by Dave Balcom
Ron Forrester had signed the back of the book, “To the class of the class; I’d be ‘game’ if you were.”
Frank Foster had signed his photo, and beside his note was a question mark in red ink. There was no question about his notation: “Best of luck, Marci!”
Mary Franklin had signed her picture as well with the standard “Best of Luck!”
Cora Parker, as far as I could tell, had not signed the book. Her picture had been taken along the lake and showed her to be a beautiful young woman who met the gaze of the camera with a steady eye. “I think that’s the prettiest girl in this class,” I thought out loud.
Diana Sweeny looked just like her mother, and I noticed the resemblance as well as the names when I found them and a man together in one of the casual photos depicting school life that were sprinkled through the book. She had been captured with her folks, Principal Sam and School Nurse Sue, and that cinched it. There was a note, probably in Marci’s hand, next to that photo. In red ink it said, “Moved to Wyoming, Michigan.”
I was reading the notes in the front of the book over again when I noticed that what at first I thought of as one long note in the bottom left corner of the first blank page was actually a series of separate notes, all written in red ink. I flipped back and forth between the informal photo to the notes, and I was convinced that the writing was done by the same person.
I then actually read the notes:
“What could Marci know today that had been a problem then?”
“Why would anything from 1971 matter in 2001?
“Who could be the common thread?”
“Why now?
“What could be the connection?”
I sat back and sipped Jan’s drink, wondering just what this could be.
Jan came back an hour later and found me lost in the thought. “Jim, do you want dinner any time soon?”
“What’re you thinking?”
“We have goulash and French bread, and salad stuff I brought from home.”
“Sounds great.”
She went to the kitchen and started rattling pans which was a signal for Judy who danced around trying to wheedle her soaked body into the cottage to see if her dinner was in the works. I put the book down, shooed her away from the door, and tended to her needs while I told Jan about my work with the book.
She adjusted the heat under the goulash, and, wiping her hands on a towel, grabbed Judy’s dinner and went to retrieve the book.
“Show me,” she said as she handed me the book.
I thumbed my way to the casual photo, and then handed it to her, “Compare that note to the lower left corner of the first blank page.”
I took a turn at stirring our meal, and then I started digging salad makings out of the fridge.
“You’re right; that’s not Marci’s writing, either. I have to think it might have been Dave Boyington’s writing.”
“How so?”
“Remember, this book came out of his house.”
“So the ‘now’ would be what, 2001?”
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER 14
Tuesday morning Judy and I went for our walk, and when we returned, we found Jan dressed and showing signs of impatience.
“You shower, and then I want to go to the courthouse.”
“Why?”
“You’re the guru of Michigan property tax codes and courthouse stuff. I want to know more about Dave Boyington’s home.”
“Do you have the address or anything?”
“Nope, but you’ll figure it out. After that, I want to go visit an old lady who lives in her own home.”
“Who is this?”
“Bernice Ricky. She and her husband Ernie raised Sue and Duane Deal. Ernie was an evangelical minister and a rock ’n’ roll deejay on an FM station in Traverse. The kids came to them after their parents, Bernice and their mom were sisters, died in a house fire.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. We were in the fourth or fifth grade, I think.”
“So Bernice is what, a hundred?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out after the courthouse.”
“Can I have a shower and breakfast?”
“Shower; I’ll feed you later.”
“The ‘wonder’ working on you?”
“I can’t help it, Jim. There’s something weird here.”
We pulled up to the Antrim County Courthouse in Bellaire just after 9, and I went looking for the County Clerk’s office while Jan sought out the Register of Deeds.
There were two women in the Clerk’s office, and they informed me that the Clerk, a Mr. Davidson, was out of town.
“I’m trying to find the property description of a place over by Stoney that was taken for taxes back in 2006.”
“What’s your interest?” The older of the two women asked from her desk. I read her reaction as a mix of caution and fear. The younger of the two, a petite blonde who was standing at the counter when I walked in, took a side step away from me.
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” I assured them, holding my hands out in a gesture I’d learned from years of imposing height and shaggy mien. “I’m visiting the area with my wife who graduated from Stoney High back in 1980. One of her classmates from back then came home and bought a place by the river in 1999 and then apparently abandoned it in 2002. Both my wife and I are journalists. You may know her, she used to own the Mineral Valley Record...”
“Jan Coldwell is your wife?” The older woman interrupted.
“She is.”
“Is she here?”
“She’s looking for the Registrar, but I know that she’s going to need the actual property description to find the information she wants; can you help us?”
“Are you the guy who helped Jan a few years ago down in Kalkaska? Worked with Sharon and Betty?”
“I am.”
She broke into a wide smile and I glimpses the beauty she had been in her youth, “How nice! I had heard Jan married and moved out West. You’re the mystery writer, too?”
“Guilty. Can you help me find my way to that property description?”
“ We can hand it to you. You’re talking about the Boyington property.”
“Really?”
“That was a big story ’round these parts, I’ll tell you. Dave Boyington had become something of a celebrity. Built that nice house on the river, and lived well and quietly for three years, fishing, shootin’ pool and working for his church – a nice guy by all accounts, and then, bang! He ups and leaves, didn’t even lock the doors.
“It hit the delinquent tax rolls and all the notices were mailed until the post office started sending them back as “undeliverable.” The mailbox at his house was crammed full and never emptied. Finally, in ’06 the place went up for auction and a couple from Traverse City bought it.”
“The bank didn’t take it?”
“There was no bank, no mortgage. Dave paid cash for the land and the house. Word was he had saved his Army money for twenty years, even when he was working in Washington. Lived on the base, ate in the mess and only spent his per diem when he was on the road. Bought a brand new truck in ’99 and then bought his place; lived on his Army pension. That was the story.” She said all this as she copied a note from a sheet of paper in her desk.
She walked to the counter with a Post-it, “Here’s the parcel description. You take that to the Registrar and she can show you the deed and all the history. If she has time, ask Jan if she’d stop by. She’s a true hero to women in this part of the world – self-made woman.”
I thanked her, and assured her I’d pass that on, then I hot-footed it upstairs to the Registrar’s office where Jan was chatting with the staff.
“Here’s the property description,” I said nonchalantly.
“Oh, thank you,” Jan said, putting the slip of paper in her pocket. “I have the deed and the history. Sara, here, was nice enough to print it out for me for only a dollar.” She smil
ed sweetly at Sara. “Thanks again, dear.”
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Stanton,” Sara said with grin that included her tongue poking at her cheek and eyes dancing between our faces.
“Come on, Jim,” Jan said quietly. “We have all we’re going to find here.”
I followed her out the door to the sound of a chuckle chasing me.
In the car, after idling in the lobby while the local hero thanked the adoring ladies in the Clerk’s office, I decided not to ask about the property.
“Back to Stoney and Aunt Bernice’s house?”
“Yes. Wait ’til you hear this story...
CHAPTER 15
“You know, I always thought you were full of crap when you kept insisting that the courthouse was the first, best place a newspaper person should frequent and understand if they were going to learn and feel the pulse of a community, but now, I have to admit, you knew something.”
“So, what do you now know?”
She repeated the story of Dave Boyington’s miserly ways and good works that I had heard in the clerk’s office, and I told her so. “Well, you not being one of the girls...”
I interrupted, “And not being a self-made woman to boot...”
“There’s that too,” she giggled, “but that being said, it appears Mr. Boyington had carried a torch for Marci Evers that was never dimmed by time or distance. Far as anyone could tell, Marci was happily married, teaching fourth graders in Battle Creek, and there was never a sign or a word about either of them.
“Then, about the time Dave comes back to town, Marci shows up alone, dealing with selling her parents’ home. They had taken to spending winters in Florida, and then in winter of ’00-’01, they died; first her, just after Christmas, and then him at the end of January.”
“Any signs of foul play?” I interrupted.
“None that came to the attention of the local folks. Marci came to town after her school year ended. She had her maiden name back, and no ring on her left hand. Moved into the old place and did the duty of a surviving child. Cleaned and sorted, filled a couple of Waste Management containers, and then held an estate sale which turned out to be the social event of the summer.
“The next thing everybody knew, Dave Boyington and Marci were seen at Annie’s on a daily basis. They saw her car at Dave’s house in the early evenings and then, by the beginning of August, they saw his truck at the Evers house one morning early...”
I nodded, “Sounds like a flame rekindled.”
“Exactly. Then just before the end of summer, Marci was gone. The house had been sold, and everyone assumed she’d headed back to Battle Creek and her fourth graders.
“Dave was seen around town, and some say he seemed to be moping, but others claim that’s revisionist history, but never-the-less, on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, he was in Annie’s shootin’ pool with a bunch of ‘touri’, and after that night, everyone agrees, he was never seen in Stoney again.”
“Just disappeared?”
“Exactly. Nobody saw his truck anywhere, and when someone finally found the nerve to look, they found the front door of his house unlocked. The place had been turned upside down and it was a mess, but there was no Dave.”
“What about his clothes? Fly rod? Cue?”
She was shaking her head, “Good questions, but the answers are not part of the story. If the ladies in the Registrar’s office are examples of the prevailing theory, the heartbreak of unrequited love is too good to pass up.”
We drove in silence for a bit. “The lady in the clerk’s office...”
She interrupted, “Sadie, Sadie Moss. She’s a dear; turns out all these north country courthouse people chat and gossip all the time.”
“In any event Sadie told me that the tax bills were returned by the post office as undeliverable because the mailbox had become crammed full and never emptied; that’s how the story of his departure became known to official Antrim County.”
“That’s not the strangest part, Jim.”
“Give.”
“Rumor has it that one of the people in Stoney was curious enough to call the Battle Creek schools to find out if Dave had ended up down there, you know? Well, the story is that Marci had never returned for the school year; no call, no show.”
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
We were back in Stoney and on Main Street. My stomach was rumbling when Jan said, “There, on the corner” while she pointed to a huge old house.
The three-story Victorian-looking building was difficult to see because of the rampaging lilac bushes running amok around the foundation of the home. The first-floor windows were for the most part covered by the dense growth. In addition, on the north side of the building, ivy or some other vine climbed clear up to the third-story eaves.
“Whew! It’s going to be dark in there, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Fran called her for me yesterday, so she’s expecting us. Frannie says she’s as sharp as a tack, but arthritis makes it hard for her. A home health aide from the county comes by for her once a day.” She checked her watch. “Probably gone for the day now... Let’s go meet Aunt Bernice.”
When Jan pushed the doorbell, a voice responded from a speaker that had been inset over the doorway, “Is that you, Janice?”
“Yes, dear. I have my husband, Jim Stanton, with me too.”
A lock snapped, and the speaker squawked, “It’s open, come on in; I’m on the back porch, straight through.”
I opened the door and was met with a strong smell of jasmine.
I walked through into the perennial gloom of a house not often aired or lived in. Heavy drapes adorned the windows creating continuous night inside. Jan followed me and we walked on a runner that had been laid down over gleaming hardwood floors.
We passed several doors that were closed, and then a “foyer” of sorts where stairs going up, and I presume a door leading to stairs going down, occupied an intersection of halls left and right.
We continued back as I revised my earlier estimate as to the size of this home upwards toward boutique hotel size.
Twenty more feet and we spilled out into a bright and airy dine-in kitchen with a den-like sitting room all embracing a porch that spanned the entire rear of the house.
“This is just like the Sweet home in Missouri,” Jan whispered with awe in her voice.
“Only on steroids.”
“I’m back here,” a voice called, and we walked out onto the porch to find that it was really a room. There was a lot of glass, but it was insulated, heated and cooled along with the rest of the house.
The voice we’d heard belonged to a woman who was sitting in a wheelchair. I had been expecting a wizened, little bit of a thing, but this was a strapping woman with a rosy complexion and dazzling, bright blue eyes.
“Janice Coldwell, my oh my. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, my dear; like the swan in the story!”
I could sense Jan coloring up at the praise, but I kept my eyes on Bernice.
“Hello, Bernice. Thank you for seeing us. This is my husband, Jim Stanton.”
She held out her hand, and I stepped over to shake it, being careful not to be too firm, but she grabbed my hand in a vice-like grip. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Stanton,” she said, and I saw my own surprise register in those blue diamond chip eyes. “I’m not a cripple from the knees up. I have the ’ritis so bad in my knees and ankles that it would take leg replacements to fix, and nobody’s insurance covers that yet.” And she followed that statement with a laugh that by itself would have made me smile.
“As for you, Janice, you come over here and let me hug you.”
Jan took her hug like a soldier, and then sat in the overstuffed chair next to the woman. I started looking around as Bernice spoke: “You know you were one of my favorites when you were a girl. I remember when you came to the birthday parties for our twins. You were always polite, and your gifts had always been chosen with such care.
“We, Ernie and I, tried so hard to make
friends with your folks. We thought it would be so good for our two little ones to know you better...”
“My folks were pretty hard to know outside of their church family...”
“Most wicked hour of the week, church is, in my view. More hate, more pain caused by the teachings of that hour every Sunday in this world than any other. And, I hate to say it, but your folks were as much a part of that bigotry as any we ever encountered.”
“Was it different at your church?” Jan couldn’t help herself. She knew, as I did, that an interviewer never lets stray conversations impede the real purpose of the meeting, but I could see her being drawn down that path.
“Oh, we tried. We truly tried. Ernie had been raised in that hell, fire, and brimstone of the old southern Baptists. But he knew all of his Bible, not just the parts that religions use to pay the bills and keep folks in line.
“Ernie preached about the love for our fellow man that is the real message of Jesus Christ. He refused to even consider that he was more right or righteous than the Methodists, Catholics or Presbyterians or Church of God folks; he just knew it was more fun to praise God and love than to damn sinners.” And then she followed that up with a chuckle that could only be described as a “cackle of good will.”
I kept my face towards the brick-a-brack on the shelves; Bernice wouldn’t see me grinning from ear to ear.
“So, you came home for the final reunion, huh?”
“I did. I wanted to show Jim off to all the folks who would remember me as the nerdy little girl they knew back then.”
“Pride is a wonderful thing, ain’t it?” The old lady said with a gentle voice, and then she perked it up a bit, “But you came to see me, so I’m guessing you want to talk about things that aren’t making sense to you...”
I had been studying a photo depicting a bunch of children playing a game that might have been “ring around the rosy” in what might have been the backyard I could see from where I stood. When I heard that question, I perked up to hear how Jan would play this.
“Exactly right. I’m wondering about some things that don’t seem to make much sense right now, but have me wondering...”
