by A W Hartoin
“Mercy, you promised,” Chuck said, standing in the Superman pose next to the bed. It totally suited him, but I was not in the mood for a power stance.
“Fine. I’ll just tell you then,” I said.
His eyelids went to half-mast and he watched me carefully. “Tell me what?”
Suck it up, buttercup.
“I’m not moving. I don’t want to and I’m not going to.”
“Hold on now.”
“You hold on. I am not moving out to some house in the sticks away from my family. Uncle Morty’s in the hospital and Millicent looks like a stiff wind could blow her away. My mother needs me and my father is…him so I’m not doing it.”
“Will you listen to me?”
“You listen to me. I love you but no. I don’t care where you found a perfect place or if it has outdoor space where you can grow kumquats. I can’t leave them.” Tears were rolling down my cheeks, soaking my bandages, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t look worse or feel worse than I already did.
“I did find the perfect place,” he said.
We’re going to break up over this. It’s happening. Fats is getting married and we’re breaking up.
“No,” I said totally heartsick, but I had to go with my gut.
“You’ll like it.”
“I won’t.” I looked up at the one I loved, expecting fury and seeing a hint of a smile instead. “Aren’t you mad? Aren’t we going to break up?”
“Break up?” Chuck laughed and kissed my forehead. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“But you want to move. You want space and to grow kumquats.”
“For the record, I don’t want to grow kumquats. I don’t even know what a kumquat is,” he said. “But we are moving.”
“You aren’t listening,” I said.
“To Hawthorne Avenue.”
Crap on a cracker.
“We are not moving in with my parents. Are you crazy? Did you take my painkillers?”
“I did not take your painkillers and I’m eighty percent not crazy.” Chuck grinned and my heart melted for a second.
“Eighty percent?” I asked.
“Hey, that’s pretty good. Have you met your father?”
“Good point. So…”
He sat on the bed and gave me a wad of tissues. “I’m not going to make you leave your family. I should’ve been paying attention before. You don’t belong anywhere else and they do need you. I see that.”
“We’re still not living with my parents,” I said.
“Correct. We’re moving into one of the apartments above the stables,” he said.
“Huh?”
“There are apartments above the stables at the Bled Mansion. You know that.”
I blew my nose as much as I could. “I forgot about that, but we can’t just tell The Girls that we’re moving in.”
“It’s all settled,” he said. “The Girls are thrilled. They promised to let me tell you.”
“I don’t know about this. That stupid Brooks sued to get control of The Girls estate because he thought I had too much influence. What’s he going to say about this?” I asked.
“Brooks is a pinhead. While you were having your head examined, I called Lawton and the cousins. The Bleds are on board. They’ve been nervous since Lester got killed. Having a cop on the property suits them fine.”
I leaned back woozy. I don’t know if it was relief, painkillers, or Aaron’s spiked hot chocolate. “You’re serious?”
“It has two bedrooms and it’s three times the size of your apartment,” he said. “Are you in?”
I kissed him carefully so as not to get my soggy nose bandages on him. “You sure you want to take this mess on?”
“I’m all in.” He kissed me back, not at all worried about my moisture. “Now answer the question.”
“I’m in.”
Chuck leaned back on the headboard and kicked off his shoes. “That’s settled. What’s next?”
“Does there have to be something next?” I asked.
“It’s us.”
“True.”
There was a little metallic pop and Chuck sat bolt upright. “Did that purse…”
“Open on its own?” I asked. “Yes, yes it did.”
He shrugged. “That happens, right? I mean, it’s an old purse.”
“Well.”
The purse snapped closed.
Chuck looked at me, his eyes wide. “I think we should move now. Like right now.”
“I think we should open that purse,” I said.
“You first.”
“What a big scaredy-cat.”
“Guilty as charged.”
I crawled over the bed, scattering a bunch of plastic evidence bags, and pulled the purse into my lap.
Chuck got off the bed and crossed his arms. “Were those bags open when you found the box?”
“I think so. Fats didn’t tear anything open when she looked through them,” I said.
“Somebody’s already been through it,” he said.
“Well, killing Agatha and Daniel wouldn’t be enough to make sure The Bleds didn’t get any leads on what they had. My family should’ve gotten this stuff way back then.”
Chuck came over and rubbed my back. “Sometimes family can’t bear to pick up their loved ones effects.”
I tossed an evidence bag away. “This is all pointless. The Klinefeld Group was here first and there obviously wasn’t anything to be found or they wouldn’t have come back again and again.”
The purse popped open and shut again and Chuck jolted away. “That’s not right.”
“Like so many other things,” I said, reaching for the clasp.
“You’re just going to open that?”
I shrugged. “How bad can it be?”
“I saw floating eyeballs last night,” he said.
“It happens.” I snapped open Agatha’s purse, laying out the contents on the bed. There was nothing unusual, just the stuff you’d expect to find in an older lady’s purse. Antacid pills, a compact, a couple lipsticks, tissues, checkbook, and a fat wallet.
“That’s it?” asked Chuck visibly disappointed.
It couldn’t be. Miss Elizabeth knew her stuff and I thought she kind of liked me. I leafed through the checkbook and took everything out of the wallet. Nothing stood out. Then I turned the purse upside down. There was a little thunk.
Chuck took a breath and said, “Did you hear that?”
“I heard it.” I flipped the purse back over several times. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“Check the lining.”
I felt around the silk lining of my great grandmother’s purse and found a slit on one of the sides. My hand fit in and tucked behind the side pocket was a slim packet. I pulled it out and we held our breath. It was a small manila envelope that was stuffed full and sealed.
“Should I open it?” I asked.
“Are you kidding?” Chuck asked. “You do it or I will.”
I forced my fingernails under the flap and it popped open easily. I dumped the contents on the bed and it took me a moment to process what I was seeing there. On top were two transatlantic steamer tickets from late November 1938.
“Do you think those are the tickets?” Chuck asked.
“They have to be,” I said.
Underneath the tickets, I found a letter from Florence Bled thanking Amelie and Paul for helping Stella and Nicky. There was some talk of reimbursement for expenses and a job for Paul at a very nice salary. At the end, casually, like it hardly mattered at all was a postscript. “Please send along the item we discussed. This address is the most appropriate.”
“That’s our house,” I said. “They sent it to our house.”
Chuck didn’t move or reach for the rest. He let me do it, but I almost couldn’t. It was too much to hope that the answer was there in front of me.
“Go ahead. See what that paper says.”
I picked up a tri-folded sheaf of papers, but at first I wasn’t sure what
I was seeing. One sheet looked like an accounting ledger. It had elegant old-fashioned handwriting that was so faded I could barely make it out.
“It looks like a manifest,” I said. “The date’s right. Same ship. Here’s their names.”
Under Amelie and Paul’s names was a list of items that went on board, trunks, suitcases and one other thing.
I looked at Chuck. “A wooden crate already packed.”
“It doesn’t say what’s in it?”
“No, just the size. It’s pretty big. It has to be artwork.”
Chuck put his arm around me. “You always thought it would be art.”
“The Klinefeld Group was looking for a box. This is a pretty damn big box.”
“What’s that last thing?”
I unfolded the other paper. It was delicate, fragile like airmail paper, but it wasn’t a letter. It was a receipt. A shipping receipt.
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“That can’t be right,” said Chuck.
“It has to be.”
The receipt said that an antique liquor cabinet had been packed up in New Orleans in January 1939 and shipped to Josiah Bled in St. Louis. There was only one liquor cabinet that I knew of, the one in our butler’s pantry. The cabinet was tucked into the built-ins like it was intended to be there with delicate wooden hands and vines that reached out of the other cabinets and held it fast. I thought the liquor cabinet was original to the house, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. And that cabinet wasn’t unknown. Josiah’s quirk of installing an 1800’s marquetry liquor cabinet into his house had been featured in magazines and newspapers. Josiah hadn’t hidden it. The cabinet was in a coffee table book produced in the eighties called Bled Family Architecture. Mom had that book. It was on our coffee table.
“I don’t understand,” said Chuck. “Is there something special about it?”
“There must be.” I gathered up the contents of my great grandmother’s packet and slid off the bed.
Chuck jumped up. “Where are we going?”
“You stay here. I’ll be back.”
I turned to go and he grabbed my arm, holding tight, grounding me. “Promise you’re not leaving this house.”
“Promise.” I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him, not worrying about my nose. “We’re moving in together. Think about what to pack.”
He grinned at me, glowing with the charm that always sucked me right in. “Everything.”
“No beer signs.”
“Especially the beer signs.”
I darted out the door and tossed over my shoulder, “We’ll discuss it later.”
“No, we won’t,” he called after me.
I laughed as I hurried down the hall. Stupid beer signs. So not happening. Who needs a giant Schlitz sign? We’re Bled people, for crying out loud.
I stopped in front of a room with “Miss Elizabeth” on the door and crossed my fingers. I had it on good authority that her room was the one you didn’t want to be in if you scared easily, or at all really, but The Girls took it and claimed they hadn’t heard a peep. Maybe two widows were just Miss Elizabeth’s speed.
“Come in,” Millicent called out in response to my knock and I walked in to find my godmothers sitting in a pair of rockers by the bay window that was missing a few panes and had been boarded over. Their faces were calm and dry, but I knew they’d been crying. I could feel it.
“I have news,” I said.
Millicent’s face lit up as much as it could. “You’re moving in. We’re so pleased to have you close.”
I hurried over and sat at their feet on an embroidered stool. “Yes, but it’s not that.”
“What is it, dear?” Myrtle asked with a warning in her voice.
“It’s good news.” I held up the receipt. “Stella shipped Josiah’s liquor cabinet back from Europe. That’s what it was.”
The Girls’ faces truly lit up.
“How extraordinary!”
“Marvelous. You must tell your mother immediately.”
“We’ll examine it.”
“You know how Uncle Josiah loved secret compartments.”
“We’ll find out what The Klinefeld Group wants.”
“We’re going to know.”
I hugged them both and showed them their mother’s letter. They touched their weathered fingers to her handwriting and to her signature especially.
“She knew,” said Millicent and some tightness left her thin shoulders.
“Of course, she did. Mother knew all Stella’s secrets,” said Myrtle, “and I imagine she had quite a few. We didn’t know about Bickford until a few days ago. Imagine what else we can learn.”
Millicent nodded and leaned forward to touch my hand. “Perhaps uncovering more about her will help us connect some descendants to pieces from her collection. We could return more to the rightful owners.”
“Can I use your phone, Millicent?” I asked. “Mine’s done for.”
“Of course,” she said. “What are you up to?”
“We haven’t called Dr. Wallingford for his friend’s list of the Bickford House Kindertransport children yet, have we?”
Millicent tilted her chin down and a thrill of excitement went through her. “We haven’t.”
“We should,” said Myrtle.
“Right now?” I asked.
“This minute.”
So we called with a new plan, discoveries and Stella ahead, and past pains firmly behind, just where we wanted them.
The End
Also By A.W. Hartoin
Historical Thriller
The Paris Package (Stella Bled Book One)
Strangers in Venice (Stella Bled Book Two)
Young Adult fantasy
Flare-up (Away From Whipplethorn Short)
A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)
Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)
A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)
A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)
To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)
Mercy Watts Mysteries
Novels
A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)
Diver Down (A Mercy Watts Mystery Book Two)
Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries BookThree)
Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)
In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)
The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)
My Bad Grandad (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Seven)
Brain Trust (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Eight)
Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Nine)
Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Ten)
Short stories
Coke with a Twist
Touch and Go
Nowhere Fast
Dry Spell
A Sin and a Shame
Paranormal
It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)
USA Today bestselling author A.W. Hartoin grew up in rural Missouri, but her grandmother lived in the Central West End area of St. Louis. The CWE fascinated her with it’s enormous houses, every one unique. She was sure there was a story behind each ornate door. Going to Grandma’s house was a treat and an adventure. As the only grandchild around for many years, A.W. spent her visits exploring the many rooms with their many secrets. That’s how Mercy Watts and the fairies of Whipplethorn came to be.
As an adult, A.W. Hartoin decided she needed a whole lot more life experience if she was going to write good characters so she joined the Air Force. It was the best education she could’ve hoped for. She met her husband and traveled the world, living in Alaska, Italy, and Germany before settling in Colorado for nearly eleven years. Now A.W. has returned to Germany and lives in picturesque Waldenbuch with her family and two spoiled cats, who absolutely believe they should be allowed to escape and roam the village freely.
A.W. Hartoin, Small Time Crime (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 10)