There were six different books dealing with Ogilvie’s history, four of them self-published, one put out by the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society, and a biography of Joshua Ogilvie that looked to be a worked-over doctoral dissertation published by a university press. Angie took the thickest of them, Ogilvie Past and Present, Rivera took Ogilvie Goes to the Wars, and Tony picked Profiles in Leadership: The Civil Rights Struggle in Ogilvie. Markus made himself ready to take notes, looking as eager as a cub reporter in a 1950s newspaper caper.

Fifteen minutes later Rivera looked up. “Here’s something.”

Tony sneezed three times. “Damn dust. Go ahead, read it.”

Rivera said, “It’s just about what you’d expect. Born 1925, first child of, blah, blah, blah, attended Oberlin on a full scholarship—”

“That had to be a huge deal,” said Tony.

“Highest honors, gave up law school when his father died and came back here to teach at the Ogilvie Colored School.” Her eyes were scanning the page. “Then he goes and enlists in the Air Force all of a sudden, 1948. Why would he do that?”

“We learned about that,” said Markus. “A lot of black men from the South enlisted after President Truman ended discrimination in the armed forces. What?” he said to Tony, who was gawking. “Catholic school is big on history, so sue me.”

“Go on, Rivera,” Angie said, not looking up from her notes.

“Earned his pilot’s wings … served in Japan and Okinawa. Korea in 1950. He was killed in action when his F-86 Sabre was shot down on October 25, 1952.’”

“That’s it?” Tony said.

“No, I’m getting to the good part. ‘Captain Bragg married twice. His second wife, Lavinia Smithson Bragg, bore him twin sons (Martin and Joseph) in 1949. His third son, Calvin, was born while he was serving in Korea.’”

“Okay, so that’s corroboration,” said Tony. “He married twice. Now I’ve got an idea. Call me crazy, but rather than shift through all these old books, couldn’t we just go call on Miss Maddie? She’d tell us if we ask, you know she would.”

“You think we can ask her about Anabel Spate?” Rivera said. “How exactly will we put that question, do you think? Hey, Miss Maddie, tell us about your brother marrying a white woman and then abandoning her, will you?”

“See?” said Tony to Markus. “It’s Rivera’s grace and sensitivity that get us through the hard parts.”

“Bite me, Dr. Phil.”

“You could pull it off, Rivera,” Angie said. “With Miss Maddie, you could.”

Markus said, “Why not just ask Miss Zula?”

“She’s out of town,” said Angie. “Savannah.” And that we might not pull off, she could have said, but didn’t.