A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries)

by MacPherson, Rett

  Sylvia knew that I’d been in the drawer, but I told her that I saw nothing of importance in the file cabinet, and we haven’t spoken of it again.

  “Torie,” Krista said, “you don’t look so well. Have I upset you?”

  “No. You haven’t upset me. Life upsets me.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation to you, I thought it was rude and very petty,” Krista said. “For Eleanore to print something like that—I mean, I have no great love for Sylvia, but that was rude.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said. “Well, I guess I better head on over and find out if she’s read the paper. That way I can get home and nurse my wounds and be healed by the time my family comes strolling home for the day.”

  I crossed the street, head down, aiming for the Gaheimer House and wondering how in the heck one itty-bitty town could have so many problems. The Gaheimer House is large, three stories, and sits right on the sidewalk. On really hot days, you can feel the heat coming from the red brick of the building just walking by it. It is a burnt-red color. The windowsills are a cream color and surrounded by forest green shutters. It’s not a pretty combination but I’m not about to tell Sylvia.

  I entered the foyer and made my way through the living room, which is decorated in almost entirely Victorian furniture, laces, and doohickeys. Some decorating genius decided that if you had a spare inch in your home during the Victorian era, you had to cover it. That genius was Queen Victoria herself, actually.

  The furniture is covered in an emerald green and blackberry paisley. It looks quite nice, especially set against the original oak floor.

  I went through the ballroom, the hall, and finally my office. I set the envelope down on my desk and went to find Sylvia or Wilma. One of them was always around, even though they did not live here.

  “Sylvia?”

  I heard her determined footsteps as she came from the kitchen. “Yes, what is it?”

  She was collected and poised. If she’d read the paper, she showed no outward signs of it. But that was Sylvia. “What do you want, Victory?”

  “Did you know that Marie Dijon was descended from Charlemagne?” When in doubt on how to approach a subject, don’t.

  “I thought I told you to return those papers to the estate. Did I or did I not?”

  Sylvia Pershing is the only woman in the entire world who can fluster me to the point that all my language skills fly out the window. Something wasn’t right. Sylvia wasn’t right.

  “I did. I mean, you did. And I tried to, but Mr. Reaves wasn’t where he was supposed to be last night, so I thought I’d take a closer look at the papers.”

  “That’s the very thing that seems to get you into trouble,” she said. She turned and stomped off down the hallway and into the kitchen. I felt very stupid standing in the hallway just outside of my office, alone. So, I followed her.

  “I’m serious, Sylvia. On her father’s side she was descended from Charlemagne, who in turn was descended from three hundred years of Merovingian kings all the way back to Pharamond. On her mother’s side she was descended from Hengist the Saxon. Do you know who Hengist the Saxon is? Or was, I should say. I do. I’m probably one of the few people that somebody could walk up to and say, ‘Hey, do you know who Hengist the Saxon was?’ and I’d be able to say yes.”

  “Is there a point to this?” Sylvia asked me, her head shaking slightly from age and irritation.

  “Well no, not really. It’s just that when I was a teenager, I hated the time and place that I lived in so much that I spent all my time in 450 A.D. And thus, I know who Hengist the Saxon was.”

  “And? Who was he?”

  “Oh, just some Prince of Jutes. And King of Kent, around 457 or so. He defeated the Britons several times, and he is also a descendant of Woden.”

  “Woden?”

  “Yes, largely mythical. Sort of like … King Arthur. Except Woden was the ancestor of Cerdic the Saxon who was in turn an ancestor to Alfred the Great.”

  “Aah,” she said. “Finally a name that I recognize. Once more, Victory, is there a point to all of this?”

  My palms were sweating, and I was suddenly very nervous. “Well, no. But Marie’s father’s line, the French one, it’s very interesting indeed. See, she’s descended from the Charlemagne line through Louis IV, through his son Charles, Duke of Lorraine.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her family were the rightful heirs to the French throne when Louis V died in 987. If the crown had gone to the correct bloodline, there would never have been an Anne of Austria or Louis XIV, or the dauphin held prisoner during the French Revolution. There may not have ever been a revolution. Hugh Capet came along and usurped the throne, on a claim through his mother’s line. She was a descendant of Charlemagne as well, only through his son Pepin, the King of Italy. Hugh had no real male claim. His father had been the son-in-law of Louis I. Son-in-law is not a strong enough claim to a throne when there are direct male descendants of the king.”

  She did not respond for a moment. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked me. “Why the excitement over a lineage? You’ve seen lineages of this caliber before.”

  “Well, sure. But very few have lived in New Kassel, and I was wondering why you wished to return the documents instead of copying them and displaying them, like you did mine?”

  “You are descended from Robert the Bruce. He was a great man.”

  “As was Charlemagne. Besides, Robert the Bruce is descended from Charlemagne. Every royal household was descended from Charlemagne in one form or other.”

  “Well,” Sylvia said, “then what’s all the hooplala over Marie’s lineage?”

  “Well, like most Americans, our lineage bleeds out into lowly knights, seneschals, grooms-of-the-bedchamber—those types of titles, or eventually individuals with no title or land and so they come to America. But Marie’s line was titled clear up to the revolution in France.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes, and I was wondering why you didn’t see fit to keep this lineage for our records, like we usually do.”

  She looked out the window. “No reason.”

  “Sylvia, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bull. What is it?” I asked.

  “If you must know,” she said, spinning around to face me. “I have always liked to believe that you and I had a professional respect for each other.”

  “I’d like to think that, too,” I said.

  “You have betrayed me.” It was not hurt that I saw in her eyes, it was anger.

  “I what? What have I done?” I was genuinely surprised.

  “I know that you told Eleanore Murdoch about…”

  “No, Sylvia—”

  She held a hand up for me to stop talking, which I did. I always listen to Sylvia. She is a great authority figure. I never could understand where that authority came from.

  “Now, everything has been undone. All my hard work.”

  “Sylvia, I did not tell Eleanore about the will or anything. I swear to you. You know she has access to newspapers and the courthouse the same as you or I. All she had to do was look it up.”

  “How did she know about Sophie?”

  I stared in disbelief. My mind wasn’t comprehending what it was that she was saying to me. “What do you mean? You mean Sophie really did commit suicide?”

  “Yes,” she said and hung her head.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mumbled. She started to protest my vulgarities in the Gaheimer House and I stopped her. “Jesus Christ is not a vulgarity. I was appealing to him.”

  “You’re a clever woman, Victory.”

  “Look, Sylvia. I swear to you that I said nothing to Eleanore. I wouldn’t give her my grocery list. So far as Sophie’s suicide, I can’t tell you where she got the information, unless it was in the papers as well.”

  “No,” Sylvia answered me. “It wasn’t. It was kept out because of their children and grandchildren.”

  “When did she commit suicide?”

&n
bsp; “1922,” she said. “I was nineteen.”

  I suddenly felt sorry for Sylvia. I was trying to imagine what it must have been like to be nineteen and to have to live the next seventy-odd years thinking that you were indirectly responsible for your lover’s wife’s suicide. I had no words to give her.

  “You don’t think that Eleanore just took a guess and got it right?”

  “No. I think not.”

  “Oh, Sylvia. I am truly sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. She straightened her shoulders. “I have wrongly accused you. Forgive me,” she said and waltzed past me as stately as ever.

  Five

  When I arrived home, my mother was cooking dinner. She is fifty-two and still a very beautiful woman. She has an oval face with creamy skin and dark brown eyes. She has a certain regal air to her, as though she’d been to the finest finishing school in New York. In reality she had not finished high school, thanks to polio. When she became confined to a wheelchair some forty-three years ago, there was no way to get to school. In the fifties there was no transportation for the disabled in Huntington, West Virginia, and her mother and father both worked long hours.

  “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Not much. Rudy called and said he’s going to have to go to Indianapolis in the morning. The only flight he could get is four in the morning. So he wants to know if you’d pack his suitcase for him, so he can go right to bed when he gets in?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  I turned to head out to the back porch but was stopped by Sheriff Brooke standing in the doorway. He had a rather determined look on his face.

  “Oh, hello, Sheriff. I didn’t know you were coming for dinner.”

  He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

  “Mmm-mmm. Smell that corn bread?” I asked. “Fried potatoes, too. Well, lucky you.”

  Just then, Rachel came in through the back door, scrambled between his legs, and came to me. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hello, sweetie,” I said and hugged her.

  “Rachel and I just had a very interesting conversation,” Sheriff Brooke said.

  “Really? Well, she’s a fairly interesting kid.”

  “Yes,” he said as he walked toward me. I instinctively backed up. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. “I can’t wait to hear your explanation for the outrageous events she told me about.”

  “Well, you know seven-year-olds. They have the greatest imaginations.”

  “What were you doing in Marie Dijon’s house?” he asked me.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and wondered how I would get out of this one. My mother turned to me then from the stove looking very maternal. Not maternal-pity, but maternal-angry.

  “I can get you for breaking and entering, and don’t think because you are Jalena’s daughter that I won’t do it, because I will.”

  “Only entering. I didn’t break in.”

  “God!” he said. “You had your children with you!”

  “It’s not what it seems.”

  “Oh, I’m waiting,” he said as he clasped his hands behind his head. “Your explanations are always the best in the world.”

  “I went out there to return some documents to Mr. Reaves.”

  “Why there?” he asked. “That makes no sense.”

  “I had some documents that were Marie Dijon’s. Sylvia wanted me to return them. When I called his office, Jamie said he wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day, but that I could catch him over at Marie’s around seven. I went over there, only he never showed up,” I said. “Jeez, I wouldn’t have taken my children if I had gone over there intending to snoop. What kind of mother do you think I am? Don’t answer that question.”

  Mother wheeled over to the table and placed a large platter of fried catfish on the table. She stared at me for a few seconds, letting me know with eye contact only that I hadn’t heard from her yet over this matter.

  “So how did you get inside?”

  “The door was open. Mary ran inside.”

  “So you couldn’t turn around and walk back out?”

  I couldn’t answer that question. At least not without condemning myself.

  “Why didn’t you turn on the lights?” he asked.

  He was on a roll.

  “Because you didn’t want anybody to know that you were in there,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Rachel, go in your room and play,” I said.

  “But, Mom—”

  “You’re not in trouble. Just go on and play.”

  She left, reluctantly.

  “Rachel said that you shut them in the bathroom,” Sheriff Brooke said.

  “Wait. Hold everything. Mary had to go to the bathroom, and I’m not answering any more of these questions until you’ve answered a few of mine.”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions,” he said.

  “Then you can get out of my house.”

  My mother said nothing. I knew she wouldn’t interrupt. This fight was between me and the sheriff. My mother was one of the most incredibly fair individuals I have ever known. I think it is something she learned from spending a lifetime in a wheelchair. She has observed more situations than most people.

  “What? What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “I’d like to know why this was not investigated as a homicide,” I said.

  “There is no reason for it to be. Duran checked out the scene. He questioned people. There is no reason to believe that her death was anything but an accident. I read the report.”

  “I’m not saying that somebody killed her on purpose. It could have been the result of an argument that went too far.”

  “Where’s your evidence?” he asked me. “There is no reason to believe that there was even another person in the house.”

  “Okay,” I said, “listen to this theory. And listen with an open mind.”

  He gave me a snarl, which in his heathen way meant that he would try to listen objectively. Oscar the Grouch has nothing on this guy. He waited with minimal patience as I tried to formulate in my mind what it was I wanted to say. Even my mother had stopped slicing tomatoes to listen to what I was about to tell him.

  I cleared my throat. “She lives alone. Just like you, Sheriff. You live alone. If you get up in the middle of the night to get a drink or go to the bathroom, do you bother with a housecoat? Slippers? I could see the slippers if it’s the dead of winter. But it’s September. I happen to know that the night Marie died it was sixty-seven degrees at two in the morning, because I called the weather bureau and found out. Now,” I said, swallowing, “let’s go a step further. Would you bother brushing your hair? If you were going to get a drink in the kitchen by yourself at two in the morning, would you bother with a housecoat, slippers, and brushing your hair to get a glass of milk?”

  He said nothing.

  My mother spoke up then. “In the middle of the night, I wouldn’t bother with it, and I don’t live alone. I wouldn’t expect to run into anybody in the kitchen. But even if I did bother with the housecoat and slippers, I definitely wouldn’t brush my hair.”

  “And neither would most people,” I added.

  Sheriff Brooke still said nothing.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “I might agree with you on that. But how do you know that’s what happened?” he asked.

  “It’s been established by forensics that the time of death was sometime between eleven P.M. and four A.M. on Wednesday morning, and don’t ask me how I found out that information because I will not tell you.” The sheriff rolled his eyes heavenward. I don’t know if that was in frustration, aggravation, or exasperation. Probably all three. I continued. “Anyway, I found a hairbrush on the foot of her bed, like she’d brushed her hair before she got up to answer the door. Everybody knows that she had on slippers and a robe. But this is the kicker. There were two clean glasses sitting on her table next to the jug of milk.”

  His face changed expressions completely. H
e sat to attention then. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Why would she get out two glasses? I think that somebody knocked at her door, so she brushed her hair, put on the robe, and so forth. She let in her killer. Whether or not the person came there with the intent to kill her, or if it was a result of an argument, I don’t know. But she was not alone,” I said. “I don’t think that she would have got out the milk before she went to bed and forgot to put it away. And why the two glasses? There should have been only one,” I said with great satisfaction.

  Sheriff Brooke sat with one leg crossed over the other, picking at the heel of his boot. His eyebrows were knitted together. He was off in police land trying to piece together everything I’d just said.

  “So,” I said. “I ask you one more time. Why is this not being handled as a homicide?”

  “Well, I left the crime scene. It was my day off and I thought Duran had it under control. I’ll check into it, but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that you were where you weren’t supposed to be. With your children, no less!”

  Sheriff Brooke stood up then and headed out to my back porch, stopping at the door. “I don’t want to hear of you being on that property again. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” I said as I saluted him.

  I was so thrilled with myself for convincing the sheriff that some pretty sloppy investigative work had been done that I forgot that my mother was still in the room. I was smiling to myself, like a schoolgirl who beat the smartest boy in the class in the math races. My smile soon faded as I looked into my mother’s eyes.

  “It was an accident,” I pleaded. “I would not intentionally endanger my children.”

  She said nothing. I glanced out my back door and thought about Sheriff Brooke sitting out on my porch swing. I supposed that this would not be a good time to bring up the subject of his informal bid on Marie Dijon’s estate.

  Six

  Camille Lombarde lived in an area of St. Louis known as the Central West End. It was an artsy neighborhood where one could find organic grocery stores, outdoor cafés, beautiful globed streetlights, cobblestoned streets and sidewalks, and every type of esoteric bookstore and music store imaginable. My favorite Chinese restaurant is located at the corner of Maryland and Euclid. The Magic Wok can’t be beat for their lunchtime buffet.