Hemlock Read online

  Did she herself ever help Miss Carswell with the books? She rolled her eyes at that, with a firm shake of her head. Miss Carswell was particular about things in her library. And anyway, Rose didn’t have time. Even when there’d been maids to help, her days had been full of chores. When she got back to the gatehouse at night, she had chores there, too.

  And in the last year of her life, Miss Carswell had Miz Anderson—Margaret Anderson—up from Bethany to give her a hand with the books. Miz Anderson had a way with Miss Carswell, and after a while she pretty much ran the place, like.

  Oh, and there was that fellow who owned the bookstore down in Bethany, the Open Book. Jed Conway, his name was. Mister Jed. He used to come here a lot, bringing books for Miss Carswell to look at and maybe buy. But Miss Carswell had a falling out with him a while back, and he hadn’t shown his face since.

  Since when? Since before Miss Carswell died. What had he and Miss Carswell fallen out about? Rose didn’t know. It was a secret, and she didn’t listen at doors.

  Which reminded me of another question. I felt a little silly asking, but it was on my mind. “I understand that there’s a secret room in the house. Have you ever been in it?”

  “Never.” She gave her head a violent shake. “Don’t know where it is. Don’t want to know.”

  “How do you know there is one?”

  Her eyes shifted away from mine. “Miss Carswell said so and she was the boss. That’s all I know.”

  “Well, if there’s time while I’m here, maybe we can look for it. I’m sure you know this house better than anybody else. Would you help me search for it?”

  “I reckon,” she said slowly. “If I have to. But I don’t think we’ll find it.”

  No help there, and I was already skeptical. The secret room had probably been invented to add to the romance of the place. I changed the subject to something that didn’t seem to require speculation.

  “I understand that Miss Carswell took her own life.”

  “Yup. Her daddy’s old revolver, which was his daddy’s before him. Had it all planned out for a while, I reckon,” Rose said darkly. “She didn’t take to bein’ sick or people havin’ the care of her. She was independent that way.” She lifted her chin. “But how I was raised, life and death is the good Lord’s doin’. So I don’t hold with them that says we got the right to die whenever we feel like it. There’s lots of folks down in Bethany that agrees with me, too. If’n they could, they’d run Miss Amelia’s and Mr. Jed’s bunch outta town.”

  I was about to ask who Miss Amelia was, but Rose was pushing back her chair and saying that she had to put another load in the washer. I had already filled several pages in my notebook, so I thanked her for her help and left her to get on with the laundry.

  • • •

  Back in the workroom/office, I looked at the list of library visitors that I had been given. Conway, the bookstore owner, was missing, as was Rose and Joe’s young nephew, Carter.

  Important? Maybe not. Dorothea had mentioned Conway only in passing. He hadn’t visited Hemlock House since Dorothea’s and Jenna’s arrival—or if he had, his visits had been clandestine. Still, he belonged on the list. I also added the boy, reminding myself that the four thieves who stole the Audubon folios from the Transylvania University library were teens from well-off families who had convinced themselves that staging a heist and stealing a couple of million-dollar books would give them something to brag about when they were old and gray. Instead, all four were sentenced to seven-plus years in federal prison; when they appealed, they ended up with nine. The rare book community was delighted.

  The bookstore owner was local, so I added him near the top of the list. I was hoping I could see him today, along with Margaret Anderson and Carole Humphreys. Sheriff Rogers was on my list as well. I could probably use my cover story with him, if I was careful.

  Dorothea had already gone down to Bethany to shop, but Jenna was at her computer, staring intently at the screen. “May I interrupt you?” I asked.

  She turned around. “Yeah, sure. I’m glad to leave it for a minute, anyway. I was thinking about what a tough couple of years it’s going to be for Elizabeth and feeling sorry for all the calamities she has to face. Did you know that both of her children died while she was working on the Herbal? William died in 1736, Blanche two years later.”

  I tried to imagine losing two young children in the space of two years and felt the sad weight of it. “How in the world did she get through that?” I asked softly.

  “I’ve wondered that myself.” Jenna’s tone was matter-of-fact. “But raising kids was a whole different story back then. A woman might have a dozen pregnancies during her childbearing years, with maybe three or four miscarriages and eight or nine live births. She had to expect that three or even four of her children would die before they were fifteen. There was typhus, smallpox, tuberculosis—consumption, they called it. And the plague, of course, and fevers and measles and bellyaches. So much illness—and no penicillin or antibiotics.”

  “Except for the antibiotic herbs,” I reminded. “Garlic, oregano, thyme. I suppose that’s where Elizabeth’s Herbal came in handy. The medicines you were growing in your garden were every bit as good as the medicines you bought from your neighborhood apothecary.”

  “They might be even better,” Jenna replied. “You wouldn’t have to worry that the thyme in your sore throat gargle had been adulterated with something else. Or that some untrained apprentice mistakenly sold you some poison hemlock seeds instead of the Queen Anne’s lace seeds you paid for.”

  I nodded. Back in the day, every woman of childbearing age knew that the seeds of the plant we call Queen Anne’s lace were the most effective morning-after contraceptive available. But they looked a lot like poison hemlock seeds, or the seeds of Thapsia villosa, deadly carrot. It would be easy—and it could be fatal—to mix them up.

  “Poor Elizabeth,” Jenna sighed. “There she was, working her heart out to free that rascally husband of hers, and she had to cope with the loss of both her children. It just breaks my heart, China. Life was so terribly fragile back then. You didn’t know what was going to happen, one day to the next.” She bit her lip. “Sorry. Getting off track here. You wanted to ask me something?”

  “Yes. A couple of things. I’ll need an address and phone number for Margaret Anderson, if you have it. And Rose was telling me about a guy named Conway. He owns a bookstore in Bethany. You know him?”

  She rummaged in the drawer, found a card, and jotted down an address and phone number. “Margaret has been taking care of her mom. I think you can find her here.” She handed me the card. “Jed’s store is called the Open Book. It’s on the main street that goes through town. It’s quite nice, actually. He has a good section of historical fiction.” She paused. “He used to help Sunny with her collection.”

  “I was wondering why he wasn’t on your list.”

  Jenna raised a dark eyebrow. “Dorothea told me to include people who have visited the library since we came, so that’s what I did. Sunny used to order through Jed and I understand that he was here pretty often. But they had a disagreement and he stopped coming sometime before she died.”

  “Not a problem.” I nodded at the computer monitor. “Could we have a look at the store’s website?”

  “Sure.” She brought up a search bar, typed in “Bethany” and “Open Book,” and there it was: “The Indie Bookshop for the Blue Ridge,” open Monday through Thursday from noon to five, Friday noon to nine, and Saturday nine to five. The photos showed a bright, open shop with carefully arranged bookshelves topped with trailing green plants and colorful new-title posters, reading spaces with inviting chairs, even a small coffee bar. The webpage advertised a monthly book club, a Saturday afternoon story hour for kids, a poetry reading by a pair of local ladies, and a visit from an Asheville novelist. There was an indie bestseller list and links to the shop’s newsletter,
a tab for Appalachian topics (including mountain music and a long list of books about moonshine), a contact page, and even a photo of the owner, a man in his fifties with gingery hair, pink cheeks, a cherubic smile in a round face, and a yellow-and-green polka-dot bow tie. Jedidiah Conway.

  “Is there an online catalogue?” I asked.

  Jenna brought it up and we studied it. There were several pages in a variety of categories, but the catalogue seemed to be focused on Appalachian titles. If Jed Conway was selling pilfered Hemlock House books or botanical prints, he wasn’t doing it on the shop’s webpages. At least, not out in plain sight.

  But that would be dumb, wouldn’t it? That would be like putting up a sign in your yard advertising the stuff you stole from your neighbor’s garage sale. You would take it somewhere else to get rid of it. And you wouldn’t sell it under your own name. You’d have a different storefront, or a different website. Or you’d sell your ill-gotten goods to somebody else who would sell it to his customers.

  And anyway, I was getting ahead of myself. The thief—whoever he was, or she—wouldn’t likely try to get rid of the ill-gotten goods through a local bookseller. Chances were that Conway would prove to be just what he seemed to be: the enterprising owner of an attractive indie bookstore who was supplementing his onsite customers with online shoppers. The name of the game today.

  “I also wanted to ask you about Sheriff Rogers,” I said. “I’m curious about the kind of investigation he’s made—if he’s made one at all. Would it be worth my time to talk to him?”

  “It might,” Jenna said thoughtfully. “He’s not a bad guy. It’s just that, well, books are a little outside his territory. If we were talking about a stolen horse or a pot of missing money or somebody making moonshine, I’m sure he’d round up the usual suspects pronto. As it is, I’m not sure he knows how to deal with something like the Herbal. Which is why he focused on Dorothea and me.” She made a little face. “Dorothea is sensitive to that, I’m afraid. It’s just another straw on top of the other difficulties—working with Mrs. Cousins and the board, I mean. They don’t know the first thing about rare books or library collections. But they always have an opinion.”

  I could certainly understand that. I glanced at the clock. It was well past ten. “I’m going to drive down to Bethany and drop in on Conway at his shop,” I said. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back, though. I have several people to see in town. And after that, I thought I might drive up to Claudia Roth’s parrot sanctuary. We have a parrot at home—Spock, his name is.”

  “Oh, really?” She brightened. “Well, in that case, you might stop at Sam’s and get a bag or two of banana chips. Sam’s is a diner on the road into town,” she added, “just past the Hemlock Mountain Inn. Here. I’ll show you.” She brought up a Google map.

  “Shouldn’t be hard to find.” I studied the map. “Banana chips?”

  “Treats for Claudia’s parrots. Some people think she’s a little bit loony for spending her life taking care of those birds. And the way she treats them—as if they’re her kids.” Jenna shook her head. “But she’s an expert on parrots. You gotta give her that, crazy or not.”

  “Parrot people are all probably a little nuts,” I said. “Parrots tend to inspire obsession.”

  Jenna shook her head. “It’s not just parrots. Claudia is one of those people who overshare.”

  “Overshare?”

  “She lacks a filter. I mean, she just pops out with whatever’s on her mind, without thinking about who she’s talking to or how it might sound if it’s repeated.”

  “I’ve known a few people like that,” I said wryly. A lawyer will tell you that the most dangerous client is one who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Conversely, somebody with no filter is a gift from the courthouse gods when he’s on the other side’s witness list. You don’t need a can opener. Just pop the top and he—or she—opens up.

  Jenna nodded. “It gets Claudia in trouble sometimes. If she thinks somebody’s being an idiot, she won’t mince any words when she tells him so. And she makes stuff up.”

  “You mean she lies?” Lie is a perfectly useful word. I don’t know why people are so reluctant to use it.

  She gave a half-chuckle. “Maybe. But you can’t be sure. For instance, she says she’s Sunny’s sister. That’s what she seems to believe, so is it a lie?” With a shrug, she added, “You can’t trust everything she says. But you’re never in the dark about what she thinks.”

  “Sister?” I raised both eyebrows. “Really?” I was remembering what Dorothea had said about Claudia Roth having a “tangential relationship” to the Carswells. Not quite so tangential, if she and Sunny actually shared a parent or two.

  “Who knows?” Jenna replied. “Rose told me once that Claudia’s mother was a housemaid at Hemlock House in the time of Sunny’s father, so it’s possible. He’s even supposed to have left Claudia an annuity, although that could be just the local gossip. She drops in to see us occasionally.”

  I frowned. “Drops in? She’s not on the list.”

  “That’s because she’s never visited the library—at least, not while we’ve been here. She mostly comes to visit Rose, and they sit in the kitchen and gossip over tea. She doesn’t give a flip about rare books. But she’ll bore you to tears about parrots.”

  “Sounds innocent enough,” I murmured. But still, even somebody who wasn’t a book person might have some insights on the theft. Had the sheriff questioned Claudia Roth?

  “If you want to see her parrot sanctuary,” Jenna went on, “you have to make an appointment. I could call and let her know that you’re a parrot person and you’d like to drop in. Maybe late this afternoon?”

  “That would be great. When do you and Dorothea usually eat in the evening?”

  “Oh, six or six-thirty. Rose is making a pot of chicken and slicks for supper. It keeps, so we can eat whenever you get back. Or if Dorothea doesn’t want to wait, we can go ahead and you can have a bowl when you get here. It’s actually better after it sits for a while.”

  “Chicken and slicks?”

  “Our favorite mountain dish. Flat dumplings, sort of like fat noodles. Rose’s version is extra tasty. You’ll see.”

  But I already had my mind on my trip to Bethany, where I aimed to talk to Jed Conway.

  Chapter Six

  Many plants thrive in the understory ecosystem created by mature hemlocks—among them ginseng (Panax quinquefolius). William Byrd II (1674–1744), a Virginia planter and amateur naturalist who corresponded with Sir Hans Sloane, describes his personal experience of the plant in a letter quoted by Wyndham Blanton in his Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century, reproduced here from the Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks Gallery website:

  “As a help to bear Fatigue I us’d to chew a Root of Ginseng as I walk’t along. This kept up my Spirits, and made me trip away as nimbly in my half Jack-Boots as younger men cou’d in their shoes. Its vertues are that it gives an uncommon Warmth and Vigour to the Blood, and frisks the Spirits beyond any other Cordial. It cheers the Heart . . . helps the Memory . . . comforts the Stomach, and Strengthens the Bowels, preventing Colicks and Fluxes. In one Word, it will make a Man live a great while, and very well while he does live. And what is more, it will even make Old Age amiable by rending it lively, chearful, and good-humour’d. However ’tis of little use in the Feats of Love, as a great prince once found, who hearing of its invigorating Quality, sent as far as China for some of it, though his ladys could not boast of any Advantage thereby.”

  https://www.monticello.org/sites/library/exhibits/lucymarks/gallery/ginseng.html

  When I’d driven up the mountain to Hemlock House the afternoon before, the sky was a leaden gray and a mist trailed eerily through the dark trees. When I set off down the mountain this morning, the gray had vanished and the world had been recreated and blessed by sunshine. The air was fresh and crisp, the sky was so blue it
made your heart hurt, and the mountains rippled against the distant horizon like the folds of a green and purple blanket.

  But the switchbacks weren’t any easier going down than they were going up, and I was glad that the brakes on my rental car were working. I breathed a sigh of relief when the narrow road delivered me safely to the foot of the ridge and more or less straightened out for its run along the frothy white river, which seemed as anxious to get downhill as I was. I buzzed the car windows down, loving the swift glimpses of the river’s tumbling waters, the spiraling upward flight of a red-tailed hawk, the sharply resinous fragrance of fir and hemlock. Before I flew back to Texas, maybe I could find time to look for some ginseng. I could take photos to post on the Thyme and Seasons blog. Living in Texas, the only ginseng I saw came in the form of powder, capsules, or oil. I’d ask Claudia Roth—maybe she would know where to look.

  But I could also see open corridors of downed trees and here and there the gaunt gray skeletons of dead hemlocks, victims of the hemlock woolly adelgid. I had read about this destructive aphid-like insect, which was accidentally imported into the United States from Japan in the late 1940s and has been sucking the sap out of hemlocks ever since. The environmentally safest chemical control is the same stuff you use to get rid of the aphids on your roses: a spray of insecticidal soap mixed with horticultural oil. As a biological control, there’s the black lady beetle, also a Japanese import, that finds the adelgids especially tasty. But the situation is dire, for more than 90 percent of the eastern hemlocks in North America are infested. The beetles can’t eat fast enough, and spraying a whole forest is a daunting (and expensive) task.

  I tugged myself away from the sad thought that the hemlocks might be gone from these mountains in another decade and focused instead on what I intended to do in Bethany. Before I left Hemlock House, I had telephoned Carole Humphreys, who—as a board member and frequent volunteer—was on my list of folks to see today. You wouldn’t think a board member would steal from the library she was responsible for, but stranger things have happened. I was to meet her at her shop, Blue Ridge Crafts and Antiques Gallery, at the corner of Main and Cypress, around one o’clock.