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The criminalist looked at Sellitto. "Where's Roland?"
"Bell? He delivered somebody into witness protection upstate but he should be back by now. Think we should give him a call?"
"Yes," Rhyme said.
Sellitto called the detective's mobile phone and, from the conversation, Rhyme deduced that Bell would leave Police Plaza immediately and head uptown.
Rhyme noticed Geneva's frown. "Detective Bell's just going to look out for you. Like a bodyguard. Until we get everything sorted out . . . Now, do you have any idea what Charles was accused of stealing?"
"The article said gold or money or something."
"Missing gold. Ah, that's interesting. Greed--one of your better motives."
"Would your uncle know anything about it?" Sachs asked her.
"My uncle? Oh, no, he's my mother's brother. Charles was from my father's side of the family. And Dad just knew a few things. My great-aunt gave me a few letters of Charles's. But she didn't know anything more about him."
"Where are they? Those letters?" Rhyme asked.
"I have one with me." She fished in her purse and pulled it out. "And the others're at home. My aunt thought she might have some more boxes of Charles's things but she wasn't sure where they were." Geneva fell silent as the brows in her dark, round face furrowed and she said to Sachs, "One thing? If it's helpful?"
"Go ahead," Sachs said.
"I remember from one of the letters. Charles talked about this secret he had."
"Secret?" Sachs asked.
"Yeah, he said it bothered him not to be able to reveal the truth. But there'd be a disaster, a tragedy, if he did. Something like that."
"Maybe it was the theft he was talking about," Rhyme said.
Geneva stiffened. "I don't think he did it. I think he was framed."
"Why?" Rhyme asked.
A shrug. "Read the letter." The girl started to hand it to Rhyme, then caught herself and gave it to Mel Cooper, unapologetic about the faux pas.
The tech placed it in an optical reader and a moment later the elegantly scripted words from the nineteenth century were scrolling across flat-screen monitors from the twenty-first.
Mrs. Violet Singleton
In care of
Mr. & Mrs. William Dodd
Essex Farm Road
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
July 14, 1863
My dearest Violet:
News has surely reached you of the terrible events in New York of late. I can now report that peace has returned, but the cost was great.
The climate here has been incendiary, with hundreds of thousands of less fortunate citizens still reeling from the economic panic of several years ago--Mr. Greeley's Tribune reported that unconscionable stock speculation and imprudent lending had led to the "bursting bubbles" of the world's financial markets.
In this atmosphere, it took merely a small spark to ignite the recent rioting: the order to draft men into the Federal army, which was acknowledged by many to be necessary in our fight against the Rebels, owing to the enemy's surprising strength and resilience. Still, the opposition to the draft was sturdier, and more deadly, than any had anticipated. And we--Coloreds, abolitionists and Republicans,--became the target of their hate, as much as the conscription provost and his men, if not more so.
