Broken Heart 07 Cross Your Heart (20 page)

Tez moved back, slipping away from me. I turned and sat at his feet. He joined me on the floor, and cupped my face. “You’re the one, Elizabeth.”

“I know you think so.”

“I’ve made my choice. You just have to make yours.” He kissed me. “But I hope until you make up your mind, we can do a lot more of this.” His finger reached down and swiped my clit. He was so bawdy.

And I loved it.

“Yes,” I said. “I do believe we can accommodate each other.”

“That vocabulary of yours,” he said. “Maybe next time you can dress up as the English professor and I’ll be her naughty student.”

I smiled. “How do you feel about being… punished?”

“Seriously? I’m so gonna marry you.”

We took fifteen minutes to clean up our clothing mess. I couldn’t regret the loss of my wrap dress. I’d never had my clothes ripped off before. It had been exhilarating.

We took showers. Separately. Otherwise, we would’ve never accomplished what we set out to do. I donned my black nightie, which hit me at mid-thigh and had a plunging neckline—too distracting. I dug through Tez’s duffel and grabbed a pair of his sweats and an old concert T-shirt. I rolled the waistband of the sweats up because they were too big; the shirt almost fell to my knees.

“‘KISS’?” I asked, pointing to the painted faces of the seventies’ phenom. “Really?”

“KISS rocks,” said Tez. “You look good in my shirt. You don’t really need the pants.”

“If we’re going to do any actual research, then yes, I do.”

He was wearing a pair of sweats, too, but nothing else—and I was having a hard time looking away from his muscled chest. His skin was the color of caramel latte, and I wanted to lick him. He was probably walking around shirtless because he knew I would be tempted.

In fact, our sexual romp had moved us up a relationship level. Neither Tez nor I hesitated to show our affection, whether it was a touch as we walked past each other, a quick kiss, or just a tender look. Granted, Tez didn’t exactly show restraint in holding my hand or putting his arm around me before we made love. I was the one who hesitated to display affection.

We settled down to poke and prod through the library.

I started with the desk, and Tez started at the far end of the library, working his way through the shelves.

“Most of these are first editions,” he said. “And the subjects are eclectic as hell. Darwin is next to a book about spiritualism. And there’s a biography of John Updike next to a hardback about early Hollywood.”

“My grandfather had varied interests,” I said. “He invested in Oklahoma oil fields, sponsored archaeological digs in Egypt, and gave scholarships to women to attend college—in the 1920s. He was a very progressive man.”

“If we’re lucky, he was also a man who hedged his bets. He seems likely to keep information, especially if he needed to protect his family.”

“He wouldn’t have been the one to commit the crime,” I said, admitting what I had been trying not to think about. “His father, Jeremiah, built the Silverstone mansion. My grandfather lived there with his brother Josiah until their father passed away. Then my grandfather moved to Tulsa, got married, and built this house.”

“And his brother stayed in Broken Heart.”

I paused from digging through a desk drawer. “He was grandfather’s younger brother, not particularly likeable. He neither married nor had children. When he died, the mansion was essentially abandoned.”

“You mean Pops might’ve found the room, or discovered the big secret, and decided it was just as awful as we think it is. How long was the mansion empty?”

“Forty, fifty years.”

“That long?” He whistled. He’d made his way to the fourth set of shelves, and I was on the last drawer of the desk. It was as empty as the rest. Why would my grandfather empty the drawers but leave everything else as it was? Or had my father cleaned them out?

Maybe Grandfather kept his important papers in his study, although “study” wasn’t quite the word to describe the other room. It was the place my grandfather would go to relax. It had the same masculine feel as the library: big, dark furniture, paneled walls, dark green carpet, and an oversized stone fireplace. It also had a full bar and a billiard table. My grandfather had enjoyed old-fashioned comforts, and his study reflected the man. Simple.
Solid.
Unchangeable.

“Anything, Ellie Bee?” asked Tez. He’d worked his way through the bookshelves all the way to the fireplace. He stood near the mantel and stared up at the large painting above it. “Is that a Van Gogh?”

“I believe so.” I sat down in the large leather chair and sighed. “There’s nothing here.”

“We’re only half finished with the room, Velma.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Fred.”

He grinned at me. Then he walked to the next bookshelf and peered at the upper shelves. “I don’t know why I thought your gramps would be a secret-button kind of guy.” Experimentally, he pulled a book from the shelf. “Damn. No door.”

“Did you expect the house to have hidden passageways?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. This house was built in the twenties, wasn’t it? Prohibition was a real bitch. Lots of rich dudes built secret rooms for their hooch and their hooch parties.”

“Now you think you’re in a History Channel special,” I said. Still, the idea had some merit. My grandfather enjoyed fine liquors. He certainly wouldn’t have let a mere law get in the way of his pleasures, especially not as a young man with his financial resources.

“Check under the desk,” said Tez, obviously warming up to his secret-room theory. “Maybe there’s a button or switch.”

“I think my parents would’ve discovered such a place.” I slipped underneath the desk and looked closely at the exterior. Nothing. Disappointed, I climbed to my feet. I have to admit Tez’s idea of a hidden room had a certain romanticism.

“Martha said your parents stayed on their side of the house. And P.S.: This place is big enough to accommodate all the people in a Third World country.”

“Why on earth keep something secret when there was no longer a need?”

“Let’s say your grandfather’s protecting this Broken Heart problem—information passed along from his dad. Would he tell your father? Or take it to his grave?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

We finished examining all the bookshelves in the room, but it was quite obvious that all that lined the shelves were books. Nothing looked odd or out of place, and our random checking of the tomes didn’t reveal hidden papers or notes or a map with a big X indicating “Broken Heart Secret Here.”

“Don’t give up,” said Tez. He kissed me lightly. “We still have another room to check out.”

He took my hand, and we left the library.

The study was just as I remembered it. Like the previous room, it smelled vaguely of lemon polish. I swore, I could detect a hint of cigar smoke, which reminded me of my grandfather. He died when I was twenty-two. He’d been a good man, solid through and through. At least that was what I had always believed.

I hoped it was true.

Tez prowled the room, scenting it, and I wandered over to the corner where the bar was located. Leather stools lined up in front of the elaborately carved cherry-wood counter. It was polished to a high shine, and even the bottles and glasses, which hadn’t been used in years, gleamed.

“This place is the best man-cave I’ve ever been in.”

I looked at him. “Man-cave?”

“Yeah. You know, a dude space.” He waved his hands around. “This is all testosterone, princess.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t. Tez didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy fondling the billiard table. Even though I didn’t buy into Tez’s theory about a hooch room, secret or otherwise, I still checked underneath the bar for any buttons or switches.

And I found one.

“Tez!”

He put down the cue ball and hurried over to me. “What?”

I pushed the button, and a panel near the fireplace popped open.

“Holy shit.” Tez leaned over the bar and kissed me. “Way to go, Ellie.”

Giddy, from both the kiss and my unexpected find, I joined Tez by the narrow opening. We peered inside the dark passage, and then looked at each other.

“If Martha knew about this place, there wouldn’t be cobwebs hanging from the ceiling or dirt on the concrete,” I said. A small shelf at eye level held a row of tapered candles, some half melted, and a stack of boxed matches. “I’m fairly sure flashlights were available at some point, yet he continued to use candles to light his way. Old-fashioned to the end.”

Tez lit one of the unused candles and slid past me through the doorway. I followed him. It was a tight space, especially for Tez, who was much larger and taller. Even I was squished; my shoulders kept scraping against the walls.

“There’s a set of stairs here,” said Tez. “They go up.”

“The attic.”

The staircase was just as narrow as the hallway, and spiraled up quite a distance. Finally, we reached the top, which revealed a trapdoor above us. Tez pushed it open and entered. After a moment, he reached down and offered his hand, which I grabbed, and he helped me up.

The flickering yellow light of our inadequate candle revealed a small, tidy room, dusty with disuse. On the far wall, there was a closed rolltop desk with a leather chair parked in front of it. On the opposite side, wooden crates were stacked neatly: two rows of two with the fifth box centered on top of them.

“Five,” said Tez.

Foreboding sat heavily in my stomach. What had my grandfather known about our family’s past in Broken Heart? Had he always known about his father’s sins… or had he found out the truth and the knowledge had driven him out of town?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Here was the evidence of my own family’s complicity in the murder of Elizabeth Silverstone.

“I feel sick.” I walked to the chair and threw myself into it. “He knew. My grandfather knew.”

“We don’t know anything yet. Those crates could be filled with the finest Scotch this side of Scotland. We either need more light, or to haul this crap downstairs.”

“No electricity up here,” I said. I pointed to a shelf nearby that held supplies: boxes of pens and paper clips, sheaves of yellowed paper, and several kerosene lanterns.

We lit them all and placed them around the room. It wasn’t the same as overhead fluorescent lighting, but I supposed it would do.

Tez grabbed the first crate and pulled off the lid.

We peered inside.

“Newspapers,” I said. I gently picked up the first one. “The Broken Heart Banner. Look at the masthead—the managing editor was Jonathon LeRoy. And the publisher was Jeremiah Silverstone.”

“Looks like your great-grandfather had his finger in all the pies.”

“It appears so.”

I carefully unfolded the newspaper. It was a single sheet printed double-sided and folded into quarters. “Not a big publication,” I said. “Then again, how much news was there to report?”

“The Allens got another cow,” said Tez, pointing to a front-page tidbit. “And Jeremiah Silverstone donated copies of the new Edith Wharton novel, Madame de Treymes, to the library. Hey, look. ‘To be added to the Elizabeth Silverstone Memorial Collection.’ ”

“What’s the date of the paper?”

“March 28, 1906.”

“This one is June 13, 1907.” I looked down at the other newspapers. “They don’t seem to be in any particular order.”

“Well, let’s remedy that,” said Tez.

It took us an hour to create a time line for the newspaper. It appeared that my grandfather had kept every issue of the weekly paper during a two-and-a-half-year period. Issue One of the Broken Heart Banner was published on June 14, 1905, as evidenced by the huge “FIRST ISSUE” that blared across the front page. Even though the five original families had settled the area in 1889, Broken Heart didn’t become a town until Jeremiah Silverstone built the general store in 1894. We knew this because the paper did a huge story about my great-grandfather—a propaganda piece if I’d ever seen one. Jeremiah Silverstone either owned the buildings, or financed them. Even the bank owed its structure and its coffers to my great-grandfather.

The last issue we had was published on December 11, 1907.

“Do you think there were more papers?”

“Could be it only had a short run,” said Tez. “It’s obvious that Elizabeth died prior to the newspaper’s start.” He pointed to a November issue. “Hell, Oklahoma wasn’t even a state until nearly the end of 1906.”

“Why keep these papers if they’re not important?” I said, frustrated. “And why hide them in here?”

“Maybe your grandfather didn’t know their true significance. Maybe he took what he thought might be important.”

“And never told anyone? He built a secret room so he could put these things in here. What he did just feels wrong to me.”

“Don’t judge your grandfather just yet, Ellie. We don’t know his motivations. And we have yet to find any evidence linking your family to any crime.” He put his arm around me and tipped my chin. “Let’s go over everything again. We’re probably missing something. Sometimes the smallest detail can crack open a case.”

I eyed the other crates. “Let’s open them,” I said, “and see if Jeremiah Silverstone’s sins are tucked inside.”

Tez and I opened the other crates. While I went through the contents, he studied the newspapers. He could be incredibly patient; as a homicide detective, it was a necessary trait. That, and pure stubbornness. He was sure the old papers held information that could help us, and I didn’t doubt Tez’s instincts.

I supposed that I just wanted a big blinking sign that said: Read This. It Explains Everything.

“Let’s assume,” said Tez, “Elizabeth died before 1894. Let’s also assume the suicides of Mary McCree and Catherine Allen occurred before then, too.”

“Why would we assume any of that?” I asked.

“Because if the legend of how the town was named is true, and the town didn’t become official until 1894…”

I picked up the thread of his thoughts. “Then we know for sure that the death of Mary McCree happened before then. But why the others?”

“I think Elizabeth was killed first.” He glanced at me. “I hate using your name and ‘killed’ in the same sentence.”