Sue took a deep breath. “I’m searching for the name of a boy, 15 or 16. He died about 20 years ago, probably in May or June. I think that it will be an accidental death, a drowning. He may have lived around Sandville.”
“That should be easy,” said Sutton. “Give me a few.”
Sue had barely started checking her e-mail on her iPhone when Sutton reappeared. “I think this is what you’re looking for,” she said, placing a death certificate on the counter at an angle where they could both read it.
Sue quickly scanned the document. “Terry Hallen,” she said.
“Yes,” said Sutton. “We usually only have a few drownings a year, and sometimes none. This is the only one from that time that fits.”
“Why all the blanks?” asked Sue. “This form is only partially filled out.”
Sutton chuckled. “It’s from the bad old days when one of my bungling predecessors didn’t mind the store.” She pulled the form to her side of the countertop and looked at it closely. Then she pointed to a signature. “Here’s part of the problem—your department. Look at the signature for the person who completed the ‘cause of death’ section, Dirk Lowther. There was a real piece of work.”
“You didn’t like my departed colleague?”
“What a scum ball. A total sleaze and a poster boy for Grecian Formula. Don’t get me started.”
“I think I have,” said Sue.
“You know, I first worked here when I was in high school, the co-op program. If Dirk came in when no one else was around, he would hit on me. Real aggressive, obscene, like he believed every high school girl wanted to drop her pants for him. Hell, he was lots older than my father. After I repeatedly insulted him, he finally left me alone.”
Sue pulled the death certificate back to her side of the counter. “So a physician signed here, but it doesn’t look like there was an autopsy.”
“That’s correct. It was pro forma. My understanding is that back in the day, a body would be turned over to the undertaker, and he would look at it after getting a doctor’s signature on the form. If there weren’t any gaping knife wounds or bullet holes, there was seldom an autopsy. Things were pretty casual.”
“Can I take this with me?”
“Yes, it’s a copy.” Sutton stood back and crossed her arms. “Why the interest in something that happened years ago?”
“It just came up in another investigation, and I was a bit curious. You never know what you’re going to find. Thanks.”
Driving toward the south end of the county, Sue felt a pang of regret that she had been less than honest with Ray. Yes, she had spent part of a week visiting her parents in Florida, but she’d also enjoyed a long weekend in Chicago with Harry Hawkins, a man she’d met earlier in the fall during a criminal investigation.
Initially she’d found Hawkins, a lawyer, pompous and distant, but as she got to know him better, she’d started to see a very different person. Over the past several months he’d kept in contact via phone and e-mail, and he’d invited her several times to spend a weekend with him in Chicago. She had finally surrendered to his persistence.
Hawkins met Sue at O’Hare and took her to dinner and a movie before escorting her to his apartment in a Mies van der Rohe building on Lakeshore Drive. The next morning they jogged along the beach before breakfast. Then they spent the afternoon at the Art Institute, followed by an intimate dinner in a small French bistro. That evening he arranged for front row, mezzanine seats at the Lyric Opera for an especially steamy version of Carmen.
When Sue awakened on Sunday, Hawkins had just returned from picking up fresh croissants filled with a buttery dark chocolate. They ate, drank coffee, and read the Times in the sun-flooded living room. All too quickly the weekend reverie was shattered by the dash back to O’Hare.
Sue felt a warm glow and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Harry Hawkins knew how to treat a woman. But is there anything really there? she asked herself, then started at the sound of her voice. She frowned. It was lovely spending time with a smart, interesting man. And for months she’d been struggling with the feeling that she needed to take her life in another direction. But while becoming involved in a good relationship might be part of moving her life forward, Sue wasn’t waiting for some Prince Charming to play “Misty” for her. She was also looking at graduate programs in art and public administration and considering law school.
Sue parked in the Visitors Lot near the entrance to the administrative offices of the school district, a small red brick building across the parking lot from the new middle and high school complex. Once inside the building, she identified herself to the receptionist, a perky high school girl with short black hair and a pleasant manner. Sue was guided to a work area where the receptionist announced her presence to a woman who had her back to them. She was bent over a large computer screen and hammering away on a keyboard.
“Helen, someone is here to see you.”
The keying continued for a long moment before the woman swiveled her chair in their direction.
“Oh,” she said, rather unsettled by the appearance of a stranger.
“Mrs. Schaffer, I’m Sue Lawrence.” Sue passed a business card across the desk.
Helen Schaffer held the card by the corner, lifting her head to use the bottom lens of her trifocals. She looked at Sue for a long moment, studying her face. “You weren’t ever a student here, were you?”
“No, I was not.”
“I didn’t think so, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.” She opened a drawer and placed the card inside. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for information on a former student, Terry Hallen. Do you have any of his records, or do you remember anything about him? He would have been enrolled here about 20 years ago.”
“Terry Hallen,” Schaffer mused. “I haven’t thought about him for a long time, but he’s not someone I will ever forget. Just a beautiful kid: big blue eyes, a shock of brown hair. He supposedly drowned. I could never quite believe it. Didn’t seem right.”
“How so?” asked Sue.
Schaffer didn’t respond immediately. “Well, maybe that’s the way I feel when any of our kids die or get killed. It’s not right. It’s not natural. And Terry was special. His people were so poor. We were always looking for clothes for him and his sister—they didn’t have anything. But they were smart, sweet kids. They were the kind of kids that get beyond their circumstances and do something with their lives. And then he was suddenly gone. It made no sense.”
“How did it happen? Our records of Terry’s death are very incomplete.”
“One story was that he was fishing off the pier near the lighthouse and got washed off by a rogue wave. As I remember it, he was missing a few days before they found his body miles up the lake.”
“You mentioned a sister,” said Sue.
“Yes, she was a sweetie, too. Let me think—Caitlyn.”
“Did she graduate?”
“No. As I recollect, it was the end of the school year when Terry died. I don’t think his sister even finished her exams that year. I do remember calling the home. Her mother told me that Caitlyn and her younger sisters, twins they were, elementary, fourth or fifth grade, had gone off to stay with a relative. The next fall I called again before the fourth Friday count. The phone had been disconnected. That happens, you know. People disappear. Sometimes we get requests for records from their new school district. Not always.”