Necessary Evil (12 page)

“It’ll only be for
a few weeks,” he said, his eyes on his screen. “I’ll just do my research and
investigation and be out of here before you know it.”

Despite the
reassurances and my own dig at his fall from fame, I wasn’t sure that he
wouldn’t be known. Chester had a historical society and his research was likely
to bring him in contact with people who might actually know what the Dunstable
papers meant.

Do historians have
groupies?
I
wondered. If they did, I felt quite sure that Randall would be the type who
wouldn’t mind the adoration. I would have to ask Joe.

If anyone would
know about Randall’s fall from grace, Joe would - or he would know how to find out.
But between his summer classes, the articles he was writing, and the
soul-searching that naturally came out of a divorce, he had enough on his plate
without burdening himself with my problems. I wouldn’t ask him anyway, because
I was afraid the story of the blackmail would come out. I didn’t know what he
would do then – my imagination had him punching Randall’s lights out, which
stoked my womanly ego; but in practical terms, physical assault would make our
position even more tenuous. I decided it was best to keep him in the dark about
the whole affair for now.

My plate was empty
and my coffee was growing cold. I sighed audibly and Randall’s head snapped up,
as though he were waking from a trance. Pulling off his glasses, he leaned
back, sucking on the temple tip for a moment before he spoke.

“The first thing
any good detective does,” he muttered absently, and I found myself exchanging
glances with Aunt Susanna, “is discover what the basic facts of the case are,
from the source, or as close to it as he can get. That’s what I want to do
tonight. I want you to tell me, in your own words… Oh!” He leaned forward and
tapped his propped-up cell phone. “We’ll be recording this, by the way. So much
more thorough than taking notes. Now, I want you to tell me everything you know
about Alexander Chase.”

He stared at us
expectantly.

“Oh, really,” I
said, getting up and gathering my things. “What’s there to know that hasn’t
been written down already?”

“I want to hear it
from you two,” he insisted, as I dumped my plate in the sink and rummaged in
the cabinets for dessert. “You are the last living relatives on location. You
by marriage, I know, Susanna, but both of you have lived and absorbed these
stories for decades. There will be things that you know that are not what the
scientific world would consider facts, but will be invaluable to me. Insight,
family lore, legends – stories that are unproven but stubbornly refuse to die.
I need you to talk to me. Tell me anything.”

“Oh…” Aunt Susanna
began to rub her hands together, under the counter where he couldn’t see. I saw
when I sat down next to her with a box of cookies. She only ever rubbed her
hands when she was nervous, but there was no reason for her to be nervous now.
I thought she probably didn’t want to be recorded.

I patted her hand
and shook my head at Randall. “I repeat, what’s there to say that hasn’t
already been written down? I assume you’ve already read Uncle Michael’s book,
and the article about
Lost American Treasures
? There’s nothing…”

I was cut off by
Aunt Susanna. “Where do we start?” she asked, leaning forward and putting her
hands on the counter.

Randall grinned
again, an irritating air of victory clinging about him.

“Why not try the
beginning?” he suggested.

Once she started,
it didn’t seem like Aunt Susanna would stop talking. I grew stiff in my chair,
one of my legs went numb, and my whole body ached for sleep, but I didn’t want
to leave her alone. Several times I thought to interrupt, but whenever I opened
my mouth, Aunt Susanna would start down a new track and I would find myself
listening, fascinated in spite of myself.

She started at the
beginning, all right: she began with Alexander’s birth, his ancestry, and his
mother’s remarriage to Obadiah Chase, an upright citizen who adopted the boy,
gave him his name, yet never really liked him much. She told him about the
boy’s strict upbringing, about his mischievous nature and the stories people
would tell of his childish escapades with his friend, Reuben Hill. She told the
story about their pranking the minister, how they’d run away and took a boat
down the Exeter until Obadiah caught up with them. She spoke about how much
both he and Mary Chase, his mother, loved to read, riding miles out of their
way to pick up newspapers or to borrow books.

She talked as
though Alexander was someone she’d known personally, a boy who was like the son
she’d never had but probably longed for, and she spoke with a quiet, desperate
eloquence that took my breath away. Alexander Chase was not a dusty historical figure
with a checkered past: he was a man who lived, breathed, and was loved. I
listened, my wonder growing. I’d always assumed that it was Uncle Michael’s pet
project – now I saw that she had been equally involved.

 Randall
didn’t interrupt or ask questions. He nodded, jotted down notes, and listened.
If he was impressed by her knowledge, he didn’t show it; if anything, he looked
almost satisfied, as though he was getting exactly what he’d expected.

Then, when Aunt
Susanna looked about ready to wind down and I was thinking about my comfortable
bed, he blinked through his large glasses.

“Excellent,” he
said. “Now, tell me about his family.”

So she started in
again.

She knew them very
well. Mary Welles Chase lost her first husband from undisclosed causes when
Alexander was only a few weeks old, and married Obadiah about six months later.
She was an educated woman, well regarded and lovely, but Aunt Susanna thought
that Mary may have been talked into marrying Obadiah, a wealthy farmer with a
leadership position in his local church. By all accounts, their marriage was
perfectly respectable, but there was no indication of love on either side.

“I think she made
the best of a bad deal,” my aunt said pensively, while I found myself imagining
bright, dark-haired Mary Chase, living alone in the middle of a rough New
Hampshire farm, trying to adjust to the verbose and vigorous Obadiah and his
little boy. “Both of them were widowed, both needed help. I don’t think Obadiah
was unkind – well, I don’t think he hit her, but he never really took to
Alexander, and how can a woman love a man who won’t love her son?”

Aunt Susanna
didn’t seem to like Obadiah much, so she went on to Avery, his son. Six months
older than Alexander. Avery was more interesting: a reputed loner and skinflint
who had never married, he died alone in the fields, still looking for a
long-forgotten treasure. Despite pressure from others in the town, he’d not
only refused to join the New Hampshire regiment, but actually paid for a
replacement when he was drafted. That Avery would part with coin for anything
was enough to excite talk in a town already overly familiar with Chase family
affairs.

“No one knew about
the robbery until long after Alexander died,” Aunt Susanna said, eying the cell
phone as though it would judge her accuracy. “It was only after the war ended
that anyone knew about it.”

“When was it
reported?” Randall asked.

“Um… April 1865?”

Aunt Susanna
looked to me for confirmation and I shrugged. Memorizing dates had never been
my strong suit.

“I mean,” Randall
clarified, “when did the McInnis family report the robbery to the authorities?
In Charleston.”

“Oh, I don’t know!
We’d have to go look at the court records for that.”

“You’ve got
those?”

“Copies, yes. Michael
and I…” Her voice faltered for a moment, but she continued. “We went down there
for a long weekend. He got the copies then, read them all on the way home. I’m
sure they’re in the office somewhere. Maddie will find them for you.”

“So you got the
court records from the lawsuit – did you get anything else?”

She considered it
briefly, then shook her head. “No, I think that was it. Well, that and the
death certificates for Mr. McInnis and a few others. I don’t think there was
anything else.”

“All right. Hold
on a second.”

He shuffled
through his things, then bent down and rummaged around in the bag at his feet.

I checked my watch
and saw that it was after eleven. I had an early morning, as usual, and I was
about to suggest we stop until tomorrow when Randall popped up with Uncle
Michael’s coffee table book in his hands. It was more battered since I’d seen
it last, and sticky notes had sprouted from the top of its pages.

He dropped it on
the counter and pulled it open at one of the sticky notes, commenting, “Now, I
need you two to fill in some blank spaces in this, if you can. A very helpful
book, but it lacks references and sources. Your husband had a passion for
family history, Mrs. Chase, but he was no scientist.” He paused for effect.
“Now, according to this, Alexander Chase went to work for McInnis in June of
1859. Where did he get that date from?”

“Where did he get
it?” she faltered and I stepped in with, “What difference does that make? That
he worked for McInnis was never in question. What made him leave is. What he
did with the
loot
is.”

“My dear
Madeleine,” he said condescendingly, “when one sets out to solve a mystery,
it’s important to make sure that you have all the dates and movements correct.
I’ll admit, it’s unlikely that this particular fact will mean much in the
overall investigation, but its source might prove to have other, more valuable
information.”

“Investigation?
Mystery?” I asked. “I thought this was a treasure hunt, not an Agatha Christie.
Aren’t you supposed to be scanning the ground with metal detectors, or
analyzing soil content for South Carolinian traces?”

“Later, perhaps,”
Randall said. “But I have a rule – never get your hands dirty until you know
exactly what you’re looking for. Now, Mrs. Chase,” he turned back to Aunt
Susanna, who was listening to this exchange wide-eyed. “Do you know where your
husband got this information? It’s too specific for me to imagine that it was
just a guess.”

She stared at the
page with the look of a student who discovered too late that they studied for
the wrong test. “That particular date?” she asked. “Gosh, I don’t know… Mary’s
diary maybe?”

Randall choked.

“Mary’s
diary
?”
he gasped. “Alexander’s mother left a
diary
?”

“Yes, didn’t you
know?”

“Know? How could I
know? It’s not listed in any of the source material.” He shuffled through his
things for a manic moment, then gave us an accusing look. “Why is it not listed
in any of the source material? It wasn’t on that show, or on any of the
websites. Maddox never even mentioned it!”

I winced at the
name as I said, “It doesn’t have any bearing on the treasure hunt. Her last
entry is in 1860, when she fell ill. That’s over a year before the theft.”

“It wouldn’t help
find it,” Aunt Susanna said, and gain us both another disgusted look.

“Oh, totally
useless,” he agreed, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Except as background
information. Except as a witness to the character of our proponent. Except as a
window into a past we can only guess from our distance. This diary could
contain the very clue that the hymns failed to provide! I can’t believe that no
one thought of this! I credited you all with a sort of native intelligence in
your field, but perhaps…”

“Mark Dulles said
the same thing,” Aunt Susanna said. Her eyes were flashing: apparently, Randall
wasn’t getting under only my skin. “He read it cover to cover, hoping to find a
clue, too. He even quoted it during the show, but I think they cut it.”

She looked to me
and I nodded in confirmation. “They did. They wanted another shot of the
magnificent Mrs. Bryant.”

“Who is she?”
Randall asked.

“She was the best
looking rider in the stables, present company excepted,” I said. “But she left
when – after the accident.”

“Good riddance,”
my aunt grumbled.

“So Dulles read the
diary,” Randall said. “Did he find anything?”

“No,” I said
flatly. “He gave it back and said that it was ‘delightful’. He was a rather
irritating man, too.”

He ignored me. “Is
it here? Mary’s diary?”

Aunt Susanna
nodded. “Yes, it is. All of Michael’s materials are in the safe in the office,
along with his notes to the book. He wouldn’t throw away anything and neither
did I. You’re welcome, of course, to look at everything.” She stifled a yawn
and looked at the clock.

Randall nodded,
looking pleased. “Does that include the letter Michael found? The
Secessionville letter?”

This had direct
bearing on the treasure. The last known letter of Alexander Chase, the ‘Clue
Letter’, was dated just days before the battle of Secessionville, where he was
killed in 1862. It had been lost until about six years ago, when Uncle Michael
discovered it tucked into an old book in the attic.

Joe Tremonti’s dig
had given Uncle Michael a taste for historical research, and his discovery of
the letter was the first domino in the succession of events that resulted in
where we were today, for it was there that we first had what seemed to be
evidence that Alexander knew of the treasure. It was Uncle Michael who first
read into the letter and saw a clue. Unfortunately, like most of the clues in
this “case”, as Randall liked to refer to it, it had led nowhere.

“That,” I said
stiffly, “is in the safety deposit box along with the Beaumont letter.”

As soon as I said
the name, I wished I hadn’t. Aunt Susanna, obviously fatigued, suddenly straightened
up and looked at Randall.

“Speaking of
which,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about that. Someone went through a great
deal of trouble to create that letter and make us stop looking for the
treasure. Who’s to say that they haven’t already found it and made off with
it?”

“Aunt Susanna,” I
managed through my suddenly dry mouth. “They can’t have found it. They’re still
looking for it.”

“Someone is still
digging,” she corrected. “It doesn’t follow that our trespasser is the forger
as well. What do you think, Professor?”

My heart began
pounding in my chest. Randall leaned over the counter, chin on hand, and
studied my aunt through narrowed lids. He didn’t look at me as he spoke slowly:
“I think it unlikely that anyone has found the treasure. If the McInnis report
is to be believed, there are some very distinctive pieces among the collection
and none have been found on the market yet.”

“Would you know?”
I couldn’t resist asking.

“I’ve put out the
word that I’m interested. I’ll be told if something turns up.”

Randall spoke with
a finality that was impressive. I thought,
No way he has contacts that
thorough,
but I didn’t push it. The answer seemed to satisfy Aunt Susanna -
but before I could relax, she asked another question.

“But shouldn’t we
expose the Beaumont letter as a fraud? Someone caused us to mislead people,
including poor Professor Maddox. I’d hate to think that they’re going to get
away with it.”

Her eyes narrowed
as she spoke and I fought a sudden, intense urge to run away.

Randall spoke
again.

“I understand how
you feel,” he said. “But exposing the fraud right now will only bring unwanted
attention, and hamper the investigation. Besides, it would be embarrassing to
admit that you were taken in by such an obvious fake. It’d be much better to release
the information once we’ve discovered the treasure or at least solved the
mystery of the McInnis robbery. Then we’ll have a triumph to take the edge
off.”

I stared at him in
disbelief. He avoided my gaze, and Aunt Susanna - oblivious to my shock - pressed
with the question: “Solved the McInnis case? What do you mean?”

Now his eyes lit
up and he leaned forward. “I mean that for all this research your husband did,
we’re still not absolutely certain what happened in Charleston in 1861. The
story goes that Alexander Chase went to work for McInnis and met Beaumont, a
drifter with a gambling habit. It’s not much of a surprise that he and Chase
would become friends. But Alexander was an abolitionist with the wanderlust and
McInnis was a rabid secessionist with a habit of financially dabbling in
politics. Would McInnis, the well-to-do up-and-comer, have ever invited Chase,
his Yankee employee, into his house?”

“I doubt it,” I
said. “Why even ask the question?”