“Have you considered her offer?” Pam asked.
“Mark needs someone to take care of the house, and we’re married,” Sue said. “I took a vow to stick with him through better or worse.”
“There is no reason for you to stay in an abusive relationship,” Pam said. “Go talk to your pastor or priest and he’ll tell you the same thing.”
“We’re not really church people,” Sue said. “I don’t know that I’ve been in church for anything but weddings and funerals since I married Mark.”
“Mark violated your marriage vows the first time he struck you. There is no reason you have to stick with him.”
Sue considered Pam’s words in silence.
Pam turned off Highway 23 when she reached Pine Brook. She drove past a few blocks of businesses and homes. A quarter mile further down a township road she turned into a gravel driveway leading to a plain, two-story white house.
“It’s so hot the cattails in the ditch are drying up,” Sue noted. “I haven’t hung clothes out this week because they get coated from the cars raising dust on the road.”
As they stepped out of the car the compressor for the house’s central air conditioning hummed to life. “This place has air conditioning?” Sue asked.
Pam took Sue by the elbow and led her to the door. “They have air conditioning and all kinds of appliances.” Pam pushed the doorbell button.
“I can’t afford to stay here,” Sue said, her voice wavering.
“The county is treating you for the time being,” Pam said. “Don’t worry about the cost.”
A matronly woman with a broad smile opened the door. “You must be Sue. Come in, we’ve been expecting you.”
CHAPTER 26
The next morning Floyd drove directly from home to the Pine City Library. Brenda Engelbrekt, the librarian, was busily restocking the shelves when he approached the counter. Brenda, who was in her 20s, was smart, perky, pretty, and always smiling. Floyd often described her as the most eligible bachelorette in Pine County. She had stepped into big shoes, when she was hired after an expansion and the retirement of Christy Cook, who many people felt was unreplaceable. Brenda had quickly won the admiration and support of the library board and community.
“Hello, Floyd. We don’t see you in here very often.”
“I don’t have a lot of time to read, and you know that old saying about life being stranger than fiction. I have all the excitement I can stand.”
“Then what brings you to the library?”
“I want to read back issues of The Pine City Pioneer from December of ’98.”
“We don’t actually have the paper newspapers from then, but we have all the old issues on microfilm.” Brenda led Floyd to the microfilm reader and sat down. “All the recent issues are on the Internet, but most newspapers can’t afford the time or money to convert microfilm files to the electronic format. I don’t have many requests to see old issues of the newspaper, so when this microfilm reader dies, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the parts or money to repair it.”
“Do many people come here doing research anymore?”
“Most of our customers are here for the books but we still get some requests for assistance with research. The role of the librarian has been reinvented with the advent of the Internet and that’s really shifted our jobs from scouring resource books to assisting people who are unfamiliar with computers.
Brenda took out a box of microfilm and sorted through the small spools, looking for the December ’98 reels. “There are a lot of people who come in here to access the Internet. The high school is requiring students to use Internet sources for their history papers so the kids are getting proficient at using computer resources. No one wants to use microfilm to search for anything anymore. Everything is sequential and you have to look at every page to search for your information. With the Internet, every database is searchable by keywords and so much easier to navigate. I have one gentleman who is in here three or four days a week doing genealogy research. He’s convinced that he’s related to the Queen of Denmark and he spends hours tracing his family tree.
Brenda loaded the microfilm into the reader and stood. “Here you go! Just roll through the film until you reach the day you want and then you can look at each page.”
“I use the computers at the courthouse, so I’m not a total idiot. But this microfilm search is a whole new animal to me.”
“It’s not a new animal, Floyd. No one has used microfilm since I was in kindergarten.”
“I’d been with the sheriff’s department ten years when you started kindergarten. I’m not sure what that makes me.”
“Dinosaur is the term the kids use to describe older people struggling with the Internet,” Brenda said with a smile. “Not that you’re that much older than my parents.”
After dismissing Brenda with a deep sigh, Floyd flipped through days of newspaper headlines, slowly feeding the pages across the screen. “I didn’t remember that the Duluth National Guard had been called up for service in Iraq,” he said to himself. He read through the lead article about all the local National Guard and Air Force Reserve units who had been called to active duty for the troop surge. One local businessman was quoted as saying he’d lost half his workforce to the call-up. His production of electrical cords for a St. Cloud refrigerator plant was slumping even with the hiring of temporary employees and his remaining employees working overtime.
A headline on the third page caught his attention. “Local man missing.” Floyd read through the story about Aaron Roberts’ disappearance and the lack of leads reported by the sheriff’s department. It mentioned his evening with friends, and quoted the Beroun bartender, who said the group had left before closing time.
He stopped at a fourth page story. “Local Soldier Dies in Iowa Accident.” The details of the accident were thin except for the location, on I-35 near Des Moines.
A spokesperson for the Iowa State Patrol reported that Kenneth Solstad’s car lost control, crossed the median and struck a north-bound semi on I-35 near Des Moines. Solstad was declared dead at the scene of the accident, and the truck driver was taken to the hospital where he was treated for minor injuries.
Solstad, a resident of Pine City, and the son of Karen and Theodore Solstad, had been home on leave from the Army. He was returning to his station at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, at the time of the accident. The funeral arrangements will be through the Johnson-Bradshaw Funeral Chapel on Monday at 3:00 PM. The American Legion Auxiliary will serve a luncheon after the funeral service.
Floyd looked through a few more articles, but saw nothing else of interest. He moved to the following week, and found a follow-up article about the Roberts disappearance. It stated briefly that Aaron Roberts’ disappearance was still unsolved and the sheriff’s department was asking the public’s assistance in providing any leads or related information. With his mind wandering, Floyd fed the microfilm ahead until another article caught his eye. A lutefisk, rutabaga, and mashed potato dinner was being served by the Lutheran Church. They were taking a free-will offering to cover the cost of the dinner. Swedish meatballs were offered as an alternative entrée for those who didn’t like lutefisk. Floyd tried to remember if he and his wife had attended the dinner.
“I made a fresh pot of coffee,” Brenda said, holding out a mug of steaming brew.
“Thanks.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Brenda asked as she rolled a chair beside Floyd’s.