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Friday, September 27th
Charlotte was surrounded by boxes and boxes of picture puzzles, and the pieces were mixed up between boxes. She was in a large room lit only by the glare of the sun coming through a single large window. Each box of puzzles was emptied and set up with the picture visible next to the pile of pieces that was in it. She went from pile to pile, with hundreds of pieces in each, turning every piece face up, and grouping them by color or some distinguishing feature. It took hours and she was sweating with fear that she would not finish in time, time was running out—and then a great wind started up, blowing away pieces from the piles, and she tried to grab them, but the wind got stronger—
She woke up. It was dark, save for the glow from streetlights that managed to find cracks in the closed blinds. Other elements of the dream were still with her, the aloneness, the sense of not really knowing what to do, but feeling responsible for doing it. She still wasn’t used to living here, the noises of the old building, the cars going by on the street, the vibration of a train going by somewhere, all the night sounds which would wake her, put her on alert because she hadn’t yet accepted them as normal.
Charlotte didn’t recall feeling quite this skittish when she and Ellis first moved to Lake Parkerton, but she was a decade younger then and still possessed a bit of youthful invincibility. These days, not so much. Her joints and muscles still ached from the move, and she still felt emotionally drained from all the changes. It also didn’t help that she was in the first circle around not one, but two murders, that she was worried about Helene, and had an unreciprocated attraction to Simon. And she still had to sell her stuff and her house. And to find that last notebook.
The time on the cell phone said 4:27. The last time she’d had problems with insomnia, Dr. Lauro said not to fight it but to embrace it—lay back and let the mind wander where it will, and even if sleep didn’t return, the relaxation would still help her body recover and her mind process all the changes. So Charlotte adjusted the duvet, fluffed the pillows, and lay back down, looking at the ceiling, and gradually realized her mind’s eye was still seeing her house at Lake Parkerton, every room, every item, as if it was still the way it was, and she was still there.
She saw her bedroom closet, felt the fabric of the clothes, the texture of sweaters, shoes, scarves. Memories of when she acquired each piece, where she wore them, why she bought them or why she stopped wearing them. Fleeting moments of guilt, of wishing she now had the money she had spent on them, and the time back, as well, that she had spent on shopping trips. Charlotte’s mind moved through the house, to Ellis’ room, remembering the teenage mess of clothes and schoolwork, of friends visiting. There was the first winter there, when Ellis had a bad case of flu and Charlotte stayed up all night in a rocking chair next to her bed, worried about pneumonia, relieved when her little girl pulled through. The hours and hours of listening to Ellis practice, of sitting quietly in an armchair in the corner while she had lessons with Helene, and the walks around the lake to Helene’s house and back.
Ellis was the common thread through most of her memories, of shopping trips and day trips, of camping with the families of her friends, of worrying while watching her learn to sail, even on the placid waters of the lake. Was that only two summers ago? And was it only earlier this year that she played so well at the state competition? Charlotte had hung a series of photos along the wall above the dresser, and did not need to have the light on to know which one was which: pictures of Ellis, from her toddler days playing in the sand at Lake Michigan until her last state competition, in the midst of performing the lyrical solo cadenza from the Haydn Piano Concerto in D Major. It was not the most difficult of the works performed at the competition, but it was the perfect showcase for Ellis’ light touch, technical precision, and youthful exuberance. The expression on her face in that moment was almost as if she was singing the melodic line. Charlotte would never forget that night, when she knew in her bones that her daughter was going to enter a level, a world, which would take her far, far away. And it did, ever so quickly.
A sudden crack of lightning and loud thunder startled Shamus, who jumped off the bed and ran, she assumed, to hide in the bathtub. It was now 6:11, and the wind and rain pelted against the windows. Sleep wasn’t going to happen.
She put some coffee on to brew, opened the blinds, sat on the sofa, and from there she considered the apartment in the weird light of the stormy sky. She noted that the kilim rug looked so much nicer here than it did at the house. Here, it seemed larger, more significant. The slightly worn areas were as beautiful as the rest. It was the rug. Over in her closet, there was the pair of black jeans, the pair of blue jeans, the black skirt, the white shirt, and the gray sweater, whereas in her former closet they were each one of several, and the several amid many more. In the kitchen area, there were one set of white dishes, one set of glasses, one set of flatware, small sets, just enough, having left behind the bone china set for twelve, and various sets for holidays, picnics, and such. Same with everything else.
It had only been a few days, but with each day of seeing only the things she loved most or most needed, other options never seemed to enter into consideration. An almost sacred relationship was emerging with the few things that she kept. In turn she found herself noticing excess wherever she went. How did this all start? Why did I buy so many things over the years, and why did it seem like such a good idea at the time?
The shop downstairs was exactly the sort of place she used to go to, delighting in the shapes, the colors, the newness, and buying things to feel a part of them. The irony of living in reduced circumstances in the apartment above it was not lost on her. But this recent act of choosing to live with a few essential things made her feel more like she belonged to herself, that she was more clearly Charlotte, a Charlotte with a distinct point of view.
She moved from the sofa to the kilim, and did some stretching exercises, leaning forward slowly to touch the toes on each outstretched leg, then laid flat on her back, palms down on the rug, absorbing the bumps of the weave, the tiny fibers that escaped the twist of the threads, a spot that was worn thinner than the rest. From the floor the ceiling seemed like the sky, even the tall windows seemed to stretch up forever, the whole space simultaneously calming and stimulating, an atelier of being alive, of intent.
There was the word of the hour: intent. Charlotte got up and poured coffee into the big red mug, then took it over to lean against the back of the sofa and watch the rain. When she first met Olivia, the elderly woman’s intent seemed clear: to find all the notebooks, then turn them into something publishable. The past two weeks, however, revealed that there were actually layers of intent—not only to keep the notebooks hidden until such time as was suitable to reveal them, but also what was intended by the notebooks in the first place. Olivia may have been rash, but she was not stupid. Any chance at a brilliant writing career was not going to happen, that ship had sailed decades before. But she had a story she intended to tell, the other side of Least Objects.
Likewise, she would not have contacted Warren Brothers without intent. She had long since acquired valuables that she would periodically sell off when she needed extra cash, like the loan for Donovan, and a trip to Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon. Later, during Ronson’s illness, this method paid for extra things for his care. It was a long-established pattern. If she sold something, it meant she had a specific intent for the money—and the most obvious reason immediately before her death was to pay for Charlotte’s help and any other expenses related to publishing her work.
Olivia was as certain that she had a first edition of Least Objects as she was that she had “nine or ten” notebooks stashed away in various locations in the house. The question now, in Charlotte’s mind, was whether that first edition was the same one Donovan had given away—or if there was, incredibly, a second one. Since the parties looking for the second book were aware of the provenance of the first book, it increased the likelihood that there was, indeed, a second book. That book, however, was not on the shelves, in the boxes of books in the basement, propping up the bed, mixed in with cookbooks, or in any other place in Olivia’s house where books were found or likely to be.
This meant that Olivia either: a) did not have a second book, b) hid the book somewhere, in the manner of her notebooks, or c) the book was not Least Objects, or did not look like Least Objects. Charlotte thought about how the other copy of the book did not look like a book, wrapped as it was in brown paper and painted to look like a building. Maybe there was another “building” made out of a wrapped book? But wouldn’t Donovan have already thought of that and looked in what was left of his model train accessories? What else could a book be made to look like, without damaging it?
It could be made to look like some other book, just by changing the book jacket. Charlotte sighed. That would mean removing every similar-sized jacketed book in Olivia’s shelves and boxes, and uncovering it, or opening it to the title page—at least half the books in her collection would require checking, unless the missing tome turned up. Then she remembered the notebook hidden inside the large, broken copy of the Poussin book. Hidden that way, Least Objects would fit in an unabridged dictionary, for instance, or in Olivia’s copy of the Riverside Shakespeare, increasing the number of books to look through.
Shamus jumped up onto the back of the sofa, and rubbed his head against her arm.
“Hey there, kitty cat,” she said, giving him the long strokes from head to tail that he seemed to love. “I could use the help of a real shamus right about now. Are you any good at finding books?”
He sat and looked up at her with a sleepy, contented cat-smile, but didn’t commit one way or the other.
Simon joined her at Olivia’s house, to help out for an hour or so before heading to class.
“It’s a reasonable theory,” he said, when she explained what she was trying to do. “But it might end up taking more time than we have.”
Charlotte nodded, then grasped the shelf to balance herself. She had retrieved the step stool from the kitchen, and was standing on it to reach the top shelves. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I’m also hoping that if I spend more time here, I might figure out where the last notebook is, too. Sort of by osmosis.”
“What was that clue again?”
“Snakes and Ladders.”
“Right. The one you thought ought to be Chutes?” He began to tease her. “Is that what you called it, Chutes and Ladders?”
“Yes, that’s what ‘we Americans’ call the game,” she retorted with mock patience.
“Nonetheless, the clue is Snakes.” He stood back and began to scan all the shelves. “Have you seen a book about snakes, or reptiles, or serpents, or—”
“Adam and Eve?” she interrupted. “Here’s a book on the history of religions.” She looked it over, but it wasn’t hiding either the notebook or Least Objects. “I don’t think the notebook is going to be on these shelves. The older notebooks were written before Olivia had these shelves put up. We found the last one in the basement.”
“Could be an allegory.” Simon went back to searching through right-sized books. “You know, good versus evil.”
“Could be absolutely anything. The only thing consistent about Olivia is that everything she did, she did intentionally.”
It had been three days since Charlotte was last in her Lake Parkerton house, and she went through the rooms feeling exposed, spread-eagle, like a specimen for dissection, on seeing every item she owned laid out to be sold.
She felt as if she was walking in slow motion, out of time, almost disassociated. She was there to make sure there was nothing more she wanted to hold back from the sale, but the initial impact of seeing everything—literally everything—in the house laid out on tables, counters, and floors, seemed to shut down her thought processes.
“Just take your time, Charlotte.” Martin Stanton came up next to her. “It hits a lot of folks like that.”
She barely nodded, and continued in a blur. After a few minutes, a sort of rhythm set in, and the meaning of the things she was looking at finally made its way through her brain. Every so often something would trigger a memory, a flashback, and she would be stopped in her tracks.
It wasn’t the most valuable or obvious things that would do it. There was, for instance, a bit of lace left over from trimming a pillow for Ellis’ first “big girl” bed, which took Charlotte back to the early summer day in the back yard of their house near the university, sitting on a glider on the little brick patio she and Jack had laid themselves, and Ellis romping on the fresh-mown grass with Lady, their Golden Retriever. Charlotte was hand-sewing the lace around a pretty pink pillow and noting the contrast between what Ellis wanted for her room and the grubby, grass-stained tyke running with the dog and playing in the sandbox. An ordinary day a dozen years in the past, yet like yesterday upon touching a bit of leftover lace.
If someone were to ask how she felt about divesting herself of nearly all her possessions, she still would not know how to answer. At times it felt like self-amputation, or how she imagined it would feel. At other times it felt as straightforward as throwing out the trash or making a donation to charity. Mostly she felt in a daze, because it was all happening so quickly.
Martin was learning against the rail of the deck, with his back to the lake, and sipping from a travel mug of coffee. Charlotte poured a cup for herself from the crew’s coffeemaker in the kitchen and joined him. He made light chit chat, recounting some lighter incidents of past estate sales, nothing too silly, just gentle talking that Charlotte found soothing and interesting enough to take her mind off of her moment of sadness. She was grateful that it was this kind and unpretentious man she was talking to, and not the aggressive and phony Bosley Warren.
“What happens during the sale itself? I mean, what kind of people will come, are they dealers or homeowners or what?”
“In general, it’s about fifty-fifty. Even individual buyers might turn around and sell what they’ve acquired to a dealer or another individual. You don’t have a lot of antiques, so you’re probably less likely to have dealers, but I could be wrong. If there’s a current demand trend for, say, contemporary kilim rugs, or mid-century furniture, your collection might draw dealers with interior design businesses. Since you’re selling the Hannah Verhagen painting, I know for a fact that there are going to be both dealers and collectors, along with decorators and higher-end homeowners. Quite possibly a few of your neighbors.”
“When dealers buy things, does the stuff end up in their shops?”
“In their shops, yes,” Martin nodded, “but sometimes they have a specific client in mind and they’ll just hold it back until they connect with the client, or the client commissions them to purchase specific items.”
Charlotte wished she could have been there over the weekend to observe the process, but there was no doubt a good reason for owners to stay out of the way during the sale.
“So,” said Martin. “How are you doing at the new place?”
“Quite well, actually. Better than I expected. I love not having to take care of a large space with a lot of stuff in it, and I love being able to walk to just about every place I need to go.” She took another sip of coffee. “I’ve got a cat, too, by default.” She told him about Shamus.
“I take it you’ve seen Helene, then? How is she doing? I heard about her sister. What a horrible thing for her.”
They talked about Helene and Olivia, and Charlotte told Martin about the notebook project. “We came across Olivia’s first collection of poems, which was published in France.”
Martin was impressed. “Some of those small-press first editions are real collector’s items, particularly if the author is well-known. Helene’s sister isn’t that well known, but maybe some other things they published were by writers who later became big names. Now those would be worth hundreds, maybe even thousands.”
Charlotte was intrigued. She tried to recollect if there were any other books published by Sibylline Press in the box in the basement, and seemed to recall seeing several with the imprint’s gowned woman holding an open book on which rested a crystal ball. “There might be other books in there, I’d have to look.”
“If you want, I can connect you to Aldo Madiveros, our rare book guy in Hyde Park—”
“Yes!” Charlotte exclaimed. She suddenly had an idea, and a rare book expert would be most likely to help. “I’d like to talk to him as soon as possible, it’s in connection to some things related to the project.”
Martin seemed pleasantly surprised. “I can do that right now.” He got his smart phone out and made the call. Charlotte wondered if Martin had the same sort of calling-in-favors network that Diane and Lola had. After a few moments of small talk and explaining about Charlotte, he handed the phone over to her. “All yours.”
Aldo Madiveros had the voice of half a million cigarettes, but he was talkative, and, after Charlotte apologized for bothering him, he assured her that he loved talking shop more than anything.
She began by explaining the nature of her call, referred to Bosley Warren and the auction sale of Least Objects, and then Madiveros interrupted her with enthusiasm.
“I know all about that book! I verified it for the auction house!”
“Well, then, you really are the person I want to talk to, Mr. Madiveros.” She went on to explain about discovering that the book had belonged to Olivia, and then who Olivia was.
To her surprise, Madiveros said that “Olivia Bernadin” rang a bell. “She was one of the nouveau roman crowd, if I recollect. Let me see now,” he paused, and Charlotte could hear the tapping of a keyboard, then the rustle of papers. “Got it, a list of her published works, a spot of bio, not much. Presumed dead for decades.”
“Um, I’m afraid she was alive and well until a couple of weeks ago.”
“No!” he exclaimed. “You are kidding me, Ms. Anthony! Well, how about that. I’d love to know more, to fill in my files here.”
“I’ll be happy to do so, Mr. Madiveros. I’m working on a manuscript she left behind, and I might find out more in the course of the project.”
“This is so exciting!” he exclaimed again. “It’s like having another piece of the puzzle around Seamus O’Dair’s years in Paris, and all his associates.”
“Actually,” said Charlotte, now ready to launch her main question, “I’m calling to ask you about O’Dair’s book, Least Objects. What would make a copy of it even more valuable than the one that sold a few weeks ago?”
“Ahh,” Madiveros pondered for a moment. “Well, several things, the most obvious would be if it were O’Dair’s own copy, or one with his autograph in it, although I don’t think he ever autographed any of his books, made quite a point of it, actually.” Madiveros coughed, and Charlotte could hear him taking a drink of some kind. “Then there would be the first French edition, of course, but there were so few of those printed that only a handful are known of, most of them in and around Paris.”
“So it was printed in France before it was printed here?” she asked.
“Oh yes. O’Dair wrote the original version in French, you know, and it’s barely more than a novella. Une Mort non Perçus. Published by, let’s see now,” he paused, and Charlotte again heard the tapping of keys and the rustle of papers. “Sibylline Press. In fact, it was the final publication by that press, just a short run of one hundred. That was the book that made his international reputation. The American publisher had him write a new version in English, and that’s the one most of us know. He either wrote in English, or wrote in French, never translated from one or the other.”
“When did Sibylline Press shut down, or when was it sold?”
“Let’s see now,” and once again he paused as he looked it up. “Established by Anastasia Bernadin and Henriette Munier in 1930, then sold in 1952 to Beauregard Lamont. Insignificant publication history after it was sold until Une Mort non Perçus, and shut down for good in 1959.”
The name Beauregard Lamont rang a bell. Wasn’t that the wealthy American for whom Olivia’s and Helene’s father worked? Perhaps Olivia appealed to him to buy the bookstore, so that Henriette could continue running it, and she, Olivia, could continue editing their publications?
“Makes sense, you know,” said Madiveros. “Lamont held a majority share in one of the biggest publishing houses at the time, Beauregard Books, and let’s see now—yes, the same one that published Least Objects in English. Small world, isn’t it, Ms. Anthony?”
“Smaller than you know, Mr. Madiveros.”
There was no time to act on this new information, however, as she had to deal with what she came to do, to go over the entire house and confirm, room by room, that the items in it were to be sold. She also had her own list of things to retrieve, if at all possible, to take back to the apartment. She had also brought along the sterling silver flatware she had redeemed at the pawn shop, along with most of the jewelry, and showed them to Martin, explaining why they were not available earlier.
“I’m glad you brought these, Charlotte. On the average, you’ll get three times as much money selling them here as you would get from a pawnbroker. Josh,” he called to his assistant. “Call Lindy and have her bring a jewelry display case from the office. Add the flatware to the other silver and crystal.”
Charlotte moved on and found various things she could use: a small rattan wall cabinet for the bathroom, a plant stand that she could use as a table by the bathtub, several candles and holders, a rubber-backed runner for the foyer, a pair of tapestry-covered throw pillows that would look great with the Chesterfield sofa, and a basket that looked the right size for Shamus, along with an old squishy red pillow that would work for a cushion.
As she thought about how she was using the space, taking meals and snacks on the sofa or on the bed, she took an old painted tray. Then she seriously considered a kitchen cart with a butcher block top. It had shelves, hooks, a drawer, a towel bar, and a small wine rack. “Hey Josh,” she called out when she spotted him walking by, “is this cart listed?”
He looked his tablet, scrolling to the right page. “Afraid so, Mrs. Anthony.”
Bummer. Maybe it wouldn’t sell.
The upstairs hallway was full of garment racks the crew had brought in to make her clothes easier to get at. The amount would have filled her favorite boutique twice over. Would they bring anything? There were quite a few high-quality labels among them, good things of wool, leather, and silk, and several evening gowns, including a couple that hadn’t even been worn, but which she’d bought impulsively. There was one rack, in fact, of items with their tags still on, and she shook her head at her own stupidity. Thousands of dollars’ worth of unworn, brand-new clothes, many of which she’d forgotten buying. Funny how things looked more desirable when they weren’t crammed together in a closet.
She selected a few items from the rack of still-new things, a simple charcoal gray knit skirt with a matching cardigan jacket that she could wear as a suit or mix and match with other pieces, a black wool and cashmere wrap, and a white linen sleeveless tunic with pintuck pleats, and a mid-calf halter-neck summer dress in an abstract floral of purple, rust, black, and beige, bought on her last spree with Ellis. Hanging around Helene was having a noticeable effect. She took the clothes into the bathroom to try on, promising herself to keep them only if they fit perfectly. They did. She also found a pair of waterproof shoes that were like new, and actually quite comfortable. Walking in the rain that morning had made her wish she’d had them on hand. Now she did. She would be walking nearly everywhere, now, rain or shine.
As she made her way through the rooms, and back down the stairs, other things appealed to her, but she had what she really needed, plus a few new (literally) clothes, and, after all, she still needed the money she could get from them. Then she sat down on the sectional, to look at Hannah’s painting for the last time. Who would buy it? Where would it go from here? Would she ever know?
Passages from Olivia’s notebooks came to mind:
I brought you back to life, my mentor, my muse, my mother, my goddess, I took on your pain and the fear of the gunshot that you felt within the suffocating cloth sack over your blonde locks cut to look like a boy’s. You embodied everything good and true, the true queen of the hour, and you were doing what I should have done, what I wanted to do, but I was trapped. Now I am free, and I’ve chosen to resurrect you, to embody you, to let you live once again, a hero cut down far too soon in life.
In another world, another country, another time they would have seen me for what I am, they would have seen what I did for what it was, the ultimate sacrifice I could make for you, Anastasia, to lose myself and become you. I wore your clothes, I lived your stories, I wrote your words, I kept your work alive—and they called me a liar, the crabbed souls who would deny my honoring you, and even them, spitting on my ripped open soul.
Her cell phone rang. Helene was calling, and she sounded excited.
“Charlotte, I’ve finally finished those passages in the notebook. You were right that they shifted in tone, and much of it was about looking at things a second time, and of looking at oneself a second time, to consider what others might see. She hopes that what she has written will recapture a part of the story that has been lost. A way to triumph over time and death.”
“I’ve got news, too, Helene—I think I know a little more about what caused Olivia to stop writing, and then to resume writing. I’m also pretty sure there really is a second copy of Least Objects. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
Two more rooms to cover with the Stanton crew, a thousand or more items to check off, to let go, to consign to the ages, or at least to other owner