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Nate looks through the ring and identifies a couple of keys as possibilities, and we walk two blocks to the post office. Inside the door, post office boxes stretch from floor to ceiling. Nate locates box number seventy-two and tries the keys on the ring. To my surprise, the third key he tries fits in the lock.
He glances over at me as he turns the key and opens the little metal door. He pulls out a pile of junk mail along with a small, sealed envelope.
&nbs
p; “There’s no address or anything on it,” I say. “Should we open it?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Nate says. He glances around, but there isn’t anyone else in the lobby. He slips his finger under the flap and tears open the envelope. He pulls out a single piece of paper and reads it aloud. “Empire secretary left.” He shakes his head in frustration. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What empire, and where did the secretary go?”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I say with a snicker. “Empire is a furniture style, and a secretary is a type of desk with drawers at the bottom, a hinged desktop, and a glass case on top. It’s got lots of small compartments over the writing area, which folds up to close the whole thing off.”
“So, are there any of these at the shop?”
“Sure,” I say. “More than one. It’s a common piece.”
We head back to the antique shop, and I point out a few Empire secretary desks.
“Any of them stand out to you?” Nate asks.
“Actually, yes.” I walk over to one of the pieces near the back. A square of paper marks the desk as sold.
“Why this one?” Nate asks. “She wouldn’t sell something that was important.”
“Because this one has been sitting here with that sign on it for years,” I say. “I remember asking her once if the buyer was ever going to pick it up, and she said something about them moving out of town, but she agreed to hold it for them indefinitely.”
“That certainly seems a little odd.”
I run my hand up the left side of the desk, but nothing seems unusual. Nate helps me pull it away from the wall, and we both look all around it but find nothing.
“What are we missing?” Nate asks.
“Well, it wasn’t unusual to have hidden compartments in old desks like these. There has to be one somewhere.”
We check for a false bottom on the drawers but find none. I look around the inside of the cabinet section and again run my hand up the left side. On the very top corner, the position of the cornice appears slightly off.
“Nate, can you reach that top part?”
He reaches up above my head, pulls at the underside of the wood, and a small hidden drawer falls out in his hand.
“Another fucking note,” he mutters when he brings it down to eye level. “Was the woman who raised you into mystery novels by any chance?”
“Yes, actually, she was.”
“This note reads ‘Victorians weren’t all about safety.’ Should I assume this is about Victorian furniture?”
“That would be a fair assumption.” I look around the shop, but I don’t see any Victorian era items with sold signs on them. I check out a few items, but nothing of interest strikes me.
“This is ridiculous.” Nate is clearly frustrated. “We’re getting nowhere.”
Suddenly, I remember something.
“You know, there’s a Victorian bookcase at the house that has a hidden compartment with a safe in it. I wonder if she could have meant that.”
“Back to the house, then.”
We head back outside. The snow is coming down harder, and the streets are covered. As we walk up to the curb, a black pickup truck with a snowplow on the front slows and stops before us. The driver leans over to manually roll down the window, revealing a familiar face.
“Is that you, Cherry?”
