Necessary Evil

by Killarney Traynor

  She wasn’t even here. I was on my own for dinner.

  I might have sworn aloud then. I probably did. I don’t swear under normal circumstances, but I was tired and the incident with Mrs. Fontaine was still fresh on my mind. I had been hoping to discuss it with Aunt Susanna, but now it would have to wait until she returned and I was not happy about that.

  I turned to go back into the kitchen to see if there were any frozen dinners left in the fridge, when something else caught my eye. The light to the living room was on.

  Since becoming the one responsible for them, I was somewhat obsessive about the electric bills. If a room wasn’t in active use, I insisted that the lights be turned off. My aunt had objected a little, saying that it made the house seem even emptier than it was, but even she had to concede that it was better to be in a dark house than have none at all. She was usually pretty good about turning things off, but if she was in hurry, like she’d probably been tonight in trying to get to class on time, she’d forget.

  I sighed again. It seemed, in my childish piquancy, that everything was conspiring against me. I lumbered down the hall, taking another bite of the bread that remained in my hand.

  The light switch is far enough in the room that you have to step into it in order to reach it, which I did. I was so focused on the bread that I didn’t see anything else as I flipped the light switch.

  “Hey!”

  The protest erupted from somewhere in the darkness in front of me. It was a male voice, one I didn’t recognize in a room that was supposed to be empty. I choked, but my hand was still on the switch and I had the presence of mind to flip it again as I coughed.

  The warm yellow light infused the old living room with its battered furniture and out-of-style wallpaper with an almost neighborly sense of welcome. It was more welcoming, I’m sure, than the startled look I was giving the person at the couch.

  A man sprang up from it, one hand still grasping the book he’d been reading, while the other was pulling off his large glasses. He was dressed in a well-fitting, but somewhat worn brown jacket over pressed pants that looked as though they were of good quality. A briefcase, also well-used, was on the floor by his leather-clad feet, and his hair, dark and thick, was neatly brushed and groomed.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, haughtily. “I was reading in here. Next time you might want to look in a room before you turn the lights off.”

  He spoke in a clipped tone, clearly annunciating every word, like a seasoned Shakespearean actor. I was too startled to answer, and we looked each other up and down in silence for a moment.

  His appearance matched his tone, I decided. He looked like a fussy sort of a man, one accustomed to a certain high manner of living without the income to maintain it.

  The most striking thing about him was the color of his shirt - a dark, almost jewel-toned orange that set off his hair and dark eyes. While the rest of his outfit was the typical stuffy-professor look you’d expect in a movie or play, the shirt played against type. I wonder what it said about the stranger’s character.

  He held the coffee table copy of Uncle Michael’s self-published book, A Short History of the Chase Family, and if his finger positioning was anything to go by, he was halfway through it. His face was young, probably younger than he actually was. The result, I thought, of a life of relative ease.

  Oh, Lord, just what I need. A male version of Louisa Fontaine in my life.

  The thought relaxed me a little. Whatever this man was doing here, it was not to cause me physical harm.

  What he thought of me, I couldn’t really say. I hadn’t changed out of my work clothes, except for taking off my boots, so I must have presented a bedraggled appearance: dirty jeans and a sweat-stained plaid shirt thrown over a tank top. My mismatched stockings (I’d been putting off laundry, too) were hardly sophisticated, my hair was pulling loose out of my pony tail, and I still clutched a piece of wadded up week-old bread in my hand.

  I looked a sight and I knew it, but when his expression changed ever so slightly to one that I took as distaste, my temper flared.

  “What are you doing in here?” I demanded.

  He didn’t answer right away. He looked me up and down again, and then in the face.

  “Madeleine Warwick?” he inquired, and I got the distinct impression that he was hoping I’d say no.

  It pleased me to disappoint him. I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s me,” I said. “And who are you?”

  He eyed me with more interest then, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. He took a step over to hand it to me, and I noted that he was a few inches taller than me. The scent of cologne, earthy and light, clung about him.

  “You don’t answer your emails,” he said lightly.

  I snatched the card from his grasp. “I answer the important ones.”

  I didn’t wait for his response. I studied the card, frowning to focus. I was so upset that my hands were shaking, and my annoyance at my overreaction only made it worse. It took me a little time before I made out what I was supposed to be reading.

  “Professor Gregory Randall?” I asked, and looked up.

  He’d put his over-sized glasses back on and was pouring over the pages of Uncle Michael’s book, but he glanced at me.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, before looking back down again.

  Irritated, I looked at the card again and said, “Hadley University? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of a Hadley University.”

  That got him to look up from the book.

  “It’s in Holbein,” he said, with a wounded look - as though I ought to have recognized it right off the bat. “In the heart of beautiful western Massachusetts.”

  “Sorry.” I handed the card back. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Is it one of those new, online universities?”

  “Certainly not!” he said, accepting the card and looking at the face of it, as though to make sure I hadn’t changed anything. “Hadley University was established in 1914, and boasts an illustrious alumni and a sterling academic reputation.” Then he shrugged as he put the card back in his pocket. “Don’t feel too badly, though. We are a small, but growing community.”

  “How lovely,” I said dryly, and one of his eyebrows raised in acknowledgement. “And may I be so bold as to inquire what brought one of the faculty from such an… an august establishment to trespass on my property?”

  Even as I said the word, “trespass”, I experienced a clutch in my heart. Trespassers on the Chase Property usually only had one object in mind. If this bookworm was expecting permission to hunt for buried treasure, he was going to be in for a shock.

  Professor Randall looked wounded again. “I am not trespassing,” he emphasized, pulling his glasses off as he spoke. “Your aunt let me in. She was in a hurry to get out the door to class or something, but she invited me to wait here to talk to you. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you call her and ask her. Trespass, indeed!”

  He looked very put out and, without knowing why, I believed him. It was definitely something that Aunt Susanna would do: let a complete stranger sit alone in the house while I was unaware in the barn.

  I sighed and decided that I probably was coming on a little too strong. After all, he hadn’t meant to frighten me – Aunt Susanna should have sent me a text or something before she left.

  “Poor choice of words on my part, I guess,” I said. “What do you want, Professor?”

  He gestured to my recliner. “Have a seat?”

  “In these clothes?”

  Professor Randall looked me over again, and nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. I can wait if you’d like to…”

  “What I’d like to do,” I interrupted, trying to keep my tone light while still getting my point across, “is shower, eat, and go to bed as soon as possible. I don’t want to be rude, Professor, but I’d appreciate it if you’d get right to the point.”

  I might have added, So I can throw you out on your ear and get on with
my life, but I wanted to be sure of his intentions first. Besides, something told me that he had prepared himself for a hostile reception, a thought that made me feel even more frustrated.

  I’m not a tyrant – I’m just tired of people trying to get rich off of my family’s history.

  But maybe I had this guy wrong. Maybe he didn’t care about the treasure at all. Maybe he was a historian who was looking to do a proper history on the family, someone that I could trust with the family documents, someone who could set the record straight, who’d treat us with the dignity and respect that is the right of every decent, upright family…

  Then he said, “Very well. Briefly, I want permission to search your family estate for the remains of the McInnis treasure.”

  With that pin-prick, my balloon deflated with a violent pop. I sagged against the wall in disappointment, a gesture he took no notice of. He had dropped back to the couch, pulled up his briefcase, and was working the old-fashioned combination lock as he spoke.

  “I’m a historian, a researcher by trade,” he said conversationally. “My preferred concentration is early United States Colonial and Republican history, but at the moment, I am involved in writing a biography on a lesser known Civil War participant, whose name I’m sure you wouldn’t be familiar with. In conducting my research, I crossed paths with Professor Maddox…”

  “Professor Maddox!” I exclaimed, in spite of myself.

  He nodded, pulling a sheaf of papers from out of his case. “Yes. We’d worked together before, back when I was an undergraduate student at Braeburn. My research has lead me to some work that he’d been doing before his death. His widow was kind enough to let me go through his papers. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a connection to the Chase family and the McInnis affair.”

  As he spoke, his tone slipped into an authoritative cadence, like that of a professional lecturer going over an often-used lesson. My pulse quickened, but I kept calm. He was shuffling through the papers, so if my face was flushed, he didn’t notice it. Randall didn’t see my eye roll, either. He looked at me a second too late.

  “You don’t say,” I sighed.

  The professor frowned, and turned back to his papers. “Yes – remarkable, I thought. It seems my subject had a strong connection to one of the characters in the case. Naturally, when I began to look into the theft, it piqued my curiosity. As you probably know, unsolved cases are something of a hobby of mine.”

  “They are?”

  He didn’t hear. “My book is nearly finished. The final piece is this McInnis case, which I can only solve here, where the treasure disappeared.”

  “I think you mean Baltimore,” I said.

  Again he looked at me and again he grinned - a sly, unsettling expression.

  “Yes…” he said and gestured to the pages in front of him. “I’ve been working on this only for a few weeks now and most of the material available is… Dubious to say the least, but some aspects are clear. There was, among other things, a silver spoon set that disappeared from the McInnis household at the same time Alexander Chase and Beaumont left his employ. Beaumont was a ruffian, but there’s no indication that Alexander Chase was ever in trouble with the law beyond a drunken-disorderly. The idea that he would steal from his employer seems to be out of character. Are you sure you don’t want to sit, Miss Warwick? You look tired.”

  He gestured to one of our chairs, but I waved him off.

  “Just get to the point, all right?” I asked.

  Randall blinked at me, then nodded.

  “All right. It’s simple enough. Alexander Chase’s involvement in the theft is still very much in question, but what is not is the fact that there was a fortune that disappeared from the McInnis household, and evidence to suggest that it wound up here, on your property. I’m going to find it and hopefully, in doing so, bring to conclusion this whole matter and wrap up my biography at the same time.” He paused, then went on. “I have cleared my summer schedule and have collected up all the evidence I can get my hands on. I expect to find more between now and when we begin the search, but what I need from you is, first of all, permission to…”

  “No,” I said.

  Randall looked up at me, surprised. “No?”

  “No.”

  He paused, then, “That’s all you have to say? ‘No’? You won’t hear me out?”

  “No, I won’t.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “You’re looking for fool’s gold, Professor. Every historian worth his salt has declared the treasure nothing more than a rumor, a local ghost story, one that has caused more pain and death than I’m willing to go through again. Now, I’m going to ask you politely to leave.”

  “I’ve done my legwork, Miss Warwick. I have evidence…”

  “Don’t bother showing it to me. If you’re anything like the others, all you have are photocopies of some letters and diary entries from local citizens. I’ve heard every version and every theory and I’m getting tired of people trying to get rich off of my family’s history.”

  Randall sputtered. “Rich off your… My dear Miss Warwick, you misunderstand me. I’m not here to take the treasure from your family. You can keep it, for all I care, once we’ve catalogued it.”

  “Oh, very generous of you, I’m sure,” I scoffed.

  “I’m not here for gold, I’m here to solve a mystery, a mystery which a member of your own family lays at the heart of. Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious?”

  “No, I’m not. Use whatever excuse you have, mister, I know a fortune hunter when I see one.”

  For a long moment we just stared at each other. I think it was then that I first noticed how dark his eyes were. The brown looked nearly black, the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, and I found myself wondering what lay within their depths.

  At the moment, all I could detect was annoyance.

  “A fortune hunter!” he said, and his enunciation was even clearer than before. He was the very picture of scandalized innocence as he shook his head and laughed. “You know, I’d been warned that you were less than hospitable, but no one said anything about outright slander. Aren’t you even slightly interested in my evidence, in my theories?”

  “I’m not,” I said, in conscious imitation of his tone. “There’s nothing that you can show me that I haven’t already seen before.”

  “But think of what this might do for your family…”

  “I am.”

  “Are you though? Or are you just skirting a painful, unresolved issue?” He waved away my open-mouthed objection and continued. “Look, imagine - just imagine, for a moment - that I’m right, that there is a treasure, just as everyone thought. Think of what that would do for your struggling farm, Miss Warwick. Instead of amateur treasure hunters leaving pot holes everywhere, you could hire the fields out to re-enactors. You could use the reputation of the find to build your business. Instead of trying to make ends meet at the end of every month, begging credit card companies to extend your credit, you’d be hiring help and building more stables to handle the overflow. With your family’s reputation saved from the dump-heap of history, you’d finally be able to convince the state of New Hampshire that this monument to early American pride is worth the seal of ‘Historical Significance’. You’d be able to focus on what you want to do, instead of worrying about where the next mortgage payment is coming from.”

  I stared at him, shocked and outraged. How did he, a stranger, know about the trouble the farm was in?

  Randall wasn’t finished. He went on, in an almost dreamy tone. “With the treasure found, you’d know, once and for all, the true story about your family. So, imagine that I find the treasure, which I will, make no mistake. I’m very good at this kind of thing. You’ve heard about the Dunstable Cache, I’m sure. Those papers and diaries of one of Washington’s spies that was found in an old lady’s attic in New York several years ago?”

  He looked so proud of himself that I couldn’t resist adding a bit of emphasis to my answer. “No, I hadn’t heard. Was it important?�
�

  I was getting used to his wounded look – it was almost cute.

  “Yes, it was,” he sniffed. “For years, the academic community denied the Dunstable connection and I nearly lost my position over it. I built my academic reputation as the man who can find things, and the Dunstable Cache… Honestly, Miss Warwick, don’t you ever interest yourself in archeological and historical findings? I would have thought that someone with your family background would stay up to date on all such things.”

  “I’ve been busy, so sue me,” I said. I remembered the piece of bread in my hand and slipped it into my pocket, to the obvious distaste of the professor. “But you can’t find what isn’t there, Professor. Trust me, if wishing could make something so, that treasure would have been found a century ago.”

  “By the parsimonious Avery Chase?” he asked.

  “So you know Avery Chase’s name and his obsession,” I said stiffly. “You probably also know that he ruined his life looking for that stupid, non-existent treasure, and if anyone could have found it, it would have been him. After all, they were brothers.”

  Now Randall’s smile was indulgent. “That,” he said gently, like he was speaking to a child, “is a common mistake. People assume that because they were brothers, Avery would have known him better than most. But they were only half-brothers, and I know you don’t have any siblings, Miss Warwick, but I do. Let me assure you that some of them are as strangers to me as if we had been born worlds apart, rather than mere years.”

  I bristled. “You researched me?” I sputtered.

  “I told you, I’m…”

  “Thorough, yes, I got that. I suppose you never considered that it might lead to a suit for breach of my privacy.”

  “For using what you posted online? I’m afraid you waived that right when you pushed ‘post’.”

  Oh, Lord, how I wanted to slap his smug face.

  “I’m not interested in you, your family affairs, or your research,” I snapped. “I want you to leave.”

  “But about my project…”

  “Your treasure hunt,” I corrected. “Be honest about it and listen to me. There. Is. No. Treasure. There never was.”