I asked Paul if he minded staying at St. Vincent’s for a while so that I could take care of some other things. He told me he didn’t mind at all.
“What else is an old retired guy going to do on a Saturday?” he said.
He was clearly just as relieved as I was that Ronnie was alive. Maybe more so.
“You know, we need to remember…” He didn’t finish the thought, but I knew where he was going.
“He’s not out of the woods yet,” I said. “I get it.”
And we didn’t say what really hung between us about Ronnie: even if he got through this, he still faced the prospect of a murder charge.
Some things were better left unsaid.
In the hospital parking lot, I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t had any luck searching for Elizabeth Yarbrough. But now I had a different name to try.
I typed in a search for “Elizabeth Baxter” in Haxton, Ohio.
Nothing came up.
I tried again, adding the word “missing” to the search. Again nothing. I added “missing person” and then “disappear.” Still nothing.
Was it possible for someone, a fifteen-year-old girl, to disappear and for there to be no trace or record of it in the world? Did people just forget?
I sent a text to Neal Nelson. It took just seconds for him to call me. When I answered, he didn’t say hello or ask me how I was doing. He just jumped right in.
“I knew you’d need me,” he said. “What can I do for you, Teach?”
“I need you to find somebody,” I said. “And if you can, find out about somebody.”
“Teach, I love a good caper,” he said. “I imagine this has to do with your mom.”
“It does,” I said.
“Glad I can help. Just give me the name and whatever you happen to know about this person.”
“You know what?” I said. “Now that I think about it, I’m going to need you to look into two people for me.”
Chapter Forty-one
I remained in the car for a few minutes longer. The weather had been milder than everyone had expected, and people had emerged from their homes, blinking in the sunlight, deciding that they’d better hurry up and enjoy it because it might be the last day like that for a long, long time.
I cracked the window, letting in a little air. I called Detective Richland. It was late on Saturday afternoon, and I had no idea whether the detective would still be on duty after the events of the morning. He didn’t answer his phone, so I left a message explaining that I had new information about my mother’s case and to please call. I called and left a message for Detective Post as well, under the assumption that she would be more likely to call me back than Richland.
I started the car and headed for downtown.
If the Internet didn’t have the answers I wanted, I knew a place that might. The Dover Public Library sat two blocks off the courthouse square downtown. It was a boxy limestone building with small windows and heavy doors. It looked like a place constructed to withstand a siege.
I mounted the front steps and went into the dark, silent space. I loved being inside the library. Mom and Dad had brought us there all the time when we were kids. I’d been to libraries in other towns, and I liked the Dover one best. I applied the same theory to libraries that I did to churches. I didn’t want them to look modern and bright and welcoming. I was more comfortable in them when they were heavy and foreboding.
I hadn’t been to the periodicals room in years. I used to go there when I was a teenager and read music magazines, thinking to myself that I would run off someplace where all those cool bands hung out and played: Austin, London, Los Angeles. I hadn’t run off, of course, but I did associate the library with the freedom to dream.
As the fates would have it, a friendly face waited for me in the periodicals room. Mrs. Porter stood behind the counter. She held a paperback novel in her right hand, her eyes glued to the pages. She didn’t see me right away. But as I approached the desk, she looked up and greeted me with a big smile. She marked her place with a piece of paper and put the book aside.
“Well, well,” she said. “Elizabeth. To what do we owe this honor?”
“I’m here to do research, I guess.”
“Is this for school?” she asked. “You know, I don’t ordinarily staff the periodicals desk. The woman who normally works here, her daughter had a baby so she went to Cincinnati to help out. I’m just filling in.”
“I’m looking for newspapers,” I said.
“They’re all right there,” she said, pointing. “Local, state, and national. Although how anyone can read the New York Times I’ll never understand. Too liberal for my tastes.”
“Do you carry the newspaper from Haxton?” I asked.
Mrs. Porter scrunched up her face. “Oh, honey. The Haxton Herald-Leader ceased publication five years ago. Nothing ever happens in Haxton.”
“I’m looking for old papers,” I said. “From, say, the seventies. Do you have those on microfilm?”
“Oh, those. See those big things over there?” She pointed to a large filing cabinet with elongated drawers. “They’re all in there, chronological by date. See, I do know something.” She winked at me. “Say, didn’t your mother grow up in Haxton? I think she mentioned that once.”
“She did,” I said.
Mrs. Porter looked suspicious. “So this isn’t a school project, I gather?”
I shook my head. “Actually, Mrs. Porter, I was wondering if I could ask you something about my mother. Something strange.”
Mrs. Porter’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead when I said the word “strange.”
“You can ask me anything,” she said, barely concealing her anticipation.
I almost didn’t say it. I knew how rumors and stories could spread in a town like Dover, and Mrs. Porter had to be at the white-hot center of the gossip wildfire. But I needed to find out whether she knew anything.
“Did my mom ever mention anything to you about being married before she was married to my dad?” I asked.
If you looked up the definition of “taken aback” in the dictionary, you would probably find the look Mrs. Porter showed on her face. The corners of her mouth turned down in an exaggerated frown. She appeared almost offended.
“I never heard any such thing,” she said.
I worried that I had crossed a line, that Mrs. Porter would see my question as unseemly and somehow besmirching the memory of someone recently deceased. I couldn’t necessarily blame her.
But then she leaned forward, placing both her elbows on the counter. She brought her face close to mine and spoke in a low voice. “Is that true?” she asked.
I kept my voice low as well, entering into the conspiracy with her. “I think it is.”
“Are you researching marriage records?” Mrs. Porter asked.
“Something like that,” I said.
“Well,” she said, the single word an expression of surprise and also some kind of judgment. “People do surprise you.”
“Indeed they do.”
“But Leslie Hampton? I guess she’s the last person I would expect to surprise me. That woman was as steady as a rock.”
“I agree. Well, I’m going to get to work over here.”
“Elizabeth? Did you ever figure out why your mother wanted that book she was in here looking for?”
“No,” I said. “I’m still figuring that one out.”
Mrs. Porter looked at me suspiciously.
“Heck,” I said, “maybe after all those years of reading about Ronnie, she decided she really needed a book to figure me out.”