She nods and falls silent, her forehead wrinkling as she slips into deep thought, tracing the edges of the envelope.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
“Learn the rest of the story. Is it weird to care even though I know it’s Catherine now?”
“It would be weirder if you didn’t.”
“I want to fill in the gaps. Get the rest of the story. We know they got married. She’s clearly loved art and history her whole life. I hope she got her master’s and the big house and still got as much time at the Sutton as she wanted with her kids in a stroller, and a nanny too, if that’s what she wanted.” She pauses, then so quietly I barely hear her, she says, “I hope it was happy.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Me too.”
“We need to get these back to her.” She straightens, and I can almost see the gears in her head speed up. “Catherine said she was driving back to Boston this morning. We can get these to her before she goes.”
“Is it that urgent? You could mail them to her.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You think after all this I would put these in the mail?”
Yeah, that would be dumb. “Suggestion withdrawn.”
“Besides, wouldn’t you want these back the minute you knew they’d been found after they’d been missing for who knows how long?”
“I would. Are you going to email her and hope she checks it before she gets on the road?”
She shakes her head. “She said she was staying in a hotel. Where do you think Catherine Crawford would stay while she’s in town? Theonlyplace she would stay?”
“Ah, the Spring Manor.” It’s the nicest hotel in town. Phoebe’s already doing a voice search for the phone number.
“Hello,” she says. “Could you put me through to Catherine Crawford’s room, please? No, I don’t know the number.” She mouths,on hold, then nods and adds,ringing.
“Catherine, hi, it’s Phoebe Hopper. No, nothing’s wrong. In fact, it might be the opposite. I was wondering if I could meet with you before you leave for Boston. I’ve found something of yours I’d like to return.” A pause as she listens. “I’d probably better show you in person. Yes, Serendipi-Tea will work. Yes, an hour. See you then.”
“Am I invited? I don’t want to assume. I know your dynamic with Catherine is tricky.”
“Are youinvited? You are essential. And now I need to get the other letters.”
“You want me to meet you at Serendipi-Tea?”
She looks uncertain. “If you want to? But I see old SamBrown is face out again. Do you want to come with me to grab the letters and tell me about New Jersey on the way?”
I know nothing is settled between us. I know we’re still at the outer perimeter of big things that have almost been said but are still unspoken. I know it’s impossible to predict how Catherine will take this, and I know Phoebe is taking a risk by showing up to meet Catherine with me by her side.
But yeah, there’s nothing I’d rather do than run a thirty-minute errand with Phoebe and tell her what I found. Is that a love language? Being really into each other’s random history investigations?
I just say, “I’d love to.”
We climb into her car, and she says, “So, New Jersey,” as she reverses out of the driveway.
“Goldmine,” I say. “Or it is if you think old letters no one else cares about are gold.”
“Obviously,” she says.
“I figured. It turns out that what made Samuel Davis Brown tick more than greed was revenge. I don’t know if it makes him a better person, but it makes him more human. You ever hear of the Pine Robbers?” I ask.
“No.”
“I only have because my dissertation was all about dirty dealings during the Revolutionary War. The Pine Barrens—as in barren landscape—was a subregion in New Jersey that no one cared about before the war. But during the war, it became a thieves’ wood, basically, where Loyalists hid and wreaked havoc, mostly as marauders.”
“How have I never heard about this?” she asks. “It sounds like the kind of thing we should have at least twenty big Hollywood movies about.”
