CHAPTER 13: THE BOOKKEEPER’S CHOICE
Hannah Cole had been living under her married name in a village north of Ashford for six years.
Rusk found her address through an old church register rather than the courthouse records.
Her husband ran a cooperage, and the couple had two children who attended the village school.
Daniel arrived with Rusk late in the afternoon, when the sound of hammers drifted from the workshop.
Hannah greeted Rusk cautiously and looked at Daniel with open suspicion.
She said she had already answered questions about Willow Creek once, and the answers had cost her employment.
Rusk explained that Eleanor Whitmore was now searching for the original records.
Hannah asked whether Eleanor understood what could happen to people who helped her.
Daniel said Eleanor had already intervened when a laundry worker was threatened.
He did not claim that her intervention would be enough.
Hannah invited them into the kitchen after sending her children outside.
She took a small wooden box from a shelf and opened it with a key hidden beneath a flour jar.
The box contained copied pages from Richard’s private accounts.
Hannah explained that Richard had demanded she record interest payments on loans that had already been settled.
When families protested, Vane produced new documents showing that they owed more money.
The extra debts were used to force transfers of farmland to the Whitmore estate.
Hannah had copied entries because her employer instructed her to destroy the original receipts.
She kept the copies after discovering that two brothers had lost their farm despite paying every installment.
Daniel asked whether the accounts connected directly to the disputed survey.
Hannah pointed to a sequence of entries marked with a feather.
The entries listed payments from the same families whose land bordered the southern creek.
She said the false boundary gave Richard control of access to water.
The fabricated debts then made it difficult for families to challenge him.
Rusk asked why she had never presented the records to a court.
Hannah said the first lawyer she consulted sent her back to Vane with a warning.
Her father was threatened with the loss of his business.
Then Hannah found a written accusation in the county office alleging that she had stolen money from Richard.
She had left Willow Creek to protect her family from public humiliation.
Daniel asked about Lydia.
Hannah said Lydia had approached her after discovering irregularities in the estate accounts.
She had asked Hannah to keep copies of the payments and tell no one except a carpenter named Martin Vale.
Lydia planned to expose the fraud during a visit from a state auditor.
The visit was canceled without explanation.
Three weeks later Lydia vanished.
Hannah believed someone within the county administration had warned Richard.
Rusk asked whether she knew the identity of the third witness represented by the eye symbol.
Hannah nodded slowly.
She said the third witness had been a young estate clerk named Oliver Fenwick.
Oliver was responsible for copying legal notices and posting them in the town square.
He had discovered a letter instructing Vane to alter the date on Lydia’s departure statement.
Hannah believed he had kept a copy.
Daniel asked where Oliver lived now.
Hannah said he had joined a traveling company of musicians and had not returned for years.
Rusk looked disappointed, but Hannah continued.
She said Oliver had recently written to her from a town near the Tennessee border.
His letter asked whether the Whitmore house still had its western library.
Hannah had been too afraid to respond.
Daniel said the library contained an archive hidden behind shelving.
Hannah covered her mouth and said that Lydia had once spoken about an archive where Richard stored letters he had intercepted.
She asked whether Eleanor’s letters might also be inside.
Daniel believed it was possible.
Hannah looked toward the yard, where her children played beneath an apple tree.
Then she made a decision that seemed to cost her dearly.
She said she would give Rusk copies of the accounts if the records could be delivered to a court outside Richard’s influence.
She would not surrender the originals until someone with lawful authority could protect her family.
Daniel accepted her condition without argument.
He also told her about the three blue stones.
Hannah touched the feather engraved on one of them and began to cry.
She said Lydia had promised that no witness would ever be left alone if all three stones were brought together.
Daniel wondered whether the promise could still mean anything after so many years.
Hannah wiped her eyes and said a promise did not become worthless merely because the person who made it had disappeared.
