Sand City Murders (20 page)

“What do you say we go out for a drink?” she whispered.

“What?”

“To celebrate.” Jo gave me a devilish smile and flashed her dark eyes.

This was different. Had she broken up with her boyfriend? Was it just an innocent offer? I was about to find out.

chapter 15

founding files

Nothing was going to ruin my spring. Not work, not Chamblis and his lawyer, not Inspector Tractus Fynn, not even murder. Of course as usual, I feared spring would not be gradual enough, but come upon me too suddenly. This year I was determined to see the forsythias flame to riotous yellow— not that I really knew a daffodil from a daisy. But I loved the days when the ground would get all moist and spongy, bouncing back from the cold winter freeze. I wanted to see the willows stir to life, the clover turn lush and spread across the lawns alongside the intruding yellow dandelions. My precious spring, my favorite season. I wasn’t going to let this just slide by, not like in years past. I was going to savor every moment, watch every tender green thing sprout, scrutinize the grass as it got greener and thicker. I’d watch the trees ease back to life, the giant old oaks, the tops of their branches frost to yellowish green. And I would be outside always, not hunkered down inside. Enough of that.

Ah, the sudden warm days, the still empty beaches, I would take full advantage… And every shade of green imaginable, from pale to neon, from dark to electric, would be a feast for my soul. Of course, you never knew what the day would bring— blustery, sunny, a drawn out storm or a squall— not like other places I’ve lived: everyday the same, relentlessly the same, hot and sunny, or gray and overcast. I guess that’s exactly why I moved away from the West Coast, twice, once from SoCal and once from Seattle.

In fits and starts, things began to change. A couple of milder days here and there, a nice sunny morning, a warm afternoon. I started to see flowers low to the ground, growing against the odds, yellow and purple mainly, but spring colors nonetheless. People were out and about again, walking the streets of the Village, emerging from their cloistered domains, sweeping the cobblestones. I could hear hammering and chop saws, skateboards and barking dogs, even the occasional motorcycle that growled through town, engines ablaze. The air was also thick with the sound of leaf blowers when convoys of landscaper trucks descended, especially up at Baxter Estates and Cedar Bluffs. Ladybugs and gnats, rakes and ladders, clamorous birds, warm sun with chilly air… This was the season that makes it all worth it, or, makes making it through the hard winter, all worth it. This was Sand City at its very best. Spring was here, finally. What clinched it was seeing a red convertible driving up along Shore Road. It whizzed by; I saw scarves trailing in the wind, the passengers all smiling.

Now, shops were open on the weekends. Even a few tourists were appearing, a welcome sight this early in the season. Half-year residents were showing up too, opening their houses for the summer. Sand City was starting to buzz again. It felt good.

There was the usual stuff at work. The ongoing struggle to fill the paper with news, minor problems, and some bouncing from crisis to crisis. First for Melissa Miller, when her inserts didn’t make the deadline. She was devastated. They were the stupid little extra advertisements on card stock that were supposed to be stuffed into the paper and fall out when you opened it. Someone got the weeks wrong and they never made it in. Extra postage, extra printing and handling fees… it was a debacle for her. She had a lot of backpedalling to do, but most of the advertisers could care less, especially since the weather had been so crappy that week. And I’d never seen her flustered before; the first chink in her armor of perfection. I suspected she and hubby were running some kind of side deal on this but never said anything. I asked Eleanor about Melissa’s husband:

“What does he do anyway?”

“What does he do?” Eleanor repeated my question with an odd inflection and stared over the top of her glasses. “Actually, Patrick, I have no idea… all I do know is that he travels quite often.”

“Travels where?”

“God knows, but you must have noticed how many times Mel is driving to Fairhaven to pick him up…”

“From where?”

“The airport, I suppose.” She glanced at me over her glasses again.

“Isn’t he in marketing or PR, or something?”

Eleanor just shrugged.

 Last Thursday, Amy was definitely different during our paste-up session. She found the slightest excuse to sidle close and lean against me. Her fingernails had gone from black to pink, and she even offered to show me one of her tattoos. I politely declined, but this was different. That’s not all either. Something messed up with the pages. I had to call Pagor’s cell phone on a Thursday night to swap out one of his ads. I’d never seen him livid, nor would I this time, but it seemed like fumes of anger could be transmitted over the phone. I’m pretty sure he was in the middle of some civic function. I could hear lots of noise leaking through his cell. People talking and toasting, the clinking of glasses and dinnerware. After a long conversation, if that’s the right word, Pagor relented in the end, however reluctantly and however loudly.

And there was the call from the printing plant, maybe not so unusual for a Thursday. My phone rang in the middle of the night. I’m even surprised I heard it, being so asleep.

“Hello?”

“Jardel?”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Eric, from the plant…”

“Who?”

“Fairhaven Press.”

“Oh. What time is it?”

“Three in the morning.”

“What’s up?”

“One of your PDFs went bad. Crashed our machine like six times.”

“And?”

“We can’t make the plate, so we can’t finish the run.”

“Crap… What page?”

“Back page, color page, thirty two.”

“Hang on a second, let me see.” I grabbed my laptop and searched for the file. It seemed to take forever to load. I ran a diagnostic… The color wasn’t converted to CMYK. It was still a spot color, and the trapping values are bad. Trapping? Is there really any trapping on this page? That was a bit beyond my expertise. I clicked the default button. “Eric, you there?”

“Still here.”

“Okay, I think I found the problem. I’m running the preflight again and it looks okay now. Can I reship the page to you?”

“That’d be great. Stick it in the drop box.”

“Right.” I tried, but my password didn’t take. “What’s the password again? Mine’s not working tonight.”

“Who’s the user?”

“I am, but that doesn’t matter. I just need access.”

“Try user Eleanor, log in with woods one two three.”

“Got it… Okay, that’s on its way. Call me if there’s another problem.”

“Thanks, Jardel.”

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, but it was the first time since Amy started working. Did she actually make a mistake? Sometimes I thought the guys at the press liked to call in the middle of the night just to torture me. They were wide awake, so why not wake me up too. I fell back asleep, but dreamed fitfully about Pantone colors and Mr Chamblis.

In my dream, Chamblis was buying up Sand City like it was a monopoly board, only he was using my map. He kept turning everything that awful green color. He went from place to place, the old asylum, the quarry, even the lighthouse was his. There was nothing I could do to prevent this. I tried calling him by different names as my anger built: Charles, Charlie, Chuck, Chucky-boy… No matter what I said he was unstoppable. The other odd bit about the dream was that I couldn’t see his face properly. Every time I looked at him, he seemed to be slightly different. Normally he had short dark hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and a beard. In my dream he seemed a lot older. His hair was gray and he had sharply angled sideburns.

Not far from the dream, closer to reality, were my actual run-ins with Chamblis. Far easier to remember, I recalled the very first time I met him. He was about my age and had made big money playing the markets in the nineties. He spent most of that developing Baxter Estates which was, by and large, pretty successful. Some years ago, he tried to bully his way onto the front page. I happened to be alone in the office when he walked in, polo shirt and sports coat, khaki slacks, panama hat and shades. I looked over his handout. “Mr Chamblis, I’m sorry, this is not a story, this is a press release. You can submit it to Miriam or Eleanor. I’m sure the
Chronicle
will be happy to print it.”

“No, no, this has to be a story, front page stuff.”

“If it is a story, you won’t mind if I ask a couple of questions?”

“No questions… just what it says there. That’s the story.”

“What’s this about?”

“I’m organizing a charity event, that’s news.”

“What kind of charity?”

“We’re raising funds for next year’s regatta.”

“Why is that a charity?”

“It’s a section five-o-three C, a recognized IRS nonprofit organization.”

“So what are the funds used for?”

“The annual regatta.”

“And who can enter this race?”

“Anybody who’s a yacht club member.”

“I see… and who’s invited to this Charity Ball— five hundred dollars a plate, is it?”

“Anybody who’s a yacht club member… and guest.”

“Not the general public?”

“I can get you inside, if that’s what you want.”

“Not really. I don’t see how this is a story if most of Sand City isn’t invited.”

“Why not?”

I had no response to that, and I’m pretty sure it was the last time we had a face to face chat. That little encounter almost cost me my job. Chamblis pulled all his advertising for three months. I think Melissa finally smoothed things over, or maybe Jo-Anne.

***

I slept in the next day, not so late so as to hear the noon whistle blow, but near enough. Luckily, it was raining so I wasn’t missing much in terms of spring. It was a good day for research. Even though the
Chronicle
records had gone MIA, there should be something on Lorraine Luis somewhere, in other papers, or in Fairhaven at the county records office. If I didn’t know better, I’d say our morgue had been selectively looted. Other files seemed to be missing as well. I checked for the class of 1974, presumably the year Lorraine would have graduated. These papers were nowhere to be found.

I gave Eleanor a call: “Did we ever have competition?”

Aside from the
Times
?” Eleanor replied with an ironic cackle. She was of course referring to the Fairhaven
Times
, the daily paper out of that city which had extended its reach into our town.

“I mean the past… the distant past.”

“Of course we did... there was the
Gazette
, the
Bulletin
, the Fairhaven
Patriot
, and of course the
Sentinel
. They all went defunct years ago.”

“How many years ago?”

“Let me think. The
Patriot
went defunct in the fifties... The
Gazette
closed down in the seventies. The
Bulletin
too, a couple of years later.”

“How about the
Sentinel
?”

“Way before I was born.”

“When did they start?”

“Hmm, even I’m not that old.” She laughed.

I tried to imagine what Eleanor must of been like in the mid-seventies… still a slip of a woman, but only in her forties. It was hard to conjure up in my mind.

“You can try Annabel over at the library. She might help you.”

I could practically walk there, just off Captain’s Way, on the corner of Peabody and Sherman, midway between Bayview and the Village proper. I drove though, this would be the first of several stops. I pulled up to the immaculately white building, complete with a matching picket fence. At some point in time the library may have actually been a church. Certainly there were still stained glass windows. No cars in the lot, and no one inside except for Annabel, head librarian.

“Well, Mr Jardel… to what do we owe the honor? You’re not here for the updated calendar, I presume,” Annabel greeted me from behind the large counter. She was close to eighty with sharp features and seemed almost as petite as Eleanor. Her hair was mouse-gray and came to the top of her shoulders with a kind of a flip. Today she wore a white dress speckled with small purple flowers.

“Mrs Lovely, good morning… how are you?”

“Very well, thank you. Have you come to pay your library fines?”

“I didn’t know I had any.”

Mrs Lovely, probably a contemporary of Eleanor, fingered through a small card file with great ease. “Eleven dollars and sixteen cents.”

“Really? I don’t even remember borrowing any books.”

“Well, I see you enjoy the classics,” she said dryly. “You checked out
Dantes Inferno
and
A Christmas Carol
. Mr Dickens is long overdue.”

Oddly, I had no memory of this. “Um, I’d like to search the records of our competitors, from years gone by. Old issues of the
Gazette
and the
Bulletin
, and the
Patriot,
if you have them.”

“Indeed. You are the second person to ask in as many weeks. I’m afraid my answer is the same.”

“And that is?”

Mrs Lovely glanced across the room to the corner, where the microfiche reader sat dormant. It looked like a computer from a bygone era or a bad sci-fi flick, a primitive bulky thing with a hood and a vertical screen. “Our equipment is not functioning.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“The light no longer burns brilliant, nor shall it, until we get a grant for repairs.”

“A grant?”

“Sadly, we did not include it on this year’s budget.”

“I’d be happy to make a contribution.”

“Well, that’s most generous of you.” Mrs Lovely was not without a sense of humor, however dry. “If you were to pay all your outstanding library fines, we could probably replace the bulb.”

I counted out eleven dollars and change. “What sort of grant would be necessary?”

“Forty-three dollars plus shipping.”

“Oh.” I took out two more twenties and placed them on her table. Would this help?”