“I’m looking for information about a car accident about twenty years ago,” I said. Twenty-three, to be exact.
“We might have an article on that, and we might not.” Camille made some finishing touches to her drawing, then tossed the pen and pad onto the counter and nodded for me to follow her. “Depends on what else was going on that week. Sometimes car accidents hit the front page, sometimes they don’t.”
She led me to the back of the office and up a creaky set of wooden stairs. A single light switch brought fluorescent illumination to the room, and I blinked at the number of shelves filled with boxes, books, newspapers, and dusty equipment that I didn’t recognize.
“Twenty years ago?” Camille asked, walking toward the back corner of the room. She switched direction slightly when I said twenty-three years and motioned me over to a stack of newspapers.
“Look all you like,” she said. “Use the table, take pictures, whatever. But if you rip a single page, the ghost of Katharine Graham will haunt you the rest of your life.”
“Scout’s honor,” I said, performing the salute.
“Good enough.” Camille gave me a steady look. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“If it’s a real story, sure.” Then I considered my words and made an amendment. “At least someday.”
She scowled. “Not what I wanted to hear.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s the best I can do right now.”
There was a short silence. “Okay,” Camille said, setting a foot on the top stair. “See you later.”
And she left me alone with the dusty history of Chilson.
• • •
It didn’t take long for me to find what I was after. I had the year and, knowing the other car had been a convertible, could assume that the accident had taken place during the Up North convertible season of May through September.
An hour after I’d gone up the steps to the newspaper’s second floor, I was walking into the library, ready to hit the search engines.
“Hello? Are you in there?”
I started. “Oh. Hey, Donna. I didn’t see you.”
“Or hear me,” she said from behind the counter, laughing. “That’s the third time I said hello.”
“Sorry.” I stopped, a little embarrassed. “I was thinking.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” She tipped her head in the direction of Jennifer’s office.
“What? Oh, no. I was just . . .” My voice trailed off as it sank into my tiny brain that I was talking to a longtime resident of Chilson. “Do you remember when Dale Lacombe got into a bad car accident?”
“Now that was a long time ago.” Donna leaned forward and put her elbows on the counter. “The kids and Dale were fine, as I recall, but the man driving that little car was hurt badly.”
“Simon Faber,” I said.
She nodded. “I didn’t know the man, but my neighbor knew him through a golf league.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“He was seasonal. Had a place on Janay Lake.”
That much had been in the newspaper. “Anything else?”
“It was a long time ago,” she said, her gaze shifting inward. “But if I recall correctly, his injuries from the car accident were the kind that change your life. Multiple operations, pins and screws in all sorts of places. Don’t remember if he had internal injuries, but it seems likely.”
“Is he still around?”
Donna shook her head. “He sold his place after the accident. All those surgeries took a lot out of him. Orthopedic, internal, eye, plastic, and who knows what else.” She sighed. “That poor man was certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I deflated a little, but decided to keep following through. “Could you do me a favor? Ask your neighbor if he’s seen or heard from Simon Faber in the last few months. Any information would be good.”
“Sure,” she said, shrugging, “but why—”
I cut into her question, not wanting to explain. “Thanks, Donna.” And with a quick smile, I headed to my office. There were all sorts of things I had to do that day, but now there was one more task.
Find out everything I could about Simon Faber.
Chapter 17
In my search for knowledge, I poked around with Google, used every type of social media in my librarian’s arsenal, and made phone calls to everyone I could think of who might have any useful information.
What I found out from my lunchtime Internet efforts was a Simon Faber owned a house in Independence, Missouri, that had been listed for sale at $245,000. I found a Simon Faber who’d been listed as a speaker to the Rotary Club of Sacramento, California, on the topic of how increasing accessibility would increase retail sales. I also learned that Simon Faber had self-published a book on growing roses. Whether or not any of these Fabers was the right one, I did not know.
In the afternoon, all the voice mail messages I’d left at noon came rolling back. Kristen told me she remembered the car accident, but couldn’t have given me Simon Faber’s name if her life had depended on it. “I was maybe twelve years old,” she said. “Did you really expect me to remember?”
“You can remember every amount of every ingredient in every dish you’ve ever cooked,” I replied. “Why not one guy’s name?”
“Duh,” she said. “I care about the cooking. People, not so much.”
There was a bizarre disconnect in her logic, but I let it go.
“Does this have anything to do with Dale Lacombe’s murder?” she asked, suspicion strong in her voice.
“Not sure,” I replied, and said a quick good-bye before she could start scolding me.
My aunt Frances was next to call back, apologizing for leaving me all alone the previous night in the boardinghouse.
“Eddie kept me company,” I said. “Besides, it’s expected that affianced couples spend the night together every so often. That’s if they’re not already cohabitating.”
“Shacking up?” She laughed. “At my age?” Then she told me what she could recall about Simon Faber. “He lived out on the north shore road, a few doors down from a cousin of Everett’s.” She paused at the mention of her long-deceased husband, then went on. “I remember Everett’s cousin saying Simon was strictly Memorial Day to Labor Day. Nothing before, nothing after. It was far more common back then. Now folks come up all year round.” She sighed. “Almost makes you want to move to the Upper Peninsula.”
I’d heard that comment many times from others, but no one ever seemed to pack up and go. I loved the UP, but I loved Chilson more. “Anything else?” I asked. “About Faber?”
“He was a big antique car buff,” she said. “He built a garage at his cottage, which in those days was very unusual, because he didn’t want his cars to get any unnecessary exposure to sun and rain and wind.”
Rafe’s return call that evening, on the other hand, was less useful. I was on the couch reading, with Eddie on my lap, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the screen and went all tingly when I saw Rafe’s picture smiling at me. I took in a long breath and thumbed on the phone. “Hey.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You don’t remember Dale Lacombe’s car accident?”
“I’m lucky if I remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”
“You always have the same thing for breakfast,” I pointed out.
“See my problem?”
My laugh turned into an inexplicable sob that I forced into a cough. “You really don’t know anything?”
“Nope. Why do you want to know?”
“Just looking into some things for Leese,” I said vaguely. “Do you know anyone who might know what happened to Simon Faber?”
“Nope,” Rafe said. “I was just a pup back then and he was a summer guy who lived out on Janay Lake. We didn’t cross paths.”