"Then why does he beat her like a dusty rug?" Dean answered. "My guess is love has nothing to do with it. His ego just can't stand the fact that it was Edith who took the hike and not him. I think that makes him dangerous."
Cynthia didn't disagree. "I just hope he stays away from her, and Bird Song."
"The only person who can keep him away is Edith herself and it doesn't look to me as if she has the sense to do so."
Cynthia raised crossed fingers. "We can hope." She turned to Fred and handed him her latest translations of Annie Quincy's diary. The old man read them eagerly.
He looked up, with a large grin splitting his face. "This sort of confirms what we suspected, don't it?" Dean nodded in agreement but Cynthia wasn't willing to give up.
"Let's not do any condemning until I've transcribed more pages. All he did was hug her."
Dean considered pointing out that Annie's reference to their "shared secret" didn't seem to refer to a pastoral hug, but held his tongue.
Fred just grunted. "I sure wish this young lady wrote a date on her writings. It'd make my job a darn sight easier. I'm about to go blind reading them old microfilm newspapers. Some of those ads are a chuckle but it's hard work."
"I take it you didn't have any luck." Dean asked. Fred had spent his day seeking obituary information on Annie Quincy Martin.
"Naw," Fred answered, slumping down in a chair. "I guess after reading this here notebook, it was a fool's errand. Looks to me like Annie Quincy and Mrs. Martin ain't one in the same for sure." He picked up the second page. "If I had a date when this Lola lady died, I might find something, but I'm not sure what good it would do us. There was lots of stuff about the 'soiled doves' but not very many full names. Usually, if the working girls either got themselves murdered or committed suicide, all the newspaper gave 'em was a holier-than-thou write-up, pointing out the sad rewards for their sinful life. If they died a natural death, I doubt they'd even get a mention. I looked through the whole month of January but there was nothing about a girl named Annie dying."
Dean fixed his stepfather a cup of coffee. "Checking any records on the poor woman is going to be a chore. She might not have been using her own name. Maybe there were just too many deaths that winter to make news of one insignificant passing. We don't even know for certain when she died, do we? All we have is the letter from Rev. Martin, and lord knows what his intentions were."