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“What do you know about it?” Sonny asked.
Ella dug a tissue from a hidden pocket in her dress and dabbed her eyes.
“There are stories about fur traders, and Native Americans. And stories about their daily lives. They had a lot of boys, but there was something in there about his only daughter, a little girl who died from a snakebite. That stuck with me because I was a little girl when I heard it.” Then she frowned. “Granny wouldn’t read the last part to us. We’d beg, but she said it was too sad. I don’t know what she meant. Oh! I remember one part we thought was exciting. When the wagon full of Confederate gold rolled through Jubilee.”
There was a communal gasp.
Sonny glanced at Rance.
“Did anyone see real gold?” Rance asked.
“I can’t rightly remember,” Ella said. “Granny would quit reading after that.”
“Do you know what happened to the journal?” Sonny asked.
Ella frowned. “Well, not really. I hadn’t thought about it in many a year. I do remember Granny’s house catching fire, and they got some of their belongings out but had to rebuild the house. Neighbors were pulling out all manner of things until the roof caught. Then they had to leave the rest to burn. I guess I thought the journal burned. I know it was wrapped in deerskin, like that one right there, because when Granny got it out to read, she unfolded it in her lap and left the deerskin draped across her legs as she read.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Sonny asked.
Ella shrugged. “Maybe. If I could touch it.”
He frowned. “Touch it? Why would—?”
“Because Miss Ella’s got the sight,” Annie said.
“Everybody on the mountain knows it,” Betty added.
Sonny was getting antsy. Solving crimes with psychics was a joke among most cops.
“I can’t really let you touch it. We have to preserve the fingerprints that are already on it, and not add to the mix.”
“Leave it in the bag. I just need to lay my hand on it,” Ella said.
“Can’t hurt anything,” Rance said. “Let her have a go at it.”
“Aaron, would you please pass this to Miss Ella?” Sonny said, and handed him the evidence bag.
“Yes, sir,” Aaron said, then carried it around to the other side of the table and laid it before her.
Ella nodded, then laid her hand on top of the book,closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, remaining silent long enough Sonny was convinced this was a joke. But when she began talking, she fell back into the old-time speech pattern of the mountains.
“He weren’t kin,” Ella said. “The man who lost it weren’t none of us.”
“Then how did he come by it?” Sonny asked.
“Found it, he did,” Ella said.
“Found it? Found it where?”
Ella shook her head. “They don’t say. I’m a seein’ shelves full of books, rooms full of books, in so many stories of one building.”
Woodley’s heart skipped. They already knew this had been taken from the Library of Congress in DC.
“Like a library?” he asked.
Ella frowned. “A grand building. In another place,” she said.
Sonny was shocked. She’d done a pretty fair job of describing the Library of Congress.
