“Nothing that would change history. But I didn’t just pull the name Charlie out of thin air, either.” She stared me into the woodwork, all kidding aside. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
“That seems fair enough.”
Behind me I heard Koko cough. I said, “First maybe we should try to figure out what the whole story might be and who gets to write it.”
“That’s a novel approach.” Libby glanced at Koko. “You’re writing a book, I take it.”
“I’ve compiled some data,” Koko said. “Any book that comes out of it would be based on the memoir of an old woman who died recently. It’s actually her book.”
“Do I get to know who this woman was?”
“Charlie’s granddaughter.”
“Oh, wow.” A smile lit up her face. “Sounds like you’ve actually done a lot of work on it. The last thing you’ll want is to get scooped by a college student. And to be asked to contribute to the scooping, what an indignity that would be.”
“At the same time,” I said, “you’ll need it—”
“—nailed down tight. So where does that leave us?”
“Maybe we could give you enough for your paper,” Koko said. “And still leave me what I need for Josephine’s book.”
“Thank you but I doubt it. My paper is of the moment and it sounds like your book will be on the fire for some time to come. If I write a word of this, people will be all over it. And they’ll demand to know where to look for corroboration before they give me any credit at all.”
“Wouldn’t do ‘em much good. They’re not gonna find this in any archive.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’ve got possession of the tapes and transcripts. And there are no other copies.”
“But if you can’t make your sources public, what good is it?”
“It’ll all come out in due time.”
“Way too late for me, it sounds like. How do you know this is real?”
“Good Lord, hon, that’s what we’re chasing all over creation trying to do.”
“How close are you to verifying it?”
“Pretty close,” I said. “Close and yet so far.”
“Well, at some point we’ll have to trust each other,” Libby said. “We are honorable people, you know. If we give you our word, we’ll live up to it.”
“At least that’s what my uncle Dick Nixon always said,” said Luke.
“But I’ll have to know it all,” Libby said. “Everything you’ve got.”
This was met by silence as we considered what she was saying.
“I can’t write anything unless I know everything,” she said.
We ate quietly for a few minutes. I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.
“Surely you understand that,” she said.
“Of course,” Erin said unexpectedly. “For your paper to be valid, it’s got to be based on source material that’s open to public examination. Or at least available long enough for somebody with impeccable credentials to verify that it’s real.”
“I don’t know any other way. They’d certainly demand to see what it comes from.”
“There might be another source—a more conclusive one—at some point.”
Libby just looked and waited. Cautiously, Erin said, “There’s a journal.”
“As in a journal kept by Richard Burton? In the master’s own hand, do I dare hope?”
Erin said yes with her eyes.
Libby took a deep breath. “What might the master have said in such a thing?”
“We hope it would confirm what Koko has on tape. We don’t have possession yet.”
“Sounds like you intend to get it, though.”
Erin shrugged. “Even if we do, it belongs to another party. It would be up to him what and if anything gets released. It’s totally his call.”
“This gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
“He’s a decent guy, I can vouch for that. My guess is…”
