Chapter Twenty
I went down to the lobby, found a pay phone, and called Sally Ann at home. She sounded upset and told me to come over. The ride took just a few minutes and she was waiting out on the porch for me when I arrived, standing by the top step, agitated.
“Hi, Carey,” she said. “Come on in.” She opened the screen door and I followed her through the living room and back into the kitchen, where she fixed us both glasses of iced tea. There was a fan in the kitchen, just as there had been in the living room.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“It’s just too much for me to handle all at once, I guess.” She took a long sip from her glass and then put it down on the table and looked at me. “I can’t believe we did what we did yesterday. And then to find Mr.
Crane like that last night--I didn’t sleep very well.”
I neglected to tell her how soundly I had slept, after having all of the same experiences. “I know what you mean,” I said. “I was kind of surprised things went the way they did yesterday, too.” I put my hand gently over hers on the table and was relieved when she didn’t withdraw. “Sally,” I began, sometimes things just happen between people. There’s no right or wrong amount of time that things should take, and I’m not sure what it all means. But I’ll tell you one thing,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“I enjoyed it.” I waited and watched her face. She turned red and looked down at the floor, but a smile was creeping around the corners of her mouth.
“I guess I did, too,” she said. “But let’s take it a little bit slower from now on, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and squeezed her hand. She took another sip of her iced tea.
“What are we going to do about Peter Crane?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. We were silent for a few moments, then I remembered something. “I saw my grandmother this morning,” I told her. She asked how she was feeling and I explained her condition. “She said a funny thing. I told her about Crane, though I didn’t give her all of the gory details, and she knew him. I think she knows just about everyone in town, or at least someone in their family.”
“Sometimes I think my dad’s the same way,” she said.
“Anyway, she told me that Crane worked for Lester Macaboo Sr. a long time ago as a maintenance man when the bakery first opened. She remembered him giving her some cookies when she was young. It just seemed strange to me that there was that connection.”
“A lot of people have worked there over the years, Carey, especially during the busy season before Christmas,” she told me.
“I guess so, but it just struck me as strange that the Macaboos would pop up again in the middle of all this.”
We finished our iced tea and she washed out the glasses. “Do you want to go see dad now?” she asked me.
“Seems as good a time as any,” I said. “He told me this morning to stop by after lunch.” I looked at the clock on her kitchen wall. It was 12:15. “I guess it’s not too soon.” I offered to drive and she accepted. She locked up the house and we got in my Chevy. I drove down to the police station and parked around the side. I was getting a little too used to showing up there.
When we walked in, Lucas was at his post by the door. “Hi, kids,” he said, and smiled. Sally Ann stuck out her tongue at him as we walked by.
Sheriff Martin was in his office on the telephone. He motioned for us to come in and sit down. We sat in the same chairs we had sat in the day before. The sheriff finished his phone call and looked at us, a slight smile playing around his lips. “So, how goes the morning after?” he began.
I looked at Sally Ann, but she still looked at her father. I could tell she was getting a little red in the face. I looked back at Sheriff Martin and replied, calmly, “Not too bad.”
“How’s Mary?” he asked me.
“She’s doing better,” I told him. I spent a minute or two explaining her condition and prognosis, and he nodded approvingly. “I think Sally is the one who needs the most attention right now.”
She looked at me and gave a halfhearted smile. “Oh, I’m alright, daddy,” she said. “It was just a bit of a shock last night finding Mr. Crane like that.”
“I know, honey,” he told her. “I’m used to it, and Carey here seems to have handled it fairly well, but it’s not something you want to see. I’m sorry you had to be there. I sure didn’t expect it when we left the hospital.”
“So what can I do for you?” I asked him.
“Well, I’d like you to read over the reports of what happened last night for me and see if there’s anything you can add. I thought that since you were there, it might be a good idea to use your knowledge to help us with the case.”
I smiled. “I’d like that,” I told him.
“Okay, then,” said Sheriff Martin, and he took a sheaf of papers off his desk and rose to hand them across the desk to me. I took them and he told me I could go to a room down the hall and read them over. “I want to talk to Sally Ann alone for a minute, if you don’t mind.” I walked out of the room and Lucas showed me to an interrogation room toward the back of the building. There was a table and two chairs, one on either side. There was a single light suspended from the ceiling over the middle of the table. I asked him to leave the door open.
“Can’t do that,” he replied. “It swings shut on its own.”
“Can we block it open with a chair?” I asked.
“Nope,” Lucas told me, “the sheriff doesn’t like the hallway blocked. Don’t worry, I won’t lock you in.” He left and the door swung shut, leaving me alone.
I sat in the chair facing the door; there was a small glass window at eye level but no one was looking in. I looked at the first report and was soon reading with interest, seeing actual police reports for the first time. They had a certain style to them, very cut and dried, and typed on a manual typewriter that left holes where the letter “o” appeared. The report was by Sheriff Martin, and I ignored the typographical errors and kept my attention focused on the substance. He detailed why we had gone to Crane’s house and what we had found there. Sally Ann and I were listed as witnesses, and it was noted that I was the first one to find the body.
The next report was by the medical examiner, regarding his brief look at the body. It was only two paragraphs long, very superficial, and listed the cause of death as “pending.” I was just beginning to look at the last report when the door swung open and Sally Ann came in. She sat down in the chair facing me and the door swung shut. “He’s worried about me,” she began.
“Should he be?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “I’m a big girl. I was a little shaken up by what happened yesterday--all of it--but I can handle it. I guess daddy will always be looking out for me, but I’m getting to the point where I can look out for myself.” She looked at me with those green eyes, her red hair pulled back from her face in a pony tail, and I was ready to believe just about anything.
“How do the reports look?” she asked me.
“Good,” I replied. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with them or why he wanted me to see them, but it’s interesting to see what they’re like. Here,” I gave her the two I’d read. “I’ve finished with these two and I just have this one to go over.” She began reading and I looked at the third and last report. It was by Lucas, whose last name was Barber. His writing, not surprisingly, was not as good as Sheriff Martin’s. He related being called at the station and arriving at the scene. His comments on what he found were simple, but I noticed that he’d got the time wrong, so I made a little note for the sheriff.
In a few minutes, Sally Ann had finished reading the reports and we decided to leave the interrogation room and go back to her father’s office. He was waiting for us. “You sure are a slow reader, Carey,” he laughed. “I don’t know if you’ll ever make it as a policeman that way.” I smiled and handed him the reports. “Other than a few small things, they look fine to me,” I told him.
He thanked me and I thought we were about done when Sally Ann reminded me about what my grandmother had said. “Oh yes,” I told Sheriff Martin, “there was one more thing I wanted to tell you. “When I saw my grandmother this morning, she remembered something about Peter Crane.” Sheriff Martin’s eyebrows edged up slightly. “She said that he worked at the Oak Street Bakery years ago, as a maintenance man, for Lester Macaboo Sr.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “Go on.”
“Anyway, it was when she was a girl, probably back in the twenties or maybe the early thirties. She remembered going there and Crane coming out and giving her a box of cookies for free. It made an impression on her and she recalled it when I mentioned that he was dead. It seemed odd to me that that connection should pop up out of the blue like that.”
Sheriff Martin looked at me. “What connection?” he asked.
“With the bakery. In the last few days, a girl has been murdered, I’ve been punched by a bakery worker, and a man is dead who worked there a long time ago. I don’t have the slightest idea what it all means, but it does seem strange.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
“Well, it’s hot out”--we all laughed at my stating the obvious--”and I don’t have much else to do. I guess I’d like to keep on digging and see what turns up. Do you have any suggestions?”
“How about the Public Library?” Sally Ann said. “Maybe they have some old records about the bakery that might help.”
“Or maybe they could steer you next door to City Hall,” the sheriff added. “That’s a good idea.”
“I don’t quite know what I’m looking for, but maybe something will turn up,” I said.
I got up from my chair and Sally Ann got up, too. Sheriff Martin said to her, “Honey, I think you should
go home for awhile. Don’t bother this young man too much.” He smiled paternally and she acquiesced. I went
my way on my own.
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