And then there was the fact that several people had told me Mr. Jefferson had gone around town after Mr. LaSalle went missing, asking people if they’d seen him. Why would he do that if he’d already killed Mr. LaSalle? Why make a point of his absence? Why not just say that Mr. LaSalle had gone home to Canada?
And, finally, there was Sheriff Beale himself, the only person who’d heard Mr. Jefferson’s supposed confession, living out his days in a nursing home complete with a private nurse that he couldn’t afford. What, if anything, did that have to do with his testimony and with the missing police files? Were his bills being paid in return for perjured testimony or for making sure that key documents went missing?
Put all those facts together, and they raised yet another question—a big one: If Mr. Jefferson didn’t murder Mr. LaSalle, who did? And why?
Was Mr. LaSalle killed simply to frame Mr. Jefferson for murder? If so, the killer had to be someone who hated that Mr. Jefferson, a black man, wanted to be treated like everyone else. A lot of people had complained about that. Mr. Selig had all but foamed at the mouth.
Or had someone killed Mr. LaSalle because they didn’t like that he was friends with Mr. Jefferson? That couldn’t be it, could it? This wasn’t the south. As far as I knew, Indiana had never had slavery. So how could it be such a crime for two people with different-colored skin to be friends and go into business together?
I didn’t have any answers.
But suppose Daniel and his mother were right. Suppose Mr. Jefferson hadn’t killed Mr. LaSalle. Suppose someone else had done it. Someone like Mr. Selig. Or like the men who had followed me back to Maggie’s. And suppose Mr. Jefferson had been mistakenly arrested or—this was also possible—suppose he’d been framed. Suppose certain evidence had been destroyed and other evidence manufactured—to make Mr. Jefferson look guilty. Wouldn’t Sheriff Beale have to have been involved in that? If he was, and if he had any files or photographs or other information about what had really happened, he wouldn’t have kept them in police files. That would have been foolhardy. And if that was true…
Was I being logical? Or was I grasping at straws because I wanted to believe Mrs. Jefferson and Daniel and because I didn’t like the way some people in town talked about Mr. Jefferson? It was so confusing.
If Sheriff Beale had helped to cover up the truth about Patrice LaSalle’s murder, and if Mrs. Jefferson was right when she insisted that Mr. Jefferson had never confessed, that meant Sheriff Beale had lied on the witness stand. A sheriff who would lie under oath might do a lot of other unsavory things. He might also take measures to make sure that no one would ever point the finger at him. He might have kept some information as insurance. Maybe he’d even used it to make sure that he was well rewarded for what he had done. It was possible. If he had, where would that information be now?
Did he take it home? He had a house in town. Mr. Standish had told me so. But where was it? Who would know? Who could I ask?
How about Sheriff Hicks? He would know.
I went back to the sheriff’s office and found his secretary, two police officers doing paperwork, and the cleaning lady. Sheriff Hicks wasn’t there. I approached his secretary instead and asked for Sheriff Beale’s address.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I can’t help you.”
“You don’t know where his house is?”
“I don’t give out personal information.”
“But he doesn’t live there anymore.”
“I don’t give out personal information.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked implacably at me. She was not going to budge.
I glanced at the two police officers at their desks behind her. They both looked away immediately. They were going to be no help either.
Chapter Eighteen
I GO INTO THE WOODS
I WAS STANDING on the sidewalk outside the sheriff’s office, wondering who else would know where Sheriff Beale’s house was, when I heard an urgent Pssst! The cleaning lady beckoned from the side of the building. She held up her hand, and I saw that she was holding a piece of folded paper. She dropped it and disappeared. I took a quick look around before retrieving it and stuffing it into my pocket. I didn’t read it until I was well out of sight of the police station. An address was neatly printed on it. I walked a few more blocks before stopping a woman and asking for directions.
Sheriff Beale’s house was not at all what I had expected. For one thing, it wasn’t as old and staid as the other houses on the street. Instead of being two stories with a wraparound verandah, the house was a sleek, low-slung bungalow with a two-car garage. Everything looked new.
I was halfway up the front walk when a woman came out the front door with a baby on her hip.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Everyone spoke so politely in Orrenstown. But few people had actually managed to help me. Maybe this time it would be different.
I asked her how long she had lived in the house.
“Since it was built.”
I checked the address on the piece of paper. “I thought someone else used to live here.”
“That’s right. We tore down the old place after we bought it. It was a mess. It hadn’t been lived in for a couple of years. We rebuilt completely.”
Which meant another dead end. Unless…
“Was there anything left in the house when you bought it?” I asked.
The baby started fussing, and the woman jiggled it up and down in her arms.
“Only a few moldy old sticks of furniture and the most disgusting refrigerator you’ve ever seen. And the bathroom!” She shuddered. “I know the man who owned the place lived alone, but that’s no excuse for the state of that bathroom.”
“You didn’t find any old papers or files?”
The woman shook her head. The baby squished up its face and fussed in its mother’s arms.
“What about the people who demolished the old house? Did they find anything?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” The baby started to cry in earnest. “Maybe you should talk to the woman who owned the house.”
“Woman?” That didn’t sound right. “You said a man lived here.”
“Yes, but it was his daughter who sold the place. The real-estate agent told us that the old man was in a nursing home. The daughter put the house on the market. Apparently—and this is according to the real-estate agent—the house was in the daughter’s name.” She was holding the baby so that it could rest its head on her shoulder, but the baby was in no mood for that. He bellowed. “If you want to know anything else,” his harried mother said, “you should talk to the daughter.”
“Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”
The woman shook her head.
“Look,” she said, “if I don’t get this little man settled down before the sitter arrives, I’m going to miss my hair appointment. And if that happens, all kinds of other things are going to go wrong.”
She took the squalling baby into the house.
It was possible, I thought, that Sheriff Beale’s daughter had found some old files. She was the one who had put the house up for sale. She must have cleaned it out first. Or had it cleaned out. I knew from Mr. Standish that she didn’t have much to do with her father, so the chances that she had kept any old records of his seemed remote. But you never know—not until you ask, that is.
But who would tell me where to find her? I didn’t know her last name; all I knew was that she was the former sheriff’s daughter and that she was married and had a daughter of her own.
The newspaper files!
I raced past Maggie, who was at her typewriter in her office off the kitchen, and straight down to the morgue in the basement. I didn’t bother about the stacks of old newspapers. I went straight to the files. To the B drawer.
I found a file for L. Beale, but—no surprise—although it was stuffed with clippings, there was nothing about the arrest, trial or conviction of Thomas Jefferson. There was nothing about his personal
life either.
But there was another Beale. J. Beale.
J for Jane.
Jane Beale, daughter of county sheriff Lorne Beale, was engaged to marry Michael Wellington, a corporate lawyer residing in Hartford, Connecticut. I copied down the information and went back upstairs.
I stood in the doorway to Maggie’s office until she looked up from her work.
“I need to make a long-distance call,” I said. “I’ll pay you back.”
Maggie just smiled. “Go ahead.”
I used the phone in the front hall and called directory assistance to ask for the phone number of Michael Wellington in Hartford. There were two numbers: one for his office and one for his home. I wrote down both.
I dialed the home number first. A woman answered.
“Mrs. Wellington?”
“May I tell her who is calling?”
“My name is Cady Andrews.”
“One moment, please.”
I heard footsteps fading at the other end of the line. A moment later I heard them again. This time they were getting louder.
“I’m sorry,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Mrs. Wellington says she doesn’t know anyone by that name.”
“Can you please tell her it’s about her father?”
I heard more footsteps. A different voice, an angry voice, came on the line. “If this is about that photograph, I don’t know anything. I’ve never seen it.”
What photo was she talking about? One of the three that had been slipped under Maggie’s kitchen door?
I knew I had to talk fast, so I introduced myself and told her (I assumed I was speaking to the former Jane Beale) that I was looking for some old papers that Sheriff Beale may have had at his house.
“What kind of papers?” Her voice was heavy with suspicion.
“Files.”
There was a long pause, and I braced myself for more questions.
“There were no files,” Mrs. Wellington said decisively. “No files. No photograph. Just stacks of hunting magazines and old newspapers.”
“The local newspaper?” I thought about the issues that were missing from Maggie’s basement.
“It may have been. I didn’t pay much attention. They were old.”
“What did you do with them?”
“I threw them out.” There was another pause. “Who did you say you were? Why are you asking these questions?”
“It’s about the Jefferson murder trial.”
“Jefferson?”
“The victim was a Patrice LaSalle.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t lived in Orrenstown in a long time. So if there’s nothing else—”
The phone went dead. Mrs. Wellington had hung up.
I put down the phone and went back to the kitchen to clean up the lunch dishes, which were still in the sink. While I washed and rinsed, I thought about the missing files. Maybe they’d been destroyed in the flood like Sheriff Hicks had said. Or maybe Sheriff Beale had taken them home. If he had, it was clear that they were gone now.
Most likely they’d been destroyed.
I let the water out of the sink and started to dry the dishes. Everything else related to the Jefferson case was missing. Somebody had done a thorough cleanup.
Then I remembered Sheriff Beale’s cabin.
Mr. Standish had mentioned it. He’d said that Sheriff Beale had a cabin somewhere in the area. I wished I’d asked Mrs. Wellington about it. Should I call her back? If I did, would she talk to me again? Or was there another way to find out where that cabin was?
Mrs. Wellington had sold her father’s house. Mr. Standish had said she would probably sell the cabin.
I finished drying the dishes and putting everything away. I called to Maggie that I had to go out but would do some chores later. Then I race-walked downtown, despite the sweltering afternoon heat, and made directly for the real-estate office on the main street. If someone here had handled the sale, there would be records. A bell tinkled over the door when I opened it, and I was hit with a blast of cold air that immediately set me shivering. The office was empty except for one woman at a desk. I recognized her. It was Helen, the friendlier of the two women from the diner.
She recognized me too.
“You’re that girl,” she said.
“Cady.”
“What can I do for you, Cady? Surely you’re not interested in buying real estate.”
“I was talking to a woman a little while ago. She bought a house here, tore it down and built a new house. I think she said that the old sheriff used to live in the house.”
“Lorne Beale’s house?” Helen looked surprised. “Why are you interested in that?”
“I’m not, really. But I heard he also had a cabin somewhere. I was wondering if that had been sold too.”
She was still smiling, but I had the feeling that something had changed. But what?
“I think I know the place you mean.” She got up and went to a filing cabinet. She opened a drawer, thumbed through it and pulled out a folder. “Here is it. Yes, one of our agents represents it. But it hasn’t been sold.” She scanned the file. “The place is pretty old and run-down. Looks like it was used primarily as a hunting cabin. We haven’t had any interest in it.” She flipped the folder shut and looked expectantly at me.
“Can you tell me where it is?”
“Are you interested in purchasing it?”
“I’ve been telling my parents about Orrenstown. My father asked me to see if there were any vacation properties around.”
“Oh?” I don’t think I imagined the dollar signs in her eyes. But she hesitated. She already knew I was interested in Thomas Jefferson, and heaven only knew what else she had heard about me. But she opened the folder again and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she handed to me. There was a picture of a cabin at the top—a basic wood-framed, rectangular, one-story place. If it had ever been painted, the paint had long since baked or peeled off. I read the description: two rooms plus an outhouse, woodstove, shed for storing equipment, no electricity but there was a generator. The last paragraph gave directions from town.
“Is it far?” I asked. “I’d like to see it.”
“It depends on how you plan to get there. Go to the north end of town. Then take the county road to a junction about five miles north. From there, follow the directions until you get to a dirt road. It’s another couple of miles from there.”
In other words, too far to walk. I’d have to go back to Maggie’s and borrow her bicycle.
I thanked Helen and was on my way to the door when the bell above it jingled again and Mr. Selig walked in. Helen greeted him and asked what she could do for him.
I pedaled. And pedaled. And pedaled some more. The air seemed especially heavy. The sky was blue, but fluffy, white clouds were gathering in towers in the sky. I was drenched in sweat long before I reached the junction that the real-estate woman had told me about. I made a turn and found myself on a dirt road that had a surface like a never-ending washboard. It was almost impossible to ride on—the bike bounced up and down, and every bone in my body rattled. I kept going until I reached the woods and a twisty path that was thick with tree roots, rocks and windfall. I left the bike half hidden in some scrub near a stand of birch and marked the location by setting a small rock on top of a larger one, so that I’d be able to find it again.
From there it was into the woods. It was tough going. In one place, I had to scramble over a rock outcrop. But the air was cool under the trees, as only dapples of sunlight managed to penetrate the canopy overhead. It would be so easy to get turned around and hopelessly lost.
Helen had said the cabin was a couple of miles from the dirt road, but it felt to me as if I’d been walking for an eternity. I scanned ahead for anything resembling a cabin.
Nothing.
No, wait—there was something. A building.
A cabin.
It was sturdier than it looked in the picture. Its wood clapboard had been
weathered by the elements, but every upright was true, every shingle was in place, and nothing sagged. The windows were dirt-streaked, and I had to rub hard with the heel of my hand to get a look inside. But the grime was even thicker on the inside of the glass, so I couldn’t see much.
I tried the door. It was unlocked. At first that surprised me. But once I stepped inside, I got it. There was nothing worth stealing.
I began my search.
I looked under and behind every stick of furniture. I opened every cupboard, box and trunk. I peered inside, under and behind the box of wood next to the fireplace. I poked in, behind and under the box of kindling next to the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. I was just as thorough in the two small bedrooms. I searched everywhere. There were no files.
Two small buildings stood behind the cabin. One was down the path, almost out of sight around a bend. The outhouse. A great place to hide something, because, honestly, even Nellie Bly would flinch at the thought of searching an outhouse. The other little building was much closer. I headed there first. Unlike the cabin, the door to this little building was secured with an enormous padlock. I shook, tugged, pulled, jerked and twisted that lock. It refused to give.
I circled the shed. There was a small window at the back, secured by a semicircular latch. I tried the window again. The latch wobbled, and the window slid up a fraction of an inch. I jiggled it again, and the latch slipped a little more. On my third attempt, the latch slid free of its mooring, and I was able to open the window all the way. Problem number one was solved. Now for problem number two.
The window was small. A child could have climbed through, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I braced my hands on the inside of the sill and started to pull myself through.
My Life Before Me Page 15
