He watched her walk out and realized he admired her tenacity. She was a tough lady and was determined to see this case through. He knew his grandfather wasn’t involved in the murders, but the image of that note kept running through his mind. If he’d written it, then he had been complicit in abandoning a child and possibly faking her death. Quinn had nearly convinced himself that he’d been wrong about the handwriting and it wasn’t his grandfather’s, but he’d been so sure when he’d first seen it.
“What are you doing here, Quinn?” Rich asked, coming up behind him, his voice holding a tinge of irritation. Quinn already knew the reason his brother was on edge. She was walking out the door. “Do you have any idea who that woman is?”
Quinn scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I know. I recognized her. Dana Lang. I got called in last night for a break-in at her hotel room. She says she’s working on a story about the Renfield murders.”
Rich was one of the few people who knew about Quinn’s involvement in the embassy attack. He’d shared what had happened with his brother and although he knew Rich wouldn’t have blabbed it, the rest of the family, or even those in town, could easily put it all together. They all knew he’d been gone at the same time as the attack, and they knew his background in Special Forces. Two plus two still equaled four in West Bend.
Rich shook his head. “But you just know she’s here sniffing out a story and who’s a bigger story right now than you? You should leave before it’s too late and don’t come back into town until she’s gone.”
“Great, I’ll be exiled from my own hometown.”
Rich touched his shoulder, pulling Quinn’s attention to him. “It’s better than having your face splashed all over every television in America.”
Quinn thought again about Rizzo and the press he was generating these days. His brother was right. He needed to stay as far away from Dana Lang as he could.
* * *
Dana walked to the library, where her journey here had started. She’d made friends with the head librarian, Lila, a wiry, bespectacled woman in her fifties and the first friendly face she’d encountered in town and, if yesterday’s events were any indication, the only friendly face she would see besides Quinn Dawson. But she wouldn’t be dissuaded. She’d faced opposition before on cases she’d investigated and she’d persevered. This would be no different.
Lila’s face lit up when Dana entered the library. She hurried around the main desk and pulled Dana into a hug. “I heard what happened to you last night,” she said. “Did you get hurt?”
She was a little shocked that the news had spread so fast, but then remembered small towns were notorious for everyone knowing everyone else’s business. “I’m fine. He didn’t take anything. Just spray-painted a nasty note on my hotel wall.”
“I feel responsible since I’m the one who recommended that hotel. It’s normally a perfectly safe place.”
She glanced at Lila and realized she was the only person besides the hotel clerk and the sheriff’s office who knew Dana was in town investigating this case. “Did you tell anyone where I was staying or what I was looking in to?”
Lila’s face reddened and she began stammering. “I might have mentioned it to a few folks when I was getting coffee yesterday afternoon. I’m sorry, Dana. I was excited to have a big-time television star in our town. I guess I was bragging. It felt good to have people think I was helping you.”
Dana sighed as she realized Lila probably hadn’t meant for anything bad to happen to her. But someone had heard what she was up to and decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Do you remember who was at the coffee shop yesterday?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Well, someone heard you. If I can figure out who, I might be able to track down the person who broke into my room.”
Lila’s face flushed. “Oh, well, then I suppose you’d also have to have the names of everyone at the grocery store and the beauty shop and everyone who came into the library yesterday. I might have mentioned it more than I let on.”
Dana smiled past her annoyance and tried to reassure her. “That’s okay. So basically, anyone could have heard about it.” You had to love the small-town grapevine. She tried another tactic. “Did anyone seem overly concerned about me being in town? Maybe someone asked a lot of questions about what I was working on?”
“Everyone was curious, of course, but I can’t think of anyone who would want to do you harm.”
She could see this was a dead end. It didn’t matter who had heard the news—she imagined by this point everyone in town knew it.
“Did you locate the microfiche I asked for?”
“I did. I’ll show you where they’re at.” Lila crossed the main floor and Dana followed her. Microfiche wasn’t used much anymore but Dana was surprised when Lila led her through the side door and up a flight of stairs. She’d expected it to be in an out-of-the-way place, like the basement.
She shot Lila a questioning glance.
“We had it downstairs until a pipe burst last year and flooded the basement. We moved the machine upstairs to a storage closet behind the stacks. It’s a little dark but it’s private. No one should bother you.”
She followed Lila through rows of shelves lined with books until they reached a door on the far wall. Lila unlocked the door and Dana stepped inside. The room was filled with boxes and supplies. In the corner was the microfiche machine with a chair pushed up to it. A fluorescent light flickered overhead, threatening to go out at any moment. Lila was right about it being private. Few people would venture here except by accident. But she’d faced worse circumstances and she wasn’t going to complain. “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Lila.”
She motioned to a box of microfiche next to the machine. “I pulled everything I could find on the murders for you. And the machine is set up to print to the circulation-desk printer downstairs. I’ll be around if you need anything.”
Lila disappeared into the stacks while Dana set down her purse and got to work. She pulled out the first microfiche film and placed it into the machine. She scrolled through the newspaper dates until she came to the front-page headline on the day after the murders: Double Murder Stuns West Bend.
The article went on to describe how the local volunteer fire department had responded to the fire at the Renfield home. One body had been discovered, that of Mrs. Rene Renfield. Police were being tight-lipped about how she died, but it was rumored that she was already deceased when the fire was started. The whereabouts of Paul Renfield and the couple’s one-year-old daughter, Alicia, had yet to be determined.
Dana knew from the article in her mom’s belongings, dated six days later, that the child’s body would not be found for two more days, when it was discovered beneath rubble of the house by fireman Jay Englin, but she doubted the veracity of that report, believing the local authorities, namely Sheriff Mackey, had covered up the fact that Alicia—that Dana—was alive. Was she found in the rubble of the house two days after the fire as this article stated? It seemed unlikely. She would have been severely dehydrated and suffering smoke inhalation at the least, and been taken immediately to the hospital, where several people would have seen her, making a cover-up unlikely. How then, and more importantly when, did Jay Englin find her?
She wished she could track him down, but so far, she hadn’t been able to find a current address or online presence for him. He was the one person still living who could confirm that a child’s body had actually been discovered. She thought about asking Lila if she had any information on Jay’s whereabouts. She wasn’t giving up on talking to him and would continue trying to locate him.
She printed out several articles that mentioned the murders and jotted down every piece of information she could find about the details of the case, hoping the reporters who’d written for the paper back then had better access to the police files than she did. Perhaps she could even t
rack down one of them for an interview. She glanced at the bylines and realized most of the articles were written by two people, Jerry Foster and Jane Shaw. She added their names to her list of people she wanted to interview. It would be nice to speak to them to discover if there was anything in their notes that hadn’t made it into the articles.
She took out her phone and looked up the paper online, only to discover it had folded back in the late nineties, when the digital age began to make papers around the country flounder. It was no surprise that a small-town paper couldn’t make it. There was, however, a webpage that seemed active. She clicked the link and discovered Jerry Foster still operated an online blog. She skimmed through the archives and found no mention of the murder, but if he was still writing then perhaps he would remember the case. She quickly pulled up her email and shot him a message asking to meet.
Suddenly, the room went dark. The machine shut down, and only the light from her phone illuminated the room. The machine was old and probably hadn’t been used in a while. Perhaps it had blown a fuse. She opened the door and found the lights were off in the stacks as well, and it was dark as night as she made her way toward the light she saw filtering in through the windows in the main area.
She cleared the stacks and looked around. No one was here, but the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly raised and Dana swore she felt eyes on her, watching her. She glanced around and saw no one, yet she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that she wasn’t alone. She pressed the button for the elevator, then realized it wasn’t working, either.
Rubbing her arms, that feeling of being watched was strong. Someone was up here with her, but why weren’t they showing themselves? “Hello?” she called, watching for movement and feeling silly for the uneasiness washing over her. It was probably Lila or one of the other librarians reshelving or straightening books. Sure they were. In the dark. “Hello?” she called again.
No one responded.
A door slammed and she jumped and spun around. Someone had just left through the side door that led downstairs. But why hadn’t they answered when she’d called?
She hurried over and pushed open the door, “Who’s there?” she called, her voice echoing through the stairwell. “I know someone was just here. Who is it?”
She started down the steps. The lights were out here, too, but if someone was trying to frighten her they’d have to do a better job than spying on her at the library or cutting power to the microfiche. She wasn’t going to be intimidated.
In the darkness, she felt a hand on her back, shoving her. She went tumbling down the concrete steps, pain shooting through her with every bump. She hit the bottom, jamming her shoulder into the concrete floor. Her head spun, but she forced herself to glance up, pain shooting through her as she did. All she saw was darkness above her. A figure moved at the top of the stairs but she couldn’t make it out. Man or woman? Young or old? She couldn’t tell. Then the darkness pulled her away and she didn’t know anything else.
Copyright © 2018 by Virginia Vaughan
ISBN-13: 9781488088148
Accidental Eyewitness
Copyright © 2018 by Faith Boughan
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