Watch for the Dead (Relatively Dead Book 4) (21 page)

Now she knew that the Flaggs and the artist Thomas Clarkson had overlapped in Lynn. But she failed to find any mention of a marriage for him or whoever he thought he was, although a state census for Lynn in 1865 showed him living with a woman who could have been his wife, and a younger woman with the same surname, who might have been his daughter. Or the daughter of one of his many brothers. It was impossible to know, absent any additional documents. Online searching didn’t turn up much to clarify their relationship, and Abby wasn’t sure where else to look. Should she make a trip to Lynn, to the library or the historical society? Would it be worth her time?

What could she deduce from what she had? Olivia’s father, William Flagg, had had an interesting and diverse career—she’d hunted down a lot of that information when she had first encountered him at his onetime Waltham house and met Ned—going from Civil War soldier to bookseller to gallery owner, and from there to electricity mogul and business owner with a deep commitment to the Grand Army of the Republic. He had had only one natural daughter, Olivia, and twenty years later he had added an adopted daughter. Olivia had married Samuel Ellinwood in 1886, when she was only nineteen, and they had been married for thirty years when he died suddenly. Where had Samuel been before that? How had they met? Had he crossed paths with the artist?

A brief mention in an obscure engineering journal dating from 1894 filled in a few of the blanks. It said that Samuel had been “connected with” his father-in-law’s company for seven years by that time, and then with the company it had merged with, but had resigned in 1894 to “associate himself” with a company she had never heard of in Boston, which traded in iron and steel, where he would be in the selling department. That made sense, since Abby knew from the New York directories that it was only a few years later that he had “associated himself” with his own company as an agent for Allegheny Steel in New York. But nobody in the family seemed to hold still for long: Samuel had been living in Lynn—with Olivia?—until 1888, at which point they had relocated to Chicago, where his father-in-law, William, had headed for his company; Samuel was still there in 1890. But according to the 1892 Boston directory, he was living in Waltham, still with William’s company. In 1895, Waltham again, living near William’s house. Abby wondered in passing what the lag time was for directory updates, in those distant pre-computer days. In any case, Samuel and Olivia were in Westfield by 1900, according to the census for that year, and there they stayed.

Where did Thomas the artist fit? She could prove that he had known William Flagg. Olivia would have been thirteen years old when Thomas was part of the exhibition at William’s store or gallery or whatever it was. She might have known Thomas, but it seemed unlikely that Thomas would have noticed her, unless his intentions were less than pure—in which case Olivia shouldn’t have treasured his painting. Olivia and Samuel were back from Chicago and living in Massachusetts when Thomas died, but Thomas had remained in Lynn, and Olivia was in Waltham, as was her father. Would she have gone running off to another town—where she must have been known—for a tryst with an elderly artist? Unlikely.

Which left Abby with little to show for her day of research. The more she learned about William Flagg, the more Abby thought she would like to have known him. She had already realized that she didn’t like Samuel much. How had Olivia ended up with him? From the one photo she had seen of the young Olivia—and her personal encounter, of course—she had been a pleasant-looking young woman. Not a knockout, but attractive. She’d added a few pounds toward the end of her life, but so did a lot of people. And Samuel hadn’t been much of a prize himself: in the only photo of him she had seen, he’d been a solid, stern-looking man. Perhaps a bit pompous. But that was the photographic fashion in those days.

Maybe it all meant nothing. Maybe it was William who had first bought the painting, and Olivia had inherited it and kept it in memory of her father and his brief fling as an art dealer. William had died a few years before Samuel, and Abby wondered how much money William had left. His wife, Elizabeth Flagg, had outlived him by fifteen years, and from what Abby knew, she hadn’t lived an opulent life. In fact, Abby recalled seeing one letter complaining about not receiving her late husband’s Civil War pension, which amounted to something like twelve dollars a month. How far had that gone in the 1920s?

Something hit her chin, and Abby jumped before realizing it was Olivia the kitten, now peering up at her with what seemed to be longing. “Are you hungry, little one? I haven’t fed you since breakfast. Heck, I haven’t fed
me
since breakfast. Let’s go see what there is, shall we?” Olivia jumped off her lap and turned, waiting for Abby to get up. When Abby started toward the kitchen, Olivia trotted forward eagerly.

In the kitchen, Abby fed Olivia and found a hidden bag of potato chips to snack on. Ned wouldn’t be home for a bit, and he’d promised to make dinner, but she didn’t want to stare at a screen anymore. She went out the door in the back hallway and sat on the steps, looking out at the cemetery. Was there anything more she could do?

Abby knew that Olivia had had a housekeeper for thirty-some years, according to the censuses, which also said that she had been born in Ireland, but she was long gone. As far as Abby knew, she’d never married, and trying to track down siblings at this late date would be an exercise in futility. But, Abby realized with a start, she hadn’t thought about the adopted child, Isabel, who had been far younger than Olivia, but who had lived with or near her mother until the end, and had stayed in Waltham after that. Had she had children? Abby had never checked, since to the best of her knowledge they weren’t biologically related, and Abby had been focused on the genetic link in the beginning. But Isabel could have heard some of the family stories, couldn’t she? Abby seemed to remember from the cemetery that she had married a local man from Waltham; surely there could be some descendants still in the state? It was worth looking into—tomorrow.

When Ned arrived home, Abby couldn’t wait to show him what she’d found, starting with the copies of the painting. “And what’s really weird is that all these people more or less knew each other, even hung out together, back then. It can’t be a coincidence that my parents ended up with the painting, just like they ended up with the chair we have now. But why those pieces and so few others? I mean, I can see Olivia, or maybe her daughter Ruth, selling the more valuable stuff like jewelry or silver because they needed the money. And maybe the painting wasn’t worth much back then. But where did everything else go? Some giant yard sale?” Abby couldn’t repress a giggle at the idea of Olivia holding a yard sale.

“Did it ever occur to you that someone kept the painting because they liked it?” Ned asked.

“Well, yes—heck, I like it too. But why that one? I mean, William supported a bunch of artists, when they were just starting out—he could have acquired paintings from all of them over the years. Thomas painted our little scene years later, not long before he died. So someone must have gone out and bought it then. William lived until 1914—maybe in hindsight Thomas was his favorite of those artists he helped, and that’s the one work he chose to leave to his daughter? Or maybe Samuel knew Olivia well enough to realize that she would like it, and bought it for her, as a kind of consolation prize when her father died?”

Ned looked like he was struggling to remain patient. “Abby, I don’t know that there’s any way you can find out. Obviously nobody kept the receipts. There are no photographs of the interior of Olivia’s home, are there?” When Abby shook her head, Ned went on, “We don’t even know who bought it, or when. I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I think it’s a dead end.”

“Probably,” Abby admitted reluctantly. “But I did come up with one other idea. Remember that there was a younger child, an adopted one, in the family? I never followed up on her because I figured we weren’t biologically related. But that doesn’t mean that she didn’t hear and pass along information about the family, right? She stayed in Waltham to look after her mother, it seems, so she had years to hear the stories. If she had children, maybe they know something. Heck, maybe they inherited a whole lot of stuff—all the other missing stuff, since they were right there on the scene.”

Ned took Abby by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Abby, slow down. You’re obsessing about this. I know that genealogy can be addictive, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove. What do you want to know?”

It was so hard to explain, even to Ned
. “I want to know why Olivia was crying on the porch in the rain in that house on the Cape. I want to know if that painting of a boat at sea had anything to do with it. I know that it may be impossible to connect the two, but I have to try. I can’t explain it, but it matters. Look, let me see if I can track down any of Isabel’s descendants, assuming there were any, and get in touch with them and ask if they have anything that came down through the family—objects, letters, or stories. And if that doesn’t pan out, I’ll put the whole thing on a shelf and we can get back to our normal lives, I promise. Or at least as normal as they get.”

“That works for me. I’d better get started on dinner. Keep me company?”

“Sure.”

They were on their way to the kitchen when Abby’s phone rang. She was surprised to see Leslie’s number. “Hi, Leslie. What can I do for you?”

“My daughter wants to visit the kitten. She can be very persuasive. Or stubborn.”

“She’s welcome to see her any time. Unless you’d like to take her home with you?”

Leslie sighed. “I suppose that’s the best thing to do. I never wanted a cat, but Ellie seems to have fallen in love with this one. I’m hoping she gets tired of it quickly.”

“When did you want to come?”

“Now? I told George I’d pick up Chinese for dinner, so I can swing by with Ellie first, if that’s all right.”

“Sure, no problem. We’ll be here.”

When she walked into the kitchen, Ned was chopping vegetables. “What was that about?”

Abby had mixed feelings about losing custody of Olivia the kitten, but she managed to smile. “It seems that Ellie is winning the battle of the kitten. She and Leslie are coming over now and will probably take her home with them.”

“I’m glad that’s resolved,” Ned said. “Will you miss her?”

“Maybe. I’m sure there are plenty more kittens out there who need good homes. We can think about getting one of our own. Unless you’d rather have a dog? But I warn you—I’m pretty sure I’m a cat person,” Abby said firmly.

Leslie and Ellie arrived fifteen minutes later. Ellie was ringing the doorbell eagerly when Abby opened the door. “HiAbbyHiNedWhere’sOlivia?” she said in a furious rush.

“Right there,” Abby said unnecessarily, since Olivia had taken a running leap at Ellie, who gathered her up in her arms and was already talking to her. Abby turned to her mother. “Hello, Leslie—nice to see you. How’s George doing?”

“He’s on the mend. He wants to go back to work next week. We’ll see. Ellie hasn’t stopped talking about the cat since she got home. I guess she wore me down.”

“She really is a very nice cat—I’m sure it will work out fine. Can you stay a few minutes?”

“No, I’d better get back and feed the family. Ellie? Let’s go.”

“Let me get the litter box and the food,” Ned volunteered. “I’ll take them out to your car.”

“Thanks, Ned,” Leslie said. “Ellie? Where are you?”

“In here,” Ellie’s voice came from the dining room. When Leslie and Abby walked in, Ellie was still clutching the kitten, who didn’t seem to mind. Ellie was looking at the pictures of the painting that Abby had left strewn across the table. “What’s this?”

“It’s a picture that my parents have now, but I’m guessing that it belonged to the original Olivia—the one from the house we stayed at. It turns out she owned the house and the painting for a while. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Uh-huh,” Ellie said, her eyes still on the printouts. “This picture—it made her happy and sad at the same time.”

Abby’s glance darted toward Leslie, but she was busy helping Ned with the cat accessories and didn’t notice. “So it was Olivia’s picture?” Abby asked Ellie in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“Come on, sweetie,” Leslie called out from the hallway. “We’ve got to pick up the food.”

“Thank you for taking care of Olivia for me, Abby,” Ellie said politely. “I’ll take good care of her.”

“I’m sure you will, Ellie. Have a good time at school.” Abby gave Olivia’s head one last rub, then watched Leslie and Ellie go. When Ned had shut the door behind them, Abby said, “Ellie confirms that the picture was Olivia’s. And it made her happy and sad. So I can’t give up yet.”

“You’re right, you can’t. Happy hunting. Now, can we think about eating?”

Chapter 22

Abby’s mind was far too muddled to even think about genealogy for the rest of the evening, so she focused on Ned. He looked tired, despite his vacation. She really knew relatively little about his company, much less what he did each day. She had never been very interested in the sciences, or at least not beyond knowing enough to teach it at the elementary school level. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand the principles—she simply didn’t want to. But she knew enough that she could listen to what Ned had to say and make the occasional intelligent comment. His work was a big part of his life, and she wanted to understand it.

Still, her mind wandered as they ate dinner together. Abby kept one ear open to what Ned was saying, but some other part of her brain was busy with different thoughts. The summer had flown by so quickly. She’d made some progress in working on the house since she’d moved in three months earlier, like scraping off a lot of paint layers and even doing some wallpapering, but there was still a lot to be done—projects that Ned, preoccupied with work, hadn’t even started or had ignored entirely. She’d tried to create order in the gardens, figuring that she should save the inside work for winter, when she couldn’t work outside. But it was a long, slow process, inside and out. Then she’d had Ellie’s company for a day each week, which she had welcomed, and they’d found some interesting things to do. She hoped that Leslie didn’t hold it against her that she had the opportunity to do the fun things with Ellie, while Leslie worked. Leslie liked her job, and Abby had liked working with her. She did love history, and loved explaining it to school groups, helping them to see the past as more than just a list of names and dates that they had to memorize to pass a test. The past was so present locally, if you looked—more so for her than for most people. She would have to get serious about finding another job soon, if only those ancestors of hers would stop knocking on her door and distracting her.