Chasing The Case

by Joan Livingston

  “Still reading that stuff?” she asks me when she’s done and in the kitchen.

  “I’ve only begun,” I tell her.

  Saturday Morning

  I’m mostly home all week, but out of habit, I keep to the Saturday routines I had when I worked. I call it the Conwell Triangle: the dump, the library, and the general store. The first stop, naturally, is taking the trash and recyclables to the transfer station, which is open two days a week only. The town dump was done and covered by dirt per order of the state before Sam and I moved here.

  I see Jack Smith, the owner of the Rooster, two pickup trucks back. I’ve given the job enough thought and figure what the heck, I’ll try it out. I can always quit. What’s the saying about a restaurant? As soon as you hire someone, they’re walking out the door. It’s probably double for a bar. Maybe they’re sprinting. But I would make sure I left on good terms with Jack if that happens. I like drinking at the Rooster.

  I park my car out of the way after I toss our trash bags into the compactor.

  “Be right back, Ma,” I tell her. “I see Jack, you know, the owner of the Rooster. I’m gonna tell him I want the job.”

  “I figured as much,” she says.

  Jack lowers the window when I walk toward his pickup. He’s got a full load in its bed.

  “Hey, Jack, is that job still available?” I ask.

  “Yup, haven’t hired anyone since last call,” he jokes.

  “Well, I’m interested if you’ll hire me.”

  “Sure, I’ll hire you.” He nods. “How about coming in Thursday around four, so I can break you in before Friday?”

  “Works for me.”

  “All right, see ya then.” He tips his head forward. It’s his turn to dump. “Gotta go.”

  I’m heading to my car when I see Andrew Snow alone in his station wagon at the end of the line. I can’t imagine one old man living alone creates much trash. He probably has a small bag in the trunk unless he’s picked up drinking. He stares straight ahead, waiting to move his wagon another vehicle length. His face is serious. Maybe he looks at everyone he meets and wonders if they might be hiding something.

  I know what I have to do. Before I go snooping around, I’ve got to tell Andrew I want to solve his daughter’s mystery. I owe him and his family the heads up. Besides, I will need their consent and cooperation. Maybe they’ll have useful information.

  Andrew’s okay would go far in town. Anyway, it’s the decent thing to do. If I were a reporter doing a story, I wouldn’t bother, but this is different.

  I tap on my mother’s window.

  “One more,” I tell her.

  “You’re getting as bad as your father,” she says.

  I know what she means. Dad was Mr. Sociable. We’d all be in the car waiting for him to finish his errand, which took a lot longer than necessary because he’d stop to talk with one person then another. There were no quick stops with Dad.

  “I promise I’ll make this fast,” I say.

  “I’ve heard that before,” Ma says.

  Andrew’s car moves forward one space. He rolls down his window when he sees my approach.

  “Hello, Isabel, how are you? I heard you aren’t with the paper anymore.”

  “Yes, the Star’s got new owners. Lots of changes. It’s been four months.”

  “I also heard you have your mother living with you.”

  “That’s true, too.”

  I smile. The general store, especially its backroom, is gossip central. Early in the morning, before it opens, a bunch of old guys sit on benches, drinking coffee and chewing the fat. Once, when they teased me about working for the Daily Fart, I got them laughing their heads off when I said, “Well, then you Old Farts should all get subscriptions.”

  And although the Old Farts don’t know it, that’s the name I call them. I even capitalize it.

  The backroom hasn’t changed since Jamie Snow took over the store although now Andrew drops in for a visit, or so I heard from Sam, who used to dash in there for a cup to go. I’m sure the folks deliberated over bad coffee about the end of my career at the paper. My mother? She got maybe a sentence or two.

  “How does your mother like it here in Conwell?” Andrew asks.

  “So far, so good.”

  I pause, working up to what I want to say. When I was a reporter and had to talk with someone who wouldn’t be an easy interview, I called it a deep-breath phone call. I’d take a deep breath and punch the numbers before I changed my mind. Right now, I’m just going to get to the point fast.

  “Andrew, I was wondering if I could meet with you.”

  “Meet? What for?”

  “I’ve been thinking of investigating what happened to Adela. I know a lot of time has passed, but I’ve never forgotten her. I just want… ”

  He looks straight ahead, and then at me. Everything on his face slopes downward.

  “Twenty-eight years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s dead. It’s official. We knew long before the seven years were up. I felt it. Irma felt it, too. I believe it shortened her life quite a bit. The family hasn’t been the same since.”

  His voice fades on the last words.

  “I’d like to do this with your blessing. Just so you know, I’m on my own. I’m not a reporter anymore or a private eye. But I always felt the cops could’ve done a much better job.”

  He mulls it over. He has two spaces open in front of his car, and a driver in back beeps the horn of his pickup for Andrew to move up. I walk alongside as his car rolls forward.

  “How about tomorrow, say one at my house?” he says finally.

  “We should be back from St. Anne’s by then. I take my mother to Sunday Mass there. Would you mind if I brought her along?”

  “Not at all.” He cranes his head. “Is that her over there?”

  “Yes, it is. I’ll see you then. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he whispers.

  I apologize to my mother when I get into the driver’s seat.

  “What was that all about?” she asks.

  “He’s Adela’s father, Andrew. He’s my first interview tomorrow. You can come, too.” I turn the key. “Mostly, I wanted his approval. No one else is gonna talk with me unless they’re sure it’s okay with the family, especially him.”

  “Good thinking,” my mother says. “Where next?”

  “How about the library? It’s time I got you registered there. You can get a stack of those steamy romance novels you like.”

  My mother laughs.

  Go for a Ride

  Ma starts one of her new books as soon as she gets settled back home. I go over my notes. I see a notation about the weather that September: sunny and unseasonably warm. We hadn’t had a killing frost yet.

  But other than that, I’m not getting anywhere fast, as my mother would say. The rest is more of the same. Why Adela? How could something like this happen in Conwell? Of course, quite a few had Bobby Collins high on their suspect list, alibi or not with the Floozy. I definitely feel I should put the woman on my list.

  That’s when I get a good idea.

  “Hey, Ma, how would you like to go for a ride?”

  “What for? We just came home,” she says. “I’m getting into this book.”

  “I want to show you Adela’s house and the road where they found her car. That way you have it in your head where they’re located. You might see something I don’t.”

  Her eyes are off the book. I sense she is interested.

  “Oh, why not?” she says.

  We start at the Conwell General Store, the town’s official business hub, unless you count the Rooster. Sometimes people will try opening a gift shop or restaurant, that’s happened twice since I lived here, but they don’t last. Conwell doesn’t get that many tourists. Those who’ve lived here all their lives go out for bar food, burgers and such, like they serve at the Rooster. Unless it’s a super important occasion, they don’t want to drive too far to eat
and drink. The newcomers will make a night of it in the city, however.

  The general store is strictly a place of convenience, for stuff like milk, deli meat, and booze, although some of the old-timers who hardly leave town depend on it for more than that. The rest we buy at the grocery store in the city, a forty-five minute trip one way in good weather, or an hour if you shop at Whole Foods. The store does have a post office and a gas pump, again for the convenience because you pay a lot more than you would at a gas station in the city. The Rooster had pumps long ago, but Jack Smith gave them up about the time he started serving food. The state shut down that part of his business because the underground tanks were too old. Jack didn’t want to spend the bucks to replace them, so he had them removed. Plus, he said it was a pain going out to pump gas when he had a bar full of drinkers.

  Of course, I wrote about it at the time. The headline for that story was: “No gas at the Rooster Bar and Grille.” The Old Farts in the store’s backroom loved it. Jack Smith gave me a pleasing grin the next time Sam and I drank there.

  I park the car behind a pickup but keep the motor running.

  “Okay, Ma, you’ve been to the store, but this is where Adela opened the doors at 8 a.m. sharp. Her father got here an hour earlier, and the Old Farts use the back door to fix themselves coffee and get a donut.”

  My mother nods.

  “Old Farts. Only men, right?”

  “Yeah, but back when Adela was here, it was a different group of men. The Old Farts change over the years depending on who’s retired and who’s kicked. I’m awfully fond of the latest group.” I put the car in drive. “Now I’ll show you where Adela lived.”

  I take a left onto Booker Road and count three houses out loud before I stop on the shoulder across the street. I point.

  “That’s the house. The white one with the porch,” I say.

  “Looks kind of shabby,” Ma says.

  “It wasn’t like that when it belonged to Adela. She kept it painted nice. There were flowers in the front. See the garage? That’s where she parked her car.”

  The garage door is open and hanging rather crookedly. I can’t remember when I last saw it closed all the way. The bay is filled with junk, lots of metal and old furniture, so Dale parks his pickup in the dirt driveway. His mutt, tied near the side door, barks at my car.

  “That’s not very far at all. Did she have a dog?”

  “Yeah, Andrew found it in the kitchen.”

  “So, it’s likely Adela or somebody made sure it wasn’t left outside,” Ma says. “Either they liked the dog or they didn’t want it to bark and follow them.”

  “Good points. They found her purse, too. The wallet inside had money, her credit cards, and license.”

  “Hmm, that’s odd. So robbery wasn’t the motive.” Ma turns around in her seat. “The houses are close together here. Nobody saw anything?”

  “It’s supposed to have happened after dark. One woman told me she heard Adela’s car leave maybe between nine and ten. She lived in that green house to the left. She died years ago. Her daughter has the house now.”

  “The neighbor heard only one car?”

  “That’s what she said. She saw the car’s headlights. Maybe there was another vehicle. It could’ve been parked on the road and left another time. See? This is why I wanted you along.”

  Ma makes a satisfied smile.

  I pull into Dale’s driveway and wait for a pickup truck to pass before I back into the road.

  “Did the daughter live there at the time?”

  I shake my head.

  “She moved in after she inherited the place. It’s a much nicer house than the one she and her husband had.”

  I head north. We pass the Rooster, maybe a mile away. The parking lot is empty. Some guy in a pickup toots his horn as we drive by. He works with Charlie, the guy who delivers our firewood, a Rooster regular. I toot back. It’s common courtesy here.

  “See that house on the left?” I say a couple of miles later. “Jack and his sister, Eleanor, live there.”

  “That’s an awfully big place.”

  “Well, they divided it in two a long time ago. Eleanor’s part is on the south side. See where the glassed-in porch is?”

  “They’re both single?”

  “If either of them were ever married, it was long before we got here. I doubt Eleanor had a husband. She’s kinda simple. Jack? I don’t know. I tell you what. I’ll let you know after I’ve worked at the Rooster a while.”

  Ma nods. She’s into this field trip.

  I keep going. Here the land is mostly wooded with an occasional house tucked inside the trees. We pass two mobile homes. The town outlawed them a long time ago. If anybody had a mobile home before the law changed, it was grandfathered, so it could stay. I believe these two, which belong to members of the same family, have outlasted anyone’s expectations for longevity.

  We reach the sign that says “Entering Wilmot.” This town is dinkier than Conwell. It doesn’t even have a store or gas pumps although there is a town hall and church.

  Some guy in a pickup is on my ass, but I have my eye on the odometer. The spot I want is 1.7 miles from the town line. The truck zooms past with a lot of noise, probably to make the point I’m driving too slowly. No one is on the road when I reach our destination, and I steer left into an opening in the woods. I stay in the entrance of what was likely a logging road or maybe it was a town way at one time and no one built on it. It’s on state forestland now.

  “This it?” Ma asks.

  “Yes, the car was left about two miles in. We’re not going to walk it, but I wanted to show you the entrance.”

  “Why leave a car here?”

  “Good question.”

  “But somebody found it a couple of months later?”

  “Yeah, hunters. The road goes all the way to a good-sized river. The woods are pretty thick here.”

  “Hmm, it would seem someone was hoping the car wouldn’t be found right away.”

  “But if it was somebody local, they knew hunters would go this way eventually.”

  “What if it was Adela?”

  “The car went as far as it could go before it bottomed out. If she did kill herself, she would’ve waited in her car until there was enough light, or maybe she had a flashlight, and then walked far into the woods. I mean really far so no one could find her. She could’ve even crossed the river at a low spot. It’s been years since I went back there, so I’ve forgotten what it’s like.”

  “Did she own a gun?”

  “Good question. I’ll have to ask her father.”

  Ma studies the road.

  “You said there’s a river. What else?”

  “There’s a snowmobile trail that cuts across it. I think it’s about a half-mile beyond where the car was left.”

  “Snowmobile trail?”

  I forget the town where my mother lived, and where I grew up, has never had enough snow for snowmobiles to run, but it’s a popular and fun mode of transportation here in the winter.

  “Yeah, the rednecks love driving on the snow. They built this huge trail system in the woods. Sam and I used to go snowshoeing on them. It was something else being in the middle of nothing, hidden away like outlaws. I can see why the guys like it. Well, women, too.”

  “You and Sam felt like outlaws?”

  I laugh.

  “Not really. We’d park at the Rooster, strap on our snowshoes, and head out on a trail. There’re a bunch of trails that meet up in the parking lot.”

  “This one, too?”

  “Oh, yeah, I hear it goes all the way to the Vermont border. Seen enough?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Andrew Snow

  Andrew Snow’s home is a sweet old colonial in Conwell’s central village that’s been in his family for generations. It’s within walking distance of the Conwell Congregational Church, Town Hall, and elementary school. The village has two nice lines of antique homes, but it’s not the oldest part of town. At one po
int, the town was first settled on what is still a dirt road, but for unknown reasons, it got moved to where it is now. I am guessing there was some sort of feud, which is a way of life here.

  I can think of a few active feuds, all over some slight that may seem miniscule to others, but something big enough, so there’s no going back to being friends and family. In one, a woman was involved. In another, someone got slighted in a last minute change to a will. Then there are those feuds between the natives and newcomers who can’t keep their opinions and city manners to themselves. They don’t want to hear chainsaws buzzing at 7 a.m. or smell pig shit in their backyard.

  But I digress.

  I knock on the side door. Ma stands beside me. No one ever uses the front. That door is strictly for show and hanging Christmas wreaths, one of the first lessons I learned here. A scruffy little mutt barks behind the door. Then I hear Andrew say, “Coming.”

  He clutches the dog, some shaggy thing, when he opens the door.

  “Don’t mind Jasper,” he apologizes. “He’ll settle down. He’s just excited to have company.”

  “I can see that,” I say.

  When I was a reporter, I always asked ahead of time if the person had a dog I should know about. I kept an arsenal of dog bones in my bag just in case. Only once did I think I was going to get bitten, but the guy called off his mutt in time. Andrew’s dog is just another little dog that thinks it’s a big dog. I’ve met several men just like him.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ferreira,” Andrew says. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  We follow Andrew into the kitchen. Photo albums and a scrapbook are on the table.

  “Would you like some coffee?” he asks. “I’ve got some made. It’s better than the store’s.”

  I manage not to say something quick and stupid like “thank God.”

  “Yes, I would. Thank you. Ma?”

  “Milk and sugar, please.”

  “I think I have that fake sweetener if you prefer,” Andrew tells her, but Ma waves him off.