Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Harriet
Mrs. Alma Washington uses a small silver tongs to extract a sugar cube from the painted little bowl at the center of our doily-laden table. “One cube?”
“Yes, please.” I lean in to inspect the tiny frosting design on one side of the sugar cube. “Is that a bunny?”
Alma’s smile widens and she drops it into my oolong tea, extracts a cube for herself, and holds it up for me to see. “Yellow flowers! My lucky day.” She drops her cube into her tea.
This is a ritual that we have gone through for years.
The antique Tennessee spoon I brought for her collection sits on the table between us. That’s another part of the ritual. She was pretty excited about getting Tennessee; she now has forty-one states.
Alma lives in a three-story brick senior apartment on the north end of Ashwood, just a few streets up from Tilly and Dooley’s place.
We sip our tea and I ask her about her granddaughter. She takes out her tablet and shows me some of the latest shots from Instagram. The girl’s ballet career is booming. “Such a sweet family. You did good, Alma.”
“They are my treasures.” Alma tells me about a picnic the extended family took and then afterward they all went to the Muddy Pint.
“That scoundrel Kip Kidderson was there eyeing our girl, and I told him in no uncertain terms to steer clear of her.” She has some choice words for Kip with “his playboy hair.”
She goes on to ask about Granabelle, and I give her the latest updates.
Alma Washington was the one and only witness to the strange man wandering around downtown Ashwood near the school the day James disappeared. She described him as a “well-dressed tourist wearing a brown coat who looked like he didn’t belong.”
The police didn’t put much stock in Alma’s observation because tourist season was moving into full swing; of course there would be tourists, and tourists by their nature do not belong, and some are well dressed.
The police paid a lot more attention to a local girl who reported seeing a man resembling the Cuyahoga Killer on the river walk around that time, right down to the denim overalls with the hole in the left knee.
But here’s the thing: I went to school with that girl.
She was a few grades younger, and she told a lot of tall tales, one memorable one involving the Jonas Brothers staying at the Silverton Inn, which led to kids camping out there for days.
And the Cuyahoga Killer was our ultimate bogeyman at the time; the iconic picture of him with his denim overalls and bushy gray beard was burned into our minds.
He hung himself in his kitchen wearing those overalls.
Alma disappears into the kitchen and brings out a plate with an almond chocolate Berky Bomb cut into four quarters. I once told her that kind is my favorite, and I get the feeling that she buys them by the half dozen and freezes them, bringing one out to thaw when we’re going to have a visit.
What Mom said about her—that she pretends to remember new things about the day James was taken as a way to get me to visit—may be true.
Sometimes she recalls insignificant details, like the part of his hair (but not the color), or she wants to stress that his jacket was a rich brown rather than an ash brown.
It’s okay. Alma and I share a bond. We both saw something that day that didn’t feel right. We’re the only two people to question the official story of what happened to James.
I eat a bit of the cookie and get to it. “So Sam said you thought you might’ve remembered something new about the strange tourist.”
She places one of the quarter cookies on her own little plate. “It’s not so much that I remembered something new, but rather I thought of something new…or not so much thought. I’m not certain how to characterize it.”
I give her a smile. “Let me know what it is and maybe we can characterize it together.”
“I was down at Gazebo Park with some of the girls from the building. We were watching the tourists, and it came to me that, even though I described him as a tourist who didn’t belong, tourists belong here, don’t they?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at. You thought he was a tourist.”
“Yes.” She grabs my hand. “I said he was a tourist who didn’t belong here, but I think deep down. I knew that he wasn’t a tourist. He wasn’t a tourist and he did not belong...ohhhh, I don’t know if I’m explaining this.”
“No. You’re doing great. I believe that you perceived something off. A well-dressed man who did not belong in that scene.”
“I’m starting to think he wasn’t a tourist. Or from the town.”
“Really?”
Alma nods.
“Do you think it was the way he was dressed? Or his demeanor?”
Alma repositions her cookie quarter to the center of the small, flowered plate.
Her description of the man always was more impression than details.
She couldn’t remember his height or his hair or skin color or whether he wore glasses or a hat or anything.
He was nicely dressed. His jacket was brown.
She continues to fuss with her cookie. “I’m not sure. Watching those tourists the other day, that is what came to me. I should not have called him a tourist at all.”
“Well, that is extremely helpful,” I say, even though it really isn’t.
“I swear, I don’t know what this town is coming to. First your brother, and then those horrible wedding murders, and now Dooley Brogan shooting the place up with a crossbow?”
“The police don’t think it’s him anymore,” I say. “He was in Cleveland during the most recent murder.”
She waves a dismissive hand in the direction of the police station. “The police aren’t telling us everything they know.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they were keeping a watch on Dooley and Tilly’s house before the first murder even happened and then tried to pretend it wasn’t them who were watching the house!”
“Wait, what? What’s this?”
“Well, you know that Francine and I do our morning constitutional down Kempton to Greentree. Well, we started noticing a car parked on the street outside Dooley’s sister’s house with a man inside.
We thought it was strange, but then the crossbow murders started and they put yet another man outside the house.
Two cars watching that house. But when I asked Officer Maverick about it, he said they only had one car watching the house, and that was only after the crossbow murders started. I ask you, what is he hiding?”
“You and Francine saw a man in a car outside of Tilly Brogan’s house before the murders started?”
“We certainly did, and what that says to us is that they knew something was going to happen before it happened.”
“And Maverick says it wasn’t the police?”
“They were very sneaky about it,” Alma says. “They used a car that is not their usual car.”
“What did the car look like?”
“A small car. Very commonplace. Dark gray.”
“And the person inside?”
“A man—I think. Could be a woman. They wore a ball cap.”
“But you are quite sure they were a police officer.”
“Who else would sit out there?” Alma asks. “What’s more, there was no license plate.”
This gets my attention. “No license plate? On either end of the car?”
“Well, we only saw the back.”
I’m wondering if it could’ve been the killer, getting to know Dooley’s routine.
I question her a bit more, but that’s all she’s got.
I make a mental note to find out what color car Jerome has, and then we go back to normal chat. I show her pictures of my new digs.
It’s not easy to make these visits, to go back to that memory of how I failed my little brother, my best friend.
But I think it’s important to keep the memory alive and to keep talking with her about it, because maybe she’ll find something significant in that memory of hers. There’s always a chance.
Maybe she’ll give me a new clue to follow. One more thing to put on my spreadsheet about James’s disappearance. A way to find him.
I know he’s alive—I know it in my bones.
I miss him every day. And I will never stop trying to find him.
I take the long way back, stopping into the store to say hi to Mom and Granabelle and to make sure things are running smoothly.
Granabelle is organizing the glass drawer pull display, wearing a 1950s safari outfit with a metal military hat that has pieces of brush taped to the top of it. I give her a kiss. “Who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m a resident of Ashwood, hoping to blend into the scenery so that I’m not next!”
“They wouldn’t go after you,” I say. “You have nothing to do with any of it.”
“None of the other victims had anything to do with any of it as far as I can tell,” Granabelle says, and she’s not wrong.
What am I not seeing? And how many more people will die before I see it?
I point out that the attacks happened outside in public spaces. “It might be a good idea to limit your trips around town until they’re caught.”
“That’s my thought. Except when I’m doing lives at the various murder scenes.”
“Excuse me? You’re doing what?”
“I’m doing livestreams at the murder sites. People love them.”
“Granabelle, no!”
She shrugs. “The public has a right to know.”
“A right to know what weird outfit you’re wearing while parading at various murder scenes? Not in the Bill of Rights.”
“So much for lying low, huh,” Mom says coming up beside me.
“Until we figure out why they’re targeting the people they’re targeting, wandering around town could be dangerous.”
Mom says, “Hardware Sam says they’re doing a manhunt for the guy right now. That kid you went to school with—Jerome.”
“What? They’re doing a manhunt for Jerome?”
“If they don’t already have him,” she says. “You should talk to Sam and Pilar. They’re all up on it.”
I kiss them both and head across the street to Hardware Sam’s.
“Hey, you!” Pilar says as I walk in. “Did you hear about Jerome?”
“Mom just told me. What happened?”
“I don’t think they’ve got him yet, but if you wanna know the most up-to-date information, you should get home. Sam says he’s headed to Kingston Manor this very instant.”