| |
Leatherman’s secretary acknowledged Kate’s presence immediately as she grabbed an envelope from her desk and came to the counter. “I checked with Mr. Leatherman. He said to copy what’s in the file for you.”
“I appreciate it,” Kate said, weighing the envelope with both hands. “Seems a bit light.”
“I copied everything.”
“I’m sure you did. And I hope you take up my offer for lunch,” Kate said.
“I guess that would be okay.”
“How about I check with you in a few days. This week is crazy with all the stuff happening in town.”
“No problem. I usually go right at noon.”
Kate nodded. “I wonder if I could ask for the file on one more location.”
“Sure. What’s the address?”
“The lot at Commercial and St. Limas, not far from the lake.”
“Where the skeleton was found.”
“Yes. That’s the one,” Kate said, hoping that would not make a difference.
“Let me check.” Claire checked her computer then walked across the room to the line of file cabinets. She took out a folder and fingered through it as she returned to the counter. “Not much in the file,” she said, placing the folder in front of Kate.
“Can I get a copy of everything for my background file?”
“Be back in a sec.” Claire took the folder and disappeared to the area between the suite and the courtroom returning in a few minutes.
Kate added the newly copied pages to the envelope and headed to Etta’s house. She learned long ago showing up is the best way to schedule a meeting.
Etta was in her rocker on the front porch when Kate parked. She waved from her car, and then met Etta at the top of the steps.
“Hope this isn’t a bad time. I have a few follow-up questions for the next article.”
“Come on up. Let’s sit outside. Such a beautiful fall day.”
Kate sat in one of the large wicker chairs and savored the panorama. “This is very much like the view from our back porch,” she said.
“You’re married?”
“No. I live with my father in the house behind his hotel.”
“Where you grew up?”
“Yes. I moved back a couple years ago, after—”
Etta interrupted, “I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive this old woman. I forgot all about the trouble with your dad. He was such a nice boy when he worked for Clay.”
“You remember him?”
“Absolutely. He had quite a crush on me, you know. He was a hard worker. I knew he couldn’t have killed that man. I was real relieved when they dropped the charges.”
“Thanks. I’m glad everything worked out too.” Kate handed Etta the latest issue of Branson Daily News. “I brought this for you. Your first article is in it.”
“Already have a copy,” Etta said proudly. “Sarah dropped it by for me. You did a good job. Made it sound like an interesting life. Of course, I’ve noticed things sound a lot better in retrospect, especially if you leave out the gruesome details.”
“Well, we can put those in this next article,” Kate said with a smile. “Still okay to use this?” she asked as she turned on her small recorder.
“You bet. What do you want to know?”
Kate didn’t skip a beat. “About the lot you own downtown. The one across the railroad tracks on Commercial, not far from Lake Taneycomo.”
Etta furrowed her brow and stared toward the woods.
“Do you know where I mean?” Kate asked after a few moments.
“Sorry, brings back some memories, I guess. Clay and I, we built our store on that lot. We’d been married a few years, lived with my folks at first. We had to move in with Clay’s parents when his older brother left home. We stayed with them a while, but Clay decided it would be good to get our own place. Even though Clay helped with his family farm, he had a job in town too. I brought in a little money selling my crafts and tending kids and such. We were able to buy that old lot with some help from a friend. Clay’s father said if we moved out, we’d be on our own. By then, that was fine with us.”
“When did you move out?”
“It was twenty-nine when we bought it, not long before all hell broke loose in the East. Clay built a small shack for us and we moved in that summer. He built the store in front of the shack with help from friends. They all knew about the situation between Clay and his father. You won’t put all this in the article, will you?”
Kate shook her head. “Not if you don’t want me to. How long did you live behind the store?”
“For a year or so. Business was good. We weren’t far from the lake and the railroad station. We had a little money saved when Clay fell into a deal with some other folks to buy quite a bit of acreage out here. It was a long way from town then.”
“What was the store called?” Kate said, glancing at her notes.
Etta rocked out of the chair and walked toward the stairs. “Clay put a big sign over the front entrance. Mercantile,” Etta said, gesturing with her hands above her head, “but everyone called it the Riverside Mercantile. I called it Clay’s store.”
“What happened to the store when your husband died in 1942?”
Etta turned to face Kate. “I guess you might say I merged my business with our friend Jack’s store. I took our inventory and the name and moved higher to the building at Commercial and Main Streets.”
“Where the Fortune Enterprises flagship store is today?”
“That’s the place,” Etta said. “All those pictures in the album were of our Riverside Mercantile, not Clay’s.”
“You’re speaking of Jack Brighton, your friend Jack?”
“We grew up together, my best friend next to Clay,” Etta said.
“Did Jack’s wife work there as well?”
“Neither Lillian, Jack’s wife, nor Lex’s wife Tory worked at the store. Just Lex, Jack and I ran Riverside. Of course, Jack’s son Randy and Lex’s boy Bryan helped out, but they were young kids.”
“The Bryan Porter who owns the big flea market on the west end of town?”
Etta nodded. “Bryan worked for a year or so after we merged until his father quit to start his own business. That’s probably why Bryan left, but he wasn’t particularly interested in hard work. He seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder all the time.”
“But Randy stayed with the store,” Kate said.
“No, he joined the army during World War II. He served through the Korean Conflict, as they called it. He’d had some issues in high school, but the army straightened him out. Got out and got a college degree. Jack was so proud of him. When he left the service, he tried making his own way for a while in St. Louis but came back to help Jack run the business.”
“I knew you were a good source. You have lots of stories to tell.”
Etta gazed directly into Kate’s eyes. “Something else you need to know. Maybe you already do, but I need to be sure.”
“Okay,” Kate said, still processing the Bryan Porter link.
Etta leaned back against the column beside the stairs and said, “Clay killed himself. Had his reasons, I suppose. The note didn’t make much sense, but I know he was having a bad time with things. Personal demons, I guess.” She pushed to a standing position. “I don’t talk about this. I sure don’t want to read about it in the paper. But you needed to find out from me.”
“I appreciate your telling me. I promise I won’t say or write anything about it.”
Etta said, “I know we didn’t talk about the crafts fair, but I need to go in and lie down.”
“I’ll come back some other time, if that’s okay. You’ve been a big help with my questions. I hope I didn’t upset you, bringing up memories about your husband.”
“Only one bad memory about Clay. But you couldn’t have known. I do better in the mornings. I usually go down to the realty office to help Marge. Maybe you can come down some day before noon.”
“It’s a date. Thanks Etta,” Kate said, stifling an impulse to hug the octogenarian.