Scraps of Paper Read online

  Chapter 8

  When Abigail got up the next morning she finished Martha’s watercolor, called her, and informed her she could pick it up. It was as good as she was going to get it. Propping it against the front room wall, she sat on the couch and studied it. Her smile came slowly. It looks pretty good for the artist being so out of practice. I hope Martha likes it.

  As she waited for her new friend, she roamed the house poking into the nooks and crannies of cabinets, closets and drawers, looking for notes or that elusive diary. The children’s room had been upstairs, according to Frank, and they shared it with their mother. Edna had slept downstairs on a sofa couch. With a flashlight, on hands and knees, Abigail explored the loft bedroom along the baseboards and in the walk-in closet. Sixty watts wasn’t enough light so hundred-watt bulbs were on her grocery list.

  About to give up, she noticed the heater vents on the floor, found a screwdriver and pried them open. Being summer she hadn’t cleaned them out yet so they were thick with webs and years accumulation of vent dust. Using a cloth to wipe away the covering of matted grime, in the second vent she hit treasure: a piece of twine attached to the side of the vent. She tugged it up through her fingers and at the end was a small brown paper lunch sack. Inside were drawings and another crayon message from Jenny. All in caps again.

  SOMEONE TRIED TO RUN CHRISTOPHER OVER WITH A CAR. SOMEONE BROKE OUT MOM’S CAR WINDOWS. I KNOW ITS HIM. MOM SAYS IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS SO MAD. CAIN’T HELP HIMSELF. I SAY BALONEY. HE IS BAD. EVIL AS CHRIS SAYS. I HATE HIM. I KNOW GOD SAYS YOU SHOULN’T HATE NOBODY SO I’M SORRY GOD BUT I DO. I SENT A LETTER TO DAD TO COME GET US. HE NEVER WROTE BACK.

  The drawings were of the house and a kitten. Christopher’s house picture wasn’t half bad. Abigail’s house circa 1970 looked about the same as it did today except the trees were smaller, there were two bicycles against the porch, two hula hoops laying in the front yard and a swing hanging from one of the elms. The other picture, signed by Jenny, was of a white cat sitting on the house’s front porch, eyes wide and blue, one paw stretched out. Snowball grownup.

  A shiver began in Abigail’s fingers and rippled through her body. Strange how the past and the present kept merging. Abigail believed she’d been destined to find this town, this house and these clues. It was her fate to solve the mystery of what happened to the Summers. And as much as she disliked newspapers, it was time to visit Samantha Westerly at the Journal. Scooping up the children’s messages and drawings into a large envelope, she drove into town. A breezeless July day, it was too hot to walk. Someone out there knew what had happened thirty years ago and if there was a newspaper story that someone might read it and step forward.

  “So you decided to let me do that story on you after all?” exclaimed Samantha when Abigail walked in.

  “Sort of.” Being there with people bent over computers slaving away on stories and ads or on the phone selling classifieds revived unpleasant memories. She had to remind herself she was only a visitor. She could leave whenever she wanted to. “I have an intriguing feature concept for you, Samantha.”

  “Come into my private cubicle and tell me about it, Abigail. I’m a sucker for a good story idea. Some weeks I can’t think of a darn thing to write about.”

  And Abigail did. She explained about Emily and the children’s disappearances; showed Samantha the scribbled messages, the drawings, and exposed what she and Frank had uncovered, even about the ledger. Samantha was sold.

  “You’re right. People love a good mystery. And it’s a hometown conundrum! We could lay it out as something we–the whole town–might want to solve…what happened to Emily and her two kids? Let’s play Sherlock Holmes and unlock the secret. We could frame their story with the trappings of the times. The seventies…what were they like in Spookie? What did the town look like back then? The stores and businesses. The clothes we wore and the movies we were watching. The politics of the day. What we did for fun. It was pre-computer and the Internet, of course. Who was mayor, who was sheriff? I could interview store owners and citizens who remember the town and what it was like in the summer of 1970 to get new perspectives. The human touch.” Samantha was so excited, she couldn’t stop talking.

  “Heck, we could make it a series of stories. Print and follow the clues each week and get feedback from the readers. The individual material on peoples’ memories of those days alone could be a gold mine. Imagine it! What were you doing in the summer of 1970? What was it like? And did you know Emily or her kids?” Samantha clapped her hands. “I can tie you and your drawings into the first story. Give you free publicity and generate some commissions. You being the owner of the house now and the originator of the quest, so to speak.” It was easy to see this woman loved her job.

  Abigail suddenly felt anticipation. At last she was doing something. “Good idea. I won’t refuse free publicity. So how do we start this?”

  Samantha’s eyebrows arched and her eyes behind the glasses were thoughtful. Even without makeup she was pretty. Her face had classic lines and good bone structure. Age wouldn’t harm her too quickly. “We’ll start by taking pictures of your house and you in it, Abigail. I’ll send a photographer over tomorrow, if that’s okay with you? Deadline is in three days if we want to get this in the next issue. If we could get photos of the missing persons, that would be splendid. I could ask around, do some digging and maybe come up with pictures of them from our archives, the newspaper’s been around for over fifty years, or for the kids, school records from wherever they went to school before they came here. Since they were here in the summer.”

  Samantha set up a new file on her computer. Glancing at Abigail, she said, “No time like now…so begin at the very beginning and this time I’ll write it down.”

  Now there was no going back.