I suppose when put like that, it was rather ridiculous.
“All right, you win,” I said. “But I do have to get to work.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I never win. Especially not that easily. You could keep arguing until the cows come home. What gives?” he asked.
“Nothing. You win,” I said. “I was just being ridiculous.”
* * *
I was seated at the desk of my office in the Gaheimer House on Jefferson Street. The New Kassel Historical Society office and general headquarters are located at the Gaheimer House. The president is one Sylvia Pershing. She’s about ninety-four. Nobody knows her exact age because nobody has asked her. She will never die simply because she’s too mean. It’s one of those situations where God won’t have her and hell is afraid she’ll take over.
The vice president of the historical society is her sister Wilma, who is for the most part Sylvia’s exact opposite. She’s quiet, happy, and remarkably prudish. Neither have ever been married.
Sylvia now owns the Gaheimer House, one of several historic homes in our town built by an early settler named Hermann Gaheimer. I’m not sure what my role is exactly, because I have no title. But I give the tours, which I get paid for, and I take care of records and transcribe original documents in the archives and courthouses. I’ve even hired out my genealogical services and traced family trees, including my own.
The lineage we get is completely random, by the way. There’s nothing grand or glorious, there’s no divine reason that one person has a better family tree than the next. I am a descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier who was at Valley Forge. I can lay claim to the Dukes of Abercorn, and Robert the Bruce. I also have a private in the Union Army of the Civil War, and a Confederate private as well, so I suppose that means that I’m at war with myself. I even have an Indian, and no, she isn’t a Cherokee princess.
I also have my share of deserters, illegitimates, and even a murderer. No kidding, I have an ancestor who beat his wife to death with a piece of firewood because his dinner wasn’t cooked right. They lynched him. Finding out who I am was so much fun.
I’m basically of Scottish and French stock, with a little English thrown in for good measure. But the French is the blood that comes through the most. I’m short, with green eyes, and I tan easily. I did not, however, inherit my French ancestors’ dark hair. Mine can’t decide if it wants to be blond or brown and thus changes with the seasons.
Sylvia came into the office, glared at me, and sat down. I didn’t think anything of it. Sylvia always glares at me.
“Yes, Sylvia, what can I do for you?”
“That Sheriff Brooke of yours has cornered the Dijon market.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “First off, Sheriff Brooke is not mine. He’s your great stepnephew. Secondly, what the heck is a Dijon market?”
Sylvia wears her hair in twisted braids on top of her head, just as Wilma does. She’s very thin, has silver gray eyes and entirely too much energy for somebody sixty-something years my senior.
“Marie Dijon. There will be an estate sale, and I’ve heard the sheriff is going to make a bid for everything in the woman’s house. Nobody else in New Kassel can counter that offer.”
“Well, since he bought Norah’s Antiques, he’s been throwing everything he has into it. He’s trying to set it up for his retirement,” I explained. Sylvia said nothing. She could more than afford to counter any offer that Sheriff Brooke wanted to make. I happen to know personally that Hermann Gaheimer left Sylvia a million and something dollars when he died in the 1930s.
It is knowledge that I should not possess.
Sylvia was single-handedly responsible for renovating the town and had loaned many people money to start businesses, interest free. She could counter his offer if she wanted. But she didn’t want to draw too much attention to just how much money she was sitting on. She even made the town hold fundraisers for the historical society. Part of that was to cover up her wealth. The other was because she wanted the people of New Kassel to have to work for things. I understood that train of thought. Sylvia was such a complex person.
“Well, Sylvia,” I began diplomatically, “if Sheriff Brooke wants to ‘corner the market,’ so to speak, he certainly has his inalienable rights.”
“Oh, pooh,” she said. She narrowed her gray eyes on me. “I know for a fact that Marie Dijon had some very rare and expensive pieces in her possession. I think that the people who have a little knowledge of antiques and a respect for historical items should be allowed to at least view what she had and have a chance to bid on them,” she said. She was very serious.
It felt suddenly stuffy in the office. It is small and has only one window covered by a lace curtain. One wall has an antique rose of sharon quilt hanging on it. It is a beautiful quilt with pink appliquéd roses and a swirling green vine. No matter how beautiful it is, it makes the room more confining. And Sylvia did not help my claustrophobia any.
“It will be some time before all the legal junk is finished and anybody can really make a serious offer. Sheriff Brooke is probably just blowing hot air,” I said. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Why, tell him he cannot do this, of course.”
I laughed at her. I laughed heartily because I knew just how serious she was.
“Victory, you are treading on thin ice, young lady. You show me the respect that I deserve.”
“Yes, Sylvia.”
I tried to straighten up and act right. It was sort of like in the fifth grade when Miss Thomas told us all to “straighten up and fly right.” It didn’t work then because she had a long piece of toilet paper hanging out of the waistband of her pants. This didn’t work either because I could just imagine me telling Sheriff Brooke that he wasn’t allowed to bid on an estate. The vision it evoked brought me to laughing again. “I’m sorry, Sylvia. I’m trying.”
“Marie Dijon was a very generous and giving woman,” Sylvia said. “I don’t think that she would want one stingy human being to get everything she had.”
“What do you mean, generous?” I asked.
Sylvia looked uncomfortable. “Well, you know the earrings that you wear with the chenille-ball fringe dress?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “The gold ones with pearl drops?”
“Those are the ones. Well, they were on loan from Marie.”
“On loan?” I asked.
“Yes. She said to just pay her whenever, and I never paid her.”
“You stole the earrings?” I asked, amazed.
“Of course not. They are very expensive. They are prerevolutionary France. Something like seventeenth century.”
“Oh, crap,” I said.
“No vulgarities in the Gaheimer House, young lady.”
“How expensive?” I asked. “Sylvia? How expensive?”
“At least twenty thousand.”
“Dollars?!”
“Now you know why I hadn’t gotten around to paying her for them. I intended to, but then she died.”
I thought about this for a minute. “So, in other words, since the earrings aren’t paid for, you have to return them to the estate, to be auctioned off.”
“If I want to be honest about it. I could keep them and nobody would ever know the difference, but I can’t do that. I have to be honest about it. But I’d like to keep them in the Gaheimer collection, and I can’t if Sheriff Brooke buys the entire estate.”
“Twenty thousand,” I repeated.
“They are rumored to have been worn by Anne of Austria.”
“Well, that’s one expensive rumor.”
“Do you know who Anne of Austria was?” Sylvia asked me.
“Yes, the wife of Louis the … uh—I hate Roman numbers—the thirteenth,” I said.
“Yes. I’m impressed,” she said.
“I’m sure if you ask Sheriff Brooke, he’d be happy to make a settlement over the earrings.”
“I want you to do it. I refuse to s
peak with him,” she said and arose from her chair. “There are a few things in the top drawer that need to be returned to her estate, as well as the earrings. Please see to it that Mr. Reaves receives them. I will keep the earrings in my safety deposit box until an agreement can be met.”
“How do you know that Mr. Reaves is handling her estate?”
“Victory, there’s very little that goes on in this town that I don’t know about,” she said and then added, “Bernice Thorley told me.”
She was out of my office as fast as she had come in.
I picked up the telephone and called the law office of Wilbert Reaves. A young, feminine voice answered the phone.
“Wilbert Reaves, attorney at law,” Jamie said.
“Hello, Jamie. This is Torie O’Shea. I need to speak with Wilbert.”
“He’s not here. Won’t be for the rest of the day.”
“Well, can you see when he has an opening? I need to bring him some things and speak to him regarding the Marie Dijon will.”
“Tomorrow around two, or you can catch him out at the Dijon place this evening. I’m pretty sure he said that he’d be out there around seven this evening.”
“All right. I’ll try that. Thank you.”
A VEILED ANTIQUITY—
Now available from
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A MISTY MOURNING
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FAMILY SKELETONS
A VEILED ANTIQUITY
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FAMILY SKELETONS
Copyright © 1997 by Lauretta Dickherber.
Excerpt from A Veiled Antiquity copyright © 1998 by Lauretta Allen.
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ISBN: 0-312-96602-4
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition published March 1997
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / June 1998
eISBN 9781466888845
First eBook edition: November 2014
Family Skeletons: A Spunky Missouri Genealogist Traces A Family's Roots...And Digs Up A Deadly Secret Page 20