Paging the Dead (22 page)

“Sometimes people have complicated reasons for wanting
to trace their lineage, and maybe there was some vanity at play with Dorothy, but she told us numerous times she wanted it done for the family, and especially for Cassidy.”

He returned to the book, leafing through pages with more concentration now. “So this woman, my great-whatever-grandmother, looks like she saved everything she came across.”

“Yes, very typical for the day for women who kept a book. They saved personal mementos and objects of daily life that triggered a remembrance, were pleasing to the eye or caught their fancy in some way.”

“What was supposed to go here?” he asked, stopping to examine the blank spot on the page Jack had asked about.

“It was a lock of your great-grandfather Harrison's hair in a little envelope. It's gotten lost. We're hoping it will turn up before we're finished.”

“Would it have been one of those waxed paper envelopes? The kind they used to put stamps in at the post office?”

“Glassine. Yes. I'm pretty sure it was in the book when we found it, but it must have fallen out when Dorothy had it. She kept it overnight to look at it.”

“I think I might know where it is,” he said. “I saw something like that on Dorothy's desk. I meant to ask about it. I thought maybe it was my mother's from when she was a baby. She was a blond tyke.”

“Thanks for telling me. I'll see if we can locate it and put it back in the original book,” I said. “Would you like to see what this ancestor, Laurena Bascom Pritchett, looked like? She was a blonde, too.”

“There are pictures?”

“
There's a nice ambrotype of her as a young woman,” I said, reaching across to turn the pages to the back of the scrapbook. “It was in a half case that was falling apart, but we managed to get a pretty good reproduction of it.”

“Wow, she looks like my mother,” he said. “Or I guess it would be my mother looks like her. Cassidy, look at this, this is Gigi's—” He looked a question at me.

“Her great-grandmother.”

“Why was she great?” Cassidy asked, coming over to have a look.

I made a stab at explaining consanguinity links, but Cassidy's frown only deepened. I reached for an example. “It would be like if you'd known Gigi's mother,” I said. “She would be your great-grandmother.”

“No, that would be Auntie Dot,” Cassidy said. “And she's dead now.”

“Aunt Dot was Gigi's sister, not her mother,” Jeremy said.

“No,” Cassidy insisted, her mouth setting in a stubborn line. “Gigi told me, Auntie Dot was her only mother.”

Jeremy started to correct her, but I pre-empted him. “You're right, Cassidy. She's told us that, too. Let's just say this woman is someone from your family who lived a long time ago. She's related to all of you.”

Cassidy studied the picture. “Gigi looks sad like that sometimes,” she said. “Why didn't this lady smile for her picture? You're supposed to smile nice.”

“Back in those days a person had to sit still for a long time to have a picture taken. I mean really still, like they were frozen. It was hard to hold a smile that long so most people have serious expressions in their pictures.”

Cassidy considered this for a moment. “I'm going to see how long I can smile,” she said, pulling her mouth back until her whole face contorted. She held it as she took her bag and went to the futon.

“Thanks,” Jeremy said. “I'm a fact guy. I forget sometimes there's different ways to interpret things. I guess Mom did think of Dorothy as a mother figure.” He was silent for a few minutes, seemingly lost in thought. Finally he said, “I admit it, I was unfair to Dorothy in some ways. In my defense, she didn't make things easy. She was a hard woman to deal with, but Mom's told me a lot over the last week and now I realize I blamed Dorothy for things she had no hand in. And at the end of the day she did try to make it up to my mother.” He glanced over to make sure Cassidy wasn't listening. “This will be all over town soon enough, so you might as well know. Dorothy left High Ground to the town of Morningside.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering how this made anything up to his mother. “And you're
pleased
about that?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes,” he said, “I mean, who'd want to live in that old mausoleum? And the upkeep would make it unsustainable as a private home. The town can make good use of it. But she left my mother the house they grew up in and the gatehouse at High Ground.”

“Oh, that gatehouse is beautiful,” I said. “Esme and I did a lot of our work in there when we were going through all this stuff.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and apparently it's one of the few places around here that holds good memories for my mother. She used to play out there when she was a child.”

I was hoping if I left a silence he'd volunteer more about Dorothy's will, but no such luck.

“Anyway,” he said, his voice shaky, “I wish I could go back and tell Dorothy I'm sorry for some of the things I said to her.”

I heard a huffing sound coming from the futon and turned to see Cassidy sitting cross-legged with the puzzle box in her lap. She was almost clawing at it now, near tears.

“Man, I wish Dorothy had never given her that thing,” Jeremy said. “Or at least that she'd never told her that bit about her dreams coming true if she could open it. She's driving herself crazy and us along with her.”

“Maybe she just needs to take a break. Maybe put it away for a while?”

“How I wish,” he said. “She won't let us. Even sleeps with it and if I try to move it she wakes up and gets upset.” He sighed and turned back to the scrapbook.

He flipped a few more pages and then watched me work on embellishing pages with borders, hand-drawn decorative elements and ornate metal photo corners.

“You two are really good at this,” he said.

“Yes, we are,” Esme said.

“Esme doesn't believe in modesty,” I said.

“Not
false
modesty,” Esme replied. “We're good at what we do. Nothing wrong with taking pride in your work.”

“Nothing at all.” Jeremy smiled. He looked like a totally different person when he smiled. “So, I don't suppose there's any photos of her husband,” he said, pointing to the somber portrait of Laurena Bascom Pritchett.

“Yes. Turn to the next page, there's a reproduction from a tintype of him in uniform. He must have sent it to her since there's no evidence he ever saw her again once he left for the war. Tintypes were faster, cheaper and more durable than the glass ambrotypes, and some enterprising photographers built portable rigs and followed the military units to their camps to take affordable likenesses the men could send home to their families.”

“I doubt affordable was an issue for him. He was a Pritchett,” Jeremy said.

“You really
don't
know much about your family history, do you?” Esme said.

“What Esme means to say is that not all your Pritchett ancestors were wealthy. They did well, but the real money didn't come into the family until your great-grandfather Harrison built his successful company.”

“But he had to have seed money from somewhere, right?” Jeremy said. “An inheritance probably.”

“Can't tell you where he got the start-up money,” Esme said, “but a grand inheritance was unlikely. We heard he was a bit of a gambler in his younger days. Maybe he had a winning streak.”

“No kidding?” Jeremy grinned. “How'd you find that out?”

“It's unsubstantiated,” I said, avoiding the question.

“Okay, but who'd you hear it from? Somebody who knew him back then?”

“We heard it from Hank Spencer,” Esme said, ignoring my warning look.

“Spencer? As in the guy they're about to arrest for Dorothy's murder?” Jeremy said, his voice low as he spoke through clenched teeth.

“Did the police tell you that?” I asked, glancing over to make sure Cassidy was still absorbed in working the box.

“No, but we hear things,” Jeremy said. “And I know you do, too.”

I looked over at Esme and she gave me a what-can-I-say shrug.

I hadn't realized until that moment how desperately I wanted to believe Hank Spencer was as innocent as he seemed. I barely knew the man. And while all our interactions hadn't been the greatest, even on his worst behavior he'd seemed so guileless. Still, I had to face facts. The ring disappearing after his visit was a big problem and the timing seemed to seal his fate. There simply hadn't been time for anyone else to do it. The thought made me physically ill and I tilted my head back and closed my eyes to stave off a wave of nausea.

Suddenly there was a loud snap followed by a squeal. My eyes popped open to see both Esme and Jeremy moving toward Cassidy. The girl was holding up her hand and I thought she'd pinched her finger in the box mechanism.

“I did it! I did it!” she shouted, then squealed again, showing us the puzzle box with the secret drawer splayed open. “Now my dreams will come true. And look, Daddy, Auntie Dot gave me her pretty ring.”

We all stood, mouths agape, staring at the ring Cassidy had slipped on her thumb.

Jeremy looked over at me, eyes wide, eyebrows migrated halfway up his forehead.

“Yeah,” I said, “that's it. The Pritchett family ring.”

“Lord. Have. Mercy,” Esme whispered. She put her hand across her forehead and let out a big breath. “I'll go call Denny.”

“W
HAT WAS THAT WOMAN THINKING?”
D
ENTON
C
ARLSON
asked when we were sitting at our kitchen table an hour later. He'd talked with Jeremy and Cassidy then sent them on home. “Giving an expensive thing like that to a kid? And hidden in that gadget? They might've chucked that thing in the trash. It could be in the landfill by now.”

“It wasn't the smartest move,” Esme said, “but she did make sure Cassidy knew it was important to hold on to the box.”

“But why the games?” Denton asked. “Why didn't she just give it to her?”

“You saw the note she put in there with it. She wanted to teach the girl a lesson about perseverance and responsibility,” Esme said. “And she intended to be around to supervise the lesson. She'd meant the box to stay at High Ground. And she certainly wasn't planning on getting killed that night.”

“Yes, but Esme,” I said, “Dorothy was over the moon that we'd found that ring, then two hours later she's giving it away? That doesn't make sense.”

“Maybe it does if you take into account what Hank Spencer told her about how it came into the family. I expect that might have changed her feelings about it. She had this whole myth built up about it being a generations-old family heirloom and then all of a sudden it was only an expensive gee-gaw her grandfather won in a poker game.”

“Well, whatever, this changes everything as far as the investigation goes,” Carlson said. “Now the only thing that seems to be missing from her home is that pearl necklace. And I might as well tell you we're almost certain that's what the killer used to strangle her, as you guessed, Esme. So I doubt it was stolen for its value but taken to prevent us from getting prints or other forensic evidence.”

“So, Detective Carlson, does this mean Hank Spencer is no longer a suspect?” I asked.

“I'm not saying that,” he answered. “And please, can't you just call me Denny? I've long ago breeched the professional barrier with you two.”

“Okay, Denny,” I said. “Why would Spencer still be suspect? Obviously, he didn't steal the ring.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn't mean he didn't lose his temper,” Denny said. “He admits they argued.”

“She argued with pretty much everybody,” Esme said. “But I sure wish I'd been able to see past that while she was still alive. Some of the things we've learned since make me believe underneath her bluster she was a nicer person than I gave her credit for. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes I make up my mind about people a little too quick.”

“Yeah, you do,” Denton mumbled as he got up from his
chair. “Okay, well, I'll let you get back to work. I know you're up against it.”

Esme walked him to the door and then to my astonishment she walked him on out to his car, where they stood talking for a while. A whiplash of emotions overtook me. I was tickled pink and also alarmed. I felt as if this was meant to be, yet at the same time felt blind-sided. What if he took Esme away from me? I hadn't considered that possibility.

Denny had just driven off and Esme had headed back inside when Joe Porter came strolling up the walk, literally hat in hand. “I know I'm bothering you while you're trying to work,” he said, “but I wanted to come speak to you while something was fresh on my mind. I'd like to speak to both of you if I could,” he said, nodding to Esme.

“Well, then, come on back and we can talk while we work,” I said.

Once we got into the workroom Joe looked around and pursed his lips. “So how's it going here at Pritchett central?” he asked.

“Things are coming together,” I said, hoping he couldn't judge how much we had yet to go. “Would you like to look at any of the finished scrapbooks?”

“No, no, thank you.” He pulled out a chair and sat, then frowned as if he couldn't remember why he'd come. I certainly couldn't help him with that.

Esme seemed to think she could. “What can we do for you?” she asked.

“Well, first off, I understand you had a little excitement over here earlier this afternoon,” he said.

Esme and I glanced at each other.

“Cassidy called me,” he said. “She was so excited she'd solved that box, not so much interested in the fact that Dorothy put that ring in there. Jeremy read me Dorothy's note. Dorothy gave her blessing to sell the thing to finance Cassidy's college education if need be. Now
that
,” he said, punching the table with his finger, “that was
my
Dorothy! I hadn't seen her in a long while, but that was her.”