Chapter 1 - The Casket That Weighed Too Little
The crack of Anna Reed’s rubber mallet echoed through Saint Alden Memorial Chapel before Boston’s wealthiest mourners understood what the household attendant had done.
The decorative center panel of the ivory casket collapsed inward, scattering small wooden fragments across the platform beneath the white roses.
Mrs. Eleanor Whitmore gripped the front pew and shouted, “Stop! What are you doing?”
Julian Whitmore, the dead man’s only acknowledged heir, rushed from the left aisle in a black three-piece suit and ordered Anna to step away from his father’s casket.
Behind him, bankers, judges, university trustees and Beacon Hill socialites rose in disgust.
To them, Anna was not a grieving employee who had served Henry Whitmore for fourteen years.
She was a woman in a white apron destroying something expensive.
Anna placed the mallet on the floor and pointed toward the broken panel.
“The weight was wrong,” she said.
“When we carried it inside, it was too light.”
Julian accused her of seeking attention because Henry had recently dismissed her brother from one of his hotels.
Several mourners immediately accepted that explanation.
A rich heir’s suspicion sounded more respectable than a servant’s certainty.
Anna released the latch and lifted the lid.
There was no body inside.
Only torn packing cloth, unfinished wood and a small brass luggage tag engraved with the initials A.R.
Anna covered her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
“He’s not here.”
Julian looked into the empty casket, then toward the chapel doors.
“Who moved my father?”
Mrs. Whitmore did not look surprised by the missing body.
She looked terrified by the luggage tag.
May you like
Anna picked it up and realized the initials were her own.
Then Mrs. Whitmore whispered, “Henry warned me she would open it.”
