THE SPIRIT IN QUESTION

by Cynthia Kuhn

  By which he meant tear down the Opera House all together.

  “—the view is spectacular, and it’s close to shops and that pub, The Peak House.”

  “Did you know that the chancellor owns The Peak House?”

  He looked surprised. “No. He didn’t mention that.”

  I wondered if that meant anything. Would the chancellor benefit more from Chip turning the Opera House into an entertainment complex so close to his restaurant? Probably.

  “Well, it’s not over yet,” he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. “Since her plan is to offer more money, I will try to sweeten the deal myself.” He made a sour face. “Just have to scrape together more cash. Make some calls, do some begging.”

  “Scrape together? I thought developers had cash to burn. Bought buildings outright. Things like that.”

  “Most of my money is tied up in other projects,” he explained. “This one was more a labor of love. There’s just something about this place that speaks to me.”

  I nodded. “You do understand, though, that the Historical Society feels the same way—that what they’re doing is a labor of love? Preserving a piece of Stonedale’s history.”

  He gave a brisk nod. “Think of it this way, though: many people will enjoy the new building. It’s hard to be the guy trampling dreams, but it’s part of the job. Sometimes you have to do whatever’s necessary to achieve your goals. What do you think, Lila?”

  I hesitated.

  “I’d genuinely like to know.”

  “The Stonedale Opera House should be restored, not torn down. It’s exceptional as well as historically significant.”

  I paused. Hadn’t realized until that moment that I was on the same side as Clara Worthingham.

  I was tremendously fond of the place.

  Ghosts or no ghosts.

  Chapter 19

  First thing Sunday morning, I was leaning against the Special Collections counter in the library. I’d come on behalf of my book project, centered on Isabella Dare, a mostly unknown but completely fabulous mystery writer. It was a dream to have signed a contract with a university press, but finding time to immerse into the work was difficult. I grabbed hours where I could, but, at this rate, I’d have trouble meeting the deadline.

  The thought of not finishing the manuscript on time made my chest ache. Having a book was essential to my tenure bid. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  “May I help you?” A woman with a bright blue bob interrupted my panic spiral. Tattoos snaked up both arms in a floral explosion. Her library nametag said “Eloise.”

  I handed her the call sheet with the number of the item I needed for a footnote, a manuscript of a detective story written by a woman in the mid-19th century. She went through the door behind the counter that led to storage.

  As I waited for her to return, I mused about academics and the expectation that we would cross the “t” and dot the “i” to such an extent as this. No one else, unless they travelled to Pennington library, would ever see this pioneer woman’s manuscript.

  But there was a pertinent connection to be made, and I was going to make it.

  Because that’s what scholars did.

  We also spent way too much time indoors.

  But that was another topic altogether.

  I wondered how much time Jean Claude had gotten to spend here.

  A wave of melancholy hit me at the thought of my colleague. Now his research, which had brought him across the ocean to Stonedale, would never be completed.

  The call sheet book was right in front of me. I pulled it closer and flipped back to the last day I knew he’d been here—he’d mentioned that he was going after rehearsal. There was his familiar signature with the bold looping capital “J.” The title next to the call number wasn’t related to Damon Runyon as I’d expected but was instead something called Nocturne, American Style by Camden Drake.

  I froze.

  Camden Drake, the professor? Why would Jean Claude be looking at that?

  Context? Expansion of his research topic?

  Maybe there was more to it.

  I quickly grabbed a fresh request sheet from the stack on the other side of the counter and scribbled down the call number and title, then closed the lid on the notebook and slid it back to where it had been.

  Just in time too. Eloise burst through the door and set down the pages in front of me with an emphatic little smack, putting a close to her journey. It seemed rough treatment, given that Special Collections housed the old, the delicate, and the rare. Once I’d been yelled at by a zealous librarian for turning a page too quickly.

  But Eloise may not have had the same commitment to guardianship. She pushed a pair of gloves to be worn while handling the document across the counter.

  “Actually, may I also request this one as well?” I smiled at her apologetically. “I forgot about it.”

  I could see her sorting through potential retorts in her head, but she landed on a long sigh which, if not in the realm of excellent customer service, was at least not overtly rude.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded and whisked the page from my hand, then disappeared downstairs.

  The instant she left, I pulled the notebook back across the counter and went back to the beginning of the semester. I took a picture with my phone of every request Jean Claude had made, so that I could go through them later. It was all Damon Runyon until that puzzling Camden Drake item at the end.

  Eloise breezed back in through the door holding a manila folder. She handed it to me without comment and snapped her gum.

  “Thank you.”

  “No prob.”

  I headed over to a small table and chair by the window. After I’d settled myself, I opened the folder and pulled out the yellowing pages within. The first page looked like any other typed script I’d ever seen. The second also looked legit. But when I flipped to the third page, a smaller page was tucked between them. It had a rough edge on the left—as if it had been ripped from a hardbound book—and was completely handwritten. It was only half-covered with words, the middle of a paragraph apparently.

  and then C came to me, just as he said he would, and gave me a necklace, earrings, and bracelet! The diamonds shine like something that fell from heaven. I hid them in the usual place. If M sees them, something terrible will happen. I dream of the day when I can wear them as Mrs. Drake.

  I caught my breath. It must be a page from Althea’s journal. I stole a glance at Eloise, but she seemed entranced by something on the computer, so I quickly took pictures of the page with my cell phone. Questions tumbled through my mind as I did so. Why had Jean Claude tucked away only one page? Or was Camden the one who had done so decades ago? I didn’t have any answers to that, but I had the strongest sense that Althea had hidden her jewelry somewhere in the theater.

  And I’d bet someone else thought so too.

  I returned the manila folder to the desk, and Eloise helped me locate the rest of Camden Drake’s plays, which were preserved in numerous boxes. I spent the better part of the afternoon going through the collection of over fifty pieces ranging from one-acts to fully scored musicals, and found nothing else unusual, though I developed an appreciation for the amount of work he’d done while at Stonedale.

  The library also had two boxes of materials relating to Althea Gaines, but there was no journal inside—I’d crossed my fingers that there would be additional ones—just programs and scripts, none of which had any annotations that proved useful.

  Finally, I did what I’d gone there to do, found the quote for my footnote, which was admittedly lackluster in comparison.

  On my way home, I texted Lex and asked him to meet me at Scarlett’s if he was free. Happily, he was.

  Once we were ensconced in a booth with hot coffee to fortify us, I described finding the journa
l page and showed him the pictures I’d taken.

  He looked amused. “So now you think there’s a buried treasure at the Opera House?”

  “Yes,” I said, firmly. “Or at Althea’s home.”

  “Really.” He stared into his mug, unconvinced.

  “And maybe Jean Claude knew about it—or even found it!—and someone killed him for it.”

  He gave me a long look. “You’re not going to stay out of anything, are you?”

  I lifted my chin. “I’m helping.”

  “We don’t need your help, Lila. As much as I appreciate the thought.”

  “Then think of it as me telling a friend about a buried treasure. Totally not related to anything else my friend might be working on.”

  He threw up his hands. “So what do you propose we do with this information? Scour the place inch by inch?”

  “Perfect!”

  He laughed. “Althea and Camden left town years ago, Lila. Not exactly relevant to Jean Claude, are they?”

  I was a little taken aback by his attitude. “I don’t know. Don’t you think it would be interesting to have a look around? And since we don’t know why someone would kill Jean Claude otherwise, might there be a connection? He’s the one who put the journal page into the file, right?”

  “Or Camden could have.”

  “Oh. Right.” I was a little deflated to remember that possibility. “Wait, wouldn’t it have been noticed by the library staff when they processed his papers? It wasn’t noted anywhere as being part of the file. Which means it wasn’t there originally.” I took a sip of my coffee and held it up in a toast.

  “He could have hidden it there later too, after he gave his papers to the university.”

  My shoulders fell, and I set the mug gently on the table. “Anyway, she said she hid the jewelry in ‘the usual place.’ It had to be somewhere she spent a lot of time. Like the theater.”

  “Perhaps ‘the usual place’ refers to somewhere in her home?”

  I stirred some cream into my coffee. “Could you look there too?”

  “Nope. The Gaines place burned down, unfortunately. It was suspected that Malcolm set the fire himself.”

  I stared at him. “Before he committed suicide?”

  “That was the general thinking. He was miserable after everything went down. The town really loved his wife, and he didn’t have an easy time of things after she disappeared. Especially since he was suddenly a single parent of a daughter that might not be his.” He took a large sip. “Poor Bella.”

  “You already knew Bella is Althea’s baby?” I didn’t know why I’d thought it was a secret.

  “Most people who live in Stonedale do.”

  I stopped stirring. “Why do you think Althea left?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What’s the general thinking on it?”

  “That she ran away to be with Camden.”

  “And left behind her little daughter?”

  “It’s been done before.”

  “Hard to imagine.” I felt a surge of sympathy for Bella.

  Lex shrugged. “People have their reasons.”

  I put the spoon down on the napkin next to my mug. “Given the timeline, do you think Bella could be Camden’s daughter instead of Malcolm’s?”

  “It’s very possible.”

  “But that seems like all the more reason for Althea to bring Bella with her,” I said.

  “Maybe Camden didn’t want her.”

  I gulped. “That’s harsh.”

  “The world can be harsh, Lila.” He stared out the window. “Consider that Malcolm burned down his house, left his daughter in a basket on a neighbor’s porch, and hung himself.”

  “True. He snapped, sounds like. It’s so tragic.”

  “Yes, it definitely is.”

  I was quiet for a moment, processing. “Do you think there might be more to it, though? Maybe someone else burned his house down? Maybe they were looking for the jewelry?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and considered this.

  “I mean, has anyone ever talked about the jewelry before? Maybe it provides a motive.”

  “Just you.” He smiled at me, his blue eyes steady on mine, then cleared his throat. “How do you know the page was from Althea’s journal, anyway?”

  “It mentioned both Camden and Malcolm. I mean, it has to be hers.”

  “Perhaps someone else wrote it after the fact.”

  I shrugged. “It’s possible. But it’s so specific and...wait!” I dug around in my satchel, then pulled out the letters and waved them triumphantly. “In one of these, Camden mentions bringing her some gems. He meant the diamonds.”

  “What are those?” Lex’s eyebrows were drawn together in confusion.

  “These are letters that Camden wrote to Althea.”

  “Yes, but why do you have them?” He was sitting perfectly still, but his frustration reached across the table.

  “I meant to tell you about them when you were at my house. But I got distracted.” I could feel the heat warming my face when I thought about the almost-kissing moment. “And they...”

  “Lila,” he said sternly. “You should have turned them in immediately.”

  “To whom?”

  “Whoever is in charge of the theater.” He tapped his fingers on the table.

  “The chancellor? He wouldn’t care.”

  “How do you know? Maybe he knew about the letters and has been searching for them for years. Imagine what will happen when he finds out you kept them.”

  “I didn’t keep them. I just read them. There’s still time to...Lex, that’s not the point. Can we just focus on what they say for a second?” I shook the paper gently.

  He took the letters from me and read through them, nodding a little when he reached the one that mentioned the gift.

  “You might be right about the jewelry. May I take these?”

  “To the station? What about giving them to the chancellor?”

  Lex caught my eye. “Were you really going to give them to him, anyway?”

  “Yes.” I sat up a little straighter.

  He stared me down.

  “Probably.”

  He waited.

  “Eventually, anyway.”

  “Ha.” He folded the letters carefully. “Where did you get them again?”

  “They, uh, surfaced at the theater. During rehearsal.” That was true. Ish.

  He held my eye for a second, then put the letters into his inside coat pocket.

  “Please be careful with them,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “Oh and before you take them, may I snap a few pictures?”

  He sighed and pulled them out of his pocket again. I captured the images with my phone and handed the pages back.

  “They probably should go into the library collection when all of this is over,” I said, ever the dutiful scholar.

  “Maybe so. We’ll take them to the university after we’re finished and they can decide what to do with them.”

  “Does this mean you believe me about the letters being connected to Jean Claude?”

  “No. It means I want to take a closer look at them and see if we can establish their authenticity before we begin spinning theories.” It was delivered with a meaningful look.

  “You don’t think it all adds up to something?”

  “One step at a time is generally the safer way to go.”

  “But maybe the letters are the answer to everything!”

  “Or maybe the letters are counterfeit.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not going to let you burst my bubble, Detective. I have a gut feeling about this. Besides, why would someone fake them? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Crime doesn’t always make sense, Lila.”


  “But what about innocent until proven guilty? Or the evidence equivalent of that...true until proven false?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  “Well, maybe it should be.”

  Chapter 20

  The next day, I headed to rehearsal after class. We’d spent a great deal of time discussing The Turn of the Screw, and the consideration of ghosts and the like was hitting a bit too close to home at the present time. Henry James had certainly posed a relevant question: what are the dangers of interpreting things we cannot fully understand?

  As I pulled open the door to the theater, I caught sight of Chip talking to Zandra next to the box office. He gave me a wave. She lifted her head and saw me, said something to him, and they parted. Chip went outside, and she quickly covered the distance between us, her long beaded necklaces clicking against each other as she moved.

  “He’s hurrying off to a meeting. Are you ready for our final dress rehearsal?”

  “Yes. How’s Chip?”

  “Ecstatic. The chancellor, apparently, has all but signed on the dotted line. Regardless of how everyone feels about it, he will probably be the new owner soon. For better or for worse.”

  “But isn’t Clara trying to buy it as well?”

  “Yes, but she’ll never to be able to raise enough money.”

  “She sounded pretty sure that she could.”

  “Clara doesn’t live in the same world as we do,” Zandra said with a laugh. “You know that by now, right?”

  “She does seem to have her own point of view.”

  “Indeed. Now let’s put her behind us for the moment and go down to rehearsal.” A cloud of her perfume—something musky and oppressively floral—enveloped us as she threaded her arm through mine and pulled me down the aisle. “Tolliver is so excited. He could barely sleep last night.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “This is an unbelievable production, don’t you agree?”

  I was glad she had phrased it that way so I could agree. Unbelievable was the perfect word for it, heavy on the cannot-believe-this-thing-is-being-staged.