Cruelest Month

by Aaron Stander

  “Other than the vandalism, has there ever been any other trouble?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Drugs or anything that might have involved the police?”

  “I don’t think so. The place has always been sort of its own little island, if you know what I mean. Whatever happened there was family stuff and nothing bad.” Ma paused, holding Ray’s gaze. “There was one thing, years ago. It happened in the spring, caused a bit of a stir.”

  “What?” pressed Ray.

  “A body, a boy in his early teens, washed up on the beach.”

  “When was that?” asked Sue

  Ma’s reply was slow in coming. “Maybe 20 years or a bit more. Perry found him. As I remember, he was a kid from down around Sandville. Paper said Sheriff Orville thought the kid was probably skinny-dipping down around South Bay, got caught in a rip current or something and drowned. His body got carried up here by the wind and waves. I never thought that added up. Like if he went skinny-dipping, why didn’t they find his clothes on a beach somewhere. There was a lot of talk at the time. And who would be swimming in the big lake then? It was early spring; the water was still awful cold. Too cold even for kids.”

  “So what happened?” asked Ray.

  “I don’t think anything happened. Orville and his deputies did their investigation and said it musta been an accidental drowning. Kid was from a poor family. Other than his folks, probably no one really cared.”

  “Anything else about that case? Do you remember the victim’s name?”

  “Ray, that was a long time ago. If I ever knew it, I long ago forgot. Life moves on.”

  Ray looked across at Sue. He knew that they were sharing the same thoughts. Over the past several years, they had uncovered numerous examples of incompetence on the part of Ray’s predecessor, Orville Hentzler, and the collection of cronies and relatives he employed as deputies during the more than 40 years he held the office. Most of the records and reports from Hentzler’s long tenure in office had been lost in a suspicious fire that took place shortly before he left office.

  “How is Bobby doing?” asked Ray, moving the conversation back to Ma.

  “He’s struggling with his dad’s death. They’ve always been buddies. I’ve started taking him to an adult daycare when I go to work. I think it’s been good for him to meet other people. My job is my big worry right now.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The new business manager at Leiston School, he’s looking to cut costs. There’s talk that they’re going to hire an outside contractor to handle things like food service, laundry, custodial, and grounds. Rumor is that some of us will still be able to keep our jobs, but we’ll get paid less and probably lose our health insurance. I don’t know how we’ll make it.” Ma looked at her watch. “I dropped Bobby off at the barber shop. I know Leo will look after him till I get there, but I shouldn’t make him wait too long.”

  “We’ll only keep you a few more minutes. Let’s count the money and Sue will get it logged in and give you a receipt. And remember what I told you.”

  “You know I will, Ray,” she responded, pulling herself out of her chair.

  Five minutes later Sue returned to Ray’s office. “What do you think this is all about?” she asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. The automatic response is that it must be some kind of drug deal, but that doesn’t quite make sense, does it?”

  “No, I don’t think any of our dealer friends would need to wander off to some remote place in the woods to make an exchange. That’s too much like work. They are more into passing packages from one Escalade to another. And I can’t imagine bad guys leaving a stash of cash with the expectation that their distributor would leave the goods under a pine tree. What do we do now?”

  “Keep an eye on things and see what develops. This drowning Ma mentioned, I’d like to know more about it. How busy are you?”

  “Lots of little things need to be finished up. But less jammed than I usually am.”

  “Will you see what you can dig up?”

  “Sure,” she responded. “First I have to find a name, then look through the non-existent police reports from that time and….”

  “There will be a death certificate, and maybe there’s a state police report.” Ray paused for a long moment. “Mrs. Schaffer, Helen Schaffer.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “She’s been the main secretary at Consolidated Schools for decades. See her, you’ll get a name and probably some family history. She’s a really bright woman with an incredible memory.

  “And I forgot to ask, how did Simone do when you were away?” Ray asked. Sue had acquired a Cairn terrier during the course of a recent murder investigation.

  “The couple I boarded her with was really wonderful. They kept her with them in the house. They said she seemed to be fine, but she was off her food. I’m trying to remember, did she eat okay when she stayed with you?”

  “She was great. Clean plate club.”

  “Ray, you didn’t…”

  “Not a chance. Nothing but dog food.”

  3

  The next morning, Tuesday, Sue started her exploration at the County Clerk’s office of the death of the teenager who’d washed up on the shoreline at the Hollingsford Estate. The youngest elected official in Cedar County, Julie Sutton, a woman of boundless energy and enthusiasm, greeted her.

  “Hey, Susan, great tan. How was Florida?”

  “It was good. I need a favor.”

  “A favor or a miracle?” Sutton shot back.

  “How do I…?”

  “You need some information?”

  “Yes.”

  “A favor request would be something we’ve got on the computer, something that’s happened in recent decades. A miracle request is a birth or death record from 120 years ago. In fact, I just completed one. Been working on it off and on for weeks. This lady in New York, one of those ancestry.com addicts—most of them need a Twelve-Step Program—contacted me about a distant relative, a great-great grandmother twice removed, with three or four possible spellings of the last name, who may have been born in this county around 1880 and may have died around 1920. With a lot of digging I solved the case,” Sutton said, beaming. “Someday I will have this all computerized, and a search like this will be just a few key strokes.” She paused for a moment and smiled wistfully. “And it won’t be near as much fun. Now, what can I do for you?”

  Sue took a deep breath. “I’m searching for the name of a boy, 15 or 16. He died about 20 years ago, probably in May or June. I think that it will be an accidental death, a drowning. He may have lived around Sandville.”

  “That should be easy,” said Sutton. “Give me a few.”

  Sue had barely started checking her e-mail on her iPhone when Sutton reappeared. “I think this is what you’re looking for,” she said, placing a death certificate on the counter at an angle where they could both read it.

  Sue quickly scanned the document. “Terry Hallen,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Sutton. “We usually only have a few drownings a year, and sometimes none. This is the only one from that time that fits.”

  “Why all the blanks?” asked Sue. “This form is only partially filled out.”

  Sutton chuckled. “It’s from the bad old days when one of my bungling predecessors didn’t mind the store.” She pulled the form to her side of the countertop and looked at it closely. Then she pointed to a signature. “Here’s part of the problem—your department. Look at the signature for the person who completed the ‘cause of death’ section, Dirk Lowther. There was a real piece of work.”

  “You didn’t like my departed colleague?”

  “What a scum ball. A total sleaze and a poster boy for Grecian Formula. Don’t get me started.”

  “I think I have,” said Sue.

  “You know, I first worked here when I was in high school, the co-op program. If Dirk came in when no one else was around, he would hit on me. Real aggressive, obsce
ne, like he believed every high school girl wanted to drop her pants for him. Hell, he was lots older than my father. After I repeatedly insulted him, he finally left me alone.”

  Sue pulled the death certificate back to her side of the counter. “So a physician signed here, but it doesn’t look like there was an autopsy.”

  “That’s correct. It was pro forma. My understanding is that back in the day, a body would be turned over to the undertaker, and he would look at it after getting a doctor’s signature on the form. If there weren’t any gaping knife wounds or bullet holes, there was seldom an autopsy. Things were pretty casual.”

  “Can I take this with me?”

  “Yes, it’s a copy.” Sutton stood back and crossed her arms. “Why the interest in something that happened years ago?”

  “It just came up in another investigation, and I was a bit curious. You never know what you’re going to find. Thanks.”

  Driving toward the south end of the county, Sue felt a pang of regret that she had been less than honest with Ray. Yes, she had spent part of a week visiting her parents in Florida, but she’d also enjoyed a long weekend in Chicago with Harry Hawkins, a man she’d met earlier in the fall during a criminal investigation.

  Initially she’d found Hawkins, a lawyer, pompous and distant, but as she got to know him better, she’d started to see a very different person. Over the past several months he’d kept in contact via phone and e-mail, and he’d invited her several times to spend a weekend with him in Chicago. She had finally surrendered to his persistence.

  Hawkins met Sue at O’Hare and took her to dinner and a movie before escorting her to his apartment in a Mies van der Rohe building on Lakeshore Drive. The next morning they jogged along the beach before breakfast. Then they spent the afternoon at the Art Institute, followed by an intimate dinner in a small French bistro. That evening he arranged for front row, mezzanine seats at the Lyric Opera for an especially steamy version of Carmen.

  When Sue awakened on Sunday, Hawkins had just returned from picking up fresh croissants filled with a buttery dark chocolate. They ate, drank coffee, and read the Times in the sun-flooded living room. All too quickly the weekend reverie was shattered by the dash back to O’Hare.

  Sue felt a warm glow and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Harry Hawkins knew how to treat a woman. But is there anything really there? she asked herself, then started at the sound of her voice. She frowned. It was lovely spending time with a smart, interesting man. And for months she’d been struggling with the feeling that she needed to take her life in another direction. But while becoming involved in a good relationship might be part of moving her life forward, Sue wasn’t waiting for some Prince Charming to play “Misty” for her. She was also looking at graduate programs in art and public administration and considering law school.

  Sue parked in the Visitors Lot near the entrance to the administrative offices of the school district, a small red brick building across the parking lot from the new middle and high school complex. Once inside the building, she identified herself to the receptionist, a perky high school girl with short black hair and a pleasant manner. Sue was guided to a work area where the receptionist announced her presence to a woman who had her back to them. She was bent over a large computer screen and hammering away on a keyboard.

  “Helen, someone is here to see you.”

  The keying continued for a long moment before the woman swiveled her chair in their direction.

  “Oh,” she said, rather unsettled by the appearance of a stranger.

  “Mrs. Schaffer, I’m Sue Lawrence.” Sue passed a business card across the desk.

  Helen Schaffer held the card by the corner, lifting her head to use the bottom lens of her trifocals. She looked at Sue for a long moment, studying her face. “You weren’t ever a student here, were you?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “I didn’t think so, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.” She opened a drawer and placed the card inside. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for information on a former student, Terry Hallen. Do you have any of his records, or do you remember anything about him? He would have been enrolled here about 20 years ago.”

  “Terry Hallen,” Schaffer mused. “I haven’t thought about him for a long time, but he’s not someone I will ever forget. Just a beautiful kid: big blue eyes, a shock of brown hair. He supposedly drowned. I could never quite believe it. Didn’t seem right.”

  “How so?” asked Sue.

  Schaffer didn’t respond immediately. “Well, maybe that’s the way I feel when any of our kids die or get killed. It’s not right. It’s not natural. And Terry was special. His people were so poor. We were always looking for clothes for him and his sister—they didn’t have anything. But they were smart, sweet kids. They were the kind of kids that get beyond their circumstances and do something with their lives. And then he was suddenly gone. It made no sense.”

  “How did it happen? Our records of Terry’s death are very incomplete.”

  “One story was that he was fishing off the pier near the lighthouse and got washed off by a rogue wave. As I remember it, he was missing a few days before they found his body miles up the lake.”

  “You mentioned a sister,” said Sue.

  “Yes, she was a sweetie, too. Let me think—Caitlyn.”

  “Did she graduate?”

  “No. As I recollect, it was the end of the school year when Terry died. I don’t think his sister even finished her exams that year. I do remember calling the home. Her mother told me that Caitlyn and her younger sisters, twins they were, elementary, fourth or fifth grade, had gone off to stay with a relative. The next fall I called again before the fourth Friday count. The phone had been disconnected. That happens, you know. People disappear. Sometimes we get requests for records from their new school district. Not always.”

  “Could you check that?”

  “Yes. It will take me a few minutes; we have the old records stored in an annex.”

  “I’d appreciate it. Is there anything else can you tell me about Terry or his sister?”

  Schaffer stood up and began to move toward the door. “They were from Sandville. Not much of a town then, almost nothing left today. That’s the poorest part of our attendance area, right on the county line. Lots of problems, most connected to poverty. And kids aren’t always kind; I mean other kids. If there’s someone slightly lower on the ladder, they think it’s okay to dump on them.”

  “Are you talking about bullying?”

  “That’s the term we use today. I’m sure the students from Sandville got more than their share of abuse. They were at the bottom of the heap.”

  “Do you think Terry or his sister were bullied?”

  “I don’t know specifically, but I wouldn’t be surprised. We’re more sensitive to that kind of thing these days. But so much goes on that’s beyond adult supervision. You know, on the bus or at the bus stop, in bathrooms and hallways. It’s like we’re on different planets, the adults and kids, and unfortunately we’re never able to control some of the bad stuff that happens in their world.”

  “Do you remember anything more about Terry’s death?”

  “There were a couple of articles in the paper. And there were some rumors. People always talk. I can’t tell you if there was anything to them. I’m sorry, that’s all I can remember,”

  “Rumors, what kind of rumors?”

  “Like I said, I can’t remember details, but some people thought it didn’t quite add up. They said maybe he was killed. Why would anyone kill him? Anyway, they didn’t have anything more than feelings. There was no evidence. ”

  “One more question,” Sue said as Schaffer put her hand on the door. “What else can you tell me about Sandville?”

  “Not much. Some,” she said, shrugging. “I guess it was a flourishing village back in the lumber days. A hundred years ago, there was a railroad and two or three mills, a store, post office, a saloon, and a couple of churche
s. When the lumber was played out, the land was sold off cheap for farms. You know, the soil is so fragile up here. But the immigrant settlers were lured by cheap land. They pulled out the stumps and built farms and had a few good years growing potatoes. It wasn’t long before the soil was depleted and people started drifting away. Then some businessman from down south, maybe Ludington, bought up most of the land east of town and started what they called a sand mine. They hauled out millions of tons on the railroad. I think that lasted until sometime in the 50s. It tore up the terrain something awful, just like strip mining. That area is mostly overgrown now. It’s worthless land. And almost nothing is left of the town now—a cemetery and a few old houses. There used to be lots of vacant houses, but they had some arson a decade or so ago. People said it was one boy, others thought it was a gang of them that liked to see things burn. Since they were unoccupied, pretty much worthless, I don’t think anyone cared. Anyway, Sandville is little more than a ghost town. Sorry I can’t tell you much else. We haven’t been very good at writing down local history.” Schaffer smiled sadly.

  “On the contrary, you’ve been most helpful. Could I see Terry’s records, and would you check and see if there was a request for the girls’ records?”

  “Yes. This will take a few minutes.”

  While she waited, Sue pulled her laptop from a backpack and typed notes about her conversation with Schaffer. Then she read through them, making revisions and corrections.

  Finally, Schaffer returned, a little out of breath. “I have the folders for Caitlyn and her sisters,” she said, settling back at her desk and opening the top folder. She shifted through the contents, then she did the same for the other two. She peered up at Sue over the top of her glasses and shook her head. “Nope, nothing. It doesn’t appear that there were any requests for records. But like I said, that’s not uncommon.”

  “So you’ve got the folders for Terry’s siblings. I’d be interested in seeing Terry’s school records, too.”