Letter from Heaven
Considered the most successful independent antique dealer in New York City, Coco Lacombe hosted her own popular interior design television show on HGTV. For thirteen episodes each season, she traveled across the country searching out treasures from the past at flea markets, garage sales, auctions and estate sales. Over the nine years her top-rated show was on the air, she showed millions of viewers how, even with a minimal budget, they could purchase antiques either to enhance their homes or as an investment.
Although her show had taken her to all parts of America, including Alaska and Hawaii, for the tenth season, she went to neighboring New Jersey. Once she crossed the Hudson, she headed south on the Garden State Parkway to the southernmost tip of the state: Cape May. Unlike Atlantic City, roughly fifty miles to the north, which was home to casinos and big-name entertainment—not to mention historical links to bootlegging and organized crime, as seen on HBO's Boardwalk Empire—Cape May was a quieter, more refined seaside resort. Its towering lighthouse, sandy beaches, Victorian homes, quaint shops and restaurants have long made it a popular vacation destination.
While filming this first episode of the new season, Coco found a Konigsberg pewter plate, a set of six Regency period dining chairs, an 1897 first American edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula and an Edwardian green tourmaline and diamond ring. Once the episode came to an end, the chairs were placed in wooden crates and sent by freight carrier to her Greenwich Village shop. The pewter plate, book and ring were shipped separately by FedEx.
Leaving Cape May behind, the host and her film crew traveled west across the Delaware River to Philadelphia. The highlight of the episode was an estate sale in Bryn Mawr, during which Coco purchased an Edward Hopper painting at a bargain price.
"That was a steal!" she exclaimed when she phoned Burgess Spence, the assistant who was placed in charge of her shop while she was on the road. "I bet we can sell that for three times what I paid for it."
"You buy all these gorgeous antiques and then sell them. Don't you ever want to keep any of them?" her cameraman asked after she ended the call and put her cell phone in her purse.
"No. Buying and selling antiques is how I make money. I can't make anything if I keep them. It's like that line from Scarface: 'Don't get high on your own supply.'"
There was no denying Coco Lacombe was good at what she did. It made her a very wealthy woman. Not only was she able to spot fakes from authentic pieces, but she also seemed to have a photographic memory when it came to the value of a wide range of items. She knew just how much she should pay for an antique brooch and how much she could get for reselling a Queen Anne highboy.
"How did you get into this business in the first place?" the cameraman asked when they stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
"For years, my parents thought they'd never have children. Rather than adopt, they decided to travel. And, since money was no issue, they collected things during their journeys. Then, low and behold, my mother had a change-of-life baby. So, I was raised in a home that looked like a museum. My father passed away when I was in college, and my mother two years later. As the only child, I inherited everything. Their house was far too big for me, so I sold off a large portion of their belongings in an attempt to downsize. That was my start in dealing antiques. I found the shop in Greenwich Village and began going to garage sales, church rummage sales, flea markets and such, buying up what homeowners and vendors thought were dust collectors and worthless tchotchkes and reselling them as valuable collectors' items."
"You're like Robin Hood in reverse: you buy from the poor and sell to the rich."
"I never quite thought of it that way," Coco laughed, "but, yeah, that's basically what I do."
* * *
The third episode took Coco and her crew to Lancaster, in the heart of what is colloquially but incorrectly referred to as the Pennsylvania Dutch community. It was a world of distlefinks, hex signs, shoefly pie and homemade quilts. It was a pocket of civilization where the Amish still held barn-raisings and travelled by means of horse and buggy.
"Now, remember," the TV host told her crew when they left the hotel early in the morning to begin a day-long shopping expedition. "We're here to buy antiques, not to film the Amish. Those poor people are harassed enough for their way of life, so just let them be."
Since Lancaster itself is a city of close to sixty thousand people, the eighth largest in Pennsylvania, Coco headed to the smaller towns of Lancaster County. The first stop was Strasburg, where she attended a barn sale.
"A wooden butter churn?" the cameraman laughed when he saw the antique dealer's latest purchase. "I didn't know Manhattan yuppies were into churning their own butter."
"They don't play music cylinders either, but I can always find a buyer for an Edison phonograph."
After stopping in Ephrata, Adamstown, Columbia and Intercourse, they filmed the final segment of the episode in Bird in Hand. Although the items she purchased that day had already been packed up and shipped to New York, Coco could not resist visiting one last antique market before returning to her hotel.
"You're that lady on TV," the shopkeeper said when she entered his store sans film crew.
"Yes, I am."
"I heard you were in the area. Where are your cameramen?"
"I'm afraid we're done filming for the day."
"That's too bad," the elderly man declared, clearly disappointed that he would not appear on television. "I have something here your viewers might like to see."
"Oh? What is it?"
"A himmelsbrief."
Although Coco was familiar with many aspects of German culture, she had no idea what a himmelsbrief was.
"Is it a piece of furniture?" she asked.
"No," the shopkeeper replied and pointed to a framed document hanging on the wall. "A himmelsbrief is a letter from heaven. It's a name given to religious documents said to have been written either by God himself or one of his divine agents."
"You mean angels?"
"Yes. There are those who believe these letters miraculously fall from the sky."
"I suppose some people will believe anything."
Coco leaned forward to read the himmelsbrief and discovered it was not written in English.
"What does it say?" she asked.
"I'm not sure. I only know a few words of German. But these letters often contained Bible verses and were meant to protect the bearers from danger. As with most things, there was a catch. The owners were only protected as long as they abided by the moral covenants detailed in the letter. If they didn't, or if a letter fell into the hands of a disbeliever, it would bring punishment."
When Coco turned away, apparently having lost interest in the letter, the shopkeeper hoped to regain her attention.
"Here in the Amish community," he explained further, "these letters became part of the pow-wow tradition. Pow-wow practitioners charged handsome sums for these magical charms. A handwritten letter produced by a respected hexenmeister is regarded as a powerful talisman that protected owners from death, injury and other misfortune."
"I suppose it would be a good conversation piece."
"Does that mean you're considering making an offer?"
"Sure, why not?" she answered, after deciding it might appeal to collectors who had an interest in the occult.
Since the crew had already left in the van, Coco tossed the himmelsbrief on the passenger seat of her Mercedes and headed back to Lancaster.
* * *
With three episodes filmed, Coco would head north to Newport, Rhode Island, for the fourth. Then it would be on to Bennington, Vermont, for number five and Portland, Maine, for number six. But, first, she would go home to Greenwich Village for several days before traveling to New England. She left Lancaster early for the three-hour drive back to New York and made good time on the Pennsylvania Turnpike until she neared Philly. After spending forty-five minutes in traffic, she crossed over into New Jersey. On Interstate 95, arguably the busiest highway in the country, she made slow but steady progress.
As she neared the Molly Pitcher Service Area, she caught a glimpse of the grill of an eighteen-wheeler in her rearview mirror. The next thing she knew she was waking up in a hospital in Princeton.
"What happened?" she managed to ask as she slowly came to. "What am I doing here?"
"You've been in an accident," the nurse informed her.
"There's nothing to worry about," the doctor assured her. "You don't appear to have any broken bones or internal injuries. We'll do an MRI to make sure, but I don't think we'll find anything."
By mid-afternoon, she was released from the hospital, having survived the accident with barely a scratch. The same could not be said of her Mercedes, which was totaled in the crash. Rather than take a bus home, she asked Burgess to temporarily close the shop and drive to Princeton to pick her up.
"I guess I'll need to go car shopping when I get home," she said when she got into the passenger seat of her assistant's Lexus.
"Never mind the car. Just be glad you're still in one piece. Getting hit by an eighteen-wheeler traveling at eighty miles an hour and walking away from the accident is a miracle. You must have had a guardian angel with you."
Three days later, as she was preparing for her trip to Rhode Island, a FedEx truck pulled up in front of her shop.
"It's for you," her assistant announced after signing for the package.
"I'm not expecting anything. Who's it from?"
"The New Jersey State Police."
What do they want? she wondered, tearing the cardboard envelope open.
The handwritten note explained that the enclosed item was found at the scene of the accident; and since it might be a valuable antique, they decided to forward it to her.
"What's that?" Burgess asked.
"It's the himmelsbrief I bought in Bird in Hand. I forgot all about it."
After Coco explained what the himmelsbrief was, her assistant took the framed letter and hung it on the wall.
"What are you doing? I haven't decided how much that's worth yet."
"I think we should keep it here for now. It obviously brought you good luck. You could have died in that car wreck."
"If it was really a good luck charm, I wouldn't have gotten into an accident in the first place."
* * *
Newport, Rhode Island, proved to be a goldmine of bargains. Vermont, on the other hand, was a disappointment. Given the number of tourists who headed there every autumn to see the colorful foliage and browse in the quaint shops along the picturesque country roads, the prices were considerably higher.
Minutes after checking in to her hotel in Portland, Maine, her cell phone rang.
"Hi, Burgess," she said after seeing her assistant's name on her caller ID. "What's up?"
"Have the police contacted you yet?" he asked in a voice barely above the volume of a whisper.
"No. Why? What's happened?"
"The shop was robbed last night. I was just closing up, and a gunman came into the store."
"You must have been terrified!" she exclaimed, more interested in his welfare than in what might have been stolen during the robbery.
"I was. Especially when he pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger."
"What!"
"He shot me."
"Where? The arm? The leg?"
"No. In the chest. When the surgeon removed the bullet, he said it was a miracle that it managed to miss hitting any major blood vessels."
"Look, if I take a plane instead of my car, I can be there in a couple of hours. What hospital are you in?"
"There's no need for you to come back here. I'm going to be just fine."
"But I should be there with you."
"You stay in Maine and film your episode. You'll be back in a couple of days. I'll see you then."
Coco's return from New England coincided with Burgess's release from the hospital. She picked him up in her new car and drove him to his Waverly Place apartment.
"Where did all this food come from?" he asked when he saw the grocery bags on his kitchen table.
"I picked up a few things for you this morning: milk, bread, eggs, some fresh produce, coffee, cereal and such. I figured you're going to have to stay off your feet for a few days."
"The doctors say I'll probably be able to return to work in a week or so, as long as I don't do any heavy lifting or anything strenuous."
"You take as much time off as you need to. I've got my cousin's son coming over from Jersey to help take care of the shop while you're recuperating. He's no fountain of knowledge like you are," she teased, "but at least he knows how to work the cash register and sign for packages. Now, is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?"
"Are you going back to the shop?"
"For a few hours. I'm expecting a shipment of furniture today. I'll come back this evening to check up on you. We can order dinner from that Italian restaurant you like so much."
"There is one thing you can do for me," Burgess said hesitantly.
"Just name it."
"Promise me you won't get rid of that letter you picked up in Pennsylvania."
"You mean the so-called letter from heaven?"
"That's the one."
"Don't tell me you think the bullet missed its mark because of some Amish superstition."
"Your car crash and my shooting were both described as miraculous, so, yes, I think there's something to it."
"All right. I promise not to sell that letter. In fact, if it means so much to you, I'll give it to you as a get-well gift."
"Thank you, but I want it to remain in the shop so that it can continue to protect the both of us."
* * *
When Burgess recovered enough to return to work, he took a photo of the himmelsbrief with his iPhone and sent the image to a former college friend of his whose parents fled East Germany during the sixties. He was certain Heinrich could translate the letter into English. While it was written in a Pennsylvania German dialect rather than the modern German spoken by his parents, he was able to understand enough of the words and phrases to provide an adequate translation.
"Basically, it's a collection of Bible verses from the German version of the book by Martin Luther," Heinrich explained. "However, the last paragraph is a prayer by a mother for God to watch over her child. From what I understand, such letters are pretty common in the Amish community. Some parents put religious statues and angels in their children's bedrooms; the Amish sometimes hang up these letters."
While Coco was away, filming the seventh and eighth episodes of her television show in Charleston and Savannah, Burgess looked in her files for information pertaining to the letter. His employer always kept detailed accounts of where she purchased items, how much she paid for them, who eventually bought them and how much profit she made on them.
"Ah, here it is. The Dutch Haus Antique Shop, Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania. I doubt the owner is Amish since the store has a website."
Rather than telephone the owner, Burgess sent him an email requesting additional information about the himmelsbrief. Two days later, he received a response. The framed letter had been part of a large collection of items purchased at a tax sale. The contents of that particular lot had once belonged to a young couple called Lantz.
"You can understand why I didn't mention that to your employer when she bought it," the shopkeeper wrote. "But since you asked for more details, I feel obligated to divulge the full facts."
Burgess was intrigued by the man's email.
Why didn't he want to mention the original owner to Coco? he wondered. Who are the Lantzes?
The answer to his question was only a Google search away.
Isaiah Lantz, he learned, was the first member of the Amish community to stand trial for homicide. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the young man beat his wife to death in 1993. Due to his mental state, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was released after five years, having served his full sentence. More than a decade later, he committed suicide by hanging himself in a barn.
* * *
When Coco returned from Georgia, she looked forward to a break in filming.
"I won't have to go to Seattle for another six weeks," she announced. "And, boy, can I use the rest!"
"I did some research while you were down south," Burgess said, handing his employer a cup of coffee.
"Really? About what?"
"That letter from heaven."
"And what did you learn, that it was written by your guardian angel?" Coco teased.
"That it belonged to a woman who was murdered by her husband."
"Too bad I already gave it to you. I could have made some money on it had I known that. Some people are willing to pay top dollar for such morbid keepsakes. I hear a painting by John Wayne Gacy goes for as much money as one by Georgia O'Keeffe. More surprising, there's a big market now for Charles Manson memorabilia."
"That's sick!" Burgess exclaimed.
"Don't blame me. That's our society. Besides, the himmelsbrief is just superstitious nonsense."
"How can you say that? You and I are proof that it's not."
"You said the original owner was murdered by her husband. It obviously didn't do such a good job protecting her."
"But, despite being deranged, her husband did spare the children's lives. Plus, you're forgetting that there's a caveat to the letter. Nonbelievers are punished. Perhaps the wife lost her faith."
"Then why didn't I die in that car crash? I don't believe. I think it's all a gimmick to put money in those pow-wowers' pockets. I might just as well have had a four-leaf clover or a rabbit's foot in my possession when my Mercedes was hit."
Burgess knew there was no point in arguing the matter further. Coco was simply not open to the idea that there were forces beyond scientific explanation.
* * *
A month later, leaving Burgess in charge of the shop in her absence, Coco set out on the last (and longest) trip of the season. She flew first to Seattle. From there, she went to San Francisco. After leaving the City by the Bay, she filmed the next two episodes traveling along the historic Route 66 through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois. Her final destination was Chicago.
"You'll never guess what I got today," she told Burgess on the phone the night before she was scheduled to fly back to New York.
"I don't know. A brick from the North Clark Street garage where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred?"
"Close. I got a pair of cufflinks that once belonged to Al Capone. I'm not going to put them up for sale until the Chicago episode airs, though. Once they've been seen on TV, the price will go up considerably."
After a brief conversation with her assistant, Coco prepared for bed. She had an early flight the next morning and wanted to get a good night's sleep. If HGTV picked up her show for another season—and given its high ratings, she saw no reason why it wouldn't—she would take to the road or to the air again in ten months' time. Until then, her shopping excursions would be limited to the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut tristate region.
"Welcome home!" Burgess called when Coco walked through the door of her shop late the following afternoon.
"Thank you. It's great to be back. I feel like I could sleep for a week!"
"Why don't you go home then and get some rest? I can handle things here."
"I've got so much paperwork I need to catch up on. I might as well start it now."
When Burgess left the shop at six, his employer was still in the office, going through her inventory records to see what items had sold while she was away. Three hours later, she got up from her desk to stretch her legs. As she walked down the hall to the small kitchen area to get herself a can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator, she saw the himmelsbrief hanging on the wall above the checkout counter.
I wish Burgess would take that home and hang it in his apartment. It's an eyesore where it is.
On impulse, she walked out to the showroom, took it down from the wall, brought it back to the kitchen and hung it above the sink.
Who knows? Maybe he'll need a guardian angel while he's washing out his coffee cup.
That night as Burgess slept peacefully in his Waverly Place apartment, he was briefly awakened by the sound of sirens. When they faded into the distance, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He did not know until he set off for work the following morning that the building that housed the antique shop had burned to the ground.
I wonder if anyone has told Coco yet, he thought, taking his cell phone out of his pocket.
When his call went to voicemail, he feared the worst.
* * *
Despite her not having any religious affiliations, Coco Lacombe was given a funeral at Trinity Church—partly due to her many charitable deeds that benefited the City and its people but mostly because she was a television celebrity. It was not until Burgess saw the large poster-size photograph of his former employer on an easel beside the closed coffin that he realized she was truly gone from his life.
I'm going to miss you, he thought.
In the twenty years he had been her assistant, the two had formed a close bond similar to that of siblings. Oddly enough, the fact that he was out of a job did not bother him. He was fairly sure that, given his years of experience, he would have no trouble finding a position at Sotheby's or Christie's New York.
After the funeral, he dried his tears and left the church. As though drawn by a force he was powerless to resist, he walked past familiar landmarks until he arrived at what was once Lacombe's Antique Shop. Nothing remained of it but piles of brick, ashes and blackened timbers.
What's that? he wondered when he saw a glimmer of light reflected off a glass surface.
He ducked beneath the tape meant to keep people out and gingerly walked over the rubble to what had once been the store's kitchen area. Water from the firehoses had filled the enamel sink, and floating on the surface was the framed himmelsbrief.
How on earth did it get there?
Burgess reached down, picked it up and examined it. Neither the fire nor the water had done any damage.
It's a miracle! Nothing in the place survived except this.
Unlike Coco and the ill-fated Lantz family, he believed the letter from heaven, written decades earlier by an unknown Amish hexenmeister, had the power not only to protect but also to punish. He dusted the ashes off the glass and the wooden frame, took it back to Waverly Place and hung in on the wall above his bed.
Whether it was imbued with the power of God or of pow-wow folk magic, the himmelsbrief would keep watch over Burgess Spence for the remainder of his life. His belief in those German Bible verses remained with him until he closed his eyes for the last time at the age of one hundred and four.
There really is such a thing as a himmelsbrief, or letter from heaven. Although the character of Isaiah Lantz is fictional, he is inspired by Edward Gingerich, the young Amish man who, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, murdered his wife and years later hanged himself in a barn.
Salem got me to go inside this antique store where I bought an Early American litter box and a French Provincial scratching post.
