Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  Her heart sank when she saw two figures approaching her car. As mayor, Sylvia believed in being approachable. She always told people to call her anytime with their questions or suggestions. Her philosophy was that the citizens of Hidden Falls had to work together to keep their town charming and inviting. Customers dropping into her shop often concluded their purchases with a comment about something happening around town that they thought she, as mayor, would want to know. For the most part, she listened carefully and politely, even to remarks that bordered on gossip. But this day had overflowed with questions for which she had no answers.

  No, she didn’t know where Quinn was.

  No, she didn’t know who broke into her shop.

  No, she didn’t know what happened to Dani’s boat.

  No, she didn’t know when Quinn would come back.

  No, she didn’t know when her shop would open.

  No, she hadn’t spoken to Dani.

  No. No. No. All day long, Sylvia felt as if she knew next to nothing about anything, and it had worn her out. The best she’d done was to remain calm and even-tempered enough to listen to the nineteenth iteration of the same question as carefully as she had to the first.

  The two figures ready to greet her as soon as she opened her car door worked in adjacent shops. There was no telling what gossip they had heard all day from people coming in and out of their stores.

  Sylvia opened the driver’s door, stepped out, and smiled. “Good afternoon.”

  “We’re hearing a lot of rumors, Mayor,” one of the women said.

  “I know.” Sylvia had probably heard most of them herself in one form or another. “I assure you we’re not hiding information. Careful, proper investigations take time. We want to be sure any information we give out is factual and reliable.”

  “We trust you.” The second woman nodded in satisfaction. “We just want to help.”

  Too quickly, Sylvia had concluded these women wanted answers like everyone else in town. She softened. “Thank you.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Just tell folks I’m working closely with the sheriff’s office. Tell them to go about their usual routines.” The last three days had been eventful, but Sylvia saw no reason anyone should think the townspeople were at more risk for a mishap than they had been on Saturday afternoon.

  Sylvia turned her key in the alley door lock, the one that had been violated but not destroyed on Sunday night. First thing tomorrow morning she would go to the hardware store and see what they had in stock. She’d meant to go today. Now she didn’t want to risk another distracting conversation by going down the block.

  Lizzie was already inside, standing in the office doorway surveying the main store with a broom in her hand and her dark eyes wide with the impossibility of the task. She looked up at Sylvia. “I just got here. I had no idea.”

  “Thank you for coming.” Sylvia was glad now she had not asked Lizzie to face the mess on her own earlier in the day.

  “I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought, but not this.”

  “I just wanted us to make a plan for how to go about this.” Sylvia pushed her sleeves up over her elbows. “I’ll hire some help, but they’ll need supervision from someone who knows the store.”

  “Of course. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Sylvia had no doubt Lizzie meant what she said. She also had no doubt Lizzie would become overwhelmed easily and need frequent breaks. Lizzie thrived on order and predictability, and the view before them couldn’t be further from those conditions.

  Dani Roose was the sort of person who could come in, intuitively break down the task into steps, and methodically make her way through each one without getting emotional about how many more still lay ahead.

  Sylvia had stopped trying to leave messages for Dani. She would have to hire someone else. Frustration over Dani’s lack of response had slid into concern for her welfare, but Sylvia still needed to get her shop up and running.

  “Let’s clear a path,” Sylvia said, “from back here to the front of the store.” Fallen shelving in the center of the display floor would prevent a direct path, but they needed to be able to move safely through the store.

  “I don’t know where to start.” Lizzie gripped her broom with both hands.

  “Go along the book wall.” Sylvia pointed. “Sweep aside whatever might hurt you if you stepped on it. Pick up books and stack them along the wall. Don’t worry about sorting them.” They could decide later which volumes might still be sold, even if deeply discounted, and which were a complete loss. Sylvia would follow behind Lizzie with another broom and dustpan.

  Lizzie got started. Sylvia set her purse on the desk in the back room and went into the alley for one of the large trash bins on wheels. She was pushing it through the office when her cell phone rang. Sylvia abandoned the bin and fished the phone out of her purse.

  “It’s me,” Lauren said into her ear. “Got a minute?”

  Sylvia watched Lizzie’s tenuous efforts. “Of course.”

  “I have Nicole at my apartment,” Lauren said. “Ethan’s here, too.”

  “Sounds like a party.”

  “Hardly. Nicole broke her ankle this morning.”

  Sylvia sank into her desk chair. “My goodness. She’s not going to like being held down.”

  “That’s clear. At this point, medically it seems straightforward. She’ll have to see a specialist to be sure. Ethan is trying to arrange to stay in town and help.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What I’m really calling about is Dani.”

  “I’ve heard nothing.” Sylvia sighed. How many more times today would she have to say that? “Cooper has been to all her usual haunts and come up with nothing.” As well as being a sheriff’s deputy, Cooper was Dani’s cousin. If anyone was motivated to find her, Cooper was.

  “Well, she’s just giving him the slip,” Lauren said. “Ethan had breakfast with her and she was in one piece.”

  Sylvia exhaled with deliberation. “Doesn’t she know the whole town is looking for her?”

  “Apparently not,” Lauren said. “Ethan says Dani told him someone vandalized her boat.”

  “That’s George Kopp’s story.” Sylvia picked up a pencil and wrote George’s name on a scrap of paper. “He claims he found the piece that proves it.”

  “I hope Cooper took it into evidence.”

  “He did. But Cooper said he had no proof George didn’t drill that hole himself.”

  “That’s an awful thing to say!”

  “That’s off the record.” Sylvia didn’t want her remark turning up on the rumor mill. “Cooper only means he has to have a strong case before any charges can be filed.”

  “He also needs a suspect,” Lauren pointed out. “And it’s not George.”

  “I’d like to bring dinner to your place.” Sylvia had no time to cook or even to go by her house, but she could phone an order over to Gavin at the Fall Shadows Café and tell him what time to have it ready.

  “Aunt Sylvia, you must have a million things to do.”

  She did. But her day already was so far off track that probably it was not worth rescuing. It would be better to start fresh tomorrow on that million-item list.

  If Quinn were here, he’d be taking dinner to Nicole and Ethan. Sylvia was certain of that. When Sammie Dunavant had her appendix out, Quinn arranged an army of caregivers to make sure she had everything she needed and then some. Anytime Sylvia so much as sniffled, Quinn showed up with home remedies. And he’d want to hear about Ethan’s conversation with Dani.

  “I’ll get some ice cream, too,” Sylvia said.

  “I’m sure we can manage,” Lauren said, but Sylvia heard no real protest in her voice.

  “I’ll send you a text when I’m on my way.” Sylvia was now jotting down a list of dishes to order from Gavin. “In the meantime, fix Nicole a cup of tea. I seem to recall Quinn used to give it to her with honey.”

  Sylvia set her phone on the desk and co
ncentrated on the order. A moment later, she had Gavin on the phone, ordering enough food for Nicole and Lauren to last three days. Then she added one more dish, hoping Ethan would also be around for meals during the next few days. A final serving would feed Cooper Elliott. Whatever Ethan knew about Dani, Cooper needed to hear it firsthand.

  A good meal soothed a multitude of nerves, in Sylvia’s opinion.

  This whole business had started over a meal, the banquet to honor Quinn’s steadfast contribution to Hidden Falls students and their families—only Quinn went from being the honored guest to the absent guest, and matters rolled downhill from there.

  Even if Sylvia were not the mayor of Hidden Falls, she’d want to do something to make things better. People needed things to be normal—at least for one day. Meals, shopping, errands, friends. Until that moment, Sylvia’s concern to get her store open again was to minimize the financial price she would pay for being closed. She had separated the task from her duties as mayor. Now she saw that opening her Main Street shop was one of the best things the mayor of Hidden Falls could do for the town’s morale. Cleaning it up would remove the eyesore reminding everyone to fret. Opening for business would show people it was okay to go about their normal lives. Ringing up sales would tell residents they still could depend on her.

  Sylvia sent Cooper yet another text before jamming her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and grabbing the trash bin again. She had given Gavin one hour to get the food ready.

  5:58 p.m.

  “Yes.” Jack tapped the eraser end of a pencil against his desk. Talking to Gianna on the phone was the main reason he kept pencils around. Most of the time he didn’t sharpen them. His own wife’s name on his caller ID made him jumpy, never sure whether she was calling about something ordinary or because he had disappointed her in a new way. Or an old way. Tapping an eraser she wouldn’t hear helped even his mood.

  “So you’ll be home by seven?” Gianna said.

  “Yes.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Absolutely. I just have a few loose ends to tidy up while things are fresh in my mind.”

  “Good. We can have a family dinner.”

  Moving to Hidden Falls eight months ago had made Gianna Parker hunker down into domestic aspirations. Jack hadn’t thought it possible. No longer was it enough for the five Parkers to eat together a couple of times a week. Now Gianna aimed for five nights out of seven. And picking up take-out wasn’t good enough anymore, either. She had untethered a vast range of recipes and let them loose on her unsuspecting husband and children. Jack tried to be grateful. He knew plenty of lawyers who would have grabbed at a chance for a home-cooked meal at a table at seven rather than food they unwrapped to eat at their desks at nine o’clock at night.

  But would they feel the same way if it meant practicing law in a small town like Hidden Falls?

  Yesterday had been a throwaway day as far as his practice. He couldn’t point to one thing he’d accomplished to further his career. But it wasn’t a throwaway day for his family. Jack spent the afternoon with his youngest daughter looking for her lost puppy, and it turned into a day he wouldn’t trade for anything short of being exonerated from the career gaffe in Memphis that had exiled him to Hidden Falls. He’d taken Brooke to school this morning and wondered what it might be like to take her every day.

  Jack had told Gianna the truth about having a few things to tidy up before he could leave. He reached for the yellow legal pad where he had made his list after he left the mayor’s office that morning. He’d written four names.

  One of the private investigators Jack’s Memphis firm frequently hired.

  A friend in the sheriff’s office in Memphis who primarily pursued missing persons cases.

  A paralegal still employed by the Atlanta firm where Jack worked before Memphis, with a nose that could have made him an investigator if he wanted to be one.

  A law school classmate who’d recently joined the staff of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Jack figured it could help to talk to someone in the State of Illinois, a conversation that might lead to someone closer to Hidden Falls who might have some inkling of how to get things done more efficiently.

  So far Jack was underwhelmed at the efforts of the local sheriff’s office, and if the sheriff in Birch Bend didn’t stop farming out the work to low-levels like Cooper Elliott, Jack didn’t see how the case of Quinn’s disappearance would ever be solved.

  He’d spent the entire afternoon strewing messages from Atlanta to Chicago. In the late afternoon the cryptic responses began.

  The Memphis investigator asked a part-time clerical support person to call Jack and tell him she didn’t have time for any uncompensated cases right now.

  “Who said anything about ‘uncompensated’?” Jack had snapped at the young woman.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker.”

  Jack hadn’t pushed back. He knew what kind of fees private investigators commanded if they knew what they were doing, and he didn’t have that kind of money to spend on a case without a paying client to bill.

  The friend in the Memphis sheriff’s office sent an e-mail saying that without more proof that the individual in question was actually missing or had fallen victim to a crime, it was probably too soon to worry about looking for an adult. His caseload, he said, was full of children who didn’t come home from the playground—and besides, he couldn’t offer much assistance from another state. He claimed he didn’t have the necessary connections in Illinois.

  The paralegal in Atlanta rattled off a series of starting points for a search—public records, eyewitnesses, coworkers. He said nothing imaginative—leaving Jack wondering if he had overestimated the man’s abilities all these years—and his tone made clear he wasn’t supposed to be talking to Jack. What exactly had the Atlanta partners said to the staff after Jack’s departure?

  Jack picked up his desk phone. He could make one last call to his buddy in Chicago. Certainly the fact that they both had joined the Illinois bar would provide a starting point of conversation if Jack could just catch him. It was only a little after six—early for someone in the state’s attorney’s office to quit for the day but late enough that the person who answered his phone during business hours might be gone.

  His hunch paid off when he heard “Doug Davies” in his ear.

  “Doug! Jack Parker here.”

  “Oh. Hi, Jack. Sorry I haven’t had time to get back to you today.”

  “No problem. I’m just glad I caught you now.” Jack gave the bare facts of the case as he knew them, beginning with Quinn’s disappearance and on through his smashed car, Sylvia’s vandalized shop, and Dani’s sabotaged rowboat.

  “I’d like to help, Jack,” Doug said, “but it’s not a state’s attorney’s kind of case. Coincidence is not the same as causation, as you know.”

  “You have to admit it’s peculiar,” Jack said. “Why should a little town like Hidden Falls suddenly have so much excitement?”

  “I don’t really do small towns.”

  Jack heard Doug shuffling papers in the background. “Come on, buddy. I’m sure if you put your thinking cap on, you can give me a name I can call.”

  “‘Fraid not. It sounds like petty crime to me, if that, and you should just let the system play out. I can’t get involved in overriding a local sheriff’s investigation.”

  “It’s not much of an investigation.”

  “Sorry, Jack. Call me if you ever come to Chicago. We’ll have lunch.”

  The call disconnected, and Jack dropped the receiver into its cradle. He had expected more from Doug Davies.

  Jack checked the time displayed on the base of the desk phone. He had his car in town today, so he could wait until the last minute and still be home by seven. He never should have promised the mayor he could make some calls. He should have just made them. If they’d turned up someone actually interested in helping solve small-town mysteries, Jack would have gotten what he wanted from the effort without the egg on his face. He kicked the side of his desk,
and it was no accident.

  Jack went through the motions of packing a briefcase, an old habit more than necessity. He had a commercial real estate contract to review at the request of a farmer who didn’t want to be swindled by the developer buying his land. And a woman from a town beyond the county line outside Birch Bend had sought Jack out to ask questions about a legal separation—without being seen doing so by anyone who knew her. He had taken notes on their conversation about marital assets. People around Hidden Falls expected a lawyer to be a generalist. While Jack was sure he could handle filing for a separation, he had done very little family law in Atlanta or Memphis. Even if he had, he would have to read up on the Illinois statutes.

  Small potatoes. How was this ever going to be enough?

  In the hall outside his office, Jack ran into Liam Elliott. “Heading out with that fiancée of yours?”

  “I wish.” Liam ran his hands through his hair. “I still have a lot to do tonight. I’m just going over to Main Street to get some dinner and bring it back.”

  “I’ll walk over with you,” Jack said.

  Seven o’clock was far enough off that he could come back for his car. Jack had known a lot of nervous people in his law career. Either Liam was one of them, or Jack was no judge of character at all.

  “Business is good?” Jack asked as they fell into stride.

  “Business is … complicated.” Liam scratched the back of his head.

  Yep. Nervous. But why?

  Jack didn’t care why. Innocence, guilt, motivation. None of it mattered. Nervous people needed bulldog attorneys.

  “I don’t think we’ve ever exchanged cards.” Jack casually reached into his breast pocket. “Obviously you know where to find me, just down the hall, but it can’t hurt to have me in your contacts.”

  Jack waited for the hesitation that often came when he offered his card. Either people couldn’t imagine needing an attorney or they didn’t want him in particular. Jack was used to seeing people take his card and drop it in a purse or briefcase without even pretending to be interested in his services.