“I’ll mention it, even though I don’t think that’s possible because she doesn’t live in this area anymore. But I guess I should say something, just in case. Especially since Lincoln did tell me he had to be wary of people trying to take advantage of him to get at his money.”
“Where did it come from? His money, I mean. Surely not just from his business.”
“No, he inherited a good chunk of cash from his family. Or so he said.”
“I guess that explains how he was able to get into the rare-book business when he was young,” I said. “When he was booking the week, he mentioned he’d been in that career since his mid-twenties, which I found odd. Unless he had family money, of course.”
“Yeah, he had a trust fund or something. I didn’t really ask too much about it. Didn’t want to look like a gold digger.”
I snorted. “As if. I’ve never known you to care that much about money.”
“Proven by the fact that I run an independent bookstore,” Julie said, her tone brighter than it had been throughout the rest of the call. “Okay, I guess I’d better go. Even though we aren’t open on Mondays, I need to do some office and inventory work in the store. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do as well. I just wanted to call and make sure you knew the true story. Before you hear anything else, I mean.”
The true story?I stared at the phone for a minute. From what Julie had just told me, I assumed she wanted me to know that Lincoln Delamont might or might not have been abusive with women, in case those stories crawled out of the woodwork duringthe investigation. But apparently he’d not really acted like that around Julie, and she wanted to make sure I knew that, because …?Because if he’d threatened or hurt her, it might give her too strong a motive to kill him? Even if only in self-defense?
“All right. Thanks for calling, Julie.” I thought of reiterating my request that she share the information she’d just told me with the police, but instead chose to simply say, “Good-bye.”
I tapped my phone against my palm. I certainly wouldn’t say anything to the authorities. Not yet. Not until Julie had time to come clean on her own. Otherwise, it might make her situation even worse. While I did believe in justice, I was sure Julie was innocent.
Because, if by some shocking twist, Juliehadkilled Lincoln, I was convinced it would have to have been an act of self-defense. If that was the case, I was sure she would ultimately confess. But maybe she wasn’t ready to come forward with that sordid story yet—one I knew might, rightly or wrongly, affect the way others viewed her. Including the local patrons who frequented her bookstore.
No, I wasn’t going to rush out and give the police secondhand information. I’d wait a few days, or even a week, to see what happened first. I’d give Julie that chance.
It was the least I could do for a friend.
Chapter Thirteen
I glanced at my watch. Pleased to see there was still time to do a little digging in the attic after my morning phone calls, I grabbed my key ring and headed upstairs, pausing to unlock the door that led to the top level of the house.
I’d learned to keep the door locked after finding a few guests rummaging around in the attic during the first literary event I’d held at Chapters. I wasn’t worried about items being stolen—many of the books in the library were much more valuable than anything in the attic—but I feared a lawsuit if someone got hurt tripping over the clutter.
The heat rose as I climbed the narrow wooden stairs. I was glad I’d opted for open-backed sandals along with a pair of lightweight shorts and a gauzy cotton top, rather than my typical hostess outfit. The unfinished attic was no place for nice clothes.
I flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs, turning on the three bare bulbs that dangled from the rafters. The attic ran the entire width of the older portion of the house. It included windows on either side, which helped to relieve the gloom of its aged-wood interior. But nothing could quite chase the shadowsfrom the far corners or dispel the haze created by two centuries of dust.
Wrinkling my nose at the musty smell rising from stacks of oldNational Geographicmagazines and a motley assortment of leather-clad trunks, I picked my way through teetering piles of boxes to reach one of the side windows. After previously digging through the attic to find Great-Aunt Isabella’s stash of costumes, I’d moved all the boxes containing her personal effects to an area lit by one of the windows, hoping to eventually catalog them properly.
Not in the summer, though. That had never been the plan. I pulled a wad of tissues from the pocket of my shorts and wiped the sweat from my upper lip and forehead. Lacking air conditioning, the attic was at least twenty degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Opening one or both windows would’ve helped, but I knew from prior attempts that the frames were too old and warped to allow the sashes to move.
I decided to collect some material and sort through it downstairs. It wasn’t safe to stay in the attic too long when it was hot enough to immediately plaster my hair to my head and neck. I picked up one of the boxes that held Isabella’s photos and papers. Rising unsteadily to my feet, I headed downstairs. I could return for another box once I had sorted through the first batch.
Back in my bedroom, I kicked off my sandals before pulling the papers and photos from the box and arranging them in piles on my white chenille bedspread. I tried to sort roughly by decade. The loose documents and notebooks were dated, which helped me place them in their proper pile, and while most of the photographs didn’t include inscriptions, I could make approximations based on hairstyles and clothing.
I picked up a photo taken at one of our family reunions. There I was, looking gawky and owl-eyed in the glasses I’d had to wear until I was old enough to handle contacts. Behind me, my mom and dad stared resolutely at the camera, their smiles frozen in the fixed expression common to posed photos. My grandparents flanked them, also looking stiff and uncomfortable. But off to one side, Isabella appeared poised to fly off into the woods, her attention captured by something unseen by the others.
She looks like some wild or supernatural creature, trapped with these stodgy mortals, I thought. A long-forgotten memory flashed through my mind—Isabella flitting from table to table at a party while Grandma Ruth admonished her to “sit still for once, for heaven’s sake, Bella.”
I tapped the edge of the photo against my palm. As a child, I’d been fascinated by my great-aunt. Her vivacious beauty, undimmed even in her later years, had seemed far too exotic for our rather unexceptional family.Like a butterfly among the moths, I thought, as I laid down the photo and picked up another.
This was an older picture. Slightly out of focus, it looked like a random shot of Isabella working in the garden at Chapters. And there, in the background, near a much shorter holly hedge, stood a tall, well-built man.
I squinted, hoping to make out who it was. Perhaps her father, my great-grandfather? No, this man looked to be closer to Isabella’s age. It also wasn’t her brother-in-law. As a young man, my grandfather’s hair had been almost black, and this man’s hair was light enough to read as blond in the black-and-white photo.
Rummaging through the drawer in my nightstand, I pulled out a magnifying glass. But even enlarging the photo didn’tanswer the question of who had accompanied Isabella in the garden that day. The man, handsome in a rough-hewn, strong-jawed way, was a stranger to me.
I flipped the photo over but found no inscription. Dropping the magnifying glass onto the bed, I held up the picture and noticed the smudge of fingerprints marring its glossy finish. I’d been careful not to touch the surface of the photo, but it looked like someone had handled it often, and carelessly, in the past.
“Now who are you?” I asked aloud. “Just some random visitor, or Isabella’s very own mystery man?” I placed the photo on my nightstand, near the picture of my great-aunt and grandmother. It felt like a clue to Isabella’s possible mysterious benefactor, or more tragically, her blackmailer. I decided to keep it separate from the other items until I could examine it further.
