Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“It’s such a simple name, isn’t it?” Hayley shrugged when Roz looked at her. “Sorry, I was just thinking. Amelia, that’s sort of flowy and feminine. But the rest. Ellen Connor. It’s solid and simple. You sort of expect the rest to be flowy, too, or a little exotic. Then again, Amelia means industrious—I looked it up.”

“Of course you did,” Roz said fondly.

“It doesn’t sound like that’s what it should mean. I think Ellen’s a derivative of Helen, and makes me think Helen of Troy, so it’s actually more sort of feminine and exotic when you come down to it. And none of that’s important.”

“Interesting, as always though, to see how your mind works. And here’s the rest of our happy few.”

“Ran into Harper out front.” Logan walked over to kiss Stella. “Sweaty, sorry. Came straight from the job.” He picked up a glass of iced tea David had poured and drank every drop.

“So what’s the deal?” Harper zeroed in on the cookies, took three, then plopped into a chair. “We’ve got her name, so what, drum roll?”

“It’s pretty impressive Mitch could find her name with the little we had to go on,” Hayley shot back.

“Not saying otherwise, just wondering what we do with it.”

“First, I’d like to know how he came by it. Mitchell,” Roz said with growing impatience. “Don’t make me hurt you in front of the children.”

“So.” Mitch pushed back from the keyboard, took off his glasses to polish them on his shirt. “Reginald Harper owned several properties, including houses. Here in Shelby County, and outside it. Some were rented, of course, investment properties, income. I did find a few, through the old ledgers, that were listed as tenanted through certain periods, but generated no income.”

“Cooking the books?” Harper suggested.

“Possibly. Or these residences might have been where he installed mistresses.”

“Plural?” Logan took another glass of tea. “Busy boy.”

“Beatrice’s journal speaks of women, not woman, so it follows. It also follows, as we find him a shrewd, goal-oriented type that as he wanted a son, whatever the cost, he maintained more than one candidate until he got what he was after. But the journals also indicate Amelia was local, so I concentrated on the local properties.”

“I doubt he’d list a mistress as a tenant,” Roz said.

“No. Meanwhile, I’ve been scouring the census lists. A lot of names, a lot of years to cover. Then a little lightbulb goes off, and I narrowed it to the years Reginald held those local properties, and before 1892. Still a lot to cull through, but I hit in the 1890 census.”

His gaze scanned the room, landed on the cart. “Are those cookies?”

“Jesus, David, get the man some cookies before I have to kill him. What did you hit in 1890?”

“Amelia Ellen Connor, resident of one of Reginald’s Memphis houses. One that generated no income from the later half of that year, through March of 1893. One, in fact, he’d listed as untenanted during that period.”

“Almost certainly has to be her,” Stella said. “It’s too neat and tidy not to be.”

“She knows her neat and tidy,” Logan commented. “In spades.”

“If it’s not our Amelia, it’s one hell of a coincidence.” Mitch tossed his glasses onto the table. “Reginald’s very careful bookkeeper noted on Reginald’s books a number of expenses incurred during the period the property was supposedly empty, and Amelia Connor listed it as her residence on the census. In February of 1893, considerably more expenses were noted dealing with refurbishing in preparation for new tenants, paying tenants. The house was sold, if you’re interested, in 1899.”

“So we know she lived in Memphis,” Hayley began, “at least until a few months after the baby was born.”

“More than that. Amelia Ellen Connor.” He slipped his glasses back on and read his notes. “Born 1868 to Thomas Edward Connor and Mary Kathleen Connor née Bingham. Though Amelia listed both her parents as deceased, that was only true of her father, who died in 1886. Her mother was alive, and very possibly well, until her death in 1897. She was employed

by the Lucerne family as a housemaid at a home on the river, called—”

“The Willows,” Roz finished. “I know that house. It’s older than this one. It’s a bed-and-breakfast now, a very lovely one. It was bought and restored oh, twenty years ago at least.”

“Mary Connor worked there,” Mitch continued, “and though she listed no children for the census, a check of vital records shows she had a daughter—Amelia Ellen.”

“Estranged, I suppose,” Stella said.

“Enough that the daughter considered her mother dead, and the mother didn’t acknowledge the daughter. There’s another interesting bit. There’s no record of Amelia having a child, just as there’s no record of her death.”

“Money can grease wheels or muddy them up,” Hayley added.