Necessary Evil (13 page)

“Because if he
didn’t, how would Chase and Beaumont have known where and what to steal?”
Randall asked. He dove for his papers, shuffled through them,
then
shoved the stack in front of me.

“That,” he said,
as Aunt Susanna leaned in to look, “is the list of items the McInnis family
claimed were stolen: family spoons, heritage jewelry, a couple of silver
candlesticks, and a few valuable nick-knacks. No cash, no coin. Not only that,
but these weren’t even the ‘good’ silverware and candlesticks that McInnis
family owned at the time.”

He pulled out a
scanned reprint of handwritten ledger pages, stapled together at the top
corner, and flipped through them quickly before throwing it on top of the
robbery report. He jabbed a finger at a highlighted line.

“See that?” he
demanded.

We looked. In elegant
scrawl, the words,
Parlor: candlesticks, French, wrought gold, small,
were highlighted in green.

“What is this?” I
asked, fingering the paper.

“This is an
inventory of household goods made by Mary Anna McInnis, the spinster daughter
and housekeeper of Mr. McInnis in the early months of 1861,” Randall explained.
“A friend of mine in Charleston found it for me. Mary Anna McInnis logged
everything, including the missing items, and listed their estimated value. Why
she did this, I don’t know, except perhaps she’d heard the war rumors and
wanted to know exactly what she had to protect. Whatever the cause, if she
didn’t exaggerate - and there’s no reason to think she did - this list proves
that they had
gold
candlesticks.”

He said this
triumphantly. A glance from my aunt told me I wasn’t the only one who was
baffled.

“So they had gold
candlesticks,” I said. “What does that prove?”

“It doesn’t prove
anything, Warwick, but it does raise the question. Chase and Beaumont break
into a house to steal from their hated employer, take the silver candles
sticks, and leave the gold behind. Why?”

There was a moment
of quiet.

Then Aunt Susanna
guessed, “They were locked up?”

Randall shook his
head. “According to this inventory – Ms. McInnis was very thorough - the gold candlesticks
were kept in the parlor with the knick-knacks, showing off the owner’s wealth
and station. If the thieves were already in the room taking the bric-a-brac,
why not snag the candlesticks at the same time?”

He put his hand up
to stop my objection. “I know what you are going to say: maybe there was some
rearranging after this list was made. Maybe Mr. McInnis decided to put the
candlesticks in his safe or in his room. That could be. But look at the
jewelry. There is twice as much listed on Mary Anna’s inventory than there was
reported missing from the robbery. What was stolen was valuable, but old – Mary
Anna’s grandmother’s, presumably –but there was newer, more fashionable pieces,
worth much more. They were listed as….”

 He pulled
the inventory out of my hands, turned a few pages, and showed us more
highlighted lines. In the same elegant handwriting, someone had listed
broaches, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and pins, with varying descriptions,
sizes, and prices. Next to all of them, where the cataloger listed the
location, was the word:
Mistress’ Bedroom, Chinese Bureau, locked.

I looked at
Randall. He was grinning as though he’d just let me in on a secret.

“They were all in
the same place,” he said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “A locked Chinese
box in Mary Anna’s bedroom. The new jewelry mixed with the old, yet only the
old was taken. Now, if you were two men, breaking into a house to rob it, would
you take the time to pick through the jewelry? Take the locket and leave the
garnet necklace? Ignore the gold candlesticks in favor the silver ones? Pocket
half the knick-knacks, but leave the rest, all of which are in plain sight?”

“There’s a million
reasons why they would,” I pointed out. “Maybe they didn’t see the gold
candlesticks. Maybe Mary Anna was wearing the garnet necklace that night.”

It was a weak
argument and we both knew it. For whatever reason, he didn’t choose to push
that particular point.

“There is another
question,” he said, taking the papers back. “I’ve read some of the court papers
from the lawsuit. Jarrod Carroll was the attorney for the McInnis family, and
he was a most thorough man. Both Mary Anna and Mr. McInnis were dead when the
law suit was brought to court, so he had to bring in a lot of outside testimony
from friends, workers, business contacts, etc. One of those was the warehouse
overseer, Greer, who directed both Beaumont and Chase in their day-to-day work.
He didn’t like either man very much. According to him, Beaumont and Chase
argued with McInnis violently, and Chase threatened to ‘smash his head’.
McInnis was going to fire him, but never got the chance. The very next day,
according to Greer, Chase left without notice. Just packed his things and
disappeared.”

He paused, I
supposed for dramatic emphasis again. I sighed and checked my watch.

 “It’s
generally agreed that McInnis and Chase hated each other, that Chase and
Beaumont stole the stuff in order to get back at him,” I said. “What you just
said tends to prove it, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t,” he
said. “Let’s say the stories are true, that Beaumont and Chase get fed up. They
know war is coming, so they sneak into the house, steal the second-best
candlesticks, and leave McInnis, gloating that they’d one-upped their employer.
That would work splendidly – perhaps they were just simply ignorant and thought
the old jewelry was prettier than the newer stuff. It could be. But if it was,
why does the overseer report that only Chase took off that day? Why doesn’t he
say Chase
and
Beaumont?”

“Maybe Beaumont
stuck around?” I offered weakly, and he chuckled.

“Right. Not only
is he stupid enough to not take the gold, but he sticks around to be
discovered.”

“Are you saying
that Beaumont wasn’t an accomplice?” Aunt Susanna asked.

“I’m suggesting
that Beaumont may have had nothing to do with the robbery. I’m suggesting that
this wasn’t a simple case of snatch and grab. Maybe there wasn’t even a
robbery. Maybe this whole incident was a setup by a family, impoverished by
war, who hoped to salvage something from this experience.”

You could have
heard a cricket sneeze in the dead silence that followed that statement.

Professor Randall
sat back looking very pleased with himself. I opened my mouth, shut it, and
looked at Aunt Susanna. Her expression was rigid, her face white.

“Are you saying,”
she
said slowly, “that there was nothing stolen to begin
with? That this whole – this whole treasure story… was
made up
?”

My aunt hasn’t a
cold bone in her body, but you could have gotten freezer burn from her tone. In
the space of that second before Randall replied, I could almost hear her
thoughts: that it had all been a sham, Alexander Chase was a victim of slander,
and Uncle Michael died in pursuit of a shadow. It was worse than when she
thought the Beaumont letter was true. This undermined everything. Not only had
we’d been made fools, but so had the entire Chase family.

Just when it
seemed that my aunt was about to explode in frustration, Randall answered.

“No,” he said. “No,
actually, despite all of this, I don’t think that at all. If I did, I would be
completing this project in Charleston, not here. I think that Alexander Chase
did bring something back from Charleston, something that he hid on this farm,
and I believe he put a clue to its location in the final letter to his mother.
I’m almost positive that it is still here. I think there is more to the McInnis
scandal than previously thought. Things were accepted as fact before they were
tested. Questions need to be asked.” He locked his gaze with mine. “And that’s
why I’m here. To ask the questions no one wanted answered.”

His eyes bore into
mine. I tore away to meet Aunt Susanna’s quizzical look. Her mouth was twisted,
like it always did when something worried her. Her hands weren’t trembling, but
they looked so fragile, laying on top of each other on her lap that I placed my
hand over them before I turned back to Randall.

The man had me in
a tailspin. I didn’t know why he persisted in covering for me in regards to the
Beaumont letter when it was likely that Aunt Susanna would be more easily
brought to heel if she was trying to protect me. It would only be a matter of
time before she figured out what had happened on her own anyway. But his
motivations didn’t matter tonight. I still didn’t think there was a treasure,
but it seemed to me that he might be able to answer some of those questions,
ones that I’d never thought to ask.

“So how is this
going to work?” I asked. “This summer, I mean. You’ve contracted to stay here
for a few weeks, but it seems to me that most of the information you need is
down south.”

He shook his head.
“I have a reliable contact down there who’s much more familiar with the local
the archives and already working on a few leads. What I need from you is
complete access to Michael Chase’s files, any evidence you have from the time
period, and I need to see Alexander Chase’s last letter to his mother. That is
the most important thing: the original letter.”

I could have made a
crack about his not being able to tell everything he needed from the copy, but
I restrained myself. No need to bring that up again.

“That won’t be a
problem,” I said.  “I’ll show you Uncle Michael’s files tomorrow, and when
I have a moment go to the bank for the letter. But honestly, what new evidence
do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know
yet.” Randall grinned at me. I wondered if he thought himself charming.

I squashed the
brief, horrifying idea that he might be, under different circumstances.

“But if there are
the makings here for another book, I won’t object.” He looked at his watch.
“It’s getting quite late, so as much as I hate to do so, I’m going to say
goodnight, ladies. Work begins in earnest tomorrow. I have a deadline to meet
and a treasure to find.”

He began to pack
up his things, looking very satisfied.

I rolled my eyes
and Aunt Susanna, seeming very concerned, broke in with another question.

“Professor, it
sounds like you’re going to be really busy, both with researching this project
and writing your other book. Are you still going to have time to help Maddie
with her chores?”

In the crush of
information tonight, even I had almost forgotten that aspect of our deal.
Professor Randall looked downright surprised.

“Chores?” he
asked, with a touch of repugnance mixed in the question.

“You promised to
lend a hand around the farm,” Aunt Susanna said. Her expression would have been
enough to melt an ogre’s resolve, but Randall just looked at her with deeper
confusion. “It was part of the deal, remember?”

“I hope you like
horses,” I said, suddenly jovial. “We’ve got a lot of stalls to clean out.”

“Oh, that!” He
chuckled. “That, yes, I’d almost forgotten. I did tell you about my hay fever,
didn’t I?”

“Hay fever?” Aunt
Susanna repeated in disbelief.

I looked at the
ceiling.
Naturally,
I thought.

“It’s not deadly,
but it is debilitating,” he said. “However, rest assured, I’m a man of my word.
I promised to aid in the day to day chores and I meant it. You’ll see.”

With that, he took
his things, bid us good night, and left the room, leaving the pair of us
sitting alone in the kitchen.

The antique clock
chimed midnight, stirring Aunt Susanna out of her reverie.

“Well,” she said,
and her voice sounded very small. “That was – Interesting.”

“Mmm…” I stared
into my mug of cold coffee. I was tired, so exhausted that I’d gotten that
false second wind that you get when you’ve gone too long without sleep. I was
thinking,
Maybe he’ll stay out of the barnyard then. If so, it’ll almost
make up for Aunt Susanna giving him the office to work in.

As I had before, I
wished for a laptop to do my office work on. This time, however, the wish was a
little more fervent.

“I hope we haven’t
made a mistake, letting him stay here.” She sighed. “When I first met him, he
seemed… Well, less pushy.”

I was unwilling to
suggest that he’d only seemed that way because she had been blindsided by
Lindsay’s accident.

“I don’t think we
had much choice,” I said and got up. “Come on – I’m going to bed. Morning will
be here too soon for me.”

I took her cup and
my own and put them in the sink while she coordinated herself with her cane.
Then I walked with her slowly back to her room, more for the company than
because she needed help.

She opened the
door, hesitated, then turned to me.

“What do you think
he meant?” she asked, looking at me with large, soulful eyes. “That he was
going to honor his promise to help but that he couldn’t do it because of his
hay fever? What do you think he has in mind?”