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Thursday, September 19th
Charlotte pulled up to Olivia’s house and took a deep breath before getting out and walking up to the front door. The last time she came here alone she had discovered Olivia on the floor, knocked unconscious. But it was time to take the situation in hand and set aside her trepidations, to focus on the task in front of her, which was to find the rest of the notebooks. The heebie-jeebies fought hard with her common sense, however; thus, when she was about to unlock the door and found it already unlocked, they were front and ready to make her seriously consider running away and screaming at the top of her lungs.
But Charlotte remained rational and calm, at least on the surface, and pushed the door open with the back of her knuckles, so as not to smudge any new fingerprints.
Her emotions flipped from frightened to intrigued in a matter of seconds, mostly due to the fragrance of Italian cooking and the sound of someone washing dishes in the kitchen while listening to classical music on a radio. Was it Donovan? She turned to look up and down the street, but didn’t see his car. Helene? No, Helene had her own kitchen just down the block, that wouldn’t make any sense. Simon? Same thing, just down the block. She rapped sharply on the door to get the cook’s attention.
“Hello? Who’s here?” she called out. She wasn’t aware that anyone else was supposed to be there this morning (Helene had a club meeting, Simon was teaching at the university), so she was cautious, but what could be less nefarious than lasagna (and the distinctive scent of baked cheese and pasta sauce suggested something like lasagna)?
She could make out a moving shadow through the doorway to the kitchen on the other side of the dining room, and then suddenly a young man in a full-length apron over tee shirt and jeans appeared, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He held up his right hand in greeting and his smile shone bright even at that distance.
“Hello!” he called out. “You must be Charlotte!” He strode forward to meet her, and the closer he came the more strikingly handsome he looked, handsome in a boyish way with twinkling blue eyes and close-cropped light brown hair. By the time he was close enough to proffer his hand and say, “I’m Mitchell, a friend of Donovan’s,” Charlotte realized he was older than he first appeared, probably in his late thirties. He was fit and muscular, yet lithe. He was her height, almost exactly, and she found herself almost stammering as she looked directly into his eyes. Eyes, in fact, that made her feel that they liked what they saw, and she even began to blush.
“Oh! I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here, but pleased to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Van ran to the store for some wine, he’ll be back in a minute. Want to have lunch with us? It’s just lasagna, but there’s plenty.”
The change in the ambiance that came with the scent and activity of cooking was startling, thought Charlotte. “Well, it certainly smells like a very good lasagna. I don’t want to intrude, however, and should probably just get on with my work.”
“At least have a glass of wine when he gets here,” said Mitchell. “’Van feels terrible about everything that’s happened. I thought that a bit of cooking in here would get rid of that creepiness, you know?” He grinned at her as if she was part of his conspiracy.
Charlotte couldn’t help but smile back. The mood in the place had certainly improved, and it would make the work less stressful. “I like it, and I think you’re right. I was so nervous about coming here again.”
“Wait ‘til the wine gets here, it’ll be even better!” A timer dinged, and he turned to go back to the kitchen. “Gotta take it out of the oven now.”
Well! Thought Charlotte. This is unexpected. Nonetheless, she looked carefully around the room—after all, she only had Mitchell’s word for it that he was a friend of Donovan’s, and Donovan himself had great motivation for removing his mother’s valuables and cashing them in. The only thing that appeared to be “missing” was the rug, and for that she was glad. The window in the middle of the bookshelves was open again, even though the day was on the cool side. The stultifying fragrance of the potpourri was almost gone, replaced by fresh air and pasta. No headaches this time.
“Coffee, Charlotte?” Mitchell called out.
“Only if you have some made,” she called back, and walked toward the kitchen.
“How do you take it?”
“Black, thanks.”
As she entered the kitchen she could see that the back door was open, and the porch door leading to the yard was also open, letting in more light and air. The rug, she noted, was still draped over a couple of sawhorses, and from that distance she couldn’t see any evidence of the bloodstain.
Mitchell handed her a mug of coffee (that smelled better than anything she’d had for a while outside of The Coffee Grove), and looked out at the rug, as well.
“I got most of it out, but you can still tell there is a stain on the back. At least it’s a red rug.”
“What did you use?” she asked.
“A salt paste, mostly, then a bit of dish soap and water, and finally hydrogen peroxide in a couple small places where it was the worst. I was worried it would take the dye out, but it didn’t. Now it just needs to dry real good.”
“You are quite domestic!” said Charlotte. “You’re a gourmet cook, and you know how to get bloodstains out of oriental rugs!”
Mitchell shrugged and chuckled. “It’s nothing, really. I just like nice things, good food, and delightful women.” The boyish smile returned. He was one of those men, thought Charlotte, who seemed to laugh at his own flirtatiousness, to keep things from feeling anything other than fun and in the moment. Couldn’t hurt to enjoy it while it lasted.
They talked about the house and its collections, in particular the Eiffel Tower figurines on the kitchen shelves, and then heard the front door open and close and footsteps coming toward the kitchen. Mitchell looked through the doorway and spoke. “There you are, Van! Charlotte’s here.” He stepped back as Donovan came in with a grocery bag.
Charlotte smiled and said hello. “Your friend here makes good coffee.”
Donovan smiled weakly, and handed Mitchell the bag, then stood with his hands in his jeans pockets. The mood, thought Charlotte, had suddenly become awkward. Mitchell seemed to sense it, too, and patted Donovan on the back.
“Van has understandably had a hard time dealing with all of this.” Mitchell looked over to Charlotte, his eyes sad and sympathetic. “It’s so hard to know what to think, what to do, to make sense of it, and not know enough about what really happened here.” He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Ah, a Chianti! Perfect. Let’s have a glass right now.”
Donovan seemed to collect himself. “Um, I’m not sure where the wine glasses are. Dad drank beer and Mom drank bourbon.”
“No worries,” said Mitchell, fishing in his jeans pocket and pulling out a Swiss Army knife with a corkscrew. “We’ll just use those jelly jar glasses on the windowsill. They look clean enough.” He opened the wine with practiced ease. “I’ve invited Charlotte to join us for lunch.”
Charlotte raised her hands to protest. “Oh, thank you but I couldn’t possibly impose and should really get on with the work. The coffee was wonderful.”
Donovan turned, suddenly, from the windowsill where he had gathered the glasses. “Please, Charlotte, please join us. I know it’s a little weird,” he stammered, “but I would be grateful if you did. We can sit out on the front porch. What can it hurt?” His expression was almost pleading, and Charlotte couldn’t continue to say no.
“Okay, then. Thanks.”
During this exchange, Charlotte wondered about the nature of Mitchell’s relationship to Donovan. Mitchell seemed to know his way around Olivia’s kitchen better than Donovan did, but she sensed that Donovan wasn’t any more familiar with Mitchell than he was with the kitchen. She had known people like that, though, usually males who would stand around awkwardly while the womenfolk would move quickly and efficiently to put together a big holiday dinner or lay out a potluck buffet. But she also had a strong sense that Donovan really wanted her to stay—as an ally, almost.
They grabbed plates and forks and Mitchell served big squares of lasagna, which they took out to the front porch along with the bottle of wine and the glasses. Donovan sat on the swing, Charlotte on the top step, and Mitchell lowered himself into a cross-legged position on a sunny spot on the grass. Then Donovan mumbled that the swing was too wobbly for eating, and moved to the bottom step.
Mitchell poured the wine and generated most of the conversation, friendly social chit-chat about the weather, the neighborhood, the school, the town, and life in general, nothing which referred back to crime or Olivia’s death. Charlotte felt he was trying a little too hard to be sensitive, but then nothing was likely to make anyone completely forget what happened here.
“I haven’t eaten outdoors like this in ages,” said Charlotte, finishing her last bite. “It was delicious, and thank you.”
Donovan nodded. “I think the last time I did was eating an ice cream bar when I was like, ten or something. There used to be an ice cream truck that made the rounds.”
Charlotte nodded. “There still is. My daughter used to complain that it would go by too fast to catch up with.”
“That’s awful!” said Mitchell. “What’s the point of an ice cream truck going too fast for the little kids?”
“The stuff they sell is expensive, too, especially for what you get,” said Charlotte.
“Everything is, these days,” murmured Donovan.
Charlotte looked up at him, and noted that he seemed lost in thought again. She tried to think of a topic of conversation that he seemed enthusiastic about.
“So, Costa Rica, huh?” she asked him.
He didn’t look up but his face flushed in embarrassment. Charlotte reddened, too, feeling that she managed to step in it somehow. Mitchell, however, was ready with a reply.
“Oh, yeah, our boy wants to live amid the bananas and the señoritas, sipping Dos Equis under a shady palm.” He swallowed his last bite of lasagna. “Problem is, he’s gotta get some money together. It’s cheap, but it’s not free.”
Donovan just nodded sadly, reminding Charlotte of the donkey Eyeore in Ellis’ Winnie-the-Pooh videos. Then he suddenly got up. “Time to get to work and get that money together, then,” he said, and went back in the house.
Charlotte looked over at Mitchell, who shrugged and rose. “Touchy subject, I guess. Let me take your plate.”
Back in front of the bookshelves, Charlotte took the four notebooks out of her bag, plus a notepad of her own, to see if she could work out more of Olivia’s clues without Helene’s help. She could hear Donovan and Mitchell cleaning up the kitchen, and then looked up as she heard Donovan approaching. He held two more cups of coffee, one of which he handed her.
“Gotta keep a clear head, right?”
“Oh yeah. Wine and pasta for lunch are a good way for me to feel sleepy. Thanks.”
He nodded at the notebooks, which she had left on the desk. “Found more of them?”
“Three more. There’s a clue in each one that leads to the previous one. Helene said it reminded her of the scavenger hunt clues your grandmother made for them when they were girls.”
“Could I see them?”
Charlotte didn’t see the harm, so showed him the clues and explained how they worked out so far.
“Good god, that’s complicated. Or at least it is to me.”
“What’s complicated?” Mitchell came into the room, untying his apron.
“Mom’s method for hiding her notebooks. I’m only just beginning to learn what sort of person she really was. Never would have guessed.” He looked up at Charlotte. “To me she was just Mom, you know, a housewife. But I’m beginning to understand why she thought college was so important, and why she was bitter that I didn’t go.”
“I haven’t really started on the transcriptions yet, but her writing is dark and forceful in what little I’ve read. I know Helene promised to have us out of here in a week, but a lot depends on how quickly I can work out her clues. My education is more modest than your mother’s—certainly I’m not as smart as she was—but I can look up a lot of things online, and hopefully that will make up the deficit.”
Mitchell stepped forward and took a quick look at the notebooks, then spoke to Donovan, his voice quiet but firm. “This better not interfere with the date.”
Donovan didn’t reply, but stared at the floor. Charlotte sensed that the tension in the room had shot up. “What date?”
“Mitchell here,” said Donovan, “works for Warren Brothers Estate and Auction. We talked to Aunt Helene earlier today, and she’s contracted them to come in on Friday of next week to start taking everything out of here and over to their auction building. Once they start doing that, any scavenger hunt Mom laid out will probably get messed up.”
Charlotte’s mood fell from reasonably cheerful to dismayed. So Helene made a week’s time official. How was she going to handle both the search for the notebooks, which could get complicated, and her own preparations for a sale and moving? She looked around at the room, then directly at Mitchell, “please don’t move anything in the meantime, then. Olivia suggested that not all of the notebooks are on bookshelves. They could be anywhere, and as you can see, any shape, size, and anything from spiral bound to cloth bound.”
“No problem, Charlotte. Don’t underestimate your own intelligence—I’m sure you’ll find them all in no time,” Mitchell smiled while speaking in an overly soothing tone. “How many notebooks were there, again?”
Charlotte’s impressions of Mitchell flipped from positive to negative when she heard the fakey compliment, but she kept her temper. “Olivia said there were nine or ten, she couldn’t remember exactly. But they are all in order. Even if one gets found accidentally, I would need to know exactly where it was, because its location might be part of the clue for the next one. This can quickly get more complicated than it already is.”
Mitchell seemed to realize she was no longer on his side, and he used the same quiet, firm tone with her as he did with Donovan. “Understood. But I know that date is a firm commitment, and Van really needs to do this.”
Charlotte felt her blood pressure spike. The contents of the house were Helene’s! But she was not privy to the conversation between Mitchell, Donovan, and Helene, and she was, after all, just an employee for the estate. She would have her own conversation with Helene as soon as she could.
“Okay, then,” she said, turning away from them in as much dismissal as she could muster. “Time to get on with it.”
Mitchell and Donovan left shortly afterward, and Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief that they were gone, but remained thoroughly annoyed.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Helene had students for most of the day, Charlotte would have walked straight to her condo and ask what was going on. It had been a long time since she was in the position of not being able to control her own work schedule. Her work with the magazines was always laid out months in advance, and there was plenty of support staff to provide research and proofreading on the rare occasions when a feature was scrapped at the last moment and needed replacing. Here she was tackling a project whose dimensions were unknown beyond the fact that there were nine or ten notebooks, and those notebooks were deliberately hidden in a house where it would be difficult even to find things that weren’t hidden, there was so much clutter. And on top of it all, she had a time-sensitive personal crisis that demanded her focus and attention. It just wasn’t fair!
She looked at her watch. Helene had asked Charlotte to come by for tea when she was done teaching for the day, but that was three hours from now. Charlotte closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and envisioned the stress and tension leaving her body as she exhaled. No matter what Helene’s reasons were for locking in a deadline, the fact remained that the notebooks had to be found as quickly as possible. Without the distraction of Donovan and Mitchell, Charlotte could now focus on Olivia’s clue in the fourth notebook: In my new red robe at the Café de la Régence.
As Helene explained, each clue or location was itself part of the next clue. The daffodils of the picture puzzle signified Narcissus, the mirror signified Through the Looking Glass (and not Alice in Wonderland). The chess board, therefore, signified something about the next clue, but Charlotte was drawing a blank. She cursed her lack of Internet access. It would have made things so much easier. There was the nearby public library, of course, or The Coffee Grove, which was a few blocks further.
Olivia, however, did not need the Internet to weave her clues, and Charlotte wondered how future generations were going to manage if they couldn’t retain what they read on their own, or couldn’t be bothered to read and study in the first place because the great search engines were the ultimate cross-list of information of every kind. They did the thinking and remembering for you, or it certainly seemed like it.
Café de la Régence suggested something French, something with food and drink—it was starting to come back to her now, the bits and pieces of her reading and education. The Café was the most famous coffeehouse in Paris for well over a hundred years. Writers, philosophers, artists, politicians, and scientists gathered at coffeehouses to discuss ideas and issues—and play billiards, cards, and chess.
Charlotte had a general recollection of famous writers and philosophers of the time, but it was a wide time span. The “new red robe” tugged at her, but she couldn’t remember what it referred to, or who. But here she was, in Olivia’s house, and maybe it was time to simply look for, well, a new red robe, and not sweat the details?
It took well over two hours of digging through closets and drawers in the bedroom, before she found a bright red flannel robe, the tags still attached, in a box of clothes in Olivia’s closet. The box was at the bottom of a stack of other boxes and bags of clothing, and looked as if it hadn’t been moved in decades. Charlotte went into a sneezing fit from the dust and the old woolen things she had moved aside. When it settled down, she lifted the robe and saw that it was folded around another notebook, a thick one this time. She carefully extracted it, returned the robe and other things to the box, the box to the closet, and the other bags and boxes on top of it.
Charlotte had a great sense of satisfaction from having found another notebook on her own, without help from Helene, Simon, or the Internet. Of course, it took quite a bit longer, and quite a bit of physical work, as well, but she found it, didn’t she? Now it was time to see what the clue was for the sixth notebook: Elle et lui.
Ohforgodsake, she thought. Sweating the details might be unavoidable.
Charlotte could hear someone performing the Chopin Nocturne in F# minor as she went up the steps, her arms full of the six notebooks that had been found thus far. She checked her watch, and knew she wasn’t early. Perhaps it was Helene herself playing? But, no, Helene was standing behind the performer, a woman in her thirties who was wearing a well-cut gray suit that said lawyer. Helene glanced up and acknowledged Charlotte with a slight nod, and Charlotte quietly continued to the kitchen. The music was sweet and sad, and Charlotte recalled the days of taking Ellis to her lessons, when they would sit in awe while listening to the more advanced students.
Then the pianist came to the dramatic Molto più lento, and her performance fell apart. Charlotte heard Helene giving suggestions and wrapping things up, then saying goodbye. She came into the kitchen and sighed.
“That was Janet Thompkins, who works in my lawyer’s firm. She brought over some papers and then asked for some pointers. The firm has a public relations thing going on to show how their attorneys and staff are not just suits, but people with other accomplishments and interests. I think she would have made a fairly good performer at one time, but she went into law school and has never really practiced much since. Too bad. Or maybe not,” Helene shrugged. “Maybe she’s better off as a lawyer.”
“It’s nice that she can still play at all, then.”
Helene nodded in assent. “I know, I know, I am being a snob. So, how are things going today? It looks like you’ve made progress,” she nodded at the stack of notebooks on the table, and began to fill the electric kettle with water.
“Yes, one more, but probably more from luck than understanding the clue.” She showed the clues in the fifth and sixth book to Helene, who laughed when she saw them.
“Olivia is referencing the philosopher Denis Diderot, and perhaps you haven’t—”
“Oh, I remember it now!” wailed Charlotte. “Rameau’s Nephew, right?”
“Yes! Olivia and I were steeped in French philosophers as schoolgirls, and Diderot was a favorite of us both. The Café was one of his hangouts. The robe was the subject of one of his essays, how buying one new thing made all one’s other things look shabby, so you end up buying more new things to go with it and then go into debt.”
“Sounds like modern life. But what about Elle et lui?”
“Well, we know that Rameau’s Nephew is written as a dialogue between the narrator and another man, which in French is moi et lui, of course. But ‘she and he,’ I’m not so certain. The way these clues work, however, I would guess that it refers to another dialogue, this time between a man and a woman.”
“That could be a lot of things, yet nothing in particular comes to mind for me, either. I’ll see what I can find online, but I don’t know when that will be. I have to stay at home tomorrow for Stanton’s first day, be there to answer questions and such, and I don’t have an Internet connection anymore.”
Charlotte’s earlier annoyance at her friend had softened. She thought of ways to word her questions about Helene’s contract with Warren Brothers, buying time by getting out the tea cups, saucers, and lemon slices. Helene got the porcelain tea pot out of the cupboard and looked over her assortment of teas.
“Russian Caravan?” she said, looking over her shoulder at Charlotte with a smile that didn’t quite hide the worry in her eyes.
Charlotte knew then that Helene was perfectly aware of the problems she’d created. Her stash of Russian Caravan tea was imported at great expense and seldom brought out. She didn’t wait for Charlotte to reply but carefully made the pot of tea and set out, as well, a plate of small squares of pound cake and a dish of sour cherry preserves. Then she joined Charlotte at the table.
“I assume that you know by now what I’ve gone and done without talking with you first, and I’m so sorry.”
By this point Charlotte was more curious than annoyed; Helene’s fundamental nature was neither impulsive nor thoughtless. “Apology accepted, Helene, no worries. I’m sure there’s a good reason for setting things up like this.”
Helene shrugged as if doubtful. “I really don’t know, Charlotte.”
“Tell me what happened this morning, and then I’ll fill you in about this afternoon.”
“Donovan called last night and said he’d thought more on what I said about a sale after finding the notebooks, and wanted to come by this morning with a friend who could help us. I agreed, thinking that any help we can get to move things along would be good for everyone concerned. So he came by with this fellow, Mitchell, who was very charming and persuasive and the next thing I know I’m signing a contract. I did hesitate, but, Charlotte, there was something in Donovan’s eyes, almost a pleading look, if you know what I mean?”
“You know Mitchell works for Warren Brothers, right?”
Helene nodded. “Oh, yes, that was quite evident, right on the contract form. It’s for an estate auction, but they’re having it at their auction barn, not at the house, because the house is so small, there’s not enough parking, and there’s so much stuff, so many collectibles, that they think there will be a lot of people. In the moment it seemed so much easier than bothering Stanton with it, and Mitchell had some valid points. But it was Donnie that really got to me. He’s desperate, Charlotte. I just couldn’t wait and I don’t think I want to know what he’s caught up in.”
Charlotte wondered if Donovan’s desperation was real—or if he was just a really good actor, a practiced con man, able to snooker Helene as well as herself. She relayed her experiences of arriving at the house and meeting Mitchell, his charm, familiarity with Olivia’s kitchen, Donovan’s ill at ease manner, and Mitchell suddenly turning hardline. “I had to bite my tongue when he said ‘Van really needs to do this,’ because the contents of the house are yours, according to the will.”
“They’re certainly my responsibility, but apart from anything I can do to find the notebooks and get them published, I have no desire to be involved in Olivia’s spiteful ruling from the grave.” Helene’s expression was dark and thin-lipped as she took another sip of tea.
“Do you think Donovan is playing you?”
Helene looked up sharply. “I don’t care. You know, Charlotte, I’ve never had children of my own, but I’ve worked with them most of my life, some of them from toddlers until adulthood, and have observed so many different kinds of parent-child relationships. The parents, almost without exception, set the tone, set the stage for the future. Donnie’s path in life started as a reaction to Olivia as much as to Ronson. It’s not my place to sit in judgment of him, whether or not he’s truly in a bad way. If he’s desperate, getting the money to him quickly will help. If he’s not, getting the money to him quickly will get him out of my hair.”
“Makes perfect sense,” said Charlotte. She really couldn’t blame Helene under the circumstances.