Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 40.

The librarian made me photocopies of the yearbook pages. The stern-faced administrator pursed her lips at my foolishness when I came back to show them to her. “Going back four decades? None of us is that old, Mr. Elstrom. Myself, I’ve only been here ten years.”

“Would you mind taking a look anyhow? Then I’ll be on my way.”

It was incentive enough. She took the three photocopies I was holding out and glanced at the one on top.

“Never seen him,” she said.

“There are two more pictures.”

She looked at the second copy. “No, never…” She stopped, moved the picture a few inches farther from her eyes. “I’ll be darned. Darlene.”

“Darlene Taylor,” I said.

“Darlene Taylor, of course. I had no idea she’d been such a pretty thing.”

“How about the last photo?”

She studied the third sheet. “Obviously Darlene’s sister, almost close enough to be her twin, but I’ve never heard of her.”

“You know Darlene?”

“She works here. Janitorial.”

“Here? Like right now?”

“Not summers. Darlene is part of the night crew that works during the school year.”

“Can you tell me where she lives?”

“Against policy.”

“Can you think of anyone who would have known Rosemary?”

“This is an insurance matter?”

“A small family policy. We need to locate both sisters.”

“There’s Miss Mason. She used to teach English, all four grades. Last I heard, she’s at the assisted living facility. It’s not more than ten miles from here.”

Actually, it was fourteen miles, but I resisted the urge to call the administrator and correct her with a strong “No, ma’am.” It was enough to know she was wrong. Besides, I was afraid of being summoned back; I’d snuck away without turning in my hall pass.

The assisted living facility was sided with cedar, old and grayed out. Miss Mason was old, too, but not grayed out. Her hair was dyed a vibrant brown, and her lipstick was bright. She did not live there, she said pointedly; she was the facility’s activities director. We sat in one corner of a large visiting room, filled with comfortable-looking sofas and chairs. The furniture looked unused.

“I taught them all, Mr. Elstrom-Darlene and Rosemary, even Georgie, though he wasn’t there the whole year, of course.” She handed back the photocopies. “I expect lots of folks remember them, at least those of us of a certain age.”

“I’m not following, Miss Mason.”

“The incident, the filling station?”

I shook my head.

“Forgive me, Mr. Elstrom. I thought you were here about that old case. Exactly why have you come?”

“I’m trying to locate Rosemary Taylor.”

“About what?”

“An insurance matter.”

“I would have thought those folks, the Taylors, were too poor for any kind of insurance.” She sighed. “I can’t help you. Rosemary left Hadlow right after her junior year. Caused a lot of talk, because it was just a couple of months after the incident.”

“The incident?” She’d said it twice now.

“The service station out by the river was robbed that April. A young attendant was shot several times, gut shot, and died of his wounds. There were no eyewitnesses, but several people reported seeing Darlene and Rosemary riding with Georgie in his convertible, out in that direction that afternoon.”

“They were suspected?”

“Certainly not by right-thinking people. Georgie was always driving Darlene around in that flashy car. That day, they brought Rosemary along and were out by the river, was all.” She thought for a moment, then said, “That convertible didn’t help.”

“What do you mean?”

“Georgie was new to town. Greek. His father was sent here to close down the paper mill, lay off the people, sell off the equipment. Took a long damned time for that mill to die, longer still for its guts to be pulled out and sold. Meanwhile, there was Georgie, a real smoothie-I expect he got his way with Darlene, that spring-breezing about in his father’s flashy convertible. It struck people wrong, driving a car like that when folks were losing their jobs. Anyway, a lot of people didn’t much mind when Georgie was sent away.”

“After the incident?”

“Just days afterward, if memory serves. His parents said they wanted him to finish up at some fancy college prep school, to better his chances of getting into a good university, but there was talk that he was sent away because of the incident.”

I pointed to Koros’s yearbook photo, lying on the coffee table. “That shows him as graduating from here.”

“He never finished. Yearbooks get printed weeks before the end of the school year.”

“Rosemary left at the end of that same school year?”

She nodded. “First Georgie, then Rosemary.”

“Why did Rosemary leave?”

“No reason to stay, I expect. She was a moony girl.”

“Moony?”

“A delightful child, but a dreamer. Her head was filled with fanciful thoughts of elegant lives in elegant cities. There was nothing like that in Hadlow.”

“What about Darlene?”

“She was the dutiful one. She kept on at the family place, after the mother died, and after Rosemary took off. Of course, Alta was still alive then.”

“Alta?”

“The third girl; Darlene and Rosemary’s younger sister.”

“I didn’t think to look in the yearbooks for a third sister,” I said.

“Oh, no; Alta wouldn’t be in any of the yearbooks. She quit going to school in seventh or eighth grade, around the time the father took off. Hard luck all around, in that family.” She leaned forward. “Insurance money would sure help Darlene. She stayed on after Alta died, though I’ll never understand why. She should have left. She was a pretty, bright girl. She could have fashioned a better life for herself, somewhere else.”

“Alta died?”

“I told you: hard luck all around in that family, especially that year.”

“When did Alta die?”

“September, three months after Rosemary took off.” She pursed her lips, thinking back. “Their mother died the winter before. There was talk about sending the girls-remember there were three of them, with Alta being disabled in some fashion-to state care, but Darlene, being the oldest, fought that. She said she could manage the family.” She reached for the yearbook copies and held one up. “Yes, see here? Darlene was an active girl during her first three years of high school, but senior year, she did nothing. She dropped out of everything to keep that family going.”

“By then the father was gone.”

“Long gone, the bastard. Hand it to Darlene, she was tenacious. After the mother passed, she and Rosemary alternated the days they went to school, so that one was always home with Alta. But the impact was hardest on Darlene. She was the oldest.”

“Alta was disabled?”

“Mental or physical, no one quite knew what she suffered from. She contracted something and after that was never seen. Folks supposed Martha Taylor, the mother, thought it inappropriate to put her youngest child on display. Things were like that, then.”

“What did Alta die of?”

“A virus, I think. Anyway, folks expected that would be the last straw for Darlene, but she stayed on, cleaning at the school, and farming some. It must be difficult, being out there all alone. Of course, she doesn’t really farm, just tends a plot for her own needs. She has a man stop by, now and again, I hear, to help with the heavier chores.”

“Does Rosemary ever come back?”

“Oh, how I wish she would. She was charming, utterly charming. She had such-” She stopped, hunting for the right word. “Hope,” she said finally. “Rosemary had such hope. It came through so strong in her stories.”

“Stories?”

“She was always writing stories, and not just for my English class, either. They were romantic, and tragic, but underlying, there was always hope. She wrote a whole novel, her junior year. It was about a man who entertained kids, I think. Got a mention in the local paper for that, and the school mimeographed a bunch of copies, thinking it would inspire other students to take up writing. It’s not that the writing was particularly good; it was her tenacity that made the impression, her willingness to write such a long thing. Then, as now, young people were not known for their powers of concentration.”

Something faint nagged at the back of my gut. “A story about a man who entertained kids?” I asked, hoping I sounded merely conversational.

“I think he got killed, toward the end of the story. Romance, tragedy, and hope. Young Miss Rosemary’s heroine rose above the tragedy, and went on to work with ill children.”

“How did he entertain the kids?”

“Well, I don’t quite remember-”

“With balloons? Did the man entertain children with balloons?”

“It’s been years since I looked at it-”

“You have a copy?”

Her eyes narrowed, seeing through the lies I had told. “What are you after, Mr. Elstrom?”

“Do you still have the story?”

“Somewhere, I suppose.”

“I need to see it.”

“Why on earth would you want to?”

I couldn’t lie anymore. “Something more than idle curiosity.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “Best you ask Darlene about these things-and that insurance you say you’re here about.”

She gave me directions to the Taylor place, and I walked out into the sunshine. It took some time to put the key in the ignition, because I had to sit for a while, in that truck cab that smelled of grease and gasoline and sweat, and think about the death of a gas station attendant, and the death of a clown… and wonder what might have been set in motion over forty years before.