Scraps of Paper (9 page)

“Not a trace. Sam also contacted the DMV and there’s been no license renewal for Emily Summers since 1968–in any state. She could have remarried, I know, changed her name, but Sam did a credit search, too…no credit card receipts, not even a credit application is on the record. And here’s the clincher. There are no school records for the kids, nothing. Ever. Not under Summers or Brown, which is their biological father’s last name. Sam did a worldwide missing person’s search and there’s no paper trail for any of them.”

Abigail wondered what that meant.

“Unless they went underground and changed their names,” Frank went on, “it seems more likely now that something happened to them. They didn’t run away, Abby, they really disappeared.”

“After Sam did the computer search and came up cold, he did one on Todd Brown, the kids’ father, and located him. Made a telephone call and discovered that Brown never saw Emily or his kids alive again after that summer either. He didn’t make a police report, though, which is strange. And Brown didn’t come back here and beat the bushes for them. He talked to Edna, he said, who told him the three of them drove away in Emily’s car and he had no reason to not believe her.

But the truth is, their official existence ended here in that summer of 1970. Yet Emily wasn’t the sort of woman to keep her kids from their father as much as she disliked him. She wasn’t like that.”

A dark suspicion was growing in Abigail’s mind. Before it’d only been a normal curiosity about the former occupants of her house…now it was becoming an enigma that cried out to be solved.
What had happened to Emily and her two children?

Frank leaned forward in his chair and brought his glass of wine slowly to his lips, his eyes on Abigail’s face, but she knew his thoughts were probably in the past. In the night woods katydids croaked and the wind was a sigh through the leaves. The heat had left the earth and on the deck Abigail was chilly. She should have brought a sweater.

“And,” Frank added, “I walked our friend Sheriff Mearl to his car last night and he let it slip, I believe by accident, that there was some question about old Edna’s death after all. That it wasn’t completely natural. The coroner found a trace too much of prescription drugs in her system. He thought, as most would, her being feeble minded at the end she’d forgotten and taken too many pills. According to many people, Edna had been frail most of her life. Been sickly since her early thirties, which kept her from working. People wondered, as we did earlier, how she made it, alone in that house, no job, and no income that could be accounted for.”

“So she took too much of her medication and died from it?”

“If it was only that. The coroner found medication in Edna’s stomach which wasn’t hers. It could have killed her. But because she was elderly, chronically ill and unloved, there was no inquest and she was simply buried. No one cared.”

“It’s funny how a person’s death is only as important as that person was in life,” Abigail made the observation cynically.

Frank groaned, stretching out his long legs. “Oh, and there’s something else you’ll find interesting. The Sheriff confided that after Edna died last year her house, your house now, was rummaged through during the funeral service. He thought it was one of those obit burglars. You know, a thief reading someone has died in the newspaper and breaking in because the house is empty, so he didn’t think much of it. As far as he knew, the old woman hadn’t anything to steal.”

“What a coincidence. Well, either the house I live in is a burglar magnet or Edna must have had something somebody wanted badly enough to break in for. Twice.”

“Could be it’s that record book you found in the metal box, Abby. If Edna had been blackmailing someone for something, there’d be someone out there who’d want the evidence disposed of. I’d put it in a safe place, if I were you.”

“I intend to.”

They talked a bit longer of unrelated things and then Abigail said goodnight. “The supper was fantastic and the company was too. I should get home. I worry about Snowball. And all that cleaning I did today and a full belly has made me want to sleep.”

Frank escorted her to the door. “We have to do this again, Abby. It was nice cooking for someone else besides me. Nice having someone to talk to.”

“My turn next time. I make a tasty pot roast and the best apple turnovers you’ve ever had.”

“I’ll take you up on that one night. Give me a time and a day and I’ll be there.”

Abigail picked up the box and her purse and left. Driving into the lightless woods and navigating through the night fog, her mind was churning over what Frank had told her.

It was possible that someone had murdered Edna. Now why would anyone want to do that? An old lady? Abigail thought of the metal box on the seat beside her and the record book with the figures in it. There had to be a connection there somewhere to Edna’s death if she could find it. She had to find Jenny’s diary, if there was one. She bet that would answer some questions. Kids put secrets in diaries.

So…where else could Jenny have hidden her diary? That question filled her mind the rest of the way home.

Chapter 8

When Abigail got up the next morning she finished Martha’s watercolor, called her, and informed her she could pick it up. It was as good as she was going to get it. Propping it against the front room wall, she sat on the couch and studied it. Her smile came slowly.
It looks pretty good for the artist being so out of practice. I hope Martha likes it.

As she waited for her friend, she roamed the house poking into the nooks and crannies of cabinets, closets and drawers, looking for notes or that elusive diary. The children’s room had been upstairs, according to Frank, and shared with their mother. Edna had slept downstairs on a sofa couch. With a flashlight, on hands and knees, Abigail explored the loft bedroom along the baseboards and in the walk-in closet. Sixty watts wasn’t enough light and hundred-watt bulbs were on her grocery list.

About to give up, she noticed the heater vents on the floor, found a screwdriver and pried them open. Being summer she hadn’t cleaned them out yet so they were thick with webs and years accumulation of vent dust. Using a cloth to wipe away the covering of matted grime, in the second vent she hit treasure: a piece of twine attached to the side of the vent. She tugged it up through her fingers and at the end was a small brown paper lunch sack. Inside were drawings and another crayon message from Jenny. All in caps again.

SOMEONE TRIED TO RUN CHRISTOPHER OVER WITH A CAR. SOMEONE BROKE OUT MOM’S CAR WINDOWS. I KNOW ITS HIM. MOM SAYS IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS SO MAD. CAIN’T HELP HIMSELF. I SAY BALONEY. HE IS BAD. EVIL AS CHRIS SAYS. I HATE HIM. I KNOW GOD SAYS YOU SHOULN’T HATE NOBODY SO I’M SORRY GOD BUT I DO. I SENT A LETTER TO DAD TO COME GET US. HE NEVER WROTE BACK.

The drawings were of the house and a kitten. Christopher’s house picture wasn’t half bad. Abigail’s house circa 1970 looked about the same as it did today except the trees were smaller, there were two bicycles against the porch, two hula hoops laying in the front yard and a swing hanging from one of the elms. The other picture, signed by Jenny, was of a white cat sitting on the house’s front porch, eyes wide and blue, one paw stretched out. Snowball grownup.

A shiver began in Abigail’s fingers and rippled through her body. Strange how the past and the present kept merging. Abigail believed she’d been destined to find this town, this house and these clues. Her fate to solve the mystery of what happened to the Summers. And as much as she disliked newspapers, it was time to visit Samantha Westerly at the
Journal
. Scooping up the children’s messages and drawings into a large envelope, she drove into town. A breezeless July day, it was too hot to walk. Someone out there knew what had happened thirty years ago and if there was a newspaper story that someone might read it and step forward.

“Decided to let me do that story on you after all?” exclaimed Samantha when Abigail walked in.

“Sort of.” Being there with people bent over computers slaving away on stories and ads or on the phone selling classifieds revived unpleasant memories. She had to remind herself she was only a visitor. She could leave whenever she wanted to. “I have an intriguing feature concept for you, Samantha.”

“Come into my private cubicle and tell me about it, Abigail. I’m a sucker for a good story idea. Some weeks I can’t think of a darn thing to write about.”

And Abigail did. She explained about Emily and the children’s disappearances; showed Samantha the scribbled messages, the drawings, and exposed what she and Frank had uncovered. Even about the ledger. Samantha was sold.

“You’re right. People love a good mystery. And it’s a hometown conundrum! We could lay it out as something we–the whole town–might want to solve…what happened to Emily and her two kids? Let’s play Sherlock Holmes and unlock the secret. We could frame their story with the trappings of the times. The seventies…what were they like in Spookie? What did the town look like back then? The stores and businesses. The clothes we wore and the movies we were watching. The politics of the day. What we did for fun. It was pre-computer and the Internet, of course. Who was mayor, who was sheriff? I could interview store owners and citizens who remember the town and what it was like in the summer of 1970 to get new perspectives. The human touch.” Samantha was so excited, she couldn’t stop talking.

“Heck, we could make it a series of stories. Print and follow the clues each week and get feedback from the readers. The individual material on peoples’ memories of those days alone could be a gold mine. Imagine it!
What were you doing in the summer of 1970? What was it like? And did you know Emily or her kids?
” Samantha clapped her hands. “I can tie you and your drawings into the first story. Give you free publicity and generate some commissions. You being the owner of the house now and the originator of the quest, so to speak.” It was easy to see this woman loved her job.

Abigail suddenly felt anticipation. At last she was doing something. “Good idea. I won’t refuse free publicity. So how do we start this?”

Samantha’s eyebrows arched, her eyes behind the glasses were thoughtful. Even without makeup she was pretty. Classic lines and good bone structure. Age wouldn’t harm her too quickly. “We’ll start by taking pictures of your house and you in it, Abigail. I’ll send a photographer over tomorrow, if that’s okay with you? Deadline is in three days if we want to get this in the next issue. If we could get photos of the missing persons, that would be splendid. I could ask around, do some digging and maybe come up with pictures of them from our archives, the newspaper’s been around for over fifty years, or for the kids, school records from wherever they went to school before they came here. Since they were here in the summer.”

Samantha set up a new file on her computer. Glancing at Abigail, she said, “No time like now…so begin at the very beginning and this time I’ll write it down.”

Now there was no going back.

***

When the front page, full color story came out the following Wednesday Abigail bought extra copies. Samantha had done an amazing job. Under the pictures of Emily, Christopher and Jenny the headline said:

What happened to these people? A mother and her two children mysteriously vanished from Spookie thirty years ago this August…help us solve the mystery.

Samantha had gotten the facts straight and had woven the threads into an intriguing tapestry. The story made the Summers family as real as if they’d been alive yesterday. She’d located photos of them, though they were only black and white. Emily had been a pretty woman with light colored hair and large eyes and her children had looked like her. Abigail cut their photos out of one of the copies and taped them on her refrigerator. Their haunted eyes watched her whenever she opened the fridge.

From the moment the newspaper story came out the reaction was phenomenal. Everyone wanted to help solve the old mystery. Everyone had stories from that summer and wanted to be heard.

“The phone’s been ringing nonstop,” Samantha breathed, sitting in her cubicle, hands flying over her keyboard. “I’ve never had this kind of feedback to a story. It’s amazing!”

She stopped and rustled through a stack of papers. “Look at these letters from townspeople of what they were doing that summer. Get a load of these photos of Main Street and the Police Department. Here’s some of the July Fourth Celebration picnic that summer. Those clothes! Leisure suits and mini-skirts. Puka beads. All the guys had such long hair and sideburns. The women with those teased up hairstyles or the younger ones with those tiny braids in their straight hair.

“And as coincidence would have it, there, in the crowd–see in the far right–is Emily and her two kids. It’s fantastic. Stella sent us a picture of her diner dated 1970. Look at that decor. All chrome and Formica. Look at the way the customers looked…dresses for the women and pastel colored shirts for the men.

“W
e have information too. Memories of Emily and her kids and what people overheard and saw of the trouble they were having that summer. Some of the accidents that befell them.”

She handed a couple of letters to Abigail. “Here. Start reading the first batch. Take them home. There’s some really interesting things in them. Emily had quite a few people that didn’t like her. Some woman–who said she’d heard it from another woman who’d heard it from a guard at the jail–wrote to tell us that Sheriff Cal Brewster, Mearl’s father, was obsessed with Emily and once had her falsely arrested and put in jail for a night because Emily wouldn’t go out with him. Imagine that? Emily claimed he tried to rape her that night and suddenly all charges were dropped, on both sides. That Cal Brewster was no credit to the police department, I’d say. Later, from what I’ve learned, he was involved in other scandals and was practically forced to resign early. He’s dead now or I’d go have a little talk with him. He might have had something to do with Emily’s disappearance.

“You know,” Samantha stopped and looked directly at her, her voice going soft, “Emily had some enemies in this town. I hope none of them resent you bringing her up again. Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that before.” Samantha shook her head and then seemed to let her concerns go. “But wow, this is going to be some series of stories.”

Abigail read a few letters before she left. Some were cranks; a few were advice to let the past lie undisturbed. Some wanted their houses drawn. But many wanted to contribute a snippet of the past and see their name in print.

Outside the skies were cloudy, the smell of rain heavy, but the heat was relentless. She stopped in at Stella’s for something cold and creamy. When she walked in half the people waved and acknowledged her. Gave her big smiles and okay signs. They’d read the story.

Frank was glaring at her from a booth. “So you went and did it, didn’t you…painted that target on your forehead. You shouldn’t have run that story. You’ve put yourself in danger.”

“How can running a story about something that happened so long ago hurt me?” She slid in across from him. She was bluffing. For the first time, after hearing what Samantha had said and now Frank, she was a little worried. What if Emily and the kids had disappeared because something awful had happened to them; if murder was involved, and the killer was still living in town? Frank seemed to read her mind.

“Wo
rse scenario? Those three met foul play. Murder. What about that break-in at your house? A killer could be out there and if he or she is…you dredging it up again might piss him or her off.”

“It was
thirty years
ago, Frank.”

“Time doesn’t matter when it comes to murder. No time limit. Guilty thirty years ago is the same as guilty last week. When I was a rookie homicide detective I was partnered with an officer, Henry McRaney, who was retiring in six months. He had this old case he’d been unable to crack, and unable to let go of, from early in his career. Killing of a young girl twenty-seven years before committed with a jewel handled knife found on the scene. McRaney was obsessed with finding the girl’s murderer. So before he retired, we gave it one last shot. We revisited the earlier suspects. The ones till alive anyway. Retraced all the leads. Everything we could think of. After all that time.

“I was a weapon collector even back then and from the photos I’d noticed the murder knife was a rare variety usually sold in sets of two. McRaney and I stumbled upon the other knife in a knife collection of the dead girl’s cousin during that follow up. Turns out as a teenager he’d killed her with one of the two knives and kept the other knife as a sort of trophy. After so many years, sure he was safe from the law, he put it on display in a glass case in his house, for heaven’s sake.

“We surprised him with our visit and he didn’t have time to hide it. McRaney made a mistake in judgment, asked to see the knife and that was the end of that. The killer knew he was caught. Married with three kids, he was protecting the new life he’d created. He found out McRaney was going to accuse him of the old murder, came after and killed him.

“The guy was later caught and executed for his crimes. But McRaney was still dead. So don’t tell me that time makes a difference. Twenty or thirty years after their crimes, murderers are still as dangerous as a poisonous snake. You kick at it and it’ll bite ya.” There was genuine concern in his voice.

“Sorry about McRaney.” Abigail touched his arm. “And it didn’t occur to me that I might be endangering myself when I started this. But the story can’t be taken back. I’ll be careful from now on, that’s all. Though I don’t believe–
if
they were murdered–that the killer stayed in town. If he were smart, it makes sense he’d be long gone.”