LITMIR.BIZ

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the mention of Petticoat Row, I froze. I already felt a personal connection to the woman and the chandlery I’d found, but here was another tie. About the time my skeleton was alive, Centre Street, where my store is located, was familiarly called Petticoat Row because the establishments that lined the road were all run by women. They were power babes who used their business endeavors to support their families while their husbands were away. They were also able to build nest eggs in case of an unsuccessful voyage or, sadly, in case a husband was lost at sea. Most of the women who worked on Petticoat Row were dressmakers, dry goods retailers, and the like. I was as much a kindred spirit to the Petticoat Row ladies as I was to my candle maker.

      Wondering if there could be a connection between the Cooper Thieves and Cooper’s Candles, I decided to look at Mary Backus’s diary. I printed out the screen result and took the page down to Agnes. She was busy studying a crossword puzzle when I arrived at her post.

      “Can you think of a seven-letter word for ‘tiramisu part?’ ” she said.

      “Espresso?” I said.

      “That’s eight. I’ll think of it,” she said, absently taking the sheet from me and heading to the back room.

      While I waited for her to return, I stretched a bit. I was reaching down to my toes, enjoying the fact that this was my first library visit that had not ended with me falling asleep, when a phone began to ring from the center of the building, which rose to a loft-like opening to the second floor. I looked above me to the source of the sound.

      “Bellows speaking,” the guest curator said in a voice that suited his name.

      I’d always thought that talking on the phone in a library was a no-no, but apparently not.

      “Uh-huh,” Bellows said.

      “Uh-huh,” he said again.

      Sounded like business.

      There was a nice spindle-back chair reproduction across from Agnes’s reception desk, so I took a seat.

      “I absolutely want the diary,” Bellow continued. “The exhibit will be nothing without the supporting elements of various whaling towns involved in these voyages. And reach out to Smith in Hudson for the example of a captain’s wife’s diary.”

      Agnes returned to her station, and immediately I noticed her wrinkled brow and pursed lips.

      “You’re interested in the Cooper Thieves?” she said, placing a piece of paper onto her desk. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      Walking back to her desk, I looked at the single page she had produced. I suspected it wasn’t Mary Backus’s diary, but I was surprised and a little confused, by what I saw. The page contained a list of names, with Agnes’s among them. I seemed to be looking at her family tree.

      “I can tell you all you want to know,” said Agnes. “Patience Cooper was a member of my family.”

      “Patience?”

      My eye fell to the name Patience Hussey Cooper on the paper between us. I let the name settle in. I could almost feel my pupils dilate with interest.

      “You know her story?” I said.

      “Stella,” she said, laying her hand protectively over her family tree, “I’ll be honest. Not many of us left are familiar with the story. It’s one of those skeletons in the closet we try not to remember. Before I say anything more, why are you asking?”

      “I think she might have lived at the Morton house,” I said.

      “Really?” said Agnes, looking shocked that anything to do with the story was coming up.

      Agnes sighed. I knew that she loved a good story. As much as she wanted to let it lie, it would be impossible for her not to tell me more.

      “In the 1830s, Patience Hussey Cooper, a motherless only child, worked on Petticoat Row. When she was in her late teens, she fell in love with a sailor, Jedediah Cooper. He was a wash-ashore, arriving on Nantucket from a whaling voyage he’d joined in the South Pacific.”

      “You know your stuff,” I said, genuinely impressed and wondering how Jedediah fit in to Agnes’s family story. I still wasn’t sure if I’d found the right Coopers, but I was eager to hear more.

      “Jedediah wasn’t a Quaker, but he was handsome and charming,” she said, as if she’d met the man herself. “As you can imagine, Patience wasn’t the only girl who had her eye on him. She and her best friend, Nancy Holland, competed for Jedediah’s affections. By all accounts, Patience was not the more beautiful of the two, but he chose Patience. Probably because her father had just died, and Jedediah could pick up her family’s business and settle down from a life at sea without much difficulty. The Coopers made candles, you know.”

      “I didn’t, but that’s a very helpful detail,” I said, my confidence rising that I’d found the right Coopers to investigate further. It was a thrilling, yet surreal possibility, since all the characters had been dead and gone for so long.

      “Nancy and Patience worked on Petticoat Row together. They were seamstresses. They were also savvy women. Shortly after Patience and Jedediah married, there was a whaling ship about to set sail around the horn of South Africa. The ladies decided to invest in the voyage, in hopes of making a tidy sum if the enterprise went well.”

      “People could do that?” I said.

      “Oh, yes. It was like buying stocks, but you might have to wait years for a return,” said Agnes. “Anyhow, Nancy was in charge of taking the women’s funds to the vessel’s captain on behalf of the investors. Legend has it, she was sick that morning, so Patience offered to conduct their business instead. Nancy gave her the money, and Patience headed off. That night, however, Jedediah told the neighbors that Patience had been beaten and the money stolen as she made her way to the ship. He told everyone he was going to take Patience to the mainland for medical attention on a boat that was about to leave for the Cape. That was the last anyone saw of the Coopers and the Petticoat Row ladies’ money.”

      “The Cooper Thieves,” I said, remembering the headlines. “They stole the money and hightailed it. The end?”

      “The end. And a terrible end at that,” said Agnes, shaking her head in disapproval, even all these years later.

      As excited as I had initially been about the candle connection, I now felt I was back to square one. I was looking for a murdered woman, not two con artists who had skipped town. Although both stories included candle makers, there didn’t seem to be anything in Agnes’s tale that ended with a dead body.

      “You can see why we like to let this one lie,” Agnes said. “But you think she lived at the Morton house? I have to admit it’s interesting to know that.”

      “Actually, in spite of the name Cooper and the candle connection, I don’t think it’s the same family. You see, I found a skeleton in their old chandlery with the sign for Cooper’s Candles above it, but I’m in search of a murderer, not thieves. There must have been more Coopers on Nantucket than I ever realized.”

      “A dead body?” she said. “Oh, lordy. I hope they didn’t kill people while they were at it. I’ll keep searching for you. Maybe I can come up with something that could help.”

      “Knock, knock,” said Bellows.

      We turned to find the island’s popular historian in his patched jacket standing at a cautious distance. I could now see that he was quite tall, which was not what I had expected, having only seen him hunched over his books. I wondered when he’d come downstairs, and how long he’d been there.

      “I have a list of periodicals and diaries for you to find for me, Ms. Agnes,” he said, and gave us both a smile. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said to me, handing me his card. “Jameson Bellows.”

      “Welcome to Nantucket,” I said.

      “Keep in touch,” said Agnes to me.

      “I

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