Indiana Belle (American Journey Book 3) (3 page)

"I ask because I want to know if there is anything to these diary entries," Cameron said. "Please note the passages I've highlighted."

Rutherford picked up the pages and gave them a look. A few minutes later, he put them down and looked at Cameron like someone he had just met and not someone he had known for years.

"I'm not sure what to make of them," Rutherford said. "I don't have enough information to form a judgment. The only thing that is clear to me is that this woman's mother believed her husband had stumbled upon some sort of secret."

"So you don't think there is anything to it?" Cameron asked.

"I didn't say that. I said I don't have enough information to form a judgment. If the diarist had included the formula that her father and her uncle had allegedly discovered, then I might be able to answer your questions. As it is, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"I understand."

"Where did you get these pages?" Rutherford asked.

"I got them from an old woman in Indiana," Cameron replied. "Her aunt, the diarist, was a columnist and a historian in the early 1920s. I requested her papers because I thought they would be useful in writing my dissertation on social life in the Midwest during Prohibition. I discovered the references to time travel on Tuesday as I was going through the documents."

"I see. Well, the passages are certainly interesting. I'll grant you that."

Cameron retrieved the diary pages and put them back in the portfolio. For the first time since calling Alfred Rutherford on Tuesday, he questioned the wisdom of pursuing this matter.

"So you really can't offer more?" Cameron asked.

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Do you know anyone who can? Is there anyone else I should consult before getting back to flappers, bootleggers, and evangelists?"

Rutherford smiled.

"You really want to pursue this further?"

"I do," Cameron said.

"OK. In that case, I can suggest someone."

"You can?"

"Yes," Rutherford said. "In fact, I can suggest someone who may have a lot to say on the matter. His name is Geoffrey Bell. He's a former colleague of mine who now teaches physics in Los Angeles. He's written and lectured quite a bit about time travel in the past few years."

Cameron felt his stomach do a pirouette.

"Did you say Bell?"

"I did. Is that name significant?"

"I'm not sure," Cameron said. "All I know is that the woman who kept this diary was named Candice Bell. She had a father named Henry and an uncle named Percival."

"Would that be Percival Bell, the geologist and physicist?"

"I think so."

Rutherford grinned.

"It seems I may be able to help you, after all."

"How so?" Cameron asked.

"I'll tell you," Rutherford said. "Geoffrey Bell is not just a time-travel expert and a former colleague of mine. He's the latest in a distinguished family of scientists."

"I don't follow."

"Then let me put it another way. Unless I am mistaken, Professor Bell is related to your mystery woman. He's related to her father and uncle."

"He's what?"

"Geoffrey Bell is Percival Bell's great-grandson."

CHAPTER 3: CAMERON

Sherman County, Kansas – Friday, March 3, 2017

Cameron glanced out his window in the 737 and took a long look at what elitists called flyover country. He had to admit that Kansas did not have on its best face. From 35,000 feet in early March, it looked like a scraggly brown mat that someone had left on a porch.

No matter, he thought. There was beauty down there. Just as there was beauty in the five-by-seven sepia photograph he had placed on the drop-down tray in front of him.

Cameron gazed again at the photo, a quality reproduction of the fragile original he had left in Providence, and focused on the subject. He had tried for days to purge her pretty face, lively eyes, and bewitching smile from his mind, but he had failed miserably. He found her image as irresistible as her life story and a mystery that continued to gnaw at him.

He had contacted Geoffrey Bell shortly after returning to his apartment on February 17. He had simply picked up his phone, dialed a number he had found on a university web site, and asked to speak to a man who was a direct link to both the woman and the mystery.

Cameron reached Bell a minute later and quickly explained his business. He said he had pages from Candice Bell's diary and wished to speak to him about some of the particulars.

Bell seemed interested but not interested enough to postpone a lunch with several faculty members. He asked Cameron to scan and e-mail a few of the pages and await a reply.

Cameron scanned three pages but sent only one. Suspecting that some of the information he possessed might be valuable, he provided the professor with a morsel and not a meal.

Bell called three hours later. He asked Cameron what he had.

When Cameron said he had scores of private papers, the professor offered an hour of his time. When he said that some papers mentioned time travel, Bell offered a trip to Los Angeles.

Cameron agreed to travel to California two weeks later. He told Bell he would share most, if not all, of the papers in his possession when he arrived.

The Rhode Islander pondered the significance of the brief but interesting phone call until a flight attendant, pushing a beverage cart, brought him back to the here and now.

"Would you like more coffee, sir?"

"I would," Cameron said.

He reached across two unoccupied seats and gave the attendant an empty paper cup. When she handed him a full cup a moment later, he placed it on his tray, organized some papers in an open briefcase in the adjacent seat, and resumed his work in his flying office.

Cameron considered reading the diary pages but ultimately decided against it. He had already perused the pages several times and wanted to take on something new. So he retrieved a few photocopies from his briefcase, placed them on his tray, and jumped in.

He turned first to an article about a man who seemed to be at the center of the mystery. He needed only minutes to discover that Percival Bell had been no ordinary scientist.

A geologist and a physicist by training, Percival had made a name for himself as a writer, educator, lecturer, and inventor. He had published eighty papers, obtained hundreds of patents, and gained the ear of statesmen like Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt, whom he advised on a regular basis. He had also gained the respect and admiration of his peers, who in 1895 elected him vice president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cameron slid the biography to the back of the pack and moved on to one that was just as interesting. This article, about Percival Bell's younger brother, recounted the life and times of a man who had taken a different path to prominence.

Born in Griffin, Indiana, in 1860, Henry Bell had cut his teeth in the military. He had served four years with the U.S. Army's Seventh Cavalry, fighting Indians in the Dakotas, before turning to civilian life and academics. After acquiring degrees in anthropology and linguistics, he had taught at three colleges, made a fortune in silver, and retired to the family farm.

Like Percival, he had lectured, traveled, and participated in scholarly ventures, such as the 1898 expedition to the Sierra Nevada. Like his brother, he had published several works, mingled with famous people, and frequently challenged the establishment in his chosen fields.

The similarities did not end there. Both Henry and Percival had married into wealthy families. Henry had wed an Evansville socialite, Percival a Boston heiress.

The brothers had also died just five weeks apart in early 1900. Henry had succumbed to a heart attack on February 15, Percival to a stroke on March 22. Each man had left behind a young wife, two small children, and an unfinished legacy.

Cameron thought about the youngest of those children as he put Henry's biography away and brought another item to the top of the stack. He had learned a lot about Candice Bell in the past two weeks, including things that made him happy and things that made him sad.

Thanks to several trips to the library, he had filled in a few blanks. He had learned, among other things, that Candice had dropped out of Indiana University as a sophomore in 1920 to become the society editor of the
Evansville Post
. He had also learned that she had published numerous articles in national magazines under the name C.L. Bell.

Cameron glanced at one of the articles as the flight attendant pushed her beverage cart toward the front of the plane. Entitled "The Dark Side of the Heartland," the 1924 piece had created a stir in literary circles and elevated C.L. Bell, at least in name, out of obscurity.

In the article, Candice had revealed corruption, vice, and Ku Klux Klan activity in an unnamed Indiana community. She had painted a troubling picture of Main Street America that seemed at odds with the ones most people saw or at least admitted to seeing.

Cameron read two more of C.L. Bell's pioneering pieces and then turned to a news article he had purposely saved for last. He was not eager to revisit the story, one of many he had found and copied. He had already read the details of Candice's murder on July 2, 1925, and saw little to gain by reading them again, but he did so anyway. If nothing else, he wanted to better understand and appreciate a seemingly senseless act of violence that had forever changed an Indiana town.

The facts, as reported by a rival Evansville paper, were not pretty. According to police and media reports, Candice had been beaten and abandoned in a narrow alley behind her workplace. For three weeks, police had investigated the crime, several suspects, and possible motives. For three weeks, they had come up with few answers.

Then, on July 23, responding to intense public pressure, authorities charged a thirty-year-old black man with the murder. Tom Parker, a part-time custodian for the
Evansville Post
, had found Candice's body. Tried and convicted of the crime four months later, he was electrocuted at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City on September 5, 1926.

Cameron added the homicide story to the stack of copies, put the pile in his briefcase, and closed the lid. He sipped his coffee, paused to gather his thoughts, and then returned to the portrait of Candice, which remained undisturbed atop his folding tray.

He picked up the photograph, studied the beautiful face one more time, and then looked out his window at the landscape below. The scraggly fields of Kansas had given way to the snowy peaks of Colorado.

Cameron did not know what he would do when he touched down in Los Angeles, but he did know he would do more than collect information. His quest to learn more about Candice Bell and her times had become more than a research project. It had become an obsession. He decided to give that obsession the consideration it deserved.

CHAPTER 4: CAMERON

Los Angeles, California – Saturday, March 4, 2017

Cameron watched the natives go by and wondered for the second time that morning why he had never visited California. The Golden State – or at least the stretch between the Santa Monica Pier and Marina del Rey – was intriguing, stimulating, and hopelessly captivating.

He sipped some iced tea, placed his glass on his round patio table, and let his eyes drift to nearby Ocean Front Walk. Even at eleven thirty, Venice Beach was alive.

No matter where he looked, the Rhode Islander saw human activity. Six-foot blondes with perfect tans rolled by with delightful regularity. Panhandlers, food vendors, and petitioners competed for choice real estate at wide spots on the walk. One man, wearing a sandwich board, touted a marijuana dispensary. Farther in the distance, couples in tourist attire combed the beach, surfers took on the frigid Pacific, and teens roamed and socialized in small groups.

Even law enforcement stood out. Athletic men and women in dark blue shirts and matching shorts patrolled their exotic beat on well-equipped mountain bikes. They seemed to be having as much fun as the people they protected and served.

Cameron turned away from the beach, settled into his padded iron chair, and directed his attention to a glass door. The door led to the restaurant proper, the lounge, and a four-star resort that would be his home for at least the next six days.

He had booked a room at the Pacific Suites Resort and Spa shortly after accepting Geoffrey Bell's offer of a free trip to California. He was suspicious of Bell's motives for offering the trip but not suspicious enough to refuse it.

Cameron took another sip and surveyed the patio. With the exception of a frat boy and a coed who tried to impress each other with drinking stories, the dining area was empty.

He checked the door again, saw nothing of interest, and then turned to the open portfolio he had placed atop the table. After sorting a stack of letters and slipping a few into a document sleeve, he retrieved his favorite sepia portrait and gave it a scan. No matter how many times he looked at the photograph, he never tired of its pleasing subject.

A moment later, Cameron put the photo in a sleeve, closed the portfolio, and placed it on an adjacent chair. He looked at the door just as a couple stepped onto the patio. He needed only a few seconds to determine that the fiftyish man and the slightly younger woman were the people he was supposed to meet. He stood up when the two approached the table.

"Professor Bell, I presume?" Cameron asked.

The man smiled.

"You presume correctly."

The doctoral student extended a hand.

"Cameron Coelho. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The professor shook the hand.

"The pleasure is mine. I have looked forward to this meeting, Mr. Coelho. So has my wife," Bell said. He looked at the woman beside him and then at Cameron. "This is Mrs. Bell."

As soon as the professor stepped back, the woman, an attractive redhead who bore a strong resemblance to the actress Julianne Moore, stepped forward. She offered Cameron a delicate hand and a smile that could melt half the glaciers in the Himalayas.