Of Dubious and Questionable Memory

by Rachel McMillan

  “One more thing, ladies.” Merinda clamped her mouth shut midsentence as Miri returned to the open door. “Forgive me, but I don’t know what you might need. In the detective stories George enjoys it’s usually some unimportant trifle that leads to the conclusion.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Any detail could be crucial.”

  “Del lost a necklace a few days before she disappeared. A gift from our grandmother. And worth very much indeed.” Miri looked down, playing with the cuffs of her sleeves absentmindedly.

  “Is there more?” I asked.

  “Robert and Del have not had the most amicable relationship,” Miri said in one breath. “They fight quite a lot. They did the other night. On the telephone. She said she needed some time to reflect on their engagement.” Miri coughed. “He’s been so helpful, though. He came by the morning after we noticed she had gone missing. We of course reached out to him, thinking that maybe they had reconciled.”

  “Where was he when she went missing?”

  “Now, please don’t think Robert had anything to do with it. No, he is determined to right their relationship.” A shadow passed over Miri’s face, and Merinda and I took the ensuing silence as an opportunity to exchange glances.

  Miri left to retire, but not before telling us when breakfast would be served downstairs and informing us that she had arranged our transportation to the North Station and our Concord train the following morning.

  We immersed ourselves in Del.

  The missing girl’s luggage consisted mostly of books. Her library revealed that she was very much interested in the work of Emma Goldman, the anarchist who was rumored to be coming to Toronto in the next months. The open case was full of pamphlets, and we uncovered a notebook in which were written quotations from Emerson and Thoreau, and a few from Bronson Alcott on a movement called Transcendentalism. I noticed a leaflet for a twice-weekly meeting of the Labor Federation Movement at the Wright Tavern in Concord, and was about to mention it when Merinda sniffed. She’d pulled out a well-thumbed copy of Little Women.

  “One minute she’s reading about Emma Goldman and Thoreau, and the next about homemaking and babies.”

  “That book isn’t all romance,” I said, defending a well-loved story. “Little Women is so much more than that.”

  But Merinda didn’t acknowledge me. Her cat eyes had narrowed on the scrap of paper in my hand. “ ‘Love is the essence of God.’”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Look, it’s scrawled on the bottom of that leaflet. The Labor Federation one.”

  We examined the brochure more closely. “Well, Jemima, it looks like we’re to attend our first radical meeting!” cried Merinda. “Better ensure our bowlers and trousers are in with our luggage for Concord!”

  On the train the next morning, I stole peeks at the landscape whizzing by: broad, towering maples over glassy blue lakes. I wanted to bottle autumn and put it in my pocket—the spicy scent of pumpkins, the smoke and crackle of the burning leaves.

  All of this was lost on Merinda as she studied Miri’s handmade map. The map showed us the main streets and sites of Concord, and penciled stars noted the places the sisters had visited on the day Del disappeared.

  Orchard House.

  The Colonial Inn.

  The Emerson House.

  Wright’s Tavern.

  Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

  Excitement swelled in my chest. How fortunate to be able to explore all these famous places while in pursuit of our mystery!

  Merinda let me examine the map, looking once more at the pamphlet Del had left in her luggage. “Do you think she planned on attending the meeting this evening before she disappeared?” Merinda wondered aloud, reading the fine print. “Lure her sister for a day of boring Little Women and Thoreau and sneak out after dinner to a meeting at the Wright Tavern?”

  I shrugged. Merinda peered more closely at the paper, and then lifted it, almost touching her face. “Look here!” she exclaimed, waving me in.

  See Mac $ owed was written in nearly completely faded pencil marking, as if someone had tried to vehemently erase it.

  “We’ll have to find out who Mac is.” Merinda folded the paper and tucked it in her vest pocket as the train squealed into Concord Station.

  The train stop was a short walk from the main stretch, which was rimmed with quaint shops and cafés. A popular spot for tourists on account of its rich literary history, shopkeepers stocked all manner of interesting trinkets, books, and souvenirs. As Merinda guided me to the opposite side of the street through slow traffic, I tried to imagine what it might have been like fifty years earlier when Louisa May Alcott wove in and out of the carriages, lifting her skirt over the muddy walk.

  After quickly dispensing of our bags at the Colonial Inn, we decided to begin our investigation at Orchard House. According to Miri, Del had wanted to explore the wooded grounds around the homestead. They had visited the site just as evening began to fall, Miri told us, before wandering back for dinner and to stay at the Colonial Inn. The next morning, Del was gone.

  A jaunt of a walk later and on a slight slope we saw it: Orchard House, rich and brown, with its eponymous apple trees canopied about it. Though my head knew this was merely the home of a famous American author, my heart and my imagination appropriated it for fictional purposes.

  I looked up at the shuttered windows. Might that have been snobbish Amy March’s room? My eyes moved still upward. Or that! The attic window! That must peer into the bower where Jo would spend hours eating apples and scribbling by candlelight, her fingers as black as Ray’s when he came home from a long day at the Hog, stamped with words.

  Merinda’s long legs strode briskly toward the back of the house and to the tree-lined forest. The farther she got behind the brush, the less I saw of her beyond the occasional flash of her bright blond bob as it caught the glare of the sun.

  A few carpenters and handymen worked at their trade, perfecting the place before winter set in, ensuring that its old structure was well protected against the raging elements. Some painted the sides, another saw to the well. As they caught my eye, they smiled and tipped their caps.

  One young handyman hopped down from a stepladder and approached me. He removed his hat, and I admired the almost-white hair that fell around his handsome face.

  “Beautiful day for a walk,” he said cordially, his smile reaching his blue eyes.

  “Indeed.”

  “You must be an admirer of the Alcotts.”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “I am quite sorry that the house isn’t available for you to visit.” He motioned toward the blocked doorway. “You will have to come back in the spring when we open to the public. It’ll be a fine museum then.”

  “I bet hundreds of people come to walk and peer around,” I said, hoping to gain insight into Miri and Del’s visit.

  “There are always people coming in and out. Children. Parents. Pretty young women like yourself clutching at their beaus or husbands.” He looked directly over my shoulder. “But you are alone.” He frowned.

  “I’m with my friend. She’s exploring the woods yonder. Do you work here every day on the house?” I tried to keep my tone casual even as I hoped he would open a window on the mystery. He might have seen something or remembered Del.

  “Three days a week. I help keep up some of the oldest and most significant buildings in Concord. Mostly I work here and at Wright’s Tavern.”

  “We passed that,” I remembered. “Bright-red building.”

  “It was a gathering place for the Minute Men back at the start of the Revolution.” He warmed to his subject as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Now it hosts meetings and collectives. A few church services now and then.”

  I decided to cut to the chase. “You haven’t heard anything about a young woman who went missing here, have you?”

  “Disappeared?” He looked around me. “Surely the police would’ve said something about that. Or I would’ve heard it in town. Co
ncord is so small.”

  “It is odd, isn’t it?” I didn’t want to connect us directly to Miri in case we needed to investigate more with this young man and his other workers, so I fibbed: “We heard a woman talking about it on the train.”

  “Hey, Nick! We need you back over here!” A brown-haired burly man with a long beard bellowed.

  “Bo, have you heard anything about a missing woman?”

  “Not a thing,” the man grumbled.

  “I’m Nicholas Haliburton, by the way.” He turned back to me, taking my hand.

  “Mrs. Jemima DeLuca.”

  “If you have any questions about the house, I hope you will let me know, Mrs. DeLuca.” His finger crooked into his cap, and he turned back to his work again.

  Mrs. DeLuca. Rats. I hadn’t telephoned Ray as I promised to. Why, I had been exhausted after our dinner and our initial investigation the evening before. At least that’s what I told myself. In truth, I just wasn’t sure what to say, nor was I ready for his frustration at my fleeing off to Boston in the middle of an argument.

  Merinda broke me from my reverie. “You look so glum, Jem. I thought you were excited to see Orchard House.” She looped her arm in mine.

  “I didn’t leave things so well with Ray, Merinda. I feel guilty.”

  “Cracker jacks! He can live two days without you, you know.”

  “I met a young man,” I said quickly, changing the subject. “These men are all working to get Orchard House ready for the museum opening next spring.” I looked over and saw Nicholas busily hammering at a ground-level window. “I asked him if he had heard anything about a missing woman. He and his worker friends are here near every day. I was careful not to give any specifics.”

  “And what did he say?” Merinda asked, her eyes bright.

  “He hadn’t heard anything of the sort. There is something bizarre about this, Merinda.” I kept my voice low as we began a slow stroll and circled the homestead.

  After we had taken a turn around Orchard House, of which nothing was upset or untoward, we crossed the street and explored grassy, overrun fields. Trees trickled bright reds and oranges from their leafy canopies to the ground below. “Did you find anything in the woods?” I asked Merinda.

  “Only a trail. It leads from the back of the house and goes straight into the woods.”

  “And where do the woods lead?” I wondered, thinking of how one might steal a woman from her exploration of the Alcott home and lead her into the dark unknown.

  “To more woods. Then more woods the same. I walked as far as I could without getting lost. But I didn’t want to completely abandon you. There are no footprints. No sign of broken branches.”

  “The young man I spoke to—Nicholas—he also works at the Wright Tavern doing odd jobs.”

  Merinda sparked alive. “Really!”

  “I know—the pamphlet! But Merinda, Concord is not that large, and of course tourists roam all the sites. That really doesn’t provide any help toward uncovering what happened to Del.”

  Merinda merely nodded and tugged me in the direction of the Emerson House, our next stop. “We shall see.”

  The Emerson House was bright with the chatter of visitors, and I sincerely enjoyed learning about the life of the great wordsmith. After the guide formally excused himself, we were free to roam the first floor. Merinda, thankfully, was eager to take her time in case we stumbled upon something of interest.

  That something turned out to be the raised and haughty voice of a man whose broad shoulders suddenly commanded the front foyer.

  “You must have seen her!” he angrily confronted the man at the desk. “She loves Emerson. Walden. All those poets.”

  The man at the desk cleared his throat. “I think you mean Mr. Thoreau, sir. Walden is a pond—”

  “What’s it to me if it’s a man or a pond?” the man thundered.

  “I have a logbook of guests. Perhaps you would like to see it? No one is required, of course, to leave their name and address, but many are kind enough to leave an encouraging comment.”

  The haughty man demanded the book and then flipped through the pages with apparently little success, or so his string of curses led us to believe.

  “Sir, would you please desist in such language? If you continue, I must ask you to leave the premises!”

  Merinda and I waited until the man slammed the front door before smiling at the befuddled fellow behind the desk and thanking him for the experience. I left a comment in his book.

  “Only follow someone if you are sure there is no more than a five-percent chance of detection,” Merinda muttered, quoting her favorite detective manual as we exited. We set our feet on a slow road bordered with wide, green spans of grass and picket fences. The solidly built angry man stomped ahead. “In this landscape, I estimate an eighty percent chance of his noticing us.” We swerved and let him go on his way.

  “It’s clear he was speaking about Del,” I said as we kept in stride, using Miri’s map to find our way back to our inn for a bite of lunch and a chance to properly unpack our trunks.

  The Colonial Inn nestled on a perfectly manicured lawn. Autumn was in full color inside, with wreaths of red and gold leaves and bright, overfull cornucopias. Merinda smiled at the woman tending the front desk, who was fidgeting with the screw on her glasses.

  “Ah—Miss Herringford, Mrs. DeLuca. Welcome back, ladies. Oh, Mrs. DeLuca, a telegram arrived while you were out. This was forwarded from Boston.” She fussed with a small pile of papers at the desk, finally extracting one and handing it to me.

  I read it quickly and then shoved it in my pocket. Merinda looked at me with an inquiring eye, but I just shook my head. Ray’s words were for me and me alone.

  “Might I use your telephone for a long-distance call?” I asked.

  “Of course. Anything you need.”

  “It’s to Canada,” I continued.

  “You can see Walter in the back, and he will be more than happy to assist you.”

  Merinda went up to the room to unpack, and I went to the telephone with the intention of catching Ray at the Hog.

  A man named Walter stood sentry by the telephone, and he held it out to me with ceremony. “To Canada?”

  “To Toronto,” I said, giving him the exchange number.

  He laughed. “You must have a neighbor, late of Concord. I put in a similar number not two days back.”

  I swallowed my surprise and waited for the connection. Ray wasn’t at the office, so I left a message with stern Mr. McCormick—which I wasn’t entirely sure the old editor would remember to relay.

  Merinda and I took a late lunch at the Liberty restaurant. She was into her second helping of rich molasses bread sopped in squash soup when we looked up to find the angry man from the Emerson house approaching our table.

  “You two those lady detectives Miri and George Winthrop brought?”

  Merinda nodded. “And you are Robert Hutton, I presume.”

  We invited him to sit. As he tucked into his own repast, he spoke mournfully and melodramatically of his beloved fiancée’s disappearance. “So close to coming into her inheritance!” He took a large bite. “And our wedding.”

  “I understand you had a bit of a row.”

  “Del’s a free spirit. That’s part of why I love her, but she follows her heart into these silly causes. Highly inappropriate and probably dangerous. Those radicals who bomb things.” He slapped his open palm on the table.

  “She may just be interested in reading a differing view,” Merinda said, trying to placate him.

  “I just want her to find the happiness her sister has.”

  Merinda, sipping her tea, spluttered and nearly choked. “Yes. Her sister seems quite happy,” she said through gritted teeth and a pasted-on smile.

  The remainder of the meal was painful. So much so that Merinda even waved away the dessert menu, despite her love for the delicacies it offered, in hopes we would be spared a few more incessant minutes of this man’s gargantuan ego
.

  After an unproductive stroll to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, we realized we had little to go on other than the list of locations Miri had given us. Dozens of visitors, hikers, and enthusiasts of all sorts descended upon Concord daily, and the residents didn’t bother to distinguish them. Del had no remarkable traits. She was pretty, slender, of light coloring and hair, but there was nothing so distinctive as to spark a strong memory.

  The police constable was happily at his post, doing the crossword and smacking a wad of chewing tobacco when we approached him.

  “You’re the only officer on duty?” Merinda said.

  “I’m the only officer,” he replied proudly.

  “And when a missing girl was reported?”

  He doodled on his crossword page and said perfunctorily, “I did the best I could, but I thought it best for the Boston police to take over.”

  “There’s not a lot of crime in Concord, I take it.”

  “A bit of petty theft. One fellow thought it was a lark to sink old man Trumble’s wagon in Walden Pond. That was a night, all right.”

  I thanked him for his time while Merinda concentrated on keeping laughter from spilling out until we had reached the street and passed a gaggle of beribboned women en route to a tea sponsored by the Ladies’ Auxiliary to Honor the Dearly Fallen, or so the banner they carried before them said.

  “Ladies, excuse me,” I said kindly. “You haven’t heard anything about a missing girl, have you?”

  “Of course they haven’t,” Merinda said, grabbing my elbow and leading me away. “And if they had, it would have circled the town in chittering gossip twelve times by now. I think it’s time for a cup of tea.”

  Chapter Four

  Late that night, well after the supper hour, Merinda and I exchanged our dresses for tweed coats and pants in preparation for the Labor meeting. The evening was awash with mellow light spilling from the shutters as we made the short trek to the Wright Tavern.

  We found our seats amid the bustling congregation of mostly male attendees. The group seemed in high spirits, likely due to the tankards of ale we saw in many hands. A stove in the corner sputtered a bit but provided little warmth. I shivered despite my tweed coat and knit scarf.