“Beside the fact that both men have the same initials, what else have you got,” Seymour asked. “And by the way, I have the same initials as Sharon Tate. Using your logic, I should be murdered by a crazy, Manson family–type cult.”
“We should be so lucky,” Fiona muttered.
“Watch it, bird lady! Mail can get lost, you know.”
Brainert ignored the bickering and pressed on. “As you know, Poe was the son of a beautiful stage actress who died when he was just a child. Phelps’s mother was a trained opera singer who died of tuberculosis when he was four. After his mother’s demise, Poe was adopted by a wealthy family named the Allans. Frances Allan loved Poe like a son; Mr. John Allan was cold and indifferent. Mrs. Allan died when Poe was nineteen and in military service. Her death left him once again bereft and motherless, with a stepfather who neither appreciated nor wanted him. Eugene Phelps had an indifferent father as well. After the death of his wife, Eugene’s father remarried, and the couple spent the next fifteen years traveling the world. Eugene remained in New England, raised by a string of nannies and servants—”
“Life in a Newport mansion,” Seymour cut in. “Poor him. I could think of worse things—like the life of a mailman.”
“Loneliness haunts rich and poor alike. Nobody is immune.” Sadie’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“No, Seymour is right,” said Brainert. “At least Eugene Phelps inherited his family’s money. But like Poe, he married late in life to a very young bride. Unfortunately for Phelps, she died of tuberculosis five years later and he never remarried.”
“And Poe?” Linda asked.
“The pattern for Poe’s life began early and never changed. He became defined by loneliness and alienation, and a hopeless quest for love and acceptance. But Poe was doomed to forever be an outcast. His poetry and prose were sometimes controversial, and in his literary criticism, Poe attacked the leading lights of his day, which didn’t make him popular. In a way, Poe was his own worst enemy.” Brainert shook his head. “But saddest of all, the women in Poe’s life always died, leaving him alone and loveless. After losing his stepmother, Poe married a teenaged cousin when he was twenty-seven. But Virginia Clemm was weak and sickly and hovered near death for many years. Eventually she died of consumption, just like Poe’s mother.”
“How tragic.” Linda sighed.
“Yes,” Brainert said. “Though loss and mourning ultimately fueled Poe’s art and led to the composition of his greatest works, eventually tragedy—and alcohol—took their toll.”
During Brainert’s recounting of Poe’s difficult life, I saw Sadie become more and more emotional.
“How did it end?” Linda asked.
“In his final few years, Poe became a pathetic figure,” Brainert continued. “Though his writings made him famous, there was little joy and less financial gain in this recognition. Poe wandered the country from Baltimore to Philadelphia and through the Antebellum South, desperately courting a number of women, simply because he could not cope with life alone.”
Sadie jumped to her feet. Tears she’d been trying to hold back spilled onto her cheeks. She fled the room without a word.
For a moment, everyone sat in an uncomfortable silence. “My aunt is still getting over the loss of her friend Peter,” I explained. “I’d better go see if she’s okay—”
“Let me, Pen.”
Before I could even rise, Bud Napp was on his feet and heading for the doorway. I wasn’t surprised. Ever since he’d lost his wife to cancer, Bud had been a good customer of Buy the Book. “Turns out, good reading’s good company in the lonely hours,” he’d once told us.
He got started by working through his wife’s old pile of Agatha Christies. Soon, Sadie was suggesting some newer authors (although Miss Marple still remains his all-time favorite), and the two seniors had struck up a friendship. Lately, they’d been seeing each other outside the bookstore, for the occasional dinner or drive to Providence.
“So where do we go from here?” Seymour asked after Bud left. “If there was a treasure, it’s gone up in smoke. And we hit a dead end, anyway.”
“Not necessarily,” said Brainert with the hint of a smile.
“What have you got, Brainiac?” Seymour demanded.
“Turns out there was a bundle of papers packed away with the Phelps editions—papers belonging to Miles Milton Chesley, the grandfather of Sadie’s friend Peter Chesley.”
I’d forgotten all about those papers, and the fact that Sadie gave them to Brainert to peruse.
“According to his letters, Miles Chesley bought each volume as they were published, mostly because he was obsessed with finding the treasure,” Brainert explained.
“Did he solve any of the riddles?” Fiona asked.
“Only the first one, pointing to the Mystic library,” Brainert replied. “The same one Dr. Conte solved.” His grin reappeared. “But I solved another.”
“Explain, oh great one,” Seymour urged.
Brainert nodded. “Ever see those tiny numbers and letters tucked near the fold of a hardcover? Those are signature marks and they exist to tell the bookbinder in what order the leaves should be bound. Well, in the Phelps books, there is a signature mark on the title page of each volume.”
“The title page?” I said. “That makes no sense.”
“Exactly! The title page is page five in the front matter of each volume, far too soon for a new leaf—since leaves are typically sixteen to twenty pages. That’s when I realized the marks were bogus.”
“That’s why you had Sadie copy the title pages for you!” I cried.
Brainert nodded. “I used a magnifying glass to examine the tiny letters and realized they were not the initials of the book titles, as is customary. These letters appeared to be random, and one of the volumes had a tiny mark that looked like a stray period. But when I examined it closely, I found it resembled a bug! So, of course, I applied the cryptogram that Edgar Allan Poe invented for his classic detective story, “The Gold Bug,” to those random letters in the title page signature marks, and I decoded the phrase ‘This is indeed Life itself.’”
Seymour scowled. “And this means?”
“It’s from a Poe story,” Brainert said. “A very important passage found in—”
We were interrupted by a pounding noise. Someone was knocking on the store’s front door. The CLOSED sign was posted and the store lights dimmed, so I wondered who it could be. The pounding began again, followed by the buzz of the night doorbell.
“I’d better get that. I don’t want Sadie to be bothered.” I rose and moved through the darkened bookstore to the front door. On the way, I saw flashing red lights rippling through the windows. Quindicott and Rhode Island State Police cars lined the curb. When I opened the door, a blast of frigid night air washed over me, and I shivered as three dark silhouettes stepped forward.
I saw the big, heavyset form of Chief Ciders, a scowl on his face. At his side, Eddie Franzetti shifted uncomfortably. I recognized the tallest of the three, a broad shouldered, bull-necked man in a gray Statie uniform and Smokey the Bear hat. This time it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver, but the stone cold eyes of Detective Lieutenant Roger Marsh of the Rhode Island State Police.
“You’re Mrs. McClure? Penelope Thornton-McClure?” Marsh asked, deadpan.
“You know I am,” I replied.
I heard a sound behind me. Brainert and Seymour had followed me out of the meeting. Marsh saw them, too.
“Step outside, please, Mrs. McClure.”
I figured he wanted to ask me questions, and wanted privacy to do it.
Suddenly Jack’s shout filled my head. Don’t do it, Penelope!
His warning came too late. I stepped across the threshold, pulling the door closed behind me. Suddenly Officer Bull McCoy stepped out of the shadows. His strong hands grabbed my arms, pulled them behind me. I heard a click, felt icy metal bracelets on my wrists. I tried to pull my arms free, but I’d been handcuffed before I realized
it.
“Penelope Thornton-McClure, you are under arrest for grand larceny,” said Detective Marsh in a voice like doom. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
I hardly heard the rest of his spiel. When Marsh asked me if I understood the charges and my rights, I stared at the man in shock.
“You’re charging me with grand larceny?” I repeated.
“That’s right.”
“What in the name of heaven was I supposed to have stolen!”
“Do you understand your rights as I’ve read them to you?” Marsh repeated. “Ma’am, answer yes or no.”
“Yes, but—”
I heard the bookstore’s door fly open and Seymour Tarnish’s irate voice cry out. “Hey, you fascists, what the hell do you think you’re—”
Bull McCoy stepped around me with his nightstick clutched in his fist. “Back off, mailman, if you know what’s good for you or you can go to jail, too.”
Behind me, I heard “Go to hell, McCoy!” a scuffle and a grunt.
“That’s enough, Bull,” Chief Ciders said.
Officer Tibbet of the Quindicott Police escorted me to a squad car. Chief Ciders placed a beefy hand on my head to gently guide me into the back seat.
Still numb, I finally looked back and gasped. Seymour was crumpled on the sidewalk, clutching his stomach. Brainert, pale and in shock, stood over him. Together they helplessly watched the police cruiser carry me away.
CHAPTER 15
Headline News
A good reputation is more valuable than money.
—Publius Syrus
I WAS TAKEN directly to the Quindicott Police headquarters, a surprisingly small redbrick building on the outskirts of town.
A female officer searched me, then my personal belongings were placed in a manila envelope, including my wallet, watch, bracelet, earrings, and loose change. After that I was led into another room where I was posed against a white screen and handed a plaque with my name and date on it. A young male officer snapped my photograph with a handheld camera. Then my fingerprints were taken.
While I was wiping the ink from my hands, I heard angry voices from the next room. I recognized Chief Ciders’s bellow. The other speaker was Detective Marsh, who spoke with calm authority.
I couldn’t make out much, but it sounded to me like they were fighting about my arrest. Apparently Ciders wasn’t happy.
A policewoman took my arm. I recognized her as a customer in my store. I’d seen her browsing with her two preteen daughters in tow. Now my face reddened with shame and I could hardly face her.
The room they placed me in was deemed a “holding cell”—a cubicle with sickly green paint on the walls, a concrete floor, fluorescent lights, and a cot, sink, and toilet. There were no bars on the doors or windows. In fact, there were no windows, except for the wire-laced pane set in the steel door so the officers could keep an eye on their prisoner. The room must have been soundproofed, because the last thing I heard was the click of the lock being thrown.
I felt like crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. They’d taken everything from my pockets, including Jack’s buffalo nickel. I closed my eyes, willed him to be there for me, but there was nothing. I couldn’t feel him or hear him. I felt lost and completely alone.
There was no chair, so I laid down on the bunk, expecting to toss and turn all night. But I was coming down hard off an adrenaline shock, and I fell into a deep deathlike sleep. I didn’t wake up until another policewoman arrived in the morning.
“Time to see the magistrate, Mrs. McClure,” the woman told me.
“I need to make a phone call,” I replied, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “I want to check on my son.”
The woman went away, returned with a cell phone. I called my aunt and told her to stay put, to take care of Spencer and send him off to school. I also told her to call Brainert if I wasn’t back home by noon. Sadie put up a brave front, but I knew she was upset and frightened.
I was taken to Quindicott’s historic, pre–Civil War era courthouse, where I waited for two hours. Finally the magistrate arrived, heard the charges, and set a trial date in early January. Since I had “ties to the community” I was not deemed “a flight risk,” so I was released on my own recognizance.
Officer Franzetti drove me home after the hearing. Sensitive to my embarrassment, Eddie left the squad car with his partner and chauffeured me in his own SUV. It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning when I got back to Buy the Book. A relieved Sadie rushed to hug me when she heard the door chime.
“Brainert called three times, frantic with worry. Seymour was here, too—”
“How is Seymour?” I asked. “It looked like Bull McCoy gave him a pretty bad time.”
“He’s fine,” Sadie replied. “Swears he’s going to make sure Bull McCoy gets the wrong mail for at least six months.”
“And Spencer?”
“I just told him something came up and you had to go out. He got off to school just fine. Frankly, I think he was relieved you wouldn’t be going with him today. I think he was hoping you’d miss your meeting with the new principal.”
I hadn’t forgotten the meeting—with yet another Chesley. More complications at a time when things were complicated enough for me already!
“Now, please, Penelope, I’ve been fretting all night. What in the world is going on? Why were you arrested? Seymour and Brainert told me the state police charged you with theft?”
“Grand larceny—a felony.”
“For stealing what?” Sadie asked.
“Jacques Montour has charged me with stealing the Poe book that Rene bought for him,” I explained. “Apparently, his representative, a man named Gordon Hessler, showed up at Fiona’s last night to collect Rene’s personal belongings. After that, he went to the Quindicott Police Station to claim the effects from the accident scene.
“When Ciders turned over the Chandler first editions but no Phelps Poe, Hessler was irate. He called the state police and said that an eight-thousand-dollar book was missing and presumed stolen.
“Detective Marsh called back Chief Ciders, who’d been in charge of the accident scene. Ciders said the scene was secure. The only person who was even close to the car, besides the police and emergency workers, was me. And, of course, I had told Ciders I was looking for the exact book that was stolen. In retrospect, I guess I was pretty rude and loud about it, too.”
“I see,” said Sadie. “So you became the fall guy, so to speak.”
“Yes, I think there was pressure on the state police to arrest me. And Officer Marsh is not exactly a fan of mine. He’s marked me as a bad penny ever since the first author to appear in our store ended up as a corpse.”
“But there’s no evidence against you,” Sadie cried, throwing up her hands.
“That’s what Chief Ciders told Marsh. I heard them arguing while I was being booked. Eddie said Ciders was really steamed about my being arrested, but he had no choice. He actually stuck his neck out to keep me here in town instead of being booked in Providence like Marsh wanted.”
Sadie snorted. “Chief Ciders doesn’t stick his neck out for anyone.”
“Apparently Ciders feels guilty for implicating me. Small comfort if I go to prison.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Sadie passed me a mug of hot coffee from the thermos we kept behind the counter.
I took my first sip, realizing only then that I’d had no food or drink since the Quibbler’s meeting. “So what do I tell Spencer?” I asked. “He’s going to hear about this sooner or later.”
“Then it’s best he hear it from you. When he gets home from school we’ll both sit him down and have a talk.”
“How do I tell my son I’m innocent?”
“Don’t worry, Pen. Spencer’s watched enough shows on the Intrigue Channel to know people get blamed all the time for crimes they didn’t commit.”
I sighed, took another hit of caffeine. “
How are you feeling?” I asked my aunt. “The meeting last night seemed to upset you.”
Sadie shook her head. “It wasn’t the meeting. It was all those things Parker said about Poe. I just got to thinking about Peter, how bad off he was at the end, how a stupid misunderstanding set us apart all those years…”
“What misunderstanding? I don’t follow.”
“Well, I thought I had put this behind me, but…remember the night Peter died, as we were leaving his mansion? You left us alone to say goodnight…”
“I remember.”
“Peter actually asked me how ‘my husband’ was. The question took me by surprise. But Peter told me he’d read about my marriage in the Providence Journal—”
“Oh, yes! I remember that. You wrote me a letter about it while I was living in New York. The announcement said, ‘Sadie Thornton married’…Who was it?”
“Mr. Aletti, of the Quindicott Savings and Loan,” Sadie said. “The paper got the names wrong, printing my name instead of Sadie Thorners. I got ribbed about it for weeks—your friend Seymour was the worst. He’d just started his route that year. Kept saying he had a truck load of wedding gifts for the wrong bride.”
“So Peter Chesley read that announcement in the paper, and he thought—”
“He thought I was married.” Sadie shook her head. “That’s why he never contacted me again. Eventually I myself assumed that he was the one who’d found someone. I’d convinced myself he’d gotten remarried and simply decided to break all ties with me.”
Sadie brushed her cheek of a stray tear. “But the hardest part for me is…when I think back, to that time when we were so close, when were a couple, I can’t even recall what it was that broke us apart. Just squabbles and hurt feelings and misunderstandings…now it all seems so petty…so stupid. I can’t think why we didn’t try harder to work it out.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
“You can always tell yourself that there’s a chance, but when someone dies, when he leaves the earth…well, when that happens, it’s over. A door shuts forever. What am I saying? After what you went through in your life, Penelope, I don’t have to tell you that, do I, dear?”
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