Breaking Ground (11 page)

“She never said anything to me about
second thoughts
,” Frank said firmly. “We're paying a high price. She couldn't have done better. And she was pretty eager to get that cash so she could finish off her gift to you.”

Julie realized she couldn't continue down the path she had put herself on without risking a confrontation. Moreover, she had absolutely no reason to believe that Mary Ellen was planning to
cancel the deal, and if pressed by Frank—who seemed perfectly capable of pressing her—she'd end up with an unsustainable story. “You're right about that; she was eager to complete the gift. So I'm sure whatever else I might have heard was just gossip.”

“Not a good thing to listen to, especially in a small town where people think they know a lot more than they usually do about other people's business.”

Julie nodded.

“Well, I shouldn't keep you any longer, and I should also get out to Birch Brook and see if Luke's getting ready to start next week. I enjoyed our talk, Julie, and if your board is interested, you can tell them I'd consider it an honor to become involved with the Ryland Historical Society. This is mine,” he added as he scooped up the check. “Good to talk,” he said again as he rose to leave. “It's been very interesting.”

Indeed, Julie said to herself as she rose to follow Frank toward the door.

Julie's first call when she got to her office was to Howard Townsend for what she recognized as a cover-your-rear tactic. Knowing how things happened in Ryland, she could imagine Frank and Howard running into each other and comparing notes, and she didn't want the board chair to think she was working behind his back. As it turned out, the conversation was easy. Howard said he was glad she was following up on the matter and happy to know Frank had expressed interest. “He's a go-getter,” the board chair said. “Got his hands into everything. And on the money.”

The second call was to Rich. She was so excited about the breakfast with Nilsson that she had to talk about it, even though she knew Rich didn't share her interest.

She recounted the breakfast conversation, emphasizing Frank's sudden and strong denial that Mary Ellen had been having second thoughts about the land sale.

“I didn't know she was,” Rich said.

“It was a bluff—to see Frank's reaction. And, boy, did he react! I think that's pretty suspicious.”

“Julie, I thought you said you weren't going to get into this.”

“I'm not
getting into
anything. Just, well, trying to figure out if …”

“If Frank Nilsson had a reason to kill Mary Ellen Swanson to keep her from backing out. I know what you're up to, but you need to let the police handle it.”

“Mrs. Detweiller's here. I can hear her stomping around out there. I have to go. We'll talk more about this over dinner, okay?”

After sorting out some work with Mrs. Detweiller, Julie was surprised to see it was already 9:30, and she had no time before
the tour at ten to talk to Tabby Preston in the library or to jot down notes on her meeting with Frank. Distracted, Julie felt unable to throw herself into the tour with the energy she customarily deployed. Although the dozen summer visitors of varying degrees of uninterest in Ryland's history seemed not to notice, Julie felt she had let them, and herself, down. As they trooped off to the gift shop after the tour, she was content to return to Swanson House to talk with Tabby.

Not that a talk with Tabby would raise anyone's spirits. She had been volunteering as society librarian and archivist for several years before Julie arrived as director. A Ryland native, Tabby had left town for college and then for a career as a school librarian in a small town on the coast. Julie assumed that she had retired early because she was still in her early sixties. What motivated Tabby's return to Ryland wasn't a topic Julie could ever have broached with the woman, but she guessed it had to do with Tabby's sister, Martha. Martha, too, had gone off to college and then worked at a fairly high executive level in some retail business in southern New England. The two spinsters had returned together to live in the stately Federal house they had grown up in below the Common and just behind First Church of Christ, Congregational. Martha, too, had become involved with Ryland Historical Society, first as the volunteer manager of the gift shop, a job befitting her retail career, and then as a trustee. Julie had heard the stories of Tabby's anger that it was Martha rather than she to whom the board had extended the latter honor. But the sisters remained close in the antagonistic, cat-and-dog way typical of small-town family relationships.

And then their lives took a terrible turn just when Julie entered the scene. Julie could never bring herself to inquire about Martha's state, and Tabby never mentioned her sister. Tabby continued to
work diligently in the library, and she and Julie maintained a perfectly correct and productive professional relationship. As Worth Harding had often remarked, Tabby was a great gift to the Ryland Historical Society because she did for free the work that would have cost a good deal if she were a paid staff member. Both for that reason and because she genuinely sympathized with Tabby, Julie always went out of her way to be pleasant to her.

And so she would be this morning, Julie resolved, as she climbed the stairs behind Mrs. Detweiller's office to the second-floor library and archives room. Tabby was sitting at her desk in the center of the large room, squinting through bifocals at a pile of papers and at first too absorbed to notice Julie's entrance. No one else was in the room. Julie cleared her throat and said good morning.

“Sorry, Dr. Williamson,” Tabby said as she looked up to locate the source of the sound. “I didn't hear you come in.”

“You're working too hard, Tabby,” Julie said, deciding to skip her usual correction of the librarian's formal manner of address. For a year Julie had called her Tabby and tried to get her to reciprocate with Julie, but she had made no progress on that front and resigned herself to it.

“These papers just seem to grow. Every time I finish cataloging a batch, another one springs up. And I've put some more letters in that folder for you.”

“The Tabor papers?”

“Yes. I found some more of Dr. Tabor's letters from the thirties. What a letter writer he was! No one bothers today.”

The papers had been donated, a year before Julie's arrival at the historical society, by descendants of Dr. Samuel Tabor, who had practiced in Ryland for the first four decades of the twentieth century. Julie learned about them last winter when Tabby had,
just like today in her usual timid way, apologized for spending so much time cataloging them. To show Tabby that she endorsed the work, Julie had spent some time then looking through the papers, fascinated by their random nature: copies of prescriptions; papers torn from medical journals and fiercely annotated by the doctor, as if he were engaged in a heated argument with the author; long personal letters describing life in rural Maine to family members in Tabor's native Connecticut; notes and minutes from various selectmen's committees on which he served. Surveying them briefly, Julie saw then that the Tabor papers were a rich lode from which she could mine articles—perhaps even a book—that would enhance her professional standing while, of course, contributing to public knowledge of Ryland's history.

It had seemed like a great idea, and Julie still remembered her excitement when she first described it to Rich. Practical as he was, he had suggested she should focus on one aspect, an idea she eventually came around to, settling on a period—the Depression. “I'll call it ‘Down and Out in Ryland, Maine,'” she joked to Rich, but instead of finding it funny he warmed to the notion. “Everyone knows about the Depression in the big cities,” he had said. “But what was it like in a small town in rural Maine? That's a terrific idea.” So Julie began sorting the papers and asking Tabby to do the same as she cataloged, setting aside those from the 1930s.

“Some new ones?” Julie prompted Tabby.

“Yes. More letters to his brother in Connecticut during the Depression and some others. They're over there, in the green folder.”

“I'll take them downstairs if that's okay. I can't seem to get big stretches of time to work on them, but if they're on my desk I can read them in between.”

Since she had first learned about the Tabor papers and settled on her project of researching his description of the Depression in
Ryland, she had rarely found uninterrupted time to work on them. Mundane tasks that represented the reality of the job of director consumed her time. Those and the monthly meetings of the board—to say nothing of the endless meetings with Mary Ellen, with or without the rest of the building committee. She really did enjoy her job, but it certainly didn't leave time to be a scholar, too.

“I was wondering if we'll be closing on Monday for the funeral,” Tabby said as Julie was distracted by her own thoughts about the papers.

“Yes, of course. Mrs. Detweiller will be bringing around a notice about that soon. We won't open until two, but you don't need to come in that afternoon. Things should quiet down next week after the long holiday, so why don't we just agree that the library will remain closed all day Monday.”

“I'll be in after the funeral, Dr. Williamson. I just wanted to be sure I could get to it. Mary Ellen will certainly be missed. What a terrible tragedy.”

Tabby's anguished look as she said that made Julie aware of how awful the woman's life had become because of her sister. It was better, she felt, to respond with only a nod and then to change the topic. “I'm really eager to read these,” she said as she held the green folder in front of her. “Thanks for collecting them for me.” Tabby acknowledged the thanks with a slight nod.

“And one more thing,” Julie continued, trying to sound casual. “Luke Dyer told me yesterday he was working here, and I was sort of surprised because I didn't realize he had an interest in local history. But then I really don't know him except in connection with the construction project. He's from an old Ryland family, I understand, and I just wanted to check to make sure he's finding what he needs here.” Julie knew the story was lame, but it apparently didn't bother Tabby.

“Yes, I think he's finding what he wanted. Those papers are not really in the best order since Mary Ellen just kept dropping them off in boxes and bags when she felt like it.”

“Mary Ellen had papers from the Dyer family?” Julie asked.

“Not that I know of. No, Luke was looking at the Swanson papers.”

Julie felt strongly that it was neither professional nor appropriate to monitor the work of researchers. What people asked to see they should be given, assuming of course that the donors had not restricted access. No, it wasn't up to the archivist to say who could see what. The society's role was to conserve and provide access, making sure that any documents or books were treated properly and never removed. Copies could be made if the material was not fragile and lent itself to duplication without damage. So if Luke Dyer wanted to consult papers from the Swanson family, and if Tabby supervised their use to prevent damage (ink pens for note taking, for example, were anathema; Tabby kept a drawer of pencils to offer to those who came unprepared), then it wasn't a fit topic of interest for Julie.

Except that she was surprised and fascinated, two emotions she tried to disguise when she responded to Tabby's announcement that Dyer had been looking at papers from the Swanson family. “Oh, I see,” was the best Julie could do.

“He only looked at the ones I've cataloged, of course,” Tabby said. “I've got a couple more boxes of Swanson materials in the vault that I just haven't gotten to, what with the doctor's papers to deal with first. But there's plenty of cataloged material from the Swansons, and Luke isn't an experienced researcher, so I think there's quite enough to keep him busy till I get to the rest.”

“Mary Ellen never mentioned that she was donating papers,” Julie said, “but then she was generous in so many ways.”

“That's certainly true, Dr. Williamson.”

“Are these her husband's?”

“Not so far. The ones I've been through are mostly Dan's grandfather's. I started with the oldest ones. Most of the letters and bills are from the eighties and nineties.”

“Then they must be Mary Ellen's husband's,” Julie observed.

“No, not
1980s
—1880s and '90s.”

“Oh, of course; sorry. So those were Mr. Swanson's grandfather's.”

“Herbert. My father always called him Herbie. Of course I didn't know him—he died when I was quite young—but he and my father were friends. Old Dan was also a friend of Father's. He sort of spanned the two generations.”

“
Old
Dan?”

“Herbert's son, Dan's father. He was Daniel O. Swanson I, and Mary Ellen's husband was Daniel O. II, but everyone called them Old Dan and Dan.”

“You know so much about all this, Tabby. Did you know Mary Ellen when she was growing up?”

“Mary Ellen? No, she's from Connecticut or somewhere. Not a Ryland girl.”

“Right, I think she told me that. She met her husband during the war, didn't she?”

“In Boston. Dan was in the navy, and I guess Mary Ellen was one of those girls who … well, you know.”

Wow, Julie said to herself. One of
those
girls. But to Tabby she said: “And they got married and moved to Ryland?”

“Not right away. Dan came back after the war, and Mary Ellen came to visit, but Old Dan didn't take to her, and so it was a long engagement. I don't think they got married until just a few years before Old Dan died. Let's see, that would have been in the mid-fifties—
1950s
, of course.”