Secrets Don't Sink, page 5
“I’m still trying to process it. I think I may be in a bit of shock.”
“Totally understandable.” He tilted his head and blinked three times. “I wanted to revisit our conversation about the Kupit series.” He picked up a piece of bread and raised it to his lips but paused before taking a bite. “As I said, I’d like to hear what you’re planning, maybe offer some help.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than discuss social hermits and their yearly spring pilgrimage into town to ride the Ferris wheel and consume their weight in cotton candy and deep-fried foods.” I ripped off a small piece of the bread. “Did you know Podunk is an Algonquian word? I discovered that while researching local tribal history. Too bad it isn’t Salish. It would’ve been a more apropos name for the festival.”
Darren leaned in with his forehead creased. “Are you looking into Chattertowne’s Native American history?”
I dredged my bread through the oil and vinegar. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s important.” I popped the bread in my mouth.
“What have you found so far? What else are you digging into?”
“I don’t see the point of retelling the same stories and doing the same type of articles that have been done every other year.”
His gaze flickered, and his brows curled toward each other.
“Nothing interesting ever happens in Chattertowne, anyway,” I said. “I’ve been covering events and lifestyles for a few months now, and the most exciting story I’ve submitted was a dispute among council members as to whether they should stick with incandescent light strands for the Main Street Christmas tree or switch to LED. I’d wager most residents have little knowledge of our actual history. Not the flag-waving Americana cutesy small-town feel-good history, but the real story. The full story.”
Darren drew back with his eyes wide like he’d caught a glimpse into the past and didn’t like what he saw. “You’ll tell me if you find anything…interesting.” His statement landed less like a request and more like a command.
I fought the grimace forming on my upper lip. I was notorious for having a terrible poker face and didn’t want my sour expression to start an argument in the middle of the restaurant. The arrival of the waiter with our wine glasses and appetizer was a much-needed tension-breaker.
“How about we change the subject,” I said. “Tell me something about yourself. We’ve worked together for four months, and I think this is the longest conversation we’ve had. I don’t really know anything about you.”
Darren sighed, rocked his head from side to side, and rolled his shoulders back.
“I guess you could say I had the typical Eastside childhood. Private clubs, private schools, baseball scholarship to MIT.”
“Wow. MIT. That’s impressive.”
“Is it?” He took a sip of wine.
“Yeah. It is. So, what does one study to become a financial reporter?” I tossed an artichoke heart in my mouth. It was crisp and buttery on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. “Ooh, good choice on the artichoke hearts.” I started to lick my fingers but stopped when I caught a glimpse of his disdain.
“They’re best when dredged through the aioli,” he said after a brief hesitation. “With the appetizer fork.”
He nodded toward the tiny three-pronged forks in the center of the table. I made a show of picking up a fork and stabbing another artichoke heart. Unfortunately, this one was blazing hot. I fanned my open mouth with my napkin and contemplated spitting it out. Darren’s horrified expression put an end to that idea.
“I got a dual degree in Economics and Computer Science,” he began, not acknowledging the scene I’s just made. “I had no intention of becoming a journalist, financial or otherwise.”
“Do you…” I swallowed the rest of my searing bite. “Do you have any brothers or sisters? Does your family live nearby?”
“I’m an only child. My dad’s a stockbroker. I lost my mom to breast cancer a couple years ago.”
“Oh, Darren, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d known. What was her name?”
“Maddie.” He spoke with a hushed reverence. “It was really tough for several years once she got sick. After she died, I was pretty burned out at my, uh, corporate job. That’s when I decided to come to Chattertowne. I moved here a couple months before you came to work at the Current, so about six months ago now. I was hoping to start over, find myself, put some things right in my life.”
“That’s funny. I left this place to find myself.”
“What do you mean?”
The server arrived, and I waited for him to place our entrees on the table before answering. “Thank you.”
Darren gave a nod of approval at the sight of his fish. “You were saying?”
“I moved to Portland to work at The Oregonian in hopes of becoming a legitimate journalist.”
“What brought you back here?”
“My parents still live here, and my sister, Vivienne. She’s twenty-seven and has a history of questionable choices when it comes to men. Her most recent incident involved getting caught making out in the office stairwell with her boss by a coworker who decided some minor extortion was preferable to reporting the relationship to HR.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. Long story short, they all got fired, and Viv could no longer afford her apartment on what she makes at her back-up gig as a singing waitress at Nautilus. I’m living in her spare bedroom while we both figure out our next steps.”
Darren raised his left eyebrow. “So, what, you just quit your job, packed your apartment, and moved home to babysit your grown sister?”
“It’d be easy to blame Viv, but the truth is I was barely treading water in Portland, slogging my way through the ranks of the paper, but my salary wasn’t enough to keep up with the cost-of-living increases. When my mom called to say Viv was up a creek without a paddle, I only had three weeks left on my lease, so I gave notice at my job and apartment that day.”
I decided not to mention how much my decision was also influenced by lingering guilt from when I’d failed to look after Viv, and it had nearly cost her life.
“The Oregonian to The Current. That’s quite a demotion.”
He flaked his fish with his fork, apparently oblivious to how his insensitive statement had landed and the hypocrisy of it as well. I swallowed my annoyance for the sake of a peaceful lunch.
I cleared my throat. “Of course, when I got a degree in journalism, I imagined rocking the world with political exposés, not fluff pieces on driftwood sculptures in the park, the McCormick’s Alaskan cruise, or who could spit a cherry seed the furthest. Farthest? Anyway.” I waved my fork in circles. “I’m grateful for the opportunity, but I sure hope it’s more a stepping stone than a brick wall. What about you? From what you’ve told me, you’re seriously overqualified for this job.”
“I don’t see myself staying for long.” His mien darkened, and he aggressively swigged his wine. He pulled his napkin from his lap and dabbed his face. “Let’s make a toast.” He lifted his wineglass and thrust it toward me. “To special new friends, Chattertowne, and to getting exactly what we want.”
I held up my glass, “And to Marcus, may he rest in peace.”
Darren’s lips twitched. “To Marcus.”
Chapter Six
The Chattertowne library was situated in the historic district. Once shaded by a six-hundred-year-old Douglas fir, the tree had fallen in a winter windstorm about ten years earlier. Moss carpeted the north-facing portion of what remained of the trunk, and the center rings had rotted away. Over the years, many couples had etched their initials encircled in hearts.
The building itself had a Spanish tile roof and rough sand-colored stucco sides, which were completely inconsistent with the neighborhood’s traditional architecture. A wall of six-foot-tall opaquely tinted windows faced the sidewalk. The two buildings connected to form a courtyard area complete with a marble fountain, currently dormant for the winter, and a large maple flanked on all sides by holly bushes. A flagless pole stood nearly dead center, and a weathered twenty-foot banner drooped from beneath the eaves advertising the summer farmer’s market every Tuesday afternoon from May through September.
As sleet plopped onto my windshield, summer seemed interminably far away.
A plaque hung over the entrance with Roman numerals MCMI, marking the building’s dedication in 1901. The library had received a historical grant, so the interior of the building had recently been remodeled with designer colors, modern paintings and sculptures, and a row of state-of-the-art computers lining the far wall.
Cranky old Mrs. Rothschild, the librarian, was nowhere to be found, possibly tossed out along with outdated PCs and dusty encyclopedia sets. In her place behind the counter was a petite girl with vacant doe-eyes and a lavender pageboy haircut, young enough to have never known a world without Google.
“Hi, can I…help you?” she asked hesitantly.
“I’m looking for any information you have on the early days of the town. I’m writing a Kupit Festival story for The Current.”
“The current what?” The girl bit her lower lip.
“The Coastal Current, the newspaper. I was told the city archives are kept here.”
The girl furrowed her perfectly arched painted brows in thought and typed something into her computer. After a few moments of staring at the screen, she glanced around the room, bewildered.
“Is something wrong?”
“Well, I’m not quite sure how to help you, and my supervisor isn’t in today. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“That doesn’t work for me.”
“Oh. Well, maybe you could try over there.” She anemically indicated a bay of books underneath a sign reading “Non-fiction, History.”
“I’ll give it a try, thanks.”
Mrs. Rothschild may have been lacking in personality, but she’d known the library like the back of her hand. Sometimes new wasn’t always improved.
The history section contained a diverse range of books, from a five-hundred-page tome on the Babylonian Empire to a recap of twentieth-century presidents and their pets. There were general guides on the area, but not what I was looking for. I returned to the desk.
The girl greeted me as if for the first time. “Hi, can I help you?”
“I was told Mildred Driscoll might be able to assist me in my research. Can you tell me where she is?”
She bit her bottom lip again. “What are you researching?”
“Chattertowne. Kupit Festival. Where’s Mildred’s office?”
“Oh, Mildred’s downstairs. Did you want me to go get her?”
“Nope, that’s okay. I’ll go to her. How do I find her downstairs?”
“You go down…the stairs.” She slowed her words and then shook her head.
At the bottom of the stairs was a long hallway. Toward the end, a sign reading Records hung above an open door. Despite the building’s refresh, it smelled dank and dusty. I repressed a sneeze.
A petite elderly woman sat at a desk behind the counter. Her white hair was set in an old-fashioned style typically achieved by sleeping in rollers, and her glasses hung from a silver chain around her neck. She wore a sunny yellow cardigan and appeared to be at least eighty.
“Mildred?”
Her face lit at the sight of me, and she sprung to her feet. “Welcome! How can I help you?” After hearing a brief explanation of my quest, she clapped her hands. “Why, that’s marvelous!”
“Do you only have records here, or do you also have historical artifacts?”
“We have several items, even from before the early days of the Chatterton family settlement.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Mid-eighteen-hundreds. Jonathan Chatterton signed the declaration for the official founding in eighteen-sixty-one. There are photos in the museum as well, dating back to Chattertowne’s pioneer era.”
“We have a museum?”
“Well, not an official museum, exactly. That’s just what I like to call it. We have a few things on display down the hall for field trips and such. For a while, they were housed in the pioneer village behind the shopping center on the east side of town.”
“I remember that! I visited there in the fourth grade. Why were they moved?”
“The village required volunteers and depended upon donations. Eventually, the project couldn’t be sustained. The buildings were abandoned, and the artifacts were relocated to the basement in City Hall. When the library re-opened after the remodel, it made more sense for them to be here near the records department for me to oversee. Sadly, hardly anyone ever comes here.” Mildred scurried around the desk. “Follow me.”
She led me down the dimly lit hall.
“O’Connell. Are your parents James and Claudine, formerly Claudine Bristow?”
“Yes, do you know them?”
“Not directly. I know of them. I mean, it is Chattertowne, after all.” She smiled and pulled a large keyring out of her pocket, and unlocked the door, which had been labeled Archives. “There are still a few things at the old location in a storage closet, but the best stuff is here. Please be careful when examining the older artifacts. The cases are locked, so holler at me if you need help opening them for a closer look.”
“Thank you so much.”
She shut the door behind her.
The room held wall-to-wall antiquities and historical trinkets. It smelled like old fur coats and the musty leather of a saddle stored for decades in the corner of a damp barn. There didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the way items had been organized and displayed.
Framed photos hung on the walls. Most were sepia or black and white, but some were faded Kodachrome. One caught my eye, and I leaned to get a closer view. Five men stood in front of City Hall wearing polyester leisure suits in hues ranging from baby blue to mint. The label read “Mayor King and the City Council 1976.” Lining the wall were several similar photos featuring different styles and eras, all on the front lawn of City Hall.
Two large cabinets were filled with books, while several waist-high glass display cases contained relics labeled with the donor family’s name.
Hanging from the wall above the cabinets were wooden snowshoes laced with an animal rawhide, a stretch board used for drying lynx and coyote, and a large bear trap, all apparently donated by the Robinson family.
The first case had a Saturday Evening Post magazine from 1913 donated by the Holmquist family, a gentleman’s cane, spectacles, and a derby hat from 1875 donated by the Kohler family, straight edge shaving tools, and a fiddle with home-made bow constructed from a twig.
The next case contained a small camera collection with a couple Brownies and a larger accordion-style donated by the Harvey family, along with several metal toy cars, aged paper money, two corn husk dolls, and a tin of marbles.
On the floor between the two cases was a large bell from the old Lutheran church, which had sat vacant for years after a new worship hall was constructed on the other side of town. Recently, the church had been converted into a gallery run by my former middle school art teacher and his husband, who apparently had no need for a four-foot-tall brass bell.
In the far cabinet were sail-making tools, a froe for splitting cedar shakes, a tenon cutter for building log furniture, handmade broad axes forged in the late-1800s, Salish arrowheads, baby moccasins, and a beaded woman’s saddle constructed of elk antlers, rawhide, and fringed buckskin.
A large knife had been shoved to the right side of the case on the bottom shelf. The plaque read, “Hunting knife of Jonathan Chatterton donated 1995 by Peter Chatterton.” I jotted Peter’s name in my notebook. Who better to interview than a member of the founding family? I hoped he was still alive and could offer some insight.
Moving on to the bookcase, I ran my finger across the spines. Wedged between an old copy of Huckleberry Finn and an outdated atlas was a thin booklet of less than seventy-five pages. Easing it off the shelf, I turned it over in my hands. The paper cover had yellowed, and the print had faded with age. It was partially detached, there was a russet stain in the lower left corner, and the lower right edge was curled. The book was titled The Unvarnished History of Chattertowne, Part One.
Chapter Seven
After getting Mildred’s consent, I tucked the small book into my satchel and headed back to the Current office.
I’d settled into my chair, ready to take notes on the book, when a text message from Holden came through.
Hey.
Hey. How are you?
I lifted the book out of my satchel and set it on my lap. His response came within a minute.
I was gonna ask you the same thing.
Trying to keep myself distracted with work. Any word?
I set my phone down and made a cursory flip-through of the book. It was a chronological history of the town, starting with Jonathan Chatterton’s arrival. On the back page was a grainy black-and-white photo of the author, George Hart, who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Ages were difficult to decipher in older pictures, where forty-year-olds looked like today’s septuagenarians. According to the bio, George had been a lifelong resident of Chattertowne.
My phone buzzed.
Most likely going to be classified a homicide.
Oh, Holden. I can’t believe this.
Yeah. Please be careful. If that guy you ran into had anything to do with this…
I don’t think he’d recognize me if he ran into me on the street again.
All the same.
Marcus and Renee were having problems. Maybe she had something to do with his death.
After a long pause, my phone finally buzzed with Holden’s response.
How do you know they were having problems?
He sent me a message a few days ago but I didn’t open it until yesterday. He said she’d kill him if she knew he’d reached out to me. You know she hates me, right?
