Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1) (26 page)

36

Charleston, South Carolina

Schwartzman slept fitfully and was up well before the sun. She cleaned the kitchen, tossing out the perishables and fighting the memories of that room. Ava still kept buttermilk in the refrigerator for pancakes, still filled the little jar on the counter with Fig Newtons, something Schwartzman thought she’d only done for her visits. The smell of her favorite citrus dish soap. The peach tea she’d always brewed in the summer sun.

She ran the dishwasher and wiped down the countertops before going through Ava’s closet. This time she moved slowly, searching for something that Ava could be buried in. She found a simple green dress that she’d seen her aunt wear. Chose an outfit for herself to wear to the attorney’s office, black slacks and a cream sweater. The sweater with the slacks was dull, something Ava herself likely wouldn’t pair together. Finally, she chose a simple black dress and laid it across the bed to wear to Ava’s funeral.

She arrived at the attorney’s office five minutes late. Ava’s attorney was a man not much older than Schwartzman.

“Colin Glazier.” He shook her hand and invited her to sit. He motioned to the green dress Schwartzman had brought with her to take to the mortuary after her meeting. “She liked that one,” Colin said. “She wore it to a fund-raiser for the museum back in January.”

Schwartzman wanted to know about the fund-raiser, to hear about Ava in the context of something so normal. January was months ago. He’d likely seen her since then. He would have seen her regularly.

Ava had come to her graduation from medical school. That was the last time she’d seen her aunt, more than seven years ago.

“Would you like us to deliver it to Woodward’s for you? The dress, I mean,” he added when she gave him a puzzled look. Polite, straightforward, it wasn’t hard to imagine why Ava had selected him.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He buzzed his assistant, who came to take it, and Schwartzman watched the dress go in a new wave of loss.

“You are the sole beneficiary of her entire estate,” the attorney told her when she’d taken the seat across from his desk.

Schwartzman said nothing. Her mother had told her as much.

“Would you like to go through the assets now? Or would you prefer I put you in touch with her investment adviser?”

Schwartzman sat up in the chair. “Was there a letter or anything?”

“Yes. Of course.” He passed her a sealed envelope.

Schwartzman opened it and pulled out a piece of heavy stock paper. Let out a shaky breath. The letter was typewritten. How she longed to see Ava’s narrow handwriting.

My dear Annabelle,

I’m afraid I’ve left you quite a list, so don’t hesitate to get help from Colin or his staff with all these old-lady details. Just because I lived in that house my whole life doesn’t mean you should. I know it will always find a wonderful family like ours if you should decide to sell.

Some things to remember, though:

Light fixtures in the entryway and den are original. If you sell the house, those should go to Christie’s Auction first. Colin will have the number . . .

Schwartzman stopped reading, scanned the page, flipped to the end. It was nothing more than a how-to guide to taking the house apart. The second page was a list of people who could care for the house if Schwartzman wasn’t ready to sell.

Where was the personal note?

She saw the letter was dated February, only a few months before. “Did she update her will recently?”

“The will itself hasn’t been updated in more than a decade,” he said. “But Ava tended to rewrite that letter to you every few months.”

“Was there another version?”

“Ava always took the last letter with her and replaced it with the new one. She was very meticulous that way.”

She wondered if something had happened in February, something that would make her draft this version. Had the earlier ones been more emotional? Or had those feelings Ava once had toward her niece simply dried up over the years?
Stop,
she told herself. Of course Ava loved her. She didn’t need a letter to tell her that. But how she wanted one.

She blinked back tears and glanced down at the letter again. A full household, assets, investments. All of it coming to her. She folded the note and returned it to the envelope. She couldn’t do this now.

“Thank you,” she told Colin, standing.

“I know it’s overwhelming.”

She nodded.

He handed her a business card. “Let me know how we can help.”

As Schwartzman started to turn for the door, Colin added, “She was really proud of you. She talked about you all the time.”

“I appreciate that, thank you,” she said, tears threatening to fall. She reached out to shake his hand.

He held on to hers. “One more thing. I know you’ll be going through the house a little at a time. She didn’t put anything about this in writing, but your aunt often mentioned that she had saved a whole shelf full of books that she wanted you to have.”

Schwartzman ignored the tears that trailed over her cheeks. “Books?”

“Yes. She knew how much you loved books.”

Ava’s house was full of books. The library had somewhere close to a thousand volumes, and there were random stacks piled in each room. What did Ava mean?

As if reading her mind, Colin said, “The ones in the white bookcase in her bedroom. She was particularly keen that you should have those. They meant so much to her.”

Schwartzman left the office, trying to remember if she and Ava have ever talked about books. Ava had been a huge fan of music, playing every type for her niece on the old phonograph in the living room when Schwartzman was young and, later, on a sound system that she’d had installed when Schwartzman was in high school.

Of course, Schwartzman had seen Ava reading—the house was full of books—but the idea that Ava had wanted her to pay attention to her books was a surprise. That they were in a case that Schwartzman had never even noticed was more surprising.

Schwartzman drove directly back to Ava’s house without stopping to eat. The police cruiser was on the opposite side of the street now, and she recognized Officer Hill.

He rolled the window down. “Morning.”

She waved hello.

“We just checked the perimeter, and everything is clear. As long as you’re okay, I’m going to take off. We’ll have someone back tonight.”

She waved again and watched the cruiser drive away.

She let herself in and checked the downstairs before going up to the bedrooms. No smell of cologne. Despite her excitement, she moved cautiously, slowly.

She stepped into Ava’s bedroom and looked for the bookcase. She found it in the corner of the room, tucked between the window and the dressing table. Compared with many of the antique pieces in the room—and the house—the bookcase was nothing special. It stood maybe four feet tall with simple whitewashed shelves, the finish worn along the edges.

Schwartzman drew the curtains and flipped on the light. The room was bathed in the warm, amber light of the old ceiling fixture.

Standing in front of the bookcase, she studied the titles. On the top shelf, Allende, Kingsolver, Oates, Walker, Angelou. Books Schwartzman had, of course, read. But none of the titles conjured memories of her aunt. She knelt on the floor and pulled out the copy of
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
. The binding was creased in several places. She flipped through the pages, but there were no markings, no turned-down corners. She replaced it and scanned the line of books, all paperbacks. They appeared to be lined up from shortest to tallest in no particular order. Would she need to go through each book page by page? Looking for what? Or perhaps it meant nothing at all.

But she didn’t believe that.

“What were you trying to tell me, Ava?”

She ran her fingers along the spines. Books Ava had touched. Her long, lean fingers, fingers like her father’s had been, like her own, their tips curved in just slightly, making them appear slightly arthritic. The clinical term was clinodactyly, a condition that caused a curvature of the digits, though theirs was mild enough to go unnoticed unless one knew to look. To Schwartzman, they were fingers that always looked old beyond their years.

The book heights grew steadily taller along the shelf up to a hardbound copy of
The Red Tent
. Tucked behind it was a short, narrow paperback. Out of place. She pulled the book out and turned it in her hands.
The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood.

The edges of the pages were yellowed as if it had spent a great deal of time in the sun. Schwartzman remembered the story. Girls who lived to give birth, without love, without companionship. She flipped the book open and fanned the pages. Maybe a third of the way through, a folded note fluttered out. Lined paper, one end was fringed where it had been pulled free from a small notebook.

Her heart thudded in her chest as the paper fell to the floor.

She jumped up at a noise from the closet.

She flung open the door, yanked the chain to flood the tiny space with light, then kicked the hanging clothes, prepared for someone to leap out. The dresses swayed lightly, plastic and paper hangers from the dry cleaner whispering to one another.

She shut the door firmly, locked the bedroom door, and stared at the page lying folded on the rug.

She lifted the note.

Ava’s neat cursive writing was visible through the back of the page. With a heavy breath, Schwartzman opened the note with trembling fingers.

At the top,
P
ROPERTY OF
A
NNABELLE
S
CHWARTZMAN
was written in capital printed letters.

My dear Annabelle,

It is my greatest hope that I am seated beside you as you read this, perhaps sipping on a glass of Evan Williams (an old one) that we bought to celebrate this newly hatched plan, a way to truly be free of your past. Or, if you have planned an escape without me, that we are toasting to your present—or future—success.

Though I know your mother wouldn’t approve, spinsterhood has its benefits. You deserve better. Perhaps a little light reading will help. P. D. James was always one of my favorites. Or maybe your tastes take more after your father . . .

You have my eternal love,

Ava

Schwartzman let the letter fall to the hardwood floor and covered her mouth with her hands. The sobs shook through her sternum and rattled in her gut. Ava had been there when she first left Spencer, and she’d been preparing for Schwartzman’s future.

How had Ava known that Spencer wouldn’t give up?

Had Schwartzman given something away in those few conversations they had? Something that tipped Ava off to the ways he continued to torture her?

How long had she been waiting for Schwartzman to come back for her help?

She swiped the tears off her face and scanned the shelves for P. D. James. Found
Unnatural Causes
and pulled it out. Tears blurred her vision as she flipped through the pages.

There was nothing.

She found another James. Again nothing. And then a third.

Nothing.

She returned to the first and went through the book page by page. Then the second and the third. Through the windows, the sky darkened as the sun slipped behind a cloud. A gust of wind made the windows shudder in their panes.

Shivers rolled across her shoulders and down her arms.

After your father.

Her memories of him reading included law journals and the
New Yorker
, the local papers. Her eye caught a Clive Cussler novel on the bottom shelf. Unlike the others, this was a hardback. She pulled the book out and turned it in her hands, skimmed the back cover blurb—“a deadly game of hunter and hunted.”
When she tried to open the book, the pages were glued together. She tested the cover of the book, then the back, but both were sealed.

The spine was solid. When she flipped it upside down, she saw what looked like a drawer set into the book. She pried it loose. It came out only a half inch or so before it stuck on something. Schwartzman slid a finger into the opening and worked the drawer out of the book.

“Ava,” she whispered as the drawer came loose.

The small cardboard drawer was filled with cash. Three separate stacks of bills. Schwartzman pulled the wedged bills out of the compartment and flipped through them. All hundreds. Easily two inches of $100 bills. How many bills in two inches? Three hundred? More? A single stack might be $30,000.

In the drawer was a second stack of hundreds as thick as the first. The third stack was fifties. Under them a note.

Be free, Annabelle. Love, Ava

Beside the word
love
was the sign for infinity. Love to infinity. It was what her father used to say to her.

She laughed through sobs.

With this much money, she could truly vanish. Live in Europe or South America. Never worry about Spencer again.

She felt slightly panicked. How could she leave everything?

What everything?

She had so few friends, and most of them acquaintances because she never felt truly rooted to a place, the shadow of Spencer always just over her shoulder. There was no family other than her mother, who she had seen for ninety minutes in the past three years.

Her career. That was what she had. It would mean leaving her career. Giving up her work.

No.
That wasn’t necessarily true. They had medical examiners in other places. It just meant starting again. More schooling, exams, licenses.

It could be done.

She stared down at the stacks of cash. How long had this money been hidden here, waiting for her?

She recalled those two weeks she’d spent with Ava, their correspondence in the months when she first moved to Seattle. Encouragement about finishing medical school. Ava had been the one to recommend the University of Washington in Seattle. She put Schwartzman in contact with someone in admissions. The woman who provided Schwartzman with a list of potential scholarships, who had called her four weeks later to inform her that she was the sole recipient of a generous scholarship. Schwartzman tried to remember the name of it.