Edie took one more treat out and tossed it to Mouse. “Let me take you to the archive room. There were never a lot of details on the children. It happened over the course of five years—one child every year. The head of the police at the time—Chief O’Connor—didn’t put it together that there might be a serial situation until the third child died. The federal task force came and checked out the lake, but didn’t believe the chief.”
She led us over to a door beneath the stairs. The upper floor was the children’s area. She unlocked the door and flicked the lights on and pulled white cotton gloves out of a box. Inside was a vast network of large drawers. “We wanted to get all these newspapers scanned in, but small town libraries don’t have a budget to speak of.” She ticked her fingers down the carefully labeled drawers.
I peered over her shoulder to see1956, Julythen backed up and got out of the way as she slid it open. Inside were full-sized newspapers tucked into wooden dowels. She pulled on the gloves and flipped through the fragile pages.
“Here she is. Margaret Fairchild was the first child recorded missing. Supposedly they went back to make sure there weren’t any before her, but the summers were full of transient workers for the farms so we couldn’t be sure.”
Dutch moved forward, sliding me in front of him since he could see over my head. The solid wall of him behind me made my skin prickle. He absently stroked my hip as he quickly scanned the pages. “Can I scan these in?”
Edie frowned. “We don’t really pull them out.”
He held up his phone. “No flash, just a photo. The iPhone is a handheld scanner these days.”
“Oh, well sure. Just don’t touch anything.” Edie backed up and let him in.
He quickly took the photos. Over the next twenty minutes he got all the copies he needed as well as a few details Edie seemed to know that wasn’t part of the reports.
I wasn’t entirely sure they were fact or town gossip, but Dutch wasn’t on a fact finding mission. He was just filling in blanks. I could tell his brain was getting into that sweet spot where the creativity took over.
As I got to the door, he zeroed in on me with those intense eyes of his. “I’m just going to check on Mouse.”
He nodded, then went back to listening to Edie.
I found a young woman with two children in front of the circulation desk. “Do you work here?” she asked.
“Sorry, no. Edie’s in the archives.”
“Oh. I was having trouble finding a book for my boys.”
“Maybe I can help. I spent a lot of time in the kids section last summer.”
“Do you have kids?”
“No, but I did the Shel Silverstein mural. I had to help them move the books back and forth while I took over the space.”
“Really? Gosh, that mural’s amazing. I can’t tell you how many times I took photos of my Caleb in front of it for his grandmother.The Giving Treeis her favorite book.”
“Mine isWhere the Sidewalk Ends. But the tree worked a little easier for displays. Were you looking for something specific.”
“Just something for their ages.” She smoothed down the boy’s hair. “Caleb likes dragons and magic and Max, my youngest, thinks Lego rules the world.”
“He’s not wrong.” I grinned and crouched down to their height. “Want to go take a look at some books?”
The youngest one craned his neck longingly at Mouse.
“Mouse can come with us.”
They both giggled. “Mouse is a weird name.”
“He’s a weird dog.” I called him and he slowly got up and moseyed over to us.
The mother’s eyes got big.
“He loves kids and is very gentle. Go on up, guys. Mouse will follow you.”
I chitchatted with the mother while we walked to the eight-to-ten-year old area. I sat down in the bean bag chair near the graphic novels. “Maybe try this for Caleb.” I pulled out the first in the Wings of Fire series. “Might be on the high end of his age group.”
“That’s okay. He’s reading above his age group.”
