were lovingly, and usually accurately, recorded. Gwen asked Nick if he’d read her article on the headstone inscriptions of Claiborne Parish in ArkLaTex Memories?

“As a matter of fact I did,” Nick said, wishing he actually had. “Loved it.”

This was his last stop on Hawty’s list: Shady Dell Plantation, home of the archives of the Daughters of the Glorious Gray. A fiercely unfriendly woman watched over the shelf-lined reading room, formerly the grand ballroom of the three-story, square-columned, white Italianate mansion. The woman on duty watched Nick and Gwen with obvious suspicion, as she dusted one of the Confederate-soldier mannequins.

This wasn’t going to be easy, Nick warned himself.

With the possessive pride of the frequent visitor, Gwen showed him the splendid collection of family Bibles, forty-six of them, she explained. From Antwyn to Zimmer. Some of the books were bragging statements of conspicuous