Staring down at a January 10, 1840, issue of the Boston Daily Advertiser, Julia suddenly registered the fact he'd used the word us. She looked up. — I'm sorry, Mr. Page, but I wasn't planning to stay very long. Could you just show me what you've found concerning my house? —
— Oh, yes. Hilda's house. — To her surprise, he walked away from her, his cane thudding across the wood floor. — Built in 1880, — he yelled back as he headed into another room. — For an ancestor of mine named Margaret Tate Page. —
Julia followed Henry into a kitchen that looked as if it had not been updated since the 1950s. The cabinets were streaked with grime, and the stove was splattered with old grease and what looked like dried spaghetti sauce. He rummaged around in the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of white wine.
— The house was passed down through succeeding generations. Pack rats all of us, just like Hilda, — he said, twisting a corkscrew into the bottle. — Which is why we're left with this treasure trove of documents. The house stayed in our family all these years. — The cork popped out of the bottle and he looked at her. — Until you. —
— The bones in my garden were probably buried before 1880, — she said. — That's what the university anthropologist told me. The grave is older than the house. —
— Could be, could be. — He pulled down two wineglasses from the cabinet.
— What you've found in these boxes isn't going to tell us anything about the bones. — And I'm wasting my time here.
— How can you say that? You haven't even looked at the papers yet. — He filled the glasses and held one out to her.
— Isn't it a little early in the day to be drinking? — she asked.
— Early? — He snorted. — I'm eighty-nine years old and I have four hundred bottles of excellent wine in my cellar, all of which I intend to finish. I'm more worried that it's too late to start drinking. So please, join me. A bottle always tastes better when it's shared. —
She took the glass.
— Now what were we talking about? — he asked.
— The woman's grave is older than the house. —
— Oh. — He picked up his own glass and shuffled back into the library. — It very well could be. —
— So I don't see how what's in these boxes could tell me her identity. —
He rifled through the papers on the dining table and plucked out one of them, which he set in front of her. — Here, Ms. Hamill. Here is the clue. —
She looked down at the handwritten letter, dated March 20, 1888.
Dearest Margaret,
I thank you for your kind condolences, so sincerely offered, for the loss of my darling Amelia. This has been a most difficult winter for me, as every month seems to bring the passing of yet another old friend to illness and age. Now it is with deepest gloom that I must consider the rapidly evaporating years left to me.
I realize that this is perhaps my last chance to broach a difficult subject which I should have raised long ago. I have been reluctant to speak of this, as I know that your aunt felt it wisest to keep this from you —
Julia looked up. — This was written in 1888. That's well after the bones were buried. —
— Keep reading, — he said. And she did, until the final paragraph.
For now, I enclose the news clipping, which I earlier mentioned. If you have no desire to learn more, please tell me, and I will never again mention this. But if indeed the subject of your parents holds any interest for you, then at my next opportunity, I will once again pick up my pen. And you will learn the story, the true story, of your aunt and the West End Reaper.
With fondest regards,
O.W.H.
— Do you realize who O.W.H. is? — asked Henry. His eyes, magnified by the lenses of his spectacles, gleamed with excitement.
— You told me over the phone it was Oliver Wendell Holmes. —
— And you do know who he was? —
— He was a judge, wasn't he? A Supreme Court justice. —
Henry gave a sigh of exasperation. — No, that's Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, the son! This letter is from Wendell Senior. You must have heard of him. —
Julia frowned. — He was a writer, wasn't he? —
— That's all you know about him? —
— I'm sorry. I'm not exactly a history teacher. —
— You're a teacher? Of what? —
— The third grade. —
— Even a third-grade teacher should know that Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior was more than just a literary figure. Yes, he was a poet and a novelist and a biographer. He was also a lecturer, a philosopher, and one of the most influential voices in Boston. And he was one more thing. In the scheme of his contributions to mankind, it was the most important thing of all. —
— What was that? —
— He was a physician. One of the finest of his age. —
She looked at the letter with more interest. — So this is historically significant. —
— And the Margaret whom he addresses in the letter that's my great-great-grandmother, Dr. Margaret Tate Page, born in 1830. She was one of the first women physicians in Boston. That's her house you now own. In 1880, when her house was built, she would have been fifty years old. —
— Who is this aunt he speaks of in the letter? —
— I have no idea. I know nothing at all about her. —
— Are there other letters from Holmes? —
— I'm hoping we'll find them here. — He glanced at the dozen boxes stacked beside the dining table. — I've only searched these six so far. Nothing's organized, nothing's in order. But here is the history of your house, Ms. Hamill. This is what's left of the people who lived there. —
— He said that he enclosed a clipping. Did you find it? —
Henry reached for a scrap of newspaper. — I believe this is what he referred to. —
The clipping was so brown with age that she had trouble reading the tiny print in the gray light of the window. Only when Henry turned on a lamp was she able to make out the words.
It was dated November 28, 1830.
WEST END MURDER DESCRIBED AS — SHOCKING AND GROTESQUE —
At 10 PM Wednesday, officers of the Night Watch were called to Massachusetts General Hospital after the body of Miss Agnes Poole, a nurse, was discovered dead in a large puddle of blood on the back steps of the hospital. Her injuries, according to Officer Pratt of the Watch, left no doubt that this was an attack of the most brutal nature, most likely inflicted with a large cutting instrument such as a butcher knife. The lone witness remains unidentified to this reporter, out of concern for her safety, but Mr. Pratt confirms that it is a young woman, who described the assailant as — cloaked in black like the Grim Reaper, with the wings of a bird of prey. —
— This murder took place in Boston, — said Julia.
— A mere half-day carriage ride from your house in Weston. And the murder victim was a woman. —
— I see no connection to my house. —
— Oliver Wendell Holmes may be the connection. He writes to Margaret, who's living in your house. He makes this puzzling reference to her aunt, and to a killer known as the West End Reaper. Somehow, Holmes became involved in this murder case a case he felt compelled to tell Margaret about over fifty years later. Why? What was this mysterious secret she was never supposed to know? —
The distant bellow of a ship's horn made Julia look up. — I wish I didn't have to catch the ferry. I'd really love to learn the answer. —