Bound for murder, p.9
Bound for Murder, page 9
Strangely, I felt a rush of joy, almost like Jeremy approved of this idea. Which is crazy, I thought, reminding myself that I didn’t believe in ghosts. Although … Admit it, there were those incidents in the recent past that had you questioning whether Hamlet was right about there being more things in heaven and earth …
Lost in my thoughts, I jumped when the door to the archives opened. I shoved Jeremy’s photo back into the folder and forced a smile as Sunny ushered Daniel Dane into the room.
“Good morning,” I said, ignoring the guarded expression on Sunny’s lovely face.
“Hi.” Dan’s sea-green eyes focused on the worktable. “I see you started without me.”
“I just wanted to pull a few things beforehand,” I said. I’d already decided not to mention my work for the sheriff’s department. I didn’t entirely trust the reporter yet, especially where Carol and P.J. were concerned. “I still need to grab a few more boxes, though. Sunny, could you retrieve the town council records for 1964 and ’65? Maybe there’s some mention of unsolved disappearances in the notes.”
“Okay.” She made a beeline for a metal file cabinet. “But I shouldn’t linger. I don’t want to leave Bill on his own at the desk for too long.”
I swept this aside with a wave of my hand. “Oh, he’ll be fine. And he knows where to find us if he needs assistance.”
Sunny cast me a suspicious side-eye glance as she riffled through the cabinet.
“There wasn’t much about any of the missing people in the area papers,” Dan said, circling around the table to stand beside me.
“I know. That’s why I suggested checking the town records. They might’ve recorded a discussion that wasn’t shared with reporters.” I glanced up at Dan. “Not everyone trusts the news media, you know.”
Dan’s smile lit up his long-boned face. “Only too well.”
“Here you go.” Sunny slapped several acid-free file folders down onto the table. “I think I’ll head back.” She turned on her heel and marched to the door.
“Wait a minute, Ms. Fields,” Dan said, stopping her in her tracks. “I want to apologize again for badgering you the other day. I’m afraid I was too aggressive. I hate that we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Wrong entire leg,” Sunny replied, but she allowed her fingers to slip off the doorknob. She turned to face us.
Dan, who’d sat in one of the room’s wooden chairs, scooted it closer to the table. “I also want you to know that I don’t actually suspect your grandparents of any wrongdoing.” He kept his gaze focused on the file folders. “My research has revealed their solid commitment to nonviolence.”
“Glad to hear it,” Sunny said, stepping away from the door. “They don’t even kill animals, you know. We just raise chickens for the eggs, and cows and goats for their milk.”
Dan looked up and flashed her a warm smile. “I know. I read that in an article about the farm. Now, where do you suggest I begin?”
“Just take a look through all those papers and see what you can find,” I replied, handing him a pair of gloves. “You don’t have to put these on for the files, as a lot of that material is comprised of copies, but please use them when you get to the photos.”
Sunny, who’d inched farther into the room, leaned back against the file cabinet. “Since you say you don’t suspect my grandparents, what’s your theory about who killed Jeremy Adams, Mr. Dane?”
“Please, call me Dan.” He perused a stack of town council minutes, his brow furrowed with concentration. “And, to answer your question, Ms. Fields …”
“Sunny.” She wrinkled her nose when I shot her an amused look.
“Okay, Sunny it is.”
“And Amy,” I added.
Dan set aside one stack of the papers and sat back in his chair. “At this point, my working theory is that Jeremy, like some of the other missing people, got tangled up in the drug trade. There was a pretty serious illicit drug scene around here in the 1960s and ’70s. Underground, of course. From the outside, Taylorsford and the surrounding counties appeared to be idyllic country locales. Havens for those who wanted to escape the turmoil of the city. But appearances can be deceiving, and I’ve discovered that there was a lot more going on beneath the surface.”
“I can certainly believe that.” I thought about the secrets I’d uncovered in previous investigations. Since drugs had figured into some of those cases as well, I was aware that Taylorsford had not escaped that particular blight.
Dan’s gaze slid from me to rest on Sunny. “I suppose you know there was drug use among the members of your grandparents’ commune?”
“Yes, of course.” Sunny fiddled with a strand of her hair, twisting it around her finger. “But the grands weren’t heavily into it, or so they’ve told me. They mostly smoked weed.”
“Perhaps that’s true.” Dan crossed his lanky arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “But some of their friends, including Jeremy Adams, apparently had pretty serious habits—ones that included the hard stuff. Which meant they had to be involved with hard-core dealers. Who were not, as you can imagine, model citizens.”
“You think Jeremy and the other missing people ran afoul of drug dealers?” The image of Jeremy’s smiling face flitted through my mind. I frowned, hating the thought that he’d met his untimely end in some particularly gruesome fashion.
“Some of them, anyway.” Dan stretched his arms above his head before dropping them back to his sides. “Which would explain why they were never seen again.”
“Even your aunt?” I glanced at the reporter. “I hope you don’t mind me sharing that information with Sunny, Dan.”
“Not at all.” His gloved fingers riffled through the photo box for a moment before he looked up and caught Sunny’s eye. “As I told Amy the other day, it’s what started my current investigation. Back in the sixties, my mother’s sister also disappeared from this area.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m sure that was extremely painful for your family.” Sunny offered him a comforting smile. “But, getting back to Jeremy, do you think it’s possible that some criminal buried his body on our farm? Without my grandparents’ knowledge, of course.”
“It’s a possibility.” Dan motioned to the chair next to him. “Have a seat, Sunny. I imagine you’ve been on your feet most of the morning.”
I looked from Sunny to Dan and stifled a smile. The reporter hadn’t asked me to sit down, but then, he wasn’t gazing at me with that intent expression either.
Sunny’s made another conquest. And she doesn’t even know it yet. I studied her face, noticing the softening of the lines bracketing her lips. Maybe.
“In all honesty, I suspect it would’ve been more than one lone dealer,” Dan said, pulling the extra chair away from the table so Sunny could sit beside him. “Probably a gang of some kind, or at least a dealer who was in league with a larger organization. That would explain how people could be made to disappear so easily.”
A thought popped into my head, and I crossed to the shelves to hide the conflict undoubtedly mirrored on my face. I knew someone who had worked as a drug dealer in this area back in the sixties. Someone clever enough to make people disappear.
But just the other day Kurt claimed he’d left the area before Jeremy went missing. I yanked a box of miscellaneous materials from the sixties off the shelf. Still, everyone also thought Jeremy left, and he obviously returned. Who’s to say Kurt couldn’t have come back as well? Not to mention, you know that Kurt Kendrick sometimes lies …
After plopping down the box, I backed away from the table. “I think I may leave you guys here and go back inside,” I said. “Trust me, Dan, you’re in good hands with Sunny.”
“I’m sure of that,” he replied with a smile.
Sunny, pouring over a few of the documents from the files, did not respond. That was enough to tell me how obsessed she’d become with proving her grandparents’ innocence. Normally, my flirtatious friend would’ve returned Dan’s interest by now.
“But, before I go, Dan, I’m just curious about one thing.” I paused at the door, turning back with a nonchalance I didn’t feel. “Have you discovered the names of any of the dealers who worked this area?”
“A few. But mainly just nicknames. Or street names, I guess you’d say.” Dan looked me over, one eyebrow quirked.
Maybe my tone hadn’t been as casual as I’d hoped. “I just thought it might help us in the search for more information.”
“Well, anything to help the cause. Okay, there was a woman they called Esmerelda, and some dude called the Weasel, but the one that really sticks out is some guy they called the Hammer.”
Sunny glanced at Dan, a little line creasing her smooth forehead. “With that name, he must’ve been one scary dude.”
“I’m not sure about that. I haven’t heard any stories of him being overly violent. But he did work the area, and had a good-sized clientele, including some people at the Vista View commune.”
“I heard the same thing from Peter O’Malley,” I said, earning sharp glances from both Sunny and Dan. “When I talked to Pete the other day, he mentioned both the Weasel and the Hammer.”
Sunny gave a mock shudder. “Sounds like a bad rock band.”
“It does, but there wasn’t anything funny about those guys.” As Dan leaned across to grab more papers from one of the files, his arm brushed Sunny’s. “Oh, sorry,” he said, pulling away.
“No problem.” Sunny turned, scooting her chair to the side so she could face the reporter. “And I guess it’s my turn to apologize. Honestly, I thought you were digging for dirt on my grandparents to write an exposé or something. That’s why I was so rude to you at first—I was afraid you planned to cast unsubstantiated suspicion on them just to bolster your own readership.”
“I understand, and honestly”—Dan offered her a smile that would’ve melted a far stonier heart—“I admire your loyalty, and understand your desire to protect them. It’s what we should all do for family, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Sunny said. “So how about we let bygones be bygones.” She held out her hand.
As Dan smiled and clasped her fingers in a firm grip, I called out a “See you later” and made a hasty exit.
* * *
An hour later, Sunny and Dan approached the circulation desk, chattering away like they’d known each other for years.
“You seem to have gotten very friendly,” I observed after Dan left the library and Sunny joined me behind the desk.
“He’s actually a pretty interesting guy.”
“I’m sure. Not too hard on the eyes, either.”
“A little skinny for my taste, but”—Sunny shrugged—“that really isn’t relevant if you’re just going to be friends. And like I told the grands, I’m not looking to date anyone right now.” She lifted her chin and met my amused gaze with a defiant stare.
“Right.” I pointed to my temple with one finger. “Totally got that vibe. Anyway, flirting aside, did you find any useful information for Dan’s article?”
Sunny tapped her painted fingernails against the pitted surface of the desk. “For your information, we weren’t flirting. And yes, a few things. Dan had to head off to work on another project, though. He said he’d come back soon to dig a little deeper into the files.”
“I’m sure he will.” I couldn’t resist a little smirk. Turnabout was fair play, and Sunny had pushed me to pursue relationships often enough in the past. Now it was my turn to encourage her.
“Look, Miss Intrusive, if you must know—we had a very serious discussion. In fact, I shared the story about my mom. I thought it would help to explain why the grands are so sensitive on the subject of missing persons.”
“Really?” My expression instantly sobered. Sunny rarely spoke about her mom, Heather, who’d run away from home when she was sixteen, only to show up again right before she gave birth to Sunny. I knew Carol and P.J. had hoped Heather would agree to live with them and raise her baby in their home, but soon after Sunny was born, Heather had disappeared once again.
Carol had once told me in confidence that she suspected Heather was dead, since she’d never again contacted them or attempted to see her daughter. P.J. refused to believe this, and Sunny … Sunny always claimed she didn’t care.
“Dan is easy to talk to,” my friend said, keeping her head down as she sorted through some past-due notices I’d printed out and stacked on the desk.
“Being a reporter, I imagine he’s been trained to listen. But he does seem like a decent guy. And he strikes me as rather intelligent, too.”
“Oh yes,” Sunny said, immediately covering her enthusiasm by arranging the notices into a neat pile. “Anyway, he has a master’s in creative writing, along with his journalism degree.”
“Ah, an author.” As I examined Sunny’s profile, I couldn’t help but notice the rosy color rising in her cheeks. “Just your type.”
“I do love books.”
“Along with intelligent men who are easy to talk to?”
Sunny gave me a grin. “Maybe. But I swear I’m not going to date Dan. At least not seriously. I have too much going on right now to try to squeeze in a romance.”
“Okay, fair enough. But don’t push him too far away.”
Sunny tossed her gleaming golden hair. “You know me better than that. But I’m keeping it on strictly friendly terms for now. Besides, if I help him uncover the truth about these disappearances and how his aunt or Jeremy Adams might’ve been the victims of drug deals gone wrong, it could benefit the grands. So there’s that, too.”
“There’s definitely that.” I looked her up and down. “You know he’s going to fall in love with you.”
“Not necessarily. And I don’t intend to encourage him.”
I shook my head and cast her a rueful smile. “Oh, Sunny, don’t you realize by now that you don’t have to?”
Chapter Ten
Having left the house without bothering to prepare a lunch, I told Sunny I’d cover for her from one to two if she’d hold down the fort at noon.
“I think I’ll just walk down to the Heapin’ Plate and grab a sandwich to go,” I said as she poked her head into the workroom.
“Oh, could you get me something too?” Sunny rummaged through her macrame pouch and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Just get me a sandwich; I have a bottle of water in the break-room fridge.”
“What do you want?” I asked, slinging my purse strap over one shoulder.
“Anything vegetarian is fine. But tell Bethany to substitute an extra pickle for the chips, would you?”
“Watching your girlish figure?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
Sunny grinned and patted her hip. “No, I just like their dill pickles.”
“Okay, see you in a bit,” I called out to her before exiting through the staff door.
The Heapin’ Plate, the diner run by Bethany Virts, was only a short stroll away. Located in a historic turn-of-the-century building that had once been a general store, the restaurant had retained its original pressed-tin ceiling and marble-topped walnut counter but was decorated in a vintage 1950s style. Round, chrome-edged tables and metal ladder-back chairs filled the black-and-white-tiled floor, and the large front windows were framed by yellow-checked gingham curtains.
I surveyed the dining area, noticing with dismay that Elspeth Blackstone was holding court at one of the tables.
Spreading more salacious stories about Sunny and her family, no doubt. I frowned and crossed to the counter without looking in Elspeth’s direction. But before I reached the line for takeout orders, I heard someone call out my name.
“Amy, please join us.” Zelda Shoemaker waved me over to a table by the far wall.
A short, plump woman whose rosy, unlined face and expertly dyed blonde cap of curls made her look younger than her sixty-six years, Zelda was the polar opposite of my self-contained aunt. Yet they’d been best friends from childhood.
Across the table from Zelda sat Walt Adams, a tall, lanky sixty-five-year-old and another of my aunt’s childhood friends. He was also Zelda’s significant other, although they’d only recently gone public with their relationship. Walt, who was one of the few African-Americans who’d lived in Taylorsford before the 1970s, had been hesitant to announce their relationship to the town, despite the fact that both he and Zelda had lost their spouses years before. It was only after some recent traumatic events that they had resolved to face whatever friction they might encounter from any less enlightened residents of the town.
Fortunately, there’d been no backlash, at least from what I’d heard. “Just let me order first,” I told Zelda, motioning toward the counter.
After a few minutes, with takeout orders placed for both me and Sunny, I crossed over to their table. “How are you two doing today?” I asked, taking the third seat at the table.
“Just fine, dear,” Zelda said. “Although I am keeping my eye on that viper over there.” She pointed toward Elspeth and her small group of friends.
“Now, Zel, let’s not get into that,” Walt said, his gaze wandering to follow a man who’d just entered the diner. “Look—there’s that investigative reporter I was telling you about. The one who’s been looking into the disappearance of people from this area in the sixties.”
“Daniel Dane?” I turned in my chair as the reporter made his way to the counter.
Catching my eye, he waved.
“You know him?” Zelda asked, her tea-brown eyes widening. “Walt’s been following some of his articles, and when we heard Dane was in Taylorsford, he hoped to meet him. Do spill the beans about how you made his acquaintance so fast, dear. From what Walt told me, he’s only just appeared in town.”
“He stopped by the library yesterday,” I said, sharing a What can you do? look with Walt. “He wanted to question Sunny, but I hooked him up with the archives instead. Although, honestly, he and Sunny …”
