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“Let’s look at it in the kitchen,” Addie said, and I reluctantly stepped away from her, the scent of her still in my nose.
Back at the table with our glasses of wine forgotten in front of us, we spread the items before us.
“Where should we start?” I asked.
“The box.” Addie’s eyes glowed with excitement.
“Shouldn’t we save that for last?”
“Oh no. You’re one of those?”
“One of what?”
“I bet you open presents super slow, saving the wrapping paper and everything.”
“I do not.” I didn’t know why this suggestion made me feel slightly indignant. “I just like to savor things a bit. Take my time with things I know I’ll enjoy.”
Addie’s expression changed then, and it occurred to me I could have been talking about any number of things. Addie was clearly thinking the same thing. “Oh,” she said, swallowing. And then her hand shot out and she popped open the lid of the box. “Oh wow.”
She turned the box so I could see what lay inside, and the overhead lights glinted off the facets of a small but perfect diamond set in a complex silver setting.
“That’s beautiful,” I said. “A wedding ring, you think?”
She nodded. “Must have been. I wonder whose?”
I shrugged. “No telling how long it’s been in that little wall safe. We don’t know if even Filene knew about that.”
Addie looked skeptical. “I’m starting to feel like she planned all this for us somehow. Like she knew exactly what she was doing.”
I grinned. I’d had that feeling too. “Do you ever think that there’s a chance we’ll get to the end of all this, and she’ll pop out and be like, ‘I wasn’t dead after all!’”
Addie’s smile dropped and she stared at me for a second. “Um. No. That’s a little morbid.”
“No, it would be morbid if I thought she was dead when she wasn’t. Thinking someone might not be dead when they are is the opposite of morbid.”
“So it’s less-bid.”
“Um. So are you taking over the dad jokes, then?”
She laughed and slapped my arm playfully. “Anyway, I know what you mean. It all reminds me a little of this book I read when I was a kid.The Westing Game. Did you ever read that?”
I searched my meager literary roots. “I don’t know.”
“It was about this old guy who planned a whole murder mystery around his own death.”
“Wait. If he was dead, how did he do that?”
“Exactly!” Addie sounded like this all made sense, but I guessed it did have some parallels to my idea that Filene had somehow planned all this for us.
“Okay, open the other stuff.” I pushed the envelope toward her.
“There’s newspaper in here.” She unfolded the yellowed paper and her eyes widened as she scanned whatever words it held.
“Well?” The suspense was killing me.
“There was a murder,” she breathed, and handed me the page.
I read out loud:
