In the middle drawer of the case she spied a brooch she recognized, probably the cheapest piece in the jewelry box: a circlet of fake pearls. The faux-gold mounting was greenish with age. The brooch had been a Christmas gift to Mimi from their bopbop, and she’d worn it on Sundays, pinned to the collar of her church dress. Letty hadn’t seen it in decades, and she’d certainly never seen Tanya wear it.

She fastened the pin to her blouse and turned to the racks of clothes and shoes.

Sammi was holding a pair of wickedly sexy sling-back black pumps with red soles. “These look like your size,” she said. “And they’re Louboutins!”

“Take them if you want them,” Letty said. “I couldn’t walk a step in those things.”

“Really?” Sammi squealed. “They don’t look like they’ve ever been worn. We could take all these designer shoes to a consignment shop. And the handbags too. Gucci, Prada, Chanel. They’re worth a lot of money, Letty.”

“You keep those and whatever ones you like,” Letty said firmly. “I’ve been thinking. Since you know more about this stuff than me, take all the designer stuff, the jewelry, clothes, shoes, whatever to a consignment place. You keep part of the money, because you did the work, and all the rest of the money, and whatever is left of the clothes, I want to donate to charity.”

Sammi nodded. “That’s a great idea. I bet Tanya would like that.”

“See if you can find a battered women’s shelter, okay?” Letty asked. “Tanya would absolutely hate that anybody thought of her as battered. Or a victim. But that doesn’t change the fact that she was.”

She turned to the racks of handbags. There were dozens of them, lined up on shelves that reached nearly to the ceiling of the closet, many in soft flannel bags with the designer’s name stitched or stenciled on the outside. She squatted down on the floor, reading the labels, shunting the bags aside, then stood and repeated the process, shelf by shelf.

Finally, she fetched a velvet upholstered bench from beneath the closet window, stood on it, and searched the top shelf. When her hand closed on the worn, pebbly surface of a particular handbag, she knew she’d found what she was looking for.

Letty set the pocketbook on the top of the jewelry cabinet.

“Louis Vuitton,” Sammi said. She ran an appraising finger across the frayed stitching of the shoulder strap and peeked inside the bag. “And it’s the real thing. See? Here’s the date code. There’s a huge secondary market for these bags. It’s too bad about the condition, though. There are stains in the canvas lining.”