‘Do you happen to have her name?’
‘Oh it was so long ago,’ Harold said, scratching his head. ‘But she was a young Asian girl from Illinois.’
‘We might need you to give a testimony in court soon, Mr Detondo.’
*
Outside the entrance, Vanessa found Darnell lighting up a cigarette.
‘I didn’t know you smoked.’
‘I don’t. Well I haven’t in years. Jasmine made me quit when we had the boys. But now with all this? There was a convenience store round the corner and I needed it, sorry.’
‘No judgement here,’ Vanessa replied. ‘Can I pinch one?’
‘You too?’ Darnell’s eyes widened and he handed her the pack.
‘A little in college. I was one of those annoying social smokers who stole everyone else’s cigarettes.’
‘At least you’ve grown out of that,’ he said as she took one of his cigarettes.
The rush went to both of their heads, but the dizziness offered a moment of distraction from their woes. They felt their shoulders relax. Now they just needed a glass of the city’s finest scotch to supplement the smoke.
‘Harold gave me this.’ She lifted out the envelope with Darnell’s name on the front and handed it to her colleague. He opened it and took out the note inside. Once again the Aryan Fist took up the header of the letter.
Whoever said ‘Dead people can be our heroes because they can’t disappoint us later,’ clearly hadn’t come across Abraham Lincoln.
‘Another cryptic note, I see.’ Vanessa sighed.
‘They’re right though, aren’t they? I can’t believe it, Vanessa. For all these years Abraham Lincoln has been my hero. The man who freed my ancestors. Now I know my ancestors died for the wrong cause. They died because Lincoln wanted to keep the country together, not for my family’s freedom. Given the option, Lincoln would’ve had people like me still in chains if it meant that the North and the South were still able to be part of the United States in harmony.’
He sat down and rested against a pillar which made up the grand entrance of the museum, replicating a Greek temple.
‘Your ancestors didn’t die in vain though, Darnell. Look at what happened. You are free,’ Vanessa replied. She rubbed his arm and took a seat next to him. ‘I wonder why there haven’t been any markings on this museum yet.’
‘We arrested everyone, remember. Maybe they were heading here next.’
‘Well someone sent you this note. I can’t help but think there’s more people involved. To land a heist of this size would require a significant operation.’
‘I still wonder why they took the body,’ Darnell mused. ‘Surely a bit of spray paint would’ve been enough to expose all this.’
‘Petty vandalism wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t make the news. Now they’ve made the headlines, during the trial it’s all gonna come out. We will have to admit why the body was stolen and all our history is going to come into question. Riots will begin and statues of Lincoln will be torn down.’
‘And I don’t blame them. Our entire history is a lie, Vanessa.’ Darnell spat on the floor; the bitter taste of tobacco hadn’t quite had the moreish powers it had held on him during his youth. He stubbed it out on the wall behind him, which had a ‘No Smoking’ sign nailed into it. ‘Everything we read every day is a lie.’
‘But, Darnell, surely if this was all true, we’d know about it, right? If everything which this person is pointing us towards was correct, surely we’d know? Lincoln said himself that “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time”. And he’s right. Our press doesn’t exactly hold back when it comes to a scandal, look what they managed to dig up on us two nobodies just today. Our entire lives are spread across the front page of the Tribune.’ Vanessa took out the paper from her handbag and opened it up in full view of her colleague. ‘If they can do this to two ‘average Joes’ like us, we’d certainly know about Lincoln. His grand status of a heroic president would’ve been crushed by now.’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it!’ Darnell snapped. ‘Look at Roosevelt. He managed to manipulate the press throughout his entire presidency and avoided a single photograph of him in his wheelchair. He was able-bodied to anyone outside of his immediate staff.’
‘But we know about that now! This is what I’m saying. It all comes out in the end. I’m just wondering, if this is all true, how did Lincoln manage to keep it buried for hundreds of years?’
An eavesdropping smoker resting on an opposite pillar approached the detectives. He was a scruffy man with ripped jeans, a frayed woolly jumper and long blond hair, which was curled and unwashed. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five and the aromas streaming from his rolled-up cigarette suggested he had more than just tobacco up his grubby sleeves.
‘I hope you don’t mind me interrupting but I overheard your conversation. I wanted to show you something which might piece together what you’re debating.’
For an untidy man, he was well spoken. Darnell made a fist and gritted his teeth, leaning in with broadened shoulder to give a piece of his mind to the nosy busybody. But Vanessa stepped in and gently pulled her colleague back. She smiled at the stranger and asked what he had to offer.
‘You’ll have to come with me so I can show you. It’s just a short walk. I’m Steven, by the way.’ The young man held out his hand. His fingernails were black and the tips had a yellow tinge. The detectives reluctantly took his hand and introduced themselves. ‘Whoa, cops! I really shouldn’t be smoking this then.’
He threw his suspicious cigarette on the
