He seemed disappointed but not surprised. “I’d hoped for a different outcome.” He rubbed his gloved hands together. “But I suppose we should get started.”
I covered my hand with my sleeve and reached into my backpack for the box.
Even through the fabric, it sent a jagged bolt of pain up my arm and into my left eye. I dropped it, clutching my aching face.
Dr. Brightman made a tsk sound. He went to his desk and retrieved a pair of gloves, sealed in a clear plastic bag. “To touch that kind of object, you need fabric with a much tighter weave. I order these specially—they’ve never been touched by human hands.”
Whatever the reason, once the gloves were on, I was able to remove the cigar box and set it on the glass coffee table.
Dr. Brightman went to his desk and opened a drawer, taking out his sunglasses. He put them on and sat opposite me. Carefully, he lifted the cigar box, turning it around in his hands, examining the brass hinges and running one gloved finger over the carved swirls on the lid. He spent some time examining Lincoln’s image before opening the clasp on the front of the box. In my vision, I had seen cigars inside this box, but I’d never been able to open it for myself. I leaned forward eagerly.
It was empty. Dr. Brightman ran a hand around the inside of the box before setting it down on the table again. “Well. It’s a cigar box.” He looked up at me. “Probably early twentieth century, made long after the assassination. Other than that, I don’t see anything unusual about it . . . yet.” He paused. “Are you ready?”
“Not really.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, yes.”
Dr. Brightman took off his glasses and set them down on the coffee table. Beads of sweat clung to his brow, although the room was cool. He pulled off both his gloves and set them beside the glasses. Then he looked up at me expectantly.
I took off the gloves he’d given me, reached out a hand, and held it above the box. Dr. Brightman did the same. Together, we rested our palms on the wooden lid.
The pain came first. Shooting up the back of my neck, it settled sharp in the center of my forehead. I forced myself to keep my eyes open. A constellation of lights surrounded me, some brighter than others. I leaned toward the brightest one and allowed myself to be consumed by its glow.
When the world coalesced around me again, Dr. Brightman’s office was completely gone. It was night, and I was standing near the building where my brother’s body had been found. Dr. Brightman stood beside me, his hand in mine. I spotted Tyler coming up the sidewalk, hobbling on his crutches, his leg in its cast. The cigar box was nowhere in sight. Tyler wore jeans and his letter jacket, with his backpack on both shoulders and his ever-present baseball cap tipped back on his head. He glanced around as though looking for someone; then he paused under a streetlight and checked his phone.
Emma Herndon emerged into the light. She looked like a flower in winter, alone here after dark in a pair of white pants and a bubblegum-pink blouse.
“Do you have the box?” she asked.
“It’s still inside.” Tyler gestured to the row of houses inside the fenced lot. “My friends let me leave things here sometimes. It’s their secret drop spot for party supplies.” He glanced around, craning his neck to look up and down the darkened street. “Does your dad know you’re here? It’s not the safest neighborhood. You should have let me bring it to you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought of that before taking it in the first place.” She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Something about that box. He . . .” She paused. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he lost it. I’ve never seen him like that, Ty. I thought he might . . . I don’t know.”
Tyler grabbed her hand, his face solemn and intense. “Did he tell you why? What made it so important to him?”
“No. He told me to act like it was no big deal. Why?”
After another quick glance over his shoulder, he let out a long breath. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Tyler hobbled over to the fence and ran his hand along it until he found a loose section of chain-link that swung free at the bottom. “Can you help me here?”
Emma held up the fence so they could go through. He led her over to the house and around to the cellar doors on the side—big metal doors set level with the ground, with handles on the top.
Tyler handed Emma his crutches so that he could open a dented padlock and swing one of the doors open, revealing a set of steps leading down and out of sight. The doors were damaged and uneven, and the hole in the ground gaped like a mouth full of rusty teeth. Precarious-looking concrete stairs ended in total darkness. As far as I could see, they led down to the center of the earth.
“Yeah, I’m not going down there,” Emma said.
Tyler laughed. “No problem. Wait here.”
She held up his crutches. “How are you going to manage that?”
“Did you know that after he shot Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth broke his leg? He evaded capture for ten days. I think I can manage a flight of stairs.”
“Then he got killed, you moron.”
Tyler shrugged. He hopped over and lowered himself down into the cellar. A soft glow appeared inside—he must have turned on a light. Moments later, he pulled himself back out again, a bulge beneath his jacket. Emma dropped his crutches to the ground and moved toward him eagerly. He unzipped his jacket, pulled out the Lincoln cigar box, and placed it with some ceremony in her hands.
“Okay.” She looked up at him, puzzled. “So what’s the big deal about this box?”
“It’s not the box itself,” Tyler said. “It’s what’s hidden inside. I found a secret compartment in the lid. With papers in it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of papers?”
“Solid proof,” Tyler said, “that your dad’s been hiding a stolen artifact worth millions of dollars.”
Emma’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. “Come on,” she said at last. “My dad’s a lot of things, but he’s not a thief.”
“He’s worse than a thief.” Tyler was all venom. “He’s a menace.”
Emma sneered. “You’re lying. You’re still mad because you think he made me break up with you. He didn’t. I came up with that brilliant idea all on my own.”
Tyler’s mouth was an angry slash. “You’re the whole reason I’ve been sitting on this. I could have gone to the newspapers—or the police. But I didn’t want to destroy your family.” He shook his head. “I kept looking for another way. But this is about more than just your dad. It’s about what he symbolizes. Him and everyone like him. They’re tearing this country in half. Rich people over here. Poor people over there. Wealth inequality: it’s the new segregation—and it’s about class and race. And the walls keep getting higher and higher. Almost no one can make that leap anymore, thanks to people like your dad, who would like to think they own this entire country.” He gestured to the box. “Even its fucking history.” He stopped, breathing heavily.
Emma was unnaturally still. “So what are you going to do?”
“I can’t keep quiet anymore. I’m going to break the story myself.”
“Are you talking about your YouTube channel?” She gave a watery-sounding laugh. “How will you fit this big story in, between all your cat-fail videos and dumb pranks?”
“The District is a major idea, Em. It’s not cat fails. It’s journalism. It’s community building. It could spread beyond DC and become a pilot program for channels all over the country.” He held his chin high. “And once this story hits, it’ll be profitable too. I’ll be able to take the year off from school to work on it without living in a cardboard box.”
She held up the box. “You mean you’ll be able to work on it without stealing from me and all our friends. Who’s the real thief in this scenario, Tyler?”
Still without his crutches, Tyler adjusted himself on his one good foot. “Okay, sure. I enjoyed the irony. Having the ultra wealthy bankroll the project, with some left over. We didn’t get our hands too dirty. A few c
igars here. A bottle of wine there.” He shot her a wry smile. “Like crowdfunding.”
Emma’s face was red, and I could see the cords in her neck. “Except for the part where you ask first, you enormous hypocrite.”
“It did get a little out of control.” He hopped a step closer to her. “But it’s nothing compared to what your dad has done.” He held out his hand for the box. “Here, let me show you. I’ll prove it to you.”
She shoved the Lincoln box into his hands, pushing it so hard he teetered on his good foot. He struggled to keep his balance. “Take it, then! But don’t pretend you care about me. You’re going to target my dad? And you think there won’t be consequences for me?” She smacked him on the shoulder. “Everything’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Everything’s just a game.” She started doing an exaggerated impression of Tyler. “‘I’ll drop out of school for a while! Make some videos! Save the world!’ You total prick.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching for her.
Emma slapped Tyler’s hand away, and he swayed backward, dangerously close to the open basement door. “You never worry about anything, do you? And I always have to think and plan and calculate every stupid thing I do. And now you are trying to ruin my goddamn life!”
She turned away from him, and Tyler leaned to one side, trying to see her face. “Listen to me, Emma—”
She spun back toward him, a flourish of movement, clearly ready to lay into him again. He hopped back in surprise, the cigar box still in his hands, and stumbled on the lip of the cellar doors. As if in slow motion, he wavered back and forth, back and forth, until he lost his balance and fell.
I cried out, instinctively moving toward him, but Dr. Brightman’s hand tightened around mine.
I saw my own horror reflected in Emma’s face. She tried to grab Tyler’s arm, but he slipped free of her grasp, smashing his head against the metal doorframe and disappearing from sight into the darkness.
She screamed, tripping over her own feet as she ran through the open door and down into the basement.
Hot, painful tears ran down my cheeks. I wanted to force my way over there, climb down those steps, and help my brother. But I knew what I was seeing could not be changed. Emma came out of the basement a moment later, clutching the Lincoln box, shaking and white-faced with shock. She leaned against the side of the house, staring off into the distance.
The growl of a car engine and the flash of headlights snapped her out of her trance. She startled like a prey animal and froze, staring at the box. From the street, a car door slammed. Then another. Emma’s head jerked up and she spun from side to side, paralyzed with indecision. Finally she squared her shoulders and went back down into the basement.
Two figures came down the sidewalk. As they passed through a pool of light, I saw with surprise that one of them was Senator Herndon; the other was Matty. They stopped at the fence, looking around.
“Emma!” Senator Herndon called. “Are you here?”
Emma emerged from the mouth of the stairwell, empty-handed. She spotted them and ran over to the fence, curling her fingers through the chain-link exactly as I had done a few days ago.
“Well? Where is it?” the senator asked.
“Did you do it, Dad?” Emma’s voice was shaking. “What Tyler said you did?”
The senator hissed out a sharp breath. “Damn,” he said. He took hold of the fence with a fierce grip, and his words cut through the quiet like knives. “Where is my box?”
Emma broke down in tears.
“Where?” her father insisted.
Emma had to choke out her answer. “He didn’t have it.”
The senator’s face grew stony. “What do you mean?”
“He left it with a friend.” Emma lifted a tear-stained face to look her father in the eye. “And I guess it was stolen.”
“Where is he now?”
Emma twisted her fingers in her hair, then pointed back toward the house. “He . . . fell.” She started to cry. “It was an accident! But I think he’s . . .”
The senator swore viciously, and then collected himself. “Matty, I’ll need you to go down there and check it out.”
Emma helped the men through the fence, and she took out her phone.
“What are you doing?” the senator asked her.
“Calling 911.”
He plucked the phone from her hand. “Wait,” he said. “Let me get the lay of the land.” The senator swung into action. “Emma, you talked to this kid on the phone, right? You called to set up this meeting?”
“Yes.”
“If this seems suspicious, they’ll come looking for you.”
“It was an accident,” Emma whispered.
“There’s no such thing as an accident. There’s only a story.” Senator Herndon paused to think for a minute. “We can fix this. Matty, go down there and get the kid’s jacket or something. And his cell phone.”
Matty hesitated, rubbing his hands on the legs of his pants.
“We’re family, Matty,” the senator said. “That means all of us. We take care of our own.”
Matty jerked his head in a nod. He took off his suit jacket and hung it carefully on the open cellar door before descending the steps. He emerged soon after, Tyler’s letter jacket and baseball cap bundled in his arms. But he didn’t have the Lincoln box. Emma must have left it hidden somewhere in the darkness, down where Tyler was.
The senator took out his wallet. “Okay, look. Walk over to the McDonald’s on New York Avenue. They’ve been trying to crack down on drug activity there for years; we might as well get some use out of it.” He pulled a wad of cash from his wallet and held it out to the young man.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked, her eyes glassy, as Matty took the money. “Matty, don’t take that. What’s going on?”
Senator Herndon crouched down beside her and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I have my insulin kit in the car,” he said. “Matty is going to get us everything else we need. We’re going to make this look like an accident.”
“It was an accident,” Emma cried. “Please, Daddy, please let me call an ambulance.”
“We will. When we’re ready for it.” Senator Herndon reached down and grabbed the cellar door, closing it with a slam that made me flinch.
And with that sound, I was back in Dr. Brightman’s office, staring at the box beneath my fingers. I snatched my hand away and cradled it to my chest, looking up into Dr. Brightman’s stunned face.
I sat back on the couch, my mind spinning. My hands buzzed and my head ached, but I could barely feel the pain with all the adrenaline singing through my system. I put the gloves back on and clawed at the lid of the box, trying to find the secret compartment Tyler had mentioned. I opened and closed it, pried at its corners. Nothing.
“May I?” Dr. Brightman asked, pulling on his own gloves.
I handed it to him, and he turned it over in his hands.
“There’s often a key mechanism in these old boxes— Ah.” With a gentle twist, one of the metal feet came off in his fingers, revealing a long brass pin. Dr. Brightman examined the lid, finally locating a tiny hole in the diamond that surrounded Lincoln’s head. He inserted the pin, and a false bottom on the lid popped open.
With trembling fingers, I reached into the opening and removed three folded, tissue-thin sheets of paper, which I laid flat on the coffee table.
I struggled to understand what I was seeing. The first page looked like a receipt from a bank transfer, dated November 1997, from James Herndon to a man named Thomas Marshall. The amount stunned me; it was nearly ten million dollars. The next page was a report on Marshall, who had apparently been an FBI scientist. The final page was a signed statement from Marshall himself. I read it quickly, then read it again, then pushed the papers aside in shock.
Dr. Brightman picked them up and quickly scanned through them. “Your brother was right. Senator Herndon was sitting on a valuable stolen artifact. One of the most valuable in American history.”
&nbs
p; “So this James Herndon—”
“Senator Herndon’s father.”
“Paid off someone at the FBI to switch John Wilkes Booth’s derringer with a fake one?”
“It’s brilliant, really. He never could have taken the derringer from the museum. Much easier to orchestrate a rumor that it had been stolen, so that the park service would remove it from the museum.” He laughed softly. “You were right. The gun did look different, after all.”
“So why keep all this evidence? Why would he make the guy who stole it sign a statement confessing that he did it?”
“Leverage, I suppose.” Dr. Brightman said. “So he could be sure this Thomas Marshall wouldn’t betray him or turn him in.” He flipped through the pages again. “And of course, it also gives him provenance. An artifact like this is completely worthless without a paper trail that shows who owned it and how you got it.”
“Is he still alive? James Herndon?”
“No,” said Dr. Brightman. “But his son obviously is.” He took the papers and brought them over to his desk. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Gary? It’s David Brightman. I’ve come across something that belongs to you.”
I sat forward in surprise.
Dr. Brightman continued. “Well, let’s just say that I am smoking a cigar right now in the company of the sixteenth president of the United States.”
By this time I was standing, stunned and unwilling to believe my own ears.
“I’m sure we can work something out. I don’t want to take the derringer from you. I only want to see it. Examine it, as a scholar.” He paused. “What can I say? It’s been a lifelong dream. And I’m sure you’ll agree—it’s not too much to ask in return for my silence. Shall we meet tonight?” He paused again, then laughed harshly. “No, I don’t think I’ll be meeting you in private. I’ll be at the Ford’s gala, and so will you. A rather poetic place for this exchange, isn’t it? I’ll meet you in the theater after the performance.” He hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.
I sputtered in disbelief. “How . . . What are you doing?”
Dr. Brightman folded the papers, his hands shaking so badly that the pages made a fluttering sound, and he tucked them into the breast pocket of his jacket. He walked around the desk and toward the door. “It’s time for you to leave. As you said when you arrived, this marks the end of our association.” He opened the door.
The Hidden Memory of Objects Page 22
