The Letters: An Abigail Stone Mystery

By Charlotte Lewis

When Abigail Stone visited the local historical museum she wandered into an area being renovated for a new permanent exhibit. The volunteer working there told her that the brick wall she was examining had once been the outer wall of the museum. It had been covered when an addition to the museum was added in 1948.
While talking to the volunteer about the exhibit that would eventually be housed in this large area, Abigail noticed an irregularity in the brick work of the recently uncovered outer wall. Upon closer examination, she found a loose brick and, behind it, a note.
Some time later a couple who were renovating their very old house found a packet of letters tied together wedged behind a rafter in the attic. Because the top few letters appeared to be written by the librarian nearly a hundred years before, they brought the letters to the museum. The note Abigail found had been written by the same person. She did some research to discover who the writer was and to whom he was writing. She uncovered both a love story and an unsolved 100-year old crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456893330

Charlotte Lewis

Charlotte Lewis, a retired accountant, lives in Southeast Kansas. Charlotte graduated from University of Southern California with a major in elementary education and a minor in music. Since retirement, she has self-published several novels and has published in Reminisce Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Hackathon Short Stories, Readers Digest Online, and Mused – an online journal. There's more to learn at charlottelewisonline.com

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The Letters

An Abigail Stone Mystery

Charlotte Lewis

Copyright © 2011 by Charlotte Lewis.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4628-5872-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-9333-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the volunteers, past and present, who have given freely of their time, effort and love to the Clark County Historical Museum, Vancouver, Washington.

CHAPTER ONE

Shortly after I moved to the State of Washington, a big hullabaloo started over building a new bridge over the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver. There are currently two separate spans crossing the river; one was built in 1917 and the other in the mid-1950s. So it seemed logical to me that perhaps it was time for a new bridge.

However, it appeared that 90% of the hubbub was over whether or not there would be a toll on the new bridge (to help defray costs). After following the media circus for several weeks I decided to visit the local historical museum and research the old bridges and see how they were built and paid for at the time of their construction.

The museum is built into or onto a hill. It’s rather difficult to explain if you’ve never seen it. To enter the front door, you have to climb a set of 13 stairs. To enter from the back side, there is an elevator. (Which I learned was rather new and installed to satisfy a Disabled Americans Act—or something.) The path to the elevator is cut through the hill. It’s ½ floor down to the ground floor and ½ floor up to the main exhibit areas.

The first time I visited the museum some months before I went up the 13 stairs. This time I took the elevator—I had parked on a side street and it was the closest entrance. The elevator opened into a large cavernous empty room. Well, not quite empty. The man I had met the first time I visited, Richard—a volunteer, was vacuuming the room.

He turned off the vacuum and greeted me warmly. Nice to see you back, Mrs. Stone. How can we help you today?

Good morning, Richard. I looked around the room trying to remember what had been there the last time. It took me a moment to get my bearings. This had been the research library. Great, the room I was looking for is now a big empty space. What are you doing?

He grinned. Now that is pretty obvious, Mrs. Stone, I am vacuuming.

Yes, I can see that. But why? It’s an empty room.

The room is being remodeled to accommodate a new permanent exhibit. There’s a general membership meeting tonight and the Director thought it best to hold it in this room. But we don’t want the dust of remodeling tracked into the main gallery. So I am vacuuming.

I looked around the room. The wall on the west side of the room was covered with red brick. Why would anyone brick an interior wall? It’s quite attractive but a bit unusual.

Actually, that used to be an exterior wall. This wing was added to the building in 1948. Apparently, when the new area was added it was more economical to just plaster over the brick. When the workmen began tearing the inner wall off, a lot of the plaster came with it. So they just took all of the plaster off. That’s one reason I have to vacuum. Plaster dust lives forever.

Interesting. This is an unusual design. I hope they intend to leave it as is for the new room. The brick was laid end to end for 8 or ten rows and then there was a row of what appeared to be half bricks. Then 8 or ten more rows of regular brick pattern and a row of half brick. The mortar was still bright and new looking around each brick and created an interesting design when viewed from a few feet.

I think that is the idea. Richard came over to where I was standing. This will be an exhibit of northwest railroads so brick would be appropriate.

My eyes were following each line of mortar. There’s a break in the mortar in the lower half brick row. I went closer to the wall.

Oh, I’m sure they’ll have a mason come in and check the whole wall before they go much further. Look here, there’s even a vertical row of glass brick. He gestured toward another part of the room.

Glass brick is nice but there was something about the wall in front of me. I leaned down. Look, this brick isn’t finished on the end like the others. Because there was no mortar around it, I pinched the brick between two fingers and pulled. It came out. Richard was right there. I guess he thought I was vandalizing the place.

He took the brick and looked it over. For some reason, it was in backwards… almost as though someone had taken it out at some time or other. Guess we should put it back in though, wouldn’t you say? The right end out, of course. He was trying to undo my act of vandalism before someone caught me, I think. He leaned over to put the brick in and drew back with a puzzled look on his face. What the heck is this?

He put his hand into the empty slot and pulled out a tightly folded piece of paper. I guess someone had been using this brick as a private mailbox or something. He opened the paper, scanned it and handed it to me. What do you think?

It was, without a doubt, a love letter to someone named Olivia. It was signed Percy.

Richard said, I think I’d better go get the Director.

He left me holding the paper and I read it through carefully. Then thinking I might never see it again, I dug my small digital camera out of my purse, laid the paper on the floor and took a photo of it. I had just put the camera away when Richard returned with a young woman, late forties maybe, whom he introduced to me as the Director of the Museum. We shook hands and she said, Let’s see what you two have found.

She put on white cotton gloves and took the paper. Isn’t this something? Well, Richard, put it in a protective sleeve and file it for now. Maybe someday someone will have time to research it. She handed him the paper, took off the gloves and left the room. I believe I was more interested than she was.

I followed Richard down the stairs to a room, off limits to the public according to the sign on the door. He went to a cupboard and got a box that said ‘acid free protective sleeves’. He removed one, replaced the box and came back to the table where he had laid the letter.

This will protect it until someone gets to it. You wouldn’t want to volunteer and do that would you? He placed it in a file folder, marked the date on the sleeve with a Sharpie and then filed it away in a filing cabinet. Personally, I would have added a note as to where it was found but what do I know?

Well, not at this time. But it is an idea for future reference. Speaking of reference, I came today to use the research library but I don’t know where you’ve moved it.

He laughed and gestured across the hall. We moved it downstairs—you’ve ten feet away from it.

I have to go up and pay my admission fee—coming in the back door like that kind of threw me.

Do it on your way out—just take the stairs we just came down on and you’ll end up at the front desk. Meanwhile, think about volunteering. There are a lot of interesting things to do around here.

Judging from how full that file cabinet was that he put the love letter into, I would venture there’s a lot of things that could be done. By the time I crossed the hall to the research library, my point of focus had changed. I was more interested in this building now.

Richard, when that wall was an outer wall, how high up do you think that loose brick must have been?

He smiled. He knows I’m hooked. Oh, about to your shoulder, probably.

CHAPTER TWO

Richard showed me the many features of the research library that could possibly aid a search for just about anything concerning Clark County. The Polk Directories fascinate me the most. Several volumes, dated year by year (for the most part) beginning in the late 1800s. Every piece of property in the city at that particular point in time is listed—address, owner, when built, value. I looked up my own address and found it for the first time in 1936. Further research showed that the property originally had a Fairmount address—that’s the street directly east of my house. But, when the house was built, it faced the East-West Street instead and was assigned a new address. Some years of the Polk Directory even have listings of the worth of the population—man by man. Weird, but wonderful if you have an address you need to check out or are curious about an ancestor’s true wealth or something.

But, of course, I didn’t have an address. The letter I had just seen didn’t have a return address or an envelope addressed to someone. All I had was two first names, one possibly a nickname, and a date August 31, 1911. Richard assured me that even the most astute researcher probably would not attempt to determine who these two lovers were based on this single piece of paper.

I researched the building the museum was housed in… an Andrew Carnegie Library. Andrew Carnegie commissioned this building on January 20, 1908 with a $10,000 grant. The property was donated by a local family. The library was dedicated and opened to the public on New Year’s Eve 1909 as Vancouver’s Public Library. It was the first public building to be electrified. Some articles say that the opening was merely a ploy to demonstrate the unusual electrical lighting of the building before other public buildings introduced their electric lights. The size of the building was nearly doubled with an addition in 1948.

The first books in the library were used books from various City agencies—used law books and state statutes and some really dry stuff. But the City Treasurer, a Mr. Edgar Swan, reported there was a $900 fund to purchase new books and that project began almost immediately. In February 1910 private citizens and organizations donated several items i.e. 5 years of Youth’s Companion and 12 volumes of complete operas including scores. The first Head Librarian was H.C. Lieser who served until 1913.

At a much later time, the Fort Vancouver Regional Library System (formerly the Vancouver Public Library) moved to a larger building and in 1964, the Clark County Historical Society opened the Clark County Historical Museum in the old library. The Historical Society itself sounds like an interesting organization. It originated in 1917, underwent a series of name changes and was legally incorporated in 1940. It