Chapter 4 - The Man in the Christmas Photograph
Adrian stared at the faint words on the table.
HE KNOWS I’M ALIVE.
“Who wrote that?”
Eleanor touched the indentations carefully.
“Lily.”
Evelyn nodded.
“She writes hard when she’s nervous.”
Adrian turned.
“You know that.”
It wasn’t a question.
Evelyn swallowed.
“Yes.”
“How many times did you see her?”
Evelyn’s silence answered first.
“Evelyn.”
“More than I told you.”
Claire watched Adrian absorb another betrayal.
“How many?”
“Over the last three years? Maybe thirty.”
Adrian looked away.
Thirty visits.
Thirty chances to tell him.
“What did she call you?”
Evelyn’s face crumpled.
“Miss E.”
The name from the drawing.
Adrian laughed softly.
It sounded painful.
“You told my daughter I stopped looking for her.”
Evelyn pressed her lips together.
“I told her things I thought would keep her from trying to come home.”
“Why?”
“Because every time she asked to come back, my father said he would move her somewhere none of us could find.”
“And after your father died?”
Evelyn looked toward Eleanor.
“By then we believed Renato had found us.”
Eleanor nodded reluctantly.
“Someone entered one of our apartments in Providence. Nothing valuable was taken.”
“What was?”
“A drawing Lily had made of Adrian.”
Claire felt cold.
Someone had wanted them to know they had been found.
Victor walked to the window.
“Renato knew Charles Hart.”
Adrian looked at him.
“How well?”
“Better than I admitted.”
There it was again.
Another secret.
Adrian’s patience thinned.
“Victor, I strongly recommend you stop choosing when I deserve the truth.”
Victor faced him.
“Your father and Renato ran parts of the harbor operation together. When your father died, Renato came to me.”
“What did he want?”
“The watch.”
Adrian said nothing.
Victor continued.
“He believed Eleanor had hidden evidence inside it. I told him the watch burned.”
Eleanor stared.
“You knew about it?”
“Only that Renato wanted it. I didn’t know why.”
Adrian rubbed a hand over his face.
“Grace and Lily bought a ticket to Boston. Where would they go?”
Claire glanced again at the Polaroid.
The green coat.
The anchor button.
“Saint Bartholomew’s.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The coat was donated there. If Lily thinks the watch was hidden in that coat…”
Eleanor stood.
“She may be trying to find out where the donation went.”
Victor shook his head.
“After thirty-four years?”
“Children don’t think in probabilities,” Claire said. “They follow the clue they understand.”
Evelyn looked at her strangely.
Then nodded.
“She’s right.”
Adrian was already moving.
Saint Bartholomew’s had been rebuilt twice since the fire.
The old parish hall remained behind the church.
They arrived shortly after midnight.
A retired custodian named Mr. Hanley lived in a small apartment attached to the building.
Victor woke him.
The old man opened the door wearing slippers and a Boston Celtics sweatshirt.
Adrian showed him the photograph.
Hanley studied it.
“That coat.”
Adrian leaned closer.
“You remember it?”
“Not from 1992.”
He pointed at the anchor button.
“But I remember those buttons.”
“Why?”
“My wife volunteered here. We saved unusual buttons before damaged clothes went to textile recycling.”
Claire’s heartbeat quickened.
“Do you still have them?”
Hanley scratched his chin.
“My wife never threw away anything that might be useful.”
He led them into a storage room.
Old Christmas decorations filled metal shelves.
Beneath them sat several sewing tins.
Hanley opened one.
Buttons.
Hundreds of them.
Claire began sorting.
Evelyn joined her.
So did Eleanor.
Adrian watched for ten seconds before sitting on the floor and doing the same.
It was the strangest sight Claire had seen all night.
One of the most feared men in Boston, searching an old cookie tin for the button from a coat he had worn at eight years old.
Eleanor found it.
A brass anchor.
Her hand shook.
“That’s it.”
Hanley frowned.
“My wife kept notes.”
He searched another box and found a stained index card.
Green child coat — damaged lining — sent to St. Agnes winter shelter, January 1993.
Victor looked at Adrian.
“St. Agnes closed years ago.”
Hanley nodded.
“The building became a community center.”
Adrian asked, “Where?”
“Dorchester.”
Evelyn suddenly stood.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She was pale.
“What?”
“My father used to take me there.”
“When?”
“When I was a child.”
Adrian stared.
“Why?”
“He said we were visiting my aunt.”
“You don’t have an aunt.”
“I know.”
Eleanor whispered, “Charles was searching for the coat.”
Evelyn looked sick.
“He searched for it for decades.”
They drove south.
By the time they reached the old St. Agnes building, the rain had stopped.
A night supervisor let them into the archived donation room after Adrian explained enough to be taken seriously.
Most records had been digitized.
A volunteer searched old intake ledgers.
January 1993.
Green children’s coat.
Transferred from Saint Bartholomew’s.
The volunteer found the entry.
“Here.”
Adrian leaned over the screen.
The coat had not been distributed.
The notation read:
LINING TORN. SENT TO REPAIR ROOM. CLAIMED BY FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE.
“Who?”
The volunteer enlarged the scanned page.
A signature appeared.
Claire saw Adrian’s expression change.
Not Renato.
Not Charles Hart.
The name was:
VICTOR SALERNO.
Everyone turned.
Victor stared at the screen.
“No.”
Adrian’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“That’s your signature.”
“It looks like it.”
“You collected my coat.”
“I didn’t.”
Eleanor stepped away from him.
Victor shook his head.
“I swear to you, Adrian. I never came here.”
Claire looked again.
Something bothered her.
“Wait.”
She pointed to the date.
January 14, 1993.
Then she looked at Victor.
“How old were you?”
“Thirty.”
“Were you in Boston?”
Victor frowned.
“No.”
Eleanor suddenly remembered.
“You were in Sicily.”
Victor nodded.
“My mother was dying. I left on January second. I came back in February.”
Adrian looked at the forged signature.
Someone had used Victor’s name.
The volunteer clicked the next scanned page.
“There’s an attachment.”
An old receipt.
The coat had been taken to a tailor on Hanover Street.
Business name:
R. MARCHETTI & SON – CUSTOM ALTERATIONS.
Adrian stared.
“That was my grandfather’s first shop.”
Eleanor whispered, “Renato worked there.”
Another note had been stapled to the receipt.
Three words.
OBJECT REMOVED — RETURNED.
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“Renato found the watch thirty-four years ago.”
Evelyn whispered, “Then why has he spent all these years pretending he was still looking for it?”
Nobody answered.
Claire turned the receipt over.
Something had been written on the back in blue ink.
A storage number.
BOX 417.
And beneath it, in handwriting much newer than the receipt:
LILY — UNION STATION — 12:40.
Adrian checked his watch.
12:23 a.m.
His face changed.
May you like
“She’s there now.”
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