Chasing The Case

by Joan Livingston

  Cindy, the newsroom’s librarian, greets me from her big corral near the front door. That’s where she tends to the bound volumes of editions and files of black-and-white photos dating from the pre-website era. The paper dates back to the early 1800s, so there are a lot of them.

  Cindy is a tall woman, a little on the round side, with short gray hair. She began working at the Star about the time I was hired as a correspondent. She was always helpful, honoring my requests for assistance without giving me a hard time. I’m surprised she still has her job. I mean how many newspapers still have a librarian. I bet the new owners will eventually have everything loaded into an archival website to save paying someone to babysit.

  She has a big smile for me.

  “Hey, Isabel, coming back for your old job?” She glances around before she lowers her voice a little. “Did you know the guy who took your place already gave his notice?”

  “No and no.” I glance at Jack. “Hey, I want you to meet my friend, Jack.”

  She greets Jack a hello, and then says what she always said when I made an appearance in her part of the newsroom, “What can I do for you today?”

  I step close to her counter.

  “I was hoping you’d let me look at one of the old books.”

  “What’s the year?”

  I tell her.

  “The last half, please.”

  “Be right back.”

  As Jack and I wait for Cindy’s return, I give him the lay of the newsroom, which department is located where. I point toward the far end of the building.

  “That used to be my office,” I tell him.

  “Pretty fancy with all the glass.”

  “Yes, I was a pretty fancy editor,” I joke.

  People are turned in their desks or their heads are up because I’ve been recognized. Several come over to say how much they miss me, including Lloyd, my former assistant editor who’s become the regional editor under the new owner. They want to know if I’ll be re-applying for my old job. I shake my head. They get to meet Jack. A few say they’ve stopped by the Rooster. I tell them I’m there Friday and Saturday nights. They should check out my bartending skills. I tell them about my mother.

  “You look great,” Lloyd tells me. “So relaxed.”

  “Lots of people say that. I must have looked like a heinous wench before.” Of course, my smart-aleck remark draws a good laugh. “So, how’s it going here?”

  People eye each other as if they’re not allowed to spill company secrets.

  “Hanging in there,” Lloyd says. “What are you doing here?”

  “A little research for a mystery I might be writing.” I nod at Jack, who chuckles at my lie. I’m not about to reveal too much about my new life. “Isn’t that what all retired journalists do?”

  Cindy is back with the book. She places it on the counter. My former co-workers split back to their desks with fond good-byes and a couple of hugs.

  “They sure love you,” Jack says after the last one leaves.

  “I was their mom for a long time. I fed and burped them, and turned them into good little journalists.”

  Cindy spins the book, so it faces Jack and me.

  “Take your time,” she says.

  I flip through the pages.

  “You okay?” I ask Jack.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I find the end of August. I keep flipping.

  “He said Labor Day Weekend, right? I am guessing the accident would be in the paper that Tuesday. Yup, here it is on the third page.”

  Jack and I are shoulder to shoulder as we read. Walter Bartol was in a single-car accident. He was over twice the legal limit for being drunk when he missed a curve and hit a tree coming back from a party.

  “Drunk driver? He didn’t mention it was him,” Jack says.

  “Shoot, now I really wish the liar was still on my list.”

  Jack’s head is up. He’s done reading. He speaks softly.

  “Isabel, are you ready to give up on this case yet?”

  He is the first person to ask me this question. Except for people like the Floozy and Bobby Collins, who each had their own reasons, everybody seems to think I can get the job done. I know Jack’s being honest and kind, but at this point in my investigation, especially with this dead end, it hits me that I may not succeed despite my best efforts. Damn, I hate to lose, and frankly, as a reporter, I never lost a story, or as an editor, a fight.

  I had so convinced myself that Walter Bartol might be the one. Well, there was some pretty damning evidence, including his ass-ugly personality. Could he have killed Adela with one arm? Sure, the man had a paw the size of a giant. Since there was no blood found anywhere, I suspect she was either given an overdose or strangled. He could have wrapped his hand around her neck easily, but not if he was laid up in a hospital. And Adela went missing a week and a half later, on Sept. 16.

  Maybe it was my mother joking that I would solve this case before she returned Sunday, and then we would find something else to investigate. Maybe this Isabel Long, P.I., thing has gone to my head. No one has solved this case in twenty-eight years. No one with a guilty conscience ever confessed, not even a deathbed confession. Why should I think I could figure it out?

  I haven’t taken any money from Andrew Snow yet, and I sure as hell won’t if I don’t discover the culprit who killed his daughter.

  Jack waits for my answer.

  “Not yet. I’m beginning to believe there’s a strong chance I might not solve it, but I really want to try a little bit more. Remember what I told you about my cousin?”

  “Uh-huh, I do. Something like that sticks with you forever.”

  “I’m sure the Snows feel the same way about Adela.”

  I take photos of the stories with my phone. I keep turning pages. Now Adela is in the news, or rather her disappearance. I have these stories in a folder at home. I find the one about Walter facing charges after he was released from the hospital six weeks after the accident. The doctors tried to save his arm, but it was damaged too badly.

  I shut the book.

  “Done already?” Cindy asks from her desk.

  “Yes, thanks for the peek,” I say.

  She raises a finger.

  “Wait a second.”

  She gets up from her desk and pulls a cardboard box from a lower shelf. She sets it on top of the closed book.

  “These were taken from your neck of the woods. They’re probably going to chuck them out. I’ve already scanned most of them into the system, but a lot of them aren’t newsworthy or they don’t have cutlines. Maybe there’s some you want.”

  I go through the top few photos. Jack points out people he knows.

  “Look at that one. It’s the Rod and Gun Club’s annual pig roast.” He lifts the photo. “Hey, I’m in this one.”

  Jack, who is twenty-eight years younger, is slicing up pig meat for a line of folks. I flip the photo over to read the back.

  “It says Labor Day. Doesn’t the club always hold the pig roast on that holiday?”

  “Every year as long as I can remember. You really took this?”

  “Uh-huh. I remember some of the guys were pretty crude that day, so it was hard getting a photo that wouldn’t gross out our readers. Thanks for not holding your dick when I took that.”

  By now I have a sizable stack of photos. Cindy shoos me when I ask again if it’s really okay we have them.

  “Take the whole box if you want,” she says.

  I do as she says, and outside the newsroom, Jack gives me a fun-loving grin.

  “Why don’t we get some grub somewhere and then head back to the hills where we belong? I’ve got some time before I have to be at the Rooster.”

  “Don’t forget I’m picking up my mother this Sunday. You start cleaning your place out yet?”

  “Nah, don’t you worry none, woman. I’m gonna start real soon.”

  Disappointment

  I break the news about the dead end to Andrew Snow after Jack drops me off at hom
e. I can hear the disappointment in his voice after I tell him about Walter Bartol, his accident, and missing arm. I leave out what the bastard said about his daughter.

  “I was so sure you had something there,” he says.

  “Me, too. I can tell he’s not a nice man, but it’s impossible he’s the one. I even found the news story when he went to court. It said he was in the hospital for over a month.”

  Andrew is silent for a moment.

  On our way back to Conwell, I ponder Jack’s question about whether I was ready to give up just yet. Yes, things were against me with twenty-eight years gone and lousy police work. Maybe I’ve been watching too many crime shows where everything wraps up neatly in an hour.

  “Now what?” Andrew asks.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to check the paperwork in Town Hall for the permits, to see who did the work.”

  “What about Bobby Collins?”

  “He’s still a possibility,” I say. “One of the permits was taken out by his friend, Marsha.”

  “That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. I do want to find out more about Victor Wilson although, frankly, he’s a long shot. I definitely won’t go to his place alone.”

  “You sound discouraged, Isabel.”

  “I am, but I’m not quitting yet. I’ll take this case as far as I can.”

  “That’s all I ask, Isabel.”

  Old Blacks and Whites

  I go through the black-and-white photos, one by one, at the kitchen table. The animals are with me. The cat is on my lap, the dog snores at my feet. Who are they trying to kid?

  The photos date back to the late eighties when I was a correspondent for the Daily Star. Most were taken to go with the stories I wrote about Conwell and the other hilltowns. Others are standalones, as we call them in the news biz. As for who took them, it’s a toss up between the staff photographers and myself. The staff photographers had the better equipment and got the quality shots. I took the lucky ones, mainly because I was up here and knew when things were happening. I used a point-and-shoot the paper gave me, plus rolls of film.

  Who’s in the box? A lot of people I know. Some of them are dead, like the old-timer who went house to house selling the vegetables he grew in his back yard. Once he came to ours, when we were renting this dump of a place on the other side of Conwell. We’ve lost sweet ladies that were nice to my kids at the church fair. There’s a portrait of a woman, who had a rep as the nosiest person in town, yes, even nosier than the Old Farts at the store, but at least she turned it into a profession: reporting for a local weekly.

  I find a nice shot of the old chief, who was the middle-aged chief then. He was speaking that day to a class at Conwell’s elementary school. He wore his uniform. I shot him holding up a set of handcuffs. I wonder how many times he had to actually use them.

  I’ll give that photo to his wife.

  I find photos of kids who are now young adults with kids of their own. They are performing at an assembly in school or showing off a project. They’re hitting and kicking balls. My own, Matt, Alex, and Ruth managed to sneak into a few.

  I shot lots of local events: the country fair in the town one over, parades, a contra dance, and town meetings.

  There are photos of folks at work. I laugh when I find one of Jack at the Rooster I took for a feature. He’s about twenty pounds slimmer and has a head of dark hair. Of course, he’s smiling right into the camera. I had forgotten I wrote the story. I wonder if he remembers.

  I believe I’ll give this photo to him. I’ll have it framed, so he can hang it behind the bar.

  At the bottom of the box, I am surprised to find another photo of the Rod and Gun Club’s pig roast. I shot this one at the picnic tables. Jack sits between two women on a bench.

  His weirdo sister sits to his right. It’s quite remarkable how little Eleanor has changed, but then again I imagine living such a simple life must be relatively stress free. She does whatever she does at home. She works a few nights at the Rooster. Her brother drives her wherever she needs to go. She has her mutts. I bet any money she’s still a virgin unless her cousin, Fred, is even creepier than I think.

  Eleanor has her eyes focused on her brother and the woman sitting on the other side. Her face is twisted in a familiar scowl. Hot damn, the woman is Adela. Jack’s got a beer in his hand and an empty paper plate on the table in front of him. His attention is clearly on Adela. Her head is tipped back. She laughs. She is obviously enjoying herself.

  I feel a small lurch.

  Jack is definitely the source of her enjoyment. Could he be her mysterious lover? It seems a very real possibility. Adela may have kept her private life with men to herself but not in this photo. I don’t know if it even ran in the paper. I used to drive the finished rolls of film to the newsroom for the photo editor to develop. Sometimes the photos got published in the paper, sometimes they didn’t, especially if the subjects weren’t timely. Maybe the photo editor didn’t think a bunch of rednecks hanging out at a pig roast was newsworthy.

  I study Jack’s happy face. I feel another lurch. I get the feeling he hasn’t told me everything about Adela. I think back to when we went snowshoeing. He said he and Adela went out off and on. Their relationship never went anywhere.

  What did he say when I asked him about her? He answered, “How much time do you have?”

  Jesus, Isabel, your interview skills are slipping. This sex with Jack is clouding your judgment, or what I used to call for my reporters, ‘my spidey sense.’

  It’s about time Jack and I had a heart to heart about Adela. I’ll tell him I have plenty of time to listen.

  Bragging Rights

  Later that night, around eight, I make an appearance at the Rooster. The bar is noisy with loud male voices bragging about their hunting exploits in the woods. They’re drinking beer and shots. They’re downing Eleanor’s burgers. She’s not usually here Wednesdays, but Jack doesn’t want to pass up a good moneymaking opportunity. Eleanor moves around the kitchen, all business. I’m not even going to bother to say hello.

  “What’ll it be, Isabel?” Jack asks.

  “Make it the usual.”

  “Sure enough.”

  Of course, Jack is in his typical, shit-eating grin mood thanks to a barroom filled with drinkers, and hopefully, my appearance.

  “You go through that box yet?”

  “Yeah, I did. Found lots of good memories in there. I bet there are a few photos you might want to hang up here. I’ll show them to you when you come over.”

  He raises his eyebrows playfully.

  “I’d like that.”

  A sheet of white poster board is on the upright post close enough to the bar. I can read it from my stool. At the top, Jack wrote ROOSTER DEER HUNTERS in a thick, black marker. Of course, I expect there’ll be a number of jokes tonight about what actually is a ROOSTER DEER until Jack tells them to shut up. They know very well what he means.

  Jack drew columns for the hunter’s name, date, and size of the deer. Hunters were supposed to fill in their info. The one on the list who nabs the biggest deer by the end of the season gets a free dinner for two at the Rooster. Several names are already written down on the sheet, including the two guys who went hunting with Jack.

  There’s no line to use the women’s room tonight, I should note, because I am one of four women in the Rooster. One is Eleanor who never seems to take a piss the entire night she works. She must have remarkable holding powers or she’s doing something back there I don’t want to know about. There are two other women customers, both wives of hunters. Actually, one gal is a damn good hunter herself. I see she got a buck. Hubby has come up empty so far, which has to be a source of some hard ribbing tonight.

  Damn, everybody’s in a great mood.

  As for Jack, I think he enjoyed being part of the Adela Collins investigative team today. I told him, of course, as part of the team he couldn’t tell anybody what we found. Everything is top secret. He agreed.

 
Of course, he’s looking forward to spending the night at my house. We have four to go before Ma returns. He warns me he’s pretty beat from hunting. “This just might be only a sleepover,” he says, and I tell him okay. Jack’s no young stud. I don’t know if I could take it if he were. But it’s nice having a man’s body next to mine again. I froze the first winter after Sam was gone. I had to pile on the blankets. Jack’s body, typically naked, gives off a solid, bone-soaking heat.

  Jack’s plan is to drop Eleanor at home first and make sure everything’s okay inside before he heads to mine.

  Now I’m wondering how I could convince Ma it would be all right for Jack to stay overnight. Sure, Jack supposedly is going to clear out his dump of a place, but I’d still have to drive home after we do the dirty deed. I’d feel funny leaving Ma alone at night.

  I check to my right when somebody jostles my arm. Crap, Jack’s cousin, Fred, is taking the empty stool beside mine.

  “Hey, Isabel, nice to see you.” He lifts a finger to Jack. “You know, cousin, what I drink by now.”

  “Fred.” I lift my beer. I’d rather talk with any one of the yokels in this room than Jack’s cousin. But there appears to be no escaping Fred. “Did you go hunting today?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Nah, I only got two days off. I tried to get the whole week, but no dice. My boss is a real asshole.”

  I smile at Jack.

  “Not like my boss.”

  “Him? Oh, he can be a real asshole sometimes.” Fred chuckles. “And I’m a better hunter. Did he tell you about the deer I shot?”

  “Uh-huh, Fred. What do you do for work?”

  “Construction. Heavy equipment. If you need a hole, I can dig it.”

  “You ever work in Conwell?”

  “Sure. Lots of times, especially when the economy was booming, and those newcomers all wanted new homes. Things have slowed down here since the bottom fell out, but I still get jobs from time to time. Why? You interested? You got a hole that needs digging?”