vii.

I learned through North—God knew where he got his information, for it wasn’t reported to the press—that William insisted someone else must have broken into his home and used the typewriter.

On that foggy Sunday morning, North relayed this information to me as we sat directly across from the Lexington Museum. The museum was located in North Beach, the Bohemian-cum-touristy neighborhood that could no longer be considered Italian, though some of the city’s oldest and best Italian restaurants still lined Columbus and Broadway streets. We had the cafe’s prime sidewalk spot. On the corner of two streets, it was the perfect location for people-watching, and other cafe patrons glanced covetously at our spot as they looked around with their cappuccinos.

I didn’t think North had lucked into the table. Henry North was a man who thought of all the angles and prepared for every possible situation. There was a time he’d wanted a table with a certain vantage point for a heist and wasn’t sure who would be sitting there, so he’d obtained passes to a Paris amusement park, as well as tickets to an opera and a sultry dance show, plus dinner reservations at a restaurant impossible for mere mortals to secure, and most likely other contingencies. I briefly wondered what the lucky tourists or locals who’d had this particular location moments before had gotten out of the deal. Hopefully something better than having North tell them their car was being towed.

“Sorry you didn’t get to delve more into the curse before they caught William,” North said. “Regardless of how much you protested, I knew the challenge had you hooked.”

“The curse is a lost cause now anyway. Did you see the dozens of online sites that sprang up after Margery’s murder? They’re supposedly discussions of ‘inside information’ about the curse, but it’s all fake information that was written in the last three days. The curse is now a full-blown legend, 99 percent of it false. How is a historian supposed to do her job in the twenty-first century?”

“Which is why you want to see the records inside the museum.”

“The sculpture is still missing.”

Our original plan had been to meet at the museum itself, but it was still closed to the public as a crime scene. No police tape lined the museum’s modest facade. Instead, a prominent CLOSED sign had been hung on the entrance’s double doors. The museum was smaller than I’d remembered, similar in size to the historical City Lights Bookstore down the street.

“Life was easier when I didn’t have to work with the police,” North said. “It’s an affront to my dignity that they’re keeping the museum’s security consultant locked out of the museum.”

“Someone’s inside, though,” I said, pointing at the second-floor windows. “Is that a flashlight beam?”

North swore and jumped up. I swung my red messenger bag across my chest and ran across the street ahead of him.

“I don’t see it anymore,” I said, standing at the front of the building. “Maybe it was a reflection from a passing car? It’s foggy enough that some people are using headlights.” Though as I spoke the words, I didn’t believe them myself. There had definitely been a moving light inside the museum.

“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “Come on. This way.”

We hurried along the street past an antique store and an art gallery, until we came to a narrow alley, which led us to the delivery area at the rear of the businesses.

“Where’s their car?” he murmured as he extracted his cell phone. He turned away from me and spoke quietly, so I couldn’t hear his conversation. When he turned back less than a minute later, his face was red. “It’s not the police inside.”

“One of the staff members, then,” I said with more conviction than I felt. Those flickering lights…

North shook his head and stared at the rear door. “According to the police, nobody is supposed to be inside the museum yet.”

“Where should we wait?” I asked.

“Wait for who?”

“The police.”

“That beautiful naïveté of yours surfaces again. The police have arrested their killer. They have more important crimes to worry about than a museum staffer who’s crossed a police line.”

“Nobody is coming? But what if William had an accomplice? Or if he didn’t do it?”

North entered a string of numbers into a keypad next to the back door. The lock clicked, and with a smile, he pulled the door open. “After you.”