Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HALLIE
Willow Springs was a small town. There might be 3000 people living in the surrounding area, so it was lucky that Asheville wasn’t more than 25 miles away. I stood in the reference section of the downtown library. I hadn’t been back to the waterfall in more than a week, but I had a nagging feeling that I should find it again. But before I did, I thought looking through some old periodicals couldn’t hurt. Maybe there would be some clue as to why the Michaelson’s and the Williams’ did not get along. I hoped it wasn’t over something stupid like a livestock dispute.
The librarian helped me get the microfiche machine set up so I could review old newspaper articles. It was a little boring shifting through a lot of weather and small-town news reports. Maybe I was a snob having grown up in New York City where crime owned multiple zip codes in comparison.
It was 2 o’clock when I decided I’d load one last roll into the machine. I was debating on if I'd return the next day to check more articles. The likelihood of finding something to explain the rift seemed more and more unlikely. After about 30 minutes of scanning the words, I decided the endeavor was hopeless. My breath caught when finally, my eyes caught on a wedding photo of a young bride. Checking the caption, I got excited to see Flora Michaelson’s name. She had a soft smile and there was something captivating about her eyes. The byline of the paper had the date, September 25, 1926. The mention was letting the public know of the upcoming wedding of Flora Pearl Michaelson to David Michael Williams at the Lady of Grace Church on Saturday, October 1. Wow, I couldn’t believe it, so I decided I’d stay a little longer to see if there was anything else to find.
My stomach growled when I checked the clock on the wall, it was 4:30 pm. Disappointed, I’d not found anything else, so I decided to stop for the day. I’d already printed out copies and figured I’d come back in the morning to try again. When I looked in the microfiche box, I noticed one last roll. Oh, what the hell! I’ll just check this one last roll so I could start with a new timeline tomorrow. After scrolling through the pages, I noticed a bigger font, it said,
Local Woman Found Dead!
“What the fuck?” I said louder than I should have in the quiet space, and I paused to look around me, thankful no one else was in this section of the library.
Flora Michaelson Williams of Willow Springs was found dead near the Little River Creek on Saturday, May 12th after being reported missing by her husband, David Williams two days prior.
The paper was dated May 14, 1929. What the hell had happened to Flora? The article went on to say that Mr. Williams had told police that he and his wife had plans to go to Charlotte the following day, but he became worried when she didn’t come home from an errand on Thursday afternoon. There wasn’t much detail beyond a local man who planned to fish that morning came across her body, her clothes were torn, she was barefoot with scratches on her face. The medical examiner would need to confirm the cause of death. No one could understand how she’d gotten to the remote site. The next item shocked me even more.
Local Man Accused of Killing Wife
An autopsy revealed that Floria Williams had died of asphyxiation but there was no water in her lungs, so her body was likely dumped at the creek. A neighbor, a Mr. Charles Lincoln, said he heard raised voices the evening of Wednesday, May 9th at the Williams home. When asked if he usually heard raised voices in the neighbor’s house, he said that over the last six months the couple seemed to be having issues. Prior to that time, Mr. Lincoln said living next to the couple had been quite pleasant and that other than their annual barbeque each July where they invited both family and neighbors their little street in Willow Springs was quiet and enjoyable.
A year later, I found the next interesting headline:
Local Man Found Not Guilty of Killing Wife.
Scanning the article, it became clear that the jury did not think David Williams was responsible for killing his wife. Instead, during the trial, a lover had been found. Flora was allegedly spending time with Theodore Turner of Huntley Meadows, another small community on the outskirts of Asheville. The police were currently trying to find Theodore Turner for questioning. He hadn’t been seen by his family since just after Flora Williams was reported missing. The gossip mill was running rampant with theories that Flora refused to leave her husband and Theodore had killed her in a jealous rage.
I sat back in the wooden chair sighing and moving my neck, I tried to stretch the stiffness out. Getting to my feet, I spent a few minutes reaching my arms down to my toes. I couldn’t say it hadn’t been an interesting afternoon, but my body was hurting from being in one posture for so long. I hastily put the items together and back into the tray for the librarian. Did a murder mystery from the late ‘20s really cause two families to still be at odds? Did Flora and David have children, none were mentioned in the data I’d found so far. My next decision was to either come back and try and find more information in the reference section of the library or perhaps I should go back to the waterfall and see if the mysterious stranger could tell me more. Surely, a story like that would be known in the family. I was tempted to ask Aunt Caroline, but I doubted she’d be eager to talk about it after warning me off the other night.