“I think a stained-glass mural like that cannot have been cheap and is not Bourne’s usual … aesthetic,” Omar says.
“Agreed.” Zach signals Nora for another.
“So I wonder if it wasn’t part of the terms to begin with, whatever they were.”
“That’s real weird,” says Tom.
Omar shrugs. “So is local government. You know who you should ask, though?”
“Who?”
“Apple Templeton.”
Nora takes in a hard breath and holds it.
“Apple Templeton?” Frank has obviously never heard this name in his life. It’s not a huge surprise Apple hasn’t made her way in here.
“Nathan Templeton’s wife,” Omar explains.
“Why?” Nora’s still holding her breath.
“Before it was a library, it was her family home.”
Her family home? My mother and I exchange a confused glance.
“How?” Nora asks. She exhales finally but can’t seem to manage the inhale. Then she revises her question backward a step. “Who?”
“Her family is the Groves,” Omar says.
The Groves? Whose name is on the bridge over the ravine? And half the fancy graves in the cemetery?
“No.” Nora can’t make this make sense. Me neither.
“Yup. The library’s the old Grove place.” Omar makes his voice sound like the house might be haunted. He’s joking, but Apple said the same and she wasn’t. This must be what she meant, though. Not ghosts, at least not literal ones. Haunted by memories and old relatives and the past, her family’s history and legacy. That makes sense now, but nothing else about this does. Apple said she met Nathan in Boston. It must have been years before the Templetons darkened our doors, and the Groves have nothing to do with Belsum.
“They’ve been gone a long time,” says Frank.
“Well, right, she never lived here,” Omar says, “but her grandparents did, her parents for a while maybe before she was born, an uncle, some stray aunts and cousins I think. You should wait a couple days before you ask her, though.”
“Why?” The crease between Nora’s eyes could grasp a spoon.
“She came by my office this morning. She was pretty worked up.”
“What did she want?”
“Boxes she thought I might have. Said they weren’t in the library attic so I must have them like there’s a law of physics that says anything not in the library is with me. She wasn’t making sense. Wouldn’t tell me what was supposed to be in the boxes, so how am I supposed to help her find them? Ranted on and on about somebody’s father and somebody’s family. I couldn’t follow it, but honestly, I wasn’t trying that hard.” Tom grins and clinks glasses with him. “I finally turned her loose on the filing cabinets and let her see if she could find whatever she was looking for, but I wanted to say, ‘Ma’am, do we seem like the kind of town that keeps cataloged archives?’” A warm laugh from everyone. “I haven’t had a secretary in ten years. Some stuff got thrown away long ago. Some was in the library but—”
“You’re living in it now, lady!” Hobart cackles.
“Again!” Zach adds.
Omar is glowing.
“Did she find what she was looking for?” Nora asks.
“No idea. She left empty-handed.” Omar opens his to demonstrate. “Something about the plant, I bet,” he ventures carefully.
There’s a pause.
“Different day, same shit,” Tom says finally, and they all crack up, even Nora eventually, even angry as she still is at these guys, even confused as this afternoon’s revelations have left us both, as if this is the truest, funniest, most original sentiment anyone has ever expressed.
I spend the evening trying to puzzle all this together, but I’m missing too many pieces to be able to see the picture. Duke Templeton is hiding papers. Apple Templeton is looking for papers. They can’t be the same papers. Can they? Is Duke hiding them from Apple as well? His email said deeds and contracts. Apple said letters, but she also said her father used them to conduct business, so maybe they are the same or in the same place or at least connected. Because whatever they are, if they aren’t in Omar’s filing cabinets, if they aren’t in the library somewhere, chances are good that Monday was, of all things, right: she doesn’t know what she’s looking for. Which—she would point out—is not the same as their not being there.
* * *