Chapter 13 of 15One Hand Stayed Down

The motion on the agenda is one line long: termination of the Head of Local History and Genealogy, effective immediately. Owen Pritchard reads it out in the second-floor meeting room of the Carnegie building, and Marianne Abbott sits with her hands folded on a manila folder that holds everything she has. Sofia Navarro, beside her at the end of the long table, keeps her own folder shut.

On the sideboard, a sleeve of oatmeal cookies from Food Lion sits untouched next to a coffee urn that has been on since before anyone arrived.

"Mrs. Abbott." Owen sets the page face down. "Before the board votes, is there anything you'd like to say?"

"Two things." Marianne opens the folder. "The first is that I'd like the minutes to record what this motion is actually about."

"It's about your conduct."

"It's about a deed from 1868 and a marriage record from 1871."

Ruth Ellery, the board's vice chair, looks up from her notebook. Reverend Ben Wilkins, at the far end of the table, does not look up at all.

Owen folds his arms. "Fine. Then I'll say it plainly. Since the day this library hired you, you have used your position to wage a personal campaign against my family."

"Against your family, or against your family's record?"

"There is no difference."

"There is every difference, and the minutes should show which one you mean."

Wilkins's pen stops moving. Ellery writes something down. Down in the square, the bronze colonel wears a thin coat of frost that is already going soft in the sun.

"You produced a document no living person has ever seen, out of a box a reputable man swears was empty, and you did it to embarrass me in front of this town," Owen says.

"I produced a deed that had been in Grace Kim's attic since before either of us was born. I didn't put it there."

"You brought Jamal Washington into it."

"I brought a witness into it. Mr. Washington was born here. He isn't an exhibit."

Owen's jaw shifts. He pulls a stapled page from his folder and holds it up. "This is Donald Frye's statement. He surveyed the inn. He says that box was empty when he looked into it."

"Mr. Frye stood in the dining room while Ms. Kim opened it. He looked at nothing."

"That's your word against his."

"It's Ms. Kim's word, and mine, and the deed's. The deed has no opinion about Mr. Frye."

Ellery takes her glasses off. "The motion before us is misconduct. Make your case or don't."

"Then I'll make it." Marianne lifts the first page. "My obligation, as this library's archivist, is to follow credible evidence wherever it leads and to write down every step I take while following it, which is the standard this repository is accredited under."

"Save the lecture," Owen says.

"It isn't a lecture. It's an answer to your motion." She passes photocopies down the table. "This is the 1868 deed. The original is a vellum sheet granting the parcel to Eliza Sparrow, herbalist, for a community apothecary. It names a sycamore in the property line, and that sycamore is standing in Ms. Kim's side yard this morning."

Ellery turns the page over. "And the second?"

"A photograph of a marriage register kept at Harmony Creek Community Church. The entry is from 1871. It records the marriage of Thaddeus Westwood and Sarah Sparrow, and it lists the bride's mother as Eliza Sparrow, herbalist. No father is named anywhere in the entry."

"Photographs prove nothing."

"Reverend Wilkins saw the original page in his own vestry. He can tell you."

Owen turns to look down the table. Wilkins studies his hands.

"Reverend?" Ellery says.

"I saw the page," Wilkins says. "I won't say more than that."

"Ben, think about what you're doing."

Sofia stands and smooths a single sheet of paper. "Okay, so. Nobody has asked me anything yet, and I have been sitting here long enough."

"Ms. Navarro, this isn't your motion."

"No, it's my employee. So here's what this board ought to know before it votes." She looks around the table, one face at a time. "Ms. Abbott logged the deed the day she received it. She photographed the register with the pastor standing beside her. She kept the original in the library safe under my signature, and she filed the transfer form I refused to sign. Nothing in that motion describes a single thing she actually did."

"She abused her position."

"She did her job in a way that inconveniences you." Sofia sets the page down. "And if this board votes to terminate a department head for following the archival standard, then every historical society in the Commonwealth will hear about it, and the county will hear about the deed. Those are the two things this board has spent its whole history avoiding, and I would rather not be the director who delivered both."

"That sounds like a threat, Sofia," Wilkins says.

"It's a forecast, Reverend."

Sofia squares the folder against the table edge. "I move to table the motion until an independent provenance review is complete and counsel has advised the board."

"There's no second."

"I'll second," Ellery says.

"Ruth—"

"That's enough, Owen."

Ellery counts hands and writes the total in the margin. "Against? The reverend abstains."

"I abstain," Wilkins says. "I'd like that noted."

"It's noted." Ellery caps her pen. "The motion is tabled by a single vote."

Chairs scrape. Hollis Dean gathers his papers without meeting anyone's eye. Owen stands a long moment with his fingertips on the back of his chair, then walks out and leaves the door open behind him.

In the vestibule by the front doors, he is waiting.

"Mrs. Abbott."

Marianne stops on the last step. "Mr. Pritchard."

"You think that was a victory."

"I think the board tabled a motion. That's what happened."

"The deed is going to be tested," he says. "By people who don't work for you. I'll take it to the county board first, and then I'll take it to the circuit court, and when it comes back as a forgery, that job of yours will be the first thing that goes."

"You're welcome to examine it. That is the only thing I have asked anyone for since I got here."

Owen rests his hand on the brass bar of the door. "You have no idea what you've started."

"I know exactly what I've started. I've started the record."

Outside, the frost on the courthouse lawn has gone to water and the gutters are running. "The vote changes nothing," he says. "The review gives me all the time I need. Enjoy your folder."

The door swings shut behind him.

Sofia comes down the stairs with both folders under her arm. "Provenance review. He'll sit on it as long as he can and use every day of it."

Marianne looks down at the copies in her hand — a vellum deed, a photograph of a register page, a list of names copied out by a man who kept a cane by his chair.

"Then I need to hand him something he can't sit on."

"Find the rest of it," Sofia says.

Marianne tucks the folder under her arm and steps out into the cold with her job intact, her evidence intact, and Owen Pritchard already down the sidewalk, turning toward his car.