by Etta Faire
It was something, all right. A little too much of something.
“Did you know she was Myles Donovan’s granddaughter?” I asked Mrs. Nebitt, but she wasn’t behind the counter anymore. She was halfway to the kids section, a pretty fast waddler when she wanted to be.
I grabbed my box and headed out. “I’ll get you another flier about the seance later today,” I yelled back to the librarian. She didn’t even shush me.
On my way out, I paused at the humungous photo hanging above the copiers, opened my purse, and pulled out the articles I’d printed of the old society pages. They were around the same time, so I hoped to identify some people.
I stared from the articles to the blown-up photo of the ribbon-cutting ceremony and back again. I was able to conclusively identify Mayor Peterton, the only squatty man with a bushy mustache, so he was pretty easy to pick out. I was also able to identify some of the board members of the country club.
And… that’s when I noticed a little half-covered sign right by the library that looked like it said “tle Construction,” as in Wittle Construction. That was a pretty big coincidence even in this small town since Mayor Darren Wittle also happened to be onboard the boat that killed Gloria. I made a mental note to pay the good mayor a visit, which was something I’d been meaning to do anyway.
The blurry man standing by the sign looked familiar too. I was pretty sure it was Bill Donovan, but I couldn’t say for sure. And like a punch in the gut, it hit me. I stumbled back almost bumping into the large glass window behind me, my boots slipping a little on the plastic tiled flooring. The tip jar at the dance.
No wonder that woman was acting weird and didn’t want a free ticket to the seance even though she loves freebies. No wonder she and Mildred hadn’t talked for years after the accident.
This library, my quiet little sanctuary I’d known and loved for years, had been built on hush money. From that accident. Mrs. Nebitt was probably part of the cover-up, having been paid a library to shut up about something.
I now questioned whether Lila Donovan was really here at my story time to hear If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or if this had all been some sort of bizarre, unspoken intimidation tactic. Mrs. Nebitt had known who that woman was as soon as she’d walked in. I could tell by how quickly she’d pretended not to know her.
Lila was probably here to make sure Mrs. Nebitt didn’t go to my seance or give me information. She was probably also hoping the librarian would go straight to Mildred to tell her she needed to tread cautiously too.
A large part of me wanted to rush back over there and confront them all with this, to see if I was right. But instead, I walked out to my car. Justin had been right. This was the kind of intimidation that nobody said out loud. Yet, everyone felt it.
One thing I did know, I needed to get to Mildred first to convince her to share her diary before Mrs. Nebitt convinced her she needed to be afraid.
That diary might be the concrete evidence I needed to catch this crooked mouse. It might be my cookie.
Chapter 17
Old News
I tried to keep my voice calm as I sat in my car, leaving a message for Mildred. “Just wanted to see if you had a chance to look for that diary yet. Call me when you find it.” I somehow refrained from adding before you call Mrs. Nebitt or anyone else. “I’d really like to get one of the chaperone’s perspectives on that dance.”
I turned the heater on full blast and called the Purple Pony next. I was supposed to start work in an hour, but I had a better idea. “I think I know how to get more people to buy tickets to this seance. I’m going to the Landover Gazette,” I said to Rosalie as soon as she answered, like she would instantly be impressed with my idea.
“What the hell are you talking about?” She only cussed when she was mad, and she was mad a lot lately. “I don’t even want to do the seance anymore. I was up all last night thanking my lucky stars that I don’t have to work with Satan again.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” I said.
“The nerve of her, coming in here, asking us to pony up money for printing tickets. I’m gonna need to see a receipt, that’s what I should’ve told her…”
I didn’t let her finish. “Okay. If it comes to that, we will definitely get a receipt. But let’s all try to make money first. I need it. You need it…”
“I don’t need it.”
I coughed. “Okay, but everyone else does. I have an idea.”
“You already told me,” she said. “You’re gonna buy a newspaper ad.”
I laughed. “I don’t have money for that. But I think they might give us coverage for free.”
There was a long pause, so I continued. “The reporters who covered the accident back in 1957 did a horrible job. Inaccuracies everywhere. Misspellings. Biased, directional reporting intended to persuade an audience, instead of just presenting facts. I think they were in on the cover-up.” I paused for a gasp. I didn’t get one.
I went on. “But the paper switched ownership in 1993. I bet the new owners would love to help uncover things. Don’t you think? Run a scoop on their own paper. Maybe help me find out the truth about that night, so I can nail the murderers.”
Once again, crickets.
“Well?”
“I think you have a wonderful imagination. But this is not going to play out like you think it will.”
“I have to try, anyway.”
I could still hear Rosalie’s heavy sigh in my head twenty minutes later as I stood outside the small, two-story brick building that housed the newspaper. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that Rosalie was wrong. These people weren’t the same owners who covered up Gloria’s death. They would be thrilled to help.
A little bell chimed my entry when I opened the front door. The place smelled like ink and chocolate chip cookies. I looked around, mostly for the cookies. All that talk about mice with cookies was making me want one.
Five desks of various sizes were crammed around the room, each about as cluttered as Rosalie’s, except Rosalie’s was still cluttered with bloody leaf cuttings right now.
A young, auburn-haired woman sat in front of a police scanner. She took off her headset when she saw me come in.
“Hi. Are you here to see the Herndons? You’re early.”
“No. No one’s expecting me. I’m here to see whoever’s in charge, though.”
“The Herndons. They own the paper. I’m just an intern from LU. Lynette.”
“Landover University. My alma mater. English grad.”
“Journalism.” She nodded politely. “Go Bears,” she said, raising a fist.
I raised my fist too, like I’d known we were the Bears.
“There’s Mrs. Herndon now.” She pointed toward the backroom where a squatty middle-aged blonde in a bright red sweater and a colorful, flowered accent scarf hustled through the doorway, carrying a plate of cookies. She looked startled to see me. “Can I help you?” she asked, wiping crumbs from her chest.
I introduced myself, making sure to mention that my dead ex-husband’s great aunt used to own this place.
“Well, isn’t that something?” she said in a tone that made me know it really wasn’t.
“Jackson Bowman,” I continued.
She smiled like I’d said Jeffrey Dahmer then motioned to the intern who was staring at us with wild, interested eyes. “Lynette, I hope you’re not missing important police activity. You have to be the one to make the most of your time here,” she said sternly.
The intern put her headset back on, or pretended to. I had a feeling a stranger walking into the newspaper office was a little more interesting than anything the police were doing around here.
“So, what can I help you with?” Mrs. Herndon asked, setting the cookie plate down on her desk without offering me one.
I tried to ignore my stomach rumble while faking some confidence. “I think I have a story you might be interested in.”
“Another murder at Gate House?” she asked.
I shot back. “He was innocent, you know.”
She put her hands on her hips and gave my sweatshirt and leggings a suspicious once-over, making me kick myself for not spending more time trying to look professionally cute this morning like I’d planned to.
I swallowed and continued. “I know this is going to sound strange, but I’m a medium. I work at the Purple Pony,” I began. Her plastered-on smile went from polite to condescending. She sat down in front of her computer, and I felt my nervous facial tic coming back. I was losing my faked confidence. “I’m also a writer, writing a book about ghosts. You know, the ones here in Landover. I have a seance planned about the boating accident that happened in 1957, which was not really an accident…”
She was clicking her keyboard now. “We don’t cover seances, sorry. That’s not real news.”
I resisted the urge to point out how chili contests usually made the headlines around here. “I’m not asking you to cover the seance, but there is a bigger story here. The newspaper’s coverage of the boating accident back then. Or lack of. I believe it was part of a much larger cover-up.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I know it seems unbelievable now because I’m sure you are an honest and trustworthy owner of this newspaper. But, if you look in the archives about the accident, I’m positive you will see the newspaper might not always have been.”
“Okay, thank you,” she said while I stood there.
She kept typing like she expected me to leave. When I didn’t, she added a very sharp, “Thank you, again, for the tip. I will jot it down. Have a good day.”
“If you’re not interested in the angle, maybe I could just go through your archives myself to see if there’s anything I missed at the library. It was almost like they were doing bad reporting on purpose… using journalism as a weapon.”
She pressed her lips together so forcefully they drained of color. “You come in here and insult this publication, saying it helped to cover up a murder… that wasn’t even a murder. It was an unfortunate accident.”
Jackson appeared next to her, leaning against her desk, mocking her outrage with a puppet hand, minus the sock. “My, my. You would think dropping the Bowman name would have more clout than this,” he said, making me smile. A part of me was happy Jackson was here. The other part couldn’t believe he’d been traveling on me the entire day and I hadn’t even noticed. I needed those stinky sachets asap.
He went on. “But then, I suppose I know why she’s so upset. This is Grace, my distant cousin. She and her husband, Dan, own the paper now. They had to buy it for fair market value from her grandmother, that great aunt I was telling you about, because she wouldn’t give it to them. Aunt Ethel. Lovely woman.”
I knew by now that whenever my ex said lovely woman, he meant anything but. He said that a lot about my mother.
“Okay, so now I get it,” I said to the woman whose neck veins were bulging. “Your grandmother was part of the cover-up, most likely. I’m sorry you had to find that out from me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make things right.”
“Get out now,” she said through gritted teeth. “Or I will call the police. You’ve been asked plenty of times.”
I yanked the door open and left. A chilly wind punched me in the face as I made my way over to my car. I was now late for my shift, and that was time I wouldn’t get paid for. And it had been for nothing. I couldn’t afford to cut my own hours.
I looked back at the newspaper. I could see Grace’s red sweater between the slats of the blinds. She was watching me at the window. It was all I could do not to one-finger salute her. She was just as lovely as her grandmother.
I turned on my car and waited for the heat to kick in just as a beautiful blonde strutted over to the front door of the newspaper. Grace had been watching for someone, all right, but it hadn’t been me. Lila Donovan. At least now I knew who the cookies were for.
Chapter 18
Whittling Away
“He can’t see you, Carly Mae. He’s very busy,” Mayor Wittle’s executive assistant said the next day before I even had a chance to say “hello” or explain myself. She’d obviously known I was coming.
The lobby was nice, larger than I thought it’d be with American flags and eagle seals as part of its decor. Green velvet curtains covered the one window.
The woman behind the small mahogany desk was an acquaintance of mine who used to work at the Spoony River back in the day. A thin woman around forty with a large head and stringy jet black hair. It was strange to see her in a nice pantsuit instead of a pink 50s outfit.
“Kelly Leone,” I said like we were long lost besties. I gave her a hug and asked how she was doing.
She told me all about how her oldest was just about to attend Landover University and her youngest was learning drums. “The neighbors wanna rip his arms off, of course.”
She looked me up and down. “I heard you were… interesting now,” she said, making me drop my smile. It was like a person couldn’t talk to ghosts anymore without getting labeled.
I laughed like she was joking. “Everyone’s interesting, right?”
“Right.” She curled her lip. “You don’t really think dead people talk to you, though, do you?” She lowered her voice. “I’m only asking because Mayor Wittle told me you’re crazy now. You know, like Tina.”
She was talking about a mutual friend with schizophrenia. And I could tell by the way she was practically whispering that she wasn’t at all comfortable talking about her. She went on. “You seem normal to me, though.”
“I am normal.”
“The mayor’s not. Not anymore, he’s not. He’s been acting crazy. Needy too. He said if I saw you that I should definitely not let you in to see him. He says you only want to talk about your new dead friends.”
Mayor Wittle opened his door, peeked out, and shut the door again.
“Looks pretty busy, huh?” Kelly said, motioning with her large head at the now-closed door. She winked at me. “He’s busy making more work for me, that’s what he’s busy with.”
I moved toward his office which was at the back of the lobby, but hesitated at the door.
“Oh, it don’t lock,” she said then went back to scrolling on Facebook. “Good seeing you, Carly Mae. And if that crazy old man asks how you got in, tell him I tried. He knows I don’t really try. How’m I supposed to keep people from coming in there?”
The mayor’s office was only a little bigger than my walk-in closet at Gate House and just as boring. A photo of his construction company sat proudly on the wall alongside the one of him taking the oath of office. There were also a few family photos and some of the many construction jobs his family’s business had tackled over the years, from the 1940s and up.
In one of the black-and-white photos, the mayor stood arm and arm with five large men, each one looked like a body builder compared to him, including the older man by his side. Broad shoulders, full heads of hair. Kind of like if Bill Nye the Science Guy posed with the Thunder from Down Under.
I pointed to the photo. “The original crew of Wittle Construction?” I asked. “Beautiful family. Your dad and brothers?”
He nodded a nervous yes. “Now my sons and nephews have taken over.” He fiddled nervously with his bow tie, his wispy gray combover flopping into his eyes with each movement. He looked over at the large stack of papers sitting on his desk like he was remembering he should look busy. He sat down in front of them and picked them up. “Carly Mae, Kelly should have told you. I am very busy, and I do not have time to see you today.”
“How about tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “I’m very busy.” he said, holding up one of the papers, like it was proof of that. He checked his humungous watch next, probably in case the paper wasn’t proof enough. The thing looked more like a compass attached to his wrist than a watch. I wondered if it was just for his “I am busy” show.
He never looked at me. “I know you think it’s normal to talk to dead people. But it�
�s not normal. And it’s a waste of time and money to bring up that old accident.”
“So, you know why I’m here?”
“Of course. I heard about the seance. Everybody has. Vern was right. You’re only doing this ‘cause you’re desperate to make a buck at the Purple Pony.”
“Tell me what you remember about the accident.”
He shook his head. “Ohmygosh. You talk like it was yesterday. I don’t remember anything. Nobody does. Looks like you’ll have to get all your information from your ghosts this time. I’m not helping you drum up old stories so you can pretend later that the ghosts told you them. I know how seances work. They’re all fake.”
He straightened out the stack of papers, his hands shaking. I wondered if it was a condition or nerves.
“Your family built the library, huh,” I asked.
“Yes.” He pointed to the black-and-white photo on the wall behind him of a bulldozer and a dirt lot. “Very proud of that one.”
“Who paid for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“The Donovans?”
“Stop asking me questions. I don’t have to answer, you know?”
“How much did you get for the job?”
He looked at his papers. “I don’t think we charged much. It was for a good cause.”
“Hush money?” I asked.
I sat down in the chair across from him and crossed my legs like I had all the time in the world.
He motioned toward the photo. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re a construction company. We make bids. We’re given plans, and we follow ‘em. Plain and simple.”
“Did you know the Linders? Did your family buy into the investment?”
“Of course I did. I mean, of course I knew the Linders, but no about the investment.” He wiped the sweat from his receding hairline with the back of his sleeve. “Freddie was my friend, and his death was a shock to us all. We’re still not over it. I’m sorry the girls got involved.” He looked down at his feet.