Free Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron Page B

just ask Miss Jo. She’s the one who gave us most of this Raynesford material.” He wrote out her name and contact information for me.
    When I asked about a Dr. Livingston, I was told that he was retired. “But he still maintains an office for some of his old patients over on Pollock Street and you can often catch him there in the afternoon.”
      
    A small nameplate attached to the porch railing of a large clapboard house that backed up to the grounds of Tryon Palace identified the office of Dr. Grover Livingston. There was no one at the reception counter when I walked in through the unlatched screen door. An inner door was open, though, and a man called from the next room, “Jasper? Come on in.”
    “Sorry,” I said, following his voice. “I’m not Jasper.”
    “Would you like to be?” asked the chubby little man who sat behind a large cluttered desk. His hair was white and his eyes twinkled with mischief as he looked at me over his rimless bifocals.
    “No, I’m good with being me,” I said.
    He laughed. “And you are—?”
    “Judge Knott. Deborah Knott.” I realized that I had never seen this man before. He looked nothing like the tall handsome man I’d met in Beaufort. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I was looking for a Doctor Livingston.”
    “That’s me.”
    “Is there another Doctor Livingston in town?” I asked. “The one I wanted would be about eighty.”
    “Actually, he’d be about ninety-two if he was still alive. My dad. He died last year. Did you say judge? Is this a legal matter?”
    “Not at all, Doctor. I met your father down in Beaufort three or four years ago. He said he knew my mother back when she worked at the airbase in Goldsboro and I was hoping to ask him a few questions.”
    “Too bad you didn’t come sooner. He loved to talk about his war years and his mind and memory stayed clear right up till the end.”
    (“ That’s what you get for chasing after an old boyfriend ,” said the preacher who lives in my head and never misses a chance to lecture me on my shortcomings. “ Carpe diem. ”)
    (“ Give it a rest ,” said the pragmatist who usually cuts me a little slack. “ How was she to know? ”)
    Dr. Livingston saw the disappointment on my face. “When was she there?”
    “Only two years so far as I know. Maybe 1943 till the war ended.”
    “She must have made an impression on him if he remembered her after all that time,” he said. “What’s her name?”
    “Susan Stephenson,” I said. “Her sister was there, too. Ozella Stephenson. Zell.”
    He gestured to a bookshelf behind him and to a row of small red leather-bound books. “I’ve been reading his diaries, but I’m only up to the beginning of the war. Give me your card and if I see their names, I’ll let you know. I’m afraid Dad was a cross between a workhorse and a billy goat. Tires me out just to read all the work and women he got through.”
    I dug a card from my purse. “I doubt if my mother was one of them. She never mentioned him that I can remember.”
    He gave a wry laugh. “He never mentioned any of his women to us, either. And he made damn sure my mother never saw these diaries. Kept them locked in a cabinet in his office.”
    “There was one man, though,” I said slowly. “A Walter Raynesford McIntyre. From New Bern. Did you ever hear of him?”
    Dr. Livingston frowned. “McIntyre?”
    “Walter Raynesford McIntyre. He was a pilot. I think he was killed during the war.”
    “Sorry. I know the Raynesford name, of course. But McIntyre? Doesn’t ring any bells, but I’ll keep an eye out for his name, too.”
    I thanked him and said I expected to be back in New Bern next Monday.
    “Good,” said Livingston. “Maybe I’ll skip ahead in Dad’s diaries and see what I can find.”

CHAPTER
5
    Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish.
    — Proverbs 31:6
    Dwight Bryant—Monday, August 11
    S hortly after Deborah left for New Bern that morning, her brother Robert drove the Cub