Brooklyn Graves

by Triss Stein

  Here was something I had never actually seen, a dance program, with a tiny pencil attached by a silk cord, and names written in for each dance. What fun. It was not useful at the moment, but I made second stack of “go back to later.”

  And then there was sturdy box with some leather-bound books, dark and heavy, with gold-edged pages and paper in surprisingly good condition. I absently noted that, thinking “acid-free paper.” I lost my breath again.

  They were the earliest histories of New York. Journey into Mohawk Country by Joost van den Bogaert, one of the first books about this new Dutch possession. Another, similarly rare, Description of New Netherlands, by Adrian van der Donk. There were records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Philipsburg, which was now Tarrytown. Which was where the Konicks once had considerable property. Why here? I had no idea. A very old copy, perhaps an original, of Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker Tales. These should absolutely be in a museum rare book collection, I thought. Here is where Bright Skye would find her valuable inheritance.

  They all had a fancy book plate in front with a ship I could swear was Hudson’s Half Moon and the name Gerardus Konick III. Aha. They went into my Important pile. And at the bottom of the box, the biggest book of all, a leather-bound Bible with a family tree written in front. Just as I had guessed. The name of Gerardus Konick IV was covered with angry slashes of ink.

  So there it was. It gave me a little chill down my back.

  I had to go back. What was the name on the tax pages I had set aside? Only Updike, Skye’s maternal grandparents, and it told me nothing, but some of the holiday cards said, “To darling Maude” and were signed “Your loving husband.”

  Well, great. Maude was loved. Was it Gerard Konick as I already thought? By then, I was stiff from sitting on the floor. I had to stand up and stretch. And walk around. Now would be a good time to look at some of the frivolous items.

  I opened an unlocked trunk covered with colorful destination stickers. It was empty but the second was crammed with elaborate old-fashioned ladies’ outfits. I live in blue jeans but I am a sucker for those beautiful clothes. The label on the trunk said, “Mrs. Gerard Konick,”—again!—but lost inside was a tiny book of poetry inscribed “Maude Konick.” Aha. The last piece of that puzzle slipped into place.

  I took notes madly, took phone photos, though I they knew would not come out well, and stacked items I wanted next to the door to downstairs. I was covered with a layer of dust clinging to a film of sweat. I had to go talk to Bright Skye about borrowing it all. But before I did, one more stroll around the attic to see if I’d missed anything. Got that, got this, and oh, the third trunk, I’d skipped over it in my excitement.

  It was full of stylish men’s clothing of a bygone era. Plus fours. White-tie evening wear. Snappy straw boaters with bright grosgrain hat bands. Historically important but not as interesting as the women’s clothes.

  And there, stuffed in behind the golf shoes, was something odd, a narrow metal box. Odd because of all the things it was not. Not old. Not physically interesting, not beautiful, but cheap metal in an Army green shade.

  Of course I picked it up. I was mindlessly curious, but also determined to be thorough in what might be my one-time access to this place. The box was locked but a key was taped to the bottom. Now that was not smart. Unless the former owner of the box was someone who lost little keys a lot. I could understand that.

  It held a few folded papers. They seemed to be notes on business transactions, and fairly recent. At first I could not make sense out of it and was only looking to rule out that it was of interest. It was certainly modern. The papers were all typed and some were printed from a computer. The most recent was dated last month.

  That’s what didn’t fit. Skye’s mother had been ill, Skye had left. Who was storing business papers in this house?

  I moved into better light. The newest one was marked “Deposit in advance of delivery.” It listed the dimensions of something without naming it, and gave a lot of money—a gasp-worthy lot—for final delivery. There was a letter attached, written in Arabic.

  The rest of the papers were similar but were stamped “Sale Complete.” The money involved was startling, at least to me, an impoverished grad student. The attachments were written in various languages, one in Russian, another in Japanese, I guessed. There were tiny photos attached and they were artwork. A statue of a winged angel and two stained glass windows. That’s when my hands started to shake a little.

  The one in elaborate script seemed to be Spanish. Yes, the inner address was Cali, Colombia. I had a couple of years of Spanish in high school and I lived here in New York, where many public signs are in Spanish and English. I gave it a try. Promesa was easy. It was promise. I recognized ventana, the word for window. Could cementerio be anything but “cemetery?” I hoped it wasn’t “cement factory?”

  Oh, crap, this is ridiculous. I was getting caught up in something I couldn’t do and really should not even be taking the time to do. I needed to go discuss the old books with Skye. Then I made out, through the elaborate script, the word Tiffany. Now I wasn’t in such a hurry. I managed to make out the names of a church and maybe a cemetery. I didn’t know the Spanish but I sure knew the names. By then I was breathing hard.

  On the Russian page, none of it meant anything to me and the Japanese was even more mysterious. Except for the place where in English it said, “Heavenly Rest.” I knew that name, I thought. Wasn’t it one of the small, out-of-the-way cemeteries where another Tiffany window had been stolen?

  What in hell had I stumbled onto here? I wasn’t sure and couldn’t be sure until I had some translations. I could see the receipt or bills of sale or whatever they were had been carefully written to reveal nothing so I would need to translate the other pages.

  Could I fold them up small enough to hide in my laptop? Not quite, with the photos, but I could put them there, leaving the laptop not quite securely closed, but in my tote bag, under my notebook, and under the rest of the old books I wanted to take. Safely hidden. I hope. Stealing? Umm, maybe. Or maybe it was evidence. I thought I should call Henderson again, right now while I had complete privacy. Nope. My phone was where it belonged. In my purse. Which was hanging from a hook in the front hall, along with my jacket.

  I headed downstairs with the huge family Bible in my arms. Off-balance from the bag full of books, and with no free hands, I tackled the short but steep staircase very carefully, one cautious step at a time.

  When I reached the second floor, I heard voices coming right up the spacious stairwell. There were voices? TV? Radio? No. I stopped, held my breath, listened.

  Amanda Mercer. “Who is here? I saw a car in the driveway. I’ve told you and told you not to talk to anyone.”

  “Oh, Amanda, don’t be so upset. There is nothing to be angry about. That annoying Ms. Donato said she could help me value those letters, but she wanted something back, a chance to come over and look at the attic. So I thought I’d just let her, and then she’d be done and out of our lives.”

  I wasn’t going to move a muscle.

  “I don’t believe you.” She sounded angry. No, furious. “You cannot trust her and now, behind my back, even…”

  “Oh, ‘Manda, not behind your back. After everything you’ve done for me, how could you say that? She is so persistent, I just had a moment—well, I got fed up. I would never let her near the valuable antiques but she doesn’t seem to want them anyway. She likes papers, not, you know, jewelry or silver. I thought I’d let her take a look, and she’d go away for good. Wouldn’t that be best? She won’t find anything we care about.”

  Well, I thought. That sounded like my entrance cue. I struggled down the last flight, one step at a time, lightly calling Bright Skye’s name.

  By the time I got to the first floor, they were both in the hall, waiting for me. Skye was fluttering over Mercer, and Mercer looked red-eyed and angry.


  “I found something wonderful! I am so grateful to both of you.” Stick to what I want, I thought. Don’t be part of their argument. I could see it confused them. Good. “Bright, you had an old family Bible there in the attic and a few other wonderful books.” I held the Bible out with both hands. “I don’t think it’s valuable as a book—its condition is very poor—but something in it supports my ideas about Maude which makes it priceless for me. And the other books I am guessing are very valuable. I was wondering…”

  “No.” Mercer snapped it out, not Skye. “No way. Absolutely nothing leaves this house with you. After what happened to the other items Brighty gave you? No way.”

  How could I answer that?

  “But Amanda, she says she found things that could be valuable?”

  I put the heavy Bible down on the bench near the door. It gave me a minute to think. Leary had said, pull the threads until something unravels. Between this dumb, emotional crybaby and this angry, bossy woman, I was more than ready to do some unraveling here. Though I felt the hidden papers telling me to get out as fast as I could, I still needed the information in the Bible.

  “Oh,” I said, as I turned back to them, “I did. I certainly did. Look at the family tree here.” I opened the Bible to show them, but Amanda had her eyes on my bulging canvas bag.

  “What else have you taken from here?” She sounded belligerent.

  “Just a few books. With Bright’s permission, of course. Wait. I’ll show you, “

  I slid the bag off my shoulder, but she was not in the mood to wait. She grabbed for it and all the contents went tumbling out. I winced when the laptop hit the floor with a crash. And then the hidden papers flew out after it.

  Bright Skye, puzzled, picked them up. She looked lost as always, but Mercer turned red.

  “That is private property.” Her voice became louder. “It has nothing, nothing whatever to do with your historical research. What nerve.” She gasped. “They were thoroughly hidden, you sneaking snoop. I never, never thought anyone would find them.”

  When she stopped to catch her breath, Bright, who had been looking at her intently said, “How can they be private papers, Amanda, if you know about them and I don’t? In my own house? We collected all that to give to the lawyer. What is she talking about? Was there something that was not given to him?”

  “Why, I have no idea! She hasn’t shown us anything, has she? Maybe she is saying it just to create distrust?”

  Bright looked down at her feet. “I have lots of distrust of everyone by now. Even my oldest friends. I guess that’s what they mean by older and wiser. Right now I am not even sure about you, because the first thing you said was ‘that is private property.’” She finally looked straight at Mercer. “Just like you knew what she meant.”

  Mercer looked right back at her, tears in her eyes. “How can you talk to me like that? I have been so good to you. And your mother, too. All these years, helping out. Keeping you company when you came back. Dealing with this monster of a mess.”

  At that point, her face was in her hands.

  I watched, barely breathing.

  It was Skye who stepped over to her, pulled Mercer’s hands from her face and said in a vicious whisper, “Tell me the truth. Now. No more games.”

  The sound of her hand hitting Mercer’s cheek rang out. A substantial woman, her smack threw the thin Amanda off her balance and she slipped to the floor.

  Skye didn’t move. She just stared down at Mercer, panting, her fists clenched, her face a furious red.

  Had I told myself not to step into their argument? Did I have a choice? I moved to help Mercer to her feet but Mercer, seeing an opportunity, jumped up and ran to the door. I grabbed her, swung her around and landed a right-cross squarely on her jaw. I hadn’t done something like that since I was ten.

  It was enough. She fell. By then Skye had pulled herself together and helped. She had the body size to hold Amanda Mercer down.

  “You’re not getting up until you start telling the truth,” Bright announced. Mercer moaned. “Did it hurt? Good.”

  Mystic, spacey Bright Skye had vanished and someone else had shown up. Perhaps the girl who was raised in a deteriorating neighborhood in Brooklyn and learned some playground scrapping. Just as I had. Or maybe she learned some physical skills out there in cattle country along with the mystic chanting.

  I took the other shoulder but Skye didn’t really need my help. Mercer was well and truly pinned.

  “Let me up and I’ll tell you.”

  We did and she wrapped her shaking hands around her body. “I need a glass of water.”

  “After you tell us about the papers I found.”

  “I don’t know what…”

  “I have them right here, if that would help your memory.” I reached one hand into my canvas bag.

  At that sight, something in her collapsed. She suddenly looked old instead of somewhere in middle age.

  “How can I make you understand?” she began. “There are beautiful windows all over New York, statues too, that are neglected and forgotten. Don’t you know that?” She addressed me. “Art, great art, treated like trash.” She put her hands on my arms in a begging gesture. “Old churches that had the money to commission them, back when, and now barely have the money to keep the roof patched. And old monuments, too, with no family left to care.”

  “Like the Konicks?”

  “Like the Konicks. Many years ago, there was a case. An expert stole some art with the help of a cemetery employee. So I was so tired, getting old, desperate for money, I had the daydream that it could be done again, and I could be both the expert and the employee. And I met someone who knew the right people. He could sell to those right people, safely right out of the country, who would take care of them, clean them, protect them. Rich people who wanted a real Tiffany window of their very own for their new mansions. And it worked. For a time, it worked. The first two times, at other places, it went very well.”

  “But no one else would ever see them again? Instead of the art being available to everyone? And you actually stole from Green-Wood Cemetery?” My indignation was in my voice. “Where you worked all those years?”

  Her face hardened. “Worked? I might as well have been a volunteer, for the pathetic amount I was paid. And they never gave me a job that matched my expertise. I know everything about that place.” She gave a creepy little giggle as she added, “I know where all the bodies are buried! Now that’s an appropriate joke. But of course I don’t have those credentials that they respect so much. I was always just that strange old lady with a history hobby. Well now I have some money in the bank after all!”

  I took a deep breath. “You said an employee. Was Dmitri Ostrov involved?”

  “Dmitri? No.” She grinned rather slyly. “No, he was too much of a goody-goody. But he was my connection to someone who could get the jobs done. Not that he ever knew that.”

  I didn’t like that smile. Not at all. I shook her. “Were you there when he died? Was he killed there after all? Was he?”

  “No and yes. Yes he was. Me? I was safe in my bed where I belonged.” She looked at me with surprise. “Do you think I did the labor myself? Look at me! I am a lady and the brains of it all. I was not there to get my hands dirty.” She giggled again. “My little pun. ‘Hands dirty.’ In both senses. I had big, strong men, of course. With tools. Dumb, but strong. Too dumb that night.” She came to a dead stop and looked at me, and then Bright, and then at me again. “Most people look at me and see the mask, the sweet, eccentric old lady with gray hair.” Her smile had a bitter edge. “Vladimir knew me for what I was almost immediately. It went well until it didn’t. Nothing lasts.” She stopped again and glared at us. “I don’t have to say any more. I should not have said anything but you were hurting me. I’m done.”

  “No, dammit, you are not. I want to know about Dima! And everything about
the stolen window. And I want to know what you know about poor Ryan.”

  “I want to know why you kept the papers in my house. I don’t understand this at all,” Bright said.

  Mercer looked at Skye with some sadness, and said one last thing. “But don’t you see? Your junk shop attic is the perfect place to hide anything at all. And that way, it wasn’t connected to me.”

  Then she shut her mouth, folded her arms, and looked down at her knees. I was considering slapping her.

  A phone shrilled into the silence and we all jumped. It was mine. Irritated, I let it go. There was no one I could talk to right now. Ah, yes there was. I jumped up to dig it out of my purse and caught Henderson just as he was leaving a message.

  I told him where I was and why. “Come quick.”

  Then Bright Skye never moved. She sat there in awkward silence, guarding Amanda Mercer, who was not actually trying to get away anymore. She had closed her eyes and may even have passed out. She was still breathing and smelled of alcohol.

  Skye finally said with her voice shaking, “I used violence. After all these years of daily spiritual practice. I will have to talk to my master about how to cleanse my spirit.”

  “I’d say she had it coming. After all she’s done? And she was trying to run away!”

  “That is her karma, not mine.” Her expression was resigned. “I did not have to take on her wrongdoing.” She was silent for a long moment. “I can’t wait to go home. I hate this place, this house, this city.”

  I kept my mouth shut. Sedona might have a few flaws, too, but it was obvious that for Bright, it was home. Myself, I’m with Billy Joel. My mind is always in a New York state.