I show Mom that Mr. McTavish still owns the farm.
“My, that’s curious, isn’t it?” She tries not to smile. “I’m not a real estate agent, so I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to the mystery, but I know someone who is a real estate agent, and I’m sure he’d love to clear it up for you.”
Nice one, Mom.
But she’s right. C.B. is the one I need to talk to. Damn.
Next morning, the sun has a harder time getting up than I do. As we drive to town, fog drifts across the harvested fields.
We slow down as we near the school; a couple of buses are turning into the parking lot. I slide low in my seat so no one will see me. A few seconds later, we’re driving past the motel where we stayed our first night and over the old iron bridge into town.
I look down at the river ravine running under the bridge—the hollow in Wolf Hollow. The heaviest part of the fog is settling in the gully. It’s like we’re driving over clouds. I imagine the old days, with wolves coming up through the mist.
After the bridge, the highway turns into the main drag, a.k.a. Main Street. There’s only maybe ten streets that cut across and seven or eight that run parallel on either side. We pass a soft ice-cream drive-through that’s closed till spring, a tiny strip mall with a burger joint, 7-Eleven, a gas station, and the post office. After that, a bunch of two-story buildings, with stores and restaurants on the main floor and people living above: the Knotty Pine Inn; Mindy’s Fine Dining; Walker’s Ladies’ and Men’s Apparel, with clothes for people who apparently lived a century ago; the Shamrock Bar, with shuttered windows; Lucille’s Nail Emporium; Lucky Laundromat; two drugstores; and Wolf Hollow’s one and only movie theater, the Capital, which only has two screens.
In the middle of Main Street, things get respectable again with the town hall, the registry office, the police station, the library, and the Weekly Bugle offices. Then there’s a house covered in shingles with painted wooden butterflies nailed on the walls and a homemade sign that says Kelly’s Krafts; Huntley Memorials with a front yard covered in tombstones; and another small strip mall, home to a dollar store, Minnie’s Mini-Mart, and Ken Armstrong Realty. Finally, a gas station for anyone who forgot to fill up at the other end of town, and then back to farms.
We pull up in front of the agency at eight thirty. C.B. hasn’t arrived.
“Not to worry, he’ll be here any minute,” Mom says. “Then you can solve your mystery, have your swim at the rec center, and meet me here at noon for lunch. The Knotty Pine Inn has great fries. And homemade fruit pies. You’ll love it.”
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and follow Mom inside, where I leave C.B.’s package on her desk. Then I go back out and pass the time looking at the pictures of homes for sale in the front window, all of them better than our place.
I hear an electric drill at Huntley Memorials. Through the fog I see a stumpy, middle-aged man in overalls, work boots, goggles, and a baseball cap engraving a granite stone resting on a picnic table. A long, orange extension cord runs from his chisel into a cinder-block garage.
I walk over for a look-see. The guy has the roughest hands I’ve ever seen. Scraggy hair sticks out from under his cap and runs down the back of his neck. He turns off his chisel and looks up. “Can I help you?”
“Not really. I’m just waiting for Mr. Armstrong. Uh, Ken Armstrong Realty? My mom works for him. I saw you working and, well, I’ve never seen anybody carving a gravestone.”
“Oh.”
The way he says it, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to leave or say something else. I nod at the stone. “Did that guy just die?”
“Month ago.”
“Oh.” Awkward pause. “Was he a friend?” Did I just say that? What’s wrong with me?
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” Leave. Leave now. “So, like, what happens if you spell a name wrong?”
“I don’t. Anything else?”
Suddenly I have a brainstorm. Mr. McTavish got his dogs right after his wife disappeared; they killed him a few months after. If I know when he died, I can figure the in-between time when Cody’s great-grandmother accused him of murder and check what she said at the Bugle.
I clear my throat. “Does your family do all the gravestones around here?”
“Pretty much.” He tosses his chin at his sign: Huntley Memorials. Established 1926.
“So your family would’ve done the stone for Frank McTavish?”
The man pauses. “Who?”
“He was the farmer who got ripped apart by his dogs, sometime in the sixties.”
“Oh, that guy.”
“Yeah. I need the date he died. It’d be on his stone, right?”
“Sure, but you’re talking fifty years ago. We don’t keep records back that far. And we sure don’t keep track of inscriptions.”
Why not? What’s the matter with you?
The guy leans over the stone and gets back to work. “If you really want to know, try the cemetery. Two blocks over, turn right, end of the road, just before the lake. They’ll have a map of who’s buried where. Check his grave.”
The cemetery. I’m on my way.