old Ted, always the showman. He wasn’t content using the ol’ finger-in-the-pocket-like-a-gun trick. He really did have a gun, a small, silver pistol with a pearl handle. It was aimed right at me.
“Let’s get this over with as quickly as we can,” he said. He held out his left hand and jiggled his fingers, urging me to hand over the letter. “If I can get out of here fast, we can avoid any messy consequences.”
“If you shoot me, Scott and Quinn are going to come running.”
This sounded reasonable to me, but it wasn’t about to make Studebaker change his mind. “By the time they stop what they’re doing and figure out where the shot came from, I’ll be out of here. That’s the thing about surprise. It’s . . .” He grinned. “Surprising!”
“All this for a stupid letter?” What was left of the frame was on the desk and I looked down at the President’s fancy, curlicue script. “Come on, it can’t be worth that much.”
“It isn’t.” Studebaker stepped closer. “But what’s on the back of it . . .”
I hauled in a breath, and if I wasn’t so worried about living through the next couple minutes and about how if I didn’t, my body would be found with a big, ugly red mark on my forehead, I would have given myself a slap. “Of course, Jeremiah Stone said there wasn’t any blank paper in his portfolio. He went to get some, but the president couldn’t wait. He grabbed a piece of paper, anyway. And if there was no blank paper, that means something has to be written on the back of this one.”
Carefully avoiding both Studebaker’s confused “What are you talking about?” and the sharp bits of glass still left inside the frame, I took out the president’s letter and flipped it over. Even though the writing on the other side of the paper was stiff and old-fashioned and hard to read, I skimmed over the words and my breath caught.
I looked up at Studebaker in wonder. “This isn’t possible. You mean—”
“When word of this gets out . . .” He dangled the word to reflect the possibilities.
OK, so I’m not exactly a whiz when it comes to politics. Or world affairs. Or treaties and such. But even I knew the piece of paper in my hands would blow the lid off international relations.
“That’s why you were so anxious to get at this. It wasn’t because the letter from the president to Lucia is so valuable. It was for what was on the other side of it. And nobody knew about it but you. When I brought you that newspaper page I wanted to sell, you said you’d have to have an archivist look at it. That’s what you did with this. You took it out of the frame, and you saw what was on the back of the letter, and you . . .” There was nothing to be gained from not going for broke. “You killed Marjorie Klinker to get it.”
“It would have been easier to kill Nick.” Studebaker sniffed. “I was hoping he’d talk his aunt out of the letter and then I could simply eliminate him. I waited for him to leave the memorial with the letter in hand, but then I heard them arguing. She hadn’t even brought the letter with her, the stupid woman. After Nick left—”
“You moved in on Marjorie. And when she wouldn’t tell you where the letter was—”
“Things got out of hand. Yes. As they are about to get out of hand again.” With the barrel of the gun, he motioned me to stand. “I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that once a man has killed for the first time, the second time can’t possibly be hard. The letter, please. Now.”
I got to my feet, and just as I did, I heard the door handle jiggle.
“Pepper?” Scott was outside, and he tried the door again.
“Pepper, are you in there?” This question was from Quinn. “Is everything OK?”
“Tell them it is.” Studebaker mouthed the words.
Let’s face it, I never have been very good at taking direction. Especially not from a murderer.
I yelled something I vaguely remember as, “Watch out, it’s Studebaker and he’s the murderer,” and dropped to the floor, and just as I did, I heard the crash of the door getting kicked open, the sound of a single gunshot, and a muffled cry from Studebaker. I would like to be able to describe exactly how Scott and Quinn subdued him, but truth be told, I crawled under the desk, and stayed there the whole time.
21
“We’ve got a mountain of paperwork to fill out.” W Scott leaned over where I was sitting and looked me in the eye. “I hate to have to leave. You sure you’re going to be OK?”
“I’m fine. Honest.” I had my arms wrapped around myself to keep him from seeing that I was shaking like a leaf, but I did a pretty good job of sounding cool, calm, and collected. I had to. I’d already given my statement to the cops, but there was one more thing I had to do before I left the memorial that night, and I couldn’t do it with the FBI hanging around along with half the Cleveland Police Force and the paramedics who were tending to Studebaker’s gunshot wound. (I never did find out if Scott or Quinn was the hero.)
“Somebody’s got to lock up when you guys leave,” I told Scott, and Quinn, too, since he was standing right behind Scott glaring at me like nobody’s business.
“I can call Ella,” Quinn said. “She’ll come over here and—”
“You don’t have to.” I guess I wanted to prove to them both (and maybe to myself, too), that I could stand on my own two feet, so I hauled myself out of the chair. “I’m fine. Look.” I held my arms out at my sides. Yeah, my neck hurt from where Nick had tried to squeeze the life out of me, but other than that, I really was none the worse for wear. Well, except for my slushy knees and my heartbeat racing a couple miles a minute.
“Go.” I shooed them both toward the door. “I’ll lock up and be right behind you.”
Neither one of them liked being told what to do, but it was a testament to how much paperwork they both had to file after all that had happened that night: both Scott and Quinn walked out. I watched them and all their safety forces buddies troop out the front door, then waited a few minutes for the quiet to settle. When it had, I stepped into the rotunda and onto the dais.
“Mr. President?” I wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news I was about to deliver, and my voice was small and tentative.
“Won’t do,” I told myself, and I raised my chin. “Mr. President,” I said, my voice louder this time. “We have a matter of national import to discuss.”
He shimmered into shape not three feet in front of me, and now that he thought all the excitement was over, I guess he was feeling a little more relaxed and a lot more jovial. His blue eyes sparkled. “National import? I swear, Miss Martin, you are sounding more like a politician every day. If you were not a woman, I would suggest you might consider running for office.”
I had the letter to Lucia in my hand and I held it up so he could see it. “There’s something you need to know,” I said. “About those last days before you died.”
Apparently he got the message. He saw how serious I was, and his brows dropped over his eyes. “You have told me already of the letter I wrote to Lucia. What else can possibly—”
I didn’t know how to explain so I didn’t even try. I flipped over the letter and held it up for him to read, carefully watching his face as he did. At first he was mildly interested. Then puzzled. Then horrified.
When he was done, he took a step back and blinked, like he was trying to process it all. “If you see fit to pull some sort of antic on me, young lady,” he said, “you should know that it is neither amusing nor suitable.”
“No, it’s not funny at all.”
Convinced I was serious and that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, the president stepped forward, the better to see the paper in my hands. He read it over again, talking it through as he went. “It is a treaty. Between the United States of America and Federal Dominion of Canada, dated September 15, 1881. It sets forth to say that in exchange for the sum of fifteen million dollars in gold . . .” He paused, his head cocked. “That was a great deal of money in those days,” he commented before he went back to reading. “It says that in exchange for those fifteen million dollars, the United States would sign over to Canada all the lands of the Montana, Dakota, Idaho, and Wyoming territories. There is room there at the bottom where my signature is meant to go. Thank the good Lord . . .” His eyes bright, he looked up at me. “It is unsigned!”
“You got that right. And this . . .” I waved the paper, but carefully. After all, even I knew a document of historical significance when I saw one. “This is what Studebaker was really after, not your letter to Lucia.”
The president’s forehead was creased with thought. “But who could have done such a devilish thing?” he asked, and I didn’t need to supply the answer. I knew exactly when he figured it out. His eyes flew open. His face flushed. He threw back his shoulders and thundered into the darkness. “Jeremiah Stone! Your president needs you to attend him. Now!”
Oh yeah, Stone showed up, all right, and I don’t think I was imagining it: behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were troubled. But then, I bet he’d never seen anyone as pissed as the president was. James A. Garfield’s
