Watch for the Dead (Relatively Dead Book 4) (19 page)

Naturally the next time she looked at her watch it was well past lunchtime. The day was rapidly slipping away but she was no nearer to a solution. She’d started by looking at references for Samuel Ellinwood, since it was far more likely she’d find public notices about the husband than about the wife back at the beginning of the twentieth century. What she uncovered was vaguely interesting but didn’t lead her forward. Samuel had been born and lived in Lynn and had actually worked for his father-in-law, William Flagg, for a time, but there had been some sort of split, and Samuel had moved to New Jersey because he’d taken another job in New York, with an unrelated but prestigious company that still existed. That had been just before 1900. That explained why they ended up in Westfield—it was an early bedroom community for the city, with a convenient train line. Samuel could have walked to the train station, according to the map she looked at. Apparently Samuel and Olivia had built the house where Ruth had been born—and where Samuel had been locked in the bedroom.

When she looked him up in directories online, Abby noted that Samuel had not only a Westfield listing but also had professional listings in New York City, where he was described as an “agent,” whatever that was. She noodled around for a while, coming up with a few
New York Times
citations, including Samuel’s very brief obituary: he had apparently been a principal of his own company, acting as the Eastern representative of Allegheny Steel Company, at the time of his untimely death at fifty-two. It was no surprise that Olivia’s death received even less notice in the
Times,
a terse half inch under “Deaths.” Abby did the math: Olivia had died in 1940, so she had been in her seventies. She had died just after Christmas—it must have been a sad holiday. There were a few earlier mentions of good works in the local papers, and Abby had already located the Daughters of the American Revolution record.

So what did she know? Olivia had inherited money from her father, who had been involved in founding a major company in the 1890s and then gone on to manage a smaller one in Waltham—which hadn’t produced anywhere near the same amount of money. Olivia had married a hometown boy from an earlier residence, and she had been barely twenty. She’d kept at least some control over her own finances—didn’t she trust Samuel? The house had been registered in her name. Samuel had nominally commuted to a job in the City—but how often had he shown up? He had played golf, and he drank. He’d taken up local politics, even though he drank. Great role model, Samuel was. A brief search of “Ellinwood” coupled with “Westfield” had produced a mention of Samuel’s contributing money to build a new fire station in Westfield—a smart move to ensure good service, since it was only a couple of blocks from his house. There was a picture of the plaque on the building, still in use, but Abby wondered whose money had gone into it—Samuel’s or Olivia’s?

Abby went to the town library’s website and was relieved to find that the local paper had been digitized. Samuel’s obituary appeared on the same day he had passed away, and apparently the funeral services were held at his home. No church affiliation? Abby noted irreverently that juxtaposed to the obituary was a large announcement that Mary Pickford would be appearing in
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
at the local playhouse the following week. Abby looked at the next week’s paper to see if there was any further information about Samuel and found none; however, she was startled to see a short mention that his daughter Ruth had been sent back to her boarding school in Pennsylvania less than a week after her father’s death. What a warm and wonderful family!

Ruth had married in the mid-1920s—before the Crash, Abby noted. Apparently her wedding had not been mentioned in the
New York Times
.

She skipped ahead to the 1940 newspaper and found a much longer and fuller obituary for Olivia. Maybe it was a sign of the times—or maybe Olivia had been better liked than her late husband within the local community. Olivia’s name also cropped up regularly in the social listings in the papers. She wondered if it would be worthwhile to scan those for any hint of when Olivia might have bought the Cape Cod house, such as a mention that “Mrs. Ellinwood has left for her summer house in Massachusetts.” Then she laughed to herself: what was the point? That would cover close to twenty years of tiny, blurry print, and what did she hope to gain? She might come away with some idea of how often Olivia had made the trek to Massachusetts in those years. Then she realized she had no idea
how
she would have done it. Did Olivia know how to drive? Did she own a car? Or would she have hired both car and driver to make the trip? A couple of the censuses had shown that there was a housekeeper who lived in the house in 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940. Had that woman—Nora Ryan—accompanied Olivia in the summer? Or had she stayed behind, or taken her own holiday?

Too many questions. No doubt it would be possible to answer them all, with time and persistence, but was it worth it? What was she trying to prove?

Why did it matter so much to her that Olivia had been so sad?

When Olivia had bought the Cape house, her husband was dead. Had she loved him? Did she miss him? How on earth could Abby tell? Olivia had kept active at home, doing what was expected of a woman of her social class and wealth. She still probably had plenty of money in the mid-1920s—had she taken out a mortgage on the Cape house or paid cash? Her daughter had married at about the same time: Had Ruth and her husband spent time at the summer house? Their child, Abby’s grandmother Patience, had been born while Olivia still owned the house: Had she seen it? Had she played on Old Silver Beach, and thrown baited lines in the water to troll for crabs? Would she have remembered it at all?

Toward the end, did Olivia feel guilty that she—or perhaps her late husband—had run through most of the family money, and there was nothing left for Ruth and her family? Had Olivia already seen that her son-in-law, Samuel, lacked backbone, and had she not been surprised when he had vanished in the early 1930s, leaving behind his wife and daughter? Did she, could she, help them financially by then?

And then Olivia got sick. The newspaper obituary said it had been a lengthy illness, without specifying what, although Abby guessed that it could have been some form of cancer. When had she known how ill she was? And had she held on to the Cape house hoping that she would recover, however unlikely it seemed?

Abby stood up and stretched. She’d collected a lot of bits of information, but that was a rather self-indulgent pursuit, good for nothing but satisfying her own curiosity. She had better things to do than dig through musty—if digitized—archives looking for details of the life of an ancestor who had died over half a century before. Funny how it was the legal and financial transactions that were deemed worthy of saving, but the whys and wherefores were never recorded. She gave herself a shake and realized she hadn’t been to the market yet. If she didn’t go, they wouldn’t eat that night. She and Ned could eat out, but they couldn’t exactly take Olivia along with them—she needed cat food. And litter.

Abby dashed around the house, shutting windows and retrieving her purse, than headed out for the market. By the time she returned, Ned had just pulled into the driveway.

He helped her unload the car, grabbing several of her bags, including a large one of cat litter. “You’re expecting Olivia to stay around this long?” he asked.

Abby had to remind herself that Ned meant the kitten, not Olivia Ellinwood. “I’m just being prepared,” she told him. “It won’t go to waste—if Olivia doesn’t need it, we can use it when it snows this winter.”

“I’m impressed. Although I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t get more than a dusting of snow this year—New England deserves a break after last year.”

“Let’s hope so. What do you want for dinner?”

“Whatever’s easy. If you’re going to cook, I can hang around and chop things and entertain you.”

“Deal,” Abby said, leading the way to the kitchen.

After putting away the staples, Abby decided on a quick and spicy pork dish, served over rice. She handed a package of boneless pork chops to Ned. “Here, make nice one-inch cubes.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he said, selecting a sharp knife and a cutting board. “So, what did you do today?”

“I went hunting online for more information about Olivia—the human one—as if you couldn’t guess. Not the basic documents—I assembled those a while ago. More like newspaper articles and secondary sources. I’m trying to get a feel for what kind of people they were. It’s an interesting process, although it would be hard to prove any single assumption. But the more I read, the more I get a kind of overall sense of them—and their relationship.”

“Really?” Ned said, looking skeptical. “Give me an example. And a bowl for the pork.”

Abby handed him a plastic bowl. “Well, for a start, I don’t think I like my great-great-grandfather Samuel.”

Ned raised one eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”

“Based on bits and pieces that I found. Olivia kept the title to the house, which suggests that she didn’t trust him and/or paid for the house with her money. Samuel kept a New York office, and was a partner in his own firm in New York, but directories describe him as an agent, which may have been something like a salesman. Which might also have meant that he set his own hours, and went to work—or didn’t go to work—when he felt like it. He belonged to a few clubs, including two golf clubs—he had his fatal stroke on a golf course. But one of the odder things that I found was that his obituaries, in both the
New York Times
and the local paper, were short—shorter than Olivia’s, although hers were published nearly twenty years later, and styles might have changed. Still, you would think that if he was a big shot in town, the paper would have found something nice to say about him, or at least a little more detail.”

Ned handed her the bowl of pork he had chopped. “I see what you’re getting at, but it’s not the sort of thing that would hold up in a court of law.”

“Well, I’m not taking him to court. I’m just trying to understand him. He died in 1917. Olivia stayed in Westfield for the rest of her life. But she bought that house on Cape Cod after 1925. Why then?”

“Did she and her husband have any earlier summer homes?” Ned asked.

“Not that I’ve found, but I’ve only just started looking. I did notice that they took several trips to Havana, and I think Olivia took Ruth there after Samuel died, once or twice. That’s from ships’ records.”

“So maybe they preferred foreign travel to one fixed place?”

“It’s possible. Or maybe she got lonesome for Massachusetts—after all, she was raised there. And her mother was still there, until 1929. And by 1930 she had a grandchild in Waltham, and she might have thought that child would enjoy a stable place to visit in the summer.”

“All possible,” Ned agreed amiably, “but not provable.”

Abby grinned at him. “Not unless Olivia tells me herself.”

Chapter 20

Once they were settled at the table, with food and a glass of wine, Ned asked, “Any word from Leslie? Or Ellie?”

“No, not that I expected any. With Leslie it seems like two steps forward, one step back. I was happy to help her out by looking after Ellie while she took care of George, but now I’m worried that she’s angry because of the kitten.”

“You had nothing to do with bringing that into the house. What were you supposed to do—leave it out in the rain? And there was no way you could know that Ellie would fall in love with it.”

“I know that, and you know that, but I don’t think Leslie is in the mood to be logical. Although I’ll admit the last thing she needs right now is a pet to take care of.”

As if she’d been listening, Olivia appeared from somewhere and jumped onto Abby’s lap, where she curled up and started purring.

“Do we?” Ned asked. “I mean, if Leslie refuses to take her in, are we keeping the kitten?”

“What, you don’t like cats?” Abby said in mock dismay. “That just might be a deal breaker.”

“I didn’t say that,” Ned responded, smiling. “I’m just asking if you have a plan.”

“Day by day—that’s the best I can do.”

“You know, you had kind of a glazed look in your eyes when I got home, the one you get when you’re working on your family history. I’m sure you’ve looked at most of the obvious places. Anything in military records?” Ned asked.

“Samuel Ellinwood was born just after the Civil War, and he was too old for World War One, and he died before it was over, so no luck there. But what I really want to know is why Olivia decided to buy a beach house, after several years of widowhood. And why there, in West Falmouth?”

“She liked the place? She could afford it? Why not? Didn’t a lot of wealthy people in those days have more than one house?”

“Yes, or so I’m told—I have no personal knowledge of such things. But why Cape Cod? Why not the Jersey Shore, which had plenty of nice houses on the sea, and would have been easier for her to get to?”

“Am I supposed to have an answer?” Ned asked.

Abby sighed. “No, not really. I just wanted to see what I could find, but I’m not assuming there’s anything out there to be found. But I’m afraid that Samuel was a jerk.”

“You said that before. Why do you think that? He’s your ancestor too.”

“I know, but from what I’ve found, I think he was using Olivia’s money to make himself look good.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re fantasizing. I can’t say why you don’t like this man, but it’s clear you like Olivia better.”

“Well, I’ve seen Olivia. More than once,” Abby shot back.

“And never Samuel?”

“No. I’ve seen young Olivia and older Olivia. I’ve seen her mother and father, and her daughter. Never Samuel.”

“Interesting,” Ned said absently, his mind somewhere else.

“Ned, I want to know why Olivia was sad enough that her emotion carried her forward to me, now. She bought that house. She was there. What happened?”

“Abby, you may never know. There just aren’t enough data to work with.”