Long Lake Wool Duffle Coat

In Command of the Negotiation.

I’m working my way through the goods at Wide River Antiques in the Adirondacks, at the south end of Long Lake.

This coat envelops an intriguing woman with an Austrian accent. We’re both eyeing a British 19th-century copper ship’s compass made by Dents London.

She wins the skirmish with a lilt in her voice and a quiver of other nebulous, disarming skills that leave me confounded but somehow unbothered by the loss.

At the door, she pulls up the hood and shrouds herself in a whole new layer of mystery. 

A hundred steps to the dock and a red seaplane, where two men load a second plane, yellow, to the gills with Turkish rugs, crates of Moulin des Loups ironstone dinnerware, and that prized ship’s compass. 

Moments later, both planes take off. 

By the next morning, a skim of ice seals the lake for winter. 

A week later, the compass is delivered to my door in Lexington.

No note, but she still sends a postcard every year or so.