Sawyer stood near the stacks, and I could see a gleam of mischief in his eye. “Don’t you think about it, Wild Boy.” I grabbed his backpack and set up his workspace. “Let’s get to work.”

  He laughed, moved hesitantly away from the piles of paper, and sat down. “Mama, where’s your coffee?”

  I smiled at my son, who looked seriously worried. “You’re used to me having coffee when I work, huh?”

  “Let’s go get some. You need it,” he said as he put his little hand on my arm.

  I grinned. “And you need a chocolate croissant, huh?”

  “Yeah!” he shouted.

  I smiled at Mika. “Vanilla latte?”

  “And a chocolate croissant, please,” she said as she added a few skeins of yarn to a bin of beautiful gray.

  “You got it. Be back in a minute.” I took Saw’s hand, and we headed across the street to the coffee shop. The line wasn’t long, and within a minute or two, I had placed our order and was waiting by the window as Sawyer played with a puzzle they kept there for just such moments. The sun was streaming through onto his darkening hair, and when it hit his eyes, they glowed a soft gold. Sometimes, his beauty took my breath away.

  But that moment of bliss ended abruptly when someone shouted, “Paisley Sutton, you do not have my permission to dig into my family’s history.”

  Startled, I grabbed Sawyer and pulled him against me before looking up into the angry face of the person who now stood only a couple of feet away. Levi Benfer.

  “Oh, hello Mr. Benfer. I’m sorry. I didn’t quite hear you. What did you say?” I had heard him perfectly well, of course, but he was making a scene. The more people who saw this confrontation the better.

  “I said,” he hissed as he took another step closer to me, “stay out of my family’s business. You hear me?”

  He stood with his feet spread wide and his hands on his hips, and the part of me that went to humor in times of fear thought immediately that he was the perfect model of man-spreading in that moment. But the part of me that felt my tiny boy’s skull beneath my fingers thought better of saying anything.

  “Sir, you will need to take that discussion up with your brother. The research I am doing is at his request with documents he gave me.” I picked Sawyer up and took a step away. “Now, please, you are scaring my son.”

  “Oh, he hasn’t seen scared yet.” Benfer’s voice was low and gravelly. “If you don’t stop, you and he will know fear, trust me on that.”

  By now, everyone in the shop was watching, and I just hoped the barista, who was closest, had heard what he said. I took a deep breath and prepared to take my only exit behind the counter with her.

  Just then, a large hand clamped onto Benfer’s shoulder, and he spun around to see Demetrius Cleveland looming over him. “Sir, kindly leave the woman and her son alone. Now,” Demetrius said with authority.

  Behind Demetrius, I could see several other people getting up from their tables and coming over to stand beside and behind him. He had been the first to defend me, but he wasn’t the only one.

  Benfer shook his head slightly and then glanced back at me. “This isn’t over,” he said before he shook off Demetrius’s hand and walked out the door.

  I let out a long breath and let myself focus on the image of a villain walking out of a Wild West Saloon that had just flashed into my mind. I needed a mental break for just a second so I could gather myself and tend to Sawyer.

  Sawyer was staring over at Demetrius with wide eyes, and I thought at first he was going to cry, but then he grinned. “You’re a superhero,” he whispered.

  Demetrius smiled after glancing at me and seeing I was breathing again. “What would my superhero name be?”

  Sawyer tapped his index finger against his cheek in his version of the universal sign for thinking. Then, his eyes lit, and he said, “Iron Claw.”

  Demetrius threw back his head and laughed. “Excellent. From now on, you know my true identity. But you mustn’t tell anyone,” he said as he leaned forward and whispered. “I have to keep my superhero nature a secret.”

  Sawyer nodded seriously. He’d recently watched one of the Spiderman movies with me, and he knew all about secret identities.

  “Thank you,” I said to Demetrius. I wanted to say a lot more, to thank him for intervening, for helping Sawyer make something wonderful out of a horrible moment. But I didn’t want to disrupt this fun or really step back into my fear.

  “Of course,” he turned to look behind him. “We all saw that, Paisley, so if you need us, I’m going to get everyone’s names and numbers for you.”

  I felt tears pool in my eyes. “Oh, thank you. I wouldn’t have even thought of that.”

  He put his hand on my forearm. “Where can I find you to bring the list?

  I pointed across the street. “We’re working in Mika’s shop today. Thanks again, and I have some information about your family if you’d like to hear what I’ve found so far,” I added.

  “Great. See you soon.” He turned, took a napkin from the counter, and began to move around the room.

  I set Sawyer down and said, “Ready for our chocolate croissants?”

  He grinned as I turned to get our order. “I put a couple extra in, my treat,” the barista said. “Chocolate always helps.”

  “Thank you,” I said and picked up the drink carrier and the bag.

  “I got this, Mama,” Sawyer said as he took the bag of pastries and then my hand. “You need to hold my hand because there are lots of cars.”

  “I do need to hold your hand, Little Man. I really do.”

  * * *

  The rest of the morning was fairly uneventful except for the extreme amount of effort it took for Mika and me to keep tiny, chocolate fingerprints from appearing all over the historical documents.

  When Demetrius came over with the napkin list, I thanked him again and showed him what I had found about his great-great-grandfather and asked if he knew. “Know? Of course I know,” he said with a smile. “My brother is still a funeral director here in Octonia. One in every generation.”

  “But not something you wanted to do?” I asked.

  “Fortunately, the name and the job aren’t inextricably tied. I’m not really built for that kind of constant compassion. It takes its toll on my brother, and he’s very good at it. I wouldn’t have made it two years.” Demetrius shook his head. “No, business is more my strong suit.”

  “Well, business and,” I lowered my voice, “superhero-ing.”

  He smiled. “That, too.” He looked me in the eye. “You’re okay, though?”

  “I am,” I said and meant it. “It’s not the first time someone has threatened me, although it is the first time I was warned off of reading old papers.” I gestured at the stacks around me on the table.

  He scanned the documents. “I sense, though, if I know you at all, that such a threat makes you all the more determined.” He winked.

  “You know it. If you want me to do something, just tell me I can’t.” I laughed.

  “Well, thank you for what you are doing,” he said. Then, he looked me hard in the eye again. “Paisley, whatever you find about my family, even if it’s really awful, you tell the truth, okay? I believe that the truth will set us free.”

  I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Okay, I will.” I held his gaze steady to back my words.

  “Good,” he smiled and waved at Mika and winked at Sawyer, who held up his little hand in the shape of a claw, and then Demetrius left with a laugh.

  9

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, especially since Mrs. Stephenson came in about noon to watch the store and Mika decided it was a great day to go to the water park in Charlottesville. “You mind if I take Sawyer with me?” she asked with a smirk.

  “Well, Sawyer, do you want to go with Auntie Mika to play in the water with other kids?” I couldn’t imagine a finer idea of heaven for my son, so I was not surprised when he jumped up and down and said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “Alright, Saw. Let’s go. We need to stop by your house and pick up your swimsuit and swim belt.”

  “And my water shoes,” he shouted.

  “And your water shoes,” she said. “Everything in his room?”

  “Actually, it’s all in the laundry room, on top of the washer. Shoes are by the door there.” I smiled. “Have fun.”

  “I’ll bring him home fed and tired about five-thirty?” Mika said.

  “You sure? That’s a lot of three-year-old time,” I asked.

  “Totally sure. See you later.” She thanked Mrs. Stephenson as Sawyer gave the older clerk a high-five, and then they were off.

  Mrs. Stephenson was one of those people who could read a room so well that I wasn’t surprised that she took out her latest cozy mystery, propped it on the counter, and left me to my work for the afternoon. She attended customers with ease and toodled around to straighten the shelves, only interrupting me to ask if I wanted tea about mid-afternoon, an interruption I greatly welcomed.

  “Join me for a cup?” I asked. Ever since Mika had hired the retired accountant to help with the shop, I’d liked the woman. But we didn’t get to talk much. Three-year-olds have a tendency to suck all the oxygen and attention in a room.

  “I’d love that, if you can spare the time,” she said as she set my mug on the table beside me.

  “Absolutely.” I picked up my mug that read “I See Dead People” and laughed. “Good choice,” I said.

  “Ever since Mika started doing the Ellery Adams mug thing as well as the shelf enhancers, I’ve been working hard to pick just the right mug for the right moment.” She held hers up. It read, “An Enigma.”

  I smiled. Mika loved Ellery Adams’s mystery novels and the bookstore and coffee shop she ran. In Adams’s stories, the owner has a collection of thrift store mugs that she chooses from based on the person who will be drinking from it. I loved that Mika had started that, even if it was just for those of us who worked or knitted here.

  “Is it okay if I ask what you’re working on?” Mrs. Stephenson asked.

  “Of course. It’s not a secret.” I glanced around. “If it was, I might need to choose a more private workspace.” I smiled.

  “Good point,” she said as she lifted up one of the ledger books next to her. “Do you mind?”

  “As long as you keep what you read between us, not at all.” I smiled. “I expect you’d be interested in all the bookkeeping I read.”

  She flipped the pages of the book. “I bet so, even this page is interesting. The ledger notations are fascinating because . . .” she paused and lifted the pages closer to her face, “ he’s keeping two sets of books here.”

  “What?!” I said as I stood up and moved to look over her shoulder. She was looking at a ledger from the 1840s. I had already scanned this one to look for names, but as best I could tell, it was simply full of business transactions with other white men in the area. Interesting but not useful for my purposes, at least not that I knew of. “What do you mean he has two sets of books?

  She pointed to the “Received” column. “See how he has a number in black ink?”

  I nodded.

  “But look here, in the shadow, there’s a penciled number behind each of these figures. And each one is higher.” She moved her finger to the “Expense” column. “Same here but in reverse.”

  I leaned over. “He’s marking down more than what he actually paid in ink? Is that what you’re seeing?” I had thought those penciled figures were just the arithmetic of the book, but now that Mrs. Stephenson had noticed this pattern, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it. “Is he doing something illegal?”

  She shook her head. “This is all his money. It looks like he’s paying what he actually owed but pretending like he paid more.”

  “What does that mean? Why would he do that?”

  “Well, he could be avoiding paying taxes on all of his income. That’s a good possibility.” She kept studying the page. “But I can’t be sure. It honestly seems like he’s hiding how much money he has from someone.”

  “The state? Or someone closer to home?”

  “No way to tell from this, but if you’d like, I can take a look at the financial documents and see what else I find. Maybe get some clues for you?” She looked up at me, and I could see the light of curiosity in her eyes.

  “I’d really like that, but let me ask the Benfers. I don’t want to violate their trust.” I didn’t think they’d mind, but I wanted to be sure . . . and I thought I should probably tell them about my encounter with Levi. “Be right back,” I said.

  I stepped out onto the sidewalk and dialed Veronica’s number. She answered on the second ring and said, “You’ve found something?”

  I loved her eagerness, so I said, “Maybe, but I need to ask your permission to have someone else look at the papers, a friend who is a retired accountant.”

  “Definitely. Totally fine,” she said without hesitation. “But care to give me a taste of why?”

  I explained about the double entries in the books and how it looked like Nicholas The Fifth might have been underreporting how much money he had actually made and overreporting what he spent. “Not sure why yet, but if my friend can look, she might be able to figure it out.”

  “Please. Let her see whatever she needs,” Veronica said. “That is interesting. I’ll talk with Nick and see if that means anything to him.”

  “Great,” I said, and then I took a deep breath. “I do need to tell you one other thing, though.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “This doesn’t sound good.”

  I related the incident with Levi in the coffee shop and explained how many people had witnessed it. “I don’t know what has him so worried, but he’s getting a little scary,” I said, trying to downplay the real fear I had felt in that moment.

  “Paisley, I want you to tell Sheriff Shifflett, and I’m going to have Nick talk to Levi. That is unacceptable, and honestly, none of this is his business. He washed his hands of the farm years ago. Everything here is our personal property, and we can do with it as we wish.”

  I swallowed. “I’ll let Santiago know,” I said, “but in my experience, some people really are afraid of the truth. And sometimes the truth can be really painful, traumatizing even.”

  I heard Veronica breathing and then she said, “You’re right. But if Levi is worried about this, he should be talking with us, not attacking you and threatening your son. Please report this to the police, and I will be in touch as soon as Nick talks to Levi.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “We’ll be gentle about his concerns, but we aren’t going to enable this kind of behavior, Paisley. Please let me know if you have any other encounters with Levi.”

  I told her I would and hung up. Then, I shook off the fear that had resettled on my shoulders and went back inside.

  A beacon of respect, Mrs. Stephenson had left the papers alone and cleaned up our tea mugs, but she was obviously eager to hear what I’d heard, and when I said she could look through things, she let out a little yip of glee.

  “When do you want to get started?” I asked.

  “Right now,” she said as she scooped up the three ledger books I had already reviewed. “I’ll work at the counter.” She strode over and laid the books carefully by the register. Soon, she was wrist deep in old paper and grinning.

  I settled back into my own work and kept recording the names of anyone who was enslaved at BelAirre. It was only when I heard Mrs. Stephenson shout, “Yes,” that I realized it was almost five o’clock. Only a few customers had come in, and their purchases had been, it seemed, pretty straightforward. So both of us had worked our way through the afternoon with little interruption.

  I jumped up and ran over to the counter. “What did you find?”

  “I found the actual numbers,” she said in a breathless voice. “The totals, I mean. Look.”

  She pointed at the end papers at the back of one of the ledgers. I’d looked at what was there, but to me, it looked like more addition and subtraction, the use of any available paper when paper wasn’t that available.

  “Look here.” She tapped her finger beside a long column of numbers that seemed to run down the page and then over into three more columns across the full width of the marbled paper. “These are the same figures from each month in the books. Here, is where he is running his real cash numbers.”

  I scanned the columns and my eyes landed on the final figure that was written below a horizontal line. “Okay, I see. $16,392. What does that mean?”

  “That is, best I can tell, the cash that Nicholas Benfer was putting away under the table, so to speak.” She smiled.

  “So he was evading taxes?” I sighed. That wasn’t going to be a fun fact to share with his namesake.

  “Actually, no, I don’t think so . . . okay, well, maybe, but I think it was for good reason.” She turned to the end paper at the back of the book. There, she read, “Elijah – 16.392.”

  I grabbed the book from her hands. “Wait, what?”

  “It’s the same exact figure, although a bit disguised, I think. Why? Do you know this Elijah?”

  I ran over to my makeshift desk and pulled up the photo of the image of Elijah and Nicholas that I had taken. “Yes. This is Elijah.” I tapped his shoulder on the screen, “and this is Nicholas Benfer’s son.”

  “Holy crap,” Mrs. Stephenson said. “He was giving money to a black man.”

  “Not just a black man. To one of his slaves,” I whispered.

  “Whoa,” Mrs. Stephenson said. Then she took her phone out of her purse and began to type in numbers. She held up the calculation she had just done. “That’s over $165,000 in today’s money.”

  I sat down hard in my chair. I had never heard of such a thing, and I could see why Nicholas had kept it a secret. That kind of generosity to an enslaved man at that time could have gotten him killed. “Please don’t tell anyone about this,” I said, suddenly quite fearful of what this might mean. Not that I thought someone might kill – at least I didn’t think Levi Benfer would kill – but this could change a lot of things about the church and Demetrius’s family . . . and well, everyone.

 

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