Chasing The Case

by Joan Livingston

  It was a big deal for the customers at the Rooster. Personally, I was glad. Drinkers aren’t the most considerate smokers. The worst was New Year’s Eve. All the smokers who were planning to quit cigarettes for a New Year’s resolution smoked their brains out that night. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke I was smoking along with them. Course, if any of the heavy smokers did quit, it didn’t last very long, oh, maybe until they woke up sometime January 1 and started getting the urge really hard. They might as well have given up breathing for the new year.

  With the crowd thinned out momentarily, it’s easier for me to get a handle on who’s inside. Mostly they’re the Rooster regulars who don’t smoke or who already have stepped outside. They’re yakking up a storm, probably about the snowstorm.

  The front door opens. Dale Collins steps inside. I bite my lip. Surely, he’s heard about what I’m doing. He takes a free stool at the bar. I grab an empty weighing down a buck tip and swipe the spot with a rag.

  “Hey, Dale, what can I get you?”

  “Bud.”

  As I slide open the cooler and reach inside, I’m wondering where this exchange will take me. I flip the cap.

  “Here, you go.”

  He knows how much a Bud costs, so he’s got the cash out of his wallet. He’s wearing the standard Rooster issue: a Carhartt vest over a flannel shirt and jeans. He’s growing a scraggly beard and has curly hair, brown with a bit of gray, that’s short in the front and long in the back, uh-huh, a mullet. About half the guys here have mullets. The rest either let them grow all the way long, some tied back in ponytails, or cropped tightly into a crew cut.

  “Keep the change,” Dale says, and after I thank him, he adds, “I heard what you’re doin’. My grandpa told me.”

  “I hope you’re okay with it. He is.”

  “That’s what he told me.” He nods. “I’m okay with it, too. I sure want to know what happened to my mother. And if somebody’s responsible, I want ’em caught and punished.”

  “I know you were pretty young then, but would you mind meeting some time? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Maybe there’s something you saw or heard leading up to that day that could help me solve this case.”

  “I told everything I know to the cops. I was only ten.”

  “I might ask some questions they didn’t. Besides, it’s not like they did a very good job trying to find your mom.”

  “You’re right about that.” He peels at the beer’s label. “Sure, I’ll meet with you.”

  “I’d like to do it soon if that’s all right with you. Maybe your grandpa could join us. Would you like that?”

  He nods. Even before this awkward business, I suspected Dale was a quiet guy. I wouldn’t say he’s on one of those roads to success. I don’t know if he’s happy. Sam and I would see him a lot at the Rooster. He was always alone, no woman or girl on his arm, although he’d yuck it up with some of the guys. He was the most animated ever the time Ma and I saw Dale argue with his father at the Rooster.

  “You gonna talk with Bobby?”

  I make a mental note he doesn’t call him Dad.

  “I’m working up to it,” I say.

  “I wish you luck there. You might want to meet with him in some place public like here if he hasn’t already been kicked out.”

  I quickly eye the lists hanging behind the counter.

  “Seems he’s in good standing at least for now. But thanks for the advice. Oh, one more thing. The kids and I were up at Sam’s grave on Sunday. When I passed your mother’s stone, I saw a necklace.”

  “Yeah, my grandpa told me about that.” He shook his head. “I remember the necklace. She wore it every day. But, no, I didn’t put it there. I wonder who did.”

  I don’t feel comfortable speculating who might be responsible in front of Adela’s son. I can see his pain is real still. Hopefully, closure or justice will help.

  “Me, too. I’ll see you soon.”

  The smokers are filing inside. The band is back in place. We get busy again. Jack’s return is well timed, and then I realize he planned on taking Eleanor home just then on purpose.

  “Any bar fights while I was gone?” he jokes when he hustles behind the bar to hang up his jacket.

  “Nope, everybody behaved themselves, even the birthday boy.”

  “I told that group I’d ban them from comin’ in here for six months if they let him drive home.”

  “You handled that well, Jack.”

  He gives me a knowing grin. He tips his head.

  “I’ve got a bit of experience there.”

  The rest of the night is a breeze. I check in with Ma, who says the dog went out once to do her business and came right back inside. Maggie made herself at home fast, which is a relief. She, the cat, and Ma are hunkered down in front of the TV.

  Before I know it, the place has thinned to the usual late night regulars, the desperados who don’t want to go to an empty house or an unhappy spouse. The band is packing up. The drummer did make it through the last set although he was a bit off on some of the fast numbers and one time he fell off his stool. Jack says he’ll likely have the Potholes back.

  Dale left around ten after a few beers and a cordial “good night” to me.

  I help Jack clean up, and then I’ll head home before last call. He doesn’t need my help for the few drinkers left. Besides, I told him about the new dog, and this being her first night alone with Ma, I don’t want to linger. I’ll even pass up my free drink for the night.

  I carry a tray of glasses into the kitchen and place them exactly where Eleanor wants them next to the sink. Jack stops me in the doorway. He checks over his shoulder.

  “Isabel, my sister told me you were up at the cemetery on Sunday,” he says quietly.

  “Uh-huh, it was Sam’s anniversary. The kids and I were at his grave.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “I saw Eleanor and her dogs as I was leaving. I stopped to say hi, but your sister isn’t much of a talker.”

  He chuckles.

  “That’s Eleanor all right. She let her mutts run in the cemetery before she took ’em the back way home. I’m guessing they probably smelled you and got curious. That’s why she went near Adela’s grave.”

  I smile.

  “I see.”

  He reaches into his pocket.

  “Eleanor told me she found this on Adela’s stone. I know for sure it’s hers. She wore it all the time.” The necklace rests in the palm of his hand. “I thought you might be interested in it. Sorry, it’s got her and my fingerprints all over it.”

  If this was a crime show, I’d be ticked I couldn’t run the locket for fingerprints or DNA. According to Andrew, his daughter wore it the last time he saw her. Even if the killer did take it from her, if he or she were smart, they would have wiped their fingerprints off the surface. Too much time has passed, and like I say, I’m not with some crime unit.

  “Don’t worry about the prints. I saw the necklace when I passed Adela’s stone that day. I told Andrew about it. I thought maybe he or Dale left it there, like maybe they found it in her house after she took it off. Andrew said he didn’t. When he went to see for himself, the necklace was gone. Dale told me tonight he didn’t know anything about it being there.” I smile. “So, Eleanor took it for safekeeping. Good thinking.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Eleanor didn’t say a word about it,” I say.

  “You know my sister.” Jack rolls his eyes. “Why don’t you give this to Andrew when you’re done with it?”

  He drops the necklace in my hand. The chain’s not broken and still clasped.

  “Be glad to. Andrew said the necklace was a gift from Irma. Thanks.”

  “How’s your investigation going?”

  “Slow.”

  He grins.

  “A big snow’s comin’ Sunday.”

  “So I heard all night.”

  Of course, Ma is up
when I get home. The dog at least greets me at the door. The cat doesn’t give a hoot. She’s got my mother’s lap and steady hand.

  “How’d it go?” I ask her.

  “No problems.”

  I can tell Ma is more at ease than last weekend when I worked at the Rooster. The dog makes a difference.

  “You’ll never guess what I got tonight.” I reach into my bag for the necklace and dangle it. “Adela’s necklace.”

  Ma hums when I hand it to her.

  “You found this in the bar?”

  “No, Jack gave it to me. He says his sister saw it on Adela’s stone. He wanted me to give it to Andrew. Funny, Dale was at the Rooster. He could’ve given the necklace to him.”

  “That’s odd,” Ma says.

  I sigh.

  “Everything’s odd about this case. But Eleanor told him I was up there that day. They both know what I’m doing about Adela’s case. She’s only trying to help in her way.” The light catches on the locket’s surface when I dangle the chain near the lamp. “But it’ll make Andrew glad to have it.”

  I glance at the kitchen clock. It’s too late to call, but I will first thing tomorrow morning.

  Adela’s Necklace

  The next morning, Andrew Snow comes over to the house minutes after I call him about his daughter’s necklace. He greets my mother politely and pats our friendly mutt, Maggie, but clearly he has one thing on his mind.

  “Come into the kitchen,” I tell him. “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Already had two.”

  He doesn’t even unbutton his red plaid jacket when he follows me to the kitchen table. Neither of us sits. I hand him the small box that once held a pair of earrings Sam gave me. I decided it would be better than just handing him the necklace. He lifts the top. He sighs.

  “Yes, this is definitely hers.”

  I note the present tense. Adela was declared officially dead twenty-one years ago, but there hasn’t been a finale for her father without her remains found or her mystery solved.

  “Jack Smith says his sister picked it up Sunday. Eleanor found it after her dogs took off in the cemetery. She gave it to Jack to give me.”

  Andrew lifts the necklace by its chain. He points to the clasp.

  “This is the part I repaired that day for her.” He partially unzips his jacket and retrieves eyeglasses from his shirt pocket. He hums. “It looks like it came undone again. Someone did a lousy job fixing it though. I know how to do it so there’s not a gap. See here how one end passes the other?”

  I bend forward. It is a sloppy fix. Adela could have lost the necklace in a tussle or when her body was moved. I think back to my theories. Although suicide is still a possibility, murder or manslaughter has taken the lead in this case. If that’s indeed the situation, I wonder why the necklace wasn’t buried with her. Maybe her killer discovered it afterward. And then, there’s the sick thought that maybe the necklace was a souvenir. If so, why give it up now?

  “Jack says his and his sister’s fingerprints are all over the necklace.”

  “So, we couldn’t take it to the police,” he says.

  “Andrew, the cops wouldn’t open a case that old without more evidence.” I pause. “Besides, if the killer was smart, he or she would have wiped it clean.”

  “She?”

  I’m not about to share my suspicions about Mira Clark, who was wronged by her once best friend Adela. It would be too heavy a burden to make Andrew swear to secrecy. Besides, I have no evidence other than her being a wounded wife.

  “It’s probably far-fetched, but I’m not ruling out a woman could have done this. I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Would you like to keep the necklace?” I ask.

  “Could I?”

  “Sure. I’ve taken photos and made notes. It’s yours.”

  He drops the necklace into the jewelers box.

  “Thank you,” he whispers. “Please tell Jack and Eleanor I’m grateful to have it.”

  “I’ll do that when I see them tonight.” I watch Andrew flip open the box then snap it shut softly. “I want to say something and I’m afraid it isn’t easy.”

  Andrew’s lips press into a line.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I wanted you to know I might find out things about your daughter that are not very nice.”

  He sighs.

  “I saw the receipt for that motel. I know what went on there.”

  I take my time.

  “Did you know about her… relationship with Bruce Clark?”

  “I think many people did. Well, afterwards… Mira wasn’t quiet about her hurt feelings. It was embarrassing there for a while.”

  “Was it enough of a motive?”

  “It never crossed my mind. Why? What do you think?”

  “Could it have been more than a fling?” Now I feel I’m stepping into an uncertain place. “Could Adela have gotten pregnant by Bruce?”

  Andrew’s head wags back and forth.

  “That’s impossible. She had her tubes tied a couple of years after Dale was born. She told her mother and me she didn’t want to take a chance having another child with Bobby.”

  “That’s good to know.” I nod. “One more thing. Mira claimed Adela had lots of affairs with married men.”

  “Yes, I believe she spread that story around,” he said. “Look. My daughter was a grown woman. I know she saw men, but whether they were married, I don’t know. She kept that part of her life private to spare Irma and me.”

  “I understand.” I pause. “I saw Dale last night at the Rooster. He’s willing to meet with me. It might be easier for him if you were there, too. Would you mind?”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll call you soon.”

  Funny Ways

  Eleanor’s hands are deep in a bowl of ground beef. She likes to make the hamburger patties ahead of time and stick them on a plate in the fridge. From the looks of it, Saturday is a big burger night. Jack says his sister almost has a sixth sense of how many burgers to make. Eleanor’s not wearing gloves, but I suppose if I don’t rat her out, the customers and the board of health won’t know. At least she’s got her hair bound up in a red bandana.

  She’s reaching for the bottle of steak sauce when I say her name. She’s already seen me hang up my jacket and ignored my hello. Now she ignores my presence as I stand in the doorway. I don’t dare get closer. She doesn’t like to be crowded I found out the first day. She’s a strange one, all right. I don’t know if I’ve worked here long enough to ask Jack what’s really up with his sister and her funny ways.

  “Eleanor, you made Andrew Snow very happy finding that necklace,” I tell her.

  She dumps some of the steak sauce into the hamburger. I wonder if she’ll clean the hamburger gunk off the bottle when she’s done.

  Grunt.

  “It meant a lot to him to have it back. He says Adela wore it everyday.”

  She adds powdered garlic, then salt and pepper. Her eyes stay on the bowl although I detect a slight nod.

  “Anyways, thanks for asking Jack to give it to me.”

  Grunt.

  Field Trip

  It’s almost noon when Matt, Alex, and I hit the logging road where Adela’s car was found. I had hoped to leave earlier, but there’s no rushing my boys. They wanted to play with the new dog, talk with their grandmother, and, of course, eat.

  As we hike in, Matt and Alex tell me about their jobs and what they’ve been doing since I saw them last Sunday. They want to know about the Rooster and ask if I’d mind if they came in when I’m working. I tell them just don’t embarrass me, and they know I’m joking. Then they want an update on my snooping, as Alex calls it.

  “I prefer to think of it as investigating,” I tell him. “It’s all for a good cause. You were just little kids when this happened. It brought a lot of grief to her family and this town.”

  We shuffle in our boots through the downed lea
ves, now brittle and brown. Sometimes the boys get ahead of me, joking and poking each other in fun. They forget about their mother for a while until I use my two fingers to whistle, so they wait for me to catch up. Yes, whistling is one of my talents. It came in handy, too, when the kids were little. They could find me in a crowd or hear me in the woods behind our house.

  The last time I was here was twenty-eight years ago, when I hiked in with Sam after Adela’s car was found, although we did pass near it on snowshoes when we took the trail that crosses it. I check the sky. It’s still blue although clouds are beginning their eastward creep.

  “What’s that? Hey, wait. It’s a cross.” Matt’s head swings back. “This the spot?”

  Someone has stuck a wooden cross on the ground, as if this is the place Adela died. But like the stone on the empty grave, it’s likely just another way to remember her. I’ll ask Andrew about it. The cross doesn’t have her name, but we know it’s for her. I wonder how long it’s been here. I kneel to give it an inspection. The cross is definitely homemade, a bit crude I’d say with a nail holding the two pieces together. If it had paint, that was long gone. I take my phone from my jacket pocket and snap a few photos.

  “Let’s keep going,” I tell my boys.

  About a mile later and past the snowmobile trail, we reach the Brookfield River, which is rather low because of the lack of rain this fall. I point toward the flat stones we can take across. The boys go ahead, and Matt stretches to offer me his hand until we’re on the other side. I snap photos of the river and woods from this angle.

  “What are we looking for?” Matt asks.

  “Something that doesn’t belong here,” I answer.

  There’s no road on the other side largely because it is heavy with ledge, and I don’t see a wide enough opening for a skidder. We split up along the thin, rocky beach. All we find are beer cans, fishing line, and a faded Red Sox ball cap, which I stick in the shoulder bag I brought.