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“Mom. You can’t mean that.”
“Peggy, seriously?” Janine said. “Like Sarah was her daughter come back to life?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. More like she knew that with a great-grandson, Leo, and now a great-granddaughter, Sarah, the family legacy was in good hands.”
F
rom the kitchen, they heard the oven beep, and Janine excused herself.
“Does the name Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society mean anything to you?”
“Sarah, what is this? Where are all these questions coming from?”
She showed her mother the box of letters.
Peggy took the top envelope from the stack and read the address. “‘Mrs. Cornelius McCaskill, Whitetail Lodge, Deer Park, Montana.’ Back when that was enough to get your mail to you. They still name houses in England.”
Sarah flashed on the letters sent by owl to Mr. H. Potter, the Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, informing him of his acceptance to Hogwarts. Letter after letter, owl after owl, until Uncle Vernon screwed the mail slot shut, and the owls began shooting letters down the chimney. Her eyes darted involuntarily to the stone chimney, thirty feet high.
And she sometimes thought her mother was a bubble off plumb.
H. Caro’s journal mentioned H, but there was little chance they’d ever know who H had been.
“We named Connor for him, you know,” Peggy was saying. “For Con. The McCaskills love naming themselves after themselves, but I could not call my child Cornelius.”
Sarah smiled, then told her mother about the trunk. About Caro’s journal and how they’d pieced it all together. “The letters in the Whitman’s Sampler box are mostly thank-you notes for loans the Society made to women in need. Women who’d been abandoned, or who wanted to leave an abusive marriage. Small loans, from what we can tell, repaid promptly. No interest, so it was clearly a benevolent undertaking.”
Peggy stared at her, the envelope from Mrs. Pennington of Cincinnati now forgotten in her lap. “And who—who was this girl? You said her name.”
“Anja. It’s spelled A-n-j-a, but Caro described her as the Laceys’ Swedish housemaid, so we’re saying the j as a y.”
“Anja,” Peggy repeated. “And she died tragically?”
“We think so, but we’re speculating, based on Caro’s comments. Nic’s in town, asking questions about the murder. Holly went along to see what she could dig up in the old records that might help us identify Anja and what happened to her.”
“I thought all those files were online these days.”
Sarah held out her hands. “No phone, no internet.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Those nincompoops haven’t come out to fix the line yet? Well, come in and use my Wi-Fi if you need to.”
As long as she didn’t set foot in the studio.
“And how are the loans related to this Anja’s death?” Peggy asked.
“Not sure they are, except that Caro was involved in both. They might have pooled their money to send the girl’s body to her family and that got them started. We don’t know.”
“Her body.”
“If we’ve put it together right, she drowned in the lake.” Sarah took the rolled-up photo from the coffee table. “We found this photo of a house party the Laceys threw during the Christmas season of 1921. Some of the names are written on the back—by Mrs. Lacey, we presume—though they’re pretty faint. Con and Caro were at the party, but it isn’t Caro’s handwriting. This is Anja.” She pointed at the ghostly blonde in the somber uniform, with the wild eyes and the coronet of braids, then glanced at her mother.
Who had gone as pale as the ivory linen envelope in her hand.
* * *
“You knew her,” Sarah said a few minutes later, trying not to hover as Peggy settled into a chair outside on the deck. “You recognized her.”
Peggy spoke with her eyes closed, her face lifted to the sun. “After your father died, three years ago, I came out here for a few days’ respite. In all the years I’ve been a McCaskill, I don’t think I’d ever spent a night alone in the lodge until then.” She opened her eyes and accepted the frosty glass of hibiscus iced tea Janine handed her. Janine took the chair next to Sarah’s.
