Thirteen Authors With New Takes on Sherlock Holmes

by Michael A. Ventrella

  “And the beachfront homes are gorgeous,” I said. “Is that Marie and Rebecca?” Bathing caps hid their hair, but I was certain that they were the two laughing girls posing arm-in-arm in the surf.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “That’s the beach property on Sullivan Island. It’s long gone. It would have been built by Marie’s grandfather. Those Victorians knew how to live large!”

  “Do you have any other items from Jacob Whitley or Marie Chastain?” Shelley asked.

  “Marie was so young when she died, just in her early twenties. She hadn’t really had a chance to make her mark. But I think we do have a letter she wrote in favor of women getting the vote. Let me see if we can find it.” Mrs. Morrissey signaled one of her interns and sent the young man off with instructions. “Jacob Whitley was a little older, but unfortunately, his life ended with the fire as well—in a manner of speaking.”

  “How so?” Shelley’s gaze narrowed.

  “While Rebecca escaped the fire unhurt except for minor cuts and superficial burns, Jacob wasn’t as lucky,” Mrs. Morrissey recounted. “He was badly injured—something to do with his leg—and he suffered disfiguring burns. Together with the death of his fiancée, it seemed to be too much for him. He moved up to his family’s Adirondack home and became a recluse for the rest of his life.”

  “What drove Marie’s father to suicide?” I asked. “Were they particularly close?”

  Mrs. Morrissey shrugged. “Who can tell how someone will handle grief like that? I’ve heard that they argued about the arranged marriage. Both Marie and her father could be stubborn. Maybe he regretted that later.” She gave me a sad smile. “For all his wealth and power, he couldn’t save his daughter. People don’t react rationally to loss.”

  Shelley sorted through the photos on the table. She peered closely at one, and snapped another picture with her phone. “It’s a formal photograph of the Whitley family.” She pointed out Jacob, seated in the front row with his hands clasped on his lap. “It looks like he’s wearing a ring. Is that the one you found in the box?”

  I squinted and looked more closely, then shook my head. “I can’t tell. The photo isn’t sharp enough.”

  “Here’s another one of Jacob with Marie and Rebecca,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “That’s odd—I don’t remember seeing it before.” I took the picture from her, and glimpsed a man’s silhouette out of the corner of my eye. The ghost was there and gone in a heartbeat. Could there have been more to Marie’s death than a tragic accident? I wondered. And after all this time, why would anyone try to steal back a box of things that have been sitting in a museum basement for years?

  The photograph showed three young adults in formal wear laughing and standing arm-in-arm. Marie and Rebecca were having the time of their lives. Jacob looked uncomfortable in his tuxedo, his smile forced.

  “It’s an odd pose for a photograph, don’t you think?” Shelley said, staring at the picture. “They’re not lined up by height.” Jacob, the tallest of the three, was on the left. Rebecca was in the middle. She was the shortest one, coming just up to Jacob’s shoulder and a little above Marie’s shoulder. Marie was on the right.

  “Probably one of those random red carpet photos,” I said. The picture made me sad, and I could sense a depth to the melancholy that was not my own. Something hidden in plain sight, Shelley had said. After nearly a century, why had the ghosts picked now to end their silence? And what secret had they guarded all this time?

  “Here’s the letter you wanted,” the intern said, returning with a yellowed envelope and a pair of archival gloves.

  Mrs. Morrissey slipped on the gloves and carefully unfolded the letter. Shelley and I crowded around her to read a passionate letter in favor of women’s right to vote written by a well-educated, outspoken young woman.

  “Quite bold, wasn’t she?” Shelley mused. “And unconventional.”

  Mrs. Morrissey chuckled. “The twenties were a time when women with Marie’s education and privilege began bucking convention in all sorts of ways, from wearing pants—scandalous!—to going to college to trying to enter male-only vocations.”

  “I wonder how Marie and Jacob would have gotten on, if the marriage had happened,” I said, as Shelley snapped a picture of the letter. “They don’t seem to be temperamentally suited for each other.”

  “Opposites attract, or so they say,” Mrs. Morrissey replied. “Although personally, I’ve found that birds of a feather flock together.”

  • • •

  Shelley and I thanked Mrs. Morrissey, then we retrieved Watson from the porch and headed back to Shelley’s house.

  “Don’t look now, but there’s a white van following us,” Shelley said. “Hold on. I’m going to make a detour.”

  I thought Shelley might speed up and start taking corners on two wheels, the way people do in the movies. Instead, she kept her speed constant, and made a few extra turns that took us in a different direction. To my surprise, she turned down an alley next to a convenience store, to emerge on the main road a few blocks later. The white van followed us most of the way, but must have realized that we spotted it, because it turned off not long after we had passed the store.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Samir, the guy who owns that convenience store, owes me a couple of favors,” Shelley replied. “I helped him bust a shoplifting ring. He’s got surveillance cameras all around the store, and he can get me copies of the tapes. With luck, they picked up a license plate on that van.”

  “Hey, lady!” a neighbor called when Shelley and I parked at her house. He pointed at my Mini Cooper. “Is that your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Some guy was hanging around, looking in all the windows. I thought he might try to break in, so I yelled at him, and he got in his car and drove away.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. Nothing looked damaged. “Did you see what he was driving?”

  “Yeah. A white minivan.”

  • • •

  I headed back for Trifles and Folly, constantly glancing in my rearview mirror. I even took a more roundabout route, just in case. I quickly discovered it was almost impossible to be on the highway or in a parking lot without spotting dozens of white minivans. Talk about hiding in plain sight. My stalker vanished by being everywhere.

  “Everything go okay?” Maggie asked when I came in.

  “Shelley agreed to take the case, no one got hurt, we found out some good information, and there’s a white van stalking us.”

  “Hey, you got back here safely, boss. That’s what counts,” she said, and shot me a thumbs-up.

  “If that’s Cassidy, tell her I’ve got stuff she wants to hear,” Teag called from the office.

  “It’s me, and I’m heading your way.”

  Maggie jerked her head toward the office. “I’ll handle the customers; you go save the world.”

  Something about Marie Chastain’s death bothered me. There were too many loose ends, and far too much interest in something long out of recent memory.

  And then there was the silhouette. Is he a ghost, or a lost spirit, or just a psychic impression that’s a little more tangible than usual?

  “What did you find?” I asked, swinging through the break room for a glass of sweet tea.

  “I love projects that scan archival documents,” Teag said, cracking his knuckles and wiggling his fingers above the keyboard. Passwords don’t stop Teag, and neither do firewalls—not even federal-level security, although we try to keep that kind of snooping for dire cases. “You scored?”

  Teag grinned. “Oh yeah. A reporter named Peter Studebaker covered the fire that killed Marie Chastain when it happened. He was a bit of a muckraker. A rogue investigative journalist. He had unanswered questions, but no one would listen to him, and he believed the Chastain family leaned on the newspaper editor to kill the story.”

  I sipped my sweet tea. “That’s certainly possible. Money buys silence. Or, he might have just been nuts.”

  “I don
’t think he was nuts,” Teag said. “Someone scanned his notes about the case and put them online.”

  “And?”

  Teag sat back in his chair. “Studebaker thought it was odd that the initial firefighter’s report said arson, but was quickly changed to gas leak. He apparently was early on the scene, and says one of the first responders found evidence to suggest that someone set the house on fire with a homemade firebomb.”

  “Yikes.”

  “It gets better,” Teag said. “Studebaker quoted witnesses who saw Marie Chastain and her father arguing not long before the fire. Studebaker suspected that Marie was in love with someone else, and was balking at the arranged marriage.”

  “Let me guess. Whoever she was in love with didn’t meet her father’s standards.”

  “Studebaker’s vague on that point,” Teag replied. “If he had any idea of who the rival suitor was, he didn’t say so. But he suggested Jacob Whitley might have been more interested in Rebecca than in Marie.”

  “Oh?”

  “According to Studebaker, Jacob was injured in the fire, but he was vain enough to refuse treatment in Charleston, saying he would see his own doctor back in New York. Rebecca was studying to be a nurse, and she patched him up enough to make the trip. Observers say he walked with a limp and his face was badly burned, covered in bandages.”

  “What about the letters?” I asked, remembering the bundle Alistair had given me.

  Teag nodded. “Somehow, Studebaker found out that Jacob and Rebecca began corresponding after Marie’s death, with Rebecca in Charleston and Jacob in self-imposed exile in the Adirondacks. Then a year later, Rebecca moved up to be his nurse. She never came back to Charleston.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “But why would anyone care about this now? After a hundred years, why is someone following people around and breaking into cars?”

  “Studebaker thought there was more to the story, but the police and the newspaper told him to drop it, especially after Marie’s father committed suicide.”

  “Shelley’s coming over to take a look at the items in the box,” I added. “I think she’s onto something, but she won’t tell until she can make the big reveal.”

  “Dramatic, isn’t she?” Teag laughed.

  “Always.”

  My phone rang. It was Alistair. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve just heard back from Oliver Chastain.” Alistair sounded upset. “Not only have they refused to provide any information about Marie’s death, but they’re demanding the box back—and he says they’ll sue if we don’t comply.”

  That was going to put Alistair in a bad situation, because the museum couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of the Chastains, major patrons to just about every charity in the city. “I understand,” I said, as I signaled to Teag that I would explain everything later. “Can we stall him for just a little while? I think Shelley’s close to having a solution—and I suspect it’s going to be worth our while to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’ll try,” Alistair said. “But when push comes to shove, I’m going to have to give him what he wants.”

  I hung up, and relayed what Alistair said. “Damn. Oliver Chastain has a reputation as a real son of a bitch, like his father and grandfather. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hired Anthony’s law firm for the suit on purpose, just to put pressure on us as well as the museum,” Teag said. Anthony was Teag’s partner. If Teag’s fears proved true, that would put everyone in an extremely awkward position.

  “But why?” I mused. “Surely no one would care if a hundred years ago, Marie wanted to break off an arranged marriage, even if she had another suitor in mind.”

  Teag rolled his eyes. “Even if she were pregnant—which would have been a big thing at the time—no one would bat an eye today. I agree. The reaction is over the top.”

  “It only seems over the top to us because we don’t know something that Oliver Chastain knows. That’s the missing piece—and Shelley believes the answer is hidden in plain sight.”

  A rap at the door signaled Shelley’s arrival. Maggie watched the store so we could stay in the back. Teag took the box out of the safe. Immediately, I felt the effect on my mood. From the look on Teag’s face and Shelley’s expression, I knew they sensed it, too.

  “What just happened?” Shelley asked.

  “That’s the supernatural effect that made Alistair bring us the box in the first place,” I said. “There’s an emotional resonance that makes everyone sad.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the man’s silhouette once more. I felt no threat; instead, the shadow seemed to be trying to watch. It was almost as if the spirit were rooting for us to figure something out.

  “I have the oddest feeling that the ghosts connected to these items are trying to send a message,” I told Teag and Shelley. “Maybe once we learn what that is, they’ll be able to rest.”

  “Let’s get started,” Shelley said. A glint in those gray eyes told me she was fully invested in the case. Shelley gently loosened the twine that tied up the letters. As they fell apart, I could see that about half were to Jacob and half to Rebecca. “If you haven’t read the letters or the journal, I think now is a good time,” Shelley said. “Cassidy—can you handle one of those objects better than another?”

  I held my palm above the letters and then over the journal. Neither one gave off dangerous vibes, but the emotions linked to the journal were stronger and more negative. “How about if I take Rebecca’s letters, Teag takes Jacob’s letters, and you read the journal?”

  “That works for me,” Shelley said. We drew chairs up to the table and spread out the items among us.

  There were twelve yellowed envelopes in Rebecca’s handwriting, and twelve more in Jacob’s script. Interesting. That means they traded two letters each month between Marie’s death and when Rebecca moved to New York to nurse Jacob back to health. That’s a lot of conversation.

  I settled back in my chair to read. Rebecca’s handwriting was compact but clear, in an old-fashioned script. The letters chronicled day-to-day life, the kind of things we’d say in a phone call or on Facebook, like what they ate for dinner, or who they saw at a party—personal news about a circle of mutual friends.

  I found myself caught up in the accounts. The letters implied a conversation between two people who knew each other very well. Rebecca and Jacob were very much in love and missed each other badly.

  Did guilt over Marie’s death keep them apart? Were they worried about being openly involved with each other so soon after Marie and her father died?

  The letter that must have followed shortly after the suicide of Marie’s father caught my attention. I know you chide me for speaking my mind openly on this matter, and I do not wish to show disrespect for your feelings, Rebecca had written. But knowing him as I did, over so many years, never have I been acquainted with such a hard-hearted and close-minded man, who managed—despite his considerable business success—to make an utter ruin of his family. I know how much unhappiness he brought to Marie, and while you may fault me for saying it, I hope the Almighty requires recompense for the suffering he has caused.

  “Rebecca wasn’t a fan of Marie’s father,” I said.

  “Jacob seemed to have some lingering bad will there, too,” Teag replied. “Maybe he felt pressured to go through with the marriage to Marie even though she didn’t love him, because of Mr. Chastain’s influence.”

  “I’d say it’s unanimous that no one cared much for Marie’s father, not even Marie.” Shelley looked up. “And the journal removes all doubt that Marie was in love with someone else, although she never names names.”

  Shelley pulled out her phone and photographed a page of the journal, then one of each of the letters. “I’d like to look at the other items,” Shelley said, getting up abruptly and circling the table. She lifted the melted Saint Gaudens gold coin and examined it thoroughly, peering at it with her magnifying glass and jotting notes to herself on her phone. Then she regarded the partly-burned stationery wi
th its ominous pronouncement and took another photo.

  Shelley stood up, adjusted her necklace, squared her shoulders, and favored us with a triumphant, self-satisfied expression. “I’ve solved the case,” she announced, holding up a hand to forestall questions. “All will be explained in due time. There’s not a moment to waste. We must call Alistair right away to arrange a meeting tonight with Oliver Chastain. I have a presentation to make that he’ll never forget.”

  • • •

  The museum was closed when we gathered in the boardroom. Alistair looked nervous, with good cause. Shelley would only say that she had solved the case and knew why Oliver Chastain was so eager to recover the items—and why the shadow figure was anxious for resolution. But she would not elaborate until Chastain joined us.

  We had not been allowed in the boardroom as Shelley prepared her display of evidence, laid out on easel boards on stands that were dramatically draped to obscure them until Shelley made her big reveal.

  Our small group waited quietly for the sound of the outside door opening. Oliver Chastain bustled in. “I don’t know why I had to come down here at a certain time to pick up objects that belong to my family,” he snapped when he saw Alistair. “You can be certain I’ll mention this to the board of directors.”

  Oliver Chastain was the picture of a successful Charleston scion. He was in his sixties, and his bespoke suit was tailored to accommodate a figure that was portly from too much fine food and wine.

  “We know why you’re in such a hurry to retrieve the items,” Shelley said, and her voice startled Chastain, as if he had not noticed the rest of us sitting in the shadows of the room’s perimeter until she spoke. “We’ve uncovered the truth about what really happened in that fire back in 1920.”

  Shelley might be eccentric, but when the chips are down, she has a gravitas and a sense of self-assurance sufficient to silence even the bluster of a man like Chastain. “Sit down, Mr. Chastain. You must be tired from following Alistair and Cassidy and me around in that white van of yours.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—” Chastain protested.