Love Lies Bleeding (4 page)

“You and me both, Russ,” Linda said. “I had hoped to get started on the book by now, but school has been a full-time job the last year or so. I guess the time hasn’t been right. Turns out I just had to wait a little longer.” She smiled at Frank.

“So Frank, does it look like she was killed right about the time she disappeared? Do we think she’s been up at the falls this entire time?” Russ said.

“Yeah, from what I can figure, that tiny temblor we had here a few months back must have dislodged some ground up at the falls,” Frank said. “Looks like she had been pretty well buried all this time, but the blanket she’d been wrapped in started surfacing after seventy years. That’s how the hiker found her. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out the whole story, but I’m sure going to try. It’s important for my family right now.”

Linda and Russ both looked at him, and he could tell they were looking for some insight into his newfound dedication. That was when he made his confession.

“Mom’s in the hospital. Cancer. We just found out yesterday she has about six months.”

“Oh God, Frank. I’m so sorry.” When Linda reached out and took his hand, he had to fight not to let himself fall apart. It was the kindest thing he’d felt in a long time. No ulterior motive behind it, no sex required, nothing. Simple comfort.

“I’m sorry, Frank. Your mom’s a very special lady,” Russ added. “If there’s anything I can do…”

“You’re already doing it,” Frank clarified. “I need to solve this case so Mom can go with a clear conscience no matter what happened between her and her sister. Whatever you guys can do to help me will be most appreciated.”

Russ and Linda exchanged solemn glances and nodded in unison. They agreed to do whatever they could. With that out of the way, Linda and Russ spoke a bit on the latest Ithaca Historical Society meeting, and then Frank walked Linda to the curb, where her forest-green Karmann Ghia was parked. The shadows from the nearby oaks had started lengthening.

“Niiiiice,” Frank said, walking around the car to admire the character and shiny new paint job.

She laughed. “You should have seen it when I bought it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I rebuilt the motor, put in a new trannie, carburetor, and suspension. The seats were all ripped up, so I had them reupholstered, and then I got it repainted over at Cascadilla Auto Body. Whaddya think?”

She unlatched the door and let Frank look inside.

“Geez, it almost has ‘that new car smell,’” he said, impressed.

“It’s amazing what new seat covers will do. That leather screams volumes, doesn’t it?”

Frank looked over the roof of the car at her and couldn’t help but smile. He told himself that it would be nice to have some company, if only for a few hours.

“Do you have any plans now?” Frank said.

“I was just going home to fix a bite, why?”

“I was thinking about heading over to the library for a little while to make copies of some of the news stories on the case, but then I thought, maybe dinner?” He liked watching the expression on her face change from noncommittal to beaming.

“How can I say no to an offer like that?”

Chapter Five

“
I
’ve got a fistful of change for the microfilm printer. I think we’re set,” Frank said. He fired up the Crown Vic and aimed it down the hill toward the library. He wanted every article or any other piece of information on the case that he could digest.

The Tompkins County Public Library was a brownish brick building of uncertain 1960s vintage on Cayuga Street opposite DeWitt Park. For a small city like Ithaca, its facilities weren’t bad.

While Frank got himself set up at a microfilm reader, Linda grabbed the
Ithaca Journal
film for September nineteen sixteen out of the filing cabinet and handed it to him. He scrolled past ads for Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound and Grape Nuts cereal, aids for catarrh, and the latest scoop from the European front, with special emphasis on The Somme. Frank got distracted reading an account of The Battle at Flers-Courcelette until Linda nudged him.

“I know. It’s so easy to get immersed in this stuff, isn’t it?” she said, laughing. “You could swear you’re in another age.”

“It’s pretty fascinating,” he agreed.

“You’d make a good genealogist,” she said, patting him on the back. “They have to do this stuff all the time. And you never know what goodies you might find.”

At last, he encountered the first story about the disappearance.

“Hey, Linda, look. Here’s one on September seventeenth.”

She pulled up a vacant chair from a nearby study carrel and read over his shoulder.

“
Daughter of Prominent Attorney Missing After Day of Shopping

Miss Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of attorney DeWitt Clinton Morgan of Morgan and LaBarr, is missing, friends say. A recent graduate of the high school here, she had told her parents that she was going to be shopping with a friend yesterday, but after the day was over, had not returned. A search has begun for the girl.”

They printed a copy then moved on. The next day, the eighteenth, the story had been fleshed out a bit more:

“
Miss Elizabeth Morgan Still Missing After Twenty-Four-Hour Search

Miss Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of attorney DeWitt Clinton Morgan, of this place, is still missing after a search of over twenty-four hours. Claiming that she was going shopping with a friend, Miss Olive Rumsey, the girl did not return home at the agreed upon time, and relatives are frantic with worry for her safe return. Ithaca police have not ruled out foul play in the girl’s disappearance. A search for two suitors is continuing.”

Frank pressed Print again, adding the article to the collection.

Small snippets appeared over the next couple of days—nothing more substantial than the date of her disappearance and that she was the daughter of a lawyer.

He searched in vain for more until he reached October first. By then, the local police had called off the search and her parents had lost all hope. But the investigation continued. Frank swallowed his disappointment. If it had been easy, someone would have solved the mystery years ago.

“Frank, look. There’s one.”

At last, on October third, there was a little chunk of gold:

“Person of Interest in Morgan Disappearance Questioned and Released

A suitor of Miss Elizabeth Morgan, who disappeared on September 16, was questioned in the matter of her vanishing. Mr. Stephen LaBarr, the son of Mr. Amasa LaBarr, partner of Morgan’s father, was attending Columbia University at the time of her disappearance. He appears not to have been in the local area at the time the vanishing occurred.

Mr. Thomas Estabrook, another suitor of Miss Morgan, was a worker at the clock assembly plant here and was on a church outing that day. He has not been located. He has not reported for work since the disappearance, and it is assumed that he has left the area. A search is ongoing. At first, authorities were told that Miss Morgan had been shopping in town with a friend, Miss Olive Rumsey, but it is now understood that the story was told to cover her real movements. Her whereabouts on the evening of her disappearance are still unknown.”

He glanced sideways at Linda as they read.

“My mother has some clippings at home, too. Next trip over, I’ll look for those. I’ll have to search through some of the old albums and dig them out.” He pressed Print
again on the reader and they moved on.

A search of nearby town directories in the library’s local interest section revealed a Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Kingman in Watkins Glen. Up until the previous year, Olive still appeared in the same listing. He hoped he’d get lucky. Figuring what he had would suffice for the time being, he and Linda packed up the stuff they’d copied. He could tell he was going to need lots of help from her and Russ.

“Italian?” he asked as he and Linda headed outside.

“Italian sounds great,” she said.

Nonna’s was a pleasant walk away—a little slice of Italy in the Finger Lakes. Francisco Andreazza had started the place back in the 1930s and named it after his grandmother, who had immigrated through Ellis Island with his grandfather and his father in eighteen seventy-five. The place was still owned by the Andreazzas and retained much of its original character. The tables were set with red and white checked cloths, and decorated with straw-covered Chianti bottles coated with wax from the candles. Lace curtains adorned the windows. On cold winter days, a huge fireplace in the dining room provided welcoming warmth for enjoying a bowl of their famous minestrone, and another stone fireplace in the kitchen churned out authentic thin crust pizza, baked pastas, and desserts to die for.

“Frank! Linda! How the heck are you?” Marco Andreazza called out. He was the current owner, having taken over Nonna’s from his dad back in the 1960s. Marco was known for running one of the most popular restaurants around. Movie-star handsome, with dark, chiseled features, he wore black trousers, a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up utilitarian-style, and an ever-present dishtowel slung over his shoulder for mopping up spills. He and Frank shook hands, and Marco gave Linda a big hug. Since she had begun concentrating on her education, everyone missed seeing her as much. “Table for two coming right up,” he said.

Marco grabbed a couple of menus and led them to a table right near the window so they could people watch on The Commons. A portion of State Street that had been turned into a pedestrian mall in nineteen seventy-four, it boasted a glut of restaurants, bars, bookstores, and other retail shops that sold everything from new age crystals and tapestries to cookware and local T-shirts to head shop goods. Professors in blazers with briefcases, old hippies in tie dyes, little old ladies out visiting the market with wheeled carts, students in the latest fashions from Gap—it was a never-ending stream, and they had the best seat in the house.

Frank held out Linda’s black leather captain’s chair for her, and she sat down. An old Mario Lanza record played in the background, adding to the ambience. Marco brought them some ice water, and after a quick glance at their menus, they decided—gnocchi alla panna for Linda, and linguine alle vongole for Frank. Marco recommended a bottle of Barolo, but Frank surprised himself by ordering a Coke instead. Linda ordered a glass of the house red.

“I love this place,” she said, gazing out the window at the passersby. Outside, a mime in a Superman costume and cape punched imaginary bad guys. “Can you imagine what it must have been like in the nineteen twenties, watching them filming movies just down the street?”

He laughed. “Yeah, it kind of marches to its own beat, this town.”

“So tell me more about what you guys found. I’m curious.”

Frank unwrapped his napkin deliberately and set it on his lap, then took a drink of his water first. “We found her bones, along with a gold locket and buttonhook wrapped in what was left of an old blue blanket in a shallow grave.”

“Up near Buttermilk you said?”

“Yeah. Northeast of the falls, there’s a trail that winds through that wooded area. Not far from Pinnacle Rock. She was buried under a log right off of it.”

“A buttonhook. Now there’s something you don’t see people buried with every day. Any ideas there?”

“I was intrigued as well. According to Doc, it has blood on it. But the buttonhook wasn’t all bent up like it would have been if someone had stabbed her with it. And it doesn’t look like she was shot or stabbed with anything else. So we’re not sure what happened. We may never know that part. You have no idea how much her disappearance destroyed the Morgans, Linda. My poor mom…she always had to clean up Grandpa’s messes after Grandma died. She had to search for the booze that he hid all over the house.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure why she was able to tell us about living with my alcoholic grandfather but she won’t tell us about her sister. It’s so frustrating!”

Linda patted his hand as he continued. “I’d like to know everything that happened so I can try to fix my messed-up family. What was it Dostoyevsky said? Happy families are all the same? The screwed up ones are all screwed up in different ways?”

“Tolstoy. But yeah, something like that.”

“I knew it was a Russian. I’ll do whatever I can to solve this case,” he continued. “My mother has lived with something her whole life. It’s some secret that she refuses to let go of, and I’m hoping I can give her some closure, some kind of peace before she dies. I may have six months; I may have less.”

“Well, you can count on me. Whatever you need, just ask.”

“Thanks. We both know it’s going to be a challenge. Chances are, whoever did this to her is long dead too. But it would be nice to find out what happened to Libbie and at least put the case to bed. For my mother, for your book, for all of us.”

She smiled. “I don’t suppose there’s much of a handbook when you’re solving something this old, huh?”

Marco arrived with Linda’s wine and Frank’s Coke, setting them in front of the couple with a dramatic flourish. Then he retreated to the bar.

“I’m sure that someday in the not-too-distant future, there will be amazing tools for investigations like this. Advances are being made every year in the area of DNA research. Right now, we can analyze blood to find out what subtype it is. And that’s it. But someday, Linda, we’re going to be able to save spit and blood and we’re going to be able to identify criminals that way.”

“Wouldn’t that be amazing!” Linda took a sip of her wine, and they sized each other up. She raised her glass. “Here’s to solving those cold cases, pardner.”

They clinked glasses, and Frank had to admit he hadn’t noticed Linda that much when she managed the restaurant. He’d always found her pleasant enough. But he was seeing her in a new way. Her love of history, her interest in this case, and the fact that she had rebuilt a Karmann Ghia granted her new cache. She wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. But her tenderness about his mother’s illness evoked feelings he had pretty much told himself he’d killed for good.

“I haven’t seen you around for a while,” Frank noted. “You said you went back to college?”

“Yeah, I started graduate school up on the hill, and I am now about four credits shy of my Masters in English,” she said, the pride in her achievement making her even more attractive. “Frank, can you just imagine having that credit after my name and then getting this book published? It’s something I’ve been wanting for so long, and now I may get there at last. I even have a literary agent interested in my proposal.” Her face was already alight with happiness, and the wine was causing a becoming flush to creep over her cheeks.

“That’s fantastic,” Frank said, smiling. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Russ and Janet and I had some great conversations, and they convinced me that I should just bite the bullet and do it. Janet’s actually my academic advisor, in addition to being one of my good friends. That’s why I was there today. I always got As in school and felt like I was selling myself short, I guess. I was running the café and liked it, but I needed something new.”

“That place has been there a long time, hasn’t it?”

“It’s been there forever. And the plumbing is proof!” she laughed. “This lady started it back around 1909—they called it Birdie’s back then. Her picture’s on the wall in the dining room. With all that history behind the place, I just felt this responsibility to keep it going. It’s hard to describe. But Samantha, my sister, is doing just fine running it. She’s hired some great staff, and it’s been a good learning experience for her.”

They finished their pasta and then split a tiramisu. He picked up the check and then drove Linda back to her car, still parked at Russ’s.

“Thanks for a great time,” she said, handing him her number. “Let me know if you need more help.”

“That’d be great.” He leaned down for a chaste, somewhat awkward peck on the cheek, which Linda returned. Linda had been fun. Serious, but cute at the same time. He wasn’t sure which he might enjoy more—solving the mystery of Libbie, or getting to know Linda.