Authors: Triss Stein
She greeted me with an offer of all-natural juice or herbal tea. I politely declined. On a cool fall evening, warm cocoa or a glass of red wine are the only choices. She chattered on as she showed me to the staircase. Having finally decided to work together, she seemed to have jumped right into the deep end.
“I hope your climbing legs are in shape. We have two flights to the top floor, and then a little one to the attic. It's hot up there, too, no ventilation, you may want to leave your jacket here.” She hung it on a hook, part of a built-in Victorian monster near the door, complete with a mirror, a bench, hooks for coats and a shelf for hats. In other circumstances, I would have loved to have taken a good look at it but not now. I was here to work. Skye was already leading the way upstairs and I was happy to be following right along.
“Now watch that worn spot on the carpet. It's tricky. Turn here.” She patted the peeling wallpaper. “Too bad about this. Best as I can remember, it was once kind of pretty.”
I bet it was. She did not seem to know the peeling shreds were silk but I did. Judging from the faded pink color, it had once been a rich crimson.
The broad staircase, too, would have been worth a look in another time.
As Skye was explaining at length, it was in very bad condition, with most of the varnish gone, many treads wobbling under my footsteps, and several lights not working. She talked all the way up, even through her labored breathing. “Ah,” she finally gasped in front of a door on the third floor landing. “The attic is right up here.” She flipped a light switch. That one worked. “Up we go. I'll try to orient you through the mess and then leave you to it.”
I was looking at a hundred years' worth ofâwellâof stuff. I suspected some would be valuable, some interesting, some pure junk. There sure was lot of it. There seemed to have been some attempts at organizing, with similar items near each other. Old wooden skis with two rusty bikes, and an overflowing toy box once painted with faded circus designs. I was tempted by that. There was an ancient dressmaker's dummy with some decrepit, sticker-covered leather trunks. Was that a Vuitton pattern? Were they filled with turn-of-the-last century clothes? How could I get Bright Skye to give all of this to the museum? The toys alone. What a great presentation for visiting school classes.
No, I was there to focus on the boxes of papers. Skye pointed me to them, stacked up in a corner, the missing ones now returned, piled up next to a stack of others.
She switched on some low-watt light bulbs. “I'm so sorry there is nothing better. And I know it is hot here. There is no way to bring in air-conditioning but I believe there is a fan somewhere.” She puttered around and eventually dragged out a tall standing fan. She could plug it into an overhead outlet
,
but it was too high for my short computer cord.
“Now then, are you set up? I know. You could use that old school desk!” She immediately started pulling a desk from behind some other piles. I had to help; it was solid wood and weighed, well, a lot. A seat that was too low for even a small adult, with an attached armrest writing surface, and, I bet, a storage space underneath. It was old, very old, layers of dust old. I assured her I would be fine perched on one of the trunks. Really, I couldn't wait to get to the cartons that had been lost. Between the excitement and the attic dust, I could hardly breathe.
Yes, these were the missing cartons, and these were the missing papers, Maude's letters, her sketches, her small items. Everything. All safe, all complete. I won't lie. My eyes teared up a little.
I carefully carried them over to the door. These were going right back to the museum with me.
Now, at last, I had my chance to prospect for other treasures and I was going to make the most of it. I could not trust Bright Skye not to change her mind and cut off my time.
I did a quick look through the other boxes, applying a scholarly form of triage. This box, full of household financial records from 1920-1935, probably useful to some historians, but I was not one of them. Set aside. A box of income tax forms from the 1940s? Same. A box ofâwhat? Sentimental keepsakes, I supposed. Christmas cards, Valentines, a few dried and crumbling corsages, piano sheet music from around 1912. Long-forgotten popular tunes, I guessed, and here was a brand new hit. It said so right there on the cover. “Alexander's Ragtime Band,” the first of Irving Berlin's lengthy list of classics and not at all forgotten.
Here was something I had never actually seen, a dance program, with a tiny pencil attached by a silk cord, and names written in for each dance. What fun. It was not useful at the moment, but I made second stack of “go back to later.”
And then there was sturdy box with some leather-bound books, dark and heavy, with gold-edged pages and paper in surprisingly good condition. I absently noted that, thinking “acid-free paper.” I lost my breath again.
They were the earliest histories of New York.
Journey into Mohawk Country
by Joost van den Bogaert, one of the first books about this new Dutch possession. Another, similarly rare,
Description of New Netherlands
, by Adrian van der Donk. There were records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Philipsburg, which was now Tarrytown. Which was where the Konicks once had considerable property. Why here? I had no idea. A very old copy, perhaps an original, of Washington Irving's
Knickerbocker Tales
. These should absolutely be in a museum rare book collection, I thought. Here is where Bright Skye would find her valuable inheritance.
They all had a fancy book plate in front with a ship I could swear was Hudson's
Half Moon
and the name Gerardus Konick III. Aha. They went into my Important pile. And at the bottom of the box, the biggest book of all, a leather-bound Bible with a family tree written in front. Just as I had guessed. The name of Gerardus Konick IV was covered with angry slashes of ink.
So there it was. It gave me a little chill down my back.
I had to go back. What was the name on the tax pages I had set aside? Only Updike, Skye's maternal grandparents, and it told me nothing, but some of the holiday cards said, “To darling Maude” and were signed “Your loving husband.”
Well, great. Maude was loved. Was it Gerard Konick as I already thought? By then, I was stiff from sitting on the floor. I had to stand up and stretch. And walk around. Now would be a good time to look at some of the frivolous items.
I opened an unlocked trunk covered with colorful destination stickers. It was empty but the second was crammed with elaborate old-fashioned ladies' outfits. I live in blue jeans but I am a sucker for those beautiful clothes. The label on the trunk said, “Mrs. Gerard Konick,”âagain!âbut lost inside was a tiny book of poetry inscribed “Maude Konick.” Aha. The last piece of that puzzle slipped into place.
I took notes madly, took phone photos, though I they knew would not come out well, and stacked items I wanted next to the door to downstairs. I was covered with a layer of dust clinging to a film of sweat. I had to go talk to Bright Skye about borrowing it all. But before I did, one more stroll around the attic to see if I'd missed anything. Got that, got this, and oh, the third trunk, I'd skipped over it in my excitement.
It was full of stylish men's clothing of a bygone era. Plus fours. White-tie evening wear. Snappy straw boaters with bright grosgrain hat bands. Historically important but not as interesting as the women's clothes.
And there, stuffed in behind the golf shoes, was something odd, a narrow metal box. Odd because of all the things it was not. Not old. Not physically interesting, not beautiful, but cheap metal in an Army green shade.
Of course I picked it up. I was mindlessly curious, but also determined to be thorough in what might be my one-time access to this place. The box was locked but a key was taped to the bottom. Now that was not smart. Unless the former owner of the box was someone who lost little keys a lot. I could understand that.
It held a few folded papers. They seemed to be notes on business transactions, and fairly recent. At first I could not make sense out of it and was only looking to rule out that it was of interest. It was certainly modern. The papers were all typed and some were printed from a computer. The most recent was dated last month.
That's what didn't fit. Skye's mother had been ill, Skye had left. Who was storing business papers in this house?
I moved into better light. The newest one was marked “Deposit in advance of delivery.” It listed the dimensions of something without naming it, and gave a lot of moneyâa gasp-worthy lotâfor final delivery. There was a letter attached, written in Arabic.
The rest of the papers were similar but were stamped “Sale Complete.” The money involved was startling, at least to me, an impoverished grad student. The attachments were written in various languages, one in Russian, another in Japanese, I guessed. There were tiny photos attached and they were artwork. A statue of a winged angel and two stained glass windows. That's when my hands started to shake a little.
The one in elaborate script seemed to be Spanish. Yes, the inner address was Cali, Colombia. I had a couple of years of Spanish in high school and I lived here in New York, where many public signs are in Spanish and English. I gave it a try.
Promesa
was easy. It was promise. I recognized
ventana
, the word for window. Could
cementerio
be anything but “cemetery?” I hoped it wasn't “cement factory?”
Oh, crap, this is ridiculous. I was getting caught up in something I couldn't do and really should not even be taking the time to do. I needed to go discuss the old books with Skye. Then I made out, through the elaborate script, the word Tiffany. Now I wasn't in such a hurry. I managed to make out the names of a church and maybe a cemetery. I didn't know the Spanish but I sure knew the names. By then I was breathing hard.
On the Russian page, none of it meant anything to me and the Japanese was even more mysterious. Except for the place where in English it said, “Heavenly Rest.” I knew that name, I thought. Wasn't it one of the small, out-of-the-way cemeteries where another Tiffany window had been stolen?
What in hell had I stumbled onto here? I wasn't sure and couldn't be sure until I had some translations. I could see the receipt or bills of sale or whatever they were had been carefully written to reveal nothing so I would need to translate the other pages.
Could I fold them up small enough to hide in my laptop? Not quite, with the photos, but I could put them there, leaving the laptop not quite securely closed, but in my tote bag, under my notebook, and under the rest of the old books I wanted to take. Safely hidden. I hope. Stealing? Umm, maybe. Or maybe it was evidence. I thought I should call Henderson again, right now while I had complete privacy. Nope. My phone was where it belonged. In my purse. Which was hanging from a hook in the front hall, along with my jacket.
I headed downstairs with the huge family Bible in my arms. Off-balance from the bag full of books, and with no free hands, I tackled the short but steep staircase very carefully, one cautious step at a time.
When I reached the second floor, I heard voices coming right up the spacious stairwell. There were voices? TV? Radio? No. I stopped, held my breath, listened.
Amanda Mercer. “Who is here? I saw a car in the driveway. I've told you and told you not to talk to anyone.”
“Oh, Amanda, don't be so upset. There is nothing to be angry about. That annoying Ms. Donato said she could help me value those letters, but she wanted something back, a chance to come over and look at the attic. So I thought I'd just let her, and then she'd be done and out of our lives.”
I wasn't going to move a muscle.
“I don't believe you.” She sounded angry. No, furious. “You cannot trust her and now, behind my back, even⦔
“Oh, âManda, not behind your back. After everything you've done for me, how could you say that? She is so persistent, I just had a momentâwell, I got fed up. I would never let her near the valuable antiques but she doesn't seem to want them anyway. She likes papers, not, you know, jewelry or silver. I thought I'd let her take a look, and she'd go away for good. Wouldn't that be best? She won't find anything we care about.”
Well, I thought. That sounded like my entrance cue. I struggled down the last flight, one step at a time, lightly calling Bright Skye's name.
By the time I got to the first floor, they were both in the hall, waiting for me. Skye was fluttering over Mercer, and Mercer looked red-eyed and angry.
“I found something wonderful! I am so grateful to both of you.” Stick to what I want, I thought. Don't be part of their argument. I could see it confused them. Good. “Bright, you had an old family Bible there in the attic and a few other wonderful books.” I held the Bible out with both hands. “I don't think it's valuable as a bookâits condition is very poorâbut something in it supports my ideas about Maude which makes it priceless for me. And the other books I am guessing are very valuable. I was wondering⦔
“No.” Mercer snapped it out, not Skye. “No way. Absolutely nothing leaves this house with you. After what happened to the other items Brighty gave you? No way.”
How could I answer that?
“
But Amanda, she says she found things that could be valuable?”
I put the heavy Bible down on the bench near the door. It gave me a minute to think. Leary had said, pull the threads until something unravels. Between this dumb, emotional crybaby and this angry, bossy woman, I was more than ready to do some unraveling here. Though I felt the hidden papers telling me to get out as fast as I could, I still needed the information in the Bible.
“Oh,” I said, as I turned back to them, “I did. I certainly did. Look at the family tree here.” I opened the Bible to show them, but Amanda had her eyes on my bulging canvas bag.