Chapter Thirty-Eight
On her way to Congregational, Midge stops off on Chestnut Street, where Jaret Buckley lives with his family in one of Mulberry Bay’s gingerbread Victorians.
It’s not grand, like some of the neighborhood’s restored mansions, but the two-story Queen Anne is painted in vintage shades of burgundy and plum, and the yard is well kept.
Midge has been here several times. Chuck and his wife always host the softball team’s season-ending picnic. This year, she missed it, along with most of the season itself.
The morning is warm, filled with the vibrating hum of the boxy metal air conditioners mounted in several windows here and in neighboring homes.
It’s expensive to add central air ductwork to old houses, and heat waves like this are rare in this area.
But as Midge stands on the Buckleys’ porch waiting for someone to answer the doorbell, she spies the Hot Cool Guys HVAC van across the street, alongside a contractor’s pickup in front of a house that’s being renovated.
The Buckleys’ door opens, and Jaret regards her warily.
She remembers him as a younger teen, cute and freckle faced. Now he’s tall and strapping, tanned and bare chested, wearing only Nike shorts and a towel slung around his neck.
“Jaret?”
“Yeah?”
“Midge Kennedy.” She shows him her badge. “I’m a friend of your dad’s. From rec league?”
“Oh . . . yeah,” he says as if he remembers. That’s doubtful, but he seems to relax a bit. “My dad’s at work.”
“I’m here to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Uh . . . my mom isn’t home, either, so if . . .”
“You’re not in trouble, Jaret. You don’t need a parent present to talk to me . . . unless you’d feel more comfortable?”
“What’s it about?”
“Your girlfriend mentioned something to me last night, and I wanted to follow up.”
“You talked to Lauren? About what?”
“I talked to Taylor.”
“Oh. Taylor’s not my girlfriend. She’s just . . .” He shrugs. “You know.”
Midge nods, getting the picture. “Anyway, she was working last night at Get the Scoop, and she mentioned that you—”
“Wait, sorry, but I have to ask. Did Taylor literally say she’s my girlfriend? Because that’s so messed up.”
“I might have misunderstood,” Midge concedes, feeling a bit sorry for Taylor. “Anyway, she mentioned Junia Stanton?”
“Who?”
“She’s a missing person. From Elizabethville?”
“Oh. Yeah. What about her?”
“Taylor said you’re friends with Junia’s cousin.”
“What? Man, Taylor sure makes up a lot of sh—”
“So you didn’t go to football camp with Junia’s cousin?”
“No. I went with her neighbor’s cousin.”
“Okay, well . . . did he mention any details about Junia?”
“What kind of details?”
“Did he tell you Junia was being stalked, Jaret?”
“Stalked? Is that what Taylor told you? Man.”
Midge says nothing, waiting for him to go on.
“Yeah, no, he didn’t say anything about her being stalked. He just said he heard she was talking to some guy online.”
“Talking . . . like, on social media? Or a dating site?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did he tell the police about that? After she went missing?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“And how about Sarah Greene? What do you know about her?”
“I heard she’s missing?”
“She is. She didn’t come home from Bible study yesterday. I’m looking into it. Do you have anything to share about her?”
“Me? No. I barely know her.”
“You don’t think she was being stalked, like Junia? Or that she may have been talking to someone online?”
“I never said that. But if you heard it from Taylor, she obviously just makes stuff up, so . . .”
“You didn’t tell her you thought there might be a connection between Sarah Greene and Junia Stanton?”
“I didn’t tell her, no.”
“You told someone?”
Jaret shrugs. “My friend and I were talking about it when we were getting ice cream. I guess she probably could have heard us, but I didn’t say it to her.”
“What did you say to your friend?”
“He mentioned that Sarah’s family’s really into church stuff, and I said yeah, that’s what I heard about the girl who disappeared from Elizabethville.”
“Junia Stanton? You heard that from her neighbor?”
“From her neighbor’s cousin. That’s it. That’s all he said. Can I, uh . . .” He gestures at himself, half dressed. “I need to go shower and get to work.”
“Where do you work?”
“I’m a lifeguard.”
“Over at the town beach?” At his nod, Midge says, “I had the same summer job when I was your age. It’s the best, isn’t it?”
“I guess. Sure, it’s pretty good.”
She gets his cell phone number, along with contact info for the friend he was with at the ice cream parlor last night, and for Junia’s neighbor’s cousin, which he’s reluctant to provide.
“Are you going to call them or something?”
“No. I’m going to pass it along to a colleague who’s working on finding Junia. You might want to give them a heads-up that they may hear from her.”
“They don’t really know anything.”
“That’s probably true. But what if there’s a chance that some tiny detail can help find Junia?”
Regardless of whether she wants to be found.
Heading down the porch steps, Midge sees that the HVAC van’s back doors are now open, and a young man in coveralls is rummaging inside.
She walks across the street, calling, “Excuse me?”
He looks up. Stops rummaging, straightens his posture, and glances around as if she might be talking to someone else. Then he points at his chest wearing a Who, me? expression.
Midge shows him her badge and introduces herself.
“Johnny,” he says, pointing to the name patch on his uniform. “What’s up? Am I parked too close to the hydrant?”
She glances at it. “Maybe by a few inches, but it’s not about that. You were over at Congregational Church yesterday, right? To fix the air-conditioning?”
“Oh! Right.”
“Can I show you something?” On her iPad, Midge quickly zooms in on the file photo of Sarah Greene and tilts the screen toward him. “Any chance you saw this young woman on the premises?”
He peers at it and shakes his head. “Only person I saw was the minister.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have his contact information, would you?”
“No, sorry.”
“How about the custodian, Al?”
“You mean Al Novak?”
“I do if he’s the custodian at Congregational.”
“Yeah. You want his number?”
“If you have it.”
“He’s not in any trouble, is he?”
“Not with me.”
“Okay, good.” He takes out his cell phone.
“Were you able to get the AC back up and running over there?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah, quick fix. Some idiot messed with the thermostat.” He chuckles, scrolling through his contacts. “Probably a kid trying to get out of going to Bible class, you know?”
“Really? You think someone sabotaged it on purpose?”
He looks up at her. “Hey, I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble or anything. I was just kidding around.”
“Oh . . . good. I mean, I’m sure a kid couldn’t actually take down the whole system, but . . .”
“You’d be surprised. If you take out the backup battery and pull out the wires, the thing is cooked.”
“And that’s what happened?”
He shrugs. “As far as I can tell. But if it was some kid . . . hey, you didn’t hear that from me.”