37
I’m Kimberly,” said the older woman with a smile.
She had short gray hair, pink reading glasses on a red cord, and a white T-shirt on with cargo pants.
She rose from a folding chair in a circle, in which other women were sitting in folding chairs and sewing buttons onto garments, their handiwork illuminated by floor lamps with magnifying lenses.
“You must be Julia and Paul, Mona’s friends. ”
“Yes,” Julia answered, shaking her hand. “Thanks for seeing us.”
“Yes, thanks,” Paul added.
“Not at all.” Kimberly smiled sadly. “I’m sorry to hear about Courtney. Please give her my condolences, if you talk to her. It’s so unjust that she’s in jail, on top of losing Kay.”
“We’re working on getting her out, that’s why I called you.”
“Okay, well, welcome to our community center.” Kimberly gestured around the room, which was a long rectangle lined with tagged piles of clothes on tables.
Navy blue jackets, white shirts, and tan britches sat in sorted stacks next to rows of black tricorner hats and tall brown boots.
Muskets were mounded next to fifes, drumsticks, and drums. American flags hung on the walls, from Betsy Ross’s to today’s.
“It’s not used much anymore, so we have it to ourselves.
It’s the home base for the local regiment. ”
Paul asked, “Is that for battle reenactments?”
“Yes, we’re a reenactment club for the War of Independence.
We started in the late eighties. We still have a large regiment, sixty reenactors with approximately two million buttons.
” Kimberly chuckled, and everyone looked up from their work, their lined smiles lit by the fluorescent rings.
Kimberly gestured to them. “These are my fellow camp followers.”
Paul chuckled. “I thought camp follower meant something else.”
“Everyone does.” Kimberly smiled. “Please meet Jean, Jane, Gail, Linda, Michelle, and Mary.”
“Great to see you all.” Julia realized she could be looking at a collective oral history of the town, which might come in handy.
Kimberly continued, “During the Revolutionary War, a camp follower was anyone who followed the Continental Army and supported them. They gave first aid to the sick and injured, sewed uniforms, made baskets and candles, and wrote letters for illiterate soldiers. Martha Washington was a camp follower.”
“I’m Martha Washington this weekend,” interjected Linda.
“I’ll be churning butter,” Gail chirped up.
Jane chuckled. “Gail got the short straw. All I have to do is write letters.”
Kimberly turned to Julia. “So, how can I help you?”
“Almost thirty years ago, a man named James Shoemaker was found dead on Bill McKenna’s property.” Julia addressed the sewing circle, too, so they’d feel free to add anything. “We’re trying to find out everything we can about McKenna and Shoemaker.”
Paul added, “We know McKenna was a realtor and Shoemaker was from Tallahassee. But we’re trying to understand what those two men had to do with each other. Does anybody have any info?”
“I know Bill McKenna was a member of the regiment back then,” Kimberly answered, nodding. “He was an officer, I think. He went on reenactments and tacticals from time to time.”
Paul asked, “What’s a tactical?”
“A tactical is when you’re not reenacting a battle, you’re demonstrating battle tactics that the commanders improvise. The officers base it on the military tactics of the time. That’s what we’re doing this weekend at Valley Forge, reenacting the Battle of Monmouth.”
Julia’s thoughts were on McKenna. “Who else was active with Bill McKenna? Who were his friends here?”
“In the regiment? His running buddy was Chief Glushenko.”
Whoa. “Was Chief Glushenko in the regiment?”
“Not strictly, but he hung around the reenactments. They were friends.”
“Did Chief Glushenko know James Shoemaker, too?”
“I don’t know.” Kimberly thought a moment.
“This was a long time ago, but I seem to remember Chief Glushenko and Bill used to have buddies they recruited for the reenactments and tacticals. I know because we had to make uniforms for them, quick. Maybe Shoemaker was one of them. I don’t know him.
” Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Now it’s coming back to me.
I’ll tell you, I don’t miss Bill. He wasn’t very nice. ”
Michelle frowned. “I remember him. He made me alter his jacket over and over.”
“He loved being in uniform,” Linda added. “He forgot it was pretend.”
Julia smiled, encouraged. “What about Shoemaker? Did any of you know him?”
“No,” Linda answered, and everyone else shook their heads.
Julia tried again. “Is it possible that Shoemaker was one of the men you were just talking about, the ones you didn’t know where they were from? There has to be a connection between McKenna and Shoemaker because Shoemaker was found murdered in McKenna’s well, then McKenna disappeared.”
Kimberly’s eyes flared. “It was the talk of the town back then. But I don’t know anything about it.”
Julia braced herself. “May I ask, did you ever hear anything about McKenna or Chief Glushenko being a white supremacist?”
Kimberly recoiled, and the others went silent.
Julia didn’t have time to mince words. “I know this is a sensitive topic, but we’re trying to help Courtney. We’re trying to figure out if Kay’s murder is related to Shoemaker’s, even though they’re decades apart.”
Kimberly cleared her throat. “I don’t know anything like that about Chief Glushenko.”
“I don’t know anything about Chief Glushenko, either,” Mary rushed to add. “I just didn’t like Bill, is all.”
“Same here.” Michelle shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Jean remained silent, her lined mouth sealed and her expression grim.
Julia could see they were afraid and she appealed to Kimberly. “Please, tell me. You were friends with Kay, weren’t you? She would want you to help us.”
Kimberly didn’t reply.
“I’ll say that I think Chief Glushenko is like that,” Linda volunteered, quietly. “I heard that he made a comment about Black—”
“Lin, wait, it’s only gossip,” Kimberly interrupted, turning to Julia. “Listen. We’ll help you, for Kay, but only if you keep it to yourself.”
“We will,” Julia spoke for her and Paul. “So what do you think? Even if it’s gossip, it could help find Kay’s killer.”
Kimberly exhaled, visibly. “Okay. I think Bill McKenna had certain… views and Chief Glushenko did, too. The other men were younger, like teenagers, not from here. One of them, I never knew his name, he collected Nazi pictures and memorabilia.”
“She’s right,” Linda added. “Not everybody who gets into reenactments does it for the right reason. Some are—”
“Stop runnin’ your mouth, Lin!” Jean interjected, raising her voice. “Everybody in our regiment is a patriot.”
“I know that,” Linda said, taken aback. “I was talking in general.”
Jean turned to Julia, flushed with anger. “You’re not from here. You don’t know Chief Glushenko. He’s done more for Buckley than you ever will.”
Uh-oh. “Jean, I’m sorry if I offended you.”
Paul nodded. “We only wanted—”
“I know what you want. You want trouble. I’ll have no parts of it.” Jean returned pointedly to her sewing.
An awkward moment passed, and Kimberly touched Julia’s arm. “We have records that can help you, upstairs. If you want to look.”
“Sure, thanks,” Julia answered, glad to escape.
“Follow me.”
Julia and Paul trailed Kimberly upstairs and into a cramped room lined with old file cabinets of all shapes and sizes.
Each drawer was labeled, and there were accordion files stacked haphazardly on top of the cabinets.
An old-fashioned glass fixture hung from the ceiling with a curly yellowed flypaper.
Kimberly gestured at the file cabinets. “I know this looks messy but there’s a method to our madness. These aren’t just regiment records. They belong to the gardening club and the quilters’ league, from a long time ago. We don’t have those clubs anymore, but the files are still here.”
“Okay.” Julia felt encouraged. “Where are the files for the regiment?”
“Right here, only one cabinet, and I helped organize it.” Kimberly crossed the room to a brown file cabinet with three drawers and pulled out the top drawer, which held manila folders stuffed with papers.
“The top drawer is general info. The second is waivers. The third is miscellaneous, mostly photos and programs. It’s in rough chronological order, most recent in front.
I don’t know who keeps up with the filing these days. I sure don’t, so there’s that.”
“But we’re looking for papers before 1999.”
“So you might be in good shape, but the records only go back to 1990. That’s when the lawyer came in, I forget his name. That’s when we started keeping official records, like for real. Before that, some of the members were pack rats, but we didn’t have our act together.”
Julia understood, except for one thing. “What are the waivers for?”
“Anybody who participates in a reenactment has to sign a waiver, whether they’re a member of the regiment or not.
That lawyer made us do it in case somebody hurts themselves.
We used to be better about it, but now, whatever.
We still have those waivers. We just never throw anything out.
” Kimberly shrugged. “So you can see the names of anyone who was at McGlinchey’s back then. ”
McGlinchey’s? Julia knew she’d heard that somewhere. “What’s McGlinchey’s?”
“McGlinchey’s Plateau is where the regiment practices, since we started. They’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”
Julia remembered it was Alex who’d mentioned McGlinchey’s. She felt her heartbeat quicken. “Isn’t McGlinchey’s where Shenandoah Preservation had a clean-up last weekend?”
Paul looked over, perking up.
“I don’t know about Shenandoah Preservation, but that’s where the boys practice.”
“Okay, thanks.” Julia felt like they were finally onto something.
“Good luck. Stay as long as you like.” Kimberly leaned closer. “By the way, watch what you say downstairs, with Jean. We call her Mean Jean. Her husband is friends with Chief Glushenko.”