When I Meet You

by Olivia Newport

  Rich shrugged. “A single exception.”

  “Perhaps we should have a look at the papers you mentioned,” Nolan said. “Are they still in the trunk?”

  “Yes,” Rich said. “It seemed the safest place to leave them.”

  “May I?” Jillian couldn’t help herself. Although the steamer had been opened at least once—and occasioned Rich’s call to her father—she hadn’t opened it. The moment would be exquisite, a first look not just at census records or overlooked birth certificates or a chain of addresses tracking an individual’s movements from fifty years ago, but at abandoned personal possessions that had been shut and locked for over a century until a lock-smith’s delicate touch two days ago.

  But why?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jillian flipped the latches one at a time, delicately. They sprang open just as they were designed to do, most likely before 1900.

  “Phenomenal,” she whispered.

  “It’s a very well made trunk,” Rich said. “There can be no doubt of that.”

  Like all wardrobe trunks, this one stood upright, functioning as a portable closet and drawers. Jillian eased the two halves apart on hinges that squeaked slightly but operated appropriately.

  “Wow.”

  On the left hung three lined silk suits, with coordinated blouses tucked under the jackets, in stately neutral tones—gray, taupe, and a dark green subtle stripe. Tasteful pins and necklaces hung with suits, most likely high-end paste but convincingly made. Above the clothes, on a small shelf, sat a handheld mirror and hairbrush with pewter handles and a small toiletries case. The right side of the trunk held a set of drawers and space for a hatbox.

  “Is there a hat in there?” Jillian glanced at Rich.

  He nodded. “We looked but then left it alone.”

  “And the drawers?”

  “You’re wearing the gloves. Feel free.”

  Jillian opened the first and saw an oversize Bible, a leather notebook, and a fountain pen. She lifted the Bible reverently and opened the cover. “The family record. It’s full of names going back before the Civil War. A lot of birth dates, some death dates. Even some places.”

  “A genealogist’s treasure,” Nolan said.

  The next drawer held a handful of photos, assorted images of three generations, but the largest was a young couple with two small boys set in an oval porcelain frame ready to display on a flat surface.

  “This doesn’t seem like something a person would leave behind willingly,” Jillian said. “Is this the woman who owned the trunk?”

  “It’s all very strange,” Rich said. “I’m sorry to say it, but a mugging would be the least suspicious explanation.”

  Jillian pulled open three more drawers, all stuffed with papers. “That’s a lot of documents.”

  Nolan stepped toward the trunk now. “Clearly the documents were a primary purpose of the journey.”

  “There are some letters,” Rich said. “Of course, we only have one side of the correspondence, but there is one salient, very curious feature. The third drawer.”

  Jillian found the pages, moving through nine fragile sheets. “Dad.”

  “What is it?”

  “Pinkerton correspondence.”

  “Pinkerton?”

  “Letters from James McParland.”

  “The manager of the western division of the Pinkerton’s Agency?”

  “The very same.”

  “That’s a very famous, very colorful character for a female traveler from Ohio to be corresponding with.”

  “My thought exactly.” The letters were addressed to “Miss” Bendeure. The correspondent was unlikely to be the young mother in the photo. One of the other women in the photos, then. The older one was not likely to be traveling alone, nor to be unmarried, since the photos also included an older man.

  Nolan turned to Rich. “My friend, this does indeed bear some looking into. It might still be nothing, but I understand why you have questions.”

  “So you’ll help?” Rich asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’m not qualified to analyze the financial documents,” Rich said, “and for now, I’ve been careful not to handle them too much—though they seem to be in good condition since they haven’t been exposed to light or air all these years. The trunk may never have been on the water, but it was constructed to protect the contents.”

  “It’s a lot of papers,” Jillian observed.

  “More than someone would have carried in a small valise during a train ride,” Rich said, “especially if a woman had other personal items to keep track of during a journey of some distance.”

  “That makes sense,” Nolan said. “Even a hundred years ago, documents from a bank could have been verified or replaced in some manner, I would think, but someone went to a great deal of trouble to assemble these records specifically for this journey.”

  “The Pinkerton letters,” Jillian said.

  “I’m not sure what I’m wandering into,” Rich said. “I just felt I should get a legal opinion before simply disposing of any contents. Even if I transferred everything to another museum, I don’t want to simply transfer any sort of liability or wrongdoing as well. What if there was foul play that could still be righted if a knowledgeable person looked at the available information? And that person is not me.”

  “A valid question,” Nolan said. “I’m not sure it’s me either, but I will do my best to find someone qualified to render an opinion about what financial narrative emerges and, depending on those results, investigate from there what the legal ramifications might be. After more than a century, the law may be limited unless we uncover violations that directly affect rights of property or inheritance with criminal intent, especially if interstate commerce is involved. The applicable laws at the time may be very different than we would expect now, but we can certainly take a close look at all those questions.”

  “I would be very grateful.” Relief flushed through Rich’s face.

  “I will need the papers,” Nolan said. “On the phone you mentioned you might be happy for us to take custody of the entire trunk—considering there is no official record of the museum’s possession of it.”

  “I did say that—if it would be helpful to you in any way to have the entire trunk.”

  Yes! Jillian’s mind screamed. Please!

  Aloud she said, “I would be happy to do what I can to help as well. Sometimes when I stare at things long enough, the connections start to click.” The silk suits nearly had voices of their own, calling out in chorus for their lost form to fill them again.

  “She speaks truth,” Nolan said. “Having the trunk will help.”

  “Then by all means you should take it,” Rich said. “We can wrap it and crate it for proper transport.”

  “My truck is right out front,” Nolan said. “I got lucky with a parking spot.”

  The men disappeared in search of suitable supplies to protect the treasure, leaving Jillian to close up the steamer trunk and fasten the latches. She double-checked them—and then triple-checked them, even though she knew Rich would return with protective blankets and straps. The elegant trunk would be nestled and cushioned within a crate for its journey to Canyon Mines.

  It was so dissimilar to the other trunk in the home she shared with her father, one she hadn’t examined for years, one that disclosed an incomplete story and whose bequest was a yawning void in her life. A better genealogist would have filled the chasm by now with revelatory understanding.

  That wasn’t true. She was a very good genealogist. Some tasks were imposing.

  And poignant. And painful.

  Nolan and Rich returned, each with his own intended method for accomplishing the job. As they set about negotiating a compromise, Jillian excused herself in favor of fresh air. She was only in the way. Wandering back through the museum rooms, she found brochures to take to Nia Dunston and Veronica O’Reilly before returning to the sunshine, waning now in the late afternoon with wisps of clouds stre
tching like spun cotton candy across a setting sky readying for nightfall. When the sun began to descend, orange and golden hues would diffuse in shifting aspects fading into gray and then midnight blue, yielding the day one more breathtaking moment.

  And when Jillian woke in the morning, the stenciled canvas trunk would be in her house, awaiting her explorations of its holdings and her part in finding its story.

  She’d had fourteen years to incline her ear to the story of the trunk at home. Nevertheless, it perplexed her—even distressed her at times. Why had its voice been so stubborn? She was too close to it. Every failure of discovery stabbed her, making her bleed all over again.

  Nolan and Rich, with the help of the young man from the welcome desk, now eased a dolly, with the crate securely strapped to it, down the front steps of the Owens House Museum. Once it was on the flat sidewalk, Nolan strode ahead to unlock the tailgate of the truck.

  “You all right, Silly Jilly?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I promised you a good souvenir.”

  “And you delivered, Dad. You always do.”

  The men unstrapped the crate from the dolly and eased it into the bed of the pickup.

  “You’ll go straight home?” Rich said.

  “Directly,” Nolan said. “This early on a Saturday evening, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour. I’ll send you a text to let you know the steamer trunk arrived safely.”

  “I would appreciate that.”

  Nolan made the turns to get them back on the highway and pointed west toward Canyon Mines.

  “You’re quiet,” he said.

  Jillian shrugged.

  “That trunk behind us is not the only one you’re thinking about, is it?”

  She looked at him and shook her head.

  “How long has it been since you opened it?”

  “A long time.” It was Nolan who first urged her toward an interest in genealogy after her mother died when she was fourteen, and he used her mother’s trunk to do it. But the contents, while they seized her curiosity, did not produce answers. Nolan was there the last time Jillian opened the trunk. He witnessed the vexed mass of mud she morphed into that day.

  “I should have asked more questions about the Parisis when Mom was alive,” Jillian said. “Why didn’t I?”

  “You were a child, Jilly.”

  “They’re half of me. I should have been more interested in my mother’s family while she was still here.”

  “Jillian, you couldn’t have known we were going to lose her. None of us did. We all thought there was plenty of time.”

  Jillian sighed. “Sometimes she tried to talk to me about the Parisis. I didn’t listen as well as I should have.”

  “There were so many Duffys around you all the time,” Nolan said. “Cousins everywhere. Big family gatherings just an hour away. How could one pair of grandparents compete on their own all the way from Arizona?”

  “Tell me again why Mom came back to Denver after her parents moved?”

  “She was halfway through high school when Grandpa Steve decided to take that job in Phoenix. She never felt connected there. Coming back to Colorado for college was her way of coming home, so she stayed after graduation.”

  “Then she met you.”

  “No turning back after that.” Nolan flashed a grin. “Besides, the Duffys would have given up custody of me before they would have relinquished Bella once I brought her home to a family dinner.”

  Jillian laughed. “That sounds like Nana and Big Seamus.”

  “I know your mom would have wanted you to have that trunk—with whatever clues it contains about the Parisis. That’s one of the reasons I thought you might want to explore your Italian roots after she was gone.”

  “But I didn’t find many answers, did I? Grandma Marta and Grandpa Steve were lost in their own grief and didn’t have much patience for my questions, and then they were gone before we knew it too. There wasn’t anyone else to even give me reliable names to work with.” No family Bible. No scrapbook. Just vague stories about brothers and Sicily, and the trunk that dared her to make sense of what she did not know.

  “Everything in that trunk is still there, Jilly,” Nolan said. “When you’re ready, you’ll go at it again.”

  Jillian stared out the window. She wasn’t so sure.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Denver, Colorado

  March 18, 1909

  Dear Miss Bendeure,

  The matter you raised in your recent correspondence is of course of grave concern. We at our agency are well acquainted with these manipulations and do not take them lightly. Without more complete information I hesitate to render an authoritative conclusion upon which you should take action, and I do not wish for you to be unduly alarmed in a premature manner. Nevertheless, what you have described bears some similarity to patterns identified by our New York and Chicago offices, with whom we are in frequent communication. So you are not without cause to be framing the questions which you have put to me in a confidential manner. I can give you every assurance that we are well qualified and well staffed to act on your behalf. We would be pleased to receive more details of the events and transactions that have suggested concerns in the minds of you and your father so that we may undertake specific investigation and reply with particular recommendations on an expeditious course of action to protect your business interests and put your minds at ease. I am enclosing information on a private courier. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, you may prefer this method to ordinary mail. I am at your service.

  Yours sincerely,

  James McParland

  Manager, Western Division

  Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency

  Wednesday, May 19, 1909

  Cleveland, Ohio

  The steamer had been her mother’s, selected for its manageable size suitable for trips of short duration and gently used because her mother was not given to unnecessary travel and never left Cleveland at all once illness set in ten years ago. The trunk had never crossed the ocean, though Lynnelle had no doubt it would have stood up well. Without such a voyage, and only the occasional short excursion, it still looked brand-new. When her mother passed, Lynnelle appropriated the stenciled canvas trunk. The EPB monogram was not her initials, but no other woman would remember her mother with the same fondness Lynnelle guarded.

  The steamer was packed now, roomy enough for the stylish hat in its box, mementos to keep her heart close to those she loved, her clothing, and all the records she would need for her meetings without crushing anything. In miles the journey was long—to Denver and back—but Lynnelle hoped to accomplish its purpose swiftly. For the train she would carry a wicker case with several changes of fresh shirtwaists and nightwear. A simple hat and practical shoes would do for transit, but once she reached Denver, she must look the part of her father’s qualified emissary with silk suits in colors and accessories that would assure any man she meant business. She wouldn’t travel with expensive jewels but rather carefully selected pieces that added elegance to each ensemble without drawing attention to themselves.

  She closed the trunk, fastened the latches, inserted the key to secure them, and tucked the key deep into the Moroccan leather satchel her father had given her especially for this journey. Its long strap would make it easy to keep on her person while she used her hands for the tasks of being in transit for three days. This too would lock at any point she felt necessary, with its tiny brass key pinned inside the waistband of her navy shepherd’s plaid skirt.

  “May I take the trunk?” The young man in the doorway proffered both arms. “The driver is here.”

  “An automobile? Not a carriage?” Lynnelle checked the contents of her satchel.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Thank you.” If Lynnelle had made the arrangements herself, she would have chosen a carriage. “Please tell the driver I will say goodbye to my father and be right out.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  He hefted the ste
amer and carried it into the hall, where his footsteps shuffled slightly under its mass. Listening as he reached the transition from the wide wood floor of the hall to the carpeted stairs, Lynnelle scanned the room. She’d be back in a week, but she liked to leave a tidy space.

  Downstairs, her father was in his study.

  “I’m going now, Papa.”

  He raised his haggard features with the increasingly gray complexion.

  “I do wish I didn’t have to send you,” he said.

  “We’ve talked about this. The doctor has told you more than once that it would not be good for your health to travel—especially not to a stressful situation.”

  “It was my decisions that brought this upon us.”

  “You have always been a shrewd businessman. You’ve done well for our family and well for Bendeure & Company.”

  He peered over the rims of his spectacles. “This circumstance may be an exception to the general rule, or you would not be making the journey.”

  “I’m quite up to it, I assure you.”

  “You’re sure about this McParland fellow? I read the newspapers, you know. He has rather a colorful reputation with all that business with the mines and the unions. Whether he is forthcoming in all matters is questionable.”

  “But whether he gets results is not questionable.” Lynnelle smoothed one hand across the satchel. “You’ve seen his correspondence for yourself. It’s reasonable in every regard, and if he blusters when he confronts criminals, isn’t that exactly what we need?”

  “So you are persuaded?”

  “I want to be prepared.”

  “You understand the documents?”

  “We’ve been over them three times, and I’ve been corresponding with Mr. McParland for weeks. I am well versed in the entire matter.” Nevertheless, she would continue to review the details as she traversed the miles.

  He ran his right index finger along the edge of the massive walnut desk. “I would have sent your brother. If only.”

  Lynnelle moistened her lips. If only he hadn’t loved that stallion’s speed so much and taken such risks. “We’ve lost him, Papa. But I’m here, and it’s best to have someone from the family take matters in hand. So I will go and I will do a good job.”