Necessary Evil

by Killarney Traynor

  I barely heard Greg’s reply. I was thinking about Mary Anna and her careful inventory, and wondering if she’d left a diary. What did she think of the war? Was she a segregationist, like her father? Or did she harbor feelings of a different nature, nurtured and hidden from the bombastic man she lived with, like Alexander’s mother? Would we ever know?

  Given the length of time and the scattering of the McInnis fortune, it seemed unlikely to me that we’d ever know more about Mary Anna McInnis than we did now, and that was a pity. I would have liked to have known what she thought of the robbery, and the dangerous man from New Hampshire who had spirited it away. Probably the prevailing image of her, a snobby, cold woman obsessed with her wealth, was close to the truth. But what if it wasn’t?

  It was an idle thought, but one that stayed with me until we reached the house – where another idea occurred to me.

  As Gregory leaned the bicycle against the porch and turned to brushing the mud from his shoes, I asked, “Gregory, could she have taken the goods with her?”

  He looked up at me, startled, a lock of thick, dark hair falling across his face. “Pardon?”

  “Mary Anna. Could she have taken the goods with her? To the farm? I mean, as you said, there was a significant delay in the report of the theft and she was awfully careful with everything. Couldn’t she have taken them with her to protect until the end of the war?”

  Shaking his head, he knocked the last of the mud from his shoes. “It’s possible, I guess, but extremely unlikely. She would have known her father filed the report. Surely she would have told him what she did and cleared everything up.”

  “Unless she was stealing it from him,” I said.

  He stopped and stared at me for a long moment, blinking. “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, unable to shake the thought of Mary Chase, living in constant longing for books in the dark New England forests. “Perhaps… she was trying to escape.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, closed it, then said, “All right. I’ll suggest it to Charlie. If she did steal the stuff, she would probably have brought it with her to her relatives. I doubt there’s any trace left, but I’ll ask her to poke around. Some of the family still lives on the farm. They might know something.”

  “The McInnis family still exists down there?”

  “This would be Mary Anna’s mother’s family, the Carvers.” He held the screen door open for me, and commented as Trusty and I passed through, “It’s not a bad thought, Madeleine, but I don’t like the idea. I still think the letter, the last letter, holds the key.”

  He hadn’t made much progress in decoding the letter. He spent hours pouring over it, studying various Civil War era codes. He even went so far as to check out every Edgar Allen Poe book in the local library, using Aunt Susanna’s card. But he found nothing. If there was a code, he couldn’t see it. And while this frustrated him, it did not deter him: the more he looked at the letter, the more he was convinced that there was a clue within it.

  “What makes you so certain?” Darlene asked him one night when we were all sitting around the dinner table.

  Aunt Susanna and Lindsay had worked together to cook dinner – a spicy gazpacho and hot tamales - in celebration of the upcoming riding camp. They insisted that not only Jacob stay for dinner, but that Gregory come out of his office and join us as well.

  “Celebrations aren’t any fun unless they are shared,” Aunt Susanna said when he protested. “Anyway, you’ll work better on a full stomach.”

  He surprised me by acquiescing gracefully, and it was a bright, interesting conversation. Darlene was her usual, witty self, and Aunt Susanna was livelier than I’d seen her in months. She and Lindsay had been working on the new lessons plans and she grew more and more enthusiastic about the work.

  “I can’t believe it starts next week,” she kept saying. “I just can’t wait.”

  It was then that Lindsay asked about the investigation, questioning until Gregory and I explained about the investigation in Charleston - and Greg’s insistence that the treasure was here, and the clue was in the letter.

  “Why do you think that?” Darlene asked, leaning forward gracefully. Her eyes were shining, almost the same sapphire blue as the pendant she wore around her neck. The necklace caught the light and I was startled, a sharp memory piercing my mind.

  For a moment, I thought she was wearing her daughter, Allison’s necklace, a distinctive Native American piece that she’d never been seen without. This one was similar, with the same leather cording; but as it quivered against Darlene’s neck, I saw at once that it couldn’t be the same necklace. For one thing, that necklace was reported missing - along with Allison - and was used in the descriptions issued to find her. And for another, Darlene’s stone was cut in a smooth oval. Allison’s had been square.

  No one noticed my reverie, because they were too interested in Greg’s discourse about the letter. It was the usual one about his gut feeling and the careful lettering, and so on; but even as he explained, I could see the enthusiasm waning from his audience. Finally, when Lindsay and Jacob exchanged significant looks, Gregory jumped up from his chair.

  “It’s easier to understand if I show you something.” He waved a hand over the table. “Clear this and make sure it’s clean. I’ll be right back.”

  We had finished eating anyway, so no one protested. Aunt Susanna started the coffeemaker and took Trusty outside, Lindsay and Jacob cleared the table, and Darlene and I took care of the dishes. The increasingly giggly teenagers made their way back and forth, jostling each other until I finally had to issue a warning in order to save the dishes they carried. As they made their way back to the table, quieter but undaunted, Darlene turned to me with a dish towel in hand. Her smile was wide across her expressive face, but the ever-present sadness kept her eyes hollow with loneliness.

  “I think that’s what I miss most of all,” she said. “The noise.”

  She didn’t need to explain that she was talking about Allison. I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded, murmured something about being sorry, and handed her another dish to dry. I wondered how long it took before the sting of a loss like hers faded.

  As though she heard my thoughts, Darlene leaned against the counter next to me and responded.

  “It’s moments like these that you miss the most,” she said, watching the two kids wipe down the table. They were talking in hushed, shy undertones, and it didn’t take much imagination to see what was happening there. “The little, everyday things. Like eating together, driving her to school, sitting in the living room and picking on the show we’re watching. I miss making her dinner, squabbling with her about the calories, and I even miss the mess she used to leave in the bathroom. I still find myself grabbing her favorite kind of ice cream when I’m in the grocery store. It’s been ten years and I still can’t adjust to the idea that she isn’t coming home.”

  Her eyes welled, but not quite to overflowing. She stared at Lindsay and Jacob as though grimly determined to face life without giving way to her feelings.

  I had long since ceased doing the dishes – how could you continue with something so mundane after an admission like that? I’d never heard Darlene say these things before, at least not to me, and I didn’t know what to do with the information. Should I try to commiserate? Offer her a hug? Touching her would likely induce the very tears she was fighting against, and how could I empathize when I’d never had and then lost a daughter?

  As I battled myself, she continued.

  “I was robbed,” she said.

  “What?” I gasped. Instantly, my mind turned to the treasure hunters – had they gone from trespassing to housebreaking?

  “I was robbed,” she repeated. “And I was a fool. I was a fool because I put my career above her at times. I loved her, and I loved my career and I thought… Well, I thought, ‘She’s young and healthy, she’ll outlast me, but how long will I have these opportunities?’ I wasn’t to know that she wou
ld…”

  She caught herself and took a deep, shuddering breath. I couldn’t move. The world seemed to have slowed to a halt, with the giggling teens in an outer orbit around this silent planet that Darlene and I inhabited. The coffee machine made hissing noises, signaling that it was nearly finished, and I found myself wondering when Greg would be coming back in. I wished he wouldn’t. Not until Darlene was composed again.

  “I didn’t know that it would end so soon,” she whispered. “I was robbed of a chance to say goodbye, to finish what I had started when she was conceived all those years ago. Intellectually I know she’s…. I know she won’t be coming back. But my heart doesn’t know it. And as long as we don’t know what happened to her, how can I leave the house? What if she comes home and I’m not there?”

  Darlene’s whisper had intensified until it was almost loud enough for the teens to hear. She stopped abruptly as the coffeemaker beeped, indicating that it was done. She glanced at me with embarrassment and put the plate she was drying carefully on the counter.

  “I hope she brewed it strong,” Darlene said.

  I was struck by the idea that, for a few minutes, she had switched roles with Aunt Susanna. I wondered how often her usual attitude was a mask for her friend’s sake.

  For the first time, I was grateful that we’d been able to bury Uncle Michael. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than his simple disappearance.

  To move past the awkward moment, I said - a little too enthusiastically - that Aunt Susanna always brewed it too strong. I pulled out some mugs, and when I turned from the cabinet, Darlene was standing in front of me.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and held up a hand when I started to protest. “No, you didn’t need this tonight. But I am going to give you a piece of advice, as an old, old family friend.”

  “Not that old,” I protested, and was rewarded with a worn smile.

  “Older than you might think,” she said. “But do yourself a favor, Maddie. No matter how busy you are, never forget to stop and enjoy the people you have now. The people in your life are a gift and, if you aren’t careful, they’ll slip away before you have the time to enjoy them.”

  I stared into those intense blue eyes, wondering what she saw that would make her feel that she had to warn me.

  It was then that Gregory came back in, waving two freshly made copies and carrying a stack of worn books under one arm.

  “Come on, class,” he said, as he dropped the books on the table. “We have a mystery to solve.”

  Chapter 23:

  Aunt Susanna and Darlene poured the coffee as we gathered around the table. With our steaming mugs in hand, we examined the pages in silence for a few minutes while Gregory arranged his materials.

  When he was finished, he leaned on his fists on the table and looked around at each of us.

  “All right,” he said. “Since you asked, you’ve been drafted. What we have here,” he indicated the copy of the Alexander Chase letter, which had been blown up to twice its size, “is a puzzle with two questions: One, did Alexander Chase steal from his employer? And if he did, is it hidden on this property?

  “According to the facts that we can verify, Alexander Chase went to work for McInnis in Charleston in 1860. In 1861, weeks before Sumter, Chase abruptly went home to New Hampshire. Three weeks after he left, McInnis filed a report, accusing Chase of stealing from him. Then war broke out, and Alexander joined the New Hampshire regiment, later dying after Successionville. After the close of the war, the McInnis family filed suit against the Chases, who denied all knowledge of the affair.

  “The existence of the Chase treasure is supported by three pieces of evidence: the report of the robbery in Charleston, the testimony of the Chase farm hands during the lawsuit, and the contested interpretations of this letter. We can’t, from our position here, challenge the Charleston report. The farmhands testified five years after the fact and were so vague as to be next to useless – they claim only that they saw Alexander go out one night with a medium sized trunk and that he returned without it. When pressed for details, they unable to give anything more.

  “We can’t bring the witnesses back to cross examine them anymore than we can talk to the McInnis family about the robbery. What we do have to work with is this letter, a strangely constructed piece that many believe is Alexander’s veiled confession to his mother and directions to the burial spot. But if he did include directions, they are very well hidden, leading some to believe that there is nothing to find.”

  He didn’t look at me, but Aunt Susanna and Lindsay did, and I flushed.

  Greg said, “Despite the confusion, I believe there is something buried on this property and that this letter is key to its location. With your help, I intend to crack the code.”

  In a few words, he laid out his reasons for thinking that the last letter was deliberately written, including what he’d already told me about the folds and the careful lettering. Then he pulled out another letter and laid it beside the first.

  “This is a letter written by Alexander shortly after he joined the regiment in Concord,” he said. “According to Michael Chase’s notes, it was discovered tucked in Mary Chase’s diary and it was used to verify the authenticity of the last letter. I’ve sent samples to experts who agree that the same man wrote both letters. Now, I want you to examine this letter closely.”

  We bent over it. He had copied it in full color, so we could see the water stains on the blue-tinged paper. Like the other letter, it was one page long - but this page was crammed with text, so full that Alexander had to sign his name along the side rather than on the bottom.

  It was far more poetic – Alexander was ruminating on the efficacy of the war they were about to fight, and bemoaning the youth of the men he was fighting alongside of. In fact, the tenor of the letter was so different than the last that, despite Gregory’s reassurances, I found myself wondering if they were written by different people.

  I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  “This one looks different than the other,” Jacob pointed out.

  Randall nodded. “Yes, it does. Yet all three of the handwriting experts swore to me that these letters had the same authors. So let’s examine why they look different.”

  He pulled the earlier letter up and held it out, pointing to various places to demonstrate his theories.

  “Look at the construction here,” he said. “Look at the handwriting. Sloppier than the clue letter, indicating that he was writing fast in cramped quarters. Understandable enough, but look at the prose. He writes like a poet, with full sentences and lofty ideas, and with the kind of rhetoric that you find among these early self-taught philosophers. You can tell that he’s probably read some of Thoreau and Emerson or at least was aware of their world view, though you couldn’t escape it if you lived in New England during that time.”

  He paused reflectively. “So here he is, writing thoughtful passages anticipating reconstruction in this letter, apparently composing it in normal haste. Then two weeks before he dies, he spends several days carefully composing his last letter, which is beautifully penned, oddly constructed, and simplistic – a complete change in tone and delivery.”

  “Indicating that he was in a different state of mind,” Darlene said.

  “Yeah, ‘cause in the first letter, he’s almost against the war and in this one, he’s talking like he wants to go to battle,” Lindsay mumbled, scowling.

  “And in this second one, he’s almost saying that death would be welcome,” Aunt Susanna said, tapping the second letter with a concentrated frown. “In the first he says he has a reason to live. Something must have happened between these two letters to make him change his mind. But what was it?”

  “Had they, like, seen any action yet?” Jacob asked.

  Gregory shook his head. “No. Except for some minor skirmishes, this regiment didn’t see any actions until the Battle of Successionville, which is where Alexander received his mortal injury. It was a torturous death, but that o
ccurred after this letter had been mailed. I agree with Susanna. Something must have happened to change his mind about death, but I can find no indication of what it might have been. His stepfather died shortly after he departed for the army, but they weren’t close, and it’s unlikely that he would take so long to mourn a man that he barely got along with. Mary Chase died a year after Alexander did, and there’s no indication that there was anyone else in his life besides Avery.” He sighed. “But his change of mind doesn’t entirely explain this letter. There has simply got to be something else in it. There is a message within this letter.”

  He spoke with great impatience, but it was directed at himself. He’d been working on this for days - weeks even - and was no closer than when he began. I felt sympathetic, but I knew no good would come out of stewing over lost time. So I asked a dumb question.

  “Everyone thinks that the code was in the postscript of the letter, right? The part where he says that she should look in his hymnal at number twenty nine?”

  “Right,” Gregory answered.

  Jacob interjected, saying, “But it says ‘psalmery’ here, not ‘hymnal’.”

  “Most hymns at the time are based on the Psalms,” he explained. “We think that it was shorthand for hymnal.”

  “So then it doesn’t indicate Psalm 29?” Lindsay asked.

  There was a moment of dumbfounded silence. Then Darlene said, “Surely someone checked that?”

  We all looked at Gregory.

  He muttered, “If they did, I’ve no evidence of it.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  Aunt Susanna said, “I’ll get my Bible,” as she left the room.

  Jacob asked, “What I don’t get is, why did he leave it in code? Why not just tell his mom, like, it’s under the apple tree or something?”

  “We think that he was trying to keep it from his stepbrother,” I said. “Avery was a miser and Alexander would have wanted his mother to be provided for.”