“She said the journals are in the Smithsonian, along with the letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to his son.”
Chloe nodded. “The originals are in Washington, D.C. and were part of the exhibition I curated. Each of the Terry sisters has a copy of the letter and the journals, and they gave the Heritage Protection Society copies of them, too.”
Liam’s eyes widened. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Chloe grinned. “I hope so. Now that we have another person who’s possibly linked to Eleanor, it might make it easier to find her.”
Liam looked through the information Percy had put aside for him. “There aren’t any copies of the journals here. Do you know where they are?”
“I do. Come with me.” As they headed over to the reference section, Oscar skipped ahead of them, happily exploring every nook and cranny of the library.
After a bit of searching, Chloe pulled out the last leather-bound journal. “Penny’s great-grandmother’s name was Margaret. She was a strong, brave, and very stubborn woman. In the early 1900s, with no family living in Montana, she raised her daughter on her own, and started a successful sewing business.”
Flipping through the delicate pages filled with neat handwriting, Chloe stopped at a particular entry. “Listen to this,” she said, reading aloud:
“June 15, 1921. The whole town is buzzing about the delegation from the Great Northern Railway. Mr. Samuel Hartman himself is visiting to discuss extending the rail line through Polson. There’s a grand reception tonight at the town hall and people are coming from far and wide to meet him.”
Liam leaned back in his chair. “So, Samuel was in Polson to talk about the railway. That would’ve been a huge deal back then.”
Chloe nodded. “And Eleanor was capturing lots of important events in her sketches. If I was her, I would have done everything I could to be at the reception in Polson.”
Oscar pointed at the picture of Samuel on the laptop screen. “Were they friends?”
“They could have been,” Chloe said thoughtfully. “Or maybe something more.”
Liam’s eyebrows rose. “You think there was a romance?”
“It’s possible,” she shrugged. “She drew him so often.” Some of the sketches she’d studied last night were winter scenes, while others were definitely drawn in the summer months. Samueleither returned to Montana for work, or came for another reason.
“If they were in a relationship, it might explain why she disappeared,” Liam mused.
“Maybe she left town with him,” Chloe suggested.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Liam said. “We need to dig deeper—old newspapers, letters, anything that links Samuel to Eleanor.”
Chloe nodded. “I’ll check Eleanor’s sketches against the information in the library. It’ll help me start a timeline of what we know about her.”
“And I’ll see if there are any records from the railway company that mention Sapphire Bay or Polson,” Liam added.
Oscar tugged on her sleeve. “Can I help, Mom?”
“Of course you can. Let’s go back to our table and work from there.” When Oscar was sitting at the end of the table, Chloe took some crayons and a book filled with blank pages out of her bag. “Why don’t you draw a picture of everything you’ve heard about Eleanor and the man who worked for the railroad?”
“Okay!” Oscar agreed eagerly as he took the crayons from Chloe.
With Oscar hard at work, Chloe and Liam settled into a comfortable silence. As Oscar drew colorful pictures, Chloe compared the sketches that weren’t recognizable as Sapphire Bay with the information Percy had put aside for Liam.
“Hey, look at this.” Liam picked up the book he’d been studying and placed it in front of Chloe. The faded black-and-white photograph he’d found showed a crowd gathered at a train station, banners and flags waving. At the center stood Samuel Hartman shaking hands with the mayor, and just off to the side was Eleanor, sketchbook in hand, her gaze fixed on Samuel.
Chloe leaned closer to the photo. “That’s definitely her.”
“And look how she’s watching him,” Liam pointed out. “There’s definitely something going on between them.”
Chloe didn’t know what Eleanor’s expression meant, but it was more than a casual interest. She read the text under the photo, then looked at Liam. “The photo was taken the day after the gala. There’s a good chance the local artist who gave Samuel a painting of Flathead Lake was Eleanor.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” he murmured.
Chloe turned to the next page, but it was focused on the impact the railway would have had on Polson if it were connected to the railway network. “I wonder what happened to the painting.”
