by Sara Rosett
There was a small sound, a tiny intake of breath, from the other side of the garage.
Chapter Twenty-three
We both swiveled toward the source of the sound. “Come out here,” Maggie shouted. In the deep shadow by the corner near the door, a figure slowly rose from a crouched position. All I could see was the rough outline of a tall female figure with light-colored hair. It wasn’t until she inched forward with hands raised that I recognized the rude woman from the hotel.
“Harriet.” Maggie spit out the word. “I should have known you’d turn up. There’s money involved, so you couldn’t be far away.”
“Now, Maggie,” the woman said, her tone miles away from the imperiously commanding one I’d heard from her at the hotel, “I want to help you—give you a little advice.”
“Advice? Really, Harriet? Is it going to be like that advice you gave me the last time we talked—Children’s books are a dead end?”
Harriet cleared her throat. “I’ll admit, I was off on that one. You saw that trend coming and I didn’t.” She grimaced as if those words had been extremely painful to say.
Maggie laughed sharply. “How many times have you regretted that? All those commissions . . . they could have been yours.” I remained motionless, doing my best to imitate the stacks of boxes behind me. If only they weren’t at my back, I would have been able to ease away, since Maggie was so focused on Harriet. “I should have known you were involved. You clued Stan in on the letters and he dashed down here, didn’t he?”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all,” Harriet said.
Maggie spoke over Harriet’s protests. “How did you know about them?”
Harriet shrugged her wide shoulders and circled her hands, giving up on her denial. “There were rumors,” she said vaguely.
Maggie’s hand had sagged a bit when Harriet had stepped out of the shadows, but as she waved her hands around, Maggie yanked the gun back to a level position. Maggie’s gaze flicked to me and she edged sideways so she could see both of us. “So when he died, you scurried down here.”
To claim his suitcase, I silently added. She must have thought he’d found the letters. But they hadn’t been in his suitcase.
“No, it’s not like that at all. When I got word that Stan . . . about Stan, I knew I had to come and talk to you.”
“Have you been following me? I thought I saw you earlier at the festival. But then I thought, No, that can’t be Harriet, she’d never attend a lowly regional book festival.”
“I did want to talk to you,” Harriet admitted, “but I was waiting for the right moment.”
“I don’t think so. I think you realized the letters were still out there and you were waiting for me to find them, so you could take them from me. You’d probably hand them off to some hack who’d churn out a book in a couple of weeks.”
“No,” Harriet said, moving forward, her gaze intensifying. “No. I don’t want them for a book. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Do you realize how much those letters are worth?”
“Worth? They’re worth a new reputation. They’re my ticket back into legitimacy. Kids’ books make me a lot of money, but they don’t get much respect, let me tell you. Those letters will cause an earthquake in academia and the literary world. They’re mine, Harriet. I’m going to rock the literary world and the commercial one, too. Morning show interviews, chat shows, television book clubs. I’m going to be a household name and I’m not sending one penny of it to you as a commission.”
“I don’t want to sell the book for you. Do you know how much the letters themselves are worth?”
Maggie squinted at her. “What do you mean?”
Harriet tilted her head slightly and raised one shoulder in a coy movement. “Just that there are certain parties involved who would pay to own the letters. I was approached because, well, because someone was under the impression that I was still your agent, but that’s neither here nor there, now. I know there is money to be made on those letters and I know the person who will pay top dollar for them.”
Maggie stared at her for a long moment. “How much?”
Harriet glanced at me for the first time as if she didn’t want to talk in front of me, but then she said, “Millions.”
Maggie laughed, a full-bodied sound from deep in her throat. “Sure, Harriet. That’s a great story. You know what? You could write a book.”
“It’s true,” Harriet said, some of the haughtiness creeping back into her voice. “Did you know that a letter from Beatrix Potter sold several years ago at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars?”
Maggie breathed in sharply and Harriet pressed on. “How many letters are there, Maggie? Ten? Twenty? Think about it. It adds up. You have provenance, too, so that will keep the price high. They’ve gone from McClure to this Avery person, who gave them to you before he died because of your love of literature.” I wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be a sneering undertone on the last few words directed at Maggie, but she didn’t catch it.
“Who is this person?” Maggie demanded, leaning forward slightly.
“Anonymous,” Harriet said quickly, and I had to wonder if she was lying to make sure she’d get in on the deal. My heart was fluttering in my chest. This could go very badly for me. If they agreed to work together, then it would be two against one. I licked my lips and tried to think what to do. The recycling truck should have been here by now. Something must have happened and they weren’t going to show. Mitch would be wondering where I was, but he’d probably just catch a ride out here with someone. My insides seemed to flip-flop at the thought of Mitch and the kids walking into this scene.
I had to do something. I looked around the garage for something—anything—that I could use to get out of this mess, but the boxes hemmed me in. I was marooned on a patch of concrete. The closest things I could reach were cobwebs. An old push broom and a Weed Eater leaned against the workbench, but since they were on the other side of Maggie, they wouldn’t do me any good. I didn’t have anything on me, not even my phone, I thought, as I inched one of my hands up into my pocket. Nothing there but a peppermint and Nathan’s papers with his tic-tac-toe games.
“So do we have a deal?” Harriet asked. “I’ll help you sell them. We split the money fifty-fifty.”
I watched Maggie’s face as she debated fame and esteem from her colleagues or cold hard cash. I worked the paper around so that most of it fit into my palm, but didn’t pull it out.
Maggie nodded sharply and Harriet’s shoulders relaxed. She smiled brightly. “Perfect.”
“Not quite,” Maggie said, turning her hard gaze full on me. “We still don’t have the letters. I think you haven’t been honest with me, Ellie,” she said, stepping closer. “I think you don’t know where they are.” Maggie raised the gun higher, pointing it at my head.
“I do. I know they’re here.” I turned back to the boxes and picked up a book. “Mitch moved these around the other day, so they’re mixed up, is all. They have to either be in this box or the next one.”
“Or the next one, or the next,” Maggie said. “I know what you’re doing and—”
“Wait! Here they are.” I kept one hand on the rim of the box and held up the papers with the other. Harriet surged closer. Maggie snatched the papers from my hand, her attention fixed solely on them. They were still folded in half and as she struggled to open them with one hand, I gripped the edges of the open box, swiveled, and heaved it at her chest. A hot pain shot through my back.
The weight of the box toppled her over. There was a sickening thud as she hit the floor and went still. The gun, which had fallen from her limp hand, spun away and lodged under the lawn mower by the workbench. I stared at her for a second as she lay there. I wasn’t sure if she’d just had the wind knocked out of her or . . . something else. She didn’t move, but I could see the books that had tumbled out and landed on her chest were moving up and down slightly as she breathed.
Harriet rushed forward and I scrambled to pick up anothe
r box, but instead of charging at me, she skidded to a stop beside Maggie. She dug around in the books and I thought she was trying to move them off of Maggie so she could check her pulse or do CPR or something, but she gave a small victorious cry and scrambled to her feet, clutching the still-folded papers. She didn’t even look at them, but ran at full speed out of the garage. I could hear her heavy tread as she pounded over the gravel and down the driveway toward the road. Once she cleared the curve, I couldn’t see her, but I faintly heard a car engine start and accelerate away. She must have parked along the road—I didn’t notice her car when I arrived.
I stared at the driveway for a moment, but the scene was quiet except for the faint call of a bird and a tree branch scraping against the window in the slight breeze. I carefully edged closer to Maggie. Her eyes were closed, but she was definitely still breathing. I let out a shaky breath. I felt like collapsing onto the dusty floor myself, but first I had to get my cell phone. I’d gone a few steps on legs trembling so badly that I probably looked like a toddler learning to walk, when I stopped. First order of business, I decided, was find that gun, then call 911.
I tiptoed around Maggie and fished the gun out from under the lawn mower. I hurried out of the garage with the gun in my pocket, the heavy weight banging against my side. I tugged the doors to the garage closed and snapped the padlock into place.
I never thought I’d be glad to see Detective Rickets, but when his official car crunched over the gravel and pulled to a stop at the foot of the porch steps, I definitely felt relieved. I stood up and carefully moved around the piles of books still dotting the steps. I knew it was only a short while ago that I’d been sitting in the sun sorting the books, but it felt like several days had passed since then. I pointed to the padlocked garage and told him what happened.
“Maggie Key’s in there? Unconscious? You left her there?” he asked as he took the key to the garage padlock I held out.
“I certainly didn’t want to stay in there with her since she’d threatened to shoot me. Oh, the gun,” I said, and drew it out of my pocket.
Detective Rickets started at the sight of the gun, then relaxed when I put it in my flattened hand and held it out to him. He took it carefully as an ambulance pulled in behind him. He waved them to the garage and told me to wait where I was. I was happy to sit back down on the steps since my legs weren’t much sturdier than they had been earlier.
I put my elbows on my knees and rested my forehead on the heels of my hands. A pair of brown Sketcher shoes appeared in my line of vision. I knew those shoes. My gaze traveled from the shoes, up the rather nice fitting jeans, to the lightweight gray sweater, and finally to Mitch’s brown eyes. Unlike Maggie’s eyes, his were warm and sympathetic. He’d been my second phone call and had said he’d get there as soon as he could. “Hey,” he said. He sat down beside me on the step and wrapped an arm around me.
I leaned my head against his shoulder and felt the rest of the worry drain away. It really was going to be okay. I’d given him a jumbled and not too coherent explanation on the phone of what had happened. I had to give him points for not quizzing me, he just sat there with his arm around me. “Where are the kids?” I finally asked.
“With Aunt Nanette. Uncle Bud let me borrow his truck,” Mitch said, nodding to the heavy-duty pickup parked beyond the ambulance. “So it was Maggie,” Mitch said with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Yes it was,” I said firmly, and sat up. “How am I ever going to explain this to Livvy?”
“I think we’ll have to say Maggie made a bad choice,” Mitch said. “Good choice” and “bad choice” were the current mantra at her school for encouraging kids to do the right thing.
“Killing someone is an awfully bad choice,” I said. “Do you think it will upset Livvy?”
“I’m sure she’ll be upset and disillusioned, too. But kids are resilient and if anyone understands good and evil, it’s kids.”
“Well, that’s true, I guess,” I said, thinking of some of the ugly things that I’d seen and overheard at the playground, which could be a pretty cruel place at times.
I heard the doors of the ambulance close and looked up to see it lumbering slowly out of the driveway. Detective Rickets strode up to us. “She’s regained consciousness and wants a lawyer. It was all a big misunderstanding, according to her. Says Mr. Avery told her where to find the letters and she came to pick them up, when you turned violent and attacked her.”
“That’s not true,” I sputtered.
He held up his hand. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Avery. It won’t take us long to pick her story apart. We’ve already been up to her house and found a muddy shovel in the trunk of her car. If I was a betting man, I’d feel pretty confident about placing money on the odds that it will match the dirt from the cemetery. We’ll get her cell phone records and find out if she’d contacted this woman who met her here.”
“They acted like they hadn’t seen each other in years.”
“We’ll find out. Why don’t you folks head on home. We’ll wrap everything up and get in touch with you later today.”
He walked away to confer with another officer and I reached down to pick up the scattered stacks of books. “What happened with the recycling truck? Why didn’t they show up?”
“Flat tire,” Mitch said. “They called my cell phone when you didn’t answer.”
There were a few books in the box that I hadn’t pulled out. I moved those into a corner of the box and uncovered a copy of the memoirs. It was with the stacks of books I’d picked up from the end table beside Grandpa Franklin’s recliner. This copy of the memoirs was worn around the edges. Slowly, I pulled it out and opened the front cover. Several pages of stationery were tucked into the book. They were almost the same size as the book pages and fit seamlessly into the groove between the cover and the first page of the book. “Mitch, look,” I said as I gently opened the pages.
“Do you think . . . ,” he said, leaning over my shoulder.
The ink was faded, but still readable. The first letter was addressed to Frank. “It could be from anyone,” I said. “I’m sure Grandpa Franklin received tons of letters,” I said, trying not to get my hopes up as I carefully turned the page over. The signature was a quick scrawl, but I could make out the word. It was signed, “Sal.”
Ellie Avery’s Tips for Preserving Family Treasures
Organizing Books
Don’t overlook old books as you organize your family memorabilia. Family Bibles, journals, signature books, memoirs, cookbooks, and household account books can provide a wealth of information as well as firsthand accounts of everyday life.
• Store in cool, dry place.
• Copy pages to preserve information.
• Use a book stand when reading old books to prevent damage to the spine.
Chapter Twenty-four
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said. Aunt Christine pushed a plate into my hands. “Of course I did. I couldn’t let y’all leave town without breakfast. Help yourself. Breakfast casserole is on the stove.” “Don’t forget the grits,” Bill said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “Ellie loves grits.”
Aunt Christine flapped her hand at him. “Go on, get out of here and stop bothering her. There’re no grits today. Nanette’s brought a fruit salad and there’s some ham, biscuits, and hash browns, too. I made plates for the kids and sent them out back.”
Bill ignored Aunt Christine and stayed right where he was, carefully splitting open biscuits and layering butter and jelly on them. “How did everything go last night?” I asked. Bill and Caroline had moved into Grandpa Franklin’s house yesterday. The cleaning and repairs had begun on their house and it was a mess of drywall dust and torn-up carpet at the moment.
“Fine. Fine,” he said, his teasing manner dropping away. “We sure do appreciate it.”
“So much nicer than the hotel,” Caroline chimed in.
“We’re just glad it will help you out.”
There was enough food
spread around Aunt Christine’s small kitchen to feed thirty people. If the whole Avery family showed up to tell Mitch and me good-bye, she might need that much food. Conversation interspersed with the squawks and whistles from Einstein’s bird cage filled the house with a noisy energy.
“So what was the verdict on the fire?” I took a generous helping of the famous breakfast casserole—a mixture of eggs, sausage, bacon, and cheese—then reached across the counter for a biscuit and felt a twinge in my back as I stretched. It had been three days since I threw the box at Maggie and my back was almost recovered. As long as I didn’t pick Nathan up, I seemed to do all right.
“It was ruled an accident,” Bill said.
“Just because they couldn’t find any proof she did it.” Caroline leaned close to me and said, “I think it was Maggie Key. The police didn’t find a thing to link her to the fire, but she was involved in all those other strange things that were going on, so why wouldn’t she have had her hand in the fire, too?” She paused with the salt shaker poised over her plate. “Breaking the window at Grandpa Franklin’s house, paying Jake to let her have access to Grandpa Franklin’s casket, and then digging in the graveyard, those things have been proved. Anyone who’d do those things wouldn’t think twice about knocking over a candle to set a fire. We only lock the back door at night, so it would have been easy for her to slip in, set the fire, and get out, especially since Bill, Mitch, and the kids were in the garage and the front yard. Once the fire was discovered, she could have dropped the note onto the front porch while everyone’s attention was drawn to the back of the house. She wanted you and Mitch to leave so she’d have unlimited access to the house to search for the letters. It all fits together.”
