Necessary Evil (18 page)

He sighed in
exasperation. “I’m new here. I don’t know who goes about or when. Where are you
going?” he demanded.

I had gotten to my
feet, reaching for my barn coat with hands that shook despite my telling myself
that I wasn’t afraid. Blood was pounding in my head, and I honestly couldn’t
tell you whether I was more angry or scared. It didn’t matter – the effects
were about the same.

“I’m going to
check it out,” I snapped.

My voice sliced
through the air, and Randall flinched, his mouth setting in unusual firmness.

“If Trusty is any
guide, they’re gone,” he said.

“I’m going to
check it out,” I repeated firmly. “No need to trouble yourself.”

Not that you
offered.

I rushed out of
the office and out the back porch, grabbing the baseball bat we kept by the
back door. It’s not a terribly effective weapon, but it gave me more confidence
stepping out into the night by myself. I hadn’t realized that Trusty was
following me until the porch door bumped off her body before shutting. She
yapped, and I hushed her, and we stood silently, scanning the night-shrouded
backyard.

Silence settled
over us like a heavy blanket, and the lights from the porch and the stables
made the inky blackness of the surrounding woods seem even more ominous. As my
heart calmed and slowed, I picked up other sounds: crickets chirping, tree
frogs croaking, horses whickering. I could hear Trusty’s heavy breathing, and
the almost silent slap of her tail hitting my leg. In a distance, a car rushed
by on the road running in front of the house. But there was nothing else - no
light, no sound, no movement, nothing. I might have been alone on the edge of
the world, for all my senses could tell me. And that terrified me.

I went down the
porch steps and stood on the shadowed back lawn, listening, but too frightened
to venture further. When Trusty began to sniff around the neglected weed patch,
looking for a place to do her nightly business, I realized that we were indeed
alone out here and began to relax.

Until the backdoor
slammed again, making me jump six inches.

“Find anyone?”
Randall asked.

“
No
,” I
snapped.

If there had been
someone out there, they were gone, further down the path than I cared to go at
night with just a baseball bat and a dog. Making a mental note to check out
that path during my morning run, I went back up onto the porch with Trusty,
brushing past Randall to go into the kitchen.

As was her normal
practice, Aunt Susanna had left on the lights over the counter. What wasn’t her
normal practice was the plastic-wrapped plate of cookies and the note she’d
left under the lights. I picked up the note and read it:

Professor – I know
you’re working late tonight and didn’t have time to eat much, so I made these
for you. They’re hearty and filling. I’ll make corn chowder tomorrow night. I
hope you can make it to dinner. – Susanna.

My stomach growled
suddenly – my quickly consumed dinner hadn’t been enough, apparently, and the
cookies were tempting. But they weren’t for me. I tapped the note to my lips,
wondering what we had in the cabinets.

I was avoiding
thinking about the incident outside. There wasn’t anything I could do about it,
now that the trespassers were gone. Dwelling on the fact that there were people
merely yards from the house would only make it that much harder to go to sleep
tonight. I wished, as I had many times, that we had an alarm system.

“One more thing to
add to the wish list, I guess,” I said to Trusty, who was looking at me
expectantly.

I knelt and got a
biscuit out of the cabinet for her. The door clicked shut behind me and I held
the note up over my shoulder. “It’s for you.”

Randall plucked it
out of my fingers and walked around the bar so that he was facing me when I got
back up. I rummaged through the cabinet until I found a box of crackers. When I
faced him again, he was staring at the plate of cookies, frowning.

“Something wrong?”
I asked.

He cocked his head
at me and placed both hands on the counter before asking, “What were you
planning to do out there? With that baseball bat, I mean.”

He nodded to the
corner where it was propped. I shrugged.

“I guess I was
hoping to catch me a treasure hunter,” I said, and popped a cracker in my
mouth. “They’re in season, you know.”

I gagged. The
cracker was so stale it was inedible, and I stumbled toward the trash can. The
box followed the remains of the cracker and, when I stood up straight again,
the professor was watching me with an expression of distaste.

“I haven’t seen
those crackers in that box design since the nineties,” he said.

“Now you tell me,”
I growled, and went to the sink for water. When I came back, he slid the plate
over to me.

“Help yourself,”
he said.

“Those are for
you,” I pointed out, hoping I was able to keep the hurt out of my voice. Being
infirmed, Aunt Susanna didn’t cook or bake much anymore. That she would start
now for Randall rather than for me seemed unfair. But that wasn’t Randall’s
fault, I reminded myself. Aunt Susanna had told me herself that he spent all
his time in the office and only came out to make himself sandwiches. She would
have mentioned if he demanded cookies.

Randall pushed the
plate closer to me and took a stool. “Go ahead,” he said.

I did this time,
pulling off the cover and grabbing the biggest cookie to jam into my mouth. I
was hungry, yes; but more than that, I was frightened and the chocolate chips
melting in my mouth were almost as soothing as Uncle Michael’s arm around my shoulder.

“Does this happen
often?” Randall asked, and I shook my head.

“She doesn’t bake
often – her hips and knees don’t allow her to stand for long periods of time,”
I said, as soon as my mouth was clear.

“I didn’t mean
those,” he said, with a dismissive gesture. “I meant the trespassers. How often
are you actually bothered by them?”

I shrugged and
took the stool opposite of his. “Depends on the time of year. Obviously, they
can’t dig during the winter. Last summer they were tapering off – I had four,
maybe five holes altogether. This year, though…” I shook my head and took
another cookie. “This year, there’s been a lot.”

“Are you going to
call the police?”

“What can they do?
By the time I spot them, call the police, and wait for them to arrive, the
night visitors are gone. Besides,” I swallowed hard, “we kind of have a
reputation with the police in this town. They don’t welcome our calls.”

“Cried wolf one
too many times?” he suggested.

I scowled. “You
could hardly call it that, not when there were actually people in our backyard.
It wasn’t my fault that they were quicker than the police.”

“Yes,” he said,
thoughtfully. He was looking into the distance, absently crumbling my aunt’s
note in his hand. “Yes, I can see that. Well, I guess it just makes it all the
more imperative to put this thing to rest. Can you give me a tour of the
property tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” I
asked surprised.

“It is Saturday. I
presume you don’t have to work at the office on Saturdays.”

“No, but…”

“A tour is
important,” he said firmly. “I’ve been reading Mary’s diary and she makes
occasional references to specific areas of the farm. You were raised here and
have the best the working knowledge of the land, aside from Susanna, who isn’t
physically able to walk me around the place. If I’m to make any progress in
this matter, I need to know the lay of the land myself.”

“Yes…” I said
slowly, reviewing the morning’s appointments in my head. Of all the things I
had to cram into my day, a walking tour of the grounds with Professor Randall
seemed the least important. But he was right – even Lindsay didn’t know the
land as well as I, and I might as well use the opportunity to check for recent
digging. “All right, I’ll take you around. But I don’t have much time tomorrow.
I have lessons all day and a… An appointment in the evening.”

I couldn’t bring
myself to say “date” and if Randall noticed the slip, he gave no indication of
it. Instead, he moved on to the next piece of business.

“And when can you
bring me the original Chase letter?” he asked.

Going to the
safety deposit box had slipped my mind completely, and I sighed as I
remembered. “Good grief – I forgot. Well, it’ll have to wait until Monday now.
The bank closes tomorrow at noon.”

Randall sighed
too, sounding as put out as I felt. “That will hold things up, but I’ll make
do.”

“You think the
letter is really essential, then?” I asked. The cookie crumbled in my hand and
showered pieces onto the clean counter. “What can you learn from the original
that can’t be seen in the copy?”

“I won’t know that
until I see it,” he said, with a light hint of condescension. Then he slapped
the counter with his hand and leaned forward, his eyes flashing with an
intensity that gave me a start.

“There’s a message
in that letter, Warwick. I know it and I can’t find it. Maybe it’s encoded in
the lettering, or it’s hidden in the text, or it could be as simple as a stain
in the background. I just don’t know, but it’s there, just out of my sight.
Usually Civil War codes are so simple as to be
insulting
. This one –
this one is trickier than you’d expect from a man of Alexander’s upbringing,
that’s for sure.”

He leaned back
into his chair and I frowned at him.

“If it’s so bloody
difficult, then how can you be so sure that there is another message?” I asked.

The look he gave
me was one of dismayed disbelief. “That’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
When I didn’t respond, he straightened up again. “You mean, you didn’t see it?”

“You were just
telling me that even
you
can’t see it,” I reminded him, annoyed. “Now
you’re telling me that it’s as plain as the nose on your face?”

“The
clue
is, not the message. It’s right there, for all to see. My dear Madeleine, have
you studied the Civil War at all? You still don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“No, I don’t,” I snapped.
“I never claimed to be an expert in the Civil War, either, so quit acting like
a pompous ass and tell me what on earth you’re talking about. A clue that’s not
a message? What do you even mean?”

Randall reached
into his pocket and pulled out a crumbled page, which he spread out on the
counter. He slid it over to me and pointed to a line about half way down.

“Look there,” he
said. “And tell me you don’t see it.”

I looked and saw
Alexander’s letter, the text of which was practically burned into my mind:
Marched
Long today and I am exhausted by hours
Of
training and
miserable Poe-like terrain. We shall meet Johnny Rebel any day and I am itching
for the introduction…

“Practically
poetry,” I said sardonically. “What of it?”

Randall looked at
me in disbelief, again then sank back into his chair.

“Sometimes,” he
said, “I wonder how you managed at all before I came.”

I glared at him.
“Don’t make me throw the plate at you, Professor.”

“The
Poe
reference!”
he cried out and I hushed him, indicating that Aunt Susanna’s room was within
hearing distance. He dropped the volume, but not the arrogance in his tone.
“Don’t you see? It’s Edgar Allen Poe he’s talking about - the
writer
.”

“Yeah, so I’ve
heard. What of it? So the south reminded Alexander of
The Raven
– it’s
not flattering, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does when you
remember the other thing Edgar Allen Poe was known for.”

“Dying of
alcoholism?” I guessed, and grinned when he threw his hands up in frustration.
“Oh come on. Give, professor. It’s too late for guessing games.”

“We’d be here all
night if I didn’t,” he growled, which only made my smile broader. I liked
getting to him, even if he was as good as I was at tossing the insults.

He leaned forward
again and jammed his finger over the name. “I’ll tell you what makes me sure
that Alexander hid a message in this letter. He was writing to his mother - by
all accounts, his best friend in town -and though he’s not a man of many words,
he describes the landscapes using the name of the best-known
cryptologist
of
the eighteen-forties.”

Now I stared.
“Cryptologist? Edgar Allen Poe was a cryptologist?”

“One of the
finest. He used to hold contests whereby people would send in their best
efforts and try to stump the master.”

“And could they?”

“Only very
rarely,” he admitted. “But the point was, he was a code cracker and known to be
very good at it, and here is his name, nestled in the middle of your little
mystery.” He jabbed the paper with more force. “Now, doesn’t that make you
think that there might be a little bit more to this letter than meets the eye?”