An Uncollected Death Read online

both.”

  “It was long ago, Aunt Helene. But everything that happened to me after I graduated from high school and went to work at the mill was my responsibility, the luck of the draw, whatever. Things weren’t too bad until the mills started having trouble back in the nineties. A lot of us got laid off and didn’t get back in, and the unions started losing ground. Had a fair-sized pension built up, but it evaporated, like everyone else’s, so retiring after twenty-five years wasn’t an option anymore. There was a bunch of us in the same boat, and we became contractors, worked on road crews, freelance mechanics, that kind of thing. But now things are even worse, and I’m in my fifties, and, to be frank, I admit I could use some financial security right now.”

  “You couldn’t ask your mother for help?”

  He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t going to happen, because I never paid her back for the first time she gave me a big loan after I lost my retirement savings and my truck was repo’d. And she was really unforgiving about that. I needed a car to get to jobs, and found a deal, but it had to be cash. She helped me out, but I never got on top of things again, just one deal after another fell through, and there always seemed to be more urgent things to take care of than paying back my mom’s loan. I know it makes me look bad, but it never looked like she was hurting for anything. If you want proof, I’m still driving that car.” He tilted his head toward the Charger, which was just visible through the drapery sheers.

  “What about now, though? What are you doing for work now?” Helene was gentle, but persistent. Charlotte realized she had scarcely breathed while Donovan was telling his story. It seemed like the truth to her, and he seemed genuinely contrite.

  “Well, my age and the economy aren’t a good mix. I just pick up work as a general laborer or mechanic. I got arthritis real bad, plus some breathing problems. Don’t have a work history of anything like tending bar or sales, and I’m not that good with people, anyway. Got a friend down in Costa Rica, and thought I’d get together some cash and go there. The dollar goes a lot further, and I can get out of these winters here. I admit I’ve hit the wall. I was going to see if I could sell some of this stuff over at Warren Brothers or on eBay, raise a little cash. A lot of these things are antiques now. But it looks like Mom had other ideas.”

  Helene looked as if she had come to a decision about something. “I’d like to help you out, Donnie. I don’t need the money and feel it should all be yours, anyway. That being said, I do feel obligated to honor your mother’s wishes about finding her notebooks and having them published. You already know Charlotte’s role in this, and I’ve also brought in my friend Simon, who is a photographer, to help with documenting the contents of the house for valuation as per the terms of the will. Once the notebooks are found and the expenses are at least estimated, I believe it will be possible to turn it all over to you. Or, at the very least, it will be ready for a sale and you will receive everything left after expenses.”

  Donovan looked a little more hopeful. “Did you have a time frame in mind for it, any idea?”

  “Well, we’re just getting started here today, but I think we could be out of here in a week or so.”

  Charlotte felt herself gulp. She hoped Helene wasn’t making promises that couldn’t be kept.

  “That would be great, Aunt Helene. I can’t begin to thank you enough for that and I’m really sorry I blew up. Is there anything I can do to help you out?”

  Helene looked around the room as if assessing an answer. “Anything you could think of to help us figure out your mother’s peculiar filing system for these notebooks would be very useful.” She pointed at the notebook Charlotte held and explained that there were many more, evidently hidden throughout the house.

  “I haven’t been here much since I was a kid, and most of this is stuff Mom and Dad accumulated after that time, or even after Dad died. I put those shelves up for her maybe three or four years ago, ‘cause she was buying so many books. And since I didn’t even know she was writing, I have no idea where she’d keep those notebooks. You probably would have a better handle on that than I do.”

  “I was wondering,” said Simon, pointing to the patch of newspapers over the bloodstain on the rug, “if you could give me a hand in getting this rug out of here, maybe take it to the back yard and see if it can be cleaned.”

  Donovan paled slightly as whatever hopefulness he had seemed to wither away. “Oh god, yeah, of course.”

  It took a while, but they maneuvered the rug out from under the furniture and managed to get it out of the house without mishap, which Simon declared, without thinking, a bloody miracle. Helene winced.

  Donovan’s cell phone rang, and he looked relieved to have an excuse to go back outside and take the call.

  Charlotte, Helene, and Simon moved to the front window and watched him as he tensed during the call, leaning forward with his head down in concentration.

  “I get the feeling,” said Helene, “that the call is important and is not going well.”

  Charlotte nodded. “You know how a person automatically speaks loudly if they want the other person to speak loudly, as in a poor connection, even though that is not always how it actually works with cell phones? He looks like he’s straining to hear, but he’s not talking loudly.”

  “That’s what it is.” Helene sighed and looked up at Simon. “What do you think of all this?”

  “He’s definitely hard up. I don’t think he’d hurt anybody, but I don’t think I’d let him have the run of this place, either.”

  Then they heard Donovan raise his voice, and rub the back of his head with his free hand. As he turned, they could see his distress, and he was pleading, “It’ll just take time, it’s out of my hands for a little while, but I’m good for it!” The reply, whatever it was, clearly exasperated him, and Charlotte thought for a moment that he was going to throw the phone out into the street the way he threw Helene’s phone at the urn with his mother’s ashes. As Donovan came back toward the house, Simon and Helene quickly left the room, and Charlotte moved to the bookshelves, pretending she had not been trying to eavesdrop.

  Donovan entered and grabbed his jacket and car keys. “Look, Charlotte, I’m sorry, but I gotta go deal with some stuff, and I don’t know how long it’ll take, might be a day, might be a couple of days.”

  “Everything okay?” asked Charlotte, taking note of his paleness.

  “No big deal, just a pain in the neck, some guys I talked to about a job. But tell Aunt Helene I’ll be back as soon as I can.” With that he strode out the door, half-ran to his car, and sped off.

  Charlotte was nonplussed. “I’m good for it!” sounded as if Donovan owed money, which would fit with his own admission that he was in need of “financial security,” and with his anger at not being able to dispose of his mother’s household effects immediately. Just how much trouble was he in, though, and with whom? She looked down at the desk, where there was a small framed picture of Donovan as a little boy in a Dracula costume. He looked about eight years old, smiling shyly instead of snarling and showing off his fangs like she’d known other boys around that age would do when they wanted to be in character. There was white makeup on his face, which emphasized the widow’s peak of his hairline. It also emphasized the tired, sad look of his eyes, a look he had to this day, more haunted than haunting.

   

  They gathered in the living room, Simon in the recliner, Helene on the sofa, and Charlotte back in the wingback chair, from where she could study the bookshelves again.

  “I really don’t know what to think about Donovan,” said Helene. “Clearly he was counting on a full inheritance, being an only child and all. I would have been happy to have stayed out of this whole situation, but Olivia really wanted this. I think she suspected that Donovan would just go for the money and not care about the writing part of it.”

  “Interesting about the rift that started because he didn’t pay his mother back for the loan to buy a car,” said Simon. “I wonder if that transaction a
ppears in the ledgers?”

  “So what if it does?” asked Charlotte.

  “It’s about where Olivia got that kind of money. I’m thinking that could give us an idea of what was really valuable in this house, but of course that’s just a guess.”

  Helene raised her hand. “I’ll volunteer to track that down.”

  “There are two mysteries to solve here,” said Charlotte. “One, of course, is what happened the other day that led to Olivia’s assault—what, if anything, is missing, and why. You’re right, Simon, that knowing what was worth a lot of money might give us a clue. The other mystery is where are her notebooks? All we’ve got to go on is the contents of the one notebook we have and the contents of this house, and perhaps the ledgers, but it looks like she stopped keeping them for the past few years. The one thing that connects the two mysteries is the fact that an altercation occurred in this room, in front of these books, and a book was knocked down on the floor. There are, however, several empty spots in the bookcase, not just one.”

  “Well-spotted, Charlotte,” said Simon. He rose to take a closer look at the gaps where books were missing. “They are very dusty, except for two of them, which suggests they were taken out longer ago than the other day. This one,” he pointed to a spot in the middle shelf, “is in the