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Friday, September 20th
Stanton Estate Liquidators arrived bright and early. Charlotte worked in her office to make herself available to the crew on this first day, as per Martin Stanton’s request, but she resolved to also stay out of their way and let them earn their thirty percent. There was enough for her to do that no one else could do, she thought, such as continuing the monotonous process of going through the remaining boxes of papers. Why did she save everything? Really, why? She wasn’t sure, other than a sense of “just in case.”
The box she was working on at the moment included everything connected to her divorce from Jack, from the endless missives from her lawyer, between her lawyer and Jack’s lawyer, and every hostile note and letter from Jack regarding the division of property and child custody arrangements. Did he have a similar box to go through before his marriage to Mrs. Jack, or before selling the house and moving to Paris? Did he destroy anything, or was it moldering in a storage unit somewhere until he returned to the States? She hadn’t looked at any of this in years, and with the detachment that comes from time, she found much of it downright embarrassing. None of it was ever going to be relevant in the future, and she wouldn’t want Ellis to read any of it someday.
But as glad as she was to have the chance to destroy it for Ellis’ sake, she felt a little sad as page after page (and photo after damning photo) went through the shredder, because reliving those days also made her remember being ten years younger, a young mother with so much of Ellis’ childhood still ahead. The past, however, could not be relived—or redone.
Martin Stanton interrupted her reverie with a knock on the door frame.
“How are you doing, Charlotte?”
She smiled and gestured at the stacks of bags and boxes. “Bored, but just fine. Trying to bring myself into the twenty-first century and scan all these old files and papers.”
He nodded. “My wife and daughter have taken that on at the office. I’m getting used to it.” He lifted his arm to show that he was using the tablet computer today instead of the clipboard. “They won’t let me backtrack.”
He explained which rooms were being worked on and in what order, and reassured her that she was free to add or remove items at any time during the process leading up to the sale, but ideally to not change her mind about major items, as those were part of the publicity he was using to draw buyers.
“Any chance you’ll change your mind about the big Hannah Verhagen?” he asked.
Charlotte was about to insist that there wasn’t, but she was curious. “If I did let it go, how much do you think it would bring?”
He named a figure that made her gasp.
It was, on her new budget, enough to live on for a year, even after the thirty percent. Or to buy a second-hand car if she needed to. With more than enough left over to pay for a round-trip flight to Paris. It was more than the equity she had in the house, more valuable than anything else she owned. But it was hers, Hannah painted it for her, for this house, for her emancipation—.
But these were different times. “How soon would you need to know?”
“Ideally, this afternoon. Another email blast goes out tomorrow morning, plus some last-minute snail mail and posters. It would be a huge draw.” He looked at her with more sympathy than urgency. “I can understand not wanting to let go of something so wonderful, especially if she is a friend.”
“I’ll let you know one way or another later today, then.” I know I should be grateful that I’ve got the option, she thought to herself, but the conflict between keeping something precious and getting much-needed money was in itself stressful, and she felt her stomach burning and the muscles in her shoulders tightening.
Before he left, Martin introduced her to Josh, the young man he was leaving in charge. Josh had his left arm in a sling and had managed to nestle a tablet in it, so he could tap and type on it with his right hand. “Josh, here,” said Martin, with a wink, “tried to get a doctor’s excuse for the day off, but modern technology found a way to keep him on the job.”
After another hour and half of sorting and shredding, Charlotte took a break to stretch her legs and make some lunch. The choices were narrowing. There was a loaf of whole-grain bread she had taken out of the freezer that morning to thaw, and she managed to pry off a couple of slices and toast them. She saw a single-serving can of deviled ham in the cabinet. It was Ellis’ favorite until some girls teased her for eating “cat food.” Charlotte opened it, spread it on the bread, and added Ellis’ other favorite, yellow mustard.
The act of making the familiar combo brought back memories of other shared things, and brought a lump to Charlotte’s throat. All this recent busyness was a distraction from the pain of missing Ellis. It was just as well. She took the sandwich and a refill of coffee back to her office, dodging the setup crew coming and going from the basement.
Normally, she would watch the news or browse the Internet while having lunch, but neither option was available. Olivia’s notebook was at the top of a stack of things that Charlotte set aside to take with when she moved, and she decided to risk the dark tone and give it another go.
You call for him, and he will not come, you call for me and only part of me arrives. I go through the motions, wash your body as if I were washing the floor: wet, swab, polish dry, just another one of your soldier boys.... The pain seizes you and you blame me. They tell me that you don’t mean it, this is the dementia, but it is not, it is the same thing you have always said have always done....Now they can care for you and I walk away, they will wipe my spittle from your face, thinking it is yours....
In the mirror I can see the black marks of your hand, finger stripes where you seize me and name me your pain. I no longer look like myself, I cannot move, I cannot write, I can barely bathe or eat or dress and yet there is nothing new about this except it is now made flesh....
But what was truth, and what fiction? Olivia’s description of events was in a manner shared by other nouveau roman writers, completely subjective, repetitive, and bleak. It was not a kind of literature that Charlotte favored or even knew that much about. She thumbed through sections of the other notebooks, and each seemed to feel a little different in tone and perspective than the other. Large chunks were in French, as well, which Charlotte could translate literally, but knew that she wasn’t fluent enough to translate the sensibility. Perhaps she could get Helene’s help with those sections. But first she had to find the remaining four notebooks, and that meant figuring out what Olivia meant by Elle et lui.
Of course, without an Internet connection, any research wasn’t going to happen from her office. Still feeling restless, she wandered around the house to see what was happening, half-expecting to feel somewhat violated, or at least embarrassed, by having all these strangers go through her things. Instead, it felt surreal to see something from the past going by in the hall, in someone’s arms, and to see banquet tables being set up in the living room with an assortment of her possessions on display like a collection of insects. It occurred to her that this was what would be happening if she had died, and thus it was a bit like being at one’s own funeral.
She stood at the middle of the second floor balcony walkway, which overlooked the living room. From here she had her favorite view of Hannah’s painting, hanging above the fireplace mantel in all its multicolor glory. She had two hours left before giving Martin Stanton her decision. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect her former classmate’s work to appreciate in value so much so quickly, nor that she would ever seriously consider letting it go. Hannah hadn’t been in touch for a couple of years now; phone calls and emails went unanswered, and her website only said that she was “on a working tour of the world,” painting where she landed, without a particular itinerary. Purchase queries were to be sent to her dealers in Chicago and Los Angeles. There was no way to let Hannah know about selling the painting until she resurfaced, whenever that would be.
Charlotte had imagined the painting in the high-ceilinged studio apartment, where it could shimmer in the light from the bank of tall windows. Martin suggested taking digital photos of things she wanted to remember but wasn’t planning to keep, but she could not imagine a photo doing justice to her magnificent painting. Selling it could well mean the difference between seeing her daughter within a few weeks or not for a year. The difference between driving a safe vehicle, or none at all. The difference between being able to rebuild her writing career, or to look for a job she wasn’t guaranteed to find. She wished she had more time to decide, but knew in fairness that if it was going to draw buyers and go for a higher price, she had to let Martin Stanton know this afternoon.
Josh, who had been going from room to room making notes, heard her laugh and smiled shyly as he approached her. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Just fine, Josh. I’m okay with everything and I’m ready to move on.”
He looked relieved, and scratched at his arm in the sling. “It can hit people pretty hard sometimes. Especially old people who have lived in the same house for fifty years.”
Charlotte was uncertain if Josh included her among “old people,” but gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I can well imagine. I guess I laughed because I actually feel lucky that I’m not going to be one of them, and that’s worth more than all the material things in the world.”
“That’s awesome, Mrs. Anthony.” His tablet slipped out of his sling. Charlotte caught it before it fell and helped him get it settled in his sling again.
“What happened to the arm?” she asked.
“It’s a sprained wrist, actually. Playing basketball and fell. So I got put in charge of the charts today,” he shrugged in resignation, and held up the stylus for the tablet with his right hand. “I’m left-handed, wouldn’t you know it. But it’s a lot easier than a pen.”
Charlotte looked at the checklist on the tablet and understood what he meant. The check marks were clear; the notes were typed in with an on-screen touch keypad.
“So Martin wasn’t kidding when he said you were trying to get the day off, hmm?” she teased him.
He laughed. “Glad I can still work, to be honest. The other guy can’t even put his shirt on without help.”
“What happened to him?”
“Rotator cuff. We collided. I landed on my wrist and he landed on his arm and shoulder. He’s a tennis coach, and it’s really going to mess him up, at least for a while. Might even need surgery.”
“Well, I hope you both heal quickly,” she said, and he thanked her and continued down the stairs.
Charlotte was impressed by how something like a tablet could make it possible for an injured person to work, and in her usual way her mind wandered from there to other kinds of technology that helped people perform tasks. She remembered when she went from using a typewriter to a word processor, and then to a personal computer, and had difficulty imagining how she would have done her job over the past ten years using just a typewriter, although that was the way it had been done for most of the previous century. But certain things still required extra help. The tennis player wouldn’t be able to use a racquet with an untreated rotator cuff injury. She imagined other kinds of activities that would be difficult, like painting on a large canvas, or, her eye caught by the sunlight reflecting off the tools of some roofers several houses away, carpentry. Just about any kind of sport, tennis, baseball—
Baseball. You couldn’t pitch a baseball with an injured shoulder—or swing a bat. Olivia’s arm was injured enough to prevent her from writing for months, and even recently still prevented her from lifting—quite likely a rotator cuff injury or something similar, caused by being roughly grabbed by Ronson. It still bothered her as recently as two days before the incident at her house, when Charlotte met her and she said she needed help finding the notebooks because she couldn’t lift much. At the moment, everyone assumed Olivia had hit Wesley Warren over the head with the bat. If she had an untreated injury, there was no way she could have swung that bat at all, let alone hard enough to draw blood, unless perhaps she had used her other hand.
Charlotte hurried back down to her office and checked the notebooks, and saw that the older ones had much better handwriting. Yes, Olivia was right-handed. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the scene of the crime. Was the baseball bat in Olivia’s right hand or left? Olivia was mostly on her back on the floor, the bookshelves to her right. The bat, Charlotte was certain, lay between Olivia’s leg and the bookshelves, meaning it was in her right hand, the one she definitely couldn’t have used. That meant that someone had put it there.
Someone else had been there, the mysterious “third party” Detective Barnes suggested, someone who could have hit Wesley Warren with the bat, loaded him into the car, and pushed the car into the pond. The same person who also likely knocked down Olivia and left her for dead, who might have even intended to kill her.
Charlotte suddenly realized that if there was a third party, she and Helene were also likely in danger, unless the killer had succeeded in finding whatever it was he came for. Given Donovan’s general distress and Mitchell’s hold over him, Charlotte’s intuition told her that whatever “it” was, it remained elusive. Olivia’s last words to Helene, “It’s my book,” only added to the sense that the threat remained. And there were the books on the floor. And Bosley Warren found a first edition of Least Objects, by an author connected to Olivia’s days in Paris, one she quite probably knew.
Books. Everything seemed to be connected to books—notebooks, rare books, secret books, ledger books, writing books, writers. The detective said that he didn’t like coincidences, especially in a small town, and Charlotte had to agree with him, at least up to a point. As a detective, he would ferret out the facts, gather the evidence, and assess whatever information would suggest motive in order to lead to apprehending a criminal. Coincidences in a narrow context, such as a small town, would lead to a smaller and likelier range of suspects.
Charlotte, however, saw things in terms of trends. If two or three designers suddenly use wicker, paisley, or turquoise green, a trend is set. Young fashionistas rediscover go-go boots from the 1960’s in thrift shops, and another trend is set. Color predictions are developed and refined over decades; an economic recession meant certain colors would be more favored than others. Skirt lengths, too, although that was becoming less predictable as fashion styles became less rigid.
It was not enough, however, for a writer to spot trends—the trends had to mean something, to signify something about an individual or a group or society. A trend rarely consisted of a single item. If, for instance, tall riding boots were a trend, there would be an accompanying trend of jodhpurs or tucked-in pants, tweed jackets and hats, and other elements of an idealized “horsey-set” lifestyle. When a radically different trend occurred, it could create a domino effect, causing entire homes to be refurnished from lamps to rugs, entire wardrobes to be revamped. The significance of a single object to its owner could cause the acquisition of more, related objects which shared that meaning, the representation of a certain lifestyle to which the owner aspires.
Collectors were a special breed of consumer, however. Sometimes a collection reflected taste, whim, or aspiration, and had nothing to do with trends in the larger world. But quite often a collection only revealed an interest in the process of acquisition, and as a result many collectors had more than one collection. Such hunter-collectors are inspired by elements outside of themselves: articles on a famous person’s collection, decorating trends, items bringing high prices at auctions, and items purportedly in limited quantity.
Olivia had countless collections. Her husband, from all accounts, only had one—baseball cards. His pursuit was much more likely heartfelt, while hers were simply something to do while going on the hunt with him. But the one collection she was passionate about, the one she tried to hide from him, and didn’t fully indulge in until after his death, was her books.
Books, again. Whatever the motive, whatever the actual crime, Charlotte sensed that it had to do with books.
“Mrs. Anthony?” came a voice from the doorway, and Charlotte looked up. It was a young female Stanton crew member, who looked even younger than Ellis. She approached and placed on the desk an old lidded cardboard box, one that Charlotte had long forgotten about. “This one looks like it has photos and mementos, and I thought you’d might like to look through it first.”
Charlotte thanked her and opened it when she left. It contained various things from high school and her first year or two in college, yearbooks, concert posters, a pom-pom from pep squad, programs from classical concerts in Chicago, ticket stubs to rock concerts, a few issues of the campus literary magazine in which she’d published her first poems and short stories, a book of poetry signed by the author during a campus visit—and a deck of Tarot cards. Oh, those cards! She’d gotten pretty good at reading them, and for a semester or two the girls in the dorm would come down to her room and ask her to tell them if their boyfriends were cheating or if they’d get a scholarship. She held the deck to her nose. It still smelled faintly of incense, the smell of her personal silly season.
It was a traditionally designed deck of cards, and she shuffled them, laid them out in the only arrangement she could remember, a Celtic Cross spread to help the questioner determine a course of action. The center card was the present situation, and on top of it, laid crosswise, was the challenge. Around these cards she laid the distant past, immediate past, immediate future, best outcome, and to the side were four more cards, which she vaguely recalled had something to do with factors affecting the decision, both within and without, one’s hopes and fear, and the final outcome. She couldn’t remember the exact meaning of the various cards, but they were a mix of coins and swords, which, she thought, was probably an accurate description of her recent life. The only one that she was sure about was the first one, the one that described the fundamental present: The Fool. The happy-go-lucky fellow was ambling along, oblivious to being on the verge of stepping off a cliff.
Ouch, she thought. That was the way she’d handled the whole summer, oblivious to danger, and coasting on faith. Charlotte put the cards back in the box. She didn’t need them to tell herself what to do next, and called Martin Stanton to tell him she was selling Hannah’s painting.