Leftover Dead (6 page)

“Now what can I do for you?” Mrs. Lockett asked.

“We need to look at back issues of the newspaper,” Jack said. “From thirty years ago or so.”

Mrs. Lockett nodded. “They’re all on microfilm, I’m afraid. I keep hoping somehow we’ll get the money to digitize them and get them online, but probably not in my lifetime.” She gave a quiet chuckle. “So we’re left with outdated technology.”

Jack laughed. “That’s fine. I think I remember how to use a microfilm reader.”

“Good,” Mrs. Lockett replied. “The local paper is in cabinets in that second room down the hall, and there are a couple of readers on the tables in there. If you need help with anything, you just come and let me know.”

“Thank you, we will,” Wanda Nell said. She followed Jack down the hall to the room the librarian had indicated. Jack flipped the light switch on, and he and Wanda Nell stared for a moment at the wall of cabinets.

Stepping closer, they began examining the labels on the drawers, looking for the local paper. “I guess I never realized just how much they have in here,” Wanda Nell said. “They’ve got the
Commercial Appeal
from Memphis, and the
Clarion-Ledger
from Jackson, too.”

“That reminds me, we should probably check those papers, too, just in case,” Jack said. “It might have made one of them before the cover-up started.”

“How about I start with the Memphis paper, while you look at the Tullahoma one?” Wanda Nell asked. She started hunting for the drawer with the right dates on it.

“Good idea,” Jack said. He wandered away from her. “Here’s the Tullahoma paper.” He bent to peer more closely at the labels.

Wanda Nell found the drawer she needed and pulled it open. Inside were several rows of boxes containing microfilms. Using one finger, she skimmed over the labels, looking for the correct month. “Got it,” she said, extracting the box from the drawer.

“I’m not having any luck yet,” Jack said.

Wanda Nell was only half-listening. She took her box to one of the readers and sat down at the table. There was a diagram that explained how to load the film on the machine, and she examined it closely. “That looks easy enough,” she muttered. She extracted the roll of microfilm from the box and began to load it. Behind her she could hear Jack opening and closing drawers.

Once the microfilm was properly loaded, Wanda Nell started going through it, looking for the right date to start. “Honey,” she called, “did Elmer Lee say anything about a date on that file?”

“No, he didn’t, but I’ve got the copy right here.”

Wanda Nell turned to watch as he pulled the folded papers from his jeans pocket. He unfolded them and scanned them quickly. “Looks like the body was found on April twenty-third.”

“Thanks.” Wanda Nell got to that date on her roll of film and began carefully going forward. She was dimly aware of Jack’s continuing to open and shut drawers while she worked.

She had made her way through April twenty-fifth without finding any reference to a murder in Tullahoma, when the increasingly loud sounds of frustration coming from behind her broke through her concentration.

Wanda Nell turned in her chair, staring at her husband in concern. “Honey, what’s going on?”

“It’s missing,” Jack said, frowning. “I’ve looked through most of the drawers now, thinking it might simply be misfiled. But it’s just not here. The box we need just isn’t here.”

Jack cursed, and Wanda Nell shook a finger at him. “Honey, don’t forget you’re in the library. Don’t be talking like that.”

“Sorry,” Jack muttered. “I guess I should have expected this.”

Wanda Nell got up and went over to him, slipping a consoling arm around his waist. “Well, if we had any doubts about somebody trying to cover the whole thing up, I guess we don’t anymore.”

“We sure don’t.”

“But it does tell us something,” Wanda Nell added in a more encouraging tone. “There must be something in the paper that would help us, if someone went to all the trouble of stealing the microfilm from the library.”

“Good point.” Jack’s face brightened for a moment. “But where are we going to find other copies of the paper?”

“First, let’s make sure there’s not something in the Memphis or Jackson papers,” Wanda Nell said. She nodded in the direction of the microfilm reader she had been using. “I’ve been through the twenty-fifth in the
Commercial Appeal
, and I haven’t found anything so far.”

“I’ll check out the
Clarion-Ledger
.” Jack moved toward the drawers containing the Jackson paper. “I’m willing to bet, though, we’re not going to find anything in either one.”

“Maybe not,” Wanda Nell said. “But somewhere, I bet you, we’ll be able to find a copy of the missing Tullahoma paper. You just wait and see.”

Jack grinned at her. “That’s just one of the many reasons I love you, darling. The Unsinkable Wanda Nell.”

Wanda Nell shook her head at him. “Get to work,” she said, trying to sound stern.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Wanda Nell turned her back on him and resumed her examination of the Memphis paper. She went carefully through the whole week after April twenty-third, but she never found a mention of the murder, or any mention at all of Tullahoma. She stopped looking, rewound the reel, took it off the machine, and put it back in its box.

Jack was now sitting at the table next to her, using the other reader. “Any luck so far?” she asked.

“No. I’m up to the twenty-sixth, and nothing so far. How far did you look?”

“Through May first.”

“That was probably enough,” Jack said. “If there wasn’t some kind of mention by that point, there probably never was. Let me just go that far here, and then we’ll try to figure out what to do next.”

Wanda Nell waited in silence while Jack finished examining his reel of film. After about seven or eight minutes, he leaned back, pulled off his glasses, and rubbed at his eyes. “Now I’m getting a headache from staring at that screen.”

“Didn’t find anything?”

“No, not a blessed thing. No mention of Tullahoma at all.” He rewound the roll, extracted it, and stuck it in its box.

“Let’s go talk to Miz Lockett,” Wanda Nell said. “She needs to know there’s a box missing, and maybe she’ll know of another way we can find what we’re looking for.”

“Let’s not make a big deal out of it, though,” Jack said. “I don’t want to stir up anything at this point.”

“Okay.” Wanda Nell followed him out of the room, flipping off the light switch as she went.

At the front desk Mrs. Lockett was checking out a stack of books for the mother and the two children. Jack and Wanda Nell waited, increasingly impatient, as the mother kept interrupting the proceedings to admonish her children. Finally, the woman started herding them toward the door.

With a tired smile, Mrs. Lockett turned her attention to Wanda Nell and Jack. “Did you find what you needed?”

“Well, no, we didn’t,” Jack said, sounding slightly apologetic. “The one reel of film we needed seems to be missing.”

“Oh, dear. Where could it have got to? Maybe someone just misfiled it, and it’s in another drawer somewhere.” She came from behind the counter and started for the microfilm room.

“We checked for that,” Jack said, and Mrs. Lockett halted.

“You looked through
all
the drawers?” Mrs. Lockett asked, her head cocked to one side.

“Well, no, not through all of them,” Jack admitted. “But I checked all the drawers for the Tullahoma paper. I didn’t check anywhere else.”

“Then the box you need is probably somewhere in one of the other drawers,” Mrs. Lockett said. She came back to the desk. “If you don’t mind waiting a couple of days, I’ll have one of the high school students who works here during the week go through all the drawers on Monday to see if he can find it.” She smiled at them. “I’m sure it’s there somewhere.” She pulled a slip of scrap paper from a slot behind the desk and handed it to Jack. “Just put your name and phone number on this for me, and I’ll call you on Monday.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that very much.” Jack glanced sideways at Wanda Nell before he picked up a pen from the counter and wrote down the information Mrs. Lockett had requested.

Neither Wanda Nell nor Jack thought the student would ever find the missing box, but they weren’t going to tell Mrs. Lockett that. That wouldn’t serve much purpose at this point.

“What happened to the paper copies of the newspaper?” Wanda Nell asked. “I don’t imagine you still have them somewhere around, do you?”

“Heavens, no.” Mrs. Lockett laughed. “We got rid of them once we were able to have them microfilmed. They took up so much space—and the dust!” She wrinkled her nose. “Ordinarily I hate getting rid of something like that, but we were certainly able to make better use of the space once they were gone.”

“So they just got thrown away?” Jack asked.

“Well, no,” Mrs. Lockett said, surprising him and Wanda Nell. “We gave them to the Tullahoma County Historical Society. And as far as I know, they still have them all.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.” Wanda Nell was trying to maintain a casual tone. “Does the Historical Society let people look at them?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mrs. Lockett said. “Though they’re open only a couple of days a week. They have to depend on volunteers to do everything, and I think that’s about all they can manage these days.”

“If we wanted to have a look at their collection,” Jack asked, “whom should we call?”

“The president of the society, probably,” Mrs. Lockett said. “I’m sure you both know her—she taught at the high school for about forty years, until she retired a few years ago. Miss Ernestine Carpenter. She even taught me. It was her second year teaching at the high school.”

Wanda Nell turned to Jack with a smile. “We sure do know her,” Wanda Nell said. “In fact, she came to our wedding.”

“Well, then”—Mrs. Lockett beamed at them—“there you are. I know Miss Ernestine will be more than happy to help you. Y’all just give her a call, and I know she’ll fix you right up.”

“Thank you, we will,” Jack said. “We really appreciate all your help.”

“You’re more than welcome,” Mrs. Lockett replied. “And I’ll have our student worker look for that missing box. I’ll call you when he finds it.”

“Thank you, Miz Lockett,” Wanda Nell said. “We’ll be seeing you.”

“Bye now,” Mrs. Lockett called after them.

In the car again, the air conditioner blasting once more, Wanda Nell adjusted her sunglasses. “It’s only about four-fifteen. What say we give Ernie a call right now?”

“Fine by me,” Jack said. “Curiosity’s really getting to me, I have to say.”

Wanda Nell pulled her cell phone out of her purse and started punching buttons. She had put Ernie’s number in her phone address book back when her brother Rusty had been involved in a nasty local murder. Ernie had been a big help to her during that awful time. Since then she had chatted with Ernie a few times, and Ernie had been there, beaming, when Wanda Nell and Jack were married.

There was no answer, so Wanda Nell ended the call and checked her book for Ernie’s cell number and punched it in. The phone rang three times before Ernie answered.

“Hello, there, Wanda Nell. How are you and Jack doing?” Ernie asked, her voice cheerful and loud.

“We’re doing just fine. How about you?”

They exchanged pleasantries while Ernie inquired about the health of everyone in Wanda Nell’s family. After about three minutes, Ernie finally wound down long enough for Wanda Nell to broach the subject of her call.

“Jack and I were just at the library talking to Miz Lockett, and she told us you’re the president of the Historical Society.”

“I am, for all my sins,” Ernie said with another laugh. “Are you and Jack interested in volunteering? We’re always looking for help, let me tell you.”

“Not exactly,” Wanda Nell said. “We were hoping you could help us with something. Miz Lockett told us that the library gave the Historical Society its copies of all the old Tullahoma newspaper when they got the microfilms of them.”

“Yes, they did,” Ernie said. “Do you need to look at them?”

“We sure do, if that’s possible. The ones we needed to see, well, the library didn’t have them. There was a box of microfilm missing.”

“How strange,” Ernie said. “Is this something urgent?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say
urgent
,” Wanda Nell replied. “But we’d sure like to get a look as soon as we can. It’s kind of important.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” Ernie asked. “You know how nosy I am, and right now I’m about to pop from curiosity.”

Wanda Nell laughed. “Of course we can tell you. We’ll probably have some questions to ask you anyway, besides just looking at the newspapers.”

“Good,” Ernie said. “I’m actually in Tullahoma at the moment, doing some shopping. Where are you and Jack right now?”

“Sitting in the parking lot at the library.” Wanda Nell gave Jack a thumbs-up with her free hand, and he grinned. He had heard most of what Ernie had said, her voice was so strong and clear.

“Then meet me at the Historical Society,” Ernie said. “I can be there in about seven or eight minutes.”

“Where is it?” Wanda Nell asked. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the building. At least not that I can recall.”

“It’s nothing remarkable, sad to say,” Ernie responded with a laugh. “It’s just a couple of blocks from the library, in one of the old houses off Main Street. Go back down Main Street, take a right on Elm, and it’s the second house on your right.”

“Thanks, Ernie. We sure do appreciate this.”

“See you in a few minutes,” Ernie said, and she broke the connection.

Wanda Nell put away her phone and repeated the directions to Jack. He squeezed her hand quickly before he put the car in gear and drove out of the library parking lot.

In less than two minutes they were parked at the curb in front of the house that was home to the Tullahoma County Historical Society. Like Mrs. Culpepper’s larger and grander house, this building was also antebellum, but on a more modest scale.