Bogeyman

“Since the beginning. Most libraries have gone to microfiche, but as long as the pages hold together, I’ll keep the papers themselves,” Ada said. “That’s how I like to read ’em. I figure I’m not the only one.”

“I’d like to see them, please.”

“Of course.” Ada’s words were abrupt, but she lifted the hinged section of the counter she’d stood behind, moving briskly past Blythe and toward the tall shelves at the back of the room. By the time Blythe arrived, Ada was pointing to a row of huge, leather-bound books, each marked in gold on the spine with the words Crenshaw Herald and a year.

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Accustomed to the anonymity provided by a city like Boston, Blythe hadn’t anticipated the question. Given the objective of her research, she didn’t intend to share that information with a gossip like Ada.

“Just a little local color.”

“Local color?”

“Stories about the people and the community. I have several years to catch up on.”

“You still writin’ those articles, are you?” Ada’s tone sounded slightly disapproving.

Blythe had written three or four short travel essays for one of the regional magazines while she’d been in college. She hadn’t thought about them in years, but she was sure Ruth had made certain everyone in Crenshaw was aware of them. She might even have donated copies of those issues to the library.

“It’s always a possibility,” Blythe said, seizing on the excuse Ada had offered. “If something interesting turns up.”

All she wanted was to be left alone back here with the newspapers. Maybe this was a wild goose chase, but she believed that if there had been any sort of violence associated with the house she was renting, it would be detailed in the Herald.

When she’d dropped her daughter off this morning, she had asked her grandmother to keep Maddie this afternoon as well, pleading the need to investigate a couple of opportunities for employment. She would do that, too, before she picked the little girl up, but only in the most current issue of the Herald, which came out today.

“What kind of ‘interesting’?” Ada prodded. “More touristy stuff?”

The deprecating tone rankled. Granted, Blythe didn’t consider herself a writer, but she had been paid for that work. “Whatever will sell. As I said, something interesting.”

Ada’s eyes considered her over the top of her glasses. “If you’re looking for something that’d make money…”

The librarian ran her finger along the row of books until she found the one she was looking for. “I know it happened this year. Same as the flood in Sanger. My aunt’s house was damaged in that. And I know it was in the winter, so…” She pulled a volume off the shelf and laid it on one of the long empty tables and began flipping pages.

“I’m sorry?” Blythe had no idea what Ada was looking for.

“Sarah Comstock,” the librarian said, glancing up at her quickly before she went back to thumbing through the newspapers.

Blythe hadn’t thought about the Comstock murder in years. She’d been a little girl when it had happened, maybe five or six years old. Just slightly older than Maddie, she realized.

Although no one had talked openly about the murder in front of her, she had known. All the children in Crenshaw had known that Sarah had somehow been stolen from her room, taken from a bed where she’d slept beside her sister, and brutally murdered.

Blythe had come to the library looking for some incident of violent death. Yet for some reason, she had never thought about Sarah Comstock’s.

The newsprint continued to turn under Ada’s long, thin fingers. Suddenly the librarian’s hand stilled. She smoothed the pages on either side of the open book so that they lay flat and exposed.

“December. Thought so, but I wasn’t sure. I’ll get the next one, too, ’cause I know those stories ran for months.”

She turned back to the shelf, leaving the first volume on the table. The grainy picture in the center showed several men in uniform standing in the area the locals had always called Smoke Hollow. There was no body visible in the photograph, and Blythe was infinitely relieved not to have to view even a picture of a child-size corpse. With the sickness that thought created in the bottom of her stomach, she almost reached out and closed the book.

Before she could, Miss Ada laid another beside it. “First few months of this one, too. I don’t think the paper carried the story in depth much longer than that. Not a lot to cover.”

“Thank you.” Blythe set her purse down on top of the picture in the opened volume, as if to claim ownership of it.

“Cold cases always grab the interest of the reading public,” Ada said.

“Cold cases?”

“Unsolved crimes. Particularly murders. Why, you remember Mark Furman, don’t you? Made a mint on that girl’s murder in Connecticut. Don’t re-shelve ’em when you’re done. Just leave ’em out, and I’ll do it. Most everybody gets it wrong.”

“No, I won’t. And thank you, Miss Pringle.” Despite the passage of years and her own maturity, Blythe couldn’t bring herself to call the woman Ada.

“Sorry for your loss.” The librarian’s words were slightly awkward. “Good you came on home, though. Your grandmamma needs you.”

Blythe opened her mouth, trying to think of an appropriate answer. Before she could, Ada had turned and headed back to her counter.

Left alone, Blythe took a breath before she looked down again at the newsprint, sliding her purse to the side to reveal the picture. With her other hand, she found the back of one of the wooden chairs that had been shoved under the table. Without taking her eyes off the story that surrounded the photograph, she pulled the chair out far enough that she could slip into it. As she began to unbutton her coat, her mind was already occupied by the words that had been written a quarter of a century before.

“Time to close.”

Blythe blinked as she looked up. Ada was hovering at her elbow, a black vinyl purse hooked over her arm.

As she’d moved, Blythe had become aware of a stiffness in her neck and shoulders. Not surprising, she acknowledged. If it was indeed closing time, she must have been reading in this same position for hours.

It wasn’t only the gruesome details that had emerged from the yellowed pages of the Herald that held her rapt. She had been fascinated by the microcosm of the rural county’s society the investigation into the little girl’s murder had revealed. Since she had known most of its principals all her life, she had become completely caught up in the unfolding story.

Law enforcement, in the person of Sheriff Hoyt Lee, had admitted from the start that the lack of physical evidence was not only baffling, but virtually insurmountable. The child’s mutilated body, stripped of its nightgown, had been washed clean by the swift, icy current of the stream that cut through the hollow. There was no trace evidence, at least none that the technology of the day had been able to discover. No footprints. And as there appeared to have been no sexual assault at the time of the murder, no DNA had been preserved.

“May I check these out?” Blythe asked.

She couldn’t come back here every afternoon. She had already imposed on her grandmother enough. Lost in the articles on the murder, however, she hadn’t even looked for anything relating to her house.

“The newspapers? Oh, those don’t circulate.”

“I’d be very careful with them, I promise.” The schoolgirl feeling had come flooding back.

“Can’t make exceptions. Then everybody expects them.”

As Blythe debated whether anything might be gained by further argument, Ada reached over and closed the first book she’d taken down. “You should talk to Hoyt.” She juggled her purse as she prepared to lift the heavy book back up onto the shelf. “He’s bound to know stuff that never made the papers. Evidence, I mean.” The three syllables of the word were individually and distinctly pronounced, the accent on the last.

Despite her annoyance at being treated like a child, Blythe had to admit the idea was intriguing, but not because of the Comstock case. The former sheriff would be the ideal person to ask about the house she was living in. Not only would he know if anything had happened there, he would never gossip about her inquiry.

Hoyt had shown her extraordinary kindness while she’d been growing up. Maybe because he’d been friends with her father. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her because of his untimely death. Whatever the reason, he had treated her like a fond uncle, even escorting her once to a father/daughter church banquet.

“That’s a very good idea, Ada. Thanks for the suggestion,” Blythe said, pushing back her chair and gathering up her coat and purse.

The librarian’s eyes had widened at her use of her given name, a reaction that Blythe found surprisingly satisfying.

The Sheriff’s Department had expanded to take in the adjoining buildings in the years she’d been away. Obviously there was a greater need for law-enforcement officers with the growth of the population and the county’s changing demographics.