A Hero in Her Eyes

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Did you know I took my coffee black, or—?”

  The natural assumption would have been that she hadn’t had time to offer him any cream or sugar. But, being as how this was Eliza, he knew there was nothing he could assume, naturally or otherwise. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t had any coffee while around her, but he could have been wrong there, as well.

  In response, Eliza looked over her shoulder at him with what had to be the most enigmatic smile he had ever seen.

  Enigmatic or not, he interpreted it. She hadn’t needed to see him have coffee to know how he liked it. Some things, obviously, just came to her. Walker still hadn’t made up his mind whether he liked that or not, or whether it should even matter how he felt about it.

  “Right, dumb question,” he muttered under his breath, as she hurried off to get ready.

  Chapter 11

  The woman behind the counter at the county records office did not look particularly pleased about having to make the effort to communicate with anyone. Sitting at her desk several feet from the counter, she had been oblivious to the sound of the door being opened and then closed when Walker and Eliza came in.

  It had taken several attempts to even draw her attention away from the computer monitor she was staring at so intently.

  The morning’s search did not progress well from there. It had taken twenty minutes for the clerk to grudgingly look for the proper forms Eliza had needed to fill out, before the woman even attempted to search for the deed they were interested in.

  Pushing perpetually sliding glasses back up a nose that was just the slightest bit too short, the woman shook her head. “It’s not on here,” she informed them from behind the monitor.

  “What do you mean, it’s not on there?” Walker demanded. He felt Eliza’s hand on his arm, silently gentling him. He wasn’t interested in being gentled, but he lowered his voice for her sake. “Somebody has to own it.”

  “Yeah, well, the title hasn’t been properly recorded—at least, not in the database,” the clerk said.

  Now they were entering an area that he had some kind of expertise in. He pointed to the computer. “Are all the deeds for all the county’s properties in the database?”

  “Not the oldest ones. We started inputting the newest title transfers and worked our way backward.”

  Transfers. That meant the farmhouse had probably been sold. How recently, and how much more difficult would that make finding Bonnie? he wondered, struggling with a fresh wave of impatience. “And just how far back did you go?”

  The clerk hit several keys before replying. “To the beginning of the 1940s.”

  Eliza was trying to follow the tiny bits of information that were being doled out. “So if this property was owned by one person, or, say, one family, and bought before 1940, it might not have gotten into the database?”

  A loud, dramatic sigh escaped before the clerk answered her. “Not yet.”

  “And just exactly where would the information be?” Walker asked, before Eliza had a chance to.

  The clerk’s thin lips curled condescendingly. “The archives.” She said the word as if it were the last place she would be willing to go.

  “And how do we get it from there?” Walker asked, having trouble keeping his voice level.

  The woman raised her chin defensively. “You fill out the proper form and—”

  More forms. Walker narrowed his eyes. “Bring it on,” he instructed.

  The woman hesitated, spreading her fingers out along her desk. Like someone stalling for time. Eliza realized the clerk wasn’t being difficult, she was being fearful. The easiest assumption was that it had something to do with going down into the archives.

  “If we filled the form out, would we be able to go down into the archives ourselves and retrieve the information?” Eliza proposed.

  It was obviously the lesser of two evils, if the woman’s expression was any indication of the way she felt. But the clerk still hesitated.

  “It’s highly irregular,” she told them with considerably less frost than she had displayed a moment earlier.

  “And just what would it take to make it…regular?” At this point, Walker was willing to beg, bribe or browbeat his way to the information.

  Beside him, Eliza sneezed. Habit had him reaching for the handkerchief in his pocket. He saw the clerk’s eyes light up as she followed the movement. He was more than familiar with the look. Instead of the handkerchief, Walker took out his wallet. The clerk actually managed a smile.

  He’d figured she would.

  Taking a fifty out of his wallet, Walker folded it over with his thumb and forefinger before sliding his hand over the counter, closer to the records clerk.

  No words were exchanged, only the folded bill.

  “If you’ll just follow me.” The woman circumvented the counter and led the way to the door at the rear of the large room. “We keep the archives in the basement,” she informed them as she opened the door and ventured down the stairs.

  Left with only vague instructions as to which of the many warehouse-like aisles might contain the box with the original deed they were looking for, Eliza and Walker got down to work.

  To simplify matters and prevent overlap, they had split up, each taking an aisle. Walker had the one right after Eliza’s. After a fruitless hour, he wandered back to where she was working.

  Leaning against the dust-laden metal shelves, he watched her. Eliza was diligent and thorough. Both good attributes. So was kindness, he caught himself thinking. “Your intuition doesn’t tell you which of these boxes might be the right one, does it?”

  She looked up, then rose to her feet. Another box completed. “I only wish it would.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take us to find it?” Walker asked.

  She knew he really wanted an answer, but she didn’t have one. “That’s hard to say. These purchases aren’t cross-referenced,” she pointed out, sliding the lid back on the box she’d just gone through.

  Edging her out of the way, he picked it up and returned it to the space she’d taken it from.

  “They boxed them by year, not by lot number, which makes it a lot more difficult,” she said.

  He dusted off his hands, then decided it was a futile gesture. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he muttered as he disappeared down the next aisle.

  It took them the better part of the morning to track down the name of the owner of the deserted farmhouse. Eliza found it just as she was about to suggest they break for lunch.

  “Joseph Garvey,” she read aloud, then cried, “Hallelujah!” just before she sank down to the floor, exhaustion weighing her down and interfering with the sense of elation that had overtaken her.

  Head buried in a box, Walker thought he heard Eliza’s voice. Or maybe he was just hearing things, he decided. But the “hallelujah” definitely caught his attention. “What’s that?” he called out.

  “Joseph Garvey,” she repeated. “He owns the old farmhouse. Or did,” she corrected. She’d gotten it from the box marked in a large, bold man’s hand: Transferred Titles.

  She heard something hit the floor in the next aisle with a thud. “Are you all right?” The next moment, she saw Walker peering around the corner.

  “Yeah. You found it?” he asked in disbelief.

  Eliza held up the faded document. “Right here.”

  Walker crossed to her quickly. Rather than snatch the document from her, he took it as if he were taking hold of the Holy Grail.

  He turned over the deed. “What’s this?” There was an 8-by-11 legal document in pristine condition attached to it.

  Eliza turned the paper around to look at it. “Looks like the City of Bedford has bought out one Joseph Garvey.” She looked at the date of sale. “A little more than four months ago.”

  The question remained why it hadn’t been entered into the computer database, but with so many things falling through the cracks, Eliza was just grateful they had found the deed.

  F
our months. An eternity when calculated in miles, he thought, taking the paper from her. His daughter could be anywhere. He tried not to let despair get hold of him again, but it wasn’t easy.

  Walker looked at Eliza, placing his faith in her optimism. “So where do we go from here?”

  “We find a way to track down Joseph Garvey.” She left the box standing open on the floor. It would be easier to put the document back that way—once she paid to have a copy made. “I doubt very much if we’ll get our answer from anyone involved in buying the actual property. In my experience, bureaucrats tend to snow you when you ask the simplest of questions. I never quite figured out why that is,” she commented, as they made their way up the stairs.

  “Long-winded people have to find some kind of work, I guess.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him just before opening the stairwell door. He’d made a joke of sorts and didn’t even realize it. There was hope for him yet.

  That was what it was all about, she thought. Hope.

  As it turned out, there was a forwarding address for Garvey, but he was no longer there.

  It figured, Walker thought darkly. Nothing about this was going smoothly, but at least for every dead end, there turned out to be a path leading away from it and down another road.

  They’d returned to Eliza’s office, and she had asked for Savannah’s help in locating Garvey’s whereabouts. The first thing they uncovered was that there was no driver’s license renewal in the DMV records.

  Looking over Savannah’s shoulder, Eliza mulled over this development. “If Garvey owned the farm in the thirties, that puts him somewhere in his late eighties, at the least. At that age, he shouldn’t be driving around unless he’s one sharp old man.” Something occurred to her. “This might be a good thing.”

  Walker looked at her quizzically.

  She hurried to explain. “Unless Garvey’s a veteran, in which case he has CHAMPUS coverage, he’s on Medicare. We might be able to track him down that way.” She placed a hand on Savannah’s shoulder. “Savannah, see what you can do with their records.”

  “Already on it.” Switching to another program, Savannah went back online again.

  Fifteen minutes later, she had a match.

  “Joseph Garvey was a patient at Harris Memorial Hospital two months ago,” she announced triumphantly. “He went in with a hip fracture. Had a whole replacement done.” She twisted around in her chair to look at the pair who hadn’t left her office since she’d begun the online search. “My guess is that the hospital billing department has a current forwarding address for him that might even be more up-to-date than Medicare’s.”

  Walker put his mug of coffee down on Savannah’s desk. “Which is?”

  “Give me a minute,” Savannah said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

  It took her a minute-and-a-half.

  Pleased with herself, Savannah leaned back and waved a hand at the computer screen. “Voilà. Joseph Garvey, of the perforated eardrum that kept him out of the service, is presently residing in Bedford Valley Convalescent Home—convalescing.”

  Eliza and Walker were out the door in less than five minutes.

  They heard Joseph Garvey before they saw him.

  A nurse’s aide directed them toward the physical therapy room. Approaching it, they heard a deep, rumbling voice complaining that he was being brutalized and abused because he was old and defenseless.

  Entering the large room, Eliza and Walker discovered that his voice was the biggest thing about Joseph Garvey. He was on the floor, barely a twig of a man, mounted on an air mattress that bore the markings of thousands of exercises. An agile, muscled man with an incredibly jovial smile was slowly working one of Garvey’s legs, softly issuing orders that were not being followed and encouragement that was falling on deaf ears.

  “Come on, Mr. Garvey, you’ll not be getting any better if you don’t try,” the physical therapist coaxed.

  Garvey frowned. “Don’t wanna get better. Fer pity sake, Trevor, I’m ninety-three… Who the hell am I going to get better for?”

  Trevor chuckled, all the while working Garvey’s leg. “I seen the way Mrs. Masterson was lookin’ at you, man. Bet she’d like you to be spry.”

  “Humph.” Despite the sound, the frown softened just a little. “Emma Masterson likes me just the way I am, so I can’t get away from her when she comes.”

  “Then do it so you can get away from her.” The therapist shook his head, bringing Garvey’s leg up so that the knee bent a little. “Nothin’ sadder than a man not bein’ a man.”

  “Stop, stop, you’re killin’ me.” In the middle of the lament, Garvey’s attention shifted to the two people who had entered and were standing behind Trevor. “What’re you two gawking at?”

  Eliza took the initiative. The old man had to be treated with kid gloves, and she had a feeling that with all the stress he’d endured, Walker had left his behind. “Mr. Garvey?”

  The scowl returned, but not before the small, sharp eyes had taken in every inch of Eliza. “Unless you’re here to tell me that I won the lottery, I’m not talking to anyone.”

  Trevor shifted around so he could look at them while he continued with Garvey’s exercises. “He’s Mr. Garvey. Can I help you?”

  Putting her hand out, Eliza introduced herself and Walker, then quickly explained the reason for their unannounced visit. Pretending indifference, Garvey nonetheless listened intently.

  “We have reason to believe that Mr. Banacek’s daughter might have been held on your property several months ago.”

  Garvey shook his head. “Can’t see how that’s possible. I lived there until the city decided to make me an offer they thought I couldn’t refuse.” The puckered face looked by turns genuinely saddened and then angry at the injustice of it. “I would’ve, if I’da had any help. But that damn grandnephew of mine was always busy at the garage where he claimed he worked. And as for that wife of his, she didn’t know how to pick up a dishrag, let alone anything that had to do with farming. I was too old to do it all myself,” he complained bitterly. Raising himself up on his elbows, he puffed up his chest. “Ten years ago, I coulda, but that was then, this is now.” His eyes shifted to Walker. “Take my advice, don’t get old.”

  Eliza spared a moment to give the old man her sympathy. Something he’d said had caught her attention. “Did your grandnephew always live with you?” It was clear that he thought very little of the man.

  “Naw, him and his family came about two, mebbe three years ago, can’t say for sure. Alls I know is that they came for the holidays. Least that was what they said. But they stayed on after. Three weeks into the damn visit I find out they’ve got no place to live. Couldn’t just throw them out, even if I wanted to. Which I did,” he added honestly.

  Squatting down to be on his level, Eliza squeezed Garvey’s hand. “You’re a good man, Mr. Garvey.”

  “Damn straight I am. And where did it get me?” He shifted accusing eyes back to his therapist. “Lying on some lumpy mattress, having a sassy kid bark orders at me and pull on my leg like I was some damn rag doll he wanted to play with, or mebbe a piece of taffy.”

  It was obvious that there was a love–hate relationship going on, one that both men enjoyed, Eliza thought.

  But it was something Walker viewed with increasing impatience. Every moment spent here was another moment his daughter was enduring at the hands of her captors. And away from him. He leaned over and said to Eliza, “Where’s this getting us?”

  She held up her hand, valiantly trying to ignore the shiver his warm breath against her ear had caused. “Mr. Garvey, you mentioned that your grandnephew—”

  “Wallace,” he interjected.

  She made a mental note of the name, hoping to coax the last one out of Garvey in time. “You mentioned that Wallace had a family. How big a family?”

  “Not much, unless you’re going by the pound,” he cracked, then laughed at his own wit. “His wife was twice his size,” he explained onc
e he’d stopped laughing, “but she listened good when he raised his voice.”

  So far, this was fitting in with the profile Eliza had put together in her mind. “Were there children?”

  “Just the one. Girl,” Garvey tacked on as an afterthought.

  Eliza didn’t look at Walker, but she could feel his undercurrent of excitement mounting. “Could you describe her?”

  Garvey was beginning to look bored with the line of questioning. “Ain’t much good at that.”

  This time, Eliza looked at Walker. He understood what she wanted from him. He took his wallet out of his pocket, flipping to Bonnie’s photograph.

  “Did she look anything like this?” he asked the old man.

  Taking it from him, Garvey squinted at the photograph. “Yeah, around when they first come.” He looked up at Walker. “What’re you doing with a picture of Wallace’s kid?”

  “You said she looked like that when she came,” Eliza pressed on gently, as Walker slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “Then she was with your grandnephew when he and his wife came to spend the holidays with you?”

  “Sure, she was with them. Where else would she have been? She was their kid, and a tiny thing at that. Always whimpering and whining. What’s this all about, anyway?” he demanded, growing agitated. “Why does he have Miranda’s picture?” he glared at Walker.

  She thought of making up something because of the man’s age and the delicate situation, then decided that maybe the truth would accomplish more. “Your grandnephew and his wife kidnapped Mr. Banacek’s daughter.”

  “You’re kiddin’.” The words escaped from Trevor.

  Garvey looked at them as if they’d lost their minds. “That ain’t possible. Wallace and his wife had that kid all along. Hell, my late wife’s niece sent us a card one year, telling us her son had had a baby girl, name of Miranda.” He nodded his head for emphasis. “’Member her makin’ the comment that she hoped having a baby to look after would make Wallace keep his temper better. He was always going off about something or other.”