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“Good to have you back, partner.”
***
“Yes, I remember Mr. Costa quite clearly.”
Decker and Jamison were at the historical society speaking with the director, Jane Satterwhite,who was apparently the only employee of the place. She was a dowdy gray-haired woman in her late sixties wrapped in a pink shawl and with granny glasses dangling from a chain.
The society was housed in a drab brick building with abandoned structures on either side of it.
“We have a very rich history in Baronville,” Satterwhite said. “Only we lack the resources to fully tellit.”
She was speaking the truth here, for as Decker and Jamison looked around, the shelves were only half full and the displays looked old and dusty. The entire place had an air of neglect.
“Do you get a lot of visitors?” asked Jamison.
“No, I’m afraid not. People aren’t interested in history anymore, it seems.”
“Then they’re doomed to repeat the mistakesof the past,” noted Decker.
“Exactly,” said Satterwhite, suddenly animated. “You’ve hit the nail right on the head. Everyone looks to the future for answers, which ignores the fact that people, despite the passage of years, remain fundamentally the same.”
“You were telling us about Bradley Costa?” prompted Jamison.
“Oh, yes. That’s right. A very nice young man. Veryinterested in our town.”
“Anything in particular?” prompted Jamison.
“Particularly in John Baron. The First, I’m talking about. The one who founded this town.”
“What exactly was he interested in having to do with John Baron?” asked Decker.
Satterwhite led them into another room.
“This is our Baron Room, as I like to call it. Here, we house everythingwe have about John Baron, from his birth to his death.”
“I understand that he died on the same day as his butler, Nigel Nottingham.”
“Yes, that’s right. Are you an historian too?”
“An amateur one,” lied Decker. “Was Costa interested in that fact?”
“Well, he asked me about it. He wanted to know if we had any correspondence from Nigel. He was the first personever to ask about that.”
“And did you?” asked Decker.
“No, we didn’t.”
“Did he ask about anything else?”
“Any business correspondence that Baron might have had in the time leading up to his death.”
“And did you have anything like that?” asked Jamison.
“Just one letter.”
She turned to a file cabinet, opened it, and rummaged throughits contents. “That’s funny.”
“You can’t find it?” asked Jamison.
