Valerie S. Malmont Page 6

  “A museum and creative arts center with a tasteful shopping mall attached would create a point of interest in the downtown area,” Bernice protested, “where now there is nothing. You're always talking about bringing in the tourists, but once they're here, there's nothing for them to see or do.”

  This brought a flood of objections from the others. “Not true … the fountain … courthouse … municipal park … Civil War cemetery …” Their voices faded as they ran out of tourist attractions.

  “Look at what San Antonio did with the River Walk,” Bernice said. “We could do something like that here.”

  Marvin snorted rudely. “If you think Lickin Creek's gonna turn into another San Antonio … you got another think coming. For one thing, we got a creek here, not a river.”

  “Not to mention the trout,” Buchanan added.

  “I can't afford to pay taxes forever on an empty building, and I have to know what's going to happen to it before my divorce is final. So, I'm warning you, if you don't make a decision in the next six weeks, I'll tear it down. I don't need to remind you it's the last large historic building in the downtown area. Once it's gone you won't have another opportunity.”

  “We'll appoint a committee to—you know—ya-dee-ya-dee-ya-da,” Marvin told her.

  “How reassuring,” she sniffed. “A committee … wonderful!”

  “The Christmas decorations are literally on the table. Let's do something about them,” Marvin said with a grim smile.

  “I think you mean figuratively on the table, not literally,” Buchanan whispered.

  “I mean whatever the hell I think I mean,” the council president snapped at the attorney. “We've had some complaints about the Christmas decorations in the square. Fifteen people called or wrote in to say they want colored lights, not the white lights we use each year. Here's one what says, ‘We've lost the meaning of Christmas with them cold white lights. Colored lights is the traditional way to say Merry X-mas.’”

  “X-mas!” Jackson Clopper stabbed the air with his ever-present pipe. “He wrote X-mas? A person can talk about tradition while abbreviating our Savior's name as an X?”

  Murmurs of disapproval fluttered around the table.

  “Who wrote it?” Jackson demanded to know.

  “It's anonymous,” Marvin said. “Just like last year and the year before.”

  “Actually,” Buchanan said, “there is historic accuracy in using an X. X is the letter chi in Greek, which stood for Christ, and that, of course, is where the custom originated.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McCleary, for that scholarly explanation. I suppose we'd all know that if we was Rhodes scholars like you,” Marvin said. “Let's try to stay on task so we can get out of here by lunchtime.”

  He looked at his list and continued. “Other complaints deal with where we're putting Santa's Workshop, if we really need to place an electric menorah in front of the courthouse, the small size of the red bows on the lampposts, and the ‘environmental incorrectness’ of killing a tree for decorative purposes.” He paused and glared at Buchanan. “I think we all know where that came from.

  “So, if it's okay with you'uns, I'll have Jackson deal with the complaints in the usual manner—a nice letter saying ‘Thank you for your interest, ya-dee-ya-dee-ya-da.’ By then, Christmas'll be over.

  “What we do need to worry about is the living Nativity scene in front of the fountain. Yoder Construction built the barn and manger free of charge, and Foor's Dairy Farm is lending us some animals. Ten local churches will supply Marys, Josephs, angels, and wise men in four-hour shifts from ten A.M. to six P.M., beginning this week.”

  “Sounds fine to me. So what's the problem?” Primrose Flack asked.

  “The baby Jesus. That gal who's the new director of our child welfare agency says it's too cold to let a baby lie in a manger for four hours. Says she'll charge us all with child abuse.”

  “Great, just great,” came a snort from somewhere inside the mink coat. “What the hell good is a Nativity scene without a baby Jesus? It's no wonder this town doesn't go anywhere, with attitudes like that.” Bernice adjusted her collar and scowled at Marvin, who scowled back at her.

  “Stuff it in your sock, Bernice, I've got everything under control. My daughter's saved the day.”

  “Dakota's too old and the wrong sex to be baby Jesus.” These were the first words I'd heard from Matavious Clopper since the treasurer's report.

  Marvin ignored Dr. Clopper's comment. “Dakota is gonna loan us her favorite doll to use in the manger. It's one of them exact replicas of a real baby.” He groped for something out of sight under the table. “Ah, here it is.” From one large hand dangled a large, naked, blond doll with staring blue eyes. “Ma-ma,” cried a voice from deep within its plastic tummy. “Ma-ma.”

  “Baby Jesus was a boy,” Jackson muttered around the pipe stem clenched between his teeth.

  “It'll be wrapped in swaddling clothes, whatever they are. Nobody's gonna know the difference. I'll see you'uns next week. Same time, same place, ya-dee-ya-dee-ya-da. Good-bye.” Marvin scooped up his papers and was out the door before any more objections could be voiced.

  I put down my pencil and tried to blow life back into my numb fingers. What on earth could I report about this meeting? They'd completely dropped the subject of turning Bernice's cold-storage house into a shopping center, which sounded like a fairly good idea to me, and had managed to absolutely ignore the wishes of the people who'd voted them into office. I finally made a notation on my blank page: “Dakota = Baby Jesus.”

  Bernice Roadcap, adjusting her furs, advanced on me.

  “Toni, I've had a terrible shock. I wonder if you can help me.”

  “Tori,” I corrected with a smile. “I'm sorry to hear that. What's happened?” As a foreign service brat, I'd been trained to smile politely and express interest where none was felt.

  She threw a furtive glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening, leaned close, and whispered, “I've received a death threat!”

  The odor of vodka hit me hard, and I realized her words were slightly slurred. There are some people who actually think it can't be smelled on their breath. Ha!

  “Tell me about it,” I urged, taking a step backward.

  “It was a letter—an anonymous letter. Pasted up out of words cut out of a newspaper, probably one of your Chronicles.” She stared keenly at me as though she suspected me of having personally committed the cutting and gluing.

  “What did it say?”

  “See for yourself.” She pulled a folded envelope from her Gucci bag, but before handing it to me, she again looked over her shoulder. Only Primrose, Buchanan, and Jackson were left in the room, and none of them was paying any attention to us.

  I straightened the envelope and extracted a piece of ordinary white typing paper. Words and letters of different sizes, definitely cut from a newspaper, said WHICH ONE DROP THE SAN ANTOINIO MALL OR ELSE.

  “I don't see that it's a death threat, Mrs. Roadcap. It appears to be a poorly spelled attempt to change your mind about developing the cold-storage building.”

  Her voice turned louder, imperious. “You don't see it as a death threat? What about that ‘or else'? My death will be on your conscience forever if you don't check this out.”

  “If you're worried, why don't you go to the police with this?” I asked.

  Suddenly, the lofty manner disappeared, as she blinked her eyes and looked at me like a frightened child. “Who? That alcoholic idiot who's acting chief? Or that kid from the junior college who's the part-time patrolman? Or should I say patrolperson? Political correctness confuses me. Anyway, it's obvious there's nobody there who can help. You will check it out, won't you, Toby?”

  She looked so frightened, I agreed to help. There really was no way in the world to identify the author of the letter, but if it made Bernice feel better to think I was helping, then let her think so.

  She smiled gratefully and left. I studied the plain white business-size
envelope the letter had come in. The type sold in boxes of one hundred at any store. The postmark was Harrisburg. That meant nothing. All local mail was sent to Harrisburg for a postmark; locals considered it to be a diabolical federal conspiracy to slow down delivery time. Naturally, there was no return address. Buchanan, standing by the door, cleared his throat. “Time to go, Tori,” he said.

  I looked up from the letter and realized the room was empty except for the two of us. “Sorry,” I murmured. I folded Bernice's death threat and jammed it in my purse.

  I pulled up to the solitary pump at Hoopengartner's gas station/police headquarters and signaled to the teenage boy on duty to fill the tank. He gestured at the new sign that said SELF-SERVICE, but I put on my New York face—the one that says I have no patience with losers—and he hustled right over. The look had long ago lost its effectiveness in the city but was new to Lickin Creek.

  In the back room, I found Luscious sitting at Garnet's gray metal army-surplus desk. The black phone he was using predated the Korean War. He hung up, smoothed his thin hair over his forehead, and smiled wanly at me. “Nothing,” he said. “No signs of him anywhere.”

  I smelled garlic and onion on his breath as he spoke, and I was glad to note that was all I smelled. Maybe he'd taken my advice to lay off the bottle during the search.

  The phone rang, ignored by Luscious, then stopped abruptly. I guessed someone in the front room answered it. Garnet had once explained the advantage of renting office space from Mr. Hoopengartner was that the garage was open twenty-four hours a day for towing service, so there was always someone available to take emergency police calls. Not exactly 911, I thought, but it worked for Lickin Creek.

  “You look tired,” I told him. “Can I do something for you? Run errands? Anything?” I'm not usually so solicitous, but the youthful and vulnerable policeman brought out my maternal instincts.

  “You could pour me some coffee,” he said. “I'm too tired to walk across the room.”

  I poured out some thick black goop and was surprised it didn't dissolve the paper cup. Luscious drank it without complaint, while I washed the glass container and started a fresh pot brewing.

  Satisfied I had prevented a future case of poisoning from rancid coffee oil, I sat on one of the two folding chairs reserved for guests.

  Luscious said, “Coroner says those bones we found last night have been in the quarry for more than thirty years.”

  He noticed my skeptical look. Caven County coroner was an elected position, and since Doc Jones's death it had been held by Henry Hoopengartner. Yes, the same Hoopengartner who owned this garage. Even though Henry had attended coroner school somewhere in the state, I still had doubts about Henry's ability to figure out anything and get it right.

  Luscious guessed what I was thinking. “No special knowledge needed for this one, Tori. The divers found most of the bones under the wreck of a '59 Chevy—belonged to Chucky Fowler, what owns Fowler's Flowers now. He was pretty wild as a teenager, I hear. The car got rolled into the quarry back in '65 during a keg party. So Henry's pretty safe in guessing the skeleton was down there since before '65.”

  “Could Henry determine the age and sex of the child?”

  “Henry guesses about five years old at time of death. He said he couldn't tell the sex because little kids’ bones all look pretty much the same. He sent them to the medical examiner's office in Harrisburg.”

  “Oretta came by my house this morning and told me it was a child named Eddie Douglas. Is that what you think?”

  Luscious nodded and held up a manila folder. “I do. I've got his folder right here. He was the right age. And it's not like we've had dozens of kids go missing. There've been a few lost over the years—kids tend to wander—but Eddie was the only one that never turned up.”

  “How long ago?”

  Luscious wiggled his fingers in the air for a minute before coming up with an answer. “Thirty-seven years, last summer.”

  “Have you contacted his parents?”

  He shook his head and opened the folder. “According to what's in the file, his parents, Herman and Miriam Douglas, moved to Texas about a year after Eddie disappeared. I called Information, but there's no listing.”

  “If you can't find them, who'll be responsible for burying him?” I asked. I hated the thought of the child being buried in the Lickin Creek equivalent of Potter's Field.

  “No need to worry about that. Lickin Creek takes care of its own.”

  I was waiting for the traffic light to change at the square when I realized I hadn't mentioned Bernice's letter to Luscious. However, since I didn't regard it as a real threat, I didn't think it was important to go back. Instead, I made a mental note to show it to him when next we met.

  Cassie's rolltop desk was covered with folders and papers, piled high. I hung my ski jacket on the hook by the door and, as I turned, stubbed my toe on the box from the Home Shopping Network I'd asked Cassie to move yesterday.

  “Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “Haven't had time to get to it. I've been collecting background information on Eddie Douglas's disappearance. It's all right here.”

  I stifled a grin. Even Cassie had immediately known who the child was. Apparently, I was the only person in town who'd been out of the loop.

  She gestured toward her desk. I was sure that even though it appeared to be an unorganized mess, Cassie knew exactly where everything was.

  “You're an absolute wonder,” I told her. Her face flushed; the only sign that my remark pleased her.

  I could tell by her appearance she now had her emotions under control. She wore an impeccably tailored tweed suit, in a color I would have described as heather during my short-lived career as a fashion reporter, her hair was pulled smoothly into a chignon, and a dramatic amber necklace accented the jewel neckline of her beige blouse.

  I sat at my own rolltop desk and quickly wrote down my observations of last night's quarry search. “Can you fill this out with what you've found in the files?” I asked her.

  “No problem.” Cassie smiled. She knew and I knew that this was part of the me-editor-you-assistant game we played. Cassie could easily do the whole edition without me.

  “How was the council meeting?” she asked. “Let me guess, ‘Nothin’ says Christmas like colored lights,’ and ‘We'll deal with it the usual way, ya-dee-ya-dee-ya-da.’”

  I grinned. “That was about it. Except Marvin Bum-baugh's daughter is saving Christmas by lending her baby doll for the manger scene.”

  “I'll write it up with a straight face,” Cassie promised.

  “Cassie, do you think it's possible that there could be a connection between Kevin's disappearance and the dead child?”

  She appeared taken aback. “A connection? Why do you ask?”

  I shook my head. “I really don't know. Praxythea suggested it. I don't suppose there was any mystery around Eddie's disappearance, was there?”

  Cassie looked through her folder. “Not that I can tell from the clippings in here. Apparently, he went out to play alone and didn't come back.”

  Like Kevin Poffenberger, I thought. No, not exactly, for Kevin hadn't been playing alone. His cousins had been with him. I needed to talk to them again.

  “Okay, then,” I said, standing. “If you'll take care of writing the council report and the quarry discovery, I'll go up to the mountain and see how the search is going.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Over the hills and everywhere

  AS I DROVE TOWARD THE MOUNTAINS, I thought of how I'd seriously underestimated the work required to put out a weekly newspaper. I'd thought it would be a snap, leaving me with plenty of free time to finish up my second novel. Instead, I seemed to be working twenty-two-hour days and was never caught up with anything. I hadn't even looked at my half-finished manuscript in two months.

  P. J. Mullins never worked that hard—I'd been told that often enough—and I was well aware of that fact. She'd earned new respect from me, and I couldn't wait until she was wel
l enough to come back and take over again.

  There were times, when I was snowed under at the Chronicle, I questioned my journalistic ability, and I had to remind myself that I'd often felt overwhelmed when I was working on the paper in New York. Although I'd won a couple of prizes for my investigative reporting, I'd never really felt comfortable with what I was doing there. What I need to do, I thought, is finish my novel and hope it's a best-seller. Then I'll never have to worry about working again. With pleasant thoughts of movie contracts and TV series drifting through my head, it seemed only a short time until I reached Corny's Corner.

  The Iron Ore Road was still clogged with vehicles, but the parking situation at the crossroads was now better organized. A man in his youthful eighties, wearing a Day-Glo orange vest with black letters that said FIRE POLICE on the front, directed me to an empty place in the field. There were few media vehicles visible. I assumed they'd moved on to the latest tragedy du jour.

  Walking was treacherous; the depth of the plowed furrows was hidden by the light dusting of snow. Wary of twisting an ankle, I slowly made my way to the area where the headquarters tent had been set up. I didn't recognize any of the women at the coffee and doughnut table, although one of them waved at me, which made me feel good.

  Since Luscious was back in the borough, I wasn't sure whom I'd find inside the tent. The freckle-faced youngster in a Lickin Creek police uniform, studying a map, had to be the force's latest part-timer. One of a nonstop parade of recent graduates of the nearby junior college's criminal justice program. Once they had a little experience under their police belts, they moved on to “real” jobs elsewhere.

  He recognized me immediately. “Hi, Tori. I've been looking forward to meeting you. My name's Afton Finkey.” He extended his hand, which I shook.

  I thought I'd grown accustomed to the odd names Lickin Creekers gave to their defenseless children, but Afton was a new one. I couldn't resist commenting, “I don't think I've ever met an Afton before.”