And what of the young woman, K. Elgin? The Hahn book held no other insights into Charlie Pennyfield, so he closed it on the cubicle desk and opened the fourth book. Home on the Canal by Elizabeth Kytle. Along with a distilled chronology of the C&O Canal’s construction and seventy-five years of operations, the book gave a simple explanation for its demise: on March 29, 1924, an epic flood struck the upper Potomac Valley and swept downstream, reaching Washington on March 31 and wrecking much of the canal’s infrastructure along the way. While it was the first major flood on the Potomac in decades, the March freshet was followed two months later by a comparable flood, and the combination of extensive structural damage and poor economic prospects ended operations on the C&O Canal forever.

He felt a tingling at the edges of his scalp. March 29, 1924. That was also the date on Lee’s note. “…I fear I have been killed because of what happened today at Swains Lock.”

But Swains was on the lower portion of the canal, and if the flood hit D.C. on March 31, the floodwaters must still have been far upstream when Lee wrote those words. So the event Lee alluded to must have preceded the arrival of the flood at Swains. And once it hit, wouldn’t the locks and the towpath at Swains and Pennyfield have been swamped? But Charlie Pennyfield’s shed, Vin remembered, was part-way up the wooded hillside above the Pennyfield house. So even if the flood had submerged the towpath and the lock, the shed would have remained dry.

He flipped through the second half of Kytle’s book and smiled when he realized that it consisted largely of transcribed interviews the author had conducted in 1979 with survivors of the canal era. The interviewees had grown up on the canal and were teenagers or young adults when it closed, but the interviews were full of references to memorable characters from the generations that preceded them.

The first reminiscences were from a person Vin had just encountered in Hahn’s book: Otho Swain. Otho had been born on his father’s barge and boated with his father until 1909, when he was eight. At that point his father gave up boating and assumed responsibility for tending Lock 21. Otho’s father Jess Swain was the person for whom Lock 21 was named.

Vin skimmed through several more interviews, then turned to the index. No listings for Elgin, Fisher, or Reed, but one for Pennyfield, Charlie, and one for Pennyfield, George. Both listings pointed to a page in the interview with Raymond Riley, who was born and raised at Lock 24 in Seneca – better known as Riley’s Lock. All Vin could learn from the mention of the Pennyfields was that Charlie was George’s son and had assumed responsibility for Lock 22 after “old man Pennyfield” died.

The next paragraph described the Rileys’ neighbors and friends, but Vin’s focus was drawn sideways to an annotation. The name Charlie Pennyfield was underlined in the text and an arrow pointed to the right-hand margin, where a penciled comment read:

Be careful you don’t share my fate.

The final line from Lee Fisher’s message to Charlie Pennyfield! Written, he thought, in a woman’s hand. His mouth suddenly felt dry and he swallowed and rubbed his temples. No one but he and Nicky had seen Lee’s note! The writing wasn’t hers. Instinctively he scanned the library to see if anyone was watching him. He leaned forward and pushed the book deeper into the shade of the cubicle. Following impulse, he used his pencil to erase the arrow and annotation, then swept away the residue and set Kytle’s book atop the others on the desk.

He carried his notepad and pencil back to the card catalog and flipped through the entries under Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. One caught his attention. The call number led him back to the shelf he’d already perused, but this book was missing. He searched the shelves nearby to see if it had been misfiled; no sign of it.

It was 5:35 pm according to the library’s clock, so Nicky should be getting home from the Clinic any time now. He took his four books to the checkout desk, where the librarian issued him a library card. When he mentioned he was interested in an additional book that appeared to be checked out, the librarian asked if he wanted to reserve it and be notified when it came back.

“Sure,” he said, and she turned to her terminal.

“Can you tell me the author and title?”

Vin checked his scrap of paper. “It’s by Wesley Vieira,” he said, spelling the surname as she typed. “And the title is The Level Trade: Lock-Tenders and Merchants on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.”

She studied her screen. “Well,” she said, “I can place a hold on it for you, but I’m not optimistic. Our system says it isn’t checked out. It should be on the shelf. So someone may have walked off with it.”

He thanked her and left the library. The air had cooled noticeably and the last sunset colors were fading to black.

***

Nicky heard the muffled thump of a car door in the driveway and looked up from her magazine to watch Randy trot down to the front door. Then came one of Vin’s standard greetings: “Randolfo! Howza whatza, buddy?”

Trailed by Randy, Vin came to greet Nicky on the couch, putting his books on the coffee table and leaning over to give her a kiss. She eyed the books. “Looks like you’ve been to the library.” She spun them to read their spines. “The Great National Project – A History of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. I’m amazed you were able to get this!” she said, feigning enthusiasm. “It must be really popular with book clubs.”

“You laugh, but one of the books I wanted was checked out. Or maybe stolen.”

“I guess you’re not the only canal nut,” Nicky said. A flash of worry darted like a sparrow across the path of her thoughts and she squinted, turning her eyes a darker blue. “Wasn’t today supposed to be a consulting day for you?”

“It was,” he said, turning toward the kitchen, “and it was. I spent an hour on a conference call with Rottweiler this morning. They like most of what I sent them but my old team in Boston wants to add some features.”

Nicky watched him recede across the living room. With his loping gait, he sometimes reminded her of a wolf. Those stone-colored khakis must be ten years old. And that loose cotton sweater over his broad, bony shoulders gave him the angular aspect of a college boy. Nicky started to smile but sighed instead. And sometimes the maturity of a college boy, she thought. What accounted for that?

“Anyway, I got a green light for the main specifications on phase one,” Vin said, returning to the living room with a beer. “And I spent most of the day writing definitions for the stuff they want to add.” He sat down in an armchair and stretched his legs onto the table. “And then I decided I needed a break. And a little local culture.”

“So I see.” Nicky pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her feet under a cushion on the couch. At least it sounded like Vin was committed to the Rottweiler project. It seemed like he was on the hook to develop this database and Web stuff for the next six months. But where were things headed after that? He hadn’t said anything about looking for a full-time job. Their wedding remained entirely unplanned, a concept. They hadn’t even picked a date, since Nicky’s parents were spending two months at a university in Tokyo next fall and the dates for that trip remained tentative. They could start working on the wedding logistics, she thought, but Vin hadn’t taken the initiative, so she would have to push things along herself.

Instead he seemed to be immersing himself in a riddle spawned by the 1924 note he’d found in that decrepit shed a few weeks ago. And now this incipient obsession with the canal. Did it imply some kind of low-level detachment?

“It’s really fascinating, reading about the C&O. When we walk along the towpath, the history is all around us. It’s practically alive.” He sipped his beer. “If I ever figure out what happened at Swains Lock, it might make a good screenplay.” He laughed and slumped back in his chair.