THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, PRESENT DAY
Clare figured hitting up the library with a baby carrier in one hand and a tote bag of board books in the other must be the most pitiful version of playing hooky possible. Lois had already left for the day, and Clare had told Elizabeth she and Ethan needed an air-conditioning break. And that her books were due. The neat brass chime of the bell over the door sounded like a guilty toll in her ears. The books were an excuse. She was here to do some research.
Michael Penrod was at the massive oak desk that served as checkout station, reference desk, and director’s office. “Reverend Clare!” His cheerful face immediately drew in. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong day. Tot Time was Wednesday.”
She hoisted the tote onto the desk. “I do come to the library for things other than Tot Time.” Penrod made a noncommittal noise as he transferred the small square books into the return basket. “At least, I used to.”
He held up the only adult item in the bag: Louise Penny’s latest mystery. “Did you like it?”
“I didn’t finish it. The only free time I have is in the bathroom, and I didn’t have to go frequently enough to make it to the end before it was due back.”
“Mmm. Tough to get in reading time with a baby.” Penrod slid it to the side, undoubtedly planning to check it later for unpleasant odors or toilet-paper bookmarks. “There are only a couple patrons here, if you want to spread a blanket out for Ethan in the children’s room.”
“Actually, I was hoping you could help me. I’d like to look at some old newspapers.”
“Old as in last week?”
“Old as in 1972.”
“Okay … which ones? We have a pretty limited supply on hand, although we do have a digital subscription to the New York Times that lets us use their archives.”
“No, strictly local. I think. The Post-Star and whatever else was publishing in the Millers Kill area.”
“That would be in the microfilm stacks in the basement. Um—” He looked at Ethan, sucking his fist in his carrier. “It’s not a terribly kid-friendly environment.”
“I’ll keep him strapped in. If he starts to get fussy, we’ll leave.” She had milk-bombed Ethan and put on a fresh diaper before leaving the church, so she was hopeful he’d stay content for the next little while.
Penrod gestured toward the reading room, where the afternoon sun poured in through tall Palladian windows to light a single elderly man who appeared to be napping in one of the worn leather chairs. “Like I said, we’re not too busy at the moment.”
“With the heat, I’d think everybody would be here.” Clare plucked at her clerical blouse, letting the cool air in.
“They’re at the fair. At the end of the school year all the local kids get an admission pass and tickets good for one free ride for Thursday. If you have a couple of youngsters, this is the day to go.”
“How many kids stop after the one ride?”
“Well, that’s why it’s smart marketing, isn’t it?” The entrance to the basement was squeezed in between the children’s room—once the library office—and the restroom—formerly a closet. Penrod removed the childproof gate blocking the stairway and set it aside. “Watch your step,” he warned.
Clare hugged Ethan’s carrier to her chest as she maneuvered down the narrow circular stair, installed long before modern building codes. She could feel the temperature dropping as she descended. “This is where we keep the microfiche and microfilm readers.” Penrod led her into a windowless room. “This one’s for microfilm.” He pointed to a rectangular machine the size of a dorm refrigerator weighing down a long, narrow table. “Do you know how to use it?”
“Unless they’ve changed since my college days, yes.”
“You’re all set. This one dates from the early sixties.” The librarian thumped the battleship-gray metal. “They made ’em to withstand a nuclear explosion back then.”
“Looks like the room can, too.” The interior cinderblock walls had been painted white in an attempt to maximize the overhead fluorescents, but the exterior walls were the original nineteenth-century granite.
“It can.” Penrod beamed with pride of ownership. “In the fifties, the basement was an official fallout shelter.” Clare had no good response for that. “All our materials are in the stacks, arranged by publication and date.” He pointed to a small wooden card catalog. “No computer down here, so you have to look things up the old-fashioned way, I’m afraid.”
“I remember how to do that, too.”
“You’d be surprised,” the librarian said. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”
Clare set Ethan’s carrier on the table next to the microfilm machine and attached his latest dangling toys to the handle. The baby strained for the black-and-white shapes, and once he had his fingertips on one, began batting it furiously. Clare shook her head. “I’m not sure you appreciate the educational nature of your toys, baby boy.”
Ethan banged away at a zebra-striped triangle while she located the boxes containing the 1972 runs of the Post-Star and the now-defunct Greenwich Journal. She started with the Glens Falls paper. Threading the tightly wound celluloid strip through the machine’s bars and rollers was trickier than she remembered, as was forwarding to the right month. She had to go back and forth and finally adjust the image by hand until she was looking at August 19, 1972.
She scanned past headlines about taxes and protests and county commissioners. The paper covered a lot more national news in 1972 than it did today. She paused at a story about Nixon’s reelection campaign. If she recalled correctly, the Watergate burglary was happening right around the time this paper was rolling off the presses. Who was it who said Newspapers are the first draft of history?
Some things stayed the same. There was a full-page ad for the Washington County Fair, and a story about a 4-H kid hoping to take home a blue ribbon for his calf. Two car accidents involving tourists from downstate. In the Women’s section—Clare rolled her eyes hard—one of the weddings announced had taken place at St. Alban’s, and the society photos of summer people at fundraisers and parties could have been taken this past weekend, if you allowed for bigger hair and wider ties.
She moved on to the next day. Nothing. In the August twenty-first paper, she spotted the first story about the death, a small column headed BODY FOUND IN MILLERS KILL, POLICE INVESTIGATE. It was short on details and speculation.
The next day’s paper had more. The story was twice as large, and had moved to the front of the Local section. The MKPD had ruled the death suspicious, but were withholding details about how the victim had died. She was still unidentified, but there was an artist’s rendering of what she would have looked like in life. In the August twenty-second edition, her picture was replaced by a photo of Russ in uniform: skinny, shorn, and looking too young to be out of school yet. Clare touched the screen over the image. It was his official ID, taken when he was fresh out of boot. She looked at Ethan, nestled in flannel, gumming his hand. Tried to imagine him going off to war in eighteen years. How had Margy done it?
The recently returned soldier was a person of interest in the girl’s death, the story read, and gave the basic facts about Russ’s military service. He had been the star forward for the Millers Kill basketball team in ’68 and ’69, which she hadn’t known, and his mother was active in the local antiwar movement, which she had. The implications that Russ had been a good kid twisted by the war seemed pretty clear.
The next day the story was front-page. The girl was identified as a member of a commune in Millers Kill. The members of the group had refused to talk to the reporter, but their neighbors had apparently been happy to share the unconfirmed details—drugs, orgies, and organic farming. All of them seemed to be equally suspicious to the neighbors.
The next day the front-page slot had been replaced with a look at the county fair. There was a letter to the editor about the mysterious death, though, pointing out that returning vets weren’t all unregenerate killers. It read as a pretty low bar to Clare.
There was an update story on the twenty-fifth, but nothing new. Two days later it had gone back to a small column inside the local section: POLICE STILL SEEKING ANSWERS TO DEATH. “Aren’t we all,” Clare said.
Ethan was still wearing himself out on the padded triangle, so she rewound the spool to a few days before the crime and began skimming. She wasn’t looking for something particular—just seeing if anything caught her eye. If she was being honest with herself, she had to admit she wasn’t sure if she was trying to help Russ out, or to see if there were parts of the story he hadn’t shared with her. She was confident he’d never lie to her, but the fact he’d never mentioned being a suspect in the death of a young girl made her … suspicious? No, that wasn’t the right word. Concerned.
Caught up in her own head, she was already a page past when she realized she had seen the name Langevoort. That had to be related to her new intern. She dialed back to the Business section, where a small article announced the president of Barkley and Eaton, Lloyd Harrington, was handing the reins over to his chief financial officer, Kent Langevoort. Joni’s dad. Barkley and Eaton, blah, blah, blah, headquartered in New York but with deep roots in the Adirondacks, thanks to founder Samuel A. Barkley. Not much else useful. Langevoort was only thirty-one, which seemed awfully young to be taking over a company. Of course, people seemed to mature earlier back then. Her own parents had married right out of college and had four kids by the time they were twenty-seven.
She kept dialing the pages forward, but her train of thought had jumped the track to tomorrow night, and the fundraiser, and meeting Joni’s parents’ friends. She ought to do some homework on Barkley and Eaton but she didn’t need to crank microfilm in a basement for that information.
Her phone began playing “I fought the law and the law won.” Russ’s ringtone. She snatched it out of Ethan’s diaper bag and answered. “Hey.”
“Hey, darlin’. Are you busy right now?”
She pressed the rewind button. The spool whirred into action. “Nope. What can I do for you?”
“I need to talk with Kevin, but I can’t waltz up to him in the midway and ask for a chat. I don’t want to leave messages on his phone, just in case.”
She pulled the spool out and maneuvered it back into its case one-handed. “So you figure the friendly local priest who helped him out might check up on him?”
“Would you?”
She grinned. “Help with an investigation? I thought you’d never ask.”