“The hyoid bone was fractured. Absent any other obvious cause of death, my ruling will be homicide, death by strangulation.” Doc Cleary doesn’t need to know that Erin told me about where the hyoid bone sits in the neck and how it can be a clue when looking at strangulations. I swear after that podcast about serial killers was finished, I could not wear anything snug against my throat. Just getting tangled in my bedsheets causes me to panic.
I am not sure that Emelina should be here, but she fetched me when Cleary told her he was ready to make the determination. Why she was there so early in the morning is still unclear to me, but Shafer told us the previous day that Doc Cleary was undertaking the post-mortem.
“I know you don’t want me to ask this, Emelina,” I say, “but what about a death by suicide hanging?”
Doc Cleary arches an eyebrow at me but gives me a straightforward answer, nonetheless. “I can’t completely rule it out, but given how the body was found in a trunk hidden behind a wall, I can’t imagine someone wanting to cover up a suicide, can you Mrs. Strong?”
“No, we can’t.” Emelina answers for us too quickly, and I don’t object.
“Even if I didn’t know how the body was found,” he continues, “with a young, otherwise healthy female, we don’t see many hyoid bone fractures with suicide hangings.”
“Have you told Detective Shafer yet?” I ask.
“I have some more observations to note, but I will phone him with my preliminary findings shortly.”
I am not sure how I want to phrase my next question to him, and he senses it. “Mrs. Strong, is there something a matter?”
“No, the opposite. Why—” I just decide to ask him point blank. “Why did you have her fetch me?”
He reaches for his blue Yale Medical School coffee cup and ponders my question. “I knew Antoinette’s family growing up. Shafer hadn’t bothered to catch me up with her identity. I learned that this morning,” he says, pointing to Emelina.
“She’ll need a proper burial. That is why I came over to see Doc Cleary—to find out when he will release her,” she says to me. “I told Doc you were going to find out what happened.”
The doctor looks from her to me and says, “At first, my nose was out of joint when you proved me wrong on Jake’s murder. No doubt Brian’s death would have been ruled accidental if you hadn’t been involved.” He brings up the case that brought me local notoriety. Then he changes the topic. “I know that you and Emelina are very close. It’s important that we find out exactly what happened, Mrs. Strong, don’t you think?” He stares at me above the rim of the coffee cup.
I would be lying if I said I don’t get a jolt of electricity through my body when a professional acknowledges my new-found talents. I suppress a smile and just nod. “Call me Gwen.”
Erin and my adorable grandchildren meet Emelina and me at the County Public Library. It is newer building with a lovely children’s section. My father, Stan Wallin, has offered to chaperone them while we work the microfilm machines. We get the kids settled and meet the research librarian, Mary Beth Botto, who says, “I have the microfilm for both papers for 1969 and 1970. I loaded up Jan-Jun 1969 on both machines.” She points to the money changer next to the photocopier. “You can break your bills into quarters there and pop them in here. It is twenty-five cents a page.”
Erin and I take our seats, and Em sits between us. Mary Beth, who I taught in kindergarten and watched grow up, is one the bright ones who went on to college and returned home. “Ms. Bidwell,” she says, “wait until the frame of the newspaper on the screen stops before looking, otherwise it will make you dizzy.” Turning to us, she adds, “Once you have framed what you want copied on the screen, press the green button, but make sure you have enough quarters in the queue.”
Erin asks, “And the Milford High School yearbooks?”
“I have them at my desk when you need them. 1958 through 1965,” Mary Beth replies.
“And the Coles directories?” Erin asks.
“Those books are in year order and are kept in the cage. I will let you in, but anything in that room stays, in the room, capisce?”
“Capisce,” Emelina says and then asks, “What are the Coles directories?”
“They are like a telephone book on steroids. Not only do they list telephone numbers and addresses in alphabetical order by person’s last name, but they also list residents at every address in Milford by street name alphabetically,” Erin tells her.
“Sometimes you can find out if someone died, got married, or was removed from the directory,” Mary Beth adds. “I will leave you to it.” She kneels next to Emelina and says, “I am sorry for your loss. If there is anything more, I can do, just let me know.” She scurries back to her desk to answer a ringing phone.
Erin tells us, “Today, we are just trying to get a feel for what it was like living here when Antoinette disappeared. If we spot young people who are getting recognized for achievements, who may still be alive, make a copy. If we see something that piques our curiosity, make a copy. If we see anything about the Devlin house, make a copy.”
We get busy on the machines. We stop when we see something of note and Emelina gives us the color commentary. I did not grow up here and am fascinated by what the town looked like before I arrived.
I was born in the mid-Sixties in England on a Royal Air Force base to a black Jamaican nurse and the wonderful white man in the children’s room across the hall. My mother returned to her home country when I was six, and it was not until some years later that my father returned to the States, where he met my stepmom, Jean, and settled in this neck of the woods as an Air Force recruiter.
It was not until 1985 that I came to Milford as a college senior doing student teaching and met my mentor, Emelina. She taught me everything I learned about teaching kindergarten, and when I was ready, she retired, but she was never far from me, and I could always lean on her for support.
Seeing a snapshot of Milford through the newspapers of that tumultuous time in America was truly educational. Grainy black and white photos of the ground war in Vietnam were on the front pages next to articles about the war’s progress. President Nixon talked about foreign trade policy and domestic issues. The morning paper Erin’s scanning is more liberal, while the afternoon paper whirling on my reader is more conservative as we compare news stories on the same subjects. Small town Milford was just starting to loosen up. People with long hair were not called hippies anymore; some were professionals, like a schoolteacher standing next to projects from the science fair. Fishing season brought with it pictures of happy anglers holding up unlucky trout from the area’s streams. Baseball, especially high school and American Legion dominated the sports pages. What blew me away were the prices. A gallon of gas was thirty-one cents. A whopper at Burger King was forty-nine cents and fries were a quarter. My Mustang sold new back then for $3,900.
“I could feed my family on under fifty a week,” Erin murmurs when I tell her the price of a pound of ground round.
Both of us print off the police blotter and any articles about serious crimes. Policeman’s names are listed. No female officers back then. Anytime a cop was given an award for valor or heroism, we punched the green button. Mary Beth comes over and refills the copier’s paper tray.
The business section of my paper handled stock prices, charts on the commodities, and news items about local businesses. A man’s face and overbearing stature become repetitive to me.
“Burgess Bloodstone shows up a lot in the business section. Is he related to Benjamin?”
“It’s his father. He died when you were just starting out here,” Emelina says.
I press the copy button when Mary Beth gives me the thumbs up.
“He was an unhappy man. He was older than me. Blamed foreign competition and a downturn in the economy for his problems. The Bloodstone family fortune dwindled with him at the reins. But you wouldn’t know it by how he held court at the county club. He had a brand-new black Cadillac every year.”
“Not a big fan, huh?” Erin asks without taking her eyes off the scanning. She is already on Jul-Dec 1969, while I am still looking at Memorial Day sales.
“He was pro-business and felt the town should spend money on attracting new businesses to the area. He was tough on social spending. He thought that teacher’s salaries were an expense to be controlled, just like his factory workers. No, Erin, I was not a fan to say the least.”
“Well, it looked like Benjamin turned out okay,” I say.
“Benjamin was an only child and they had high expectations of him to marry and keep producing Bloodstones. I think Benjamin stayed single and didn’t have offspring just to spite the old man. His father was demanding of all around him, and I don’t doubt that he treated everybody like a servant, including Ben.”
Emelina’s energy returns from the low of these past couple of days as the newspaper articles spark her already excellent memory. The microfilm whirls. April comes over and sits on Emelina’s lap as we feed quarters into the photocopier.
“I took the liberty of copying the senior class still portraits for the years in question. I did the Catholic school too,” Mary Beth tells us. She hands us a sheaf of printed copies and points to the clock. “No charge.”
Emelina is grateful and asks, “Do you have any food allergies?”
“Molasses. Why?”
I know that rules out a tin of gingerbread cookies.
“I’d like to bake you a proper thank you,” Emelina replies.
“I couldn’t accept,” Mary Beth says.
“Just put them on the counter and tell people that Emelina Bidwell made a donation to the library,” she says, smiling.
“I can do that,” the young librarian replies, smiling back. Another place for a business card or two for our yet to be named business.
Before I know it, Mary Beth tells us it’s closing time. Where did the time go? My father, Caleb, and Jesse emerge from their time spent with time-traveling dinosaurs and pirate adventurers.
Working a cold case murder investigation with Erin and Emelina is fun. I’m jazzed. I never felt this energetic after a long day at school. We head for the front door and a dark cold night.