The Case of the Missing Letter Read online

  “I’m going to call our family lawyer,” Charlotte said. “Give me a few minutes, and then we’ll talk about tonight.” Charlotte turned away to place the call.

  Her campaign manager looked at her in bewilderment. “Go ahead, don’t mind me.” To Lillian, this was an entirely unwelcome interruption and an even more unnecessary one, but clearly it had to run its course before Charlotte could be free of it. The older woman stood and left just as the call went through, heading upstairs to powder her nose.

  “Carl? It’s Charlotte Hughes. Have you heard about the incident on Jersey?”

  Forty minutes and several phone calls later, Lillian was beginning to lose her temper. This wasn’t a surprise to anyone who knew her. Even when she wasn’t dedicating herself wholeheartedly to a political campaign, she was known to fly off the handle at the least provocation. Why was Charlotte so bothered about her father’s vintage office furniture? This contretemps in Jersey was materializing into what Lillian labeled ‘a thing.’

  “Look, I’m not going off the deep end,” Charlotte protested. “Carl Prendergast told me that Don had asked about the desk not three days ago. And now there’s been a break-in at the museum where it’s on display. You have to admit it’s a bit of a coincidence.”

  “What are you suggesting? That your stepbrother, for a reason we can’t even guess, broke into a museum? Because of a desk?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know! It’s just—”

  “Why, in the name of all that is holy,” Lillian said, struggling to keep her voice even, “might Don English, of all people, do that?”

  “I have no idea. Don’s a strange old boy,” Charlotte admitted.

  “I mean, it’s just a desk, an inanimate object! You’re overreacting.” Lillian flapped her hand and looked away. Anger had a tendency to sharpen her already angular features, making her look both a few years older and as though she was wearing even more makeup than usual.

  Charlotte held up her tablet to show Lillian a full-screen picture of the Satterthwaite Desk in all its considerable glory.

  “A very pretty desk, to be sure,” Lillian conceded. “But, and I repeat, why would he care?” She frowned even harder and sat back in her armchair. “Hang on,” she said. “Is this the same Don who had the batty mother?”

  Charlotte sighed. “She died just recently.”

  Lillian groaned. “Your father had her committed to a loony bin!”

  “She was very ill,” Charlotte said pointedly. “She was a danger to herself. It was for her own good.”

  “Her own good. Yes. Only now we’ve got a potentially angry, bereaved, and possibly equally loony son with an axe to grind.” Lillian swirled the ice cubes in the glass of gin she’d poured herself even though it was only eleven in the morning. She slugged back the dregs, her long, sharp, purple nails clacking against the glass.

  “There’s something else,” Charlotte said, looking as though she hardly dare tell Lillian her next piece of news, like a child confessing she’d broken a window. “The night security guard hit his head on the desk. He died. They found his body this morning.” Charlotte’s eyebrows dropped over her darkened eyes.

  “Oh, terrific.” Lillian said, ever her combative, accusatory self. “So now, we’ve got a murderous, angry, recently bereaved stepson on the case. Your case, honey.”

  Charlotte stood and headed to the kitchen for some much needed water. Finding a glass in the cupboard, she said, “You’re right, we’re getting way, way ahead of ourselves. We’re being neurotic. Don probably didn’t have anything to do with this. We don’t know whether the guard’s death was murder, or an accident, or even natural causes.” Lillian didn’t seem to hear her. She had gone from thinking Charlotte was completely overdramatizing the situation to making her own leaps of conjecture. Her thoughts about what Charlotte was suggesting and their prospects for her campaign were alarming. “We don’t even know,” Charlotte said, shouting over the running faucet, “if Don was anywhere near the place. For all we know, he was tucked up in bed in some horrible little flat when it happened, in… where does he live again? Oh yes, Goslingdale.” The two women shuddered in unison.

  “Only he called Prendergast about the desk completely out of the blue, less than seventy-two hours ago,” Lillian pointed out. They had switched roles now. “And he’s been furious with your father for decades and, by extension, with you.”

  Coming back in the room, Charlotte sat and hooked her mousy brown hair behind her ears. She drank most of the glass of water. “No need for the extension,” she said thinly. “We always hated each other. He was an annoying little blighter, and his mother… Well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t stop now, Missy. You have to tell me everything,” Lillian implored. “It’s the only way I can protect you.”

  “We, Eric and I, always considered Susannah a gold-digger who tricked Dad into marrying her. He bent over backwards,” Charlotte maintained, “to keep her happy. It wasn’t his fault, or mine, that she went off the deep end. But Don seemed to think it was.”

  Lillian raised an eyebrow. She harbored few charitable illusions as to her client’s family. Don’s resentment toward the Hughes’ was probably both deeply felt and legitimate. If Don was involved in this incident, this was, most definitely, going to be “a thing.” “But… why the desk? What would he want with it?” she asked.

  Charlotte finished her water. She was tapping her glass against her knee.

  “Are you sure that’s all this is, Charlotte?” Lillian leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She looked her client directly in the eyes. “Some crazy half-breed relative looking to take out his righteousness on a piece of old furniture?”

  The younger woman sighed. Lillian, for once, waited. “There… there were rumors.”

  “About what?” Lillian pounced. Charlotte looked away. “Charlotte…” Lillian remonstrated. “You need to tell me everything,” she repeated.

  “Rumors have swirled in my family for years that a letter exists that would shame us, possibly ruin us. We’ve never found any sign of it, but there was talk that Susannah was privy to the contents.” Charlotte’s voice was almost a squeak. “That might have been the reason my father put her in a mental institution.” She looked away.

  “Good grief, are you telling me that your father effectively incarcerated your stepmother for decades, smearing her name in the process, because she knew about some dodgy dealings of his?” Charlotte’s head dipped minutely. Lillian stared at the wall, her foot jiggling furiously. “But I still don’t see what it has to do with this blasted desk.”

  “After his death, Eric and I searched and searched. There was a rumor—“

  “Rumors, again,” Lillian spat, rolling her eyes.

  Charlotte ignored her and continued in a small voice, “We thought that the desk might contain a secret compartment and the letter was in there. We looked for days. We even hired an expert. Eventually, we had to conclude that one didn’t exist. Now I’m wondering if we were wrong. Maybe Susannah said something on her deathbed. Maybe she knew something I don’t. And now maybe Don does.”

  Lillian threw her head against her chair back. “Whoa, this is bad. Bad.” Throughout this discussion, Lillian had never stopped calculating. “Okay,” she said after a moment’s thought. “We need to stop this before it starts. Here’s what we’re going to do. We need to find Don English. We need to keep the incident out of the national press, and you’re not going to comment on it to anyone.”

  Charlotte squinted at Lillian. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Lillian waved away Charlotte’s argument. “I don’t want your name anywhere near this,” she said. “It’s got nothing to do with you. We need to bury the story and do so immediately. What’s happening with the desk?”

  Charlotte glanced down at her notes. “Carl said Dad’s estate will pay for the repairs. They’ll cost a small fortune, but the museum will be hard-pressed to afford them otherwise. He’s going t
o ask a local cabinetmaker to take a look at it.”

  “Good,” Lillian said. “The sooner the better. Hopefully, it will all blow over. Keep your distance and stick to your schedule for the week. I don’t want the media sniffing around.”

  But Charlotte already knew that was impossible. “Lilly, look. I know how important it is to keep our eyes on the prize, but you said yourself, we need to find Don.”

  “Let me deal with Don English,” Lillian retorted.

  “No, I’ll go down there. I’ll find out if it was him, if he was involved in this.”

  The campaign manager stared at her client as though Charlotte was proposing that she star in a Lady Godiva reenactment. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “Look,” Charlotte said again.

  “I’m not looking. I refuse to look.”

  “It’ll only be for a few days,” Charlotte argued.

  “That’s not the point! You need to stay here, canvassing, going door-to-door, holding town halls. You need to be seen doing the kinds of things that prospective Members of Parliament do to get elected. And you need to stay out of the tabloids. You do not want,” Lillian impressed, “to get mixed up in a possible murder inquiry, with a mutinous stepbrother, or scandalous family revelations. Let me handle him.”

  “I have—“ Charlotte began.

  “Charlotte listen, I’m here,” Lillian reiterated, “to help get you elected. And to protect you from scandal. This Jersey business has all the makings of a three-ringed circus, and you’re going to back away from it with dignity and poise. You know, the kind of characteristics one associates with a professional and successful politician?”

  Charlotte stood. “No.”

  Lillian stood too. This was her reputation, her time, her house. “If you go down there, I can’t guarantee anything. If this incident had taken place in your constituency, I’d have you reading the eulogy at the guard’s funeral. But no one cares about Jersey. It may as well be in the Cambodian jungle. Your place is here, winning votes among these people,” she said, gesticulating wildly at the window.

  But Charlotte was resolved. “Cancel tonight’s town hall. Make up an excuse.” She grabbed her tablet. “I’m booking a flight to Jersey.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE PROUDEST MOMENT of Felipe Barrios’ life had been back in 1998 when his friend and mentor erected a new sign above the door of their workshop, Steadman & Barrios. For the first time, Felipe saw his name alongside that of the finest craftsman he had ever known, and the two officially became partners in a successful and respected local business. Felipe had, as a newspaper profile expressed it at the time, “come an awfully long way.”

  The second proudest moment was being asked to carry out repairs to the Satterthwaite Desk. Newly delivered and standing on the hastily cleared floor of his workshop, the desk was as significant to a professional cabinetmaker as Michelangelo’s David was to a sculptor or as a Mozart concerto was to a musician. It was a model of artistic perfection. Even before beginning the initial assessment, Felipe stood for nearly an hour, freshly prepared coffee in hand, simply admiring the craftsmanship, the proportions, and the original wood tone. Some men fall in love with sports cars or sailboats. Felipe was in love with antique furniture, and none was more deserving of his affection and respect than the work of Ezekiel Satterthwaite.

  All that marred the moment was the necessity of the repair. There were traces of blood on the battered front right edge of its surface. These would need to be scrupulously cleaned and disinfected, in case any bacteria might take up residence in the wood and spread their corrosive influence. Then the repairs could take place. Felipe confirmed that the wood hadn’t been ruptured as much as compacted by the impact of the security guard’s skull. This meant, thankfully, that he wouldn’t need to source appropriate wood to replace any missing fragments. It would have been a near-impossible task. Instead, carefully chosen polish would raise the compressed area, and layer after painstaking layer, he would fill the compaction and return the spoiled corner to its former glory.

  Felipe’s wife, Rosa, came into the room. “How is it, my dear?” They spoke in Spanish. She knew to announce herself very quietly, lest she disturb her husband during a sensitive moment. “Will it take long?”

  He looked at her fondly. Although they had been married for over forty years, his wife, with whom he’d been through so much, was to him still as beautiful as when they’d first met on the beach as teenagers. “Several weeks,” he estimated. “These things cannot be rushed.” Indeed, patience was a chief virtue in this kind of work, especially when a mistake could prove difficult or impossible to rectify.

  Ernest Steadman had taught him that every step had to be carefully planned out. Planning detailed schema was just one of the skills he had learned from his benefactor. The old man had been like a second father to the younger Felipe, and not once since Steadman’s death five years before had he been absent from Felipe’s nightly prayers.

  “God will work through your hands, my love,” Rosa said, placing her hand on Felipe’s arm. He nodded and she quietly left him to work. He stood before the glorious Satterthwaite Desk, reflecting upon the events that had brought him to this moment. Were it not for the most unlikely of incidents, neither his journey to Jersey, nor any of the memorable experiences he had enjoyed on the island since, would have materialized.

  Two hours later, Felipe sat by the desk and examined the damage once more. “Such a shame,” he muttered. He started removing the blood from the damaged area, using a non-acidic cotton swab soaked initially only in water. It was slow, painstaking work. He reached down to steady the desk against his gentle swabbing, his fingers finding the underside of the main drawer where it met the front brace of the desk. He felt a tiny depression in the wood.

  Felipe stopped and put the swab aside, kneeling and then lying down to peer under the desk. His fingertips hadn’t deceived him. There was a slight undulation. When he ran his fingers over it again, it felt manmade, deliberate, not the result of natural warping over the centuries. He pressed his fingertip into the indentation, and the desk resounded with a deep, metallic thunk.

  Felipe started and stood fretfully, watching for any movement, terrified that he had broken a priceless masterpiece. Part of him feared that the desk, absent now some vital structural linchpin might simply fall into pieces on his workshop floor. But the desk was silent, and Felipe carefully approached once more.

  His heart beat with excitement as he examined the underside of the desk. He suspected the slight indentation was a catch that opened a lock of some kind within it. He searched using his flashlight but found nothing in the side drawers or under the main body of the desk. When he pulled out the central drawer, however, it slid right to its limit and exposed a raised area at the back.

  “Ezekiel, you crafty old…” Felipe had triggered an ingenious, lightweight mechanism unlike any he had ever seen. It had revealed a compartment hardly deeper than a deck of cards and almost as wide as the drawer itself. He stood and marveled at his find. The existence of the compartment was hidden from anyone who was unaware of it. Certainly, the contents inside were not meant to be discovered casually. Felipe donned a new pair of surgical gloves.

  Seconds later, he was on his knees, on the floor of his workshop. Stricken and immobile, all he was able to say, again and again, was, “Madre de Dios….”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AS SOON AS Charlotte turned her phone back on, seconds after her flight landed, it buzzed and beeped with a dozen messages. She ignored all but one. She knew without looking that most of them would be from Lillian, either begging her to return, or demanding an update. The only voicemail to which she listened was from Carl Prendergast.

  “Charlotte, hi. Fantastic. I hope the two of you can let bygones be bygones. Here’s Don English’s number…” Perfect. Prendergast’s never was the most incisive of legal minds.

  Charlotte had only a cabin bag and was soon in a taxi on her way to a hotel in St. Helie
r. Her first order of business was to find out if Don really was on Jersey and figure out just what on earth was going on.

  She dialed Don’s number.

  “Don English.”

  Don sounded as though she’d woken him up, and she wondered at once if he was suffering from another hangover. He always had drunk to excess.

  “Don! It’s Charlotte Hughes.”

  “Charlotte?” Don struggled to sit up in bed. Overnight the feathers in his pillow had migrated to opposite ends of the pillowcase, neither of which were now under his head. His camberwick bedspread lay on the floor.

  “Charlotte,” he repeated. Her features came to mind. She had a thin face with a pointed chin. Years ago, she’d had a long aquiline nose. Surgery had softened that feature, but Don still recalled the Wicked Witch of the West when he thought of her. At least she wasn’t green.

  “What are you doing calling me?” he asked.

  “Carl gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind. He told me about your Mother, Don. I’m so sorry. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” he said warily. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and ran a hand over his rough chin. “How can I help you, Charlotte?” Don was immediately suspicious of this bolt from the blue. Charlotte and he hadn’t spoken in years. He was quite sure she didn’t give a hoot about his mother.

  “I’m on Jersey—“

  “You’re on Jersey, too?” he said. Don was so surprised, the words slipped out before they’d registered in his brain.

  “Why, yes. Are you? That’s wonderful! Let’s meet. It will be good to see you after all these years.“

  Don knew patently that this was a lie. The fog of sleep was lifting quickly now. Charlotte no more wanted to see him than he wanted to see her.