Part 21 (2/2)
”Good idea.”
”If we don't find anything in the paper, I'm going to try talking to my father. He doesn't remember anything that happened after his fall, but sometimes his mind can be fairly sharp when he talks about the past.”
”You think that's a good idea?”
”To tell you the truth, I think he likes to reminisce about the good ol' days. He would have been a kid in the forties, when the gray house was first built. Maybe he'll remember something about the people who lived there as he grew up.”
”It's definitely worth a try. I gotta run. My next client just walked in.”
”Let me know if you come up with anything.”
”I will.”
”I'll see you Friday.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. ”See you Friday.”
Zach hung up and realized his stomach was clenching. He'd been gripping the phone, inwardly praying Liz hadn't changed her mind again and would refuse to see him this weekend. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He had never known a woman who affected him the way Liz did.
He thought about the girl she had been in high school, determinedly independent, refusing to give in to peer pressure like other girls her age. Her mother had died from cancer when she was fifteen, and talk was, it had been a slow, agonizing death. Afterward, her dad's small grocery store had gone straight down-hill and he had finally been forced to file bankruptcy. Liz had gone to work at Marge's Cafe, the place he'd first noticed her.
She was smart. He figured she might have gotten some kind of scholars.h.i.+p, but likely still had to work to put herself through college. He admired her for the grit it must have taken. She had always been the kind of person who cared about others, undoubtedly the reason she had gone into family counseling.
Zach sighed and leaned back in his chair. He was getting in way too deep and he knew it. The little voice in his head was telling him to run before it was too late.
But his heart was saying something else. Something he had never heard before. Take a chance. Just this once.
Just thinking about it made his stomach clench harder.
With her busy schedule, Elizabeth didn't make it down to the San Pico Newspress until Wednesday afternoon. Zach had told her he thought the house had been built some time in the nineteen forties, so she asked the clerk at the counter if she could look at newspapers dating back to that time.
She planned to scan the headlines. In a town the size of San Pico, any sort of violent crime would have been front-page news.
A gray-haired woman, slightly pudgy, wearing a pair of silver reading gla.s.ses on a chain around her neck, stood behind the counter.
”May I help you?”
Elizabeth told her she wanted to look at old newspaper records and the woman motioned for her to come through the low wooden gate into the working area of the office, then led her into a room at the rear of the redbrick building, fairly new since the town had been growing and newspaper readers.h.i.+p along with it.
”Going back the last five years, everything's on computer,” the woman said proudly. ”We're getting very modern here. Unfortunately, before that, you'll still be dealing with microfiche. The machines are on the table against the wall.”
Elizabeth turned in that direction, saw two clunky old microfiche readers with big screens and b.u.t.tons on the side to run the film from reel to reel.
”You know how to run one?”
”I think so, yes. I used machines like these to do research when I was in college.”
”The film's in boxes in those metal file drawers.” The woman pointed to a tall cabinet that held four, legal-size drawers. ”The label tells which years each roll of film covers. Every copy of the paper ever printed is in those files. Let me know if you need any help.”
The woman walked away and Elizabeth set to work, starting in the early nineteen forties, looking for any sort of violent crime that might have happened in the house or anywhere on Harcourt Farms. It was a long, tedious job that took the entire afternoon. She was just finis.h.i.+ng up when the clerk returned at closing.
She sighed as she got up from her chair. If she had time, she could come back and check the police blotter, which showed anything reported by the police, but for that many years, the undertaking would be huge.
She was exhausted and discouraged when she left the building. Most of the violence in San Pico seemed to center around family disputes or arguments in local bars, and as far as she could tell, none of them had resulted in a death at Harcourt Farms. She'd looked for suicides and found a number, but none that had happened on the farm.
Later that evening, she phoned Zach at his apartment, figuring he would be home from work by now, but got his answering machine instead. She couldn't help wondering if he was out on a date, then shoved the unwanted thought away. She watched TV for a while and resisted the urge to phone him again before she went to bed.
She didn't want to be disappointed.
It was six o'clock the next morning when the phone on Elizabeth's nightstand began to ring, rousing her from a restless sleep. An instant later, her alarm clock went off. Groggy, she shut off the alarm and fumbled for the phone, immediately recognizing the woman's voice on the other end of the line.
”Maria? Is that you?”
She was crying. Elizabeth couldn't make out her words.
”It's all right, Maria. Just take a deep breath and try to calm down. I want you to start at the beginning and tell me what's wrong.”
Maria made a strangled sound into the phone as she gulped back tears. ”I saw her. Last night in my bedroom. The little girl. She was there, standing at the foot of my bed.” A sob escaped. She dragged in a choking breath of air.
”All right, let's just take this slowly. You're all right now, aren't you? You're feeling all okay?”
”Si, si. I am feeling all right.”
”That's good. Was Miguel there with you last night?”
”Si, he was there.”
”Did he see the little girl, too?”
”I do not know. I think he saw something. He woke up right after I did. I tried to talk to him after it was over, but he only got angry and walked out of the bedroom. He slept on the sofa, then before the sun came up, he went to work.”
”Listen, Maria. I'm coming out there. We'll talk about this and you can tell me what you saw.”
”Miguel will not like it if you come.”
Elizabeth chewed her lip. She didn't want to cause Maria more trouble. ”Did he take the car?”
”No, he is working in the fields.”
”Do you feel well enough to drive?”
”Si, I can drive.”
”Come down to my office. I'll meet you there in an hour.”
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