by Jessa Archer
“Sam Winters might know more than I do,” she said as she handed me back the phone. “He prob’ly had addresses for most of the ones who quit. Too bad you didn’t get your idea for the story before Edith died, because she knew more about that place than anyone. Although…you might have had a hard time getting her to talk about it.” She lowered her voice. “Things didn’t end well.”
Patsy grabbed my sandwich from the window and set it in front of me.
I was about to follow up on Teresa’s comment, but Jesse snorted again. “Coulda asked her about Clarence’s daddy, too. Wonder if she ever told him the truth?”
Patsy snapped a dishrag at Jesse. “Hush, you old gossip. You weren’t even alive then. What makes you think you know anything?”
“Know more than you do,” Jesse mumbled.
“Well, you don’t know more than I do,” Teresa said. “And I say you’re wrong. I remember when Edie and her husband moved here. Clarence was already two years old before she ever met Sam Winters. And no matter how much that man bragged around town, I don’t think she ever gave him the time of day.”
“She worked for him all those years,” the man next to Jesse said. “Must have talked to him sometime.” It was one of the only times I’d ever heard the guy speak, aside from the occasional uh-huh or I hear ya in response to some comment or question from Jesse.
“You know what I mean,” Teresa said. “Sam Winters made time with any girl who would let him, but most of us were too smart for that. His wife came down to that factory at least once a week. All she had to do was snap her fingers, and there went your job.”
Jesse was about to chime in again, but I cut him off. “But Sam was interested in Edith, wasn’t he?” I zoomed in on the section where he was looking down at her on the bleacher below.
“Well, of course,” Teresa said. “Sam was interested in anything in a skirt, especially a pretty thing like Edie. That’s one reason his wife—what was her name? I can’t recall. Anyway, I think that’s one reason she knew Edith wasn’t having any of Sam’s nonsense. If Edie had given in, Sam would have lost interest and moved on to the next girl. He always did.”
When she’d identified all of the girls she could remember, I asked about the handful of men in the photo. She only recognized Sam, Marv, and one other guy she said died years ago. Then I pointed to the guy standing at the edge of the bleachers.
“Who is this? He looks a lot younger than the others.”
She gave me a little smile. “His name was Carlos. Sam hired him on to do some janitorial stuff. I don’t recall ever hearing a last name. Edith would have been the one to ask about him, too. He was her boarder for a while. I think maybe she pulled a few strings to get him that job because Sam…well, he never much cared for foreigners, and Carlos wasn’t from around here. Obviously. Nice boy, though. I never believed what Sam said about him.”
“What exactly did Sam say?”
“Said he was a thief. They had a big fight about it maybe a week after that sock hop. I didn’t see the fight, but one of the girls who was working overtime that week did. Next day, Sam Winters had this cut on his cheek, and my friend, Della Shaw, said Carlos must have punched Sam a good one, because she saw little specks of blood under the warping machine.”
“Warping machine?” I asked.
“Yeah. Big old thing that pulled yarn from one end to the other. Google it when you get home. I bet you’ll find pictures.”
I took a bite of my sandwich to hide the fact that I was fighting off laughter. It was kind of weird having an octogenarian telling me to google something. “Did your friend report it?”
“Sure did. Reported it to the front office as soon as we went on break. That was the first and only time I ever remember Sam Winters shutting the line down early. Closed the door right in our faces. And that was the last we saw of Carlos.”
Suddenly the sandwich didn’t seem very appetizing. “What do you think happened to him?”
“I think Sam Winters ran him out of town. He had to have been embarrassed that the boy beat him up so bad—I don’t think the kid was even eighteen. Probably wasn’t here legal, either, so Sam might have threatened to call the cops on him.” She giggled, and then frowned at my reaction. “I’m not laughing about that poor boy. It was awful that he got sacked, although I guess that’s what usually happens when you punch your boss. I was just remembering how depressed the girls on the line were for the next few weeks. None of them would actually have dated Carlos—that just wasn’t done back then—but they all gave him the eye when he walked past, and I’m guessing a whole lot of them had fantasies where he was their dashing Latin lover. Not me,” she added primly. “I was already dating Patsy’s dad. In fact, that’s my Patrick dancing the jitterbug with me in the photograph. We practiced for weeks because I knew Edith was gonna be hard to beat. I could dance circles around Edie Morton, but she had a better partner. Poor Patrick had to work at it. We won, though. Ten whole dollars, and that was back when ten bucks wasn’t chicken scratch.”
I looked up at the poster-sized photograph on the right. You could just barely see the guy in the picture with her. The photographer, almost certainly Jim Dealey, had focused his camera on the girls in both of the two dance shots, leaving their partners shrouded in shadow. Edith’s dance partner wasn’t even fully in the shot—just one foot and the hand that was holding hers as she spun out.
“So, who was dancing with Edith?”
She looked a little surprised, and then stared up at the poster on the back wall. “Well, if that don’t beat all. Ain’t it funny how your memory fills in the blanks? But you really can’t see him in that shot, I guess, unless you already know. Edie’s partner was Carlos.”
“And you’re sure this was just before the fight you mentioned?”
Teresa nodded emphatically, bobbing her silver curls up and down. “The big star they always put up at Christmas was on top of the factory roof. I don’t remember the exact day, though. It’s been more than fifty years. Hold on, Shelly. I’m coming,” she said to the woman approaching the cash register.
It had actually been well over sixty years, but I didn’t argue the point.
“And you’re sure he left town?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” she said, giving me a confused look. “Thistlewood’s a small town. If Carlos hadn’t left, someone would have seen him.”
Not necessarily, I thought.
✰ Chapter Twenty ✰
Wren walked into the diner just as I was finishing up my lunch. We moved to our usual table at the back, and I checked my messages. Still nothing.
“You’re worried about Cassie?” Wren asked.
I nodded. That was definitely the thing troubling me most, although my suspicions about the whereabouts of a young man who might not actually have left Thistlewood in 1955 were gnawing away at my brain as well.
“Cassie’s car is in the lot,” I said. “She was supposed to come by the Star and help me go through the archives. It’s been close to four hours, Wren.”
“The weather’s really nice, you know. They could have gone on a walk or a drive up in the mountains.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But Cassie said the whole reason they decided to have breakfast instead of coffee or lunch was because Nick was going out of town this afternoon.”
Wren shrugged, but there was a tiny frown of worry on her face, too. “Maybe they hit it off. You know what it’s like. Some first dates, you can’t get home fast enough. Others, the time simply flies.”
“I’ve had exactly one date in the past three decades,” I said. “You’re more the expert on that front that I am.”
Wren was married for six months when she was in her twenties, and frequently jokes that it was just long enough for her to learn not to repeat the mistake. She’s had some very interesting romances, however.
Patsy dropped off Wren’s pie with two forks, because she knows us. “You two are thick as thieves over here,” she said, chuckling as she topped off my coffee.
I thanked her, then lowered my voice to a whisper as she walked away. “If it wasn’t for seeing that guy in the woods yesterday, I wouldn’t be so worried.”
“Do you still think it might have been Clarence?” Wren asked.
“I did…until a few minutes ago. He had motive, and most likely opportunity as well. And Cassie said he and Blevins both saw her coming out of the bedroom. If he thinks she has that diary…”
“We should just tell Clarence the truth,” Wren said. “We didn’t steal anything, and we didn’t break in, technically speaking, because I had a key. The most we did was dent a few shingles on his roof, but nobody knows about that.”
“True.” I decided not to mention Ed’s comment about that until I had a chance to find out exactly where he’d gotten the information. “But again, I’m less convinced now. Remember how you said it might be a treasure being buried back there? Well, now I’m thinking maybe it’s not a treasure.”
Her eyes widened as I filled in the details I’d learned over the past few hours. She glanced up at the photograph hanging over our booth. “Do you think Sam Winters killed him?”
“I don’t know. But I definitely think we have enough that it might be time to—”
“Incoming,” Wren said, glancing pointedly at the diner’s chrome ceiling. In the reflection, I saw Clarence Morton coming through the door. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual. Half the town walked through that door on any given day. But Clarence was making a beeline for our table, and the man did not look happy.
He slapped his hands down on the table in front of me.
“Hello, Clarence,” Wren said in her most comforting voice. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’d be doing a lot better if someone would stay out of my business,” he said, clearly directing his words at me.
He just lost his mother, I reminded myself. Cut him some slack. I still didn’t particularly care for his attitude, however, or for the fact that he was causing a scene in public. There were only about a dozen people in the restaurant, aside from me and Wren, but I could feel their eyes homing in on our booth like miniature laser beams.
“You need to leave Elaine alone,” he said. “She hasn’t done anything.”
Wren gave me a nervous look. I was pretty sure that this outburst was connected to the note I’d left on Elaine’s windshield last night, but Wren didn’t know about that. I crossed my fingers that she didn’t accidentally blurt out something about our sneaking into his house.
“Clarence,” I started, “sit down, please. People are watching.”
He didn’t look around, and he didn’t lower his voice. “I don’t care. Let them look. Let them talk. You can’t stop people from talking. It’s just what they do. I’ve spent my whole life paying way too much attention to what the people in this town think. Worrying about what they might say. That’s all my mother could think of…and it wrecked her life and wasted mine. Elaine and I love each other. We’re going to spend the years we have left together, and anyone who doesn’t like it can go suck an egg.”
Patsy, who was standing behind the counter, began to clap. Most of the people in the diner followed suit, and Jesse let out a long, loud whistle. I was tempted to join them, but there was still a part of me that wondered whether this was an act on Clarence’s part. Judging from his reaction to the applause, however, my suspicions were off base. He stared at the table for a moment, then looked around the diner, clearly stunned by their support. There was one couple at a booth near the front who looked annoyed, but they may just have been irritated at the noise. Or maybe they were friends of Elaine’s ex-husband.
“Clarence,” I said softly. “Elaine sought me out. She stopped by the Star the other day. And she was really upset. I…I got the sense that she was worried about you. Or at least, worried about someone. She wasn’t very specific.”
It was true. I had gotten the sense that she was worried about him. But it had been from listening to their conversation last night, hiding with Wren in that dark bedroom, not from anything she’d told me when she was at the office.
“Elaine was just upset after finding my mother,” he said in a defensive tone. “And yeah, I’ve been on edge about it, too. I’m not going to pretend she was easy to live with, and she was as selfish as the day is long. It only got worse once she started seeing things earlier this year. Plus, she was rotten to Elaine. But she was still my mom, you know? It was tough losing her like that.”
I exchanged a glance with Wren. He seemed sincere to me, and I could tell that she thought the same. But I was still wondering what had the guy so worried. It could partly be concern that Edith had written him out of her will, but that didn’t explain his comments about digging up the backyard. I was trying to think of a way to broach that subject when my phone buzzed.
Cassie’s name and picture popped up on the screen.
“Sweetie, where are you?” I said, flagging Patsy for my check. “I waited for you at—”
“Mom?” She was trying to keep her tone light, but I could tell that she was scared.
“Where are you?” I repeated. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m back at the house. Do you know what happened to that little black book I was reading?”
My head was spinning. She’d been reading Ed’s book, but the cover was dark green, not black.
“The one that I had in my purse?” she added. “Did I leave it in your car? Or maybe at your office?”
Oh. She means the diary.
“It’s in the backseat. I’ll head home now.”
The voice that spoke next wasn’t Cassie’s.
“That’s very good, Ms. Townsend. I’ll trade you Edith’s diary for your daughter. Make sure you’re alone, and don’t mention this to anyone. Are we clear?”
Wren and Clarence were both staring at me, open-mouthed. I was pretty sure both of them had picked up on most of the conversation.
“We’re clear,” I hissed. “If you hurt her…”
“My grandson is a bit on the…impetuous side, but if you follow my directions, perhaps we can finish up this bit of business without anyone getting hurt.” And then Sam Winters ended the call.
I threw a ten on the table and hurried to the door. Wren and Clarence followed behind me. Patting my pockets, I realized the keys to my Jeep were in the office.
“Why does Sam Winters think your daughter has my mother’s diary?” Clarence asked as we crossed Main Street.
“Because she did have it, until last night, when I put it back in your mother’s room. There’s a body buried in your backyard. A guy named Carlos, who I’m pretty sure Sam Winters killed in 1955. He was your mom’s—”
“Boarder,” Clarence said, huffing as he tried to keep pace with me on the sidewalk. “I remember him. He lived over the garage. Played the guitar.”
I had actually been about to say boyfriend, not boarder. But since I only suspected the first part and the second was clearly true, I didn’t argue.
“Did your daughter take all of them?” Clarence asked.
“All of what?” Wren asked.
“The diaries. There were like a dozen of them. I saw them in her room a few months back when she had the flu, but when we searched her room they were gone.”
“Just the one.” I slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open. “Cassie saw it under the nightstand when we were there. She knew I didn’t think your mother’s death was an accident, so she sort of borrowed it. And I really hate to ask this, but since it’s the diary that Sam Winters wants…”
He stood there, staring blankly for a moment, and then realized what I was asking. “Oh. Sure, sure. Under the nightstand, you said?”
“Yes. Thank you. And again, I’m really—”
“We can deal with apologies and explanations later,” Clarence said, heading for the door.
Wren gave me a quick hug. “Get the car and meet us in front of Edith’s house. She’s going to be okay, Ruth.”
Fighting back tears, I n
odded. “I know.”
“Who’s going to be okay?” Ed asked from the doorway.
My face fell, and then so did his.
“You don’t exactly look happy to see me.”
✰ Chapter Twenty-One ✰
Ed and Wren stood on the sidewalk in front of Memory Grove, wearing almost identical expressions. Worried, angry, frustrated. I would’ve loved nothing more than to have both of them in the Jeep with me, but I wasn’t taking the risk.
“Would you at least take a pistol?” Ed asked. “I have mine in the truck.”
“I’ve never even touched a gun. So that seems like a bad idea. I’m going to tell him that you’re supposed to be stopping by. Any minute. Maybe they’ll just take the diary and go.”
Clarence came running out of Edith’s house, followed by Elaine. He handed me the diary. Elaine leaned through the window and clutched my arm.
“He killed Edith, didn’t he? That Nick Winters guy?”
“Probably,” I told her. “Either him or Sam, and I can’t see Sam pushing anyone without falling himself.”
“Nick sent a letter the day after the funeral. Said Edith stole money from his grandfather when she was his office manager. About twenty thousand dollars—”
“Elaine, I have to go.”
She nodded and stepped back.
“Be careful,” Wren said.
Ed leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Call me just before you get there. Leave the call connected. There’s a recording app on my phone.”
“Got it. Guess I shouldn’t confess to any crimes while on the phone with you,” I said with a wry smile.
“Hey, once a cop, always a cop. Oh, and when this is over, we will be rectifying that whole I’ve-never-used-a-gun thing.”
No, we won’t, I thought, but I just gave him a smile and told him I’d see him soon. We could have the gun discussion after Cassie was safe.
Three excruciatingly long minutes later, I called Ed.
“Okay, I’m pulling in.”
