Morton drew a quick breath and crouched down in front of the light grey granite stone. Below the word Jacklin was carved his grandfather’s name. 1928 Roscoe J. 1976.
‘There’s space for another name to be added,’ Juliette noted.
Morton nodded his agreement. Did that mean that his grandmother was still alive?
Then he spotted something at the foot of the grave. He picked it up and examined it. A shrivelled up white rose. Someone still visited the grave, he reasoned. Just not very often, by the looks of it. ‘What do you think? Two weeks old? Three?’
‘Somewhere around there, yes. It could have been put there by your Aunt Alice,’ Juliette suggested, intuiting his thoughts.
‘Could be, but it’s a bit of a trek down from Provincetown,’ Morton pondered. He wanted to allow at least for the slim possibility that the rose might have been placed here by his father.
‘Let me take a photo of you beside the grave,’ Juliette suggested.
Morton manoeuvred himself behind the grave and crouched down. Never really certain of the etiquette for cemetery photo shoots, Morton offered a vague half-smile, then took the camera from Juliette and took some of his own photos to add to his growing file on his paternal family tree.
‘Bye, Grandad or Grandpa or whatever I might have called you,’ he said, touching the top of the warm granite before taking Juliette’s hand and heading back to the car.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ Morton asked, as they stepped from the Green Lotus Café on Hyannis Main Street.
Seemingly from thin air, Juliette produced her credit card. ‘All the while I have this and all of these—’ then she gestured to the long line of shops on either side of the wide road ‘—then I’m happy. You take as long as you need.’ She pecked him on the lips, twirled around and began down the street.
‘I’ll phone you when I’m done,’ Morton called after her.
She waved her credit card and continued to walk.
Morton grinned as he tracked her for half a block, then turned in beside the bustling JFK Museum. At the end of a long path that bisected a perfect lawn was an official-looking brick building. The sign beside the entrance read Barnstable Town Hall, 367 Main Street. He climbed the steps and, once inside, paused, searching for an indication of where to go. A piece of paper stuck to the wall had a big red arrow under the words Town Clerk’s Office. Dog licenses. Marriage licenses. Birth certificates. Death certificates. Business certificates. Voter registration. And numerous other things.
Just the place.
He strode down the corridor, in through a grey door and found himself in an open-plan office.
‘What can I get you?’ a lady yapped from her desk nearby. She had the jet-black hair and olive skin of someone freshly delivered from the Mediterranean.
‘Hi, I’m looking for information on a death in Hyannis Port in 1976.’
The woman nodded. ‘I’ll be right back.’ The woman ambled off through a door at the rear of the room.
Morton took his pen and notepad from his bag and waited patiently. Moments later, she shuffled back towards him and dropped a black leather-bound book on the counter between them. ‘Here you go,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’ Morton delved eagerly into the ledger. He swiftly flicked through several pages until he reached December, then he began carefully running his finger down the surnames until he found his grandfather.
Name: Roscoe Joseph Jacklin
Sex: Male
Colour: White
Condition: Married
Age: 48 years, 8 months, 21 days
Disease or cause of death: Accidental death resulting from extensive burns
Residence: Hyannis Port
Place of burial: Old Neck
Occupation: Businessman
Place of birth: Boston
Name and birthplace of father: George P. Jacklin, Boston
Name and birthplace of mother: Lucy Bradford, Boston
He quickly scribbled the new information onto his notepad. He now knew the names of his great-grandparents. ‘Excuse me,’ he called over to the clerk.
‘Yes.’
‘I found who I was looking for—is there any further information—like a death certificate that I can get from this?’
‘Sure.’ She stood up, took a piece of paper from under the desk and passed it across the counter. ‘Fill this in, and the certificate’s all yours for ten dollars,’ she said with a wink.
Morton hurriedly completed the form and handed it back with a ten-dollar bill.
‘I’ll be right back.’
And in the time that it took for Morton to begin to attach imagined lives to the names of his great-grandparents, she was back. She handed him an A4 sheet of paper with the embossed seal of Barnstable Town on the bottom. He thanked her and stepped to the side of the room to read its contents. The certificate confirmed everything that the index had just told him, including his grandfather’s parents’ names, but with some additional information: the name of the funeral home and funeral director was stated, as was the fact that he had been a veteran of the Korean conflict. The informant of the death had been his wife, Velda Jacklin, and she had confirmed that his place of birth had been Boston.
Morton carefully folded the certificate into his bag and made his way out of the Town Hall. He found an empty bench in the welcome shade of a large maple tree. Pulling open his laptop, he ran a Google search for Grant Funeral Home. Thankfully, they were still in business. He emailed them a brief summary of what he was looking for and clicked send.
Next, he opened the 1930 Federal Census and ran a search for his great-grandfather, George P. Jacklin and his wife, Lucy. One result. In San Francisco, California. Three thousand miles from Boston. He opened the page and instantly saw why his grandfather had not shown up in previous searches: he was listed as Joseph Jacklin—not Roscoe. There were two other children in the house: John and David Jacklin.
Morton considered what he had just discovered. His grandmother, Velda had evidently believed that her husband had been born in Boston, Massachusetts, yet clearly he had not been. Why would his grandfather tell his wife that he had been born on the other side of the country? Morton wondered. Did this have anything to do with his father’s disappearance?
He needed to see if there were more records in California pertaining to his grandfather. Navigating through the Ancestry website, he typed in Joseph Jacklin’s name, along with those of his parents. One suggested record matched the search criteria: a marriage on the 4th March 1949 in San Francisco, between Joseph Jacklin and Audrey Fuller.
Morton studied the entry for some time. Four years after this marriage, Joseph—under the name Roscoe—had married Velda Henderson in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, stating himself to be a bachelor. The implication was clear; that Velda had no knowledge of her husband’s birth and marriage three thousand miles away in California.
As he had done several times in the past few months, Morton allowed his mind to ramble back to an imagined scene of his grandparents’ wedding on Cape Cod. Only this time, thanks to the newspaper report of the fire, his grandfather’s face had sharpened into focus. His grandmother, Velda, was still a blur, yet still Morton felt a deep sympathy for her marrying a man with a clearly secretive past.
Morton wanted to know more about that life, becoming more convinced that it could have a bearing on his father’s disappearance.
Opening up the 1940 Federal Census, he searched again for his grandfather—this time under the name Joseph with parents George and Lucy. He found them easily. They were living in a house on Russian Hill, San Francisco. Before he could read the finer detail about his family, he was distracted by a familiar name in the neighbouring house. Living next door to his twelve-year-old grandfather was his eleven-year-old grandmother, Velda Henderson, with her sister and widowed mother.
Morton stared at the screen as the fictional scenes that he had created once again collided with hard genealogical facts. His grandmother had to have kno
wn her husband’s place of birth and probably also, therefore, of his previous marriage.
‘What were you both running from?’ Morton murmured.
Chapter Four
4th March 1949, Cow Hollow, San Francisco, California, USA
Velda Henderson was shaking. She hadn’t noticed it until she looked at herself in her full-length bedroom mirror. Her hands were quivering as if she had some peculiar illness. She clasped them together and steadied them on her stomach. She needed to calm down before she left the house, but time was running out—she literally had one hour until it was all too late. Her heart, though, told her that it already was, but still the demons inside her mind persisted.
Closing her eyes, she pictured calmness as a physical entity; she imagined a viscous liquid akin to blood slowly seeping through the blackness of her body. She dragged the breath in and out of her lungs, as though it were a great effort.
When she opened her eyes minutes later she was composed. The shaking had stopped. She smiled, took a step back and regarded herself in the mirror. Perfect. She was wearing a brand-new dress in the ‘New Look’ style—padded hips, rounded shoulders and a wasp waist. It was white with a blue and red swirling pattern that would have been completely unimaginable just four years ago what with the depravations of war. To complete the look, she wore ostrich platform shoes that gave perfect definition to her legs. Quite what her mother would have made of such an outfit was anyone’s guess.
With an extravagant twirl, she opened her bedroom door and descended the staircase to the large entrance hall below. Her sister and some of their mutual friends were scattered around the house, getting themselves ready for the wedding in just under forty-five minutes’ time.
It was now or never.
She quietly slipped from the house and walked a short distance up the steep incline, then stopped. She glanced up at the imposing house that was next door to hers; the tiny voice inside her that said that this wasn’t a good idea made one final plea.
With the thinnest veil of confidence, she climbed the stairs and rang the bell.
‘Velda! Come on in.’ It was David, Joseph’s younger brother and best man. He stepped to one side and she entered the house. ‘He’s up in his room—pacing the floor by the sounds of it.’
‘Thank you,’ Velda replied, taking some meaning from the fact that Joseph seemed anxious. She climbed the stairs and crossed the upstairs hallway to his bedroom. She paused for a moment then tapped lightly on the door.
‘Yes,’ Joseph called.
There was a hint of annoyance or displeasure, Velda noted, as she entered the room. ‘Hi, Joseph.’
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. ‘Velda—I wasn’t expecting to see you at the wedding today, much less appear in my room right before it.’ He stood up and faced her.
‘I had to see you,’ she said quietly. ‘I need to tell you something.’
Joseph’s head sank down in a sigh. ‘Velda, listen—’
‘She’s not really pregnant,’ Velda blurted.
Joseph looked up, startled. ‘How did you know she was pregnant?’ he whispered.
‘That doesn’t matter—what matters is that it’s the reason you’re marrying her, isn’t it?’
Joseph paused and glared at her before answering. ‘It’s much more complicated than that.’
‘Well, she’s not pregnant—so if that’s your only reason for marrying her…then you don’t need to now.’
‘How do you know she’s not pregnant?’
Velda shrugged. ‘She told her friend, Rachel.’
Joseph emitted a mock laugh. ‘And let me guess, Rachel told her sister, who told your sister, who told you—that it?’ Joseph demanded.
‘Why does it matter how I found out? What matters is she’s lying and she’s only saying it so that you marry her…and not…’ Velda’s words ran dry in her mouth.
‘You? Jesus, Velda. And what—you thought we’d get married instead? We’ve not been together for months now—long before Audrey even came along.’
‘Three weeks before Audrey came along—apparently.’
‘So what, you’re saying that I was dating her behind your back?’ he fumed. ‘Have you heard yourself, Velda? This is—what, thirty minutes before my wedding? I guess you want me to thank you? Well, thanks for the information.’
Hot, unstoppable tears began to moisten Velda’s eyes as she searched for something that she could say to prevent, change or soften the inevitable that was about to occur, but every scenario ended the same: the demise of their relationship.
The tears finally broke free at the same time as Joseph’s bedroom door was flung wide open.
‘Time to go, buddy,’ David said. ‘You okay, Velda?’
Velda managed to shake her head, then she made a run for the open door.
‘See you at the wedding,’ Joseph called after her.
She ran out of the house, but instead of turning back towards her own place, she headed out in the opposite direction. She hastily removed her shoes, discarding them where they fell, and ran. The demons were speaking more loudly now, pushing her past the point where her lungs ached for air and begged her to slow down.
She stopped and stared. The intricate thoughts that were woven through her mind suddenly began to separate, like a rope being unravelled into its individual strands. Just in front of her was the Golden Gate Bridge. The place where her mother had committed suicide four years previously.
Velda walked towards the bridge, her mind beginning to clear.
Chapter Five
11th January 1976, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, USA
The Chipman house—a ten-minute walk away on Ocean Avenue—was a place that Jack had seldom visited, despite knowing Laura and Michael for five years since they had moved to Hyannis Port from Alberta in Canada. The house was, by anyone’s standards, in need of some heavy-duty maintenance, which was why, he guessed, Laura and Michael rarely invited him over. Right now, Jack thought, as he approached the front door, it looked like the perfect location for a horror movie. He pressed the doorbell and waited, half expecting the door to creak slowly open and some fiendish butler to gawk out at him.
However, the door was noiselessly opened by Laura and Michael’s father. He stood with a wide grin, an otherwise imposing figure in dishevelled shabby clothes and with a monstrously long and tangled beard.
‘Mr Chipman,’ Jack began, ‘Laura said that you—’
‘Yes, yes, wait there,’ Mr Chipman cut in. He disappeared momentarily into the gloom of the house, returning moments later carrying a bunch of keys. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where are we going?’ Jack asked.
‘To find Hope,’ he replied, leading the way around the back of the house to his 1940s green Chrysler Saratoga. ‘Get in.’
Despite the bizarreness of the situation, Jack obeyed and sat beside Mr Chipman, not relishing the stench of fried food and engine oil that permeated the old car.
‘So, Laura tells me that you hate your job at the grocery store—that right?’ Mr Chipman quizzed, as he began their journey.
‘Yeah,’ Jack admitted. It was somehow okay for him to vocalise the truth to Laura and Michael, but, for some reason it felt like an admission of failure when he said it to someone of his parents’ generation. ‘It’s not going so well.’
Mr Chipman nodded, gently tugged on his beard and continued pushing the car northwards, through the snow-ploughed roads towards Barnstable. Quite where he could be taking him and what kind of employment he might be offered totally baffled Jack.
‘And what is it you’d like to do, exactly?’ Mr Chipman asked.
There was a question. Jack looked out of his window for a moment and thought. ‘History. People.’
Mr Chipman chuckled. ‘Good answer.’
Jack was confused; it had been a terrible answer. True, but terrible.
Mr Chipman changed the subject. He spoke about Laura and Michael. He spoke about t
he weather. He spoke about politics. Then he suddenly swung the car off-road and switched off the ignition.
Jack looked around them. They were parked beside a low stone wall, partially covered by giant drifts of snow. He craned his neck and spotted some graves. They were outside a cemetery.
Mr Chipman stared at Jack for a moment, then smiled, as if Jack should somehow be able to intuit the reason for their being here. ‘Follow me.’
Jack climbed from the car and spotted a simple white plaque on a wooden frame. Lothrop Hill Cemetery. It still made no sense.
Jack followed in Mr Chipman’s footsteps as they tramped through ankle-deep dunes of snow, through the open gate and into the cemetery. Rectangles of faded grey headstones broke through the blanket of otherwise unblemished white. A northern cardinal, stark red, was sitting atop one of the graves, watching as they slogged further into the grounds.
Mr Chipman suddenly came to a halt and crossed his arms.
Jack spotted the curious expression on his face that left him with the distinct impression that there was something that he clearly wasn’t getting. Jack searched around him, certain that he was missing something obvious. Then he spotted it. A grave with a familiar name. Hope Chipman. Finding Hope; now he understood. Sort of. Jack leant in closer to the grave and wiped a light dusting of snow from the ancient lettering. Here lyeth interred ye body of Mrs Hope Chipman ye wife of Elder John Chipman aged 54 years who changed this life for a better ye 8 of January 1683. ‘So she was born in 1629—one of the first settlers?’ Jack proposed. ‘And one of your ancestors?’
‘Precisely!’ Mr Chipman said, a note of triumphant pride in his voice. ‘My eight times great-grandmother. She was born in the Plymouth colony. Her father was John Howland—one of the Mayflower pilgrims.’
‘You’re lucky,’ Jack commented, ‘I don’t even know who my grandparents were...’
‘Well, I can always help you with that,’ Mr Chipman offered. ‘That is, if you’ll accept my offer of employment?’
The Missing Man Page 4
