Firefly Rain

by Richard Dansky

  I smiled, wiped the extra water off my chin with the back of my hand, and headed out. Bits of the conversation stuck in my head as I took myself to the door. The fact that Officer Hanratty had been asking the reverend about me set off alarms. I wasn’t too pleased that Reverend Trotter hadn’t taken the time to reassure me he’d told her that I was a fine, upstanding citizen and a good Christian to boot. I tried to think of anything I might have done back in the day—frogs turned loose in Sunday school class, sermons slept through, Bibles highlighted in red crayon—that might have earned me poor marks in his book, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

  I also couldn’t come up with any reason Hanratty would be sniffing around my roots like this. Sure, I was worth looking into as part of the case, but to ask the preacher? That was just plain odd.

  With a push, the doors to the church swung open, and I stepped out into the sunshine. As the light hit me, something else did, as well.

  Hanratty.

  She wasn’t the only one who could ask questions.

  What the hell did I know about Officer Hanratty, and who was she to go poking her nose into my past? I had no goddamned idea, and that worried me.

  With a silent apology to Reverend Trotter for taking the Lord’s name in vain on church property, I hit the sidewalk and turned left. Something else the reverend had said to me resonated, gave me a direction I could follow.

  Check in the classifieds, he’d said when I’d mentioned my need for a car. The newspaper wouldn’t be a bad place to start looking for information on Officer Hanratty, not a bad one at all.

  The library was three blocks down, the local newspaper one up and another one over beyond that. I started walking faster.

  fifteen

  The library, being closer, was my first target. In all honesty it wasn’t much of a library—just a little brick box of a building with a set of glass doors out front and a sign liberated from a closed church that announced what the week’s programs were in changeable white letters. The building was one story tall, with a half-sized basement tucked underneath for microfilm, magazines, and other things that started with m. All the books and the main desk were on the first floor, the better to make sure no one stole anything. Not that book theft was a huge problem in Maryfield, mind you, but the librarians—a pair of elderly spinster women named Miss Lillian and Miss Rose—weren’t taking any chances. It was said that they’d defended that book collection against Sherman, and a couple of people believed it until it was pointed out that the Army of the Cumberland had never come anywhere near our town.

  Nobody argued that the two Misses hadn’t been there to give a sigh of relief when it had passed by, though.

  A sign in the window told me that the place was indeed open, though the lighting inside was dim enough to give the opposite impression. I pushed for a moment, got no response, and then I pulled the door open. “Brilliant,” I told myself as I stepped inside. “That’s a hell of a way to make an entrance, Logan.”

  Unlike Hilliard’s, the interior of the library had changed. Gone were the dingy old lamps and faded orange panels on the wall. Instead, there were fluorescents overhead and new metal shelves that were densely packed with titles, some of which had actually been published in the last ten years. A small reading area had been set up dead center, with a few overstuffed chairs around a low, round table. Against the back wall was an honest-to-goodness computer terminal, right next to the paper card catalog.

  Behind the desk was a woman who most certainly was not either Miss Lillian or Miss Rose. She was maybe twenty-five at the outside, short and slender and, truth be told, lovely in a wholesome, schoolmarmish sort of way. Her hair was dirty blonde, done up in the sort of bun you only see on librarians in the movies, and glasses with thin black rims resting a little too far down her nose. She was wearing a white cotton blouse, very conservatively cut, and reading a magazine. I leaned over the counter to get a better look—at the magazine, mainly—and noticed as she turned the pages that there weren’t any rings on those fingers.

  The magazine, incidentally, was Discover. They hadn’t subscribed to that back when I’d lived in town.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, and I suddenly realized that I was still leaning over the counter.

  “Umm, yes,” I stammered, and I leaned back. My cheeks felt hot. I figured they were one of the colors at the back of the red section of the crayon box. “I’m here about an overdue book.”

  “Really?” One of her eyebrows shot up. “And how long overdue is this book, Mr.…”

  “Logan,” I answered. “And about sixteen, seventeen years, I think. It was a copy of The Hobbit. I, uhh, I lost the book.”

  That part wasn’t strictly true. I hadn’t lost the book; I’d kept it and taken it with me to Boston, and packed it up on the truck with most of my other belongings. Still, admission of open theft of library property did not seem like the best way to make a good impression on this woman, and I felt that making a good impression was a wise thing to do.

  Besides, the longer I looked at her, the more I decided I liked schoolmarms.

  “Well, Mr. Logan, let’s see.” She pulled out a pocket calculator and started tapping numbers on it with the well-chewed end of a pencil. “At five cents a day, times three hundred and sixty-five days a year, times sixteen years—I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, you see—plus an extra twenty cents because of the four leap years, we’re looking at two hundred ninety-two dollars and twenty cents. Plus administrative fees, of course.” She looked up from the calculator with serious gray eyes and stared at me, hand out. “Cash only.”

  I must have gulped hard, because she let loose a peal of laughter that would have gotten a whole slew of nasty looks from Miss Lillian back in the day.

  “No, no,” she said, and she giggled rather nicely. “Oh, my, did you think I was serious? Worst-case scenario, you would have had to pay the replacement cost, that’s all. Besides, we had a general amnesty three years ago. All is forgiven, honest, though if you want to make a donation we won’t say no. My goodness, you should have seen your face.”

  “Heh,” was all I could offer. “Very clever, Miss…”

  “Moore,” she said, pulling her hand back before I could shake it. “Adrienne Moore. Now, seriously, how can I help you?”

  I tried to will the blood out of my cheeks and my eyes above her rather modest neckline. “Actually, I was hoping to do a little newspaper research. Do you still have the microfilm archives downstairs?”

  She nodded. “The New York Times, Raleigh News and Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, Charlotte Observer, and the Maryfield Administrator. All of them go back at least ten years. The readers are a little tricky, though, if you don’t know how to use them.”

  “That’s great news,” I said, and I glanced around the room in hopes of locating the stairs to the basement. “Are they the same readers that were here twenty years ago?”

  “They are indeed. So you won’t have any trouble with them?”

  “Nope.” I took a few steps toward the basement steps. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, and she came out from behind the desk. “You’re not done with me yet.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  She swept on past me, a jangling ring of keys in her hand. “Unless you’ve got a lockpick in your wallet, you need me to open the microfiche cabinet for you. Mind the second step; it’s a little loose.” And with that, she bounced down into the basement, all business and daring me to follow.

  “Still?” I asked the air, and then I followed her down.

  The basement, like the upstairs, had been refurbished a bit. There was new carpet on the floor—or at least newer carpet than I was used to—and the walls had been painted a cheery shade of yellow. The same old microfilm readers sat on the same old heavy-legged tables, though, and if the chairs were new, they were the sons and daughters of the ones that had been there all those years before. A massive metal cabinet the color of “sick and hung o
ver” squatted against the wall, each drawer labeled with the name of a different paper. This was where Miss Moore walked, sizing it up as if it had been a puzzle.

  Me, I sat myself down at the first reader and fiddled with it, just to make sure I remembered what the heck I was doing. It all seemed to come back pretty quickly, which was a blessing. After the mishap with the door and the stupidity with the library fine, I didn’t want the librarian to see me screw up again. A man can only stand looking foolish so many times in front of a pretty girl.

  If she noticed my fumbling, she didn’t say anything. “What paper and what year are you looking for, Mr. Logan?”

  “Please, call me Jake. And I guess I’ll go with the Administrator, maybe five years ago and working my way forward.”

  “I think we can do that, Mr. Logan.” She popped the top drawer open and pulled out a couple of spools of microfilm. “Five and four years ago. I can’t let you have more than two at a time. Library policy, you see.”

  I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. “Look, I’d hate to have you running up and down the stairs every few minutes just because I’m not sure where to look. I promise I’ll take good care of it if you just let me have all five years.”

  She looked at me long and hard. “You’re pulling something here, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Just trying to find out a piece of town history that I missed while I was living in Boston. I was hoping to be as little of a pain in the ass as possible while I did it. Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but I figure you’ve got things to do—better things than to constantly unlock your drawers for me.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that,” she said with a frown, but not with a big one. “Fine. To keep you from rattling, as you put it, my drawers, I’ll give you the other three. But don’t you tell anyone about this, and you take good care of them. Otherwise, so help me, I will…” She thought for a moment to come up with a suitable threat. “I will institute that fine, and whatever else I can think of to make your life miserable. Do you understand me?”

  “Why does everyone in this town keep on asking me that question?” I asked, even as she pulled the rest of the microfilm out for me. “And yes, I understand, and I do appreciate your letting me do this. Thank you.”

  “Maybe they keep asking because you don’t seem like you understand much, and you’re welcome.” She closed and locked the drawer, then pivoted and put the microfilm on the desk next to me. “I’m going to trust you here. Don’t make me regret that. Oh, and I’m going to assume that you do in fact know how to use the reader?”

  “I do,” I assured her. “Used to come down here all the time when I was a kid.”

  “I’m sure you did,” she said, gnawing on her lower lip. “All right. Yell if you need help or another roll. For the Times or the N&O, you’re going to have to switch to microfiche—that machine over in the corner. Good luck with whatever you’re hunting.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and before I finished she was already thumping back up the stairs. I very deliberately kept my focus on the roll of film I was threading, and only took one whiff of the lingering scent of her perfume in the air before deciding to breathe through my mouth for the rest of the day.

  The Administrator was a local paper of the purest sort; thirty or so pages thick on its good days and based entirely on advertising from stores everyone knew about already. It had gone through a series of name changes over the years, from the Maryfield Democrat (boycotted by the local Republicans) to the Maryfield Republican (ditto from the other side) to the current one, which everyone agreed was an awful name whose only saving grace was that it didn’t piss anyone off. With the name controversy out of the way, everyone in town had—and I assumed still did—renewed their subscriptions, as much to show local spirit as anything else. The lead stories were mainly about farming, high school sports, and local politics, with the occasional neighborhood crime getting front-page coverage for weeks. It took a mighty big national or international story to make the front page of the Administrator; the editors figured you’d get that news elsewhere, but Dan Rather wasn’t going to tell you if Maryfield Regional matched up well with Black Mountain in the state football playoffs, Class A.

  The focus on local news would serve me well, though, in my search. The debut of a new police officer, especially a female one, was always big news. No doubt Hanratty’s hiring in Maryfield would have been splashed all over the front page for a good long while. And with the Administrator’s reporting style being best described as “nosy neighbor peeking in your window,” I was bound to find out all that I wanted about Hanratty and probably a bit more.

  The days sped by in a blur. The year 2002 was replaced by 2003 and 2004. I saw football games won, basketball games lost, mayors elected and hassled and replaced. Stores opened and closed, paving projects started, dragged on and finally ended, and occasionally someone got themselves shot in a hunting accident. There was no sign of Hanratty anywhere, though. Ten or fifteen times, I cursed under my breath and wished for an online version of the paper with a searchable index.

  I was midway through 2005 when the librarian came trotting back down the stairs. “Need any help?” she asked.

  “I need some inspiration, I think,” I replied. “I’m looking for a bit of local news, but so help me, I can’t dig it up.”

  “Well,” she said, and she pulled up a chair next to mine, “what exactly are you looking for? I might be able to help.”

  I looked over at her. Legs demurely crossed under a long navy skirt, chair a genteel distance away, eyes on the scratchy display; she seemed oblivious to the fact that I was staring at her, for which I was thankful. “I’m trying to find out about a police officer.”

  “Oh, are you now?” Now she looked at me, her eyes catching mine. “And why, pray tell, are you doing that?”

  We locked gazes, and then I looked away. “Well, I’ve had some reason to talk to the police lately, and I figured I’d just like to know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Dealing with the police…” She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute, I know who you are. You’re that man who had his car stolen, right?”

  “Guilty as charged,” I said with a shrug.

  “You know, between that and the drawers comment, you might want to think a bit harder about your word choice,” she said mischievously. My face must have fallen, because she leaned forward and patted my hand like a grade-school teacher reassuring a nervous student. “Oh. Don’t look like that. I read about that just the other day, and that’s how I know. Someone stole it right out from in front of your house, didn’t they?”

  “Right.” I nodded. “I’m surprised the paper didn’t send someone out to interview me.”

  “It would have been too much work,” she said in a stage whisper. “Besides, they’re down the block from the police station, so what more do they need?”

  “What indeed?” I shoved my chair back from the reader and narrowly missed going over backward when the feet caught on the carpet. “A few leads might be nice.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there, but I might be able to help with the other matter. Who are you looking for?” Her voice was prim, her manner all business, and she slid her chair over to the space mine had just vacated.

  “Officer Hanratty,” I told her. “I know she’s not from around here, and I don’t remember her from the last time I was back in town. So I was wondering when she joined the force and if there was anything about her background. You know, where she came from, if she was on the police force anywhere else first, maybe why she came out to Maryfield.”

  “And her home address so you could wrap toilet paper around her shrubs?” To my horrified look, she said, “I’m just joking. You are so easy to tease. Now hang on one minute.” She sorted through several rolls until she came up with one I’d already looked through.

  “Ah,” she said. “This is it.”

  “I’ve already been through that one,” I protested.


  “You were looking for the wrong thing,” she said with a hint of triumph in her voice. “Hanratty’s her maiden name. When she came here, she was Officer Lee.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling like a fool as she spooled up the tape. “Did her husband die?”

  Her response was distracted, her fingers full of microfilm. “He ran off two years ago. Probably running for his life, if you believe half the stories they tell, not that anyone around here repeats them. At least, not where she can hear.”

  “That’s probably smart,” I agreed.

  “Probably,” she echoed, and she started whipping through film. “Here you go. If I understood you correctly, this should be what you were looking for.” She scooted her chair half out of the way, and I scooted mine halfway in. One long finger tapped the screen.

  “Next time,” she added with a prim little smile, “just ask for help.”

  I thought about answering, then decided against it and bent my head to see what Miss Moore had uncovered for me. The headline read “New Additions to Local Police Force,” and underneath was a picture of a man and a woman smiling uncomfortably in Maryfield police uniforms. The date in the corner was June 16, 2002, and lower down on the page were stories about the upcoming election and the exploits of a local boy who’d just been promoted to Double-A Greenville.

  I studied the picture for a minute. The woman was much thinner than the Hanratty I knew, but now that I understood what I was looking at, I could see that it was indeed the woman I’d talked to. You could see that same determined look in her eyes, that same set of the jaw, even across the years and the lousy quality of the picture reproduction.

  “Wow,” I said. “What happened?”

  Moore shrugged. “Nobody really knows. I don’t like prying into other people’s private lives, but the best guess I have is that she liked the town and he didn’t, and when he left town she stayed. Other people have ideas that aren’t quite so nice, but that’s just gossip.” She crossed her arms and made a chipmunk face that explained exactly how she felt about telling tales out of school.