Daughters of the Lake

by Wendy Webb

“No, I just—too. But Nick, this is wrong. I’m still married. I’m in the process of getting a divorce, but technically . . .”

  He nodded. “I understand. I should go.”

  “That might be best.” She got up from the sofa on shaky legs and followed him to the door.

  Before he left, he turned to her.

  “I had a really good time tonight,” he said. “I know you’re still married. And you’re part of an open investigation. The timing stinks. But when all of that works itself out, I hope we can do this again.”

  “I’d like that,” she said and shut the door behind him as he walked out into the crisp, fall night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “So?” Simon said across the breakfast table the next morning. “I want to hear every last detail.”

  Kate could feel the heat rising to her cheeks. She had thought about nothing else but her evening with Nick Stone during her early morning walk with Alaska.

  “That good?” Simon grinned.

  Kate shook her head. “I have no business seeing another man,” she said. “I’m still married to Kevin.”

  Simon set his fork down on the table. “Listen,” he said. “You’re not seeing him. You just had dinner. But Kate, this is me you’re talking to. We both know you’re not getting back together with Kevin. I saw it in your eyes the second you walked through the door.”

  Kate had to admit it to herself—he was right. The thought of seeing Kevin again filled her with revulsion.

  Kate’s phone ringing startled both of them. She looked at the number and whispered to Simon, “I think it’s the good detective.”

  Simon took a sip of his coffee and leaned in.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” said Nick Stone.

  “Hi,” Kate said, grinning.

  “I know I said I was going to leave you alone until you got your life sorted out.”

  “I never asked you to leave me alone.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Nick chuckled, his deep voice sending a shiver through Kate. “Because I don’t intend to. But I’m calling today because I was thinking about your brick wall.”

  “Were you now?”

  “I was. And I think I have an idea for you.”

  Kate smiled and took a sip of her coffee. “Are you going to tell me this idea?”

  “I thought I might. Yes.”

  “Today?”

  He laughed. “Yes, today. Here it is. I was thinking about how you came up empty searching on the internet because you didn’t have the name of the person you’re looking for.”

  “That’s right. And I’m not sure where to go from here.”

  “What about to the library?”

  Kate furrowed her brow. “I don’t follow you. What would I be looking for there?”

  “Old newspapers,” he said. “I’m sure the library has the Wharton daily paper on microfilm, all the way back to 1905. Even earlier. You’d have to physically look through them, but you wouldn’t need a name. It’s the headline you’re after. If your lady and her husband were acquainted with your great-grandparents, and better yet, if they lived in Wharton, her murder would’ve been news.”

  Kate closed her eyes. “Of course,” she said. “I’ve been so used to looking things up in an online database for so many years that I didn’t even think of archives at the library.”

  “Forest for the trees,” he said. “Sometimes the closest person to a case can’t see the obvious. I’ll tell you, when I got this idea, I thought it might be a way to crack this case, and then . . .”

  “It’s my case, not yours,” Kate said.

  “That’s right. I can’t send someone from my team to do research on a dead woman from a hundred years ago.”

  “So you called me,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  Kate was silent for a moment, buzzing with excitement. Would this finally lead her to the truth?

  “Thank you, Nick,” she said. “Thank you so much. I’ll head down to the library right after breakfast.”

  “Let me know what you turn up.”

  “I will,” Kate said, clicking her phone off.

  After telling Simon all about it while they finished their meal, Kate gathered up her purse and jacket.

  “I have a strong feeling that I’m going to find something,” she said to Simon. “I really do.”

  “You know what? I do, too.” Simon smiled, squeezing her hand.

  Simon walked her to the door and kissed her on the cheek. “Here’s to fruitful hunting.”

  When she reached the library, Kate pushed open the big double doors carrying a purse heavy with quarters. She had stopped at the bank on her way down the hill and exchanged some bills for several rolls of coins, knowing that the temperamental microfiche machine at the library might require a good deal of coaxing before it agreed to print out any pages.

  Even in this digital age, old copies of the town’s daily newspaper, the Wharton Tribune, were still stored on rolls of film that looked something like old-fashioned home movie reels. As a reporter, Kate was familiar with the medium and the machine needed to read it, a cumbersome cube with a screen about the size of a standard-size television and a hand crank that was used to advance the film. She had researched many stories in this way over the years, threading the film through the machine and using a handle to spin through the issues, which appeared on the large monitor, until she reached the one she needed. The film represented actual photographs of the newspaper that had been reduced—Kate was able to see an entire page of the paper, sometimes two, at once on the screen.

  To Kate, reading old newspapers on microfiche was a bit like time travel. Issue after issue appeared on the screen and then vanished. Then another, then another. The faster she spun the handle, the faster time would go by.

  “Where do you store old copies of the Trib?” Kate asked the librarian, a twenty-something man with messy brown hair pulled into a man bun on the top of his head.

  “How old?” he asked her.

  “I’d like to start with the year 1905 and go forward from there,” she said.

  “Last couple of drawers on the right,” he said, pointing to a shelf in the back of the library.

  “Do all of these machines make copies?” Kate asked. She did not want to find herself staring at vital information with no way to print it out.

  “Only the three nearest to the window,” he replied, again, pointing. “You’ll need quarters.”

  Kate thanked him and found the rolls she needed, chose a machine, one that could indeed print the page viewed on the screen, and settled in for what she knew would be a long day’s work. Unlike the internet, there was no way to search a microfiche by subject. The newspapers appeared in their entirety and were arranged by date only. Did the woman die in 1905? 1910? Kate had no way of knowing exactly when it had happened. Grasping in the dark wasn’t her favorite way of collecting information, but at the moment, it was all she had. Kate carefully threaded the first roll into the machine, January 1905, and flipped the power switch on.

  Hours later, she had searched through nearly four years’ worth of newspapers. An event like the death of a prominent woman would be front-page news, Kate reasoned, so she took the time to scan only the front pages of each issue. She found herself sidetracked, however, by other stories in the news—it was a glimpse into American life in a more innocent age. World War I hadn’t yet occurred—a thing as horrible as a world war wasn’t even imagined on the day that her great-grandparents had had a picnic with the beautiful, long-haired woman in Kate’s dreams. Prohibition was not in full swing, though there were rumblings about it, immigrants were flooding into Ellis Island. Closer to Kate’s home, the logging and shipping industries were dominating the news and refabricating the countryside.

  Kate was startled to read that, in 1905, several severe storms hit the Great Lakes, including one so fierce and sudden that it froze men solid on the deck of their ship, which was stranded just far enough offshore to prevent their res
cue, as horrified townspeople looked on. That storm created the call for more lighthouses to be built—ones that Kate herself had explored, and considered ancient, as a child. It was a time of incredible expansion and growth in the area, and the sense of optimism, not just in Wharton but in the country as a whole, was tangible, even to Kate, reading about it secondhand almost a century later. What an exciting time to be alive, Kate thought, when the country was relatively new. She saw her great-grandfather’s name and grainy photograph in the news several times, always in reference to his business.

  She looked at her watch and thought of taking a break to rest her eyes from the monitor’s glare, but instead she decided to just keep plugging along. She was here now, and fatigued or not, she wasn’t going to stop searching until she had some answers.

  Kate threaded roll after roll, scanned page after page, worrying with every headline that passed before her eyes in a flash that perhaps she was mistaken, perhaps she would find no information about this woman’s death, perhaps the woman on her beach was not the same woman in the photograph after all.

  Then she came upon something that made her stop short. Kate held her breath and read:

  LOCAL WOMAN MISSING

  Mrs. Jess Stewart (née Adelaide Cassatt) has gone missing from her Front Street home. Mr. Stewart, vice president of Canby Lines, owned by local businessman Mr. Harrison Connor, returned home late Sunday, April 24, from a business meeting in Chicago to find his wife had vanished without a trace. She was last seen by a maid on Sunday afternoon.

  Upon arriving home that evening and finding his wife missing, Mr. Stewart sent word to his wife’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Cassatt of Great Bay, who had not heard from their daughter. St. Joseph’s Hospital has no patients who match her description. Mrs. Stewart’s clothes, shoes, and suitcases remain in the home. Police reports indicate no evidence of foul play.

  Mrs. Stewart is a young woman with long auburn hair. She is heavy with child, due to deliver at any moment. The frantic Mr. Stewart asks anyone with any information regarding his wife’s whereabouts to contact the authorities.

  Mr. Connor has offered a sizeable reward to anyone who provides information that will bring Mrs. Stewart home.

  A photo appeared under the article. Small and inky though the shot was, there was no mistaking it. Kate’s heart began pounding loudly in her chest, her body shaking with the reality of it. She was looking at proof of the impossible.

  Adelaide Stewart—Kate caught her breath. Addie. That was the name of the woman in Kate’s dreams. Jess Stewart was the husband. His name took root in her heart, as though it had been there all along.

  Kate put three quarters in the machine, and through the tears that had begun welling up in her eyes, she hit the “Print” button.

  Kate was a reporter; she knew there had to be more to the story. What happened to Addie? How did she wind up missing? What of the child? The story said she was “heavy with child,” yet she washed up with a baby. And how did she end up in the lake in her nightgown? Kate turned the machine’s handle slowly, twisting through the days and weeks that were held captive on the roll.

  MAN ARRESTED! WIFE MURDERED!

  Mr. Jess Stewart, vice president of Canby Lines, has been arrested in the disappearance of his wife, Adelaide. After a thorough police investigation, Mr. Stewart was taken into custody today and charged with her murder.

  Mr. Harrison Connor, Mr. Stewart’s employer, president of Canby Lines, proclaims Mr. Stewart’s innocence, offering a sizeable reward to anyone providing information that will lead to his exoneration.

  The piece included two photographs, the same one of Addie that had appeared in the earlier story and another of her husband. Kate had seen that face before in a dream. She knew this man. She had touched him, felt the love that Addie felt for him. She remembered his sweet words, the scent of the lilacs he had brought her. There was no way he killed her. At the sight of his photograph, Kate felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach. Again, tears welled up in her eyes. She felt sick at the thought of it. Not him. Not Jess. But she remembered Nick’s words: If a wife and baby are murdered, look to the husband first.

  Kate stared at the story on the screen before her, at once marveling at the differences in the reporting style of the day—so biased, so many questions left unanswered—and wondering how this turn of events could possibly have taken place. She printed out a copy of the story and continued on her search, threading the next roll of film and turning the handle slowly, watching the days and weeks unfold before her in an instant. It didn’t take long for Kate to find the next installment of the story. It was splashed across the front page, the headline in bold, uppercase type.

  STEWART TRIAL BEGINS TODAY

  The trial of Mr. Jess Stewart, formerly the vice president of Canby Lines, begins today at the courthouse in Wharton. Crowds began gathering on the courthouse steps early in the day, awaiting a chance to see the accused murderer arrive on the scene.

  Mr. Stewart is accused of killing his wife. The crime is made all the more heinous by the fact that Mrs. Stewart was expecting their first child. Her body has not been found.

  “I want to see him hang,” said Wharton police chief Arnold Becker on the courthouse steps. “We’ve got a solid case against him. There’s no doubt in my mind this man killed his wife.”

  Despite the police chief’s statements, Mr. Harrison Connor, owner and president of Canby Lines, Wharton’s largest employer, steadfastly maintains his belief in the innocence of his former vice president.

  “I know Jess Stewart personally, and I do not believe he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance,” Mr. Connor told this reporter this morning as he arrived at the courthouse. “This entire trial is a travesty. There is no proof the woman is dead. She may have simply run off. Her husband is devastated by this loss, as are we all. I am here today to support my friend and feel confident he will be exonerated at trial.”

  Kate threaded yet another roll of film into the machine and began to turn the handle. The trial was in full swing. Not a day went by without sensational headlines.

  EYEWITNESS PUTS STEWART IN WHARTON ON SATURDAY!

  During the first day of testimony in the trial of Mr. Jess Stewart, his assertion that he returned to Wharton on Sunday, April 24, to find his wife missing has been called into question.

  The crowd was standing room only for the beginning of what is already being called the Trial of the Century. Mr. Stewart is accused of murdering his wife, née Adelaide Cassatt, and it seems that the whole town of Wharton has come to see for themselves whether or not this man is a cold-hearted killer. Along with the townsfolk, Mr. Stewart’s mother, Mrs. Jennie Stewart, has been in attendance, as have the parents of the murdered woman, Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Cassatt, of Great Bay. Mrs. Stewart and the Cassatts were sitting together, no animosity apparent between them.

  “My son is innocent,” Mrs. Stewart declared before the trial began.

  “We believe Jess had nothing to do with Addie’s disappearance,” said Mr. Cassatt, his wife too distraught to comment on the proceedings.

  Mr. Johann Lange, a dockworker at Olsen’s Fish Market, was the first witness called in the trial. He testified that he saw Mr. Stewart passing by the fish market on Saturday, April 23.

  “He was angry, anybody could see that,” testified Mr. Lange. “I know it was Saturday because the boats came in. Usually, the fishermen fill their nets and come back into port on Saturday, what with Sunday being the Sabbath.”

  Under questioning, Mr. Lange divulged that he saw Mr. Stewart angrily walking down Market Avenue past the fish market toward Front Street, where his home is located.

  Mr. Stewart jumped from his chair upon hearing this testimony, shouting, “It’s a lie! It’s a lie!”

  With that, the courtroom erupted into pandemonium, people shouting and tempers flaring. Finally, Mr. Lange exited the courtroom, yelling, “I hope you hang, wife killer!”

  Judge Arvid Anderson quieted the crowd with t
hreats of expelling the lot of them.

  Tomorrow, the trial resumes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kate’s heart was beating hard in her chest. She printed out the story, but before she could thread the next roll, she noticed the librarian slouching over to her.

  “We’re closing for the day, ma’am,” he said. “We close early in the off-season. You’ve got to finish up and go.”

  Was it so late already? “I’m sorry, I guess I lost track of time,” she mumbled, gathering her papers and eyeing the enormous pile of rolls on her desk. “I’ll put these away before I leave.”

  Kate pushed her way out of the library’s heavy door and was taken aback by the twilight she encountered outside.

  She dug her phone out of her purse and dialed.

  “You won’t believe it!” she said to Nick, nearly breathless. “You won’t believe it! I can hardly believe it myself.”

  “You found something?”

  “It took all day, but yes,” she said, walking fast. “Can you meet me at the coffee shop? I can’t wait to show you what I found.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Kate crossed the street and hurried down the block to the coffee shop, ordering two coffees before settling into a table by the window. She opened the file folder she was carrying and pulled out the copies she had made at the library, strewing them across the table.

  Nick arrived a few minutes later.

  “Look at this!” she said, her eyes shining.

  “I’ll be damned,” Nick whispered as he studied the grainy newsprint photograph of Addie. “That’s the same woman in the photo you showed me yesterday. And her name—Addie. Didn’t you tell me that was the name of the woman in your dreams?”

  “They called it the ‘Trial of the Century.’” Kate was talking fast. “Jess Stewart—he’s the husband—was arrested and put on trial for the murder of his wife. My great-grandfather stood by him in a very public way. He even offered a reward to anyone who found the real killer. They were friends! Jess Stewart worked for him at Canby Lines.”

  Nick stared at Kate, open mouthed. In one afternoon of research, she had indeed produced evidence of the impossible.