A Killer Crop

by Sheila Connolly

  “She had been here before the break-in,” Meg said slowly, “and she did know we were working on our genealogy.”

  “And maybe she knows more about these letters than she’s told us,” Elizabeth added.

  “Did the police interview her?” Phillip asked.

  Meg shrugged. “I don’t know. They may have, but I never thought to ask. Bree, you’re closer to her age than we are. What do you think? Can you see any reason why Susan would have wanted Daniel Weston to die?”

  Bree sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Huh. That’s a tough one. He was on her thesis committee, but that’s usually not enough to drive someone to murder—although I’ve heard some students say they’d like to kill their advisors when they ask for one more piece of research or one more rewrite. Not that anybody’s rushing to jump into the job market these days, so there’s no hurry to finish their degree. But Mr. Corey has a point. If she did something newsworthy, she’d get attention, and it might make it a lot easier to find a job.”

  “Which gives her an incentive to find those letters. It comes back to the letters that she’s so eager to find,” Phillip said. “She’s planning to come back here this morning?”

  “Yes, that’s what we arranged,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Then perhaps we’d better look around before she arrives,” Phillip said. “Meg, you were going to ask Seth if he could help?”

  “Right—I’ll see if he’s in his office.” Meg went out the back door and crossed the driveway to Seth’s office, dashing through the steady drizzle and up the interior stairs.

  Seth looked up when she came in. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “Listen, I need your help for a treasure hunt. Or wild-goose chase. What do you get when you combine those?”

  “Got me. A goose that lays golden eggs? What’s this about?”

  “We’re looking for letters from Emily Dickinson, and there’s a chance they’re in the house somewhere.”

  “That sounds like a lot more fun than these invoices. What do you need me for?”

  “Advice. If a sneaky teenager wanted to hide something from her family in a crowded house during the 1850s, where would she put it? I thought you might be able to tell us which parts of the house date to the right time period, and what’s been muddled around with.”

  “I’d be happy to help.” Seth stood up and put on a waterproof jacket. “Lead the way.”

  Back in the kitchen, Elizabeth was piling scrambled eggs and stacks of bacon on a platter. “Good morning, Seth,” she said. “Did Meg explain what we’re up to?”

  “She did. I’m intrigued. But how likely is it that these letters are in the house?”

  Elizabeth pulled toast out of the toaster. “I’m not sure. Susan and I spent yesterday afternoon working out who the Ellen who wrote to Emily Dickinson might have been, and we narrowed it down to a list of perhaps twenty possibilities in this general area, one of whom, Ellen Warren, turns out to have lived in this house. And if it was her, whether she might have had—and saved—letters from Emily somewhere in the house.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “I’m beginning to suspect that Daniel may have covered the same ground, and that might have triggered his belated interest in renewing contact with Phillip and me. It did seem to come out of nowhere.”

  Meg wondered how hard it was for her mother to admit that. Elizabeth had hoped for something different, and now she had to face that Daniel could have been using her and nothing more.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Seth asked, “Because he knew, or at least suspected, that it was your daughter, Meg, who was living in this house?”

  “One of the small bonuses of local notoriety,” Meg deadpanned.

  Elizabeth set the platter of bacon and eggs on the kitchen table. “Please, dig in. And I’m afraid there’s more to the story.”

  “What?”

  Meg answered for her mother. “We’re beginning to wonder how long Susan may have been aware of this, and if she might have had something to do with Daniel’s death.”

  Everyone was silent for a few moments. Finally Meg spoke again, “So, Seth, what we need to know is where the likely hiding places in the house might be.”

  “Interesting question,” Seth said, taking another helping of eggs. “Colonial houses are fairly simple in construction. Assuming Ellen wanted reasonably easy access to whatever she was hiding, she wouldn’t have put it behind a plaster wall, for instance. That pretty much leaves the woodwork.”

  “Has much been changed since 1860?”

  “Yes and no,” Seth said. “Eli Warren was the carpenter, and he did some renovations in the later nineteenth century. You know, Meg—he’s the one who reconfigured the fireplaces and added the existing stairway in the hall.”

  “Eli was Ellen’s father. Should we figure that anything he worked on is ruled out, because he would have found Ellen’s cache?”

  “Probably, unless she found a new spot after he was finished. How big a stash are you thinking?”

  Meg and her mother exchanged glances. “We hadn’t thought about that,” Elizabeth said. “A wooden or metal box, about the size of a shoe box, I’d guess? I can’t imagine that she would have kept the letters loose, or just bundled up with a ribbon.”

  “Okay, so you had four bedrooms upstairs—five, if you count the room that’s now a bathroom. Do you know who was living in the house at the time?”

  “Ellen, her father, her stepmother—who was apparently pregnant for most of the 1850s, so lots of other halfsiblings—and her older brother.”

  “So most likely the parents had one room, with maybe another serving as a nursery, and the rest of the kids would have had the other two. The fifth room—Bree’s room—was probably for a hired hand or two who helped with the farm.”

  “When did the indoor plumbing go in?” Phillip asked.

  “Sometime after 1900, and I’d guess that went into what had been the nursery. But you’re right—that would have disrupted some part of the rooms upstairs. When did Ellen die?”

  “Before the 1920 census,” Elizabeth replied promptly.

  “Then she was likely still here when the bathroom was built. She probably would have remembered her childhood cache and moved it, if that was a problem. It seems less likely that Ellen would have hidden something downstairs initially, since those were the public rooms, and there probably would have been someone around most of the time.”

  “So you’re saying we need to look at any wooden moldings or structures in the upstairs bedrooms,” Elizabeth said, “and skip over the bathroom?”

  “That’s about right. Loose boards, dead spaces in the walls, built-ins with false floors or backs, anything like that. Who knows what we might find?”

  “All right, then,” Meg said. “Mother, you and I can take the front bedrooms. Bree, you check your own room, and Daddy, can you take the fourth? Seth, you’re on call if we find a likely place. And it shouldn’t be anything where we’d need a crowbar, right?”

  “No crowbars,” Seth agreed. “But maybe a box knife or a putty knife—there may be a lot of paint layers to get through. We’re looking for someplace a girl could access without too much difficulty, but possibly cleverly hidden. So let’s go.”

  Swabbing the last of the eggs from her plate, Meg said, “I agree. We have only an hour or so before Susan arrives, and I guess I’d like to know before she gets here.” Although, she realized, if they found nothing, would she still report her suspicions to the police? They had so little to go on. It would be better to gauge Susan’s reactions before taking it any further.

  Meg headed toward the front bedroom that she had been using, while her mother went to the guest room across the hall. If Seth had guessed correctly, Meg’s room had been the master bedroom; the adjacent bathroom filled what had once been a nursery. She had mixed feelings about this hunt: she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to find anything or not. In her room she stood in the center and turned in a full circle, studying the structure. The plast
er walls were original and intact, so she could eliminate those. There was what was laughingly called a closet, less than a hanger’s width deep, ringed inside with Victorian iron hooks. Another of Eli’s additions? Outside her room in the hall, the adjoining space was filled by an equally shallow bookcase set into the wall, so there was little room left over to conceal a box. The baseboards offered some possibilities, but most were single board lengths and, judging by the layers of paint, hadn’t been moved in decades. Surely young Ellen wouldn’t have been moving ten-foot boards around? That left the floor.

  Many of the wide floorboards were long, almost the full length of the room, but in some cases there were short pieces at the edges, extending under the baseboards. Meg sat down on the floor and contemplated the short bits. The boards were about eight inches wide, maybe two feet long, and were held in by a couple of old nails on the end closer to her. She dug a fingernail under the nearest one and found it firmly attached. She slid over to the next one: the same thing. The board was rock solid.

  There was only one left, at the front corner of the room, one board in from the edge. Funny, this one seemed to be missing any nails, and there was a small irregular notch on the near end of the board, which her finger fit neatly into. She pried up the board, dislodging a century’s worth of caked dirt, and slid it out. Between the joists nestled a rectangular wooden box with carved initials: ESW.

  28

  Meg sat back on her heels and drew a long breath before calling out, “Hey, guys? I think I’ve got something.”

  Her mother was the first to arrive, from across the hall. “You found something?” She stopped in her tracks when she saw the dusty hole in the floor in front of Meg. Bree, following Elizabeth, all but bumped into her.

  “So it appears,” Meg responded, her eyes still on the box. “From the layer of dust on it, I’d say nobody’s handled this for quite a while.”

  “Should we touch it?” Elizabeth leaned over Meg for a closer look. “Or maybe we should take some photos first, just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “Well, it could be evidence in a murder investigation.”

  “I doubt the box itself is. As I said, it hasn’t been touched for a very long time. If this had something to do with Daniel’s death, it’s only because someone wanted to find it, and obviously they didn’t. But sure, why not take pictures? We might need to establish provenance.”

  “Huh?” Bree said.

  “If there’s any question about the source of . . . whatever might be inside, we should document where we found it,” Meg said.

  Phillip and Seth were the last to join the group, and Meg’s bedroom was crowded now, with everyone staring over Meg’s shoulder. “I’ll get my camera,” Bree volunteered, and went down the hall to her room.

  Meg found to her surprise that she was reluctant to take the next step. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to find. If Emily’s letters were there, what would it mean? And if they weren’t, did that mean Daniel died for nothing?

  Bree returned with a small digital camera. Meg stood up, brushing the dust bunnies off the seat of her pants, and stepped back to give her a clear view. Bree snapped a variety of shots—wide shots showing the corner of the room and close-ups showing the box with its undisturbed dust. Then she retreated and said, “Well, isn’t anybody going to open it?”

  Meg hesitated. “Mother, do you want to do the honors? It’s your house, too.”

  “Sweetheart, you found it. I think you should have that privilege.”

  Meg knelt down. The group waited silently as she reached into the void and pulled out the box. It was solidly made, with a simple brass clasp on the front. Meg could hear some small objects shifting around inside as she lifted it. “If there is anything valuable inside, we should be careful how we open it—you know, wash our hands, open it in a clean area.”

  “The dining room table,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go clear it off.”

  After she left, the rest of them stood around awkwardly. Meg still held the box, unsure what to do next. It felt kind of ridiculous to be so uncertain. It was just a box, after all, and it probably held a few simple trinkets, of historical interest but no particular value. Why didn’t she believe that? Because Daniel was dead.

  “Shall we?” Her father gestured toward the door, and Meg finally moved, followed by Bree and Seth. Downstairs, her mother had cleared off the tabletop and spread out a sheet. Meg set the box down, and they all stood in a circle around the table and stared at it.

  They were interrupted by a knock at the front door. Meg jumped at the sound. “That must be Susan. Do we tell her?”

  “I think we have to. Don’t you?” Elizabeth replied.

  Meg nodded, then went to the door. When she opened it, Susan took one look at her dusty clothes and said, “You’ve been searching.” Then she saw Meg’s face. “You found something!”

  Meg stepped back to let Susan pass, and she made a beeline for the table, oblivious to the others in the room. “Oh,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it. It’s real.” Then she looked at the others. “You haven’t opened it?”

  “We just found it.”

  Susan looked at Meg with an obvious plea, but Meg was reluctant to give up first rights. Her house, her discovery. Her parents’ friend, dead. This was something she realized that she wanted, needed to do herself.

  “I’m just going to wash my hands first,” she said, escaping to the kitchen. Seth followed. “You okay with all this?” he asked her.

  Meg kept her eyes on her hands, soaping them, rinsing, drying, slowly and carefully. “I feel weird about it. I mean, what are we going to find in there? And regardless, how on earth did Emily Dickinson and a murder somehow come together—even theoretically—in this house?”

  “Hard to say, but nothing surprises me, particularly where old houses are concerned. They’ve probably witnessed a lot more than we suspect.”

  “Nothing new under the sun, eh?” Meg produced a wavering smile for him. “Then let’s do it.”

  In the dining room, the other three had closed ranks, flanking Susan. To restrain her from running off with the box? Meg had brought a clean towel with her from the kitchen, and gently wiped the encrusted dust from the box. “No lock, just the latch,” she said. She took a breath, then slipped the latch from its loop and opened the box. As one they all peered in.

  It was about two-thirds filled. “Bree, can you get a picture of this?” Meg asked.

  “I’m on it.” Bree pulled the camera out of her pocket and snapped a few quick pictures.

  When Bree was finished, Meg reached out a tentative hand, then stopped. “One more thing.” She fished through one of the boxes of documents from the Historical Society that she had been cataloging and pulled out a pair of white cotton gloves, and slid them on her hands. The others looked quizzically at her. “This is how you handle old documents—the oil from your skin can damage them. Susan knows that.” Susan didn’t respond, all her attention still focused on the box.

  Meg turned back to the box and its contents. On top of the small pile inside the box was a long-dead flower, which crumbled when Meg touched it. A scrap of embroidery had fared better, and she set that on the table next to the box. A child-size ring, red-gold, set with what looked like tiny turquoise chips and a seed pearl. A small doll, leather-bodied with a hand-painted china head, which Meg laid gently next to the embroidery. And in the bottom, a small stack of folded papers, bound together with a ribbon that might once have been blue but which was now faded to a dull gray.

  Before she reached to extricate them, Meg glanced at Susan. There was excitement in her face—but there was also pain. This meant so much to her. Why?

  Meg pulled out the slender bundle. The paper appeared to have aged well, though Meg could see that the folded pages had been much-handled, because they bore obvious marks of wear around the edges. The moment of truth: were these old love letters—or something much more important to literature scholars? Meg untied the small
bow holding the paper together and unfolded the top document, smoothing it out gently on the table.

  There was no question: this was a handwriting she had seen before, on websites, in books, and all over the town of Amherst. That idiosyncratic rolling stroke, the broad spacing of letters and words, so unlike the prim formal style of the day, the frequent long dashes, could only belong to Emily Dickinson. The penciled signature at the bottom of the page, “Your dear Friend Emily,” was only icing on the cake.

  “Wow!” breathed Bree. “It really is. Isn’t it?”

  Meg looked up at the people around her, and saw that Susan’s face was wet with tears. Susan held out a hand. “May I? Please?”

  Meg nodded, and handed her a second pair of gloves. Then she stepped away, watching. Susan took the piece of paper as though it might crumble in her hand. She ran a tentative finger across a line of text, then down to the signature. “I knew it,” she whispered. “He was right ...” She stopped abruptly and looked up, to find everyone watching her. She finally locked eyes with Meg.

  And Meg knew what she had to ask. “You knew Daniel was looking for these letters?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  Susan dropped heavily into the nearest chair and nodded. Everyone else followed suit. The box sat in the middle of the table like a silent accusation. “There are more letters from Ellen to Emily than the ones in libraries. I have them, because they came down through my family—but I only found out about them recently. Nobody else knows about them, except Daniel—I told him about them. So he knew about them for a little while, except for where they were. Here.”

  29

  Meg stood up abruptly and stripped off her gloves. “I have a feeling that this is going to be a complicated story. Right, Susan?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  The next question was obvious. Meg said gently, “Susan, should we be talking to the police?”

  Susan stared at her for a long moment, and then she nodded silently.