We had convinced the bus driver to drop us off at the candy factory that morning, since the bus route ran right past it. It hadn’t seemed all that far from town. But now that we had to walk back, it seemed really, really far. Plus, there were no sidewalks, only the shoulder of the highway, which was narrow and dusty, not to mention dangerous. We had to walk in single file most of the way, with cars whizzing past us like rockets.
We reached town at last, a lot dustier and sweatier than when we’d started.
“I need food,” Beamer said. “And something wet, with ice in it. And I want to sit down.”
We were near the sub shop. It had all of those things. Plus, we had asked the waitress, Joanne, to ask around about I. M. Fine. It wouldn’t hurt to check. Maybe something had turned up.
We went inside and took a booth. A waitress came over to take our order, but it wasn’t Joanne. We asked if she was there.
“Yeah,” our waitress said. “You want me to send her over?”
We said we just needed to ask Joanne a question. No hurry. Whenever she had a free minute. But in the meantime, could we please have two supersubs, some chips, and two Cokes? She said we could and went off to get them.
“So how are we going to do this?” Beamer asked. “They’re not going to have old newspapers in the Wimberly library. So where do we go? Philadelphia? And then what? Read every single newspaper they published in 1953? And what if it’s not 1953? It might be 1952 or 1954. Like, we’re going to read nine hundred papers cover to cover?”
“On microfilm,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s bound to be on microfilm, don’t you think? That’s how they always do it in libraries. Newspapers would be too bulky to keep; plus, newsprint falls apart. We’ll have to read it on one of those little light-box dealies.”
“Oh, great. That makes it even more fun.”
“Maybe somebody at the library could help us. Like, say, the obituaries are always on the back page or something. Or maybe there’s some kind of an index.”
“It’s going to take weeks, you know that?”
“Or we might get lucky.”
“Like we’ve been lucky so far?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like that.”
“Hi there, you two!” It was Joanne. Her hands were on her hips and she was smiling. “I was hoping you’d come back.”
My heart leapt. “Really?” I said. “Did you find something out?”
“Well, I think so. Mind if I sit down?”
“Oh, yes—please!”
We both jumped to our feet. Beamer grabbed a chair from a nearby table and swung it over for Joanne. She sat down and sighed with relief.
“Feels good to get a load off,” she said.
“I’ll bet,” Beamer said.
“Well, okay—you two look like you’re about to bust a gasket, so calm down and I’ll tell you what I heard. I got it from my mother-in-law, and she’s a little confused sometimes, so you need to take it all with a grain of salt.”
“All right, go ahead.”
“Well, there was this guy who lived here some time ago; Irving Fine was his name. There was some kind of scandal about him. . . .”
“Yeah, we know all about that,” Beamer interrupted. “They thought he was a spy.”
“Really!” Joanne looked genuinely shocked. “Well, Mimi didn’t say what the scandal was about. A spy! Really?”
“Yeah, except he wasn’t really—it was all a big mistake. Did Mimi say anything else?” I was praying it wasn’t going to be the same old story, third version.
“Well, he died,” Joanne said kind of sweetly, as if she were breaking the news to near relatives.
“Yeah, we heard that, too. Do you know anything about his family?”
“Well, I was just getting to that,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Mimi says that one of that man’s kids lives up at the old Calloway place on Pleasant Hill Road. She feels sure the name is Fine, same as the father.”
“No kidding,” I said, almost breathless with excitement.
“That’s what Mimi said. Mildred Calloway was an aunt or something. She’s been gone for a good long time now. My mother-in-law used to know everybody’s business in this town—that’s how come I asked her. I mean, she knew everything! I suspect there are a few folks in town who are relieved her memory is starting to drift—if you know what I mean.”
“She didn’t tell you the name? Of Irving Fine’s child?”
“No, Mimi was more interested in talking about Irving Fine and how he scandalized the whole town. Refused to tell me what he’d done, though. I thought he’d run away with the preacher’s wife or something. Tell you the truth, I think Mimi couldn’t quite call it to mind.”
Our waitress brought the subs. Joanne looked up and gave the waitress a big smile and a motherly pat on the arm.
“I’m almost done, hon,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” the waitress assured her. “We’re not busy.”
“So anyway, that’s pretty much all I found out. I expect you could just hop on over there and ring the bell. Writers work at home most times, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I guess so. But we’ll need the address.”
“Oh, gosh. I don’t have the number, but I can draw you a map. It won’t be hard to find.”
She pulled a pen out of her apron and grabbed a napkin.
“Okay, now you kids walking?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’ll be a bit of a hike. But what you want to do is head down Maple that way”—here she indicated the direction with her right hand—“then hang a left on Scenic Road.”
She drew a curving line on the napkin and labeled it in block letters.
“You’ll stay on Scenic for a good long way and it will curve around and start heading up the hill. Then you want to start looking for Pleasant Hill Road and you’ll go right.”
She drew a little box to represent the Calloway house. She put an X in it.
“The house is going to be on the left-hand side, about halfway up the road. There’s kind of a park across from it—nice trees and grass and all. The house is a gray Victorian type with frilly iron stuff along the roof. Needs a paint job.”
“Does it look different from the other houses around there? So we don’t go to the wrong place. . . .”
“It’s the only one that’s gray, I’m pretty sure. And it’s not as fixed up, if you know what I mean. My kids used to think it was haunted. See, Pleasant Hill is one of those neighborhoods that used to be really ritzy—like back in Mildred Calloway’s time—but then it sort of went downhill for a while. People with money wanted new houses, you know, with central heat and all. Then it came back in fashion again to have these antique houses and spruce them up. Very Martha Stewart, you know. Only not this one. I don’t think you can miss it.”
“Wow—thank you so much,” I said. “You really have no idea—we’ve been dragging all over town for two days and we thought we were going to have to spend the rest of the summer reading old newspapers. And now we can just pop on up there. . . .”
“Not ‘pop,’” Beamer said. “Trudge.”
“Well, fine, we can just trudge on up there and get this thing over with.”
Joanne heaved herself to her feet.
“Well, I hope this doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing you again. I’ve kinda taken a shine to the both of you.”
“We’ll come to visit,” I promised, though I knew we probably wouldn’t. Joanne was one of those people you meet, then never see again—but who stays in your memory forever.
“You tell Jason to stay away from those I. M. Fine books,” I said. “Especially the next one.”
“I’ll do that, hon.”