An Open Book Part 2

"What state?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Not New Jersey, New York or Delaware, because I see plenty of those and I recognize them."

"What color?"

I shut my eyes and thought. "The car? Grayish, maybe."

"No, I mean the license plate."

"Uh, white, with blue letters."

"How many digits?"

"Seven, I think. I got the first three, but he was too far away for me to get the rest."

"What are they?"

"ABG. Is this enough to tell you anything?"

"Closest white and blue would be Ohio. It's worth a try. What'd the car look like?"

I'm clueless about cars. "Two-door, I think. Not too old-maybe a couple of years? I don't keep up on that kind of stuff. No obvious dents, at least in the back end, which is all I saw."

"Anything else you remember? Stickers on the car? Slogan on his jacket?"

"Nope, plain quilted jacket. No limp or obvious scars, but I only saw him out of the corner of my eye for half a second. His hair wasn't too long. But my impression was that he was clean and polite-he didn't shove into line, just kind of sneaked around it to lay the book on the desk, like he didn't want to bother anybody. Look, at least he returned the book, which should tell us something. He could have dumped it somewhere or taken it with him. I mean, it's new-only came out last week."

Vanessa flashed me a brief smile. "Yeah, I'll put out an APB for a clean, polite and considerate young man. Should be easy to find him."

"Hey, it's the best I can do. You want me to give you the book to see if there are fingerprints?"

Vanessa sighed. "I guess. Might as well go through the motions."

I crossed the hall again to retrieve the book, but I hadn't taken into account the fact that it was the most recent book from a very popular author, and as I approached the desk I could see people handing it back and forth and skimming the pages. So much for fingerprint evidence-although I wasn't sure who could do that for us.

"Sorry about that, folks. Look, I need to check that book in before I can sign it out again, and I'm pretty sure there's a waiting list. If you don't mind?" I held out a hand, and someone gave it to me, rather reluctantly. I stashed it under the counter and went back to processing the stacks of books and DVDs that people were waiting in line to check out.

It was after one when the crowd thinned, and I finally had a chance to look at Edith's book. First I checked the library sticker code-yes, this was the right book. Maybe if she had left a bookmark in it, I could estimate how much time she had had to read it, before she was . . . diverted by her death. I flipped through the pages: no bookmark, but a slip of paper fell out from the middle, and I recognized Edith's spiky handwriting. It said only, "Edward, 3." No last name, no convenient phone number. Not much to go on, but it was all we had. Since there was a lull in the library, I took the book across to Vanessa.

When I handed it to her I said, "Sorry-by the time I got back to the desk, half the town had handled it. Everybody wants to read it. But there was a slip of paper in it, and I touched that as little as possible. Page one hundred thirty-seven. It's clearly Edith's handwriting-I've seen it before, on envelopes and such."

Van used a letter opener to turn to that page. "Interesting. I've got good news about the car, by the way-looks like it's a rental, rented by one Edward Fairfield, age eighty-eight."

Edward? That fit with the note. "Well, I'm sure the person I saw wasn't eighty-eight. Maybe someone rented the car for the younger guy, because he was too young to do it? Or didn't have a credit card? Anyway, the name Edward matches the name on that piece of paper. Do you think she was expecting to meet him at three?"

"Could be," Vanessa said.

I shook my head. "Not much to work with. But at least we know there are other people involved-the boy who brought the book back, and this Edward who rented the car. Somebody has to know something about how she died."

Vanessa sat back in her swivel chair and gave me a stare. "You do remember this is a tiny police department? We're not exactly set up to conduct murder investigations. I've given what we've got to the detective who's handling the investigation, and I'll pa.s.s this new stuff on to him, but don't expect much. What more are we supposed to do?"

It wasn't like Vanessa to just give up, but maybe she was out of her depth with this. "Aren't you curious?"

"Of course I am. I liked Edith, and I'm sure there's a reason why she was out there on the hill. But I don't know how to find out what that is, and n.o.body except the two of us is likely to care, unless something weird turns up at the autopsy."

"That's not right." I thought for a moment. "Did you talk to anyone at the Johnson place, to see if they saw anything?"

"n.o.body was home yesterday, or at least, n.o.body answered the door. No cars in the driveway. You know where I've been this morning."

"Are you going to talk to the Johnsons, if they're home now?"

"Yes, Sarabeth, I was planning to do that. You still want to play deputy?"

"I do. I want to know what happened. Is that so wrong?"

"No, I don't think so. You working in the library all afternoon?"

"Nope, I'm off in half an hour."

Vanessa sighed yet again. "I guess it won't hurt if you come along."

When my library shift ended I presented myself back at Vanessa's door. She looked resigned, and I followed her out to the police cruiser. Once on the road, she asked, "Any comments from the people who came to the library?"

"No. Just variations on 'how sad' and 'what a shame.' n.o.body asked any questions, and I didn't volunteer any information either. Although they probably thought I was crazy when I took off after that boy, but they were too polite to ask why."

Yesterday's brief snow had already melted, except in shady places. The landscape was almost monochrome: brown fields, brown trees, brown stone houses. The occasional patch of evergreens was a welcome relief. The sky was milky and overcast-more snow on the way? I'd forgotten to check the weather report.

It took no more than ten minutes to reach the Johnson house. I tried to recall if I'd ever been inside. I knew that I had seen the family now and then, a nice couple in their late thirties, with a pair of well-behaved kids. The mother borrowed a lot of romances from the library, and usually returned them on time. Today there were two cars in the driveway, and I felt a shiver of recognition: one of them was a silver sedan with Ohio plates.

Vanessa pulled the cruiser in behind the other two cars. To prevent anyone from escaping? I wondered. She clambered out, and turned to look at me. "You coming?"

"Right behind you." I got out of the pa.s.senger seat quickly and followed her to the front door, decorated with a large but simple wreath and embellished with an opulent red ribbon that fluttered in the slight breeze. There were sounds of young voices, plus a barking dog, coming from inside. Vanessa rang the doorbell, and we waited as the melee inside subsided and footsteps approached the door. It swung open to reveal a middle-youngish woman I recognized as Mrs. Johnson. "Can I help you?"

"May we come in?" Vanessa asked politely, flashing her badge.

"Of course, please. What's this about?" Mrs. Johnson stood back from the door to let us pa.s.s, and closed it quickly behind her. Inside the air was rich with the scents of pine and cinnamon, and I remembered I hadn't eaten lunch.

We stood awkwardly clumped in the hallway. "Were you at home yesterday, Mrs. Johnson?" Vanessa began.

"Laura, please." She shook her head. "No, we were out all day, or at least all afternoon. We took the kids shopping, mostly to return stuff, and then we had a quick supper at the mall before we came back. So, no, we were gone from about ten in the morning until after the mall closed down. Why?"

Vanessa looked around her. "Could we sit somewhere?"

"Well, we've got company . . ." she said dubiously.

A man appeared in the doorway opening onto the living room. He looked about a hundred, his skin a landscape of delicate wrinkles, his snowy hair drifting across his half-bald head. "This is about Edith, isn't it?" he said gently. Laura looked bewildered, but when Vanessa nodded silently, he said, "Laura, this may take a bit of time. Would you mind making us some tea, and maybe we could enjoy some of your sugar cookies?" Even though his request was polite, there was a hint of steel behind it. Laura, after a bewildered look at the three of us, retreated to the kitchen.

"Please, come in and sit down. I'm Edward Fairfield. And you are?"

"Vanessa Hutchins. Chief of police." Van kept her tone carefully neutral, neither friendly nor aggressive.

"And I'm Sarabeth Dodson. I was a friend of Edith Hathaway," I added. I watched for a reaction from Edward, and I got one: he shut his eyes briefly. He knew. "I was the one who found her up on the hill yesterday." Was it really only yesterday?

"Ah. I asked Laura to make some tea because she hasn't heard the story yet, and she may feel that I wasn't fully truthful about why I'm here." The man turned carefully and made his way into the formal living room, where someone else waited: the young man I had seen so briefly earlier today, his eyes wide and confused. "This is my great-grandson, Philip."

"h.e.l.lo, Philip," I said. "Thank you for returning the book. Edith would have been pleased that you brought it back."

"Uh, no problem." He looked between his great-grandfather, me, and Vanessa. "What's going on? Where's Mrs. Hathaway?"

"He doesn't know?" Vanessa asked Edward.

"No. He had nothing to do with it, and I haven't told him."

"Guys, what are you talking about?" Philip asked, clearly spooked by the undertones of our cryptic conversation.

"I'm sorry, Philip," Edward said softly, "but Edith is dead."

Philip jumped out of his chair. "What? No way! She was just here . . ."

"Please, sit, all of you, and I'll try to explain." Edward gestured toward several overstuffed armchairs, whose floral patterns suggested they had been chosen to hide the wear and tear inflicted by an active family, rather than for their style. Philip dropped into a chair, looking shocked. Edward peered at the door we had just entered. "Laura should . . . ah, there you are, dear."

Laura came in from the hallway carrying a tray laden with teapot, creamer, sugar bowl, and multiple teacups, along with teaspoons and a plate of cookies. The whole tray clattered as she struggled to balance it, and her relief was clear when she set it down on a coffee table in front of the settee. "Would you like me to stay, Uncle Edward?"

"If you don't mind, I need to talk with these ladies first. I'll explain later, I promise. Please don't worry."

"Okay, but call if you need me." Laura cast a dubious glance at Vanessa and me, then retreated. I wondered if she would listen from outside the door, something I might have done if the chief of police had appeared unexpectedly at my house and I'd been shooed out. How did Edward come to be here, and how did he know her?

Philip stayed with us, his eyes on the old man. Edward carefully filled four teacups, using both hands to steady the teapot, then gestured toward us to help ourselves. Philip waited until Vanessa and I had our cups before darting forward and cautiously taking one for himself; he was clearly unfamiliar with the intricacies of balancing a cup and saucer.

When we were all settled once again, Vanessa began, in her "official" tone, "Mr. Fairfield, I take it you knew Edith Hathaway?"

He nodded. "I did, a long time ago."

"Do you live in Ohio?" Vanessa went on.

"I do now. Please, would you permit me to tell this story in my own way? My young great-grandson here can help out with those parts he knows of."

Vanessa glanced briefly at me, and I was surprised when she told Edward, "Sure, no problem. Please, go on." Not standard interview procedure, as far as I knew; she was the one who was supposed to ask the questions.

Edward sipped his tea. "If you don't mind, could you first tell me how you knew Edith?"

Van nodded at me, indicating that I should go first. I said, "She lived in Strathmere most of her life. I work part-time in the library, and she came in two or three times a week to take out books."

"Did she share anything of her history with you?" Edward asked.

"Not personally, but many people in the town knew her background in a general way. She was married but her husband died a few years ago. They never had children, and I don't think she had any surviving relatives-at least, she never talked about any. She taught school here for years, fourth grade, and retired over a decade ago. Since then she lived simply and enjoyed reading. She was involved in a number of community activities, as far as her health and mobility would permit. She was well liked by many people, and respected by most. Is that what you want to know?"

"Would you say she had led a good life?"

I wondered where he was leading us with his questions. "I think so, yes. Why are you asking this? What does it have to do with her death?"

"I'm sure she would disapprove of my adding some pertinent details, but they are essential if I'm to explain what happened. I ask only that you don't share them too widely among those who knew her."

Vanessa was clearly getting impatient. "Mr. Fairfield, we aren't in the habit of sharing confidential information around here. If you have something to tell us that will help us understand Edith's death, could you please get to the point?"

Edward nodded gently, then looked at each of us in turn. "I will trust to your discretion. There are a few facts that you did not know about Edith: she did have a child, and as a result, she had surviving relatives, although she was probably not aware of them until quite recently. Young Philip here is the youngest of that line." He paused to gauge our reactions.

I had to say I was surprised and yet not surprised. Edith had always been a private person, polite and affable, but reluctant to share many personal details. I had written that off to the mores of an earlier generation, but it had never occurred to me that she had any secrets-certainly none as significant as an unmentioned child. "I hope you'll explain?"

"Of course. I met Edith when she was seventeen, and she was lovely. She had just graduated from high school, and she had the world ahead of her. It was 1944, and the war was still going on. I know you're too young to really understand the intensity of the time, but believe me, it was a very unusual time. I was about to be shipped overseas very shortly, and I was staying with my uncle in Strathmere for a couple of days. A friend in the same situation suggested I come along to a party that a friend of his was throwing in town. That's where I met Edith. I wouldn't go so far as to say we fell in love, but there was an undeniable attraction. For the next week we were inseparable, all the more so because we both knew it wouldn't last. But that was how things were in those days.

"As you might guess, the inevitable happened. Neither of us regretted it, and we parted on good terms. We never corresponded, and I never thought to look her up when I returned, nor did she try to contact me. I filed our brief time together as a happy memory and went on with my life."

"I a.s.sume she was pregnant when you left?" I asked the obvious question, although it was hard for me to reconcile the Edith I had known with Edward's description of her.

"She was, though of course she didn't know it then, and she never informed me. You younger people don't know the stigma of an illegitimate child in the forties, although of course there were many conceived under such circ.u.mstances, especially during wartime. She did not seek my help, although I would most certainly have offered it had I known. Instead, I went on in happy ignorance until this young man here approached me a month ago." He nodded toward Philip. "Will you tell them how that came about?"

Philip blushed and cleared his throat. "I feel bad that I started all this, but here's how it happened. I'm a senior in high school, outside of Cleveland, and we had a research a.s.signment to put together a family tree. We were supposed to get an oral history-you know, talk to our families and see what they knew-and then add whatever we could find online. Part of the project was to see how oral histories differed from doc.u.mented history; kind of cool, actually, because people's stories get kind of garbled over time. Anyway, I asked my mom and dad to tell me about their parents-where they were born, where they met, that kind of stuff. My mom's family was pretty simple, and I got copies of things like birth certificates and marriage licenses for them where I could. On my dad's side, things were harder. My grandma Sylvia pa.s.sed away a couple of years ago, from cancer, and when I talked to my grandpa George, he was kind of clueless. He knew she had been adopted, but back in those days n.o.body would let you look at the records, you know?"

I nodded my encouragement. "But things have become a lot more open recently, right? So I take it you followed up?"

He ducked his head. "Yeah. I like to finish what I start, and my teacher said it would be a good thing to follow through and tie up loose ends if I could. So I started looking online and writing people, and finally I found a record of who had adopted my grandmother, and then I got a look at her birth certificate."

"I thought that was still difficult these days?" I said.

"It is." He blushed again and twisted his hands. "It wasn't totally on the up-and-up. I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but I kind of talked with the people at the records offices and they let me sneak a peek. They wouldn't let me make any copies, so I just took notes."

I looked at him critically: he was a fairly attractive young man, and he came across as shy and polite. I could see how town clerks would feel sorry for a charming and bashful young man when he explained what he wanted. "That was nice of them. So, what did you find?"

"My grandma's birth certificate-Sylvia Mercer. It listed both parents, Edward Fairfield and Edith Mercer, but since the Mercer name came from her mom I kinda guessed they hadn't been married, particularly when I put that together with the adoption, and that was why Grandma had never talked about it. I'm not even sure what she knew-Grandma was given up when she was only a couple of days old."

He really was a bright and enterprising young man, to have found so much, so quickly. "What did you do next?"

"Well, I had two names to work with from the certificate. I thought Edith Mercer had probably gotten married later, so she would have a different surname and be harder to find, so I went looking for Edward Fairfield. And I found him." He glanced quickly at Edward, seated beside him. "I mean, I was really surprised, because they were so old. Who would have thought they'd both still be around?"

"Where do you live, Edward?" Vanessa asked.

"Not far from Cincinnati," he said absently. "Go on, Philip."

Philip complied. "I got lucky, because Mr. Fairfield here still lived in Ohio. It would have been harder if he'd lived in California or something, because no way could I get there and do this kind of searching."

"I ended up in Ohio when I returned from the war," Edward said to Vanessa and me. "I used the GI Bill for a few years of college, married, settled down, had a family. Young Philip here has more relatives than he expected."

"How did your family take it, when this kid they didn't know about showed up on your doorstep?" Vanessa demanded.

"I was as surprised as anyone, you know. But all this happened a long time ago, and they welcomed Philip-which I suspect has a lot to do with his charm." He smiled fondly at his great-grandson, who blushed yet again and looked at his feet.

"Still, it must have been kind of a shock to you when he showed up, wasn't it, Mr. Fairfield?" I said.