Confessions to Mr. Roosevelt Read online

  Ellen bit back the impulse to lecture Audrey on what could have happened if she’d landed in jail. At the very least, she’d be fired. And there was the bigger picture. Iris Hewitt was unlikely to help Audrey find other work.

  “Are you angry with me? What about Miss Jewell?” Audrey’s expression was that of a child hoping to talk her way out of a scolding.

  “I’m not really angry. But I am upset with you. So is Miss Jewell. She likes you, and she doesn’t want you to end up like one of her boarders.” Ellen told her the story.

  “What!” The shout reverberated down the quiet street. Audrey clamped her hands over her mouth and started to giggle. “That’s the last place I’ll end up.”

  “I think she meant it as a cautionary tale,” Ellen offered.

  Audrey rolled her eyes. “I’ll consider myself warned.”

  Ellen was quiet for a moment before she asked if something was going on between Audrey and Ralph.

  Audrey looked startled, and Ellen worried she’d stepped into something that was none of her business.

  “What!” Audrey managed not to shout this time. “Like boyfriend and girlfriend? Oh, no, no, no.” She shook her head vehemently. “I told you: I like being on my own. I just gave myself the job of being Ralph’s friend. He needs one. I tease him when he’s being self-important and encourage him when he’s in the dumps about finding another teaching job. He still hasn’t heard from that college he has high hopes for, so it’s a chore being positive.”

  Ellen was sorry she’d asked and said so.

  “That’s okay.” Audrey waved a hand in the air. “I’m not trying to change him into someone different. He is who he is, but maybe now that he’s loosened up and danced at the Hurley-Burley and almost got punched in the face, he’ll start acting more like a regular person.”

  Ellen smiled back at Audrey. She was finding it impossible to stay mad at her.

  “Just talk to Miss Jewell tomorrow and set things right. Now, let me tell you about my evening,” she said.

  Another roar of thunder and streak of lightning sent them rushing inside.

  CHAPTER 18

  NEAR OPAL’S GROVE, 1936

  Audrey easily worked her way back into Miss Jewell’s good graces, and things seemed to return to an even keel. Ellen busied herself redoing Mae Swenson’s interviews and keeping up with her own. She sent off the articles to Mr. Calley’s contacts. Almost a week after Jason’s visit, she decided he wasn’t coming back and tried to keep thoughts of him pushed to the back of her mind.

  Thursday morning was spent in the courthouse basement, typing one interview and then another. At half past eleven she emerged to a calliope of horns and the sight of cars and trucks of every description maneuvering for space as they circled the courthouse. Getting to her car parked across the street was going to take some quick footwork. She started to cross the street but was forced back by one car and then another. She had never seen this much traffic in Opal’s Grove, even on Saturdays when the farm families came to town to trade. Was this Thursday some sort of special market day? Maybe there was an exciting court case she hadn’t heard about. She shook her head. Surely, she would have seen an announcement in the paper or heard people talking on the street if something special was happening.

  Just when she decided to take a chance and dart through the traffic, there was a screech of brakes.

  “Get in,” Thelma shouted from behind the wheel of her family’s newly repaired automobile. Sitting beside her was Agatha. In the backseat was Ivy, frantically waving for Ellen to join them.

  Without hesitation, Ellen hugged her satchel to her body, wrenched open the passenger door, and hopped into the back beside Ivy. Ignoring the blare of horns behind her, Thelma pulled into the parade of traffic, taking the highway south out of town.

  “Where are we going?” Ellen turned to look out the back window. “Where is everybody going?”

  “The bridge!” Thelma had to shout to be heard over another horn blast and a rattle that sounded as if it was coming from the engine. “They were breaking up rock down by the river and found bones.”

  Ivy turned to Ellen. “There’s a skeleton. Or a part of one.”

  Thelma watched the road while she continued. “Cecil Phelps was using a pickax to break the rock, and when he pulled it up to take another swing, there was a skull stuck on the end of the axe. It just came up out of the ground like a Halloween ghost. Cecil clutched his chest and fainted dead away.”

  “How do you know this?” Ellen leaned over the front seat.

  “My brother Hugh was right there. Everyone thought Cecil had a heart attack, so Hugh drove him to the hospital. While Hugh was there, he called Mother. She called me and Martha at Miss Agatha’s. It’s all over town now, and people want to know what’s happening. Including us.”

  Both Agatha and Ivy nodded. Some things, you didn’t wait on the front porch to hear secondhand.

  They passed the train depot on the left, slowly bounced over the railroad tracks, and continued past the city limits. Cars and trucks began to slow and bunch together, bumper to bumper.

  “Automobiles are coming back this way.” Ellen pointed. “It looks like the police are making people turn around.”

  Ahead, they could see two deputies waving cars to stop and turn back toward town. For some drivers, it took more than one try to pull forward, back up, and then swing into the northbound lane.

  Thelma leaned so far forward, her chin almost bumped against the steering wheel. “Oh, look! One of the deputies is Bill. Don’t worry, ladies. Now, we’ll find out what’s going on.”

  At the barricade, Bill motioned for them to stop.

  “Oh, for God’s sakes, Thelma, what are you doing out here?” he moaned as he approached the driver’s side window.

  “Bill Snyder, I would thank you not to swear in front of these ladies.” Thelma puffed.

  “Sorry.” He leaned down to look through the window and tip his hat.

  Thelma’s fiancé was square-jawed and broad-shouldered. Ellen was reminded of a recruiting poster for the Boy Scouts. Or the army. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Already, some politicians and newspaper columnists were warning of another war.

  “Don’t worry about it, Bill.” Agatha leaned across the seat to see him. “This must be very trying, and I apologize for adding to your troubles.”

  He shook his head. “It’s been like a circus out here. And it’s not just the sightseers. The coroner got here right behind Sheriff Logan. Grover Calley showed up but left after a few words with the sheriff. Right behind him was that beady-eyed funeral director. He went off steaming when the sheriff ordered him to turn his hearse around and go back to town. Then Iris Hewitt threw a hissy fit.”

  “Iris Hewitt?” Ivy called from the backseat. “What was she doing here?”

  Bill ignored the traffic jam building up behind Thelma’s car. “She heard about this and came roaring out in that big Buick she’s so proud of. She parked in the middle of the highway, buttonholed the sheriff and started talking a mile a minute about the skull coming from an Indian burial. She kept going on about an Indian village. When the sheriff told her to leave, she gave him a piece of her mind. She left about twenty minutes ago, yelling about calling an archaeologist at the state college.”

  “What’s the sheriff going to do?” Ellen asked. She wondered if he gave any credence to Mrs. Hewitt’s theory.

  “Well, he sure isn’t going to wait for Iris Hewitt, if that’s what you mean.” Bill grimaced at the very idea.

  “He’s got the coroner, that Dr. Page, here to look things over; although I’d say from the looks of things, this isn’t anybody that got killed and buried recently. Whoever it was has been dead for a long, long time.”

  Bill wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Now, please, Thelma, get this car out of here.”

  “Of course, Bill,” she said, smiling prettily. “You’ve been so sweet.”

  The others thank
ed him as Thelma put the car in gear and began to maneuver the turnaround.

  “Look.” Ellen pointed to a Ford approaching in the opposite lane. She knew that car. “There’s Mrs. Castle with Miss Vine.”

  All heads turned in that direction. If Nettie noticed them, she gave no sign, but Stella Castle nodded before inching her auto forward.

  Ellen felt the atmosphere change around her. Neither Agatha nor Ivy were chirping away with comments about Iris Hewitt or speculating about the unidentified skeleton. Thelma must have felt it, too, driving with her eyes straight ahead and her mouth tightly shut.

  Thelma let Ellen out near her parked car. She thanked the women for taking her along, but it was plain their earlier enthusiasm for the outing had soured. “Don’t forget Saturday. Come for supper,” Agatha called as Thelma pulled away.

  “Hartley!” The bellow made Ellen jump. Behind her, Grover Calley stood with an oversized notebook in one hand. “You keep some interesting company,” he said, watching Thelma’s car disappear around the corner. “You been out gawking with the rest of the town?”

  “Yes, sir. I heard you were there.”

  “One of the first ones, but the sheriff says there’s nothing to report until the doctor looks things over. There’s more than just a skull. Looks like there might be a whole body out there. I came back to talk to the man they took to the hospital.”

  “Was it a heart attack?”

  “No. He just had a bad scare, pulling that skull up the way he did would do that to a man.” He eyed Ellen for a moment. “You want to be a reporter. Tell me what you saw.”

  She listed the men that surrounded the sheriff behind the barricade. She then repeated what Bill had said. Calley jotted down a few notes.

  “I was there when Iris Hewitt was carrying on. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about locating that Indian village. Then I remembered that interview you did with Mrs. Hamilton. We’re printing it in tomorrow’s paper.”

  Ellen could guess what was coming next.

  “I didn’t know until I read her interview that Ivy Hamilton knew Featherstone fairly well. I’ve been over to the library to look at that collection. Haven’t paid attention to it in years, but now I’m wondering if he didn’t find something.” He gave Ellen a long stare. “Did you ask her?”

  Ellen stared back, slightly insulted by his implication she had done a poor interview job. “Yes, I asked. He sometimes showed her the things he collected, but as she said in the interview, he never took her to see any Indian village or told her where one might be found.” Ellen calmed. She eyed the traffic and wondered about making it to her car. “Now I’m going to the boardinghouse for lunch.”

  “I’m going to get a sandwich myself, but afterwards I’m going back out to the bridge.” He paused. “Want to go out with me? Might be something there you could pick up for one of those stringer stories.”

  “What time do I meet you at your office?” she asked, fighting down a wave of excitement.

  “Make it forty-five minutes,” he answered. “I hate to eat and run. Whatever’s out there isn’t going anywhere soon.”

  CHAPTER 19

  NEAR THE RIVER, OPAL’S GROVE, 1936

  Ellen arrived at the newspaper office wearing an old blue dress and walking shoes. Her satchel was slung over one shoulder. In one hand she carried a thermos of ice water; in the other was a wide-brimmed garden hat borrowed from Miss Jewell. Calley nodded brusquely and introduced her to the man waiting beside him on the sidewalk. “You remember Maynard. He’s our photographer.” The man was younger than Calley, with a strong, craggy face that didn’t seem to change expression. He carried a big, boxy camera. Hanging from a strap around his neck Ellen recognized a Leica camera.

  Ellen did remember the man working over the composition table in the newspaper’s back room, but she didn’t know if Maynard was a first name or a last. They climbed into Calley’s Studebaker. The short trip to the construction site was made in silence.

  Bill and another deputy were still turning away onlookers but waved Calley through. “Now, Maynard, you know what to do,” Calley said after he parked and got out of the car. “I want pictures. If the sheriff says ‘no,’ put that box away like you agree with him and shoot with the Leica. Just don’t let him see what you’re up to.” Calley turned to Ellen. “And you, be a reporter.”

  He hooked a thumb toward two cars just arriving. “Looks like we got here just in time.”

  Iris Hewitt climbed out of her Buick. Out of the other automobile emerged four men. All wore safari-style khaki shirts and pith helmets. Maynard quickly snapped a picture. Iris stopped to introduce Calley to the professor of archaeology, a Dr. Wales, and his three graduate students. Iris gave Ellen a questioning look before leading the way to where the coroner and Sheriff Logan stood, mopping sweat from their faces.

  The sheriff welcomed the archaeologists, not because he thought there was anything to this Indian business, but because he was a practical man. Only a few vertebrae and a collarbone were exposed when Cecil pulled out the skull. If the professor and his crew had any ideas on how to uncover and extract the bones without damage, the sheriff wanted to hear them.

  Dr. Wales, middle-aged with the sinewy look of a man who spent more time working outdoors than in the classroom, asked the group to stay back while he and his students surveyed the area. Ellen followed Calley’s lead and began to make notes, although there didn’t seem to be anything of import to record. Wales and his students walked around the site. In hushed voices they conferred. Wales dropped to one knee and began to feather loose dirt away from a clavicle. After another brief conference with his team, Wales returned to the group gathered around the sheriff. He and his crew would lend their assistance, but the tools they’d brought were limited. One of his men would have to return to the college for more equipment. They needed drinking water, and perhaps the sheriff could locate a tent to shade the work site.

  There was a sudden flurry of activity as people scurried off. The coroner left to placate the town’s funeral director and, in return, get the use of the man’s canvas tent used to cover newly dug graves. Iris Hewitt was right behind the coroner, sent to bring back an ice chest of sodas and canisters of ice water. Calley motioned for Maynard and Ellen to join him near his car, but not before the sheriff spotted the box camera and shook his head at Maynard.

  “Not to worry,” said Calley as they gathered in a tight knot. “I’m going back to town for more water and to tell the boys they may be working the press late tonight to get out tomorrow’s morning edition.” He dropped into the driver’s seat. “I’m leaving you two at the CCC camp. See if any of those men have something to say about this. Probably nothing there, but you never know.”

  By late afternoon, Ellen and Maynard were finished with the CCC workers. They’d returned to find men working under a cover propped up with metal poles. On sheriff’s orders, everyone else had to stay some distance away. With little to see or do, Ellen and Maynard retreated to the tree line for shade. Ellen perched on a small boulder. Maynard sat propped against another, bits of gravel digging into his backside.

  “That doesn’t look very comfortable,” Ellen offered. In answer, Maynard pulled his hat down over his face.

  “Do you think Mr. Calley will use those pictures you took of the CCC workers?” Ellen persisted.

  Maynard pulled off his hat, giving Ellen a dour look. “I don’t like chitchat. But you’ve got a way about you, I’ll give you that. You didn’t pepper those CCC boys with questions, which was smart. All it took was one little comment from you about how hard the work must be, and it was like turning on a spigot. Not only did those men tell you what they did—or did not—see this morning, but some tongue-tied guy far from home recited his life story. And another spent ten minutes showing you pictures of his family back in Indiana.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Ellen was rather proud of herself. She’d gotten information for Mr. Calley, and the men at the camp had given her another idea
for an article.

  “You could at least tell me your full name,” Ellen prodded. She was curious because now he’d become a challenge.

  Maynard sat up, pulling off his hat in irritation. “My name is Maynard Knudson. I’m thirty-eight years old. I live with an aunt and uncle who raised me after my parents died. I’ve got a little photo studio. I develop my pictures for the paper, and, once in a great while, people pay me for their wedding portrait or a picture of their darling baby.” He glared.

  Ellen studied him for a moment. “You forgot to mention that award-winning photograph of a dust storm.” Before he could interrupt, she rushed ahead. “Your last name gave you away. I suddenly realized it was you who took the picture. We talked about it in one of my classes. Your photograph made the blowing dust look like a living thing, ready to reach out and snatch those poor children running in terror across the playground.”

  Maynard sat dumbfounded. Ellen decided it was her turn to ignore him. She pushed herself off the boulder with a little jump and walked away.

  “We should probably see what kind of progress they’re making,” she called over her shoulder. She headed for Calley, who was standing with the man in charge of the bridge construction. Beyond them, Iris Hewitt had settled herself on a camp stool beside the ice chest, a parasol brought from home protecting her from the sun. The sheriff and coroner stood apart from the rest, occasionally mumbling to each other.

  Ellen walked as close as she dared to the tent. With its canvas sides rolled up, there was a clear view of the workers and a portion of a skeletal frame. She could see exposed vertebrae and the rib cage. Portions of both arms had been exposed. As two workers continued uncovering the rest of the arms and the hands, another brushed loose soil away from the pelvis. Dr. Wales sat back on his heels, wiping dirt-stained hands on his trousers. He pushed himself to a standing position, told the others to keep working, and motioned everyone to join him. Like schoolchildren obeying a teacher, they gathered around him in a semicircle.