The Book of Lost Friends(65)

“If you’re here to give me a report, I don’t need one. I don’t want one.” He lifts both hands, palms facing outward, a gesture that says, I have no further involvement in this. “I told you, I don’t care what comes out of the library. Take what you can use.”

“It’s more complicated than I thought. With the library, I mean.”

He winces in a way that says he regrets having given me that key.

At this point, full steam ahead is my only option. “I’ve already stocked some shelves in my classroom. Your grandfather was quite a book lover.” I stop short of saying that the judge was a book hoarder—I’ve met a few in my bookstore years. I’d be surprised if there weren’t more books in other rooms of the house, but I haven’t snooped. “I have multiples of things like encyclopedia sets and Reader’s Digest Classics. Is it okay if I donate some of those to the city library just down from the school? I hear their collection is pretty outdated. They don’t even have a full-time librarian. Just volunteers.”

He nods, loosening up a little. “Yeah, my sister was…” He shakes off whatever he was about to say. “She liked that old building.”

“She had good taste. Those Carnegie grant libraries are amazing. There aren’t very many in Louisiana.” I could talk at length about why that is, and about the reasons this particular Carnegie library is special—I learned a ton last night with Sarge—but I’m conscious of time ticking by. “It’s sad to see one in danger of shutting its doors for good.”

“If some of my grandfather’s collection can help, then great. The man was compulsive about some things. He was famous for letting kids come give sales pitches in his court chambers between cases. He ended up with a lot of encyclopedia sets and Book of the Month subscriptions that way. Sorry, I might’ve told you that already.” A rueful shake of his head sends nutmeg-brown bangs drifting over the delineation mark between a tan and the part of his face that is regularly shielded by a hat or cap. “You really don’t need to come ask me. There’s no sentimental attachment on my end. My dad died when I was three. Mom was from a family that wasn’t considered of his class, so Augustine was the last place she wanted to spend time after he passed. My sister had more ties here because she was ten years old when Mom relocated us to Asheville, but I didn’t and don’t.”

“I understand.” And yet, you’ve moved back to Louisiana to live.

I would never ask, of course, but why has Nathan, raised far from the bayous and the deltas, settled himself within a short drive of the ancestral homeplace he says he cares nothing about and can’t wait to dispose of? No matter how much he wants to see himself as disconnected from this town, it has some sort of hold on him.

Perhaps even he doesn’t understand what that is.

I feel a weird pang of jealousy toward his ancestral connection to a place. Maybe that’s one reason I’m keen to dig into the mysteries of Goswood Grove. I crave the sense of heritage that rises like mist from wet ground there, old secrets kept closely guarded.

Like Nathan’s, I suspect.

The alarm on my wristwatch goes off. I’ve set it to give me a five-minute warning before my drop-dead time for making it to school.

“Sorry,” I say, and fumble to silence the noise. “Teacher thing. We segment the day between bells and beeps.”

When I return my attention to him, he’s focused on me, as if there’s a question he’s pondering, but then he changes his mind. “I really can’t tell you anything about whatever’s in that library. Sorry.”

I plunge into a description of old books, undoubtedly valuable, and historical documents, as well as plantation records that detail events, offering facts that may not be recorded anywhere else. Things that, quite possibly, no one outside the family has looked at in a century or more. “We need some guidance on how you’d like to handle those items.”

“We?” He retracts suspiciously. Suddenly, the air is so taut it could tear at any moment. “The one thing I did ask was that you keep this between us. The house is—” He clips the sentence forcefully, with effort. Whatever he was about to say is mitigated to “I just don’t need the hassle.”

“I know that. It wasn’t my intention, but things have snowballed some.” I forge ahead, daunted but desperate. These are decisions that must be made by someone in the family. “Is there any possibility you and I could get together and you could look at some of it? I could meet you at Goswood Grove.” That’s a no-go, I can tell, so I quickly improvise, “Or at my house? I’d be happy to bring some things over there. They’re important. You really need to look them over.”

“Not at Goswood Grove House,” he says sharply. His eyes blink closed, remain that way a moment. His voice drops when he adds, “Robin was there when she died.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I could come tomorrow evening—Friday. To your house. I have plans back in Morgan City tonight.”

Relief softens the muscles along my spine, pulls the knots loose. “Friday is perfect. Six o’clock or…well, anytime after four-thirty. You choose.”

“Six is fine.”

“I could pick something up for us from the Cluck and Oink, if that sounds good? I’d offer to cook, but I really haven’t settled into the place yet.”