“No and no.”
“What do you mean? You have to tell me!”
“Why? So you can make fun of me?”
Julie held up her claw hand. “Don’t make me use the claw on you. Your arms are longer than mine, but I’m tough in a catfight.”
“I’m not scared, but there is a lot more to Vince than either of us realized.” I paused. “And I don’t have a crush on Zach Mays.”
“More,” Julie commanded.
I gave her a quick summary of lunch.
“Vinny is a genius,” Julie sighed. “If they only make an offer to one clerk, there’s no way you or I will land a permanent job with the firm. We may as well goof off the rest of the summer.”
“They’re paying us to work.”
“Oh, don’t bring that up.” Julie turned back toward the computer screen. I decided not to tell her anything else about Moses Jones. The old man might be delusional, but I wanted to keep his strange comments confidential. I opened one of the Folsom files and began working. Shortly after 5:00 p.m., Julie announced it was time to go home.
“I need to ask Ms. Patrick a question,” I replied.
“Don’t be long. I have a headache.”
I ran upstairs to the administrator’s office. Her door was open, and I knocked on the frame.
“Come in,” she said. “How are you?”
“Fine. I’m going home now but may want to come back tonight and do some research. Do I need to be concerned about a security system?”
“Not until eleven o’clock. After that, a code has to be entered.”
“I won’t be that late.”
I started to leave.
“Tami, are you respecting the opinions and beliefs of others?” Ms. Patrick asked.
I turned around. “I think so. Have there been any complaints?”
“No, but misplaced zeal can be unprofessional.”
“And I hope strong convictions aren’t squelched,” I responded.
Ms. Patrick had caught me off guard, and the words popped out before I scrutinized them. I inwardly cringed.
“Use restraint,” she answered curtly. “I think that is a universal virtue.”
“Yes ma’am.” I returned more slowly down the stairs. Julie was waiting for me in the reception area. We stepped into the oppressive late-afternoon heat.
“If I’m not offered an associate job at Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter, I don’t think it will be because of Vince,” I said.
“Why?”
“It’s hard to get a job when you’re competing against yourself.”
Julie rubbed her left temple. “I’m not feeling well enough to figure that out.”
She dropped me off in front of Mrs. Fairmont’s house.
“I’ll pray that you feel better,” I said.
“And I’ll take an extra painkiller in case that doesn’t work. See you tomorrow.”
MRS. FAIRMONT WAS DOZING in her chair in the den. Flip barked when I entered and ran across the floor to greet me. Mrs. Fairmont stirred in her chair. I waited, hoping she was lucid. Her eyes opened and focused on me.
“Good afternoon, Tami,” she said. “Have you been home long?”
“No ma’am. I just walked in the door. How are you feeling?”
“A little groggy. Gracie fixed supper. It’s in the oven and needs to be warmed up.”
“Are you ready to eat?”
Flip barked loudly.
“I know you’re hungry,” I said to the little dog.
Mrs. Fairmont pushed herself up from the chair. Even on days when she didn’t leave the house, she wore nice clothes. When I’d asked her about it, she told me that unexpected company could arrive at any moment.
“Let’s feed Flip and turn on the oven,” she said.
I knew where Mrs. Fairmont kept the dog food, but taking care of Flip was one of the things she enjoyed most. She carefully measured a scoop of food and poured it into the dog’s dish. He immediately began munching the multicolored food with gusto. Gracie had left a note on the oven door with cooking instructions.
“It’s a chicken dish,” Mrs. Fairmont said. “I think there’s garlic in it. I could smell it in the den when she put a clove in the crusher.”
“That’s fine so long as we both eat it,” I replied.
“And the vegetables are in the refrigerator.”
The vegetables, succotash and new potatoes in butter, were in pots. I put them on the stove. Without Gracie’s help, Mrs. Fairmont wouldn’t be able to stay in her house.
Flip finished his dinner and ran out the doggie door. Mrs. Fairmont slowly leaned over, picked up his water dish, and filled it with fresh water. It was time to ask the question that had been in the forefront of my mind since I walked through the front door.
“Do you remember showing me the picture of your friend, Mrs. Prescott, the woman whose daughter died?”
Mrs. Fairmont straightened up. “Yes.”
“You and Mrs. Prescott were really good friends?”
“Yes. That’s why I have her picture beside my bed. We were really close all through school and beyond. We had a lot of pleasant times before Lisa’s death.”
“Lisa Prescott,” I said softly.
“It’s a pretty name, isn’t it?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I stirred the succotash and checked the potatoes. “Mrs. Fairmont, I don’t want to bring up any painful memories, but how much do you know about Lisa’s death? Are they sure it was murder? Was anyone ever arrested and charged with a crime?”
“They never caught whoever killed her. I saved all the newspaper clippings.”
“May I read them?”
“I think they’re in a box downstairs, but I’m not sure where.”
“Could I try to find it?”
Mrs. Fairmont shrugged. “Better let me help. Even as young as you are, you could spend the rest of your life going through the junk I’ve saved. Christine will probably send it all to the dump, but a lot of it meant something to me.”
I checked the clock. The chicken would be ready in ten minutes. The vegetables were on simmer.
“Could we look now?” I asked.
“No, child,” Mrs. Fairmont said. “I can’t go right to it.”
“After supper? It’s important.”
Mrs. Fairmont gave me the same look I’d seen when she first inspected me at the front door.
“Why are you so interested in Lisa Prescott’s death?” she asked.
I avoided her eyes. “I can’t tell you, except something happened at work today that made me want to find out.”
“Christine probably remembers more than I do,” Mrs. Fairmont replied. “Let’s give her a call.”
“No!” I said more strongly than I intended. “Uh, there may not be anything to my curiosity. At this point, I’d rather keep this between us.”
“Christine is a blabbermouth,” Mrs. Fairmont said, nodding her head. “I don’t tell her anything that I don’t want spread all over Savannah.”
Mrs. Fairmont was quiet during supper. I’d enjoyed the fancy lunch with Vince, but preferred the chicken and nicely seasoned vegetables prepared by Gracie. Mrs. Fairmont yawned several times. I talked, trying to keep her alert enough to lead an expedition into her basement archives after supper.
“Bring the sliced cantaloupe from the refrigerator,” Mrs. Fairmont said when we finished eating. “Let’s have some for dessert.”
I brought the cantaloupe to the table. Mrs. Fairmont ate the fruit with maddeningly slow deliberation.
“This is perfect,” she said. “I love it when it’s firm and sweet.”
“Yes ma’am,” I answered as I tried to will her to eat faster. “My family grows very good cantaloupes and watermelons.”
She finished the meal with a final large yawn. “Excuse me,” she said. “That is so rude, but I can’t help it.”
She pushed her chair away from the table.
“Have a good evening,” she said. “I wish Flip could c
arry me upstairs to bed. I’ll sleep for a while and probably be wide awake in the middle of the night. That’s how it is with my condition.”
“Yes ma’am,” I answered. “Do you think you could put off going to bed for a few minutes so we can locate the newspaper clippings you saved about Lisa Prescott?”
“I forgot,” she said with another yawn. “It all happened so long ago, it’s hard to imagine it being terribly urgent.”
“It is,” I said bluntly. “I need to have the information by the morning.”
“Very well. But you’d better hold my arm while we go downstairs. I don’t want to break my neck.”
It was a horrible image—Mrs. Fairmont lying in a twisted heap at the bottom of the stairs. I’d been hired to protect the elderly woman, not to place her in harm’s way.
“Maybe we should wait until you wake up in the night,” I said. “I can adapt to your schedule.”
“No, no. That cantaloupe was sweet enough to give me a few more minutes of energy.”
“Are you sure?”
She didn’t answer but started walking toward the basement. Flip and I followed. I firmly held her arm, and we made it to the bottom of the stairs without mishap. I turned on the bare lightbulbs that illuminated the open area opposite my apartment. Large cardboard boxes were stacked on top of one another. Furniture not in use was covered by white bedsheets. Shelves affixed to two of the walls contained scores of smaller boxes. I wouldn’t have known where to begin. Mrs. Fairmont stood at the bottom of the stairs and stared at a lifetime of accumulation.
“I think I keep the older records over here,” she said, moving down a row of the large boxes.
I followed. Most of the boxes were labeled. We passed dishes, extra china, and souvenirs from travel. Mrs. Fairmont stopped and pointed.
“Could you lift that one out?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am.” I sprang into action.
It was marked “Of Interest.” I placed the lightweight box at Mrs. Fairmont’s feet and removed the top. It was filled with yellowed newspapers.
“This is it!” I exclaimed.
“Maybe,” she said.
I reached in and grabbed a newspaper that promptly crumbled in my hands. “Oops,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’d never have seen it again if you hadn’t asked me about Ellen’s daughter.”
I carefully retrieved what was left and held it up to the light. It was a Savannah paper almost seventy years old. Mrs. Fairmont leaned close to my shoulder.
“That’s from my school days,” she said. “My mother probably saved it because it contained news about me and my classmates.”
I stared at the other papers in the box. “Would everything in this box be that old?”
“At least,” she said. “Put it back. I don’t want to read it.”
I returned the box to its place. Mrs. Fairmont pointed to another box. This one was labeled “Newsworthy Items.” I put it on the floor and removed the top. Inside were stacks of manila folders grown discolored with age.
“That’s Christine’s handwriting,” Mrs. Fairmont said, pointing to the tab on the top folder. “These will be more recent.”
One by one I took the folders from the box. They contained everything from Christmas punch recipes to information about horses.
“Christine loved to ride jumpers when she was younger. She wasn’t afraid of anything.”
I remembered my brief ride in the car with Mrs. Bartlett. I thought she might try to jump the curb in her Mercedes. Toward the bottom of the box, I saw a folder with the name “Lisa” on it and opened it. My eyes fell on the front page of the Savannah paper and a grainy picture of a little girl. I showed it to Mrs. Fairmont. She stared at it for a second.
“It’s Lisa,” she said in a sad voice. “That picture brings back a lot of memories. Lisa loved dressing up and sitting in a parlor chair with her feet dangling in the air. Ellen brought her over several times for afternoon tea.”
While Mrs. Fairmont talked, I quickly scanned the article. On a Tuesday afternoon, the ten-year-old girl vanished following a piano lesson. The piano teacher, a woman named Miss Broadmore, was questioned by police and reported that Lisa left the teacher’s house at precisely 4:30 p.m. for the five-minute walk home along familiar streets. Lisa never made it. Within an hour the police were notified. Requests for assistance were broadcast on the local radio stations. Anyone seeing her was urged to come forward.
“It was a sad time,” Mrs. Fairmont continued. “The whole city was touched by the Prescotts’ loss. I think Christine saved all the articles she could. Most of my news came directly from Ellen.”
There were other articles in the folder. All of them featured the same photograph. Even in a black-and-white image, Lisa fit Moses Jones’ description.
“Do you remember anything else Ellen told you?”
Mrs. Fairmont shook her head. “There are lots of things jumbled up in my head. Trying to sort them out would be an unhappy way to end the day.”
“Yes ma’am. I understand. Thanks for helping me.”
I assisted Mrs. Fairmont up the stairs to the main floor and then to her bedroom. I examined the picture of Ellen Prescott on the nightstand more closely. Lisa looked a lot like her mother.
“How old were you and Ellen in that picture?” I asked.
“About seven or eight. Young enough that a trip to the park with a friend was a special treat.”
I turned to go downstairs. I was anxious to read the rest of the newspaper articles.
“Tami?” Mrs. Fairmont asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“I like having you in the house. It makes me feel safe.”
“Thank you.”
I took the box into my apartment and carefully removed the newspapers. They weren’t as brittle as the very old ones. Beginning with the first account of Lisa’s disappearance, I read the unfolding story more slowly.
There wasn’t much to tell.
One day Lisa was a bright, vivacious girl. The next she vanished without a trace. The second article was the longest and featured a map with Lisa’s most likely route from Miss Broadmore’s house to the Prescott home on East McDonough Street. Close to the Prescott home was the Colonial Park Cemetery.
Several follow-up articles included quotes from people claiming to have seen Lisa during her walk home. Unfortunately, the claims were inconsistent and would have required Lisa to walk several blocks out of her way instead of following the most direct route. The police chief offered cryptic comments without substance to the newspaper reporters. One fact seemed clear. No one saw the little girl after she neared the cemetery. The police focused their investigation on that area and scoured it for physical evidence. Not a piece of sheet music or bit of clothing was discovered. No ransom note was delivered. The possibility of a kidnapping faded.
After a week of daily articles, there was a two-day gap followed by a brief update without any new information. A week went by before another article repeated familiar facts with the conclusion that the police suspected “foul play” but had no suspects. Two months later there was a notice on page two of “Memorial Service for Girl Presumed Dead.” It was a harsh headline. More than eight hundred people attended the service at a local church. I returned the newspapers to the box. I looked over my notes and decided I hadn’t uncovered anything that warranted a nighttime walk to the office.
And, even though Lisa Prescott’s unexplained disappearance occurred decades earlier, I didn’t want to go out after dark.
20
THE WORLD APPEARED LESS MENACING IN THE MORNING WHEN I went for my run. I modified my route to include Lisa’s likely course home from her music teacher’s house. It wasn’t far. And in a simpler time, when children played outside without constant supervision, the brief walk would probably have been considered good exercise. I did a slow loop around Colonial Park Cemetery. The graveyard had many old headstones and looked like it had been closed for business for many years. It probably hadn’
t changed much since Lisa Prescott saw it.
Returning to the house, I was surprised to find Mrs. Fairmont, wearing a green silk robe with flowers embroidered on it, standing in the kitchen. Coffee was filling the pot.
“Good morning,” I said, pouring myself a glass of water from a jug in the refrigerator.
“Good morning. Did you read the newspaper articles about Lisa?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am. They never mentioned murder, but there wasn’t another explanation.”
“We hoped for a while that it was a kidnapping. Money wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“But no ransom note came.”
“Right.” Mrs. Fairmont nodded. “You know, the Prescotts had a funeral for Lisa. Ellen didn’t want to do it, but her husband and the rest of the family insisted. It was a pathetic affair, no casket, all the unanswered questions. Ellen maintained hope Lisa would return. I grieved when Ellen died, but I also thought at least she was with Lisa again.”
It was a poignant thought. I poured Mrs. Fairmont a cup of coffee. The elderly woman seemed particularly lucid.
“What can you tell me about the criminal investigation?” I asked.
“Ellen and her husband met with the police several times, and she told me what was said. The detectives had ideas.” Mrs. Fairmont stared across the room.
“Do you remember?” I asked.
“There was the blood on the curb at Colonial Park Cemetery. They didn’t have all the fancy tests they do now. At first, the police thought it was from an animal hit by a car because they found a dead dog nearby, but later they figured out it was human blood.”
“That wasn’t in any of the newspaper articles. Was it Lisa’s blood type?”
“They weren’t sure. The tests back then weren’t very accurate. Ellen and I went to the curb before rain washed away the stain. Even though she wasn’t positive the blood came from Lisa, Ellen stared at the spot for a long time and cried. I didn’t know what to say.” Mrs. Fairmont looked directly at me. “What would you have told her?”
Mountain Top Page 67
