The Indubitable Essence of Mortality

When Victoria awakened the day was dimming. It was late afternoon on March 14^th and the snow continued to fall.  And although the city and its inhabitants might be in the midst of a disaster she was deliciously peaceful and unaware in the snow-covered flatlands of Brooklyn. The past several hours were an epiphany. She had never been so carried away before, she thought.  The sensual pleasure moved her into a numinous oblivion encompassing her mind, her soul and every cell in her body.  She felt deeply relaxed and even a bit weak as though she had accomplished some athletic feat earlier in the day.  She drew in a deep breath that filled her belly and her unborn child squirmed momentarily.  She had reached a kind of nirvana and she knew in the deepest part of herself that the scare she had experienced the day before was just that.  A fright tactic of her body and mind.  She had to believe with every fiber of her being that she was in exceptional health and fully capable of delivering a healthy robust child with no harsh post-partum effects to her body.  Two weeks rest the normal time for a pregnant woman to recover from birth would be just the right amount for her.  She began planning her days and weeks in her mind from the approximate due date.  They would have to hire a nanny, as Mrs. Hopkins could not possibly take on more responsibility.  She sat up a moment and looked about the room.  The fire had died down again.  Richard would have to fetch more firewood from the stash buried under the snow.  He looked so peaceful she could not bear to wake him.  He was curled up under the quilts so that it seemed like only his black thick hair poked out.  She quietly and gingerly got up so as not to disturb him. The room was chilly and she donned her clothing as quickly as she could and even reached for her wool cape.  She wandered out into the kitchen and Michelangelo snorted a few times stamped her foot and then lazily let her eyes fall into a half closed daze.  Victoria realized that Richard had found the Romanov stash as well as other wedding gifts of jam and preserved foods. She had completely forgotten about them.  Certainly the servants packed them away carefully when they closed the house up for the winter. Now as she looked them over the gifts seemed like care packages sent from long lost relatives to the front lines.  But the battle was being fought with nature.  She was so hungry her stomach hurt.  As she searched for a spoon or anything she might use as a utensil she could see the last bits of light fading from the overcast day.  She lit a lantern and the warm amber flame chased away the cool touch of blue that invaded at every turn.  She found the raspberry preserves and truly wished for a tea biscuit to cut the tartness of the fruit.  Michelangelo eyed the fruit then turned away.  Victoria realized the animal needed some water so she opened the back door and scooped up a pale of fresh snow.  It would melt and be potable.  After a few spoonfuls of jam that curbed her appetite momentarily she set the jar down and wandered into the parlor where Richard slept.  She bent down close and noticed that he seemed to glisten.  She put her hand on his forehead and he did not stir.  He was burning up.  Stunned, she could feel herself well up with emotion.  He should not have been dancing around naked earlier in the day pretending to be an Indian. She was unsure what to do.

“Richard?”  She shook him.  But he did not wake up.

“Richard?! She said louder and tried again to jostle him from his slumber.  To no avail.  The universe was cruel.  Only a few moments ago she felt as though she were truly in a state of heightened bliss.  Everything was perfect.  And now it felt as though the tide had gone out and all that was left was the scorched, cold earth.  Dry, hard and vapid.  Everything seemed to recede. The planets, the stars, the dark matter that surrounded them moved all objects farther apart with great speed and accuracy.  She tried to recover that moment---that second before knowing, understanding what was actually happening.  In that second she held her breath.  That miniscule, elliptical moment in time where everything was utopian it seemed.  Could she change it back?  Could she reverse the linear path and remain stationary at the point of elation?  The time is now, she thought.  And so she made a list of things, actions that she could take to resolve the problem.  She removed emotion, the best she could from her determined efforts to address the situation.  Richard had a fever.  Richard needs warmth, water, and care.  ‘Richard will recover’ she kept saying to herself.  My husband will recover from this infirmity and everything will be fine.  Immediately she pulled his wool coat over her woolen cape.  She took the lantern and tried to climb over the drift that almost sealed the back entrance.  She realized he had walked to Brooklyn with makeshift snowshoes.  If he could do it, so could she.  She found the wicker chair seats and tied them to her feet.  She had to dig her way out of the back door and find the side of the house.  Once outside the entire house looked like several mounds of snow.  A vanilla gingerbread house with rolling feminine curves.  Nothing but a few windows on the second and third floors gave away the enormous structure.  It truly was an amazing sight to see.  No one would believe it and no one living through the blizzard would ever see anything like it again.  She rounded the house and found the pit where the wood lay.  It had been covered with almost a foot of snow since Richard had last been there.  She dug down into the woodpile and began heaving pieces up to the surface.  After about a half dozen she climbed out, loaded her arms and made her way back inside.  She decided she would make five trips to ensure she had enough to burn through the night and into the next day.  When she got to the back entrance she hurled the cut wood down the snowy incline until it hit the back door.  Michelangelo was startled by the noise and her clacking hooves on the slate floor created a clamor of unsettling noise.  As Victoria went back out to the woodpile through the wind and snow she conceived her next step.  She would kindle the blaze into a roaring fire.  Then she would commence to making tea and after that she would forage through the wedding gifts to find appropriate ingredients for a soup.  He must wake up.  He must, she thought.  Back inside the house she was proud of herself.  She had hauled in several armloads of wood and she would not stop her activity until she nursed him back to health.  The fire took some tending but the slow burn would cook away the water.  Once the wood caught the flame she stoked and stirred until it crackled and the conflagration licked at the stone hearth.  She filled the kettle with snow and set it atop the iron grate over the fire.  All she could do was wait.  She bent down and tried to wake him once again.

“Richard?  Richard, I’m making tea.  Wouldn’t you like some?  Richard?!”  She said growing more concerned.  She wiped his brow.  He was pale in the firelight and his hair had thickened with perspiration.  It shined as if he had taken a bath.  She backed away and thought the only thing she might do at the moment was pray.  Slowly she moved to her stack of books and found the worn out Bible her mother had given to her at her confirmation.  She moved to the hallway and sat on the bench that was reserved for the servants.  She sat and gazed over the jumbled words that did not seem to make sense in the half-light of night.  Then she felt the slow ache in the center of her chest and asked out loud, “We’ve come this far.  Why?  Why take him now?  Why tear us apart?  To what end?”  And she wept furiously as the words slipped through her mouth and into the open air for all to hear.

 

Every spring it seemed the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce had created the annual garden tour.  Various houses with back yards or even small quaint Japanese gardens ingeniously designed were opened to the public.  It was a way for the neighborhood association to add to its yearly budget and beautify the common areas and small private parks.  Interested neighbors and curious Manhattanites gathered on a small patch of green across from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a historic fixture and grand theatre founded in 1861, although the existing opera house had been built in 1903.  There they bought their ten-dollar ticket and a map of the participating houses and were sent on their way on a kind of experiential scavenger hunt.  From 10AM to 6PM the homes with their gardens were open signified by birthday party balloons out front tied to the stoop.  Several volunteers with the block association stood as sentinels at the entrance of each house making sure no one strayed beyond the hallways and allotted paths to the beautiful gardens hidden behind brownstones and fences.  It was refreshing and inspiring to see what people could do with postage stamp sized parcels of land. It had been quite a long winter and Ashley was feeling restless.  Her North Carolina roots emerged as she put down her paintbrushes and donned her gardening gloves.  However, the small patch in her backyard was not enough to quell the desire to actually farm and grow edible produce.   She yearned for her mother’s heirloom tomatoes so sweet and tangy you could eat ‘em off the vine.  She longed for sweet corn and fresh spinach, sugar snap beans, cantaloupes, bright bell peppers and crisp robust lettuce.  She had seen the posters hanging in the local market and businesses for about a week now and she thought she might do something spontaneous, give up her routine and venture out into the neighborhood she had called home for about six years now.  She only lived a few blocks from the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  She gulped the remnants of her coffee, washed her hands and face, dug out a baseball cap and sunglasses and made her way to the garden across from BAM.  Map in hand she moved from one marked building to the next and from one street to the next.  The entire day covered a few miles and Ashley was determined to see every house on the page.  She walked from Fort Greene all the way down Flatbush stopping at the Brooklyn Botanical gardens and exiting at the furthest entrance onto Ocean Avenue.  From there she hugged the perimeter of Prospect Park until she came to the Parade Grounds.  She had seen plenty of people carrying their little maps and strolling about the area on a fine spring day.  Now, the furthest point out the people thinned not wanting to hike so far and probably deciding to lunch rather than make the effort to see the last few houses.  Beyond the parade grounds she found she had to cross the prospect expressway to get to Caton Place.  She was well aware of the stables there on Caton Place.  Horseback riders wanting a jaunt through Prospect Park could rent a trail ride and an hour in the saddle.  She had never done it, as she was an experienced equestrian training as a small girl in dressage.  Besides when she rode she wanted to ride fast.  She wanted to gallop and feel the power of the animal she was on.  She wanted to match that power with her own in skill and acumen.  She made a turn down Caton Place past several run-down houses built closely together.  The neighborhood was changing and she wondered if it was a good idea walking along the empty street by herself.  It was late afternoon and the sun shone brightly and she only had one more house to go.  She liked completing things.  She did not like starting something and wimping out midway through.  She was like that with relationships as well. Some of her significant others found her too intense and called it off without her ever really knowing why. Under the gaze of her probing eyes many found her depth intimidating.  She was easygoing and had a wry sense of humor but it was not enough to balance out her deeply felt emotions. Their misunderstanding hurt and sometimes she thought perhaps it might be best to just go it alone.  She did not paint halfway paintings and she did not want halfway people.  She wanted the real thing.  She wanted quality and depth and passion and so she created it on canvas to salve her soul and her innate desires.  She passed an unmarked alleyway that had one balloon tied out front.  She scoped out the area and decided to make her way between the buildings.  The alley opened up to a great Victorian house on a lawn.  It was evident that the neighboring buildings had been built on the surrounding grounds as lots had been sold off bit by bit.  The great Greek columns were magnificent and newly whitewashed in the bright sunlight.  She moved to the front entrance and wondered if the volunteer had momentarily taken leave to go to the bathroom or something.  The door was unlocked, the foyer pristine. 

“Heeey There?” She said loudly in her southern drawl.  “Anybody home?  Anybody here?”  She was met with silence.  And as she was about to turn around and leave she heard a woman in the other room.  There was a soft murmur she could not quite make out. 

“Heeey?”  She repeated.  She turned into a small hallway and saw a woman seated on the bench.  She was in a long skirt with her hair pulled up.  The woman turned and caught her eye.

“I’m so sorry---I, I think I might have the wrong house.” Ashley said as she backed away.

The woman smiled kindly and for a moment she thought it was Chelsea, the woman who had interviewed her over two months ago.  She stopped and did a double take.  Then she realized the woman had been crying.  Overcome with compassion Ashley began to move to her.  “Are you okay?” She asked quietly.  The woman wiped here eyes and nodded.  “I’m so glad you’re here.”  The woman said and she had a look of relief on her face.

“Are you alone?”  Ashley inquired. But the woman stood quickly took her hand and whisked her into a large parlor elaborately decorated in the Victorian style.  It reminded her of the Morris Jumel Mansion in Manhattan but even more grand and filled to the brim with furniture, draperies, pictures and sconces in the gilded-age style.  She stood there for sometime overcome with a feeling of familiarity.  She knew she had been there before in that very room.  Some of the decorations seemed out of place and unauthentic.  She was aware that the room had been filled with reproductions just like historic houses and plantations that dotted the South.  The original furnishings had long been sold off at estate sales and auctions or simply moved out when the inhabitants had passed away.  It filled her with a vague melancholy.  She turned and realized the woman had gone.  Even though she felt safe she was strangely uncomfortable and decided since she was the only visitor so far that maybe it would be best if she left.  She snaked her way back through the corridor to the front foyer and then out through the enormous wooden door. She passed no one which seemed very strange since every house on the garden tour had at least two or three volunteers to make sure strangers didn’t slip away to rip off the owners. As she stepped out onto the front porch she heard the pattering of footsteps behind her.  She turned to find the woman at the far end of the great foyer standing on the threshold of the small hallway. “Don’t go.” The woman said softly.

“I’m sorry.  I’d like to stay, but I have a long walk home.”  Ashley replied. 

“Come back?” The woman said hopefully.

“Sure.  I’ll come back some time.  What are the hours?” Ashley said and the woman looked confused and disappeared into the hallway.  She thought for sure she had mistakenly wandered into a historic house slash museum like the Lefferts House in Prospect Park or the Dutch Old Stone House in Park Slope. She moved quickly through the alley as the sun was beginning to set only to find the balloons gone.  She double-checked the address on her map and she had, indeed, wandered into the wrong residence.  The house on the garden tour was two doors down and she watched as the volunteers made their way down the walk and bid the homeowners a thank-you and good-by.  The tour was over but it was only just beginning for Ashley.  She was intrigued by the great manor house and wanted to find out if it was indeed a historic landmark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hovering Between the Ghost and the Assassin

He awakened with a start and he was completely disoriented.  The room he was in was not at all familiar.  It was not a room in the great manor house and he wondered what had happened while he had been sleeping.  He was dressed in his black wool suit and he still had his boots on.  His first thought was Victoria.  Where was his wife? Then panic set in and he thought, perhaps something terrible had happened.  How did he get to this place? Where was she and why couldn’t he remember?  He moved quickly out of the small room that held shelves upon shelves of books and old maps that hung on the walls, yellowed with age.  Spilling out into a long corridor he could hear the sounds of people, a low murmur here and a cough or soft grunt there.  He looked down to see all kinds of people, men and women sitting at long wooden tables examining books and documents. 

“Excuse me?” He said over the railing to the patrons below.

“SHHHHHH!” They replied.

“Where am I?”  He asked in a hushed tone.  The patrons exchanged glances with each other.  Some shook their heads in judgment. Then one man looked up and put away his monocle. “The New York Public Library.”  Then he raised his finger to his lips and warned “Shhh.”

How the hell did he get to the Library? He thought.  When he glanced back over the railing the monocled man had disappeared.  He had never heard of the New York Public Library.  He had certainly frequented the Astor Library downtown.  He stood there a moment and closed his eyes.  There were a multitude of sounds that he could not decipher, hums and rings and buzzing and loud traffic that confused him.  When he opened his eyes again, looking up he could see that the Edison lights had been installed everywhere.  Perhaps the bulbs made the buzzing sounds.  It was a cacophony and very different from the quiet hiss of gas lamps that he had been used to.  Slowly he meandered down the corridor to investigate the building.  He wondered if Victoria was home on Grove Street.  He wanted to go home.  He came to a door at the end of the corridor hoping it might lead to a staircase to the ground floor.  As he opened it he saw a man dressed in American Indian costume moving about on a proscenium stage.  It was much more vibrant and impressive than his homemade costume he had made a few hours earlier.

“Oh, do come in.”  The man said as he turned.  Richard was taken aback by the amazing likeness they shared. 

“I’m sorry.  I did not mean to interrupt---“ Richard stuttered as he tried to back out of the auditorium. 

“No, please.  Sit for a moment.”  The man offered.

“But it looks as though you are rehearsing---“ Richard continued.

“My name is John.” And he thrust out his hand to shake.  Richard clasped his hand and it was cold yet firm and sincere. Richard took in John’s costume admiring its fine design and craftsmanship.  It certainly looked like an authentic Indian deerskin shirt and leggings. Then it suddenly dawned on him who the gentleman was.  John laughed, as Richard’s expression changed and he seemed even more startled. 

“You look as though you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.” John exclaimed.

“I have to go---I have to get home.”  Richard stammered again trying to regain his sense of direction.

“I need someone to feed me lines.”  John said and he thrust a script into Richard’s hands.

“Read the part of Magua the Mohawk.”

Richard gazed at the title of the script.  It was a staged version of The Last of the Mohicans. 

“We’re performing this play at the Richmond Theatre.  It should prove amusing.” He added amiably. “So go ahead—you have the first bit of dialogue.” 

Richard gazed at the page and the letters seemed like jumbled hieroglyphs, undecipherable scratchings that made his head swim.  John studied him almost like a predator and then wondered if the poor chap could even read.

“Why did you do it?”  Richard asked.

“Pardon?” John replied confused.

“Why did you assassinate Mr. Lincoln?” He pressed.

“Who?” John replied increasingly confused.

“The president---the president---why did you kill him? You had so much good fortune and then you threw it all away.” Richard exclaimed.

“I have killed no one, sir.  I am an actor.  And I do not know of this Lincoln you speak of.  So, if you please.” John replied indignant and jerked the script from Richard’s hand.

“I see I have come upon an Englishman with abolitionist leanings. I suppose you were sorry to see John Brown Hang!” John almost spit.

“I have to go home---“ Richard said turning again to the doorway.

“To Whom?” John asked stepping in his path.

“My wife.” Richard replied growing anxious.

“She’s not there.” John said and he sauntered away captivated by the words on the page.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

“She’s not where you think she is.  That’s all.” John said sweetly distracted by his lines.

“Where is she?” Richard queried, the sweat beginning to break across his forehead.

“Why did you do it?” John asked and he pierced Richard with his dark haunting eyes.

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.” Richard said baffled.

“Why did you kill that man on Toynbee Street?” John said softly with a hiss.  And he slowly slithered up in between Richard and the exit.  “And ‘Shakespeare’? Why did you do it?”  Richard could not answer.  He was confused and disoriented.

“Were you mad?” Booth whispered.

“Perhaps…In a way.” Richard replied.

“Most murderers are mad.  Don’t you agree?  Mad as a March hare.” He continued.  “Was it the warmth?”  Richard looked at him baffled.  “The warmth of the life force slowly pooling on the wet, cold ground.”  He circled him and Richard felt claustrophobic as if being constricted by some unseen force.  “Or maybe it was the brightness of it on such a drab, grey, depressing and dark canvas.  London will certainly do that to a man.  The color leeches out bit by bit, day by day until there is nothing left but a shell.”

“You must know the feeling of being grey.”  Richard said with a smirk.  “Helpless with no uniform and nothing but other people’s words that made you famous.”  Richard retorted.  The fire seethed in Booth’s eyes.

“Will you do the same to her?” He said almost inaudibly.  Richard felt his heart contract.  He ached from someplace hidden deep. “It would be a slow demise, wouldn’t it?  To take her for your selfish gain and do things that could be quite unhealthy.  Scandalously unhealthy.”  He purred.

“Such a pity.  A brilliant, successful actor led astray by delusions of glory and false heroic grandeur.  There was no resignation from the stage, was there?  Your life was frivolous and unimportant compared to the real soldiers fighting.  There was no time for amusement and that is all you ever were.  Something disposable in a time of crisis.”  Richard rebutted.

“Let her bleed out as she lay beside you in your bed.”  Booth whispered.  Suddenly Richard overcome with furious violence grabbed Booth with one arm, threw him to the floor and began punching him, fist after fist until the floor was soaked with blood and his face swollen from the blows.  A murderous rage engulfed him and he did not care if he choked the last bit of life from the famous and infamous John Wilkes Booth.

“She would be so proud of you.  Defending her honor like, well, like a common criminal.  She was proud of you when you beat and threatened Mr. Whitby.  Isn’t that right?”  He laughed and wheezed and coughed and spit. Richard jumped up from Booth and sprang through the doorway to the landing. He could see a young woman sitting at a table below.  But he could not find the stairs to lead him to the ground floor.  At that moment Booth limped through the doorway.  “There are no stairs, my friend.”  At that moment Richard was willing to jump the two stories down to the ground floor.  He hiked his leg over the railing and as he was about to swing the other leg over. John rushed to him.  “Don’t do it!  I tried that once and it ended very badly for me!”  Within moments Richard was air born and it seemed as though he were falling from a great height.  He could feel the rush of air against his face and time seemed to slow down and he wondered if he would ever find the ground.  He hit the floor with a great bang and the young woman was startled from her reverie.  It was Victoria but she looked a bit different than she usually did and strangely she did not recognize him.

 

Chelsea sat quietly in the great hall of the New York Public Library waiting patiently for her appointment with the archivist.  She had brought along her dog-earred copy of Thomas Wolfe’s The Painted Word.  It had been her favorite book in college and anytime she was not currently engaged in a novel or research she always toted it along to while away the time.  Her career in New York was filled with odd jobs specifically as personal assistants to art critics, gallery owners, museum curators, painters and sculptors and the odd experimental videographer.  She even worked for a well-known performance artist until the idea of the universe revolving around that one person greatly impaired her personal life and strained her work ethic.  Thomas Wolfe’s book was endearing because it made fun of the excessiveness and exclusivity of the art world with its intellectual jargon, bullshit conceptual ideas and amazing self-importance.  Critical theory of the day was tilted one way or the other depending on who was sleeping with what artist when.  It seemed that the very niche world of art was not that much different from the seedy music business.  Everyone wanted to get to the top and if they could fuck their way to success and a museum exhibition at the Tate or the Whitney then they developed that skill almost like going to the gym. 

It had been over a month since her interview of Ashley appeared in the Magazine.  Ashley called about a week after it hit the stands and thanked her profusely.  She also invited her back for tea sometime if she found herself in that part of Brooklyn again.  Chelsea wanted to take her up on it but felt she should make good on her promise to research the Victorian painter first.  Since many artists had moved from Manhattan to cheaper studios in Williamsburg, Dumbo and Red Hook she found herself in Brooklyn a lot more since her first foray across the river.  She had yet to visit Red Hook and did not like the idea of having to go there.  It was remote and involved a lot of walking from public transportation.  She knew eventually she would have to make her way through the bad neighborhood to interview an artist for the publication. 

Suddenly a man in a dark suit tripped and fell as he rounded one of the large bookshelves.  The noise echoed through the place and seemed to catch everyone’s attention.  He recovered so quickly that he looked like a dark blur moving out of view to avoid embarrassment, no doubt.  She resumed her place on the page and was just getting into the current paragraph when a lovely older woman interrupted her.

“Chelsea Barrett?” The woman asked sweetly.  Chelsea nodded.

“Angela, I’ll be taking you into the archives now.” The woman replied.

“Great.” Chelsea said and suddenly she remembered the man in the suit.  “Did you see a gentleman fall just over there a minute ago? It looked like he may have hurt himself.”

Angela seemed concerned.  “Where?” And they changed direction to the place where the incident happened.  As they rounded the giant bookshelf there was no one in the aisle.

“I guess he’s all right.”  Chelsea said.

“I’ll have security check the tapes.  Right this way.” Angela said.  And she escorted her through the secure doorways and up to the second floor landing where the archives were kept.  Ancient books, maps and old documents, letters and deeds were kept in a constant semi-humid environment due to their fragile condition and historic importance. 

“I’m looking for a man named Richard Rhys.  He was an impressionist painter and possibly a contemporary of John Singer Sargent.”  Chelsea said.

“We don’t really house works of art.” Angela said.

“I know, but he was quite prolific and there seems to be nothing of his work left behind.  I can’t find anything by him in any collection here in New York.  I’ve tried the Frick and Pierpont-Morgan Library, the Met and the Whitney.  There’s no trace.”  Chelsea said.

“Let’s try to find a residence and then we will work from there.  The only thing we might have in our collection are letters or speeches and maybe an old photograph if he was anyone of importance.” Angela said and they walked into a different office that housed a few computers.

“We’ll try the 1890 census and see if he shows up somewhere.”  A few clicks and the computerized version of the New York Census along with PDFs of the actual scanned papers popped up onto the large screen.

“Did he spell it R-e-e-s-e?” Angela asked. “You know, like Reese’s Pieces?”

“I’m not sure.”  Chelsea replied.  They scrolled down the list of names just in the ‘R’ section alone.  There seemed to be thousands. 

“I believe he was a Brit so try ‘R-h-y-s’”.  Chelsea instructed.  Several minutes passed as the ‘R’s” whizzed by and finally they stumbled upon an R. Rhys.

“This might be him.” Angela said.  “Looks like he lived at 12 1/2 Grove Street beginning in 1887.  Let’s see his stats.  Okay, here.  He married V. Thornton and she was the deed holder of the house.”  Angela said.  Chelsea had heard the Thornton name before but only within the art circles of London.  There was a private collection that the Tate housed by appointment only and she never had enough interest to see it the one time she was there.

“I wonder if it is the same Thornton.”  Chelsea mumbled.  Angela moved from one computer to another that seemed to be the Library’s index of everything. 

“Okay.  Here’s something.  We have a wedding announcement in the New York Times and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”  She said still looking through the periodical index.  “And here is his obit.” Angela said quietly.  Chelsea scooted around and gazed over her shoulder.  The obit was dated September 11^th, 1918.  Born October 25^th 1861 in County Clair, Ireland. 

“He died at fifty-seven.” Chelsea said softly almost to herself.  Then she made notes on her pad.  “I wonder if he’s buried here in New York?”

“Likely places would be Green-wood Cemetery or Forest Hills.  I’d look there first.”  Angela said.

“Does it say what he died of?” Chelsea asked.

“Back then it was not polite to discuss the cause of death especially in the press.”  Angela said.  “But we’ll keep digging to see if we have some artifacts here.”

The day wore on and Angela tirelessly searched and cross-referenced lists and indexes and more lists.  Chelsea realized she spent almost the entire day looking for an obscure artist whose work she probably wouldn’t like anyway since no living person seemed to own any of it.  But she kept at it because she had promised Ashley and because Ashley’s painting made such an impression on her. 

“Oh my God.”  Angela said stunned.  She scrolled down to a New York Times article.  “An R. Rhys of London, now residing in New York City is a suspect in the East End murders and the murder of ‘Shakespeare’ an elderly prostitute living and working near Water Street on the evening of April 24^th, 1891.”

“What?!” Chelsea exclaimed.  Her curiosity grew in magnitude and now she wanted to find out whom this guy really was.

“I’m going to cross-reference with V. Thornton to see what comes up.”  Angela said.  She typed in a few keys and the information bloomed like a rose.

“Finally!  We have something.  Let me just jot this down and we’ll go down the hall and see what we might find.”  Angela said.

When they entered the room it was filled with books from the floor to the ceiling and the walls were covered with old yellowed maps in heavy antique frames.  It smelled musty as if no one ever visited this part of the library. 

“Is this the lost and found of not-very-important-people?” Chelsea asked.

“Everyone’s important.” Angela said and immediately Chelsea felt badly for having judged prematurely.  Looking at the faded numbers on the old bookcases finally Angela located a thick volume that looked like a book but was in reality hollow and housed the fragile findings inside.  Angela advised Chelsea to don the white cotton gloves while looking through the material.  As they opened the volume letters from Richard to Victoria were bound by ribbon and yellowed with age.  At the bottom was a small tintype of a man in a dark wool suit.  As Angela unearthed it and handed it to Chelsea she almost fainted.  Her legs tingled and seemed to go numb. Then the feeling creeped up her back making her feel weak.  The top pf her head was on fire and her hair hurt.

“This is the same man that tripped and fell earlier!” Chelsea exclaimed.