“No person held to service or labour in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.’
Darnell banged his first down on the table. This part of the speech wasn’t read out in the schools or displayed boldly in the museums. It seemed to suggest that Lincoln’s support wasn’t for the freedom of the slaves, but for the people who owned them. His ancestors had escaped the clutches of slavery, but under Lincoln’s beliefs should have been sent back to their former owners. He thought of Abram and Sojourner, who risked everything for their freedom; they could have been sent back to Oklahoma had Lincoln lived up to his promise.
Picking up the second paper, he read the title of Kyle Krasinski’s work, which focused on Lincoln’s stance on anti-Semitism. It was unclear with Krasinski’s work where his argument was leaning towards. It was either that he hadn’t quite assessed where his plan was heading, or, like a suspense writer, wanted to keep his ideas to himself to reveal the great masterpiece the following year when he handed in his final submission. He placed the document down and picked up the final plan which he’d borrowed from the university, which was that of Lae Chang.
Lae’s thesis focused on Lincoln’s plans for the slaves once the Civil War was over. She argued Lincoln had planned to deport the slaves after he freed them. The paper covered the President’s strategy to send them to Haiti, as well as an African country known as Liberia, which at the time of Lincoln’s inauguration had only been around for forty-five years after it was created by the American Colonization Society. Lae explained that she would be providing evidence that the founder of Liberia and Lincoln would be working together to find a new home for the Africans, outside of the United States. There was no further details around the source of her evidence, but Darnell certainly couldn’t wait twelve more months to read it. He needed answers now.
The detective downed the rest of his scotch. He yawned after a tiresome few days and his head still pounded from the consumption of wine the previous evening. He retired to bed, although he found it difficult to sleep. His mind was spinning with all the information he’d taken in and all the questions which remained unanswered.
An hour and half later, his wife joined him and lay by his side. He remained silent, unsure whether to speak to her, so he just lay still and pretended to be asleep. The room was eerily silent except for Jasmine’s occasional huffs beneath the sheets. After half an hour, she broke her silent protest and turned to her husband, placing an arm over him and gripping him tight. He placed his right hand over hers and kissed her forehead.
As she whispered the words ‘I love you’ from her drowsy lips, a blow of guilt and a sprinkle of regret filled his head. He’d kissed and fondled another woman. And not just any woman. His beautiful colleague who was half his wife’s age. As the remorse seeped in, he thought of that young woman who’d kept him company the previous evening and wondered if she’d managed to get ahead any further with the investigation.
Chapter 13
Vanessa Jamison had spent the previous three hours fast-forwarding through days of CCTV, provided by Oak Ridge cemetery. She didn’t exactly know what she was looking for; the Commander’s brief was pretty broad.
Jamison cuddled up under her white duvet. A mug of hot milk rested on her side table and her iPod was on shuffle. She sped through three hours of CCTV footage, which made up her evening’s entertainment, watching people walk through the entrance of the cemetery that once encased the body of Abraham Lincoln. Despite skimming through numerous days of footage, she struggled to connect anyone who made a regular appearance at the park. She transferred the disc to the one provided by the Indiana Boyhood Home, and skipped to the time and date that Michael Yarn’s student ID was used to enter the research centre. The man was tall and built, with a rucksack on his back and a Springfield University hoodie. His hair was covered with a beany hat. She didn’t feel confident that the university would be able to recognise the man from the footage but it was worth taking a few screen shots to send to Professor King. She continued to speed through the tapes as per her manager’s instruction to determine if anyone else was suspicious who was worth exploring.
Her room was pretty basic. It was a rented property leased a month at a time until she found President Lincoln and brought him home. The colours were not to her taste; lots of pastels left behind by the previous occupant and the furniture was flat-pack, rather than the prestigious oak furniture she enjoyed in her home back in DC. There was little point redecorating; she hoped to be out before the end of the month. The furniture on offer to her was limited. There was a bed in each room, a chest of drawers and a small wardrobe, which wouldn’t fit half of what she brought, so she ended up living out of a suitcase.
She could have been done with the week commencing 29th October 2012 by now but curiosity had got the better of her when she returned home. As
