Raiders of the Lost Corset by Ellen Byerrum Read Free Book Online Page B

executioners seemed torn between shame and pride in their deeds even before the bodies were cold in the ground.
    The diary claimed that several corsets on the bodies of the imperial princesses were found to be filled with hidden jewels. Empress Alexandra wore a heavy pearl belt beneath her clothes. Each new discovery momentarily drew everyone’s attention away from the other bodies. But Juris Akmentins paid no attention. He had also found a corset on the body of an imperial princess. He didn’t know which one she was; the body was too disfigured. Bloodstained, torn by bullets, pierced by bayonets, her corset leaked jewels. Surrounded by greed and madness, Juris saw his chance and kept his mouth shut. He stripped the corset from the small body, and the Latvians looked out for each other. While the other assassins slipped and stumbled around him on the floor slick with blood, Juris shoved the garment deep inside his long coat, then made a show of tossing a petticoat and other garments from the girl’s body into a pile of clothes growing in the middle of the floor.
    She wore no corset, he told them, adding he knew nothing of women’s underclothes. The soldiers were threatened with execution if they stole anything from the Revolution. Frightened for their lives, several of them tossed small valuables into a pile, items they had taken from the bodies as souvenirs, a watch, a ring, a medal. Akmentins threw in a gold button he said he had found on the floor. They were not searched. The officer in charge was satisfied his threats had ended the stealing. But Juris Akmentins had seen so much slaughter that death had no power to frighten him.
    A decade later, when he fled what was then the Soviet Union to emigrate to France, Juris wrapped the stained and tattered corset, its burden of jewels still intact, around his infant daughter beneath her dress and blanket. None of the border guards cared to inspect the squalling child’s diapers, and they left her untouched in her parents’ arms.
    The corset eventually became a badge of shame and remorse for Juris Akmentins, a burden of sins he didn’t know how to deal with. He hid the garment away, but he wrote about it obsessively, leaving clues to its whereabouts in the slim leather-bound book.
    Perhaps he hoped it would be cleansed of its shame by years and distance, and someone among his descendants might claim it with innocent hands.
    The diary of Juris Akmentins came into Magda’s hands after the death of her mother, Juris’s daughter, who had unknowingly worn the corset as an infant. The diary’s contents led Magda to believe the corset was hidden at a farmhouse still owned by a member of her family. If she was right, it was in France near Mont-Saint-Michel, several hours’ drive west of Paris.
    If someone knew the diary was the key to a treasure, Lacey thought, it was a more convincing motive for murder than Magda’s cheap broach. Had Magda told anyone else about her grandfather’s diary and the corset? She had assured Lacey that it was their secret, but Lacey had seen how much Magda relished telling a good story.
    Broadway Lamont was right: There were no drive-by poisonings. She called the detective’s cell phone and left a message. She didn’t have to wait long for his call back.
    “Yo, Smithsonian, you got it all solved, wrapped up in a big present for me? ’Cause I love listening to reporters tell me how to do my job.”
    “Thanks for calling back, Broadway.” She ignored the jibe. “I just thought of something.”
    “Better be good.”
    “There’s a diary. It belonged to Magda’s grandfather. You might want to locate it. Should be in her apartment somewhere. She said it had information that was priceless.”
    “You want to be more specific?”
    “Small brown leather-bound book. She showed it to me once,”
    Lacey said, ducking the issue of exactly why that information might be priceless. “And it’s in Latvian.”
    “Latvian.” She could hear him snort.