“We don’t have many real estate lawyers in Millbank. In my line of work you do business with all of them. He was a good guy, your brother.”
I found an excuse to look up at the roofline and shaded my eyes with my hand even though there was hardly the sunlight to warrant it. “Yes, he was.” I had a feeling this would lead to sympathetic comments and condolences, and knowing that I really wasn’t up to that, I asked him, “Have you lived here long, in Millbank?”
“Eight years. Why?”
“I’ve been told we have a ghost light in our woods.” My tone was offhand. “Have you ever seen it?”
Not offhand enough, apparently, because his glance held interest. “Have you?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” I was speaking to myself as much as him. The place where I’d been standing by the line of trees looked innocently empty, and the climbing sun was shortening the shadows. But I still felt braver having Sam and Bandit here for company. “I’ve got a pot of coffee on,” I offered, “if you want a cup.”
? ? ?
The coffee-maker had outdone itself this morning. Instead of its usual watery brew it had gone to the other extreme and produced something so strong I half feared the spoon might dissolve while I stirred sugar into my cup. Sam, apparently tougher than me, drank his black without any complaint. He stayed standing, leaning back against the counter by the sink while Bandit curled up by his feet, nose on the small round braided rug. I wasn’t sure what the official policy was on having dogs in the museum’s kitchen, but I knew two of our trustees, Don and Rosina, had brought their dachshund with them when they’d dropped by once to check on things. And Frank, when he came through the kitchen door ten minutes later, didn’t seem to mind at all that he was greeted by the thump-thump of a wagging tail against the floor.
“New dog?” he asked Sam.
“Picked him up last month.”
“Another rescue?”
“That’s right.”
“Looks a little calmer than the last one.”
Sam looked down at Bandit, too. “He has his moments. But right now he’s full of food. He’s happy.”
“Well, I’m happy, too, when I get fed.” Frank smiled and looked at me. “And how are you this morning, kiddo? Fit for battle?”
“Always.”
“Good. Because I’ve brought you ammunition.” He was carrying a thick manila envelope, and raised it now to show me. “Uncle Walt’s collected research for the book he never wrote about our family. After he died, my aunt packaged this all up and gave it to me. Thought I might want to finish his work for him.” He moved to set it on the counter, saw my face, and said, “Relax. The originals are in my safe-deposit box. These are just copies.”
Even so, I rescued the envelope from the damp countertop as soon as he set it down, and the thickly stacked papers inside slid and shifted their weight as I tilted it upright.
“You’ll find all kinds of goodies in there,” was Frank’s promise. “Consider it a donation to the archives.”
Our “archives” at the moment was the third drawer of the filing cabinet in my office, where we kept our copy of the inventory taken by Captain Benjamin Wilde’s wife of the contents of the old house at the time the British occupied it in the Revolution, and a copy of the logbook of the Bellewether—Captain Wilde’s most famous ship and the one with which he’d made his mark as a patriot privateer. And that was all we had. Most of the other documents having to do with the Wildes, I’d been told, were already in the possession of the local library. I hadn’t known that Frank had any articles to add. “Did you tell Malaika you had these?”
“Oh, probably. I don’t remember.” He didn’t seem concerned. “There’s nothing in there about Benjamin that the historians haven’t already said twenty times over, so there didn’t seem any point in my bringing it in before, but I had a quick look at it last night and there are a few things about Benjamin’s father and brother,” he said. “And his sister. I thought it might help you get one up on Sharon.” He glanced at Sam, including him with the brief explanation: “Sharon Sullivan.”
Sam nodded in a show of shared and total understanding, as though no more needed to be said.
It made me feel a little better. “So it’s not just me, then, who finds Sharon kind of . . . challenging?”
Frank said, “That’s not the word I’d use, but no, it’s not just you. Sam, here, could likely tell you lots of stories if he wasn’t so damned diplomatic all the time. He did some work on Sharon’s house a while back.”
I thought I caught a smile behind the raised rim of Sam’s coffee cup as he agreed, “She’s challenging.”
Feeling better still, I said, “Well, good. Then I’ll try not to take it personally.”
Frank assured me, “It’s not personal. She’s only sore because we wouldn’t make Eve the curator.”
“What?” This was the first I had heard of it. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, sure. When we started this thing Sharon figured eventually she’d be the big boss, museum director, and Eve would be hired as the curator, that was the plan. Until you came to town and Malaika suggested we might want to hire somebody with actual training.” Frank reached past my head, took a mug from the cupboard, and poured himself coffee. He never seemed to mind the way it tasted.
I found I couldn’t finish mine. I poured it down the sink and would have set the envelope aside a moment while I washed my cup, except Frank took the cup from me and said, “I’ll do that. You go get your nose in Uncle Walt’s research, and see what you can find. Just don’t go too far down the rabbit hole,” he warned. “My collections committee is having its first meeting here in”—he checked his watch—“forty-five minutes. You’ll want to sit in with us. Dave’s bringing cinnamon buns from the bakery.”
Sam wondered aloud if this meeting was one that the contractor should be a part of, too.
“Nope,” Frank said. “Nice try, though.”
“I’ll save you a cinnamon bun, Sam,” I promised.
“The hell you will,” Frank told me. “There won’t be any to save.”
“Well, then he can have mine.”
Sam looked at Frank sideways. “She’s nicer than you.”
“Half the planet is nicer than me. What’s your point?”
They were obviously comfortable with one another, so I didn’t feel bad when I left them there, excused myself, and went up to my office.
I liked my little office in the mornings. The wide-planked floor and woodwork had been painted over grey during the renovations in the 1980s, and the wallpaper they’d chosen then was emerald green with floral twists of peach. But in the dance of light that filtered softly through the branches and green leaves outside my window, the effect was soothing and serene, like being underneath the sea.
The light was dim and quiet, though—the sun not risen high enough to let me read the papers Frank had brought me without switching on a lamp. I didn’t want to spoil the ambience by using the strong ceiling light. Instead I reached behind me for the floor lamp in the corner. I knew I’d changed the lightbulb last week, so I was surprised that nothing happened when I switched it on. Until I noticed that it wasn’t plugged into the wall socket.
With that fixed, I sat back and opened the big envelope.
Frank’s uncle had been organized. He’d numbered every page in pencil in the top right corner, and he’d typed up a table of contents that served as a finding aid, letting me know what each section of pages contained. Benjamin Wilde’s section, as I’d expected, was by far the largest, twice as long as that of his poetical Victorian descendant, Lawrence Wilde. The part I was interested in, though, was at the beginning: From Reuben to Zebulon Wilde in the table of contents.