Treasure in Exile

by S. W. Hubbard

  “It felt like I was in there for a whole day at least. It was so quiet and dim, I couldn’t keep track of time. I paced back and forth and tried to do some exercises just to keep busy. Lotta thoughts went through my head...” He stops, gazing into space, then gives himself a little shake.

  “You must’ve moved right when I was finding your book and cards in the sitting room. I heard something and I called for you.”

  “When I heard your voice callin’ me, at first I thought it was a dream. I got so excited and I stomped as hard as I could. But then you didn’t come.” He turns and his big brown eyes well with tears. “That was the worst moment. I thought you gave up and left. It was like one of those shipwreck movies when the rescue plane flies over and they’re yelling and screaming and thinkin’ they’re saved and then the plane doesn’t see them and flies away. That’s worse than no plane coming at all.”

  “Oh, Ty.” I pull his head onto my shoulder. “I would have torn this house down to find you.”

  Henry coughs uncomfortably. Ty squirms out of my embrace.

  “We came up to this bedroom and called you. How come you didn’t answer?”

  “I didn’t hear you on the other side of the sliding wall. I only heard the sound coming up through the floor.”

  Henry goes to examine the wall. “It’s insulated, like they built it to be soundproof.”

  “Luckily, we didn’t have to tear the house down.” I strive to lighten the mood and explain how Henry figured out the hidden space in the house.

  “What’s in that room, anyway?” Henry edges away from our emotional collapse and enters the secret room shining the flashlight on his phone.

  “I could barely see in there.” Ty eases himself up from the bed and sways, then regains his balance. He seems torn between curiosity and reluctance to re-enter his prison. “There’s a buncha framed photos is all I could make out.”

  “Yeah, lotsa pictures, family photos,” Henry calls back to us. “Weddings, graduations, baptisms, army enlistment—stuff like that.”

  Now curiosity gets the best of me and I step away from Ty’s side. “We were talking about how odd it was that there were no photos anywhere in this house. Why would Vareena keep them all hidden in a secret room?”

  Henry steps further into the tiny room and gestures for me to enter. “These pictures ain’t of Vareena’s people. They’re Maybelle’s.”

  “These folks all black.”

  Chapter 32

  I CROWD IN NEXT TO him. The room is barely six by six feet. The three walls that don’t move are lined with large framed photos, not snapshots, but studio photos of the big moments in people’s lives. Quite a few are graduation photos: young African American men and women in black gowns and mortarboards. Three show young men in uniform: two Army, one Navy. There are several wedding photos and two award ceremonies.

  I squint at each picture looking at the serious, proud faces. “From the hairstyles and the clothes and the way the photos have faded, these all seem to have been taken in the fifties and sixties.”

  Henry nods. “Yep. My folks never even had a camera till those little instamatics came out in the seventies. Before that, you mostly just had these studio portraits on special occasions.”

  “I wonder why they stop? Why wouldn’t her family keep sending them, especially once snapshots were so easy to take?”

  “Next generation, I guess. The older she got, the less people in the family remembered her.”

  “What are you look—” Ty’s voice is cut off by a rattle and a thump.

  Henry and I rush out of the room to find Ty slumped against Maybelle’s bed.

  “I got a little dizzy when I went to stand up.”

  I pull out my phone. “No more delays. We need to call for the EMTs and report this attack to the police.”

  Ty grabs my hand. If he’s sick, you certainly wouldn’t know it from the strength of his grip. “No! I’m a’ight—just hungry and thirsty. Leave the cops outta this.”

  I jerk my arm away. “You were attacked. You could have died. A crime has been committed and we have to report it. You’re not going to get in trouble for being here. The Parks Center has given us access to the house. No one from the Center is going to object to your studying here.”

  Ty keeps shaking his head. “I didn’t see who hit me. Got no clue if he was tall, short, white, black. No clue if it was even a man. What the cops gonna do?”

  I guess I should no longer be surprised by Ty’s abiding distrust of law enforcement. He and Sean have achieved mutual respect and even a bit of camaraderie, but Ty clearly considers my husband to be the exception to the rule that no cop can be counted upon for help. “Your car is gone.” I’m clutching at straws. “The intruder stole it. We have to report that.”

  Ty shakes his head. “I drove my car over the grass and parked it behind the garage. That’s probably why whoever broke in had no clue I was here until I stuck my head in this room.”

  I plant myself in front of him and demand eye contact. “Ty, I am the wife of a Palmyrton police detective. I can’t just not report a crime.”

  “Why? Women all the time choose not to report being attacked. It’s not a crime to not call the cops. I’m the victim. I get to decide.”

  Ah, now he’s given me an opening. “You’re not the only victim. The intruder obviously broke into this house to steal something that belongs to the owner, the Rosa Parks Center. We have to let Levi know that.”

  Ty pushes past me in disgust. “Fine. Call Levi. I’m outta here.”

  “You can’t drive if you’re dizzy.” I follow Ty down the broad staircase, trailed by Henry, even as I’m calling Levi on my cell.

  Of course, I get his voicemail. No one is ever available when you really need them. I leave a garbled, breathless message telling him to call me ASAP, and return my attention to Ty.

  “Levi didn’t answer. I’m going to call 911 right now.”

  Ty’s hand closes over my phone. “What’s the big rush? Whoever hit me has been gone for hours. Few more minutes not gonna make any difference. Just wait ‘til Levi calls back.”

  I’m tired of arguing. Levi will talk some sense into Ty, I’m sure.

  We’ve made it into the kitchen where he spies a box of granola bars we’d all been snacking on earlier in the week. Ty devours two and gulps down another long drink.

  Food and water seem to restore his common sense. “How did the guy who whacked me get in? I locked the back door behind me.”

  While we’re waiting for Levi to call back, Henry, Ty and I walk through the first floor of the house. We can’t find evidence of a break-in. The massive front door is bolted tight from inside and the two sets of French doors leading to the veranda are also bolted.

  “These windows are big enough for a man to fit through, easy,” Henry says as he tries to raise one of the big double-hung windows in the back parlor. But the window doesn’t budge. He peers at it closely, then moves to the window beside it and repeats the process. “Here’s something we never noticed. These big windows are nailed shut.”

  “That makes sense. They never used these rooms, so they didn’t need fresh air. And they were vulnerable living here all alone.”

  “Maybe the turd broke in through the basement,” Ty says.

  But Henry shakes his head. “Me and my guys looked around down there. It’s an ol’ time cellar with a dirt floor. There’s a trap door where the coal used to get delivered, but that’s been boarded up, and a couple of tiny little windows even a kid couldn’t fit through.”

  While we’ve been looking for the entry point, I’ve been keeping an eye out for things that might have been stolen. I’ve been promoting this sale for two weeks—social media, fliers, ads, emails to my mailing list, mentioning some of the most interesting items for sale. I wanted a huge turnout. In short, the immediate world knew about it. So it’s possible that someone wanted to rip off the sale before it even began.

  The ultimate early bird.

  But as
far as we can tell, everything is just the way we left it two days ago, priced and ready for the sale. The most valuable things in the house are quite large: the statue of Aphrodite, the grandfather clock, the antique sideboard and mirrored hall tree. They’re all still here. Vareena had no jewelry other than her wedding and engagement rings, which are still in her dresser drawer.

  And of course, there were no electronics. In short, nothing that a typical break and enter thief would want.

  Which leads me to an inescapable conclusion: this wasn’t a typical B&E job.

  The intruder came with the specific intent of going to that secret room.

  Chapter 33

  FINALLY, MY PHONE CHIRPS.

  A text from Levi: I got your message. I’m on my way to meet you at the house.

  Silently, the three of us sit down in the kitchen to wait for Levi. My brain stews with conflicting ideas. Ty and Henry seem equally preoccupied.

  What was the intruder looking for in that room? What did he take from there?

  Most important—who could possibly have known about the room?

  Not Henry, unless he’s a world-class actor. Yes, he got the idea that there could be a hidden space on the second floor, but he was genuinely stunned when that wall started to move.

  Wasn’t he?

  Could he have known before he arrived at the house that Ty was in there and went through an elaborate ruse to set him free?

  I steal a furtive glance at my colleague as he paces around the kitchen. His brow is furrowed and occasionally he gives a little shake of his head. No way. Henry is a kind, honest man, and I think he’s as perplexed as I am.

  Of course, I’ve been wrong about people before. Why does he seem so restless? Maybe he suspects his two helpers.

  I don’t know them from Adam. Could one of them have discovered the room sneaking down to the second floor when he was supposed to be on the third floor in the servants’ rooms, and then made a plan to come back and empty it of valuables?

  What about my helper? I really don’t know Donna that well, do I? She was occasionally alone in the room when I stepped out to go to the bathroom or call Sean. Could she have helped set this up?

  But she and Ty are tight. And whoever left Ty in that secret room was quite willing to risk him dying.

  Even if any of them had the time alone, I think it’s highly unlikely that anyone could trip that door by accident. Even if someone found the button under the shelf, he would have to lean pretty hard on the wall to make the door open.

  Who would be familiar enough with this house to know about that room and how to open it?

  Someone from Maybelle and Vareena’s past.

  A sharp rap at the back door jolts us all back to the here and now.

  Levi comes into the kitchen and surveys our grim faces. “What’s happened? Has something very valuable been stolen?”

  I rise to greet him. “No, we can’t see that anything’s been stolen. That’s what makes this break-in so weird.”

  We fill Levi in on the details, occasionally tripping over one another with corrections and clarifications.

  As I suspected, Levi is not at all concerned that Ty intended to use the house as his study hideout. He pats Ty on the back. “Don’t worry about that, son. I’m just glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”

  “I appreciate that, Levi. But I’m still not crazy about getting the cops involved in my part of the story.” Ty meets Levi’s gaze and some acknowledgement passes between them. “Just report the house was broken into and we found the secret room open. Leave me out of it.”

  This approach has occurred to me, but I’ve already rejected it. Telling the police partial truths always leads to trouble. They ask questions...find evidence... and your lie is revealed. Then you have even more explaining to do.

  Been there, done that.

  Before I can protest, Levi is shaking his head. “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy. Proverbs 12:22.”

  “You say the room is filled only with old photographs?”

  “That’s what’s left in it now. Maybe the person who broke in took something valuable with him.”

  Levi frowns. “And you think these photos are Maybelle’s relatives?” Levi asks. “Show it to me.”

  So we all troop back upstairs. I too want to see the photos again. I’m sure they hold the answer to the break in.

  Levi stares at each photo intently. Sometimes he nods or makes a little cluck of approval. He picks up one graduation photo and squints at it, adjusting his glasses and waving Henry closer with the flashlight. He sighs and returns it to its spot on the wall with what seems to me is reverence.

  “Do you recognize these people, Levi?”

  “I recognize their dreams. I recognize their courage.” He turns to face us. “I would have been a child when these photos were taken. This was the generation that preceded mine. The generation that opened so many doors for our people.”

  He gestures to the photo he had studied so intently. “That young man is holding a diploma from the University of Maryland. Do you realize how hard it was for a black man to gain admittance and earn a degree there in the early sixties? And this one—” He picks up a class photo that shows a young teacher and her entire third grade class. “A black woman teaching a class that contained both black and white students. Do you understand how extraordinary she must have been?”

  I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that at all. To me, they were simply photos of average people at familiar milestones in their lives.

  “Why do you think Maybelle kept them hidden in here, Levi? Why wouldn’t she have kept them out in her room to enjoy all the time?”

  “Maybe Miz Tate didn’t like it that her maid had such uppity relations,” Henry offers.

  Could that be it? Maybelle had to hide the fact that her relatives weren’t maids and waiters and janitors? But surely the room was created when the kitchen addition was built, and Vareena was still managing the accounts then. If Vareena was aware of the secret room, why is it filled with only Maybelle’s photos?

  Could Maybelle have had the secret room built in the Sixties when she took over the accounts? What power did Vareena have over her? Why did Maybelle stay a servant all those years? Surely she could have gotten some assistance from the teachers and doctors and scholars in this room.

  “Does the executor of the estate have any idea how to get in touch with Maybelle’s family?”

  “The law firm handling the estate says she has no family. Neither of them had any family. That’s why Vareena left the money to us. There was a small bequest to Maybelle to take care of her after Vareena died. But Maybelle died just two days later, so she never collected it.”

  “But wouldn’t Maybelle’s relatives be entitled to that bequest?”

  Levi shakes his head. “Vareena drew it up so that the money was in trust for Maybelle’s use as long as she lived. After she died, the balance was to go to the Parks Center.”

  “When was the will written, Levi?” I’ve always been curious about this. “When did Vareena decide to leave her money to the Parks Center?”

  “Vareena’s will was drawn up by one of the leading law firms in Palmyrton. Naturally, everyone on the Board wanted to know why she selected us as the recipient of her estate. But the partner acting as executor said that the terms of her will specifically forbid him from revealing anything about when or why her decision was made. He simply assured us that the firm was confident she was in sound mind when she made the decision.”

  Levi turns his back on us, and moves to unhook a picture from the wall. “Let’s get these photos packed up. They shouldn’t be discarded.”

  “Wait,” I say. “The police will want to see all this. We should call now—”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.” Levi sets down the first photo and unhooks another. “Since nothing was stolen and Ty doesn’t want to report the assault, I think there’s no need to call the police. After all, we
want the sale to begin tomorrow after all the promotion you’ve done. The police might interfere with that.”

  “Right, Audge.” Ty jumps to agree with this rationale. “You know they’ll mess us up. We can’t afford for the cops to shut us down as a crime scene.”

  What’s gotten into Levi? When he arrived, he was preaching the evils of lying. Now, he’s on board with a cover-up. “Are you two thinking straight? My husband is a detective with the Palmyrton police force. I can’t lie to him.”

  “I’m not asking you to lie. It’s not illegal for a victim to decline to report a crime.” Levi looks at me with the calm self-assurance of a longtime pastor. He’s wearing a suit and tie. His voice is deep and steady. He’s the picture of law-abiding respect for authority. “Feel free to tell Sean tonight over dinner. But we’re not calling 911.”

  “Fine,” I say, pulling out my phone. “But I’m taking some pictures to record the crime scene.”

  I take several shots of the sliding wall and then step further into the room to take shots of the pictures hanging on the walls. But Levi has been removing them and only a few are left. Only lighter rectangles on the walls mark where they have hung.

  Levi picks up a stack of the framed pictures. “I’ll take these with me...show them around to some of the older folks at church. Who knows? Even though Maybelle didn’t attend my church, maybe someone will recognize one of them.”

  “Do you know if Maybelle was originally from Palmyrton?” I ask Levi as I return with a box to pack up the photos.

  “I doubt she was since she started working here during the war. There wasn’t much of an African American community in this town then. She probably came out from Newark looking for work in one of these big houses. Or maybe she came up from the South. Lots of people left the farms and came to the city searching for a better life.”

  If she came from down South, that might explain how she drifted out of touch with her family. I suppose living in the Tate Mansion was more comfortable than living in some sharecropper’s shack. A better life, but a lonelier one. Levi’s mention of his church prompts another thought. “If Maybelle didn’t go to Mt. Zion AME, maybe she went to the Baptist church. Ty’s Grandma Betty is a deaconess there. She could show these pictures around if you don’t have any luck.”