by Dave Balcom
“Belly achin’? I’m hearing belly achin’ from the great investigator, Jim Stanton?”
“Retired great investigator, if you’ll recall, and I’m quittin’ if this dust starts me sneezing; honest, I am.”
“Shut up and work. Give me a couple of good hours and I’ll treat you to something cold.”
“Probably your shoulder...” I grumped, and that made us both a laugh as we dug into the task at hand.
We didn’t speak much as the long afternoon of research wore on, leaving us with just a few notes on our pristine legal pads.
But some things we found were notable even if we didn’t know it.
“Here’s a picture of the Blakes, taking over the Inn,” I said as I worked my way through the 1986 book. “They look young and happy.”
Jan had come over to look at the photo and read the caption. “Four generations of Willards make that a very big local story.”
“Here’s a shot from 1974, you’ll want to see,” Jan said with a chuckle a while later.
I walked over and stood behind her. On the page in front of her a young, attractive blond woman was pictured behind the bar. Over the back bar mirror hung the sign, “Annie’s.”
“Wow, she was some looker in those days.”
“Yes, she looked different then, but wasn’t really. She was just as rough and tumble then as she is now. She’s the walking embodiment of the word ‘broad;’ always has been, and that’s all she ever wanted to be. I love her like a sister.”
“No men in her life?”
“Lots and lots of them, but never one of the men from the bar. She used to go to Grand Rapids about every month, and when she came home she was always hung over, strung out and very relaxed. She called them her ‘R and R breaks.’”
“None of the bar guys ever made a pass?”
“None of them ever tried twice.”
“Ouch,” I retreated to my own book, and she giggled at me.
Later she spoke up, “Oh, here’s when Anthony Ralph and his family came to town, 1972,” Jan said. “That’s quite a write up. Front page photo of Mrs. Ralph and Tony in front of the store.”
I looked up from my 1990 book, “Not really a surprise; probably the biggest advertiser in the paper back then. Where did they come from?”
Jan was silent, reading for a minute, “That’s strange. It doesn’t say.”
“Really?”
“That’s not how I remember the Truth. When I was taking journalism classes at Central I remember using my hometown paper for examples in a class. The professor talked a lot about how solid reporting could make any paper – even a little paper like this – into something special for the community. This is quite a gaff.”
“Probably a space concern; did he run a store before?”
More silence, “It doesn’t say. Says he practiced law down state, but decided to move his family away from all the crime and violence.”
“Had to have been Detroit back then; it was a rough place.”
“Your parents moved you away from all that, didn’t they?”
“My dad was a tool and die maker; he could work pretty much anywhere. I think he just didn’t like people enough to live that close to so many.”
“I wonder if Tony experienced what you did when he showed up being the best athlete in his class and school...”
“He was, what, eleven? I’d bet he did at first, but the lines hadn’t been so clearly drawn in grade school as they were by the ninth grade when I showed up.”
We worked in silence for another hour.
“Here’s where Duane and Sue Deal came to town.”
“A picture?”
“No, just an entry in the visitation news column in 1972, ‘ten-year-old twins, Duane and Sue Deal, have come to live with Ernie and Bernice Ricky in time for school this year. The children were orphaned when their parents died in a house fire earlier this summer in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. Their mother, Melanie Deal, was Bernice’s older sister. The community will certainly make these two dears welcome in their new town and school.’” Jan read the blurb aloud.
I had no comment to that, but I found a note on Cora Parker in the visitation news in 1987. “Did you know Cora’s mom, Sheila Parker?”
Jan looked up, “Of course I knew of her, but they weren’t friends of my folks. She divorced Cora’s dad, and that nixed anything my folks would have had to do with them.”
“I remember looking at Cora’s photo in the yearbook. She was a beautiful woman, what was she like?”
“Aloof. I thought she was stuck up. I never was close with her, of course. She was very popular, but I think she was also very shy. People were attracted to her, but she seemed to be guarded somehow...”
“She worked at the hospital in Traverse City when her mom sold and moved to Arizona with a couple named Emerson...” I read a blurb from the visitation news column of 1987.
“Oh, yes; the Emersons. They were weird, too.”
“How so?”
“No kids. No real friends that anyone knew of. They moved here right after the Korean War... I’m trying to remember where I learned this, but... Oh, I know. In our junior year, Mr. Emerson came to our school for ‘Career Day.’
“He was a little bitty guy, mostly bald and always sunburned on his head. He looked like a dwarf that had grown too tall, you know what I mean?”
“And he came to talk about what career?”
“He and his wife ran an import-export business, selling farm and timber equipment to third world countries in South America.”
“From Stoney, Michigan? Without computers, e-mail?”
“Telephones and faxes. He described it as using knowledge he’d gained in school combined with frequent travel in that part of the world.”
“What sent him to South America as a younger man?”
There was a long pause, “I can’t remember what he said other than he worked for the State Department.”
I went back to the story. “Well, in ’87 they moved their business to Arizona, and in this brief it mentions that Cora was working at Munson Health Care in Traverse City.”
“Probably married some rich doctor,” Jan muttered from her corner.
I was in November, 2000, when I saw the election returns and noticed the lead story depicting the eleventh-hour upset in the race for County Attorney.
“Hey, do you remember Frank Foster?”
Jan perked up, “I sure do. He was such a nice kid. I had such a crush on him in junior high.”
“Did he respond?”
“I’m not sure he knew I was alive; but then I’m not sure just what he was aware of. As we grew older I knew he was a good student, but – it may have been he was just shy or bashful – he seemed to be in a fog most of the time.”
I kept reading, “Well, he came out of the fog well enough that he earned a degree from Ferris and then went to Wayne State for law. He came back to Stoney in ’87 and worked as an assistant County Attorney in Bellaire until his boss retired. He ran for the seat in ’90 and looked to be unopposed until the final filing deadline when a retired Wayne County judge, Randy Peterson, filed. Despite the Truth’s endorsement and what appeared to be a majority of support in the county, Foster was whipped in November.
“There’s a pretty good election story here, Peterson was as surprised as anyone at the margin of victory...” I kept reading, “Foster declined to be interviewed for the story.”
“Poor Frank,” Jan sighed from her corner.
I turned to the next week’s issue and found a note on the opinion page, “Jan, this is interesting. Frank Foster resigned the day after the election. His mother told the paper that he had spoken to her after the results were in, kissed her on the cheek, and went off, she presumed, to bed.
“The next morning when she didn’t hear him stirring around at his usual time, she went to investigate and found all his clothes and personal items gone from his room and a note that just said, ‘Gotta go, Mom. Be happy; I’m going to be.�
��
“That’s eerie,” she said as she came over to look at the note.
“It’s a plea for him or anyone who knows him, to contact his mother and make sure she knows Frank’s all right.”
“Chilling.”
I turned back to the preceding week’s election coverage, and then to two weeks before when the paper had run candidate profiles in the contested races.
“Look here,” I said pointing to Frank Foster’s profile.
Jan leaned over my shoulder to read, and I enjoyed the contact and leaned back into that softness. “Don’t be fresh,” she murmured as she read. “Okay, would you take that work history part and add it to your notes?”
“Where?”
“The part where he interned with a Criminal Court Judge and then with the Wayne County District Attorney after law school.”
“What’s the significance of that?”
“I’m not ready to weigh any of this, but there’s something there; perhaps too many of somethings. It makes me wonder.”
The fall light was going long when we locked up the museum.
“Hungry?”
“Famished,” I said.
“Annie’s?”
“Perfect.”
CHAPTER 18
Annie was in pure form when we sneaked in through the veranda door and made our way to the table just around the corner from the bar. Jan took a seat; I went to place the drink order.
“Jim!” She hailed me from the other end of the bar. “Is my favorite piano player here?”
I smiled at her enthusiasm. There were about six guys in outdoors clothes and baseball caps at her end of the bar, all watching Sports Center with draft beers in front of them.
I nodded toward the table where Jan was, and Annie grabbed two menus as she waddled my way. “Want to start with a drink?”
“We do.”
She took our order and handed me the menus. “I’ll bring ’em over.”
I went back to the table. Jan was all business as she opened the menu, “I’m starved.”
Annie put the drinks in front of us, and gave Jan a hug. “What have you been up to today?”
“Research,” Jan said from behind her menu.
“I’m serving killer strip steaks today. They look great; serve ’em with choice of potato, and salad for nine bucks.”
“Medium rare, baked,” I said putting my menu down.
“Me too; you still making Roquefort dressing?”
“Of course. On the side?”
“Perfect.”
“Mind if I come back while you wait for dinner?”
“No, of course not,” Jan said with a smile. “We’d love to chat with you.”
When she came back she had another drink for me and a glass of red wine for Jan. “So what are you researching?”
Jan filled her in on the yearbook, and how that had started her wondering about Dave Boyington and Marci Evers and then the disappearance of Frank Foster. As she mentioned the names, I could see Annie’s eyes squint a bit in reaction. I knew Jan was not seeing those flickers of response, and when she stopped talking, I stepped in.
“Annie, do you remember that election in ’90?”
“Sure do. Shocked the shit outta me. I mean, Randy Petersen was a nice enough guy, and he had the credentials and everything, but I was just like everybody else I knew; we thought Frank was a sure thing...”
Her eyes took on a far away look and I knew memories of that event were flooding her.
“When did you last see Frank?”
“Oh, he and another assistant DA, part-timer named Jensen, came in here for lunch after they’d voted. He looked normal to me.
“He was never a regular, you know? Pretty sober guy in every aspect. Didn’t run around – I don’t remember ever seeing him with a woman. Worked hard, I heard, and was an effective lawyer by all accounts.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I can’t really guess. Like he disappeared off the face, you know? It killed his mom. She died within months... March it was. Frank didn’t show for the funeral or anything. She had left everything to him, but finally that all went to back taxes and then the property was taken by the village – that little park up the street? That was where Frank lived.”
“Oh, I remember now,” Jan said. “That’s right. He used to talk about playing in the river right across the street from his house.”
“He turned out to be a serious fisherman, too,” Annie nodded. “I remember he and Dave Boyington fished a lot before Dave left for the Army.”
“That’s another one that has me wondering,” Jan said.
“Boyington?” Annie said. “That’s not so strange after the way things turned out.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She was looking at Jan, “You remember how he chased around after Marci Evers in high school? Like a buck in rut?”
Jan was nodding, looking down at her hands.
“Well, he comes home after the army, and buys that place out on the river near where he grew up; builds that nice little house, and he looks like he’s really at peace with his place in this world, you know?
“It was a treat to have him come in here. Always polite to everyone. Never drank to excess, and he was careful to pick up a tab after he’d taken some touri for a hundy on the pool table.
“He was just a right guy, and then out of the blue here’s Marci Evers back in town to dispose of her family home...”
I thought I’d heard a note of disapproval, and jumped in, “You didn’t like her?”
Annie sat back as if I’d stung her a bit, “No, not that. She never did or said anything offensive to me, but for Boyington it was like high school all over again.”
Jan smirked, “All over her?”
“For sure, and she welcomed it from what I could see. They were in here two, three times a week, and Dave wasn’t playing any pool when she was here, you can count on that.”
“Doting, was he?” I asked.
“Nothing crass, no PDA or anything like that; more like really attentive. It was sweet, you know?”
“And they just disappeared?” Jan asked.
“Well, Marci made no secret of the fact that she was going to go back to Battle Creek; that’s where she was teaching all those years. She said she loved her work.
“She’d married a guy down there, another teacher. She brought him in once when her mom was still alive. He seemed to be a nice enough guy – really handsome – but that hadn’t lasted. I heard her once say, ‘Ronnie’ – that was his name – ‘Ronnie didn’t have the husband gene.’ She seemed to be okay and over it, you know?”
“So how did Dave seem to be after she went back to Battle Creek?” Jan asked.
“Don’t know; never saw him again after that last night in here with Marci. It was like Wednesday night just before Labor Day; she was leaving Tuesday after the holiday. They came in for dinner.
“Everything seemed to be good between them; tender-like, you know? I overheard them talking about seeing each other down there, and I heard her say she’d be back over her Christmas break, so I didn’t think this was ending like it had in high school...”
“And you never saw Boyington again after that night?”
“Nope. Dave paid the bill and left his customary tip – he was always good for twenty percent; the girls loved waiting on him.
“I remember him at the door, ‘Annie? I’ll catch you later.’ He said that every time as he left, ‘Annie, I’ll catch you later.’” Her eyes had taken on a misty quality as she remembered that scene.
She shook herself a bit. “I’ll always wonder, you know?”
“There’s been a lot of mystery around the Class of ’80,” Jan said quietly. “Lots of mystery and lots of heartache.”
Annie suddenly turned an accusing look in my direction, “And you’re some kind of mystery writer, aren’t you? You working on turning this all into some book?”
I had both hands up in the �
��stop” position. “Not me, Jan’s the one who’s wondering; I’m just a research assistant. I’d rather go bird hunting.”
“And tomorrow that’s just what you’re going to do,” Jan said with a smile. “Let’s go to bed so you can be up and at ’em in the morning.”
CHAPTER 19
I was sitting on the porch eating a bowl of cereal and watching Judy investigate the lakeshore Wednesday morning when Greg Blake wandered over, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “Morning, Jim!”
I nodded with my mouthful. “Mornin’,” I said softly once I’d swallowed.
“Jan’s still asleep?”
I nodded. He took the other chair on the little porch. “What’s on the agenda today? I heard you two spent most of yesterday in the museum.”
“Woodcock,” I said and took another spoonful of the cereal and milk.
“Today’s a good day for it. You up for some company?”
“You?”
“Who else?”
“Just checking; of course I’d love to hunt with you.”
“Anywhere special in mind?”
“Over by the headwaters of the Manistee.”
“There’s really good cover here ’bouts. Let me guide?”
“Sounds great.”
And three hours later, it was proving to be just as good as it had sounded on the porch. Judy and Schatzi worked as if they had been hunting together for years. The rangy Shorthair was every bit as athletic as the Wirehaired pointer, and just as intense. They ranged the cover before us and between us, but maintained a consistent ten to twenty yards in front of us. Close enough for good shooting ranges and close enough to hear their collar bells.
We hadn’t been in the first cover we visited for more than a minute when both bells went still.
“That’s a backed point,” Greg said with a smile in his voice.
It was the first of many in that cover, and then we’d driven some twenty minutes further west.
“This is the southern end of Skeegmog,” Greg said as we took a break along the banks of a meandering stream. “As we hunt north, we’re going to keep this little stream between us; it’ll become bigger and the bottom will turn sandy, and I can tell you that you’re going to see some dandy Brookies up here spawning.”
