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After wincing herself as she watched him limp out of the house to go teach a class at GW, she took a cab to the library. Soon, she and Consuela stood in the deep recesses of the division’s stacks. Steel shelving held dozens of cardboard file transfer boxes with BITTEMAN written on them.

“Did anyone go through these after Bitteman disappeared?” Annabel asked the division chief.

“Yes, but that was before I got here. When you said you wanted to look at the Bitteman materials, I pulled out the report that had been written by the people who’d originally examined the boxes. They broke everything down into rough categories, which is helpful. But like so much material in LC, it gets a quick once-over when it arrives and then sits for years until someone decides to take a second look.”

“Impossible to analyze it all,” Annabel said. “There’s so much.”

“Twenty million items in storage waiting to be cataloged, and it keeps pouring in. Anyway, Annabel, here’s the Bitteman stuff. Help yourself.”

“These are the categories they broke it down into?” Annabel asked, pointing to smaller lettering on each of the boxes.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see—oh, here’s a box marked ‘Las Casas.’ ”

“Here’s another,” Consuela said. “The people who went through them noted that there was nothing especially new and interesting in Bitteman’s Las Casas papers, which I found surprising.”

“How so?”

“Las Casas was one focus of his professional life. Las Casas did write a book or more after the voyages with Columbus but there was nothing really definitive about any diary and no mention of a map. Everyone assumed all the work Bitteman had put in on the subject would have resulted in more revelations. But I suppose we sometimes expect too much of our researchers. You can spend a lifetime delving into a narrow subject and still come up empty.”

“Well,” said Annabel, “I’ll take a look anyway, although I’m beginning to feel empty.”

“I’m pulling together a team to go through Michele Paul’s files,” Consuela said. “Dr. Broadhurst asked me to do it. Love to have you join us.”

“I’d like that,” said Annabel. “Anything bearing on Las Casas could be helpful for my article. When are you starting?”

“This morning. Dolores Marwede will be helping, but it’s a daunting task for two people.”

“Count me in, after I take a look at these.”

Annabel spent the morning bringing the boxes labeled BITTEMAN—LAS CASAS to her work space on the upper gallery and going through their contents with more care. The people who’d originally skimmed the materials had been right as far as she could tell by her examination. The boxes were filled with articles written about the Spanish companion to the famous explorer and folder after folder of Bitteman’s notes on books and other researchers’ conclusions. But there seemed to be nothing of Bitteman’s original findings and thoughts. You’d think that a man like him, she mused, devoting almost all of his professional life to one man and one subject, would have come up with something more. But there was good stuff about Las Casas as a writer and as a sailor.

She came down to the main reading room, where Consuela and Dolores had set themselves up at a table in a secluded corner.

“Find anything?” Consuela asked.

“Not much,” Annabel said, “although I went through it awfully fast. How’s this going?”

“Nothing exciting so far,” Consuela said. “A few rare books he took and never returned.”

Dolores looked up at Annabel. “You really didn’t expect to find anything useful in John Bitteman’s work, did you?”

Annabel shrugged and joined them at the table. “I didn’t know him, of course, but I heard he was a dedicated researcher.”

Dolores smirked. “John Bitteman was a fraud,” she said, continuing to pull papers from one of the boxes on the table. “He made his reputation as a writer and speaker on Hispanic subjects, using other people’s original work as a basis for his own. I don’t think he had an original idea in his head.”

“You knew him pretty well?