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A bright morning sun masked my mood, causing me to squirm further under the blankets. After last night’s discoveries, Aaron had taken the remainder of his shift off.
“Let’s get dressed and get out of here.” Aaron flipped back the covers.
“No choice but to get up,” I groaned. Reluctantly, I dressed.
Together, we walked down the hallway to the kitchen “There’s a weird feeling snaking through me, like do I need the extra set of car keys?” I shook my head. “Can’t figure out why.” I went to the kitchen junk drawer and grabbed the extra keys, along with the memory stick. “Oh, and look at this.”
“Let me see.” Aaron rubbed his chin. “Where did you get it?” “It was on the sidewalk outside the shop, the night Blanche was murdered.” I placed it back into the drawer, and Aaron made
sure that the house was locked before climbing into the car. “Mergens will want to hear about that memory stick.” Could it be yet another clue?
My mind spun in circles about all the clues and how they might fit into the Lincoln Puzzle as we drove to the hospital to visit Max. “Hey, you. You’ll do anything to get out of work, won’t you?”
I felt funny as we stepped inside Max’s room. Max had tubes hooked into him and he looked pale. I’d never seen him look so haggard and it was awful to see him this way—the opposite of his usual vibrant self.
“I’m all right, really I am.” Max looked back at me through cloudy eyes. “I feel like shit, though. One helluva headache... and my neck hurts like hell.” Half-grinning, he said, “You saved my life.” “I wish there was something more that I could’ve done to prevent this.” With his hand in mine I said, “But tell me what
happened.”
“Went for gas. Thought I saw a light on in the store. So I parked and checked it out. Don’t remember much else.” Max rubbed his neck and grimaced. “Ouch!”
“Basically all you did was enter? What’d you do, clunk your boots on the floor?” I massaged his forearm. “Who would have guessed you’d be the next victim.”
“Gee, what an honor,” Max said between clenched teeth. Looking at Aaron, he grumbled, “What in the hell is going on?”
“Good question,” Aaron replied, plopping into a chair. “We’re all mixed up.”
“That’s comforting.” Max turned his gaze on me. “Liv, what’s up?”
“Mary Lincoln is the focus. All those crazy clues that we’ve found must add up to something.” I almost melted from Max’s bloodshot eyes.
“Century and a half old mystery.” Max frowned. “Go on, let’s hear it.”
“The toy bear is ripped in shreds. Tad Lincoln’s bear...but they left his uniform alone. Go figure.” I cocked my head. “Last night we carefully searched for clues, but came up empty handed. There’s so much we don’t understand.”
“How many years has it been since the Civil War, and this speech was given how many years prior to his inauguration? It’s ridiculous.”
“It all seems to tie together.” I honestly didn’t know what to think myself. “Well, I’m tired of this nonsense.” I noticed that Max had raised his right foot under the blanket.
“Don’t come back unless you have something of importance to say. Geez. First it was Dolley Madison causing all sorts of shenanigans, now mysteries around Lincoln.” He yanked his blanket higher.
“We’ll keep you informed,” Aaron told him.
We used Aaron’s cell phone when we were back in the car to do a Google search to find out where the nearest Masonic Lodge was located. There was one only twenty minutes away.
The lodge was in the heart of Northeast Minneapolis, the section of town where mainly Polish, German, and Slovakian immigrants had settled. It was full of Catholic churches as well as plenty of wonderful ethnic restaurants and meat markets. Traffic rushed around us as we tried to find a parking space in a lot. Aaron finally gave up and parked on the street.
“Do you think we’ll be able to enter?” I asked. “The symbols are right there, on their building, and they’re just as Mary had drawn them. I feel in my bones that we’re nearing some kind of revelation, don’t you?”
“Yes, but what is it?” Aaron asked. “Let’s get out so we can take a look around.”
The large, square, red brick building looked even more ominous the closer we came to it. I hesitated in front of the door. “Should we knock?”
“Maybe it’s always open, sort of like a church.”
“Right.” I reached for the doorknob but happily stepped aside as Aaron tried opening it. It was locked. So much for that theory. With Aaron leading, we walked around the packed down, snow-covered sidewalk to the back door but found that locked.
Aaron knocked, but after a couple minutes with no response, we turned and walked toward the car.
Once inside the car, I asked, “Now what do we do?”
“There must be pictures online showing the interior of these lodges. They are bound to be similar, as they are all part of the same organization.” Aaron started the engine and began to drive away from the curb, still eyeing the building. “It’s got to be several stories high.”
“The staircase.” My eyebrows rose in puzzlement. “Mary deliberately drew it. If only we knew why.”
“Where to now?”
“Back to the store. It’s time to take another look at the stuffed bear and the desk.”
We drove onto Main Street and headed toward the store. Aaron spotted the frown that came to my face as we arrived in the parking lot behind the store.
“Don’t worry. The police have beefed up the patrol. It’s all safe.” After we parked, he offered, “I’ll go in first. How does that sound?”
“Good. Much better.” I opened the car door to step out and the fresh air felt good on my cheeks. “Too much has happened.” Aaron climbed from the car. “Thank you, baby.”
Aaron opened the door and entered with me following close behind.
“Any bad guys here?” Aaron called with a smile.
In the workroom, we removed our jackets and hung them on the clothes tree.
“Let’s take care of the house last.” When my gaze fell on the ruined little house, I said, “This hurts. It’s so unnecessary and hateful.”
“I know, Liv.” He placed his arm over my shoulder for a moment. “Let’s do it.”
“You first.”
“All right. Come along.”
We stood at the showroom entrance, and gazed around the room.
“Well, let’s start picking up this mess.”
“Right. Let’s get a bag to hold all the toy bear parts.” I walked over to the desk. “I want to take a closer inspection of this, too.” “Me too. All we did before was glance at it, open the drawer, and that’s about it.” After grabbing a plastic bag, I went over to the desk and picked up each fragment of the fragile old fabric. Each seam and the filler appeared to be like any normal stuffed animal, except the rear, which had the long-john-like trapdoor.
“Why the oak tree?” I carried the pieces over to the counter and sat down in front of the computer. While the computer went through its start-up procedures, I held up the embroidered section to the light and studied it. In my mind’s eye, there was an image of Mary’s chubby, short fingers pushing the needle in and out. The points of the stitched leaves were impeccable. The brown looked like a trunk. One nut hung from a branch, which was barely visible. “There’s a nut on this tree.” I held it up. “Come here.”
Aaron got up from where he had been kneeling and came over to me. “Let me see.”
I pointed to it. “The nut might be important to the investigation. We need to keep it safe. We shouldn’t part with it or talk about it except between us.”
“Agree, not until the meaning behind it is made clear.”
“Let’s remove this small bit with the tree on it and hide it when we get home.” I placed the scrap inside a business envelope. “Before we go, I’m going to check my messages and send one to Inga. I haven’t heard from Maggie in a while, either.”
The website had ten messages, most of them pertaining to the houses. Three caught my eye.
The first read: It’s lost but not forgotten.
The second: You’re entering the waters of the unknown.
The third was cryptic and gave me the creeps. It read: Miss Olivia, Follow him to the grave, that’s where you’ll find it. Seek and ye shall find, but make sure you watch your back.
“Aaron, come here. You have to read this!” I turned the monitor so he could see it better.
“I’m calling the station, don’t delete it.”
“I won’t. They’re being forwarded right now to the detectives.” I logged into my personal e-mail account, where there were several messages that needed replies. Maggie had written to ask if the four of us could get together soon for dinner, and I replied positively. Inga sent a message saying she was back to work, and that Holly was working more hours to help her out. In my reply, I told her what had happened with the toy bear and about the embroidered oak tree. All relevant information pertaining to the Masonic Lodge was relayed before I sent the message. Afterward, the message went in the Mary Lincoln file. I noticed that all my messages in the file were in a different order.
“Honey? He did it again. My files are rearranged.” When I didn’t hear Aaron coming, I called, “Aaron!”
“I’m right here,” he said. “What else?” He stood with his hands on his hips.
“The Pennies jar.” I looked under the counter for it. “Have you seen the jar?”
“Nope.” He shook his head.
“Me neither.” I looked where it was usually stored. “Gone.” I snapped my fingers. “Better call the police. Besides the messed up files, the missing jar, there’s a cryptic message in my webmail.” “What next?” Aaron said. “Let me in there. You did forward
the messages to Mergens, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” I walked away so he could read them. I went to get the miniature dollhouses and removed each from its box. I carefully made sure they were in perfect shape before setting each dollhouse on the shelf, beginning with Dolley’s White House, Abigail’s, and then Jackie’s. The Rose Garden looked magnificent after a bit of rearranging. “Jackie, now your Rose Garden looks as beautiful as you.” After they were properly displayed, the next job was to pick up the ruined pieces of the Lincoln house. Painstakingly, I picked up each piece. A tiny table leg went into the nearby basket—ruined. The table top, the war room where the desks were lined in a row like soldiers going to battle, one by one, they all went into the trash. Lincoln’s watch. His bedside table. Mary’s mirror. Such a waste.
When I closed my eyes I could see Mary stitching. In and out. In and out. Snipping, and sewing the tiny family tree with the nut on the tallest branch. She glanced in the mirror, but what had she seen? Whom had she seen? Had someone tried to kill her for the speech?