Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 48.

The next morning, a sheriff’s car was parked right in front of my door when I stepped out with thin, room-brewed coffee to smell the day.

“Mr. Elstrom?” the deputy asked, getting out. “The sheriff would like you to come to her office.”

“Come, or be brought?”

He shrugged.

I said we’d be there in an hour, and went to knock on Leo’s door.

“Been out to the Taylor place recently?” Sheriff Ball asked as Leo and I sat down.

Her office had a glass-topped table, four chairs, and a window that looked out over a small parking lot. She’d decorated her walls with photos of uniformed officers. Some of the photos were old, yellowed with age.

“Yesterday evening,” I said.

“Both of you?”

“Just me.”

“In spite of just being shot, you felt well enough to drive?”

“Piece of cake.”

“What were you doing out there?”

“Wondering, like you, if Darlene was around, and whether there was anything out there that might incriminate her in her sister’s disappearance.”

“And in your shooting?”

“That’s of some interest, yes.”

“You smashed your way in?” She turned to look at the purple iridescence, spotted here and there with shell shapes of orange and light blue that, today, was Leo.

Leo smiled.

“Nah,” I said. “I just pushed some cardboard back from an unlocked window.”

“You then crawled through, twisting your wounded side?” Ellie Ball asked.

“I’m agile, even in pain.”

She let the lie go. “What did you find?”

“Gossip magazines and adult clothes-and kid clothes, for someone twelve, fourteen years old.”

“Alta’s clothes,” she said.

“After all this time?”

“I’ve heard Darlene never got over her sister’s death,” she said.

“The mother died earlier that year?”

“January or February. Though she was only a senior in high school, Darlene was quite fierce about keeping the family together. She and Rosemary, a junior at the time, alternated days, so one would always be home with Alta.”

“What was wrong with Alta, that she needed constant care?”

“She was a high-tempered girl, small physically, but very intelligent. Did well in the primary grades. Then, around junior high, she contracted a virus that apparently caused some damage. They pulled her out of school, and that was the last folks saw of Alta Taylor.”

“After high school, Darlene worked janitorial at night?”

“Also so she could be home days, to take care of Alta.”

“What did the mother die of?”

“Fell and hit her head. Where’s this going, Mr. Elstom?”

“Why did you pull us in here?”

“I’m always interested in trespassers.”

“There was an autopsy for the mother?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Isn’t an autopsy expected, in cases of questionable death?”

“Nothing about it was questionable. Darlene saw her mother fall. Besides, we were poor rural, then as now. No money laying around for an unnecessary autopsy.”

“No autopsy for Alta, either?”

“No mystery there, either.”

“What did she die of?”

“Sickness of some sort.”

“A lot happened to the Taylor family that year,” I said. “The mother dies early, in January or February. In April, a gas station attendant gets killed-”

Sheriff Ellie Ball’s eyes flashed. “Wait just a damned minute. How does that fit in?”

“Both Darlene and Rosemary were seen near the gas station that day.”

“With Georgie Korozakis, riding around in his convertible. They were kids, out joyriding. Nothing more.”

I went on. “Then Rosemary Taylor takes off, in June. Alta dies three months later. Tell me, Sheriff, have things happened that fast to other families in Hadlow?”

Ellie Ball glared at me, said nothing.

“What did Alta Taylor die of, exactly?”

“You’re asking whether Darlene murdered Alta?” Her words came out exaggeratedly slow, weighted with fury.

“Whether Darlene murdered the mother, as well.” I tried to smile sweetly.

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she reached for her phone and tapped three digits.

“This is Ellie. Could you look up Alta Taylor’s cause of death?” We waited in silence for longer than we should have until, finally, the sheriff nodded and hung up. “Alta Taylor died September third.”

“Cause of death?”

“She’s working on that.”

For a time, Leo’s insanely purple shirt was the loudest thing in the room. Then Sheriff Ball said, “I might have to call you later with Alta’s cause of death.”

I stayed in my chair. “Why did Georgie Korozakis get sent away from here, with just a few weeks to go before he was to graduate?”

“Sent away? I heard his parents thought he’d have a better chance at a good college if he graduated from a higher-ranked high school than ours.”

She’d spoken in a monotone, as if she were offering up the words from practice rather than any new consideration of my question. Ellie Ball had already thought about Georgie Korozakis, plenty. Like she’d already thought about the Taylor girls, plenty. About how they all fit into that incident at the gas station.

She glanced at the telephone, as though willing it to ring with the answer about Alta’s cause of death. Then she looked at her watch. “My, the time,” she said.

“Tell me it’s time to let me go through the file on that gas station robbery, so we can be on our way.”

She raised her eyes, and surprised me. She smiled.