Murder at the Library of Congress - Margaret Truman [88]
“Date when Driscoll donated the map to LC?”
A phone call from Consuela to LC’s vast map division provided the answer: “October 1990.”
“Four months after the article ran.”
Consuela’s nod confirmed the math. She removed the disc from the computer and handed it to Annabel.
“I have a feeling you’ll find the same thing to be true with everything on this chart, Consuela. It looks like Michele created an artificial market value for items Driscoll donated to the library.”
“For tax purposes?”
“Probably. It could be that Driscoll already possessed the items he intended to donate, picked them up for the proverbial song, their true worth. Then Michele, with his reputation as a Hispanic scholar, went out and hyped the items, which made them far more valuable than they actually were. Consuela, do you know the date of John Bitteman’s disappearance?”
“Not offhand, but I can find out.”
As the division chief prepared to place another call in search of information, there was a knock on her door. Annabel opened it to Dolores Marwede.
“Sorry,” Dolores said. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I won’t be much longer.”
“Come in,” Consuela said, waving to Dolores.
Dolores entered and closed the door. Consuela asked Dolores while waiting for someone to answer her call, “You were here when John Bitteman disappeared. Remember when that was?”
“Eight years ago,” Dolores answered. “Why?”
“Do you have a more specific date?” Annabel asked.
“No. It was summer, I think.”
“July?”
“I—I really don’t know.”
Consuela reached a friend in the personnel office and asked the same question. When she hung up, she said to Annabel and Dolores, “July fourteenth, 1991.”
“Why the interest in John Bitteman?” Dolores asked.
Annabel looked askance at Consuela. From her perspective, what she’d confided in Consuela should have been kept between them, at least until the discs had been turned over to the Librarian of Congress … or the police.
“Consuela, I wonder if …”
The division chief sensed Annabel’s discomfort and quickly said, “We can get into this later. In the meantime, I have a meeting with Dr. Broadhurst. You’ll have to excuse me.”
Dolores and Annabel started to leave the office.
“Oh, Annabel, stay just a minute, won’t you?” Consuela said.
When Dolores was gone, Annabel asked, “Are you taking the discs to Dr. Broadhurst now?”
“Yes. I called his secretary from home and told her it was urgent that I see him first thing this morning.” She looked at her watch. “We’re due there right now.”
“We?”
“Absolutely. You’re the only person who knows what’s on these discs.”
“Do you want me to tell him that I think they belonged to John Bitteman, and that Bitteman disappeared two days after he wrote notes about exposing Michele Paul’s dealings with David Driscoll?”
“Two days after?”
“Yes. Bitteman disappeared on July fourteenth. The computer file index on those final fifteen pages says he wrote them on July twelfth.”
“Which led to his disappearance.”
“Or murder.”
“We’d better go. Dr. Broadhurst is a stickler for punctuality.”
“With what we’re about to tell him, he might prefer that we be late—a couple of years late.”
“… and I find this extremely distressing,” Broadhurst said after Annabel and Consuela had explained the purpose of wanting to see him. “You say the material on these discs came from Bitteman?”
“I can’t be absolutely certain of that, Dr. Broadhurst,” Annabel said, “but I believe it to be the case.”
“And Bitteman knew of what was going on between Michele Paul and David Driscoll?”
“According to what he wrote two days before he disappeared. He threatened to bring what he knew to what he referred to as LC—Library of Congress, or Librarian of Congress. That would have been Jim Billington.”
“Yes,” Broadhurst confirmed.
“Dr. Broadhurst,” Consuela said, “is the story true about Mr. Driscoll paying Michele substantial sums of money over the years?”
Her question caused overt discomfort