The Unkindness of Ravens by M. Hilliard (readera ebook reader .txt) 📗

was at home. I had planned to spend the afternoon finishing the memorial page, but I wanted to check something first. Back at my desk, I pulled up the catalog and checked the entries for the village paper. If anyone had noticed those missing issues, their absence would be noted on the record. I found no notes to that effect. I stared at the screen and drummed my fingers on my desk, frustrated by the fact that I had no way of knowing when they’d been taken. Had they been there when Joanna started poking around? I sensed it was important for me to know how much she knew. My guess was they were gone before she got there, but I couldn’t be sure.

My mind wandered to one of my favorite mysteries, Gaudy Night. Sayers’ plot had hinged on a historical document, stolen but not destroyed. But those were scholars, Oxford dons and graduates, as was the author. The papers I was looking for were almost certainly destroyed. While nothing was as awful as the murder of my friend, the defacing of those volumes and the destruction of those issues was infuriating. Someone had taken an X-acto knife and sliced away at the history of Raven Hill. It was a violation of all that the library and archives stood for, a point of pride in this little community, of something that was important to Joanna. Something that was important to me.

I wanted to take an X-acto knife to the heart of the faceless killer. Such arrogance. This was the final insult.

I jumped up from my desk. I needed to check on the rest of the library, reassure myself, and burn off some angry energy. I moved swiftly, up and down the stairs, in and out of the reading room, noting who was where and what they were doing. I ran my hand along walls and banisters. The manor’s happy hum had not returned, but the mourning silence had been replaced by a sullen buzzing, like bees whose hive has been disturbed. I ended my tour where I always did. The raven room was cool and silent. I breathed it in. A cold calm settled over me. I looked up at the bright-eyed beast on the mantel.

“You know what happened in the archives?”

The air around me seemed to shift. The raven’s feathers trembled ever so slightly. I detected the faint scent of cherry-tinged pipe smoke.

“Unacceptable. But I’m on it. It’s time to take the gloves off.”

With that promise I bid him adieu.

As soon as I got home, I popped Joanna’s flash drive into my computer and scrolled through the files. It was mostly work related, both her work and the projects she worked on with Vince. A file labeled “FEL” caught my eye. I figured it was a typo for “FOL” and would contain library-related documents. I opened it and found only one item. It was a list of names, addresses, websites, and strings of numbers in varying lengths and formats. Some of the names I recognized from the articles I’d found, others I knew as library patrons, and a few didn’t ring a bell at all. The addresses and websites would be easy enough to research, but I would have to work on the numbers. Some could be dates; others were too long.

I copied the contents of the entire drive onto my computer, renamed it, and buried it deep in some subfiles. Then I copied all of that onto a blank drive of my own. You can never be too paranoid where technology is concerned. For the sake of thoroughness—Poirot would be proud—I opened and scrolled through every file on the drive. There was little of interest. I could see why Vince was desperate to get his hands on it—every detail of every project was mapped out and annotated. All Joanna’s work, I was sure. The only thing that caught my eye was in the “Haunted Albany” file. That was the current project. The file contained a subfolder called “Unused/Unverified” that contained a short entry on the manor. The names of two long-dead Ravenscrofts appeared first. One was the amateur astronomer who had added the roof deck off the attic, the other I knew nothing about. There was a note to find original building plans, and a couple possible locations. There were two other lines: “Horatio research Poe” and “Orig. Deed and Will/Trust.”

I thought of the comments Jack and Meadow had mentioned. The two might be connected, or they might be a dead end. I had no way to go any further with it. Any related information would be paper based or lodged in the mind of Millicent. I remembered the overheard fight. What had Vince said? “I know it’s here somewhere, in all these books and papers.” Something like that. The plans, which Millicent said didn’t exist? The will? Horatio’s research? It didn’t look like Joanna had gotten very far with it, whatever it was, and I wasn’t sure how it related. How many mysteries could one girl detective be expected to solve at once? I would have to leave it for now, and work on things I had a shot at finding easily. I went back to the “FEL” file. Being an old-fashioned kind of girl detective, I printed out the lone document. Nothing helps my little gray cells more than putting pencil to paper.

I started with what was simple—the names I recognized. I already knew who Julia Wainwright was and what she did, but I checked her firm’s website anyway. Julia specialized in trusts and estates, but her firm handled most standard civil law issues, predominantly family and small business. According to her bio, Julia enjoyed hiking, was an avid reader, and did pro bono work for her local library. I could find out about that through casual conversation or the FOL meeting minutes.

The next name was Susan Douglas, with the letters DOB/DOD next to it. Susan Douglas was the name of the mother of the