Anthony Lee Collins

This story started here.

When I returned to the table, I was sure that my face told at least part of the story. Elsa nodded as I sat down.

"Your boss?" she asked. "Time to go to work?"

"No, and yes. There's been a murder, and my presence has been requested. Immediately, if not sooner. (In fact, 'requested' is not really the most accurate word.) But that wasn't Miss Sleet – it was the sheriff."

"So, where are we going?" She waved a hand. "Of course I'm driving you. There's been a murder, everything is urgent, and you're going to wait around for the jitney? Besides, I can't go home now anyway – the island is cut off for the night. Where are we going?"

I looked at my half-full bottle of beer and sighed. "The Presbyterian church. In town."

"You'll have to give me directions," she said as I took out my wallet. She caught my eye. "I'm a Quaker – how would I know where it is?"

I smiled at that, and I placed some bills on the bar as we headed for the door.

At least we hadn't got around to ordering dinner.

 
Elsa opened the door of her van and hoisted herself up into the driver's seat. She reached down, lifted and folded her wheelchair, and slid it into its usual position. I had watched this process before, more than once, and this time it seemed somewhat less smooth than usual.

I went around and opened the passenger door. "Are you okay to drive?" I asked.

She smiled as I climbed in and fastened my seat belt. "Probably. We'll find out, won't we?"

A few minutes later, as we were barreling through the darkness, I thought of suggesting that perhaps I should drive, but I wasn't exactly completely sober either, and her van was modified so that she could drive it, so I didn't say anything, even as she careened out onto the highway, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic, yelling, "Whooo hoo!"

I consoled myself with the thought that the "Whooo hoo!" had probably been deliberate, designed to see how I would react. I remained, to the best of my ability, stoic.

"Any details you can share?" she asked as we zipped along.

"I have none at the moment, shareable or not. There's been a murder, and apparently a rather bloody one. Sheriff Rhonda was trying to reach my employer, and she didn't believe me when I said that I had no idea where she was or how to reach her. So, she was not in a forthcoming or bantering mood."

 
There were several vehicles parked around the church. including two police cars and an ambulance. Elsa pulled up in front of the building, which did not have any visible accommodations for a wheelchair user.

"I think I'll go get something to eat," she said.

I nodded. "The sheriff did say that the scene in there is pretty bloody. Thanks for the ride."

"I'm going to try, once again, to see if I can find a decent roast beef sandwich in this town."

I got out and closed the door. "If you succeed, let me know."

She nodded and drove off.

Two deputies stood on the wide stairs which led up to the front doors of the church. One held up his hand as I approached. He started to say something, but I said, "Marshall O'Connor. Sheriff White asked me to come."

He shrugged. "ID?" I showed him my driver's license and he jerked his finger over his shoulder. "Upstairs," he said. "The padre's office."

I climbed the narrow stairs and went through a swinging door into a gloomy hallway. There were several doors, but only one was open, so I went there.

It was a small office, full of books and papers, and there was a dead body slumped on the desk. I knew the body was dead because nobody was paying any attention to it.

I assumed it was Dr. Deacon, the priest. This was apparently his office, and the top of his head and the dark clothes looked familiar. The cause of death wasn't immediately apparent, but there was a lot of blood on the desk blotter.

Sheriff Rhonda looked up. "O'Connor. You were at the Rat, right? By the college?" I nodded. "Then how in God's holy name did you get here so fast?" She seemed prepared to be outraged that anybody had the nerve to drive through her town even more recklessly than she did.

"Miss Peabody drove me."

"Miss..." She shook her head. "Never mind. Are you still maintaining that you can't reach your boss?"

"I believe I was quite clear on the phone, sheriff." I tapped a Bible on the desk. "I'd be willing to swear on this, if it didn't have blood on it."

 
To be continued...

This story started here.

"I was surprised that you called me," she said.

I sipped my beer. "Really?"

She smiled. "At the last minute like that – that's what I mean. I barely made it off the island before the water drowned the road. I always picture you as planning everything well in advance." She shrugged. "Of course, I guess you're always reacting to your employer's schedule."

"'Schedule,'" I repeated, using finger quotes.

She laughed. "Oh, is she secretly wild and unpredictable? She doesn't dress like somebody who's wild and unpredictable."

When I didn't respond immediately, she leaned forward and regarded me, stroking her nonexistent beard.

"Ah, I get it now," she said slowly. "You're not here to talk about her. You're here to not talk about her." She smiled. "So, please tell me all about your day, dear."

"There is a new case–" I began.

"A new case?" she demanded. Her face crumpling. "So soon?" She sniffed. "So, you've forgotten about us already, just moved right along to something else?" Her shoulders sagged. "I just can't..."

"Mr. Fred Deacon," I patiently explained as she squared her shoulders and winked at me, "the younger brother of the local Presbyterian priest, has vanished. Perhaps kidnapped. My esteemed employer is, officially, not investigating. Or she is investigating, depending on who you talk to."

"Well, I'm talking to you, dear, her assistant, who probably knows the actual facts." She finished her beer. "Or not."

"As far as I can determine, I'm investigating the case."

"Ah. While she's off on a bender? Or having a fling?"

"Well, as far as I know, she's not doing either of those things."

She leaned forward and spoke conspiratorially. I could barely hear her in the noisy college bar. "By the way," she murmured, "if she ever does feel like having a fling in the local area here, I have several classmates who obviously find her to be... interesting. Male and female, depending on her preference." I sipped my beer. "When people found out I'd met her, there was quite the buzz."

She studied her empty beer bottle carefully, and then she turned and made her way to the bar. I quickly finished the bottle I had in front of me.

The bar was called the Rat (short for "Rathskeller," of course). We had chosen it for our get-together for several reasons, including the fact that, contrary to its name, it was not in a basement.

When she returned to the table, expertly piloting her wheelchair across the uneven floor of the bar while carrying two open beer bottles, I decided to be responsible. "It's getting dark outside," I said. I sipped the nice, cold beer she had just handed me. "We should start thinking about having some dinner."

She nodded. "That seems responsible. They have chili here, and burgers."

"Which is the better option?"

"The burgers are inconsistent," she said judiciously. She drank some more beer. "The popular theory is that on the weekends there's a different cook." She tilted her head. "No, I haven't done any investigation of this." I didn't attempt to hide my smile. "I'm happy with the one fact that I do know, which is that the chili is a better bet. More reliable."

She gestured that it was my turn to talk.

"We saw Mr. Deacon's daughter this morning," I said. "She told us what had happened: her father not coming home, the phone call about the ransom, and so forth, and then I was dispatched to do research, at the palatial offices of the Claremont Crier."

"Real research, or get-Marshall-out-of-the-way research?"

I shrugged.

"Did you find out anything interesting?" She caught my expression. "Between us, of course."

"Well, I've done a fair amount of research in my life, but the archives at the Crier are organized according to a system which I have never encountered before." Her eyelids started to droop. "It was apparently devised by the editor's wife, who is a rather imposing personage in her own right, and it utilizes file cards in a variety of sizes and colors..."

By this time her chin was resting on her chest and she was snoring.

"Also: money!" I announced.

She perked up immediately.

"I think money may be the key," I explained. "Mr. Deacon talks and acts like he has money, but everything about his personal circumstances suggests the opposite. Now someone claims to be holding him and demands money from his daughter, who doesn't have any either."

"Who does have money?"

"His older brother, the priest. Their family money all went to him."

"Primogeniture."

"Exactly. And, as far as I could determine from my research, Dr. Deacon is not overly blessed with the virtue of charity, at least as far as his family goes. Also, it seems that the older sister's boyfriend may have money."

She was giving me a strange look, so I stopped.

"Are you drunk?" she asked.

I did a quick self-assessment. "Not beyond reason, under the circumstances."

"Then I must be really fascinating, because the bartender is calling your name and you're not reacting appropriately."

I turned in that direction, and the bartender waggled a telephone receiver at me. He didn't look happy.

 
To be continued...

This story started here.

On the other side of Pine Street, Main Street stopped being "Main Street" and turned back into a regular Claremont street with modest houses, trees, and a narrow sidewalk which, after the first block or so, petered out completely.

The headquarters of the Claremont Crier, which was about four blocks from Pine Street, did not look very Claremont at all.

The house next to it, for example, looked like it had been there for at least a hundred years (a bit longer, actually, as I found out later). Dark wood, tall windows on the ground floor, ornate front door, decks on three sides – it reminded me a bit of the Devane house, but much smaller and more inviting, surrounded by several tall trees.

I made a mental note of the small sign planted next to the path to the front door: "Used books for sale. Tuesday through Thursday – 2-6pm."

The headquarters of the Claremont Crier, however, was a flat, uninteresting structure of poured concrete and cinder blocks. It was painted a rather dull color. The sign next to the front door was small and white. The building needed more windows, I thought.

Aesthetics aside, my biggest concern was cars. There was a narrow parking lot in front of the building, just a row of cars side-by-side facing the building (well, one car was cleverly parked facing out). As I got close to the front of the building, still walking across the street, slowly, I saw a secondary lot to the right of the building, mostly containing delivery trucks.

I strolled to the corner and crossed the street.

I was looking for Kate Lane's car, which wasn't visible anywhere. That was good. My employer had led her to believe that we had no interest in the Deacon case, so I preferred not to run into her while I was doing my research.

She would find out eventually that we were investigating a Deacon case (although, of course, not the exact case she had asked about). My employer had told her the truth, technically, but I preferred to deal with that issue later (or, preferably, let my employer deal with it – this was all her plan, after all).

I went up to the front door and tried it. I thought it might be locked, but it opened.

The small office I stepped into was unoccupied. There was one desk with several issues of the Crier, some rather haphazard stacks of paper, including unopened mail, and a variety of telephones. I could hear a low, steady hum from elsewhere in the building.

There was only one other door in the small room, and it was a dutch door. The top half was open and the bottom half was closed, so I felt ambivalent about proceeding further.

"Marshall O'Connor!" boomed a voice from behind me, and I turned to see a man with short, iron-gray hair come in from outside, carrying a small, greasy paper bag.

I have a good memory, and I was reasonably sure I'd never met this man before, but he switched his greasy bag to his left hand and firmly (and greasily) shook my hand with his right. His short-sleeved white shirt was a bit too snug and his necktie was a bit too short.

"Saw your photograph in the ones we took at the Devane trial." He circled his desk and sat down. "Didn't publish it, of course. Your boss lady sells more papers." He leaned back in his chair, which creaked. "I imagine you're here to do research on the Deacon family, for the case which your boss is not investigating."

I raised an index finger, for some reason, but he continued. "I get–"

One of his phones rang and he picked it up, motioning me into the inner precincts of the building.

 
To be continued...