Snowplows are slow and wide. Every turn we made, another snowplow. St. Sebastian was serious about clearing the roads. I guess that tournament really was important, but the snow kept coming down, so I didn’t see it happening. Plus, it was freezing. Even blasting the heater couldn’t combat the cold and Moe jumped into my lap and did a spin on Carrie’s yearbook, trying to find the most comfortable spot, which happened to be pressing against my coffee-filled bladder. That was extra awesome when Fats drove up on sidewalks full-tilt and bounced us around like popcorn kernels in a Whirley-Pop.
“Stop that. I’m going to pee myself,” I said as I held onto Moe and the oh-shit handle above the door for dear life.
“You could’ve used the bathroom at Dwayne and Amy’s,” said Fats.
“I didn’t have to go then.”
“Well, you’re out of luck now.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said.
Fats smiled, her eyes crinkling behind her mirrored Wayfarers. “That was mom-like. I’m going to rock this parent thing.”
“Not if you don’t start eating.”
She whipped off the sunglasses. “What do you mean?”
“You’re growing a human. That takes food.”
“I’m giving her food. I ate a croissant and Irene’s casserole. That had to be a thousand calories.”
“How many did you work off after?” I asked, tapping her Fitbit.
She grimaced and put the glasses back on. “Call Spidermonkey. That new body is news.”
“Fine, but you need to go on a real pregnancy diet.”
Fats yanked the wheel to the left and we passed a snowplow blind, scaring the crap out of me and poor Moe started shivering.
“I’ll tell Tiny.” It just slipped out and Fats slammed on the brakes. Thank goodness for seatbelts or I would’ve cracked my head open. Moe would’ve been a curly-tailed pancake.
“Tell him what?”
“That you’re not taking care of yourself,” I said, rubbing the painful stripe left against my chest.
“I am.”
“Fats, you’re not Pink the Impaler now. You’re Mom. It’s a totally different gig.”
“I don’t want it to be,” she said after a moment.
“Bummer,” I said. “Can we go? It’s freezing.”
“This baby’s going to change my life,” said Fats.
That was somewhere between a question and a statement, so I let it lie, and instead said, “We don’t know that we have another body.”
She snorted and hit the gas, dodging into traffic, if you could really call it that. We were going twelve miles an hour and there were exactly three cars on the road. “Where do you think that guy went? The Bahamas?”
“I don’t need any more bodies.”
“Bummer.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call.”
Spidermonkey didn’t answer, but Loretta did, sounding just as harassed as before if not more.
“Do you have any information on the flu vaccine?” she asked.
“Er…like what?”
“Did the flu shot cause an outbreak a couple of years ago?” Loretta asked.
I sighed. We’d heard all about this so-called theory at the time. One woman with the flu told me all about it in the ER, angrily blaming the shot for how ill she was. Had she actually gotten the flu shot, you ask? No, but it was still somebody’s fault. “The CDC never said that happened.”
“Thank you. I just…I’m losing my mind. I don’t care if there is hurricane force winds, I have got to get out of here.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “It can’t last forever.”
“Minutes are like hours in conspiracy-theory hell. My grandson just accused me of eating a peanut butter cup,” said Loretta.
“Did you?”
“Yes, I did and I’ll do it again. He’s not allergic to anything. Nothing. Four years old and calling me out. I’ll find myself a hickory switch and I will beat that little—”
“I think you’ve gone to the bad place, Loretta,” I said. “Can we talk murder?”
“You’d think that would be worse, but it’s not. What have you got?”
“Two things and they’re big.”
“How big?”
“A new murder.” I told Loretta about the strong possibility that Des documented the scene and then gave the pictures to a reporter named Kenneth Young in 1974. Young was a grad student studying journalism at Mizzou. During the summer before he disappeared he worked at the Sentinel with Barney Scheer as an intern. He was in St. Seb during the 1974 Christmas break for a few days and was last seen in town at a gas station.
Dwayne, Amy, and Lefty remembered the disappearance, but it wasn’t a big story at the time. Young was from Iowa and it was assumed something happened on his drive home for Christmas, most likely an accident. Dwayne knew Young was the man he’d seen talking to his father, but only because the new police chief, Melanie Gates, showed up to interview Des, and Dwayne was fascinated by a female police chief, not an everyday occurrence in the seventies. He knew his parents were upset by the disappearance, but he thought they were overreacting. His father’s revolver had come back out and Mary was checking the doors again. By the time Dwayne came back for Easter, he’d forgotten all about it.
“So what got him thinking about it?” Loretta asked.
“Tank Tancredi covered the disappearance again after I found Janet Lee Fine’s body and bike in the lake bed. Two disappearances linked to St. Sebastian is unusual and there isn’t a whole lot to report around here. Tank’s story got people talking, but nothing came of it,” I said. “What’s Spidermonkey doing?”
“Hold on.” Loretta had a conversation with her husband and came back with some news. “He’s working on identifying some donors from Maggie’s notebook. That nun you have with you is a sweetheart. I hope this isn’t too hard on her.”
“It probably is, but there’s nothing I can do about that now,” I said. “Anything on that yet?”
“He says he’s got a back door. Whatever that means. But we do have something for you on that reporter,” said Loretta.
“Young? Already?”
“No, the other one. Barney Scheer.”
Loretta’s news wasn’t exactly helpful, but it was illuminating. Barney, like Woody and Des, served in the war, signing up immediately after Pearl Harbor. He was a Marine in the Pacific, serving with Chief Woody Lucas in the same platoon. They were drinking buddies after the war, but Barney seemed to have gotten it together after his kids were born. Unlike Woody and Des, the two veterans stayed close and Barney gave the eulogy at Woody’s funeral.
“Woody must’ve asked his old friend to back off and he did,” I said.
“Not a very good reporter,” said Loretta. “But a loyal friend, I suppose.”
That didn’t rub me the right way. Des and Woody were super close, but Maggie’s murder killed their connection. Why didn’t it kill Barney and Woody’s? Did being comrades in arms mean so much that Barney would ignore his profession and his conscience to help Woody? Why would Woody need help at all?
“We have to rule out Woody Lucas,” I said. “It seems he went through a lot of trouble to keep Maggie’s murder quiet.”
“We’re already looking,” said Loretta. “He didn’t own a green truck. We know that already.”
“That’s good, but something’s definitely going on.”
Fats took a hard turn into the Sentinel parking lot and we slid ten feet nearly hitting a telephone pole.
“I’m at the Sentinel,” I said. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Wait a minute,” said Loretta. “Now this is going to help.”
I smiled. “I’m all ears.”
Fats parked and took Moe from me, raising an eyebrow. “Hurry up. She’s a frozen pup.”
Loretta’s information was good. Spidermonkey had outsourced to an up-and-comer in the hacking world and the kid was a whiz at gathering deleted texts. Once he heard cops were hiding something, he was all up in it and came back with the current chief, Will Gates, being a big, fat liar.
There was flooding periodically. That got confirmed. But the new guy, like me, thought it was odd that the cops wouldn’t have taken steps to protect their files and evidence. It turned out, in the late eighties, shelving had been purchased after a record flood and it was noted that it was to keep records off the floor in case of the river coming over its banks again, which it did two more times.
“So they were flooded and records were lost?” I asked.
“Our guy doesn’t think so. That flood was minor compared with the ones that came after. The water made it to the police station, but the water was only a couple of inches deep. The shelving they bought was to keep everything up a minimum of two feet, so those other floods shouldn’t have touched the files and evidence.”
I tried to remember what the flood stories I’d read had said about depth, but I couldn’t. “There was the burst pipes. That can ruin everything.”
“It could, but he doesn’t think it did,” said Loretta.
Fats got out and went around the truck to pull me out into the icy air and pushed me toward the Sentinel’s door. I dropped the yearbook and it went fluttering away in the wind. Fats pounced on it before it slid into some slush created by an excess of salt and scowled at me as I tried to hear Loretta over the wind and crunching of the snow.
Our new guy decided the best way to know what the cops were up to was to see what they told their spouses and, it turned out, those burst pipes picked a great day to do their thing. Deputy Dallas Mosbach was on duty when it happened and that guy was pretty flipping dedicated to duty. A little too much, in my opinion. His wife went into labor with their first child and, instead of going to the hospital post haste, Dallas stayed in the basement of the police station to “save the files”. That’s right. Files over labor. His wife’s sister had to take her to the hospital when the contractions got five minutes apart and he wasn’t there for another two hours until his wife started threatening him saying, “Nobody cares about those old ass cases. If you don’t get over here, I’ll divorce you and take the Camaro.”
Old ass cases.
I don’t know if it was the threat to the Camaro or what, but he left saying, “The guys will get the rest” as if his wife cared at that point.
We stumbled into the reception area of the Sentinel and Tank sprang to his feet from behind the desk. “Thank God. I was about to call Will. I thought you had an accident.”
“I’m about to. Bathroom?” I ran to the bathroom and told Loretta I’d call back when I had something.
When I came out, the whole area smelled delicious and Fats was eating a huge, drippy sandwich. Her Fitbit was on the desk and Moe was next to it with a bowl of meat all to herself.
“That smells amazing,” I said as I began to drool.
“My wife’s Italian beef,” said Tank. “It cannot be beat. Want some?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
He laughed and served me up a sandwich. I had to tell Aaron about this recipe. He would love it and then pump it up to the stratosphere.
Tank waited patiently until we got half our sandwiches down before sliding a copy of his story across the desk. Actually, it was a series on missing persons in Missouri and how investigations had changed over time. Kenneth Young’s case was used as an example and it was a sad one.
What Dwayne and Amy had told me was true. Young was in town doing something at the Sentinel that wasn’t specified, other than research. I think we knew what that was. Maggie’s murder. He said goodbye to Barney Scheer, gassed up his car, and was never seen again.
When he didn’t turn up at his parent’s house in Iowa, they reported him missing, but it took a while for the investigation to even start. The police said he ran off with a girl or was partying. They weren’t concerned, but when he missed both Christmas and New Year’s, they got busy. It was another week before enquiries were made in St. Seb. A few people were interviewed, but Barney didn’t report any particulars on the interviews. There was no mention of Desmond or his pictures, and Maggie’s murder certainly wasn’t brought up.
“Do you have the original stories?” I asked.
“On your favorite,” said Tank.
I groaned. “Microfiche?”
He made a shooting motion at me. “Do you want to go down and look at them?”
Want is putting it strong.
“I guess I better.”
Tank picked up Carrie’s yearbook. “Why do you have this?”
“I thought I might take a look later and see if there are any other pictures of Stott that might help us know who he was friends with,” I said.
“We can do that right now.” Tank looked at the index in the back. “Nope. Bertram Stott. One page.”
“He might be somewhere in the background.”
“Grasping at straws, aren’t we?” Fats asked.
“You never know,” I said.
Tank set the yearbook down. “Bedtime reading for you.”
“It’s not like I’ll be sleeping.”
“Miss Elizabeth having fun with you?” Tank asked.
I wrinkled my nose. “You have no idea.”
Fats picked a stray piece of beef off her paper plate and said, “Mercy has all the luck.”
“If that’s luck, it’s all bad,” I said.
Fats and Tank disputed my definition of luck, since I’d gotten Maggie’s financial insights out of it, but I wasn’t persuaded. Those eyeballs didn’t give me anything but an all-over exhausted ache.
Tank got me some Tylenol and we finished our sandwiches, got mugs of tea, and some brownies before heading down into the basement of the Sentinel. In hindsight, that was a really bad idea.
Microfiche, film, or whatever is bad enough when you’ve slept. It’s brutal when you haven’t. I got nauseated right off and Tank had to take over, even though he was practically cross-eyed from looking it at half the night.
It took nearly an hour to find the little box with the appropriate year in it and another fifteen minutes to find Barney Scheer’s rudimentary articles about his missing intern.
Tank was not happy. Especially after I told him what Spidermonkey and his guy had found out about the flooding and Chief Lucas.
“Will lied,” he said.
“How surprised are you?” I asked.
“My brother-in-law is a good cop and Woody Lucas was supposed to be, too.”
Fats did a series of stretches and said, “Things have changed.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to tell Mallory,” he said.
“No reason to tell her anything yet,” I said.
“It’s going to come out,” said Tank. “We’re talking conspiracy here and it’s my wife’s family. I almost wish you’d never come to town.”
“I get that all the time.”
“I bet,” he said. “Here we go.”
Tank read the articles about Young’s disappearance and it wasn’t good. He didn’t say anything, but it showed in the set of his thin shoulders and the way he kept reading the words over and over again. Fats and I exchanged a look, not daring to interrupt the newsman’s concentration. Whatever he was seeing was probably not something that we would pick up.
Instead, we waited, making a nest for Moe in Fats’ coat and, I’m not ashamed to say, looking on Amazon for a Santa costume for her to wear at Christmas. Okay. I’m a little ashamed. Dogs should not be made to dress up for the amusement of humans, but she was such a weirdo, it was going to be adorable.
“We should buy one for Skanky,” said Fats.
“He’ll probably just eat the fur and throw up all over,” I said.
“There’s something wrong with your cat.”
“You’ll get no argument here.”
We both jumped when Tank’s ginormous printer beast fired up and attempted to deafen us.
“I’ll print you some copies,” said Tank, not looking at us.
“Okay. Thanks,” I said.
Eventually, the behemoth finally spit out copies of the stories Tank had been pouring over. He handed them to us and leaned on the desk with crossed arms, watching. I felt like I did when I thought I was going to fail the AP Physics exam spectacularly and everyone was going to know. I did and they did. Tank looked like my teacher when he asked what I got. Prematurely disappointed.
I read the article twice, looking for one of those ah-ha moment things and not finding it. The articles were disinterested at best. It was possible that Barney really didn’t like Kenneth Young. Just by reading the articles you never would’ve known that he knew the kid personally. It was that impersonal. I know. I know. The news isn’t supposed to be biased, but this writing was more like a traffic report. I expected something like a plea for help. Barney Scheer was talking about a missing twenty-three year old that had worked all summer in the very basement we were in and he couldn’t have been less intense.
“Am I missing something?” Fats asked. “So he’s a crappy reporter, so what?”
“He’s not a crappy reporter,” said Tank. “The articles about Maggie’s murder before the switch were insightful and caring. You can hear the compassion for her right in there with the facts. He did that without saying how he felt in so many words. Barney was good.”
“Well, there’s not much here,” I said. “Barney sure wasn’t on the hunt to find out what happened to that kid.”
“Maybe he already knew,” said Fats.
“If he figured out what Young was working on, then it’s not a stretch,” said Tank.
“But Barney Scheer didn’t kill him, if any of these basic facts are right,” I said.
“No?”
“No. Barney names himself as the last person, other than the guy that pumped his gas, to talk to Young before he left town and he says that two more members of the staff were here at the time. That puts Barney right in the mix.”
“He knew when Young left,” said Fats. “Following isn’t hard.”
“I’m sure the staff members alibied him.”
Fats glanced at the paper and read, “Kenneth Young left the Sentinel at approximately twelve-thirty. A member of the staff, Ralph Sullentrop, walked him out and saw him get in his 1971 VW Beetle and drive away.”
1971 Beetle.
“He still could’ve done it or tipped someone off,” said Tank.
1971 Beetle.
“Sure, but I’m saying Barney felt secure in his own position, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a suspicion about what happened to his intern. These articles show feeling, just not the ones we’d expect,” I said. “Let’s see how Young did as an intern. Can you see if he has any articles?”
Tank went back to the summer, the months whizzing by and then jolting to a stop on May. He zipped around looking for Young’s name and I had to step away. The movement got to me in a huge way and I paid for it. Fats made me stretch and then do some lunges. She said it was good for me, but she didn’t do any lunges. Then I had to do some squats by myself, but I drew the line at up-downs. Not going to happen.
I was sensing a theme with me working out and Fats not. The next six months was going to be rough, but the rhythm of the workout freed my mind to roll around on the case. I had to go through that yearbook page by page. If it didn’t reveal any connections to Stott, I’d start googling classmates. Carrie was a sophomore in 1965, but she said her friends didn’t really hang out with seniors. She would make some calls for me. Maybe that would help.
I wanted to concentrate on Stott, but no matter where I wanted my mind to go, it kept coming back to that 1971 Bug and I didn’t know why it sounded so familiar. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Maggie, but still, there it was, popping up into the forefront. The connection was right on the tip of my brain. I could almost reach it. Almost.
“He liked him,” said Tank.
“Huh?” I asked.
“Young. Barney Scheer liked him.”
Fats and I went over and looked at the screen. Tank had an article about the fair up. Young had done a three-part article on judging irregularities during the livestock showing. I know that doesn’t sound exciting and it isn’t. I read the articles. Young alleged bias, bribes, and downright cheating with the scales. Tank assured us that this was a big deal in the farming community. Having a prizewinning steer could give a farmer a leg up with their breeding program and the extra income could make the farm profitable in a bad year.
“So he trusted Young to investigate this,” said Fats. “I wonder why. He was only in college.”
Tank sat back. “Kenneth Young was gifted. His prose is wonderful and he doesn’t embellish. He’s just good. Barney was happy to have him here. More than happy.”
“You got all that from an article on dirty cattle judges?” I asked.
“That and this.” Tank zipped the pages back to June and an article on Kenneth Young appeared. It included a photo of Young, smiling and leaning back on his Beetle. I couldn’t stop looking at that face, young, hopeful, handsome. Gone. And his car. It felt like déjà vu, but that was just stupid. I’d seen a thousand Beetles. More even. They weren’t exactly unique. But 1971. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
“He wrote an article on his intern? Don’t interns usually get kicked around and ordered to shut up and make coffee?” I asked.
Tank smiled. “I did. On my first internship, the biggest story I got to write was about people not picking up their dog’s poop. Young got a half-page spread with a picture. He was recommended by the head of the journalism school and several professors.”
“They thought he was going places,” said Fats. “No offense, but was the Sentinel a hot gig for Young?”
“Sure,” said Tank. “If you want to work and get a lot of bylines. The big papers will give you scut work. Barney let Young have free rein.”
“That’s probably how he found out about Maggie’s murder,” I said.
“Young was clearly cut out for investigative journalism. He would’ve been looking for a good story.”
“A murdered nun definitely fits the bill,” said Fats.
“Look at this story.” Tank zipped over to a human-interest story on veterans and combat stress. “Young could write anything. He had real heart.”
“And not bad looking,” said Fats, glancing at me. “That probably opens doors.”
“It closes them, too,” I said. “But he looked to be in the sweet spot of not too good looking.”
Tank scratched his chin. “A guy like that, he would’ve been popular with the ladies.”
“Maybe we can find someone he dated,” I said.
“I imagine that’d be a wide field. Take it from me, a guy like that could’ve had any girl he wanted.”
“Not any girl,” said Fats. “I wouldn’t have been interested.”
Tank and I looked at her.
“Seriously?” I asked. “What’s wrong with Kenneth Young? You went out with Lorenzo Fibonacci. He might be gorgeous, but what a moron.”
“I like a man who knows how to take care of business.”
Tank and I frowned simultaneously.
“How on Earth can you tell if that kid couldn’t take care of business? Is it the eyebrows?” Tank asked. “My daughter’s big on eyebrow maintenance. God knows why.”
“It’s the car,” said Fats. “A man that won’t maintain his vehicle, won’t maintain himself. It’s a deal breaker.”
“What’s wrong with his Beetle?” I asked.
“It’s damaged and has rust.”
“Do you have some sort of rust detection sensor? That photo’s in black and white. And it’s hella grainy.”
Tank held up his hand. “She’s right. I think I saw that.” He went back to the photo and I got the weirdest feeling. Déjà vu, but stronger.
“Where?” I said with a strangled voice.
Tank glanced at me, frowning, but then zoomed in on the rear wheel and bumper. Sure enough, it was damaged. The panel over the wheel had some discoloration and the bumper hung down too far. The feeling got stronger.
“Mercy?” Tank asked. “Are you okay?”
“That’s a 1971 Beetle,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“What color would you say it is?”
Tank and Fats looked at the screen for a second and Tank said, “White, I guess.”
I looked up at Fats, the human rust sensor, and she shook her head. “It’s beige.”
Crap on a cracker.
“That’s a 1971 beige Beetle with rear end damage.”
“Yes,” said Tank and Fats, in unison.
“I think I know where that car is.”
Tank looked back at the screen. “That car? You couldn’t possibly. It’s been missing since ’74. You weren’t even born.”
I looked at Fats and watched her put it together. She took a deep breath and said, “It could be a coincidence. Millions of Beetles were sold that year. Beige was a popular color.”
“But only one ended up where Maggie’s medal was found,” I said.
“Are you talking about that serial killer graveyard?” Tank asked. “They found a car?”
“Not just a car,” said Fats. “A 1971 beige Beetle.”
“With rear end damage,” I said. “Chuck showed me a picture. That damage was the only thing they had to go on. The VIN was pried off and the car was clean, not so much as a plastic straw was found inside.”
Tank ran his fingers through his long hair. “So they’re looking for murder victims who had that car.”
“That could take a while,” said Fats. “Or forever, depending on whether that damage was on the original police report.”
“It still might not be the car,” said Tank.
Moe jumped up out of her nest and started barking.
“Even the dog knows we’re on to something,” I said.
“This is going to kill Mallory. Her grandfather, mother, and now her brother let a serial killer skate?” He put his head in his heads. “Nightmare.”
Moe went nuts, spinning in a circle and yipping.
“Does she need to go out?” I asked, even though Moe was a calm dog when it came to it. I’d only seen her go to the door and stare at it. No barking at all.
“Maybe.” Fats grabbed her coat. “I’ll take her and you call the rookies.”
I drew a blank. The rookies?
“You’re done, Mercy,” said Fats. “They wanted you to find something to reopen Maggie’s case, this is it.”
“I can’t just leave it,” I said. “I promised Myrtle.”
She put on her coat and popped out a toothpick. “And Morty’s in the hospital. Throw the guy a bone. Get yourself off the No Fly List and his blood pressure goes down.”
It was selfish of me, but I didn’t want to do it. This was my case now. Mine. I wanted to solve it for my godmothers, for Maggie, for Kenneth Young, and Father Dominic. It wasn’t just about getting to Greece anymore.
I started to tell her that, but Moe went batshit crazy and Fats said over the clamor, “Do it, Mercy. You’ve got an uncle in the hospital and a wedding to plan.”
Not the wedding.
“Fine,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’ll give it to the rookies.”
Fats nodded at us and held out her arms to Moe, who normally would’ve jumped in them to go outside. But that time she ran around Fats and went up five stairs. Her brindle fur rose up to hackles and she bared her pointy little teeth.
Fats snapped her fingers. “No.”
Moe growled in response and her hackles got pointier.
“Is she normally like that?” Tank asked.
“No.” Fats went into dog training mode that had worked so well before, but Moe charged her, snapping at her hand as Fats reached for her.
I jolted to my feet. “Something’s wrong.”
“No kidding,” said Fats. “She’s lost her mind.”
Moe darted around her owner and leapt at her ankle, snagging the fabric of Fat’s legging and yanking it back.
“What the hell are you doing?” Fats yelled, stumbling backward.
“She doesn’t want you to go upstairs,” I said. “Tank, call the chief.”
“Because the dog—”
“Do it.” I pulled out my Mauser and took off the safety.
Fats pointed at Moe and said, “Stop.”
Moe sat and went silent. Fats got her Python out of her backpack and crept toward the stairs. Moe growled. She stopped and an explosion ripped through the floor above us, bringing down the ceiling and turning the world black.