The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

WHEN WE WERE teenagers and still in high school, the Parker family’s rambling Victorian on Crescent Drive was a gray monstrosity, surrounded by wild bushes and an overgrown yard. The porch sagged and so did the gutters. The unpruned branches of a century-old elm butted against the three-story building’s paint-chipped walls and drafty windows.

But since inheriting the house in the early 1990s, Brainert had fully restored it to its original grandeur. Gray walls were now sky blue, the trim around the eaves and windows virgin white. Surrounding the house, the expansive lawn now resembled a manicured golf course; and, in the spring and summer, the path to the front door was bordered by an array of flowers.

The porch no longer sagged—because the rotting vertical banisters had been torn out and new ones put in. But the entranceway was what impressed me the most. Simple windows had been replaced with stained glass, and a carved oak door purchased from a bankrupt Victorian hotel had replaced the original flimsy plywood.

It was somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 when I parked my Saturn at the curb and strode up the pathway to Brainert’s house. I noticed his front door stood wide open—but my friend was nowhere in sight.

I began to worry. Moving closer, I spied a plant overturned on the porch, its clay pot shattered, rich, black soil everywhere. Now I was alarmed. I cautiously climbed the porch steps.

“Hello, Brainert? Are you there?” I called.

No answer.

I took a few steps through the doorway and gasped. The interior hall was a total wreck—tables overturned, a framed painting knocked askew, a floor lamp tipped over and smashed on the parquet floor.

Panic mode now. “Brainert!”

I was far enough inside the house to peer around the corner, into the living room. That’s when I saw my old friend, Jarvis Brainert Parker, lying facedown on a bloodstained Persian rug.

IN MY SATURN, I hugged the bumper of the ambulance the whole way to Benevolent Heart Hospital, a stone’s throw from St. Francis College. By the time I parked my car and made it to the ER’s front desk, Brainert had been admitted and the doctors were working on him.

I used my cell to call Sadie, told her Brainert had been assaulted, that I was at the hospital with him. We both knew this was no random crime, no mugging or burglary, but we left that thought unspoken. My aunt promised to watch for Spencer, while I stayed to hear about Brainert’s condition. It was an hour before I heard any news.

Finally the tending physician, a soft-spoken man named Dr. Rhajdiq, found me in the waiting room. I was hunched in a chair, my legs curled under me, quietly praying while I twisted and unwound the handle of my purse. Dr. Rhajdiq’s darker-than-dark eyes regarded me with concern. When he addressed me, he spoke slowly and carefully and paused several times to make sure I understood what he said.

“Mr. McClure, I have moderately good news,” he began. “Mr. Parker will recover. He’s conscious now, but groggy—”

“Thank God,” I moaned.

Dr. Rhajdiq ran a hand through his thick, curly hair. The other he kept tucked in the pocket of his OR scrubs.

“Unfortunately, the man has suffered quite a beating. He has a minor concussion and the pain and discomfort that results from it. There are also lacerations to the face and scalp caused by glass. We had to extract a few shards. Fortunately there was no damage to his eyes.”

“Is he in pain?

“We’re doing what we can to manage his discomfort. But a concussion is a serious matter and can be very dangerous. We are going to keep Mr. Parker here overnight, for observation.”

“When can I see him?”

Dr. Rhajdiq smiled. “He’s asking to see you, Mrs. McClure. Right now the staff is in the process of moving the patient to a private room. In a few minutes I will send a nurse to escort you there.”

True to his word, an attractive blonde in her early twenties approached me a little while later. Slender and delicate, she looked almost ethereal in her white nurse’s uniform.

“Mrs. McClure, please come with me,” she said, her voice as wispy as her demeanor.

I rose and followed the nurse to a bank of elevators, trying to avoid thinking about how much I hated hospitals.

Me, I kind of like them, Jack said, his first words since I’d found Brainert. Hospitals got great features, like this angel who’s giving us the grand tour. She’s got gams right up to her neck.

“Gee, Jack, and I thought I was the only woman in your life.”

You’re the only one who’ll talk to me, so I guess you are, baby. But I guess the scenery ain’t bad here at the ol’ krankhaus.

“Well, I loathe this place. The smells, the sadness, the specter of death—nothing personal.”

You’re disregarding the good stuff.

“Good stuff?”

Yeah, like a brace of cutie-pie angels of mercy waiting on me hand and foot.

I tried not to laugh out loud. “You better have a look around. Half the ‘cutie-pie’ nurses in this establishment are men.”

What! I thought they were orderlies! What’s this stinking world coming to when an angel of mercy has facial hair?

We exited the elevator on the third floor and passed the nurse’s station. Brainert’s room was all the way down the hall, in the corner.

From the doctor’s cautious tone, I expected to find my friend flat on his back, swathed from head to toe in bandages, tubes running into a vein in each arm. Then I rounded the doorway to his room and heard:

“I’m quite comfortable, nurse! Please stop fussing!”

Brainert’s voice was shaky, but his cranky stubbornness was undiminished, which meant he was practically back to his old self!

“Please nurse,” he declared, “stop fiddling with the bed and find my friend in the waiting room. I must see her at once!”

I entered to find Brainert sitting up, a nurse gamely trying to adjust his position. He was bandaged, but thankfully no tubes were visible, though a wire ran from a dressing on the tip of his finger to a pulse and respiration monitor beeping next to the bed.

“Pen! Please come in,” Brainert called when he saw me—out of one eye; the other was covered by a thick bandage. So was his nose, and both of Brainert’s forearms were swathed in thick gauze.

“Your face!” I cried.

“Broken glass,” muttered Brainert. “Didn’t damage my eye, so it’s good news. And the scars—I’m hoping—will make me look distinguished, maybe even a little dangerous. It would be a nice change for me to start looking a little dangerous, don’t you think?”

Jack laughed. Tell your bird to lose his bow tie and he might have a fighting chance.

“I think you’ll wear any scars with as much panache as you wear everything in your life, Brainert.”

He smiled, then lifted his arms. “Fifteen stitches in the left, twenty-two in the right.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Now you just sound like you’re bragging.”

Brainert and I fell silent until the nurse finished her tasks. Finally she departed along with Jack’s favorite blonde angel of mercy, and we were alone.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It was around noon,” Brainert began, his voice low. “I was working in the living room, papers spread out on the coffee table. I’d made several phone calls and was compiling notes, and I heard a crash on the porch.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to investigate.” Brainert sighed. “Like a fool I unlocked the front door without first looking to see who was there—I might as well have invited my attacker to mug me!”

“Who was on the porch?”

“A tall man. He wore a black denim jacket and a crudely improvised mask—”

“Was the mask black?” I interrupted. “Did it have ragged eye slits like he’d cut the knitted cap himself then pulled it down over his face?”

Brainert nodded. “I remember your description from the Quibblers meeting of the man who assaulted you. I’m positive this was the same person. As soon as I saw the mask, I knew he wanted my notes—”

“Notes? What notes?”

Brainert chatted on as if he hadn’t heard me. “He demanded money, of course—in that raspy whisper meant to disguise his real voice—but it was all a ruse, and a clumsy one. He was really after the solution.”

“Solution?”

“He grabbed my wallet, emptied it of cash. Then he pocketed my wristwatch. As he was stuffing his ill-gotten gains into his jacket, I jumped him.”

“You what!”

“I fought him, Pen. I know how to stick up for myself! I sunk my fist into his gut. I even whacked him on the snout—”

“Snout,” I thought. “Oh, my God. Jack, did you hear—”

I heard.

“I was doing well,” Brainert went on, “until he rammed my face into the Victorian mirror—”

“Oh, God, Brainert, you poor—”

“That mirror was a treasure. I hope it brings him seven years bad luck. He was the one who broke the glass, you see. My skull was merely the instrument.”

Brainert was really getting worked up now. The shock obviously had worn off, anger and outrage replacing it. I saw a nurse pause at his door, curious about the commotion.

“Shush, Brainert,” I said in a whisper. “Calm down.”

“Yes, yes, sorry,” he said, quieter now. “It’s not every day a guy fights for his life.”

“What happened next?”

“When I was on the ground again, and bleeding all over my beautiful custom-weave Persian rug, the intruder found the papers I was working on. He gathered all of them up, stuffed them into his jacket. I tried to stop him, but, frankly, I couldn’t get up. My assailant must have seen all the blood, probably thought he’d killed me. He fled. I remember trying to stand up…”

Brainert touched his battered nose. “The next thing I knew I was in the hospital, doctors working on me.”

“Are you sure he came for your notes?”

“I’m certain, Pen! The way he gathered up every sheet of paper, this wasn’t a casual swipe. He was very careful…He wanted my secret!”

“The solution to the Poe Code?”

Brainert nodded.

“What is it?” I asked. “You were about to announce the solution when Detective Marsh showed up at the Quibblers meeting to arrest me. The last thing I heard you say was something about an obscure quote…”

Brainert smiled. “‘This is indeed Life itself.’”

“What’s it from? What’s it mean?”

“It’s from Poe’s story ‘The Oval Portrait.’”

I think I gasped just then. Jack exclaimed something in my mind, but he didn’t have to remind me. The case I’d been dreaming about in Jack’s time involved an oval portrait. The missing man, Vincent Tattershawe, had taken it off the desk of his secretary—and old lover—and sent it to his fiancée, Dorothy Kerns, just before he disappeared with most of her inheritance.

“Is that the treasure then?” I asked Brainert. “Is it an oval portrait?”

Brainert nodded. “I believe it is, yes—although it could be just another piece of the puzzle, another part of the larger treasure hunt.”

“And all of your papers, the copies of the title pages Sadie made for you, they’re all gone?” I asked.

“The intruder took the papers, but I have backup files.” Brainert tapped his index finger to his temple. “And I recall what I’ve learned.”

“Then you really did solve it?”

Brainert sighed. “While I’m certain an oval portrait is involved, I’m still missing one small piece of the puzzle. There is, however, a very promising theory I have yet to put to the test…”

“Go on.”

“You see, my attacker didn’t get one vital piece of information needed to solve the mystery and obtain the treasure, because I never got a chance to write it down…. I was curious to find out what happened to the estate of publisher Eugene Phelps after the man committed suicide. My Providence friend examined the estate sale records and discovered that Miles Chesley—Peter’s grandfather—purchased the entire contents of Eugene Phelps’s library in 1935. He had it transported to his Newport mansion. This occurred years before Phelps’s home burned to the ground.”

I gave Brainert a blank stare.

“Don’t you see, Pen? It all makes sense. Miles Chesley solved the first riddle of the Poe Code, the same one that Dr. Conte solved.”

“What was it again?”

“‘Mystic Library east wall sunset reveals all.’ Dr. Conte thought the reference was to the library in Mystic, Connecticut. But he was wrong. Miles Chesley, who was alive in Eugene Phelps’s day, knew Mystic referred to Phelps’s mansion in Newport—Mystic House. That’s why he purchased the entire contents of Phelps’s library after the man killed himself. And that’s why the Poe Code treasure would not have been destroyed in the 1956 fire that burned down Phelps’s home. Miles Chesley had already moved the library’s contents to his mansion! It’s probably right there in Prospero House as we speak.”

I didn’t buy Brainert’s theory and said so. “Surely Miles Chesley discovered the secret. He owned the library. How could he miss it?”

“Miles Chesley died of a sudden stroke the same year he bought the library. According to tax records—which I assure you are quite thorough—the Phelps auction took place in May 1936 and Miles died in early July. There’s no evidence in Miles’s notes that he’d been able to locate a treasure amid the vast contents of the library or solve the riddle pointing to an oval portrait.”

“But something of great value would be obvious, wouldn’t it? How can you be sure some descendant of Miles Chesley didn’t find it?”

“Oh, Penelope! I doubt very much that this ‘treasure’ is some crass piece of gold or silver, some meaningless trinket.” Brainert shifted position, and a groan escaped his bruised lips. “I’m betting that only an expert on the subject of Poe would be capable of recognizing the treasure’s true value.”

“Now that you mention it…the men who inherited the mansion had no interest in Poe.” I remembered the maritime artifacts and yachting trophies all over Prospero House. “Miles Chesley’s son—Peter’s father—was obsessed with all things nautical,” I told Brainert. “And Peter Chesley himself was a historian focused on the Revolutionary War period. He didn’t seem to care about Poe, either.”

“The Phelps editions were in the mansion’s library, weren’t they?” Brainert asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, Miles Chesley’s papers survived two generations of neglect—until they were stolen today, of course. If those items remained, then the treasure might be there, too.”

I was beginning to warm to Brainert’s theory. I remembered the creepy Poe clock in Peter’s library. I also remembered the daguerreotypes and old photos on the walls. At the time, I thought they were simply images of Peter Chesley’s ancestors. Now I mentioned them to Brainert.

“This oval portrait we’re looking for would likely have something to do with Poe,” Brainert insisted. “Perhaps a portrait of the author, or even the wife he loved so much and who died so young, Virginia Clemm—”

Excited, Brainert tried to rise, but immediately appeared woozy and sank back into his white hospital pillows. “If only I could go there now! See for myself!”

“Where?” I cried. “To the mansion? Are you sure that blow to your head didn’t do more damage than you think?”

“This is no joke,” Brainert insisted. “We have to know the truth. Two men may have been murdered over this treasure. You were attacked, and so was I. When will this calamity end if we don’t end it?”

I mulled this over—along with the decision of whether to share what I’d learned today about Peter’s nephew, Claymore.

Might as well tell him, Jack advised. He’s in as deep as you now.

“Of course,” Brainert was saying, “there is one more piece of information I require to confirm the last part of my theory, but I can’t do it from this bed. I’ll have to make a phone call or two—”

“Brainert, listen to me,” I said, cutting him off. “I think I know who attacked you…and me, for that matter.”

“You do? Who, for heaven’s sake?”

“When I came to see you, I had just met with the new principal at Quindicott Elementary—”

“New principal? What happened to Mrs. McConnell?”

“She’s on maternity leave. The new guy’s temporary. And that new guy’s name is…are you ready for this? Claymore Chesley.”

“What! Is he related to the Chesley family?”

I filled Brainert in on everything I’d learned.

He shook his head. “So Claymore badly needs money and he’s obviously stung by the fact that his side of the family was cut out of the Chesley inheritance. But how would he even know about the Poe Code? He told you he hadn’t been in his family’s Newport mansion since he was a little boy.”

“I think he was lying,” I said. “I think when he moved back to Rhode Island last February, he looked up his uncle and befriended him. After all, Claymore Chesley was a professor, he’d earned a doctorate and taught, and he would have been able to establish common ground as a fellow academic with his uncle Peter.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“Think about it…Peter was suffering from arthritis pretty badly near the end of his life. The condition he was in, he probably welcomed having a tall, strong young relative show up at his door and help him with his task of inventorying the entire mansion’s contents—including the library. In fact, now that I think it through, Peter could never have inventoried that library alone. How would he have reached the higher books? No, he had help, and I’m betting that help was Claymore.”

“So you think Claymore stumbled upon the code while he was helping his uncle inventory the family’s library, and since he needed money, he was trying to solve it so he could steal the hidden treasure?”

“Yes, I think it was Claymore who was upstairs when Sadie and I were visiting. And I think the key is that last bit of information you told me. The treasure is in that library. It’s in Prospero House. I think Peter probably suspected what Claymore was up to—that he was going to solve the code and steal the treasure right out of the mansion. And that’s why he called Sadie with such an urgent offer.”

“Yes, I see!”

“Peter wanted us to take those books out of the mansion right away so Claymore would no longer have access to them—or the code, or the discovery of the treasure. After we left, I’ll bet Claymore came downstairs, argued with his uncle, got angry, and killed him with a blow, then tried to make it look like an accident by tossing him down the stairs.”

“And the 911 call?”

“There’s an explanation for that too, I think.” I rose and began to pace. “After he killed his uncle, Clay Chesley could have called 911 himself and disguised his voice, making it sound like his uncle in medical distress, asking for help. That way, when the police came to the house and found Peter’s body, they would assume he’d fallen as a result of medical illness or disorientation. And, in fact, that’s exactly what Detective Kroll assumed.” I shook my head. “That’s the notorious part if you ask me. Even if Claymore killed his uncle by accident, he was completely cold blooded in the way he covered it up.”

Brainert nodded, following along. “So you think claymore was the raspy-voiced intruder who broke into Buy the Book, too?”

“Same M.O. of disguising his voice. And he’s a tall, well-built guy. But here’s the fact that nails him to the wall: His SUV had no dents in it. Not one scratch.”

“And that nails him because…?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you! When he showed up late for our meeting—late enough to have accosted you, changed, and driven back to the school—he was sporting a swollen, discolored nose.”

“No!”

“Yes! He told me he’d been in an accident on the highway and his airbag deployed. But if he’d been in an accident, his car would have at least had a dent or a scratch on it, and there was nothing! After our meeting in his office, I went out to the parking lot and checked out the SUV I saw him driving—there was no way that car was in an accident.”

“He lied?”

“Why would anyone lie about something like that unless they had to make something up on the spur of the moment. There I was, pointing to his swollen nose and asking questions, and I think he got that swollen nose from me or you or both of us when we tried to defend ourselves.”

I grabbed my coat and my purse.

“Where are you going, Pen?”

“I’m driving to Newport, right now. I’m going to stop all this for once and for all.”

“How? Are you going to the Newport police?”

“Not yet. You know and I know that neither Detective Kroll, Chief Ciders, nor Detective-Lieutenant Marsh will believe some tall-sounding tale about a hidden treasure map buried in a set of books—not unless I produce the treasure to prove it’s real. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to find the oval portrait and take it to the police with my charges against Claymore. I’m sure once claymore realizes he can never have it, he’ll confess to his crimes.”

“But you don’t even know what to look for!”

“It’s an oval portrait, Brainert. How hard is that to find?”

“There might be a dozen or more oval portraits. Wait until tomorrow or the next day, and I’ll probably be well enough to go with you. I’ll recognize the treasure at once. I’m certain of it.”

“No. I have a better idea.”

I showed Brainert the cell phone I’d just bought from Gerry Kovacks at Cellular Planet—one of the new stores on Cranberry.

“Look,” I told Brainert. “This phone captures and stores digital images. I can snap pictures of the portraits in the manor, show them to you when I get back. The display screen is right here…”

I could see the anticipation in my friend’s one good eye. But there was doubt, too. “There’s no one at the Chesley mansion, Pen. The doors are locked up tight. How will you get in?”

Back door, Jack piped up. One thing I’ve learned in the gumshoe game, baby, you can always find a back door in.

“Well,” I told Brainert as I headed out the door, “I’ve already been charged with grand larceny. Why not go for breaking and entering, too?”

Jack laughed in my head. In for a penny, in for a pound, I always say.

“No, you don’t.”