Show Time (22 page)

Oh no
. “I don't understand. Let me call Pauli and see how this happened,” I said as soothingly as I could.

Henry trounced off. “I knew that website stuff was going to be a problem.”

* * *

I'd finally gotten Pauli on the line and discovered that, in his eagerness to impress Henry, he'd added a page on Places to Visit in Etonville—with links to websites for businesses all over town, including La Famiglia.

I stayed late to close up and let Benny go early. I snapped off the overhead lights, and slipped the key in the front door lock. I pulled my jacket around my middle and tucked my bag into my belly. You'd never know it was late April; tonight the air was chilled, the inky sky crystal clear. Constellations resembled a connect-the-dots drawing. I would have thought it was early March.

I climbed into my Metro, glancing up and down an empty Main Street. I couldn't be too careful these days. But since last week, there had been no sign of the errant SUV. I turned down Fairchild and onto Ames. As I approached my house, I saw a car in the driveway. By the streetlight I could see a dark vehicle with the shadow of someone in the driver's seat. I pulled to the curb several doors away from my own and switched off the engine. Who would be visiting this time of night?

I opened my car door and slipped out, shutting it again carefully. I could play it safe and try to sneak into my house, or screw up the courage to approach the car and confront the driver. I crept stealthily around the front end of my Metro and moved from tree to tree until I was a mere ten feet away. I walked straight to the driver's side door. The window was open. “Can I help you?” I said loudly and firmly.

The woman inside turned her head. “Oh! I've been waiting here for hours.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Mary Robinson. Jerome's friend.”

I was flabbergasted. Her look was Marian-the-librarian—seventy-ish, unfussy gray hair in a French twist, glasses dangling from a cord around her neck. Just the way Monica had described her. But her voice was pure Kathleen Turner—resonant and throaty. All remnants of my exhaustion vanished.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Let's go inside.”

Despite the late hour, the disconcerting confrontation, the extreme circumstances that had brought her to my house, Mary Robinson was composed and alert. Dressed in black slacks and a matching sweater, she could have been having afternoon tea with an old friend.

“Would you like something? Coffee? Tea?” I asked after we had settled ourselves in my living room.

“No thank you.”

We sat on my sofa. “How did you find me?” I asked.

“I was a reference librarian for twenty years before I assumed responsibility for the special collections. I know how to find things. With and without a computer. Besides, you called me.”

Mary's nephew had been among the Robinsons in Poughkeepsie I'd contacted. The message I'd left had included my landline, which would have been Mary's connection to my address.

“I'm sorry you had to sit in my driveway for so long. Why didn't you just call me?”

“I wanted to see you in person. I like to see the faces of the people I confide in,” Mary said.

Confide? This should be interesting. “So you're staying with family upstate?”

“Temporarily. I love my nephew and I appreciate his taking me in, but with his four children, his wife, and all of the animals, I have no privacy. I'm used to living alone.”

“Where does he think you are tonight? Should you call him?” I asked.

Mary silenced me with a gesture. “He knows I'm staying overnight. At the Eton Bed and Breakfast.”

“You can't stay at your home?”

“I sublet my apartment when I left town to a kind young woman who offered to take care of my cats.”

“Mary, do you know why I was looking for you?”

“I think so,” she said sadly. “We, Jerome and I, never intended for things to get so . . .”

“Out of control?”

She glanced up at me, helpless. “Yes.”

“Maybe you'd better start from the beginning.”

W
e talked for two hours. Mary had met Jerome when he came to the library to use the computer lab and accidentally ended up in the special collections. Their friendship had blossomed, she claimed, over shared interests in rare books and classic first editions. It was a side of him I hadn't known about.

“Someone had left a box of old volumes at the library, and Luther told me to bring it down to special collections. It was part of an estate sale. We receive a number of those donations.” She paused. “I was cataloging a book on bird-watching.”

“When you . . . ?”

“Came across the item in question,” she said. “Very neatly folded at the beginning of Chapter Three. I was intrigued. It was over one hundred years old.”

“A hundred years? Wow. What kind of document is it?”

She hesitated. “A letter . . . from a father to his son during the Civil War. A very famous father. I did a preliminary check on several websites. Similar documents from that time were sold for a great deal of money to collectors.”

“Why is it so valuable?”

She shook her head and looked me straight in the eye. “I'd rather not say any more until I turn it over to the authorities.”

“You told Jerome about it?”

“Yes. By that time we had grown . . . quite close.”

“I see.”

“He wanted to have it authenticated. He thought we could get four to five hundred thousand dollars if the document was authentic. We were making plans for the future.”

I nearly fell off the sofa. “Mary,” I said gently, “why did you decide to take the document out of the library? Wasn't that stealing?”

She sat up straighter. “The Etonville Public Library,” she said bitterly, “was firing me after forty years. They called it downsizing, but I know they thought I was too old and useless.” She stiffened. “Jerome was outraged when he heard. It was his idea to take the letter. No one was aware of the document. Besides, it served them right.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“Jerome found a company named Forensic Document Services that could provide authentication.”

Bingo. “Did you contact them?”

“Jerome did, but there was some issue about the initial fee of a thousand dollars. He felt it was excessive. I offered to pay it, but he refused. Then, I left for Poughkeepsie, and poor Jerome . . .”

She started to cry. I gave her a tissue.

“I know,” I said. “We all miss him.”

Mary sniffed. “I wish I had never found that letter.”

“Where is it now?” I asked.

“I have it right here.”

“With you?” I whispered.

She nodded and looked into her lap.

I noticed for the first time that she had been clutching a red and green quilted bag, large enough to accommodate file folders.

“I had it hidden for safekeeping in the library at the beginning, then gave it to Jerome when he emailed the document service. But when I was let go, I decided I should take it with me to Poughkeepsie until Jerome worked out the details. I thought it would be more secure.”

And all this time, someone was ransacking Etonville for it.

“Maybe I should have left it with Jerome. Then maybe he wouldn't have been murdered.”

She quietly wiped her eyes.

“We should call the police,” I said anxiously.

She nodded. “In the morning we can go to the station.” Mary hesitated. “I never wanted things to get this complicated.”

“Someone wants that document badly enough to kill for it. They've broken into Jerome's apartment and the special collections—”

“The special collections?” Mary asked, immediately distraught.

“Yes and the Etonville Little Theatre.” I said. “Someone tried to run me off the road the other night.”

Mary covered her face with her hands. “I'm so sorry. I never thought . . .”

“Look, it's two a.m. Why don't you stay here tonight? It might be safer than staying in the B and B with the letter.”

Mary stood up and pulled her sweater tightly around her shoulders. “No, I'm fine, dear,” she said. “I'm accustomed to taking care of myself.”

“Then maybe you should leave the letter with me,” I said. “Just until we get to the police station.”

Mary shook her head.

“At least let me follow you to the B and B.”

“I'll be all right.”

When it seemed pointless to try to persuade her any further, we walked out into the night air, and she slid into the driver's seat and started the engine.

“Ms. O'Dell, I don't know exactly why you became involved in Jerome's murder, but you have. That tells me you are a smart young woman with a heart.” She paused. “I hope I can help clear up this horrible mess.”

“I'll meet you at the Municipal Building at eight?”

She nodded and backed out of my driveway.

My body was beat, but my mind was spinning. I began to knit pieces of the story together. Mary and Jerome were in love. Too lonely seniors looking to get a second lease on life. I reviewed the facts. Mary had found the document and, rather than turn it over to the library administration, told Jerome about it. He'd contacted Forensic Document Services to get the document verified. But verification had never happened. Or had it? Where had the figure of half a million dollars come from? Was it a guestimate? But what had precipitated Jerome's death?

I awoke early and powered up my laptop. I wanted more specific information, such as what was considered truly valuable—what kind of nineteenth century document might fetch half a million dollars. I clicked on news reports of large auction sales of historical documents and books. True enough, it seemed that the figure of half a million or more for a rare item was not out of the question for rich collectors and well-funded museums.

* * *

Mary sat primly in a straight-backed chair opposite Bill.

“So Mary, let's talk about the document,” he said.

She sat taller in her seat, both tough and fragile. “Of course.”

“You said the document service was Jerome's idea?”

“Yes, but he had an introduction from an acquaintance.”

“And he never mentioned this person's name?”

“No. But when he contacted them, there was a problem with the business arrangement.”

“Such as?” he asked.

“They wanted a thousand dollars upfront just to see the document. That's before any real authentication.”

“I see.” Bill stopped to gather his thoughts.

“As I told Ms. O'Dell, Jerome thought it excessive.”

I looked in his direction. “Do you, uh, mind if I ... ?”

“Go ahead.”

“Mary, when did you leave Etonville?” I asked.

“Let me think. I received my pink slip March first and was told I had thirty days. But I was not about to let them fire me so I turned in my letter of resignation March fifteenth,” she said triumphantly.

“And moved to Poughkeepsie?”

“I left town April first and sublet my apartment. I only intended to be with my nephew for a few months. Until Jerome sold the document and we could settle down someplace.” She leaned back in her chair. “All we wanted was enough money to keep us healthy and independent. We didn't want to have to rely on others to take care of us. The letter seemed to be a gift that fell right into our laps.”

If you assumed that confiscating the property of the public library was a gift. I knew what they intended to do was illegal and obviously dangerous, but I sympathized with them.

“When was the last time you heard from Jerome?” I asked.

Mary considered. “We talked at the beginning of April. I think he might have been changing his mind about the document.”

“Why do you think that?” Bill asked quickly.

“Because he was having some problems with the company. He asked me if I was certain I wanted to go ahead with selling the letter. I told him I was.” She studied her hands in her lap. “That was selfish of me and might have gotten him killed.”

“Was that the last time ... ?”

“I called him April fourteenth. I remember because my nephew was filing his tax return that night,” she said. “But no one answered. I waited a few days, and when I couldn't reach him, I called Mildred. I thought maybe someone at the library might have seen him.” She touched a handkerchief to her nose. “It was too late. He was already dead and the funeral had taken place that morning.”

“Mary, did you have a meeting planned with Jerome for April sixteenth?”

“A meeting? No. After I heard he'd died, I wanted to return to Etonville with the document, but I was frightened. I wasn't sure what to do. Then I received your call.”

Mary paused and Bill looked at me. I shrugged.

“I thought I should just come to Etonville and straighten everything out.” Mary looked up at me and made a face. “But it was a couple of days before my nephew remembered to give me your message. So here I am,” she said simply.

“You have the document in your possession?” Bill asked Mary, a note of impatience creeping into his question.

“Of course.”

“May we see it?” I asked quietly.

Mary folded her hands in her lap. “It was a single sheet of parchment, discolored and fragile, written by Abraham Lincoln to his son Robert and dated February 15, 1863.”

Bill and I gawked as Mary withdrew a file from her purse that held a piece of paper encased in a plastic sleeve. She held it up for us to see. It was, as she had described it, yellowed and crinkly with age.
Executive Mansion
was centered and engraved at the top of the sheet, with
Washington
and the date underneath. It was a short missive, a brief two paragraphs, and at the bottom of the letter was
Father
, with
A. Lincoln
in parentheses below it.

We were hushed for a moment, taking in the significance of what we were viewing. Then Bill came to life. “I'll need to take control of the document and keep it safe. It could be evidence in a murder investigation. Ultimately, you know it will need to be returned to the library, Mary.”

“I understand,” she said wistfully and slipped the letter in the file.

“You should probably leave town as soon as you can. It's safer in Poughkeepsie for the time being. I'll contact you when I need to speak with you again,” Bill said.

Who knew what the killer had found out about Jerome and Mary and the document? “Someone will stop at nothing to get this letter. Your life could be in danger,” I added. “You know that, right?”

“I can see that now.”

* * *

Mary and I walked out of the Municipal Building. I wanted to take her to breakfast, but it would be impossible to find privacy at Coffee Heaven. I thought a little trip to Creston would offer the anonymity I needed to broach a sensitive topic: the diamond ring. Mary deserved to know. I had said as much to Bill, during a minute alone while Mary was in the ladies' room, and he'd agreed.

We chatted about the special collections, library issues, and Mary's family in upstate New York as I coasted down State Route 53. In Creston, I found a parking space on the street just outside a café. I decided on
café au lait
and a bagel; Mary ordered coffee, black; one egg, scrambled; and rye toast, unbuttered. I had studied her while she was studying the menu. Mary was a woman who knew her own mind and wasn't afraid to share it.

“I'm astounded that you had such a valuable piece of property in your possession.”

“We could have lived the rest of our lives on the sum we would have received,” she said, then laughed. “Jerome was planning on a trip around the world and a house in the country. It would have been a dream come true.”

“Do you see that jewelry store across the street?”

She turned in her seat and looked.

“Jerome did some shopping there.”

“That's where he bought this?” She lifted the sleeve of her blouse away from her wrist to reveal the gold bracelet.

“Yes.” I plunged in. “It is also where he bought a diamond ring.”

“A diamond . . . ?” Her face transitioned from confusion to clarity to embarrassment.

“Right now it's in the evidence lock-up at the station. It's beautiful.”

She shook her head. “Jerome was so romantic. So much more than I had been used to. Before I met him, I thought that I was too old for . . .”

“Love?” I said quietly.

“Yes.” She looked down at her coffee cup.

I waited for her to continue.

“I began to believe it was possible, even at my age. Silly, I know.”

“I think you made him very happy. The night before he died, he was as excited as a little kid. Now I know why.”

Mary's face crumpled. “I'd give anything if Jerome could be here with me again.”

We drove in silence back to Etonville and when we had reached the Eton Bed and Breakfast, I urged Mary to get on the road as soon as possible.

“I'd like to make one stop before I leave Etonville,” she said.

“Where . . . ?”

“I'd like to visit Jerome.”

“Yes. He'd like that. St. Andrew's Episcopal cemetery.”

She touched my arm. “Thank you.”

I hugged her warmly. She hugged me back.