“True,” said Ray. “During a howling storm, he would have been standing at the bar in the Last Chance doing right by the voters. So why were you going to visit Mrs. Schaffer? Speaking of efficiency, what’s wrong with the phone?”
“You usually get more face-to-face, especially her type. She’s spent too many years brushing people off.”
“And why are you back to Terry Hallen?”
“Get control of your ADD and listen for a bit.” Sue delivered her line with a smile.
“Okay.”
“I’ve been pouring through Vincent Fox’s stuff and am totally frustrated. So as a diversion I started through the Terry Hallen material again. I was looking at his death certificate, and I couldn’t find anything that stated who identified the body. I started with Julie Sutton in the county clerk’s office. She pointed out that they were still using the old death certificates then, something homegrown that only required the most basic information. She went on to say that eventually the county adopted the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death. So my question to her was how do we know that the boy found on the beach was Terry Hallen?”
“And?”
“Easy. You have a missing kid. Two days later one turns up on a beach. Case solved. And since he has no obvious wounds—his skull hasn’t been crushed, and none of his limbs appear to be broken—he must have drowned. She reminded me that the coroner used to be the local funeral director, and if the deceased was indigent, the county provided for burial, a very cozy little business arrangement.”
“So we don’t know if his mother or anyone else ever identified the body?”
“You got it. Not that it really matters, but it’s interesting.”
“So how does Mrs. Schaffer fit into this?” Ray asked.
“On my first visit, she couldn’t find Terry’s school records, which she said was very unusual. I was wondering if they ever turned up. I was also trying to jog her memory. Did she remember a funeral, did she know anyone who might have seen Terry’s body?”
“And?”
“Terry’s folder, his cumulative record, still hasn’t been found. She said that in her long history with the district, one has never gone missing before. She’s at a loss to explain how it could have disappeared.”
“Does she have any theories?”
“None.”
“Do you?”
“I looked through a couple she had sitting on her desk. It’s just ID stuff—name, address, parent/guardian names, date of birth—and year-by-year grade and attendance data. In the folders I looked at there were also some photos, you know, the kind they take every year. Even if we had it, I don’t think we’d learn anything from the kind of data it contains.”
“What else?”
“I asked her if she remembers anything about a funeral. She said that there probably wasn’t one. And then she carefully explained that there are cases where a family is too poor or too dysfunctional to organize something like that. And if they weren’t part of a church community, it probably didn’t happen. She said she remembers Terry’s family were transients, they weren’t really connected to the area. People like that come and go. They enroll, then they sometimes suddenly disappear. Families fall apart, kids go off to live with relatives, kids run away or drop out. She was doing her best to be politically correct, but there was an undercurrent of…I don’t know…trying not to be judgmental but…I think she has great sympathy for the kids and a lot of anger about how their lives are totally screwed up.”
“I understand,” said Ray. After a long pause he asked, “Anything else?”
“I think that’s about it. So I’m back to the same frustrating conclusion. Unless someone credible walks through the door and gives us information on Terry Hallen, this is about all we will ever know. And I hope the same isn’t true of Vincent Fox.”
“It’s not,” said Ray. “Twenty years haven’t passed. There’s something going on here. We just have to be patient and vigilant.”
33
Sue turned the Jeep onto the sand and gravel road leading to the New Harmony Organic Farm.
“I’ve always like this part of the county,” said Ray as they snaked through the rolling terrain. “It’s just this little area, maybe 10 square miles that’s hilly and rolling. I think it’s one of the most beautiful parts.”
“I thought we’d turned the veggie thefts over to Brett,” Sue said, nudging Simone away from the clutch.
“We did, but I wanted to handle this one personally. It’s my CSA.”
“New Harmony?” asked Sue.
“Yes, Jon Merryweather. He’s been developing this farm over the last few years. He moved his family from Chicago after working as a commodities trader. He and his wife wanted to give their kids a different kind of life. I’ve been getting vegetables from them the last two summers, splitting a box with Marc and Lisa. You may not remember, but you’ve been a consumer of some of the produce.”
“Like those ugly tomatoes.”
“Heirloom tomatoes, Sue, just like your great-grandmother used to grow. It’s about taste rather than appearance.”
“I don’t remember what they tasted like; I just remember that they were ugly. I probably skipped them.” She slowed, approaching a fork in the road. “Is he our contact?” she asking, pointing at a tall, patrician-faced man standing at the side of the road, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“That’s Jon.”
“Hey, Ray,” said Jon as they climbed out of the jeep, “didn’t know you were bringing the K-9 unit.”
After introductions, they began walking toward the farm. Ray unleashed Simone who immediately made a happy circle. “Tell me what’s been going on, Jon.”
“We’ve heard from other farmers about thefts,” Jon explained as they climbed the gentle slope. “I didn’t think anything about it. Our root cellars are over here, away from the house, close to the fields. I supposed someone could roll in here at night, and we’d never see or hear him. But I wasn’t concerned.” He swung his arm toward a low hillside bordering a field still flattened from winter. “These two cellars—we call them the caves, the kids like that—were here when we bought the property. The doors had almost rotted away, but the fieldstone walls were in good shape. I’ve actually used these as the model for the three additional ones I built.” He stopped and chuckled, “Even after a hundred years of farming on this land, there are still lots of fieldstones around to build with.”
He pulled a hasp from a loop securing two wooden doors and pulled them open, exposing a cave that had been dug in the side of the hill. Ray and Sue followed a few feet into the interior, their eyes adjusting to the dull light. The air was cool and moist, with an earthly aroma. A pile of potatoes filled the back third of the cavern.
“We store potatoes, onions, carrots, and other root vegetables in these. Most go to our winter shareholders, the rest are sold to organic groceries or contributed to food banks. This cellar is a little bigger than the others, and I reserve it for potatoes. We had a good crop last year, and this one was pretty full, more than I needed, actually. I came down here last week to check on the condition of the potatoes; planting season isn’t too far away.”
“You don’t lock these buildings?” asked Sue.
“Never been a need to. Anyway, as soon I got in here I knew that a whole lot of spuds had gone missing. To make a long story short, we got my daughter one of those infrared cameras for Christmas. We know a lot of animals move through the farm at night, and she was thinking about a science fair project dealing with nocturnal animals. I borrowed her camera and sure enough, captured the images of some two-legged nocturnal animals.”