The Ivory Comb Was Holding a Bank Code

Chapter 03 - The Ivory Comb Was Holding a Bank Code

We removed the ivory from the comb in the library.

Carefully.

Not with a kitchen knife.

I called my mother first.

She had repaired pianos before arthritis made her hands unreliable.

She knew a conservator named Samuel Price.

He came after midnight.

Sixty-four.

Round glasses.

No interest in Luca’s reputation.

He looked at the comb and said:

“Whoever did this should not be allowed near furniture.”

Vanessa sat in silence.

Luca asked:

“Can you remove the pieces without damaging them?”

“Yes.”

One by one, Samuel loosened the gold frame.

The backs of the six ivory strips were darker with age.

And each carried blue ink.

Not large numbers.

Two or three digits.

19.

82.

41.

7.

26.

11.

The seventh, according to Isabella, carried 314.

Together they did not look like a normal box number.

Samuel said:

“These were written before the keytops were removed.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Oxidation over the ink at the edges.”

Old.

Likely Elena’s.

Vanessa stared at them.

“I had no idea.”

Luca looked at her.

“I believe you.”

That surprised her.

Then:

“You still cut them off.”

Her face tightened.

Both things true.

Peter Russo arrived at one-thirty.

Seventy-two.

Accountant.

Former Moretti family controller.

Retired eight years.

He walked with a cane and looked furious about the hour.

Then saw the keytops.

His anger disappeared.

“Elena.”

Luca stepped closer.

“You know the numbers?”

Peter sat without asking.

“The first one.”

314.

A safe-deposit box at Lakeshore Federal.

Closed branch now.

Records transferred downtown.

“What was in it?”

Peter looked at Luca.

“I don’t know.”

“You were the family controller.”

“For your father.”

“My mother?”

“Your mother kept some things separate.”

Then Ashland.

The building had been purchased in 1998 through Moretti Arts Holdings.

Luca believed his father, Carlo Moretti, financed the purchase.

Peter said:

“Half.”

“Who financed the rest?”

“Elena.”

Luca laughed once.

“No.”

“She inherited money from your grandmother and sold two rental properties.”

“Why isn’t she on the ownership?”

“She was.”

Peter looked exhausted.

“Originally.”

The company began fifty-fifty.

Carlo and Elena.

Then in 2004, ownership records changed.

Carlo seventy-five.

Elena twenty-five.

Why?

A capital call.

The company needed money for repairs.

Carlo contributed more.

Elena signed dilution papers.

At least according to the file.

“Did she?”

Peter looked at the ivory.

“She disputed them later.”

My skin prickled.

“Forged?” Luca asked.

“I never said that.”

“Then what?”

“She said the papers did not match what Carlo explained to her.”

Different.

Maybe deception.

Maybe misunderstanding.

Maybe marital finance.

Peter continued.

Elena believed her twenty-five percent should eventually pass equally to Luca and Isabella.

Carlo’s estate, however, treated all Ashland interest as marital business property passing under his trust.

When Carlo died, Luca became controlling owner.

Isabella received cash elsewhere.

“You never told me.”

Peter looked at him.

“I told your lawyer.”

“Which lawyer?”

“Victor Santi.”

Luca went still.

Victor Santi had died three years earlier.

He had been Carlo’s lawyer.

Then Luca’s.

The kind of man whose files survived longer than his explanations.

Peter said:

“Elena asked for a side ledger.”

“What ledger?”

“Every contribution she made into Ashland. Every renovation paid from her inheritance. She wanted proof if the ownership was ever challenged.”

“The note says show Isabella the ledger.”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

Peter looked at Vanessa.

Then at the piano.

“Not with me.”

Vanessa finally spoke.

“Why would Elena hide a bank code in piano keys?”

Peter’s mouth tightened.

“Because she stopped trusting the office.”

That landed on Luca harder than it landed on Vanessa.

“What office?”

“Your father’s.”

Silence.

Not murder.

Not secret mob assassination.

A wife who no longer trusted family accounting.

Human enough.

Then Peter asked:

“Where is Isabella?”

Luca answered.

“Havenwood.”

Peter looked alarmed.

“Why?”

Vanessa said:

“She asked to go.”

Peter ignored her.

“To whom did she give the seventh key?”

“We don’t know.”

His hand tightened around the cane.

“Then you need to find out.”

“Why?”

“Because box 314 was closed after Elena died.”

Luca stared.

“Then the code is useless.”

“No.”

Peter looked at the numbers.

“The box wasn’t the destination.”

“What was?”

“The receipt.”

Lakeshore Federal had issued a safe-deposit surrender receipt.

Elena kept it because it listed the transfer location of the contents.

A private document archive in Boston.

Isabella really had gone to Boston.

Just not this week.

Three months earlier.

Peter said:

“She called me from there.”

Luca slowly turned.

“What?”

“She found me.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“She asked me not to.”

That sentence was becoming a family tradition.

Luca looked wounded.

Then angry.

Then tired.

“Why does nobody trust me?”

Peter did not flinch.

“Because when you are frightened, Luca, you make decisions before people finish sentences.”

The room became still.

Vanessa looked at him.

So did I.

Luca said:

“That’s what Isabella said.”

“Then perhaps listen twice.”

Peter took the pieces of ivory and arranged them in order.

The numbers corresponded to archive drawer identifiers.

Boston.

A private historical records firm.

Seven numbers.

Seven index positions.

One file.

Elena Moretti — Ashland / Russo / Bellini.

Vanessa’s name was not on it.

Her family name was.

She stared.

“Bellini?”

Luca looked at her.

“What does your family have to do with my mother’s building?”

Vanessa shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Peter did.

His face gave him away.

Luca leaned forward.

“Tell me.”

Peter took a long breath.

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“Before Ashland became a Moretti property, the Bellinis owned the mortgage.”

And according to Elena’s side ledger, somebody had been paying that mortgage with money that never appeared in Carlo Moretti’s books.