As promised, once we arrived Camilla gave me the letterhead box, which contained a sheaf of printed-out emails totaling about sixty-five pages in all, each with the subject line Charles Braithwaite Triptych.
“Were there any names you recognized as being from the Braithwaite line that descended from Charles’s daughter?”
“No, unfortunately not,” she said. “Plus, some of them only signed their emails with their first names, and their email addresses are vague.” She lifted the box top, rifled through a few sheets, and pulled one out. “Like this one. It’s from a cousin I’ve never met who signed his name as Arthur, but his email is ‘ironmanrunner9191’—there’s nothing else that gives away his last name.”
“Darn it,” I said. “I’ll take a look anyway, though.”
We walked back through the living room, where Serena was waiting for us. Seeing me, she pointed to the photo of the smiling, windswept woman on a Paris sidewalk that I’d seen the first time I visited. “With her long, dark hair, she kind of reminds me of you, Luce.”
“I like that one, too,” I said, running my finger along the edge of the frame. I looked around the room, marveling once more at the beautiful collage made by Charlie’s black-and-white photos. “They’re amazing, aren’t they?”
Serena’s reply was to gasp, “Oh, I love this one.” The writing said Spanish Steps, Rome, 1980. Charlie had taken a photo of a model in a ball gown ascending the famous steps as she was being photographed by a professional photographer.
“What will you do with them all?” I asked Camilla.
“I haven’t decided,” she said. “I found Charlie’s will, and assuming he didn’t change it recently, he left a few of them to family members, including Tor, my aunt Jensen, and me.” She pulled a face. “And four go to Elaine. As for the rest, I’m thinking of doing a showing, and maybe auctioning some off for charity.” She smiled at Serena. “I might be open to selling others, too.”
“I think Charlie would approve of your ideas,” I said. “And since you mentioned Elaine, have you spoken with her?”
Camilla shook her head vehemently. “She’s called me twice and left me messages to call her, but I’m not interested.”
After seeing how Elaine had treated Camilla, I couldn’t very well blame her.
A few minutes later, Serena and I were walking out the front door. Seeing a patch of Charlie’s garden, I asked, “Camilla, have you received an email from Soils from Heaven?”
“Not an official one, no, but Trent called and told me about the elevated arsenic in Charlie’s bags of soil,” Camilla replied with a sour look. “I told him he got lucky. I won’t be suing his company.”
“Not that I would have encouraged you to sue, but why aren’t you?” I asked.
Camilla looked back into the living room, at Charlie’s beloved photos. Her eyes were emotion-filled again, but she held herself together. “Honestly, beyond the fact that Uncle Charlie’s doctor couldn’t say for sure that the arsenic issues would have killed him, I just don’t think Uncle Charlie would have wanted me to.” Her expression hardened. “Still, I’m spitting mad at Trent for not telling me as soon as he found out. He felt so bad, he’s coming up here himself tomorrow to pick up the rest of the bags of soil and dispose of them. I told him he’d better send someone to do the same for Aunt Jensen, too.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“Speaking of,” Camilla said, “I spoke to Aunt Jensen a little while ago, too. She said your mother took her to the doctor and a course of treatment has been mapped out for her. She’s going to be fine, and I’m grateful to your mom for being such a good friend to her.”
I explained about her great-aunt and my mom being the team to beat in their bridge games, which made Camilla laugh. As Serena and I were about to walk down the porch steps, I said I would let her know what I found from the emails, and then reminded her I was going to the Hamilton Center later today to talk to Savannah Lundstrom. I’d mentioned it to her yesterday at Helen’s studio, but the excitement of looking at the beautiful painting again had quickly overshadowed everything else. Now, however, Camilla’s eyes sparked with irritation.
“If she’s planning on writing about my ancestor’s paintings in order to make more false accusations about my family … oooh, I just don’t know what I’ll do!”
“Let me find out what her plans are before you let it stress you out any further,” I said as I started down the steps. Then I turned back. “Camilla? Are you doing all right after everything that happened with your uncle Charlie?” With my free hand, I gestured inside the house and the general feel of loss that was permeating it. “Are you okay staying here and everything?”
She nodded, the fire in her eyes petering out. “It’s tough, but yeah, I’m doing okay. My friend Sarah is going to come over tonight for some wine and to help me do some more cleaning, so that will help.”
I nodded. “You can call me, too, if you’re ever not okay,” I said.
She hesitated, then said, “Thanks, Lucy. I appreciate that,” before closing the front door.
* * *
Back at my office, I made copies of all the email responses Charlie received from his relatives, then returned the originals to the box. Technically, I knew I should give the emails to Detective Dupart, but first I was going to give myself a few hours to see what I could get out of them. I wanted to construct a more detailed family tree descending from Charles Braithwaite and his wife, Violet, on down to as far as I could go. After that, the emails would be all Dupart’s, if he wanted them.
First, I pulled out the family group sheets I’d begun creating for the three main branches of the Braithwaite clan, which allowed me to keep track of the members inside each specific family within a branch, along with such information as birth dates, marriages, death dates, and other notes. As I learned from the Chronology article and confirmed through my own research, Charles’s three children had been, in order, Nathaniel, Edward, and Henrietta. Because even I could get confused sometimes in such an extended family tree, I also found my notepad on which I’d scribbled some quick-reference notes on who descended from which child of Charles and Violet Braithwaite:
Charlie Braithwaite descended from eldest son, Nathaniel.
Camilla, Tor, and Jensen Hocknell descend from second son, Edward.
TBD: descendants of third child and only daughter, Henrietta.
During my research thus far—mostly done during Ben’s and my drive back to Austin yesterday—I’d quickly had a stroke of luck when I went on one of my favorite genealogy sites. I’d found that another descendant of Nathaniel Braithwaite, who posted her family tree under the screen name MargaretB213, had done a lot of the work for me on her branch, including source citations and other proof documents. MargaretB213 had also done enough research on the branch descending from Edward to give me a lovely head start.
When it came to Henrietta’s branch, though, information had been thin. MargaretB213’s family tree had shown that Henrietta had married one Ezra Jepsen in 1889 at the age of twenty and had one daughter with him before he died of typhoid fever. In 1892, a widowed Henrietta met and married a man named Olney Smith. There was a notation that Henrietta had five more children with Olney Smith, but no names or other dates were listed.
The one thing I did know, courtesy of Mrs. Hocknell, was that one of her distant cousins who went by his surname, Smith, had been the last known owner of the third piece of the triptych. This meant that I needed to focus on finding the descendants of Henrietta Braithwaite and Olney Smith.
However, given that “Smith” is the most common last name in the United States, I had to be extra careful in confirming that I had the right descendants. Needless to say, researching them had eaten up the bulk of yesterday’s drive home. By the time Ben and I pulled into the loading dock at Helen Kim Art Restoration to unload Camilla’s piece of the triptych, I’d made a bit of headway into Charles Braithwaite’s war records. However, I hadn’t come much further in tracing his daugh
ter Henrietta’s line than finding the names of her five children with Olney Smith—three girls and two boys, all born between 1893 and 1903.
Now, as the morning sun rose higher in the sky, shining through our office windows, I had narrowed the field somewhat by finding the spouses of the five Smith children, but ran into issues after finding out the surname Smith had quickly died out. This was because Henrietta’s two sons, Roger Smith and Frank Smith—one of whom was the descendant who inherited the third piece of the triptych—both had multiple children, but they were all girls. That meant the surnames in Henrietta’s line all changed each time a daughter or granddaughter married.
I kept working, running search after search, hoping one or more of the names—or partial names, as the case often was—from the email replies Charlie had received would match up with a descendant of Henrietta Braithwaite Smith. Then, at exactly high noon, and as if announcing a showdown, my phone rang.
“Detective Dupart,” I said, my voice the epitome of respectful politeness. “How are you today?”
“Ms. Lancaster,” he said dryly. “I just got off the phone with Ms. Braithwaite, telling her she is free to return to Houston at any point. She told me that she has decided to stay a few more days to finalize plans with her great-uncle’s estate. However, she then mentioned a few interesting tidbits to me.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes. Something about arsenic in potting soil, and the fact that you took some papers from Charlie Braithwaite’s house.” His voice grew weary. “Now, I’m aware I asked you through Agent Turner to help me in researching the third branch of the Braithwaite family—”
“And thank you for that,” I interjected. “I’m honored, and I’m working on it right now.”
Dupart merely paused, then continued. “Agent Turner has also kept me apprised of your little jaunt down to Houston and how Camilla’s piece of the triptych is now here, in Austin, being restored. I’ve allowed this interference into my investigation because I trust Agent Turner and I know he’d handle things to the letter if anything untoward took place. He did not, however, mention any arsenic in any soil. Care to explain?” Now he modeled my polite tone. “And please do remember to add in the part about the papers you took.”
I did explain, all the way to the part where I gave Trent seventy-two hours to contact his customers.
“As for the papers,” I said, “I was going to turn them over to you right after I spent some time looking into Camilla’s family tree. Specifically into the third branch of her family tree. And I’m guessing it would be safe to say you agree with me that due to the interest in the triptych painting—and ‘interest’ is putting it lightly—there’s a high likelihood the two people who killed Charlie Braithwaite are from that third branch.”
There was silence for several seconds, then Dupart said, “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to see what you can come up with, Ms. Lancaster, but you are not allowed to contact any of the individuals Mr. Braithwaite emailed. Not in any way. Understood? That would be our job, if needed.”
“Understood,” I said.
“In the meantime, make copies of those papers you took from Ms. Braithwaite and have the originals ready for an officer to pick up in a half hour.”
I smiled. “You can send an officer now, Detective. I’m already one step ahead of you.”
After we hung up, I began sorting my copies of the emails into four piles, one each for the descendants of Nathaniel, Edward, and Henrietta, plus a fourth pile of those who it wasn’t immediately obvious to which branch they belonged.
Not surprisingly, the pile for Henrietta’s descendants was the smallest. In fact, it was only one piece of paper. The emailer—whose name was Ephraim—had expressly identified himself as a descendant of Henrietta. Sadly, Ephraim did not know the location of the third piece of the triptych. Nor did he seem to care, either, as he’d written, Ugliest thing I ever saw. Good riddance to it.
Twenty minutes later, one of Dupart’s officers arrived and I handed off the originals. By that time, I’d read through a good portion of the responses, as well as researched a few of the names from the “uncertain” pile and filed them under the right descendant. By the time one o’clock hit, Serena and Josephine insisted I go to lunch. Twirling a strand of hair around my finger, I tried to say I wasn’t hungry because of our late breakfast at Flaco’s, but that didn’t work with my best friends.
“I always know when you’re getting hungry because you start playing with your hair,” Serena said, hauling me out of my office chair. “Come on. A new ramen place opened up across the street last week and we’ve heard it’s really good.”
“Yes, love, and they close at two p.m. for the afternoon, so chop-chop,” Josephine added, motioning me to hurry up when I didn’t move fast enough.
“I think it’s you two who are hungry,” I said, pointing at my friends. Nevertheless, they were right. I needed to eat before I gate-crashed an event to talk to Savannah Lundstrom. Grabbing up the last five of Charlie’s emails, I said, “I’m taking these with me, though. Dupart is giving me only twenty-four hours, and I’d like to see if I can figure out which branch of Braithwaites they belong to before I head over to the Hamilton Center.”
“We’ll be happy to ignore you the entire time. Now, shake your tail feathers, honey,” Serena said, picking up my purse as Jo linked my arm with hers and pulled me toward the door.
By the time we ordered, I was ravenous, and the three of us ended up taking our sweet time enjoying our steaming-hot bowls of ramen. Halfway in, I received a text from Ben saying he’d likely be busy the rest of the workday, but to continue texting him updates. He’d told me that he would read them, but warned me that I likely wouldn’t get more than an “OK” in response.
And I had been keeping him abreast of things. Well, mostly. I still hadn’t told him about being attacked this morning at the park. I knew it would affect his concentration at work, and since I was fine and sticking close to my friends, I didn’t feel it necessary to add that bit. I felt better knowing that he’d seen my texts, though, and I hoped that in a couple of hours, he would be done for the day and could meet up with me. If not, he knew I was keeping myself safe and out of trouble, and that was what mattered.
It wasn’t until Serena and Jo started discussing a new streaming series I hadn’t yet seen that I remembered the emails I’d brought along. I used my chopsticks to maneuver the last of my noodles into the porcelain soup spoon filled with tonkotsu broth, and slurped it up as I read the top email.
Charlie,
Thank you for your reply. If you change your mind about letting other family members purchase it, my two kids (one a “step” from L’s 2nd marriage) would be interested.
Hoping you’re well,
Renee
Then I inhaled sharply, making my soup catch in my throat and sending me into a coughing fit. The original exchange had not been printed, but the email came from the username “reneethedocent.”
* * *
After Josephine thumped me on the back a couple of times, I found my phone and texted Cisco, who’d never written me back to tell me the name of the docent who he’d thought resembled the woman I’d seen opening his workroom door. Not thirty seconds later, he sent a reply.
Sorry - forgot to send. Name is Renee Behrens.
This time, it was I who chivvied my two best friends back to the office. It was now almost two o’clock and Savannah’s event began at three. I had about forty minutes before I had to leave for the Hamilton Center, and I was determined to find out who Renee Behrens was in the Braithwaite family tree before then.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Josephine insisted on following me to the Hamilton Center to, as she put it, “make bloody sure no attackers jump out at you.” I was smart enough not to object.
After I parked, having been lucky to find a parallel-parking space not far from the entrance, I walked up to Jo’s driver’s-side window.
“You’ll have a security guard escort you ou
t, yes?” she said.
“Cross my heart,” I said, drawing an X over my heart with my finger for emphasis. Slipping my phone in my purse, I didn’t realize I’d huffed out a breath, but Josephine heard it.
“I know that look, love. I can tell you’re frustrated that you didn’t have enough time to find that woman in Camilla’s family tree.”
“I am frustrated,” I grumbled. “I just really feel like Renee Behrens may be a key somehow, but I couldn’t find her name connected to the Braithwaites at all.”
“You couldn’t find her yet,” Jo reminded me. Using one hand to gesture toward the entrance of the Hamilton Center, she said, “Can’t you blow off this meeting with the Chronology reporter? Do you really have to talk to her today? Surely you can call her or something, right? That way you can go back to the office and keep working.”
I exhaled another breath. “True, I could call Savannah and try to get her to talk to me over the phone about her article and if she’s writing a follow-up that might be even more damaging to the Braithwaite family. However, I doubt she would answer my call, or call me back if I left a message.” Shaking my head, I said, “No, I think asking her face-to-face would be the best option, and today’s my only chance, because she’d heading home to DC tomorrow.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll just go talk to Savannah—it shouldn’t take long, hopefully—and then I’ll head back to the office and get on the hunt again.” I blew her a kiss and turned to make my way into my other former workplace.
Walking into the Hamilton Center was a different feeling altogether than visiting the Howland library. I’d loved working here, and had made many good friends, and that thought made me smile even as I passed a display of somber photos taken during the Great Depression and headed to the elevators.
Once on the third floor, I walked confidently toward the north end of the building, where the Brownsville Room was located, keeping my eyes peeled for Savannah Lundstrom. As I reached the hallway leading to the room, however, I was stopped by a baby-faced student with a badge on his shirt that told me his name was Oscar.
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