bush and struck him from behind with a flashlight. They put Montour back at the wheel of his car, took the Phelps volume, and sent the car down the hill and into a tree. Montour wasn’t supposed to die from the blow. Spinner claimed this was “simply an unfortunate result.”
Tyler Scott was arrested after Spinner’s confession, and I understand both of their lawyers are working out a plea agreement with the authorities. Whatever the authorities agree to, however, I doubt Tyler will be seeing freedom anytime soon. And Spinner will have all the time to work out any code he can dream up—behind bars.
“Next up, two butterscotch swirls.” Seymour gave me another cone. I handed the treats to two more friends of Spencer’s—Danny’s little sister, Maura, and a shy boy named Keith Parsons.
“Thank you, Mrs. McClure!”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“The rocky road,” Seymour declared. I gave the cone to the next boy. “Here you go, Boyce. Enjoy.”
“Thanks, Mrs. M,” Boyce Lyell said, running off to join Spencer’s invited group.
“And, finally, the guest of honor, the old half-chocolate, half-vanilla, doubled-dipped in strawberry coating.” Seymour winked at Spencer. “That was always my favorite, too.”
“Thanks, Mr. Tarnish,” Spencer said. He took a bite, then faced me. “I’m getting on line with my friends, okay, Mom?”
“Save a place for me.”
“Hey, Pen.” Seymour motioned me closer. “Isn’t that kid Boyce Lyell the snot you said was bullying Spencer?”
“It is. But, as you can see, things worked out.”
“I’m all ears.” Seymour leaned out the window of his truck, and I stepped closer.
“Well,” I said, lowering my voice, “the day I went to see Principal Chesley, his face was bruised and swollen from a car accident. He wrecked his Toyota sedan while running errands at lunch—running them at very high speeds, it turns out. Anyway, I got confused when I saw him drive an SUV into the school parking lot. I thought he was lying to me about the wreck when I saw there were no dents on his vehicle. Turns out it wasn’t his vehicle. He’d borrowed the SUV from the garage that had towed his sedan away from the accident, which was also why he’d been so late for our meeting.”
“Wait a second there. What the heck does the principal’s car wreck have to do with Spencer being bullied?”
“Everything. One of the kids overheard me arguing with their principal in his office, and the next time they saw the man, his nose looked like a swollen sausage.” I shrugged. “It seems kids can jump to the wrong conclusion as easily as adults.”
Seymour’s eyebrows arched in disbelief. “You mean?”
“The rumor got spread that I smacked around the new principal. The way I heard it, that story scared Boyce Lyell so badly he was shaking in his sneakers. I mean, you’ve got to figure, if Spencer’s mom can beat up their new strapping jock of a principal, what would she do to the kid who bullied her baby boy?”
Seymour laughed. “That’s hilarious, Pen. But it still doesn’t explain who invited the kid here.”
“Spencer did.”
“Spencer?”
“Yeah. Like a little lawyer, he approached Boyce all by himself to work things out. Instead of twisting the knife and scaring the kid with his mom’s new rep, he invited Boyce to join us.”
“That’s pretty evolved for a ten-year-old. Me? I would have tortured the snot.”
“Yeah, I know. I can’t tell you how proud I am. You know what he told me? He said he’d seen an old
Seymour scratched his head. “You know, I love that show, and I swear I’ve seen every episode three times, but I don’t remember that quote.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Then where did he?…” I tapped my chin.
“Kid probably just dreamed it up,” Seymour said with a shrug. “You watch enough of that stuff it gets in your blood.”
I tried mentally asking Jack for an explanation, but all I could hear in my mind was a low, teasing chuckle.
A new group of customers stepped up just then, ready to place orders for ice cream, so Seymour handed me my cone—vanilla dipped in chocolate and rolled in peanuts—and went back to work. I was about to join my son in line when someone called my name.
“Pen! Great news!” Brainert cried, getting out of his car. “I’ve just returned from Providence.”
“What’s the word?”
After everything had been settled with Spinner, Brainert and I had driven back to Newport. In the light of day, (thanks to Brainert’s breathless persuasion) Raymond Chesley had agreed to allow Brainert to examine Poe’s oval portrait hanging in the mansion’s library. Just as both of us had suspected, there was something preserved inside that portrait—a literary treasure. A handwritten poem, one never before discovered, signed by Edgar Allan Poe.
Brainert grinned as he walked up to me. “Three handwriting experts and two document analysts have concluded that that the poem we found inside the picture frame was, in fact, written by the hand of Poe.”
“Did you ever doubt?” I asked between bites of melting ice cream.
“Not after an examination of the paper and the ink showed them to be authentic. And of course no one doubts the authenticity of the Reynolds daguerreotype itself.”
I noticed the gash under Brainert’s eye was almost healed. He’d turned out to be right about that, too. The scar
“I still can’t believe you got Raymond Chesley to cooperate,” I said. “He was so nasty to me the night I met him.”
“Never try to reason with a man after you’ve broken into his house, Pen.” Brainert shook his head. “In the light of day, one always sees the light.”
If that were only true, I thought. It certainly wasn’t for Nelson Spinner. The truth might have set Seymour free, but it would put Nelson behind bars for a long, long time.
So can eating ice cream, I thought, as I stepped over to Seymour’s truck to retrieve some paper napkins.
“That’s another mystery solved,” Brainert crowed, following me over. “Who could have imagined that Eugene Phelps was the great-grandson of the daguerreotype maker who captured that image of Poe? Or that Poe would have paid for his daguerreotype by writing an original poem?”
“Or that the man’s name was Jericho Reynolds,” I noted, wiping some sticky drippings off my hands.
Reynolds, of course, was the name Poe had called in his dying hours. For over a century, many scholars had speculated about the man’s identity. Brainert was now preparing to write a bevy of academic papers on the subject, offering his theory on that mystery as well.
“So what’s going to happen to the poem and the daguerreotype?” I asked.
Brainert rubbed his chin. “The two sides of the family share Peter Chesley’s estate evenly and they don’t agree on much, but they did decide to place the daguerreotype in the St. Francis College Library—”
“I’m glad to hear it won’t stay private. Something like that should be available for study and appreciation.”
“The Chesley family will continue to own the likeness, of course, and each time the image is reprinted, the family stands to gain. The same is true of the poem. I’ve dealt with both sides of the family—even that favorite principal of yours, Claymore Chesley—and they are close to resolving their differences.”
“It seems Peter’s last wish is finally coming true.”
“Yes. The feuding branches of his family are going to be reunited at last.”
I gave Brainert a sad smile. “I’m just so sorry it took his death to accomplish it.”
