Page 70 of Play With Me

I pass it to Jude so I can film, which thankfully, he doesn’t object to. Herr Mueller repeats himself, loudly, into the speaker.

Words pop up on the screen and I read it out loud for the benefit of the camera. “Can you two be trusted to search for your items with small help?”

Jude whispers, “What the hell does that mean?”

“I think we get free rein?” I say, hopefully. The man’s muttering to himself now, and as we come up behind him at the door he’s stopped at, pressing buttons on the keypad, Jude holds up the translator.

I HAVE BETTER TIME TO DO WITH MYSELF

DAMN KNEES DAMN STAIRS FUCK DAMN

I can’t help it; I snort with laughter. The man looks up as Jude smoothly brings my phone behind his back, but the door is open now, and he tsks before pushing through.

The archival room is plain but neatly organized, with boxes lined up on steel shelves with wheels.

The man starts rattling in German and Jude whips his phone up but only catches the second half.

I zoom in on the phone.

NO GLOVES BUT WASH HANDS REPLACE ITEMS WHERE THEY ARE, YOU WILL BE EXPELLED WHEN ITEMS DAMAGED. 1900-1950 SHELF EIN.

I think that’s a threat. The woman at the desk must have passed on my college name, which luckily is a prestigious college in our circles. Which is why, after he punches something into the computer at the desk, then angles the monitor our way, he’s currently hobbling out of the room, leaving us alone with the records.

“I can’t believe he’s not breathing down our necks!” Jude says.

“Thank God,” I say. “My first trip to the documents room at the library you guys met me at, that librarian followed me around like I was going to use documents to save my gum.”

“Are you going to be like him when you grow up?” Jude asks. He’s grinning, so I give him an elbow.

“Come on, let’s start digging.”

Our first stop is the computer, where I pull up a list of all the records I can think of that might be related to Cleary. There are over a hundred. None for JEQ, but a dozen that list Eleanor Cleary.

After printing off the digital list, we move to the files themselves.

I get some shots of Jude at the computer moving the mouse around, then him walking over to the file boxes, opening one and thumbing through it. After that, I set my camera down. It’ll be faster going if I’m participating in the hunt.

We search through several boxes of files. It’s very well kept for a tiny operation like this one, with all documents inserted into plastic sleeves. It makes me doubly surprised that the man let us be in here ourselves, but I guess my school has enough weight. That and the cameras in all four corners in the room.

We pull out newspaper clippings, building applications, and other records, and everything’s extra slow thanks to our need to translate with the phone.

There are a ton of mentions of George Cleary, especially during the period of 1919–1922.

“That’s right up until the year she was murdered,” Jude says when we have our little pile assembled. We’ve inserted the supplied markers in every file in the box so we can easily put the numbered sleeves back in the right spot, but for the time being we head over to the wide desk in the corner.

Jude and I stand next to each other, putting the documents in chronological order. Then we start taking pictures with our phones. We have to step around each other to get the best angles, and at one point, Jude places his hand on my hip as he steps around me to get a particular shot. His hand grazes a strip of skin at my hip revealed by my sweater riding up.

It’s the faintest touch, but it’s enough to make tingles run across my skin, and my hand shaky when I take my next picture.

“Look!” Jude says, thankfully not noticing my skin is flushed.

He points to a file that contains several photocopied pages. It was one Jude pulled out, so I didn’t see it contained multiple photos at the back.

I flip through the pictures, then freeze on one, sucking in a breath.

“Eleanor,” I whisper.

I’ve seen her photo before, in the newspaper articles about her marriage, and later her death. But never like this. Unposed and happy looking.

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