Chapter Nineteen

The melodious ringtone continued, so Lucy held up a finger, indicating her intention to take the call, and checked the caller ID. It was Ted, probably calling about that correction, so she declined the call, figuring she’d give him time to let his temper cool. Then she addressed the women.

“I’m waiting for my friend, Miss Tilley,” she began. “But I couldn’t help overhearing. It seems you have some sort of problem. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Bev was quick to reject Lucy’s overture. “Oh, no. It was nothing. You know how it is in a place like this. Little things get blown all out of proportion.”

“I do know how that is. I’ve spent many a sleepless night fretting over some trivial oversight, especially if it meant I had to run a correction in the paper.” Lucy gave them an encouraging smile. “I’ve found it really helps to talk these things over with someone neutral.”

“You’re just digging for news, Lucy Stone,” said Dorothy. “Don’t think we don’t know what you’re up to.”

“That’s not entirely true,” said Lucy, her voice rising as she defended herself. “As you know, Miss Tilley is living here at the moment, recuperating from a nasty case of pneumonia, and I’m very concerned for her safety. I don’t want what happened to Agnes to happen to her.” Realizing her emotions were getting the better of her, Lucy took a deep breath and looked each of the ladies in the eye. “I know one thing for sure—the truth has a way of coming out. All you have to do is tell me that anything you say is off the record, and I can’t use it. I can’t print it in the paper. But I do believe with all my heart that oftentimes you can gain control of a situation if you go public. If something is amiss here at Heritage House you’ll all be much safer when the truth is known.”

Bev seemed to be looking inward, wavering, and Bitsy was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Only Dorothy met her gaze. “She’s right,” said Dorothy. “The sooner we tell what happened, the better off we’ll be. We can’t go on like this, scared of our shadows. It’s time to face the truth.”

“I disagree,” said Bev. “My son said I should put it out of my mind and forget about it. He said that was the best thing.”

Bitsy didn’t take this news well. “You didn’t tell him, did you?” she demanded, angrily shredding her tissue.

“Well, I . . .” began Bev, looking very guilty indeed.

“Now you’ve done it. It was a secret, our secret!” Bitsy sounded like an outraged child. “We promised not to tell anyone! A double-pinky promise.”

“But he’s my son—”

“Doesn’t matter!” snapped Bitsy.

“Bitsy’s right,” said Dorothy. “The cat’s out of the bag. It’s better if we tell what happened, exactly as it happened.” She sighed. “Then we’ll let the chips fall as they may.”

“For now, this is off the record, I’m not writing anything down, I’m not recording anything,” said Lucy, hoping to coax them into talking. She took a seat on the couch and turned her phone off, placing it on the coffee table for all to see. “You can change your minds afterward, if you want.”

The three women nodded.

“So who wants to start?”

“I will,” said Dorothy, taking a deep breath. “It’s like this, we lured Agnes into the stairwell.”

Lucy was absolutely horrified and completely stunned by this admission, but was determined not to reveal how she felt. She took a deep, centering breath, and asked in a soft voice, “Why did you do that?”

Bev closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. Bitsy emitted a sharp sob. “It was supposed to be a good deed.”

“It was Peter’s idea,” said Bev. “You know how charming he can be and that day he sat right down on this sofa, next to Bitsy, just where you are, and asked if she would do something for him. Something that he needed help with, a sensitive matter, he said, due to the Heritage House policy that a male staff member couldn’t be alone with a female resident.”

Bitsy nodded. “I’ve always liked him, he’s so handsome, and I was flattered that he was paying attention to me. And it was just a little thing . . .”

“He wanted us to find Agnes and tell her that there was a tiny little owl, a baby owl in the stairwell and convince her that he needed her help to get it to safety,” said Bev. “So we went to her apartment, all three of us. Agnes wasn’t convinced at first, she said it was impossible because it was too early in the year for baby owls to be hatched.”

“Not hatched, fledged,” corrected Dorothy. “She said fledged. That’s when they leave the nest.”

“Just a minute,” said Lucy. “Where was Peter?”

“He said he was going to get a box so he could move the owl because the stairwell wasn’t a safe place for it, so if we wanted to see it, we should bring Agnes and meet him in the stairwell, the one just down the hall from her unit. He added that he couldn’t wait to see Agnes’s reaction, he knew she’d want to help because she was such a keen bird-watcher and absolutely loved birds.

“So that’s what I told her,” admitted Bitsy. “That it wasn’t every day you got to see an owl up close.”

“But she still didn’t want to go,” added Bev.

“Then I remembered something I’d read, about saw-whet owls, so I asked her if it might possibly be one of those. That got her interested,” said Dorothy, “and she agreed to take a look, just through the window in the door.”

“So we all went over to the stairwell and peeked in and we saw Peter, on his knees, staring into a box that he had on the floor. He was kind of chasing the bird around in the box, trying to grab it or something, and Agnes got all upset. She punched in the code, it took a couple of tries she was so mad, and she charged in, yelling at him to stop.”

“And what did you do?” asked Lucy.

“Well, we went in, too, but Peter said maybe it was too many people, that the owl was frightened, and we peeked in and the poor little thing was huddled in a corner of the box, kind of panting. He said that he and Agnes would take care of the owl,” recalled Bev, “and that’s when Bitsy got upset.”

“Why was that?” asked Lucy.

“I said I’d like to help, too,” continued Bitsy, “but Peter was quite firm. He reminded us that it was lunchtime, they were trying out a new menu and wanted to know if people liked it, and he said he especially wanted to know what I thought. . . .”

“And Agnes was fuming in that way she had, kind of like a teakettle steaming just before it goes into a boil and whistles,” recalled Bev.

“So we went off to the dining room, leaving Agnes and Peter together,” said Bitsy.

“In violation of the rule?” asked Lucy.

“I actually asked him about that,” said Dorothy. “I wasn’t interested in lunch, I had some leftovers from the Cali Kitchen I wanted to eat, so I asked if he wanted me to stay, but he said it would be all right just this once and he didn’t want to keep me from my noon meal.” She paused, as if wondering if she’d done the right thing, but quickly justified herself. “I couldn’t argue with him, it wasn’t my place. And I was right about the owl, it was definitely a saw-whet, I looked it up later.”

“But we never saw Agnes after that,” said Bev.

“What about Peter? Did you see him later that day?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bitsy. He always comes in when dessert is served and chats with the residents, makes sure everyone is happy. And, of course, he wanted to know what we thought of the meal. It was some sort of fake meat.”

“It was supposed to be better for the planet,” offered Bev.

“Well, I didn’t like it,” insisted Bitsy, scowling. “I don’t see what’s the matter with actual meat.”

“Did you ask him about Agnes?”

“Actually, no,” recalled Bev. “But he volunteered the information anyway. He said she was going to check out the owl, make sure it was okay, and then take it to the woods and release it.”

“At first we thought she’d got lost in the woods,” said Bitsy.

“But when they found her in the stairwell, we started to wonder,” said Dorothy. “Not at first, but as time passed, we began to feel we were somehow involved.”

Lucy pressed on. “But when you left, she was alive, alone with Peter?”

“It might’ve been an accident, she might’ve fallen carrying the box,” speculated Bev. “It’s tricky carrying a box down stairs. You can’t see the steps.”

“But there was something going on between them, you could sense it,” said Dorothy. “I think that’s why we’ve been worried.”

“You said Agnes was steaming . . .” suggested Lucy. “Was she angry? Confrontational?”

“At first,” remembered Bev. “But then I got the sense she was afraid.”

“I didn’t get that at all,” countered Bitsy.

Lucy looked to Dorothy, who repeated herself. “Afraid. Definitely afraid.”

“This is really important information,” said Lucy. “It means that Peter was probably the last person to see Agnes alive.”

“Does that mean he’s in trouble?” asked Bitsy.

“I think it means the police would want to talk to him again,” said Lucy.

“Lying to the police is a serious offense,” said Dorothy.

“Well, for all we know, he’s already told them all about it,” suggested Beverly.

“Right,” said Lucy, desperate to convince them to let her use this new information in a story that she believed would prompt the police to reopen the investigation. “I do think it would be best for everyone if I write this up for the paper, just the way you told me.”

The three women seemed to share some private signal, and Dorothy spoke up. “Only if we all agree, right, ladies?”

Bev and Bitsy nodded their heads in agreement.

“So what do you say?” asked Lucy, trying not to sound too eager.

“I don’t see the harm,” said Dorothy.

“I know it would take a load off my mind,” said Bev.

“Well, I disagree. We all made a double-pinky promise to keep it a secret and I don’t break my promises,” insisted Bitsy.

“Are you sure about this, Bitsy?” asked Dorothy.

Bitsy pouted. “Absolutely.”

Dorothy looked at Lucy and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Me too,” said Lucy, “but Bitsy’s got a point. A promise is a promise. I’ll keep this conversation to myself, but I’m not giving up, I’m going to keep investigating. If I get similar information from another source, I will use it.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Dorothy.

But Bitsy wasn’t pleased. “You wouldn’t!”

Lucy had a sudden flashback, she was suddenly back on the playground at PS 81 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where she grew up. Alex Richman and Linda Bruno were scoffing at her claim that she could go round the world on the playground swing. She answered back, “Oh, yes I can. Just watch me!” Fortunately for her, the bell rang ending recess and she didn’t have to make good on her boast, and a spell of bad weather ended outdoor recess for several days, by which time Linda and Alex had forgotten all about her boast. She hadn’t forgotten, however, and worried about being found out, because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t actually manage the trick. Years later she learned it was actually impossible, without special equipment.

But now, here in Heritage House, Lucy was determined to find out exactly what had happened between Peter Novak and Agnes Neal. “Oh, yes I would,” she said, with a sly smile. “Just watch me.”

Back in her car, she was fumbling in her bag for the keys, which always seemed to fall to the bottom, when she encountered her reporter’s notebook and tossed it aside. Just like she’d had to toss aside the Gang of Three’s confession. It really bothered her that she couldn’t use the story but she decided to jot down a few notes, for her own use, just in case. She turned on the engine to get some heat and sat there, scribbling away, getting down the women’s words as she remembered them. When she’d finished, it occurred to her that Agnes was a reporter, just like she was, and had most likely had the same habit of writing things down so she wouldn’t forget them, or get them wrong.

Matthieu Colon had told her that Agnes had confided to him that she suspected she’d found a Croat officer who had been involved in the assault on Ahmii—had that discovery led to her death? Was it possible that Peter Novak was actually a former Croat soldier? And had he killed Agnes to keep his identity secret? Lucy felt a growing sense of excitement, convinced that if Agnes had indeed been investigating the Ahmii massacre she would certainly have kept careful notes. Somewhere in her effects there must be a notebook or a recording, some form of documentation.

Her phone rang, it was Ted calling again, and again she ignored it. Instead, she dialed Geri Mazzone and asked if she’d saved her mother’s effects.

“Well, not really,” said Geri. “There wasn’t much, she just had that little apartment, so I cleared it out and gave everything to the Salvation Army. I did keep a little desk, it was a family heirloom.”

“Any papers? Or maybe her phone?”

“The phone’s dead, she used her thumb as an ID. I took it to the store but they said they couldn’t do anything.”

“Papers? Notebooks?”

“Maybe in the desk. I haven’t cleaned it out yet. I was waiting for my son to help me move some furniture so I can put it in my bedroom.”

“Would you mind if I looked at it?” asked Lucy. “I think she may have been working on something that led to her death, but I need more information.”

“It’s okay by me,” said Geri, “but I can’t imagine what you think you’ll find. Mom was definitely not a hoarder; she was a compulsive shredder. The minute she was done with a piece of paper it went into the shredder!”

Lucy’s spirits sank, but she wasn’t about to give up now that she’d finally found a lead that might explain Agnes’s death. If Peter Novak was implicated in the Ahmii massacre, and if he’d killed Agnes because she had discovered his guilt, it was time for the truth to come out. “I’ll be right over,” she said, shifting into gear.

Geri’s house was on the other side of town and it took Lucy twenty minutes to get there, growing more excited with every minute that passed. She was convinced that Agnes would have saved her notes and a desk seemed like a natural place to tuck them away. Of course, Geri had warned her that Agnes was a devoted shredder, and Lucy also knew that a lot of journalists destroyed their notes once a story was published, to protect their sources, especially if the story was based on a whistle-blower’s account. Those notes couldn’t be subpoenaed if they didn’t exist.

When she reached Geri’s little ranch house, she found Geri was waiting for her in the unheated garage, wearing only a sweater that had seen better days, her arms wrapped across her chest for warmth. “Golly, it’s colder than I thought. When is spring coming?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Lucy. “Thanks for doing this.” She looked around but didn’t see a desk. “Where’s the desk?”

“It’s here,” said Geri, leading the way to a boxy shape covered by a painter’s drop cloth. “I already looked through it, while Mom was still missing. There really wasn’t anything of interest.”

“You never know,” said Lucy, resolving not to give up before she’d started. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Okay.” Geri dragged the drop cloth away, revealing a very petite, black-and-gold chinoiserie drop-front desk.

“That was really your mom’s?” asked Lucy, shocked by the piece’s feminine style. She’d expected something like Ted’s prized rolltop, the enormous desk he’d inherited from his grandfather.

“Yeah, it was her mother’s before it came to her, she said it was ridiculously impractical but she absolutely adored it.”

Lucy noticed the detailed gold design, which featured weeping willow trees, temples, flowers, and, of course, birds. “It is a lovely piece of furniture, and I imagine it’s quite valuable.”

“I have no idea,” admitted Geri. “I have just the spot for it in my bedroom but I have to get a big old bookcase moved out.”

“Do you mind if I take a look inside?”

“Go right ahead. I’m probably going to toss out the contents anyway.”

Lucy lowered the drop front, revealing a row of tiny drawers with cubbyholes on top. A ceramic figure of a bright yellow goldfinch sat in the middle cubby, but the ones on either side contained folded bits of paper and envelopes. Lucy pulled them out, discovering some old receipts and postcards, a map of the trails in the conservation area, and a few business cards. Pulling out the drawers she found some postage stamps, a few pens, and a box of paper clips.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Geri.

Lucy closed the slanted flap and eyed the four drawers beneath it. “What about the drawers?”

“Go ahead, but I’m warning you, they’re very shallow. There’s not much in them.”

Pulling them open, one by one, Lucy found folded sheets of wrapping paper, a ruler, several packs of notepaper featuring birds, a handful of large manila envelopes, an address book, a phone book, and a pair of faded black-and-white studio portraits.

“My great-great-grandparents,” laughed Geri, as Lucy studied the rather stern expression of a woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a flamboyantly mustachioed, rather stout gentleman sporting a diamond stickpin in his striped tie. “A real fun couple. I’ve been told she was a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.”

“He more than her, I’d guess,” said Lucy, chuckling. “He looks like someone who enjoyed a hearty meal.”

“Family lore has it that he was very much under her thumb. He emigrated from Sweden and she insisted he lose his accent before she would consent to marry him.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Lucy, “she doesn’t look like someone you’d like to trifle with.”

“You could say my mother took after her,” said Geri, replacing the photos and shutting the drawer. “I’m sorry there wasn’t anything here for you.” She was reaching for the drop cloth when Lucy had a sudden inspiration.

“You know, I saw a desk like this on Antiques Roadshow.”

This caught Geri’s interest. “Was it valuable?”

“I can’t remember,” admitted Lucy. “But what I do remember is that it had a secret compartment.”

Geri dropped her hands. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Lucy once again lowered the flap that served as a writing surface and carefully moved the figure of the goldfinch to one corner. “See how this cubby is much shallower than the others?”

“There’s a hidden space behind!” exclaimed Geri. “But how do you open it?”

Lucy gave a gentle push with one finger and they heard a little click. “Like that,” she said, giggling with excitement. “Just like that.”

“What’s inside?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything,” said Lucy, bending down and poking into the cubby. “There is something, I can’t quite reach it.”

“Use that ruler,” advised Geri.

“Good idea.” Lucy retrieved the ruler and poked it into the cubby, drawing out an old piece of newsprint that had begun to turn brown. It was foreign, the words were in French, but when she unfolded the brittle scrap, the photo revealed the much younger but clearly recognizable face of a man dressed in military fatigues, identified in the caption as Croat Colonel Pyotr Novak Varga. Lucy’s high school French was rusty, but she understood enough to learn that he was wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims. Those alleged crimes included ordering massacres, systematic rape programs, and the destruction of hospitals and mosques.

Here it was, thought Lucy, staring at the aged scrap of newsprint. The bit of information that explained everything, the discovery that cost Agnes Neal her life.