‘Thank you, Mr Manning. Detectives, start looking up local construction companies. And I want background checks on these students. And, Vanessa, have a look at that CCTV you’ve picked up from Indiana, as well as the footage we’ve got from Oak Ridge. See if anything matches to the people we currently have in the mix as potential suspects. As for this list of colleagues, let’s get some analysis on that as soon as possible.’
‘I thought you said Oak Ridge CCTV didn’t pick anything up?’
‘Maybe not on the night in question, but someone has spent months planning this and, like Manning said, they would’ve needed to have brought the cracking agent in the night before. They must have visited before. See if you can spot anyone making regular visits, more than you’d expect for a late relative or a Lincoln enthusiast.’
*
Darnell gave Vanessa a lift back to the house which had been rented for her. It was a yellow wooden house with a large porch out the front. He stepped out of the car and gave her a lift up the steps with her bags. As he reached the front door, he leaned in and embraced her.
‘Thank you for everything again.’ She squeezed him tight and they held on to each other for a moment. Their embrace was distracted by the sound of squeaking wheels gliding past. Darnell turned around and saw a teenage skater riding along the road in the distance with tie-dyed t-shirt, black knee-length shorts and a red cap with The Bears football team logo on upon it. Vanessa gave her colleague a kiss on the cheek and he left her house smiling, confident in his newfound friendship with his peer.
He arrived home twenty-minutes later where he found his wife, Jasmine, eating alone. She did not stand up to greet him when he entered like she usually would to welcome him home from a day at work, never mind two nights away.
‘Hey! Any left for me?’ Darnell asked optimistically, nodding his head towards the dinner she was pushing around with her fork. He threw his briefcase down on the table and hung up his coat. He kissed her cheek but she moved her head away like she was dodging a fly attempting to land on her face. She stared forward as if she was in a trance; she had on a red tartan dress and her hair was pinned back.
‘I didn’t know you were going to be home. You should have let me know. It’s just a microwave meal for one seeing I’m the only one here at the moment.’ She placed her fork down and folded her arms, shooting a glare of disappointment in her husband’s direction. ‘You threw the boys out the other night so I didn’t think I’d be cooking for anyone but myself tonight.’
‘Well maybe if you’d answer your phone when I called you, you’d know I was gonna be dropping by.’ He sighed and wandered to his office. He read through his emails but to his disappointment there had been no more responses from the person who had been leaving him cryptic messages about Lincoln.
Calling it a night, he switched off his screen, however the dissertations in his satchel were far too alluring to completely finish work. Picking up the first dissertation proposal which was written by Poppy Shipman, he read through the claims that Lincoln had inspired Adolf Hitler. Her work made references to several appendices at the back, which he turned to, to review the sources. It included a speech by Lincoln himself from his own inaugural address. The statement opened like any other inaugural address.
“Fellow citizens of the United states. In compliance with a custom as old as Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters the execution of this office”
Darnell skimmed through the passage, skipping over Lincoln’s promises to the American people. As he ploughed through the fears of the South, Darnell’s eyes were distracted by a particular paragraph on slavery.
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no intention to do so.”
The detective could barely believe what his eyes were reading. There it was in black and white. The President told the people of the United States that he had no intention to end slavery. Jackson’s heart sped up as he read in detail the local laws within those states which would remain as they were under Lincoln’s power.
Glancing at his watch, Darnell considered it a reasonable time to have a drink. He opened the drawer to his right, removed a file and banged on the bottom of the drawer. The wood came loose and he pulled out the fake bottom, which acted as a door to a secret storage unit. Within the unit was a bottle of scotch, which he retrieved, opened and poured the contents into a crystal glass, before replacing the bottle into the drawer. He listened out for Jasmine, but the house was silent. She’d disapproved of his thirst for scotch since his accident; the doctors recommended he avoided alcohol, but it had been a stressful day and the whisky appeared to help.
A harsh tinge ran down his throat. Once his nerves had calmed, he read on, trying to gauge the President’s interests during the time that he made this
