“Both of them left substantial positions,” I said, “Park in Congress and Hiram in academia. They both disappeared quietly into a two-year college in the outer suburbs of Los Angeles. What happened?”
Karen shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. Park and I were already divorced when that happened, and I hadn’t seen Hiram for years. But of course I’ve thought about it, and I can’t come up with an answer that makes sense. Maybe they just got tired.”
“While your husband was in office, he was charged with misuse of campaign funds more than once.”
“We aren’t rich people,” she said, shrugging off the issue as inconsequential. “We don’t have rich parents. A congressman’s salary is pretty modest when you consider all that’s required of them. We were keeping residences on two coasts and travelling back and forth and entertaining, keeping up appearances. Sometimes that was just financially impossible, especially during campaigns. From time to time, Park let his better-heeled constituents cover some costs.”
I asked her if she knew Clarice Snow or someone named Weidermeyer.
After a pause, she began to nod. “Clarice Snow, no, but Weidermeyer-I met him and his wife a couple of times. Big formal events. Businessman of some kind, probably involved in Asian trade. Why?”
“Is Mrs. Weidermeyer Asian?”
The question made her smile. “Definitely not. Very Main Line Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr girl. Her lower jaw never seemed to move when she spoke.”
Not Clarice Snow, then, I thought. An interesting puzzle: who was young Frankie Weidermeyer’s father? Not my puzzle to solve, but an interesting one just the same.
Karen declined to speak on camera about her children. She had worked very hard to keep them out of the public eye when their father was in Congress, and intended to continue doing so. Instead, she talked about growing up in a close-knit farm community.
“Of course, everyone knows your business,” she said with a laugh. “But your business usually doesn’t get spread beyond the town limits. The people of Gilstrap protected my children’s privacy.”
After about an hour, she glanced at her watch and said she really needed to get back to work. The books on the circulation desk weren’t going to reshelve themselves and she needed to clear the desk before her seniors came in. They always checked out several books each and she would need the counter space.
I thanked her, and together we put the chair and the whiteboard and the components of my ad hoc camera stand back where they belonged. I gave her my card and asked her to call me if she thought of anything more she wanted to say.
“Before you go,” she said, taking her mobile phone out of her pocket. “May I get you on camera? No one will believe me when I tell them you were here if I don’t.”
I put my head close to hers and smiled as she held the phone at arm’s length and snapped a picture of the two of us. With colored lights from the flash still dancing in my eyes, I walked back out into the spring sunshine.
It was nearly noon when I left the library and I wanted to be on the 3:00 flight out of Sacramento. That would get me back to Burbank by 4:00 and home an hour after that, depending on traffic. For the film, we would need background footage of Central High School and Holloway’s late parents’ farmhouse and other local landmarks, but Guido and a crew would take care of that later. When we had a production schedule, I would set up interviews with people who had grown up with Holloway, and fly back up with a crew.
The local weekly newspaper, the Gilstrap Gazetteer, was just down the street and across the town square. Their archives could be helpful. So, I decided that the best use of the time I had left would be to see what they had to offer.
A man standing inside the newspaper office watched me through the glass front door as I approached across the town square. When I reached the office, he held the door open for me.
“I wondered if you were going to stop by,” he said, offering his hand as he studied me. He was in his early thirties I guessed, slender, blond, rumpled.
“Marshall Bensen here, editor, owner, sole reporter and photog of the Gazetteer. What can I do for you, Ms MacGowen?”
I was a bit taken aback when he knew my name. Without TV makeup and away from the flat frame of a television set, I don’t get recognized all that often. Twice in an hour was unusual. Bensen must have seen my surprise. He chuckled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipped through its screens and held it up to show me the photo Karen Holloway had snapped of the two of us not five minutes earlier. The caption at the bottom was, “OMG, just me hanging with filmmaker Maggie MacGowen.”
I said, “Word gets out fast around here.”
“You can count on it. Dutch Holmborg was here when Karen sent that out-you just missed him. He told me you were in the diner a while ago asking about Park. He said you headed over to the library to talk to Karen. So, word’s out; no wonder newspapers are dying.”
“Did he tell you what she and I talked about?”
He chuckled. “Not yet. But if you want a full report, call back after dinner. Around here, Ms MacGowen, that would be noontime; at five we sit down to supper.”
“Good to know.” I massaged my knuckles, still feeling the pressure of his dairyman’s grip. “And please, it’s Maggie.”
His office was cluttered with back editions of the paper and stacks of clippings and who-knows-what-all. There were piles atop a row of old oak filing cabinets, on every shelf, and covering his ancient, scarred, wooden teacher’s desk.
“Do you mind?” I asked, holding up my camera and gesturing toward the room.
“Shoot away. I have an old green plastic visor somewhere, you want me to put it on?”
I laughed. “Maybe later.”
I snapped some stills, got a nice shot of Bensen leaning on his desk, precarious piles of paper on either side of him, and dropped the camera back into my bag.
“What sort of archives do you have?” I asked.
“Let’s see.” He looked around. “That back corner is roughly 1970 to 1985. Had an earthquake in ’eighty-five and there was a sort of avalanche back there, so there’s no particular order to it. If you’re looking for something in particular between 1985 and 2002, you just figure that every pile is about three years high and work your way around the office going clockwise, and you may find what you’re looking for.”
“Interesting system,” I said, eyeing the clutter with dismay. I didn’t have time, Fergie didn’t have time, to hunt through the mess for possible nuggets from Holloway’s early life and political campaigns.
“I inherited it as-is from the previous owner,” he said. “Everything before 1980 when he bought the paper is in the filing cabinets, and everything after 2002, when I came aboard, is available online.”
Because of his grin I knew there was a punch line coming. I waited for it: “’Course, you can just go over to the library and find the old issues on microfilm.”
“That’s a big help.”
“Karen’s had the Historical Society working on an index for about ten years now. I think they’re up to the ’nineties.”
He took another look around. “Every time I say I’m going to haul all the papers over to the recycling plant, the Historical Society promises they’ll come and get them. They just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
He turned to me. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“Not yet. Just background information on Park Holloway.”
“We’ve been expecting some reporters to show up-Park Holloway’s passing is the biggest story around here since the heavy rains last winter-but you’re the first. And you’re not exactly a news reporter, are you?”