Every Dead Thing

“Used to be the Haven Leader,” answered the younger woman after a slight pause. “It’s gone now.”

“I was looking for something older, back issues.”

She glanced at the other woman as if for guidance, but she continued to shift pieces of paper behind the counter.

“They’re on microfiche, in the cabinets beside the viewer. How far back do you want to go?”

“Not far,” I said, and strolled over to the cabinets. The Leader files were arranged in date order in small square boxes in ten drawers, but the boxes of files for the years of the Haven killings were not in their place. I ran through them all, in case they had been misfiled, although I had a feeling that those files weren’t available to the casual visitor.

I returned to the counter. The elderly woman was no longer in sight.

“The files I’m looking for don’t appear to be there,” I said. The younger girl looked confused but I didn’t get the impression that she was.

“What year were you looking for?”

“Years. Nineteen sixty-nine, nineteen seventy, maybe nineteen seventy-one.”

“I’m sorry, those files aren’t”-she seemed to search for an excuse that might be plausible-”available. They’ve been borrowed for research.”

“Oh,” I said. I smiled my best smile. “Never mind, I’ll manage with what’s there.”

She seemed relieved and I returned to the viewer, idly flicking through the files for anything useful with no return other than boredom. It took thirty minutes before the opportunity presented itself. A party of schoolchildren entered the junior section of the library, separated from the adult section by a half-wood, half-glass screen. The younger woman followed them and stood with her back to me, talking to the children and their teacher, a young blonde who didn’t look long out of school herself.

There was no sign of the older woman, although a brown door was half open in the small lobby beyond the adult section. I slipped behind the counter and began rifling through drawers and cupboards as quietly as I could. At one point I passed, crouching, by the entry door to the junior section, but the librarian was still dealing with her young clients.

I found the missing files in a bottom drawer, beside a small coin box. I slipped them into my jacket pockets and was just leaving the counter area when the office door outside slammed and I heard soft footsteps approaching. I darted beside a shelf as the senior librarian entered. She stopped short at the entrance to the counter and shot an unpleasant look in my direction and at the book in my hand. I smiled gamely and returned to the viewer. I wasn’t sure how long it would be before the dragon behind the counter checked that drawer and decided to call for backup.

I tried the 1969 files first. It took some time, even though the Haven Leader had been only a weekly newspaper in 1969. There was nothing about any disappearances in the paper. Even in 1969, it seemed that black folks didn’t count for much. The paper contained a lot about church socials, history society lectures, and local weddings. There was some minor crime stuff, mostly traffic offenses and drunk-and-disorderlies, but nothing that might lead a casual reader to suppose that children were disappearing in the town of Haven.

Then, in a November issue, I came upon a reference to a man named Walt Tyler. There was a picture of Tyler beside the piece, a good-looking man being led away in handcuffs by a white deputy. Man Held in Sheriff Attack, read the headline above the picture. The details contained in the piece below were sketchy but it seemed Tyler had come into the Sheriff’s Office and started busting the place up before taking a swing at the sheriff himself. The only indication of a reason for the attack came in the last paragraph.

“ Tyler was among a number of Negroes questioned by the Sheriff’s Office in co

The 1970 files were more productive. On the night of February 8, 1970, Amy Demeter had disappeared after heading out to a friend’s house to deliver a sample of her mother’s jam. She never made it to the house and the jar was found broken on a sidewalk about five hundred yards from her home. A picture of her was printed beside the story, along with details of what she had been wearing and a brief history of the family: father Earl an accountant, mother Dorothy a housewife and a schoolteacher, younger sister Catherine a well-liked child with some artistic potential. The story ran for the next few weeks: Search Goes On for Haven Girl; Five More Questioned in Demeter Mystery; and, finally, Little Hope Left for Amy.

I spent another half hour going back and forth through the Haven Leader but there was nothing more on the killings or their resolution, if any. The only indication was a report of the death of Adelaide Modine in a fire four months later, with a reference to her brother’s death buried in the piece. There was no description of the circumstances of the death of either, but there was one hint, once again in the last paragraph. “The Haven Sheriff’s Office had been anxious to talk to both Adelaide and William Modine in their ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Amy Demeter and a number of other children.”

It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines and see that either Adelaide Modine or her brother William, or possibly both, had been the main suspects. Local newspapers don’t necessarily print all the news; there are some things everyone knows already and sometimes the local press merely prints enough to throw outsiders off the scent. The old librarian was giving me the evil eye so I finished printing off copies of the relevant articles, then gathered them and left.

A Haven County Sheriff’s Office cruiser, a brown-and-yellow Crown Victoria, was pulled up in front of my car and a deputy, wearing a clean, well-pressed uniform, was leaning against my driver’s door, waiting. As I drew closer I could see the long muscles beneath his shirt. His eyes were dull and lifeless. He looked like an asshole. A fit asshole.

“This your car?” he asked in a Virginia drawl, his thumbs tucked inside a gun belt that glittered with the spotless tools of his trade. On his chest, the name Burns stood out on his perfectly straight identity badge.

“Sure is,” I said, mimicking his accent. It was a bad habit I had. His jaw tightened, if it was actually possible for it to tighten more than it was already.

“Hear you were looking up some old newspapers?”

“I’m a crossword fan. They were better in the old days.”

“You another writer?”

Judging from his tone I didn’t think he read much, at least nothing that didn’t have pictures or a message from God. “No,” I said. “You get a lot of writers around here?”

I don’t think he believed I wasn’t a writer. Maybe I looked bookish to him or maybe anyone with whom he wasn’t personally acquainted was immediately suspected of covert literary leanings. The librarian had sold me out, believing me to be simply another hack trying to make a buck out of the ghosts of Haven’s past.

“I’m escorting you to the town line,” he said. “I’ve got your bag.” He moved to the patrol car and took my traveling bag from the front seat. I was starting to get very tired of Deputy Burns.

“I’m not pla

He dropped the bag on the road and started toward me. “Look,” I began, “I have ID.” I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket. “I’m-”

It was a dumb thing to do but I was hot and tired and pissed at Deputy Burns, and I wasn’t thinking straight. He caught one flash of the butt of my gun and his own piece was in his hands. Burns was quick. He probably practiced in front of the mirror. Within seconds I was up against his car, my gun was gone, and Deputy Burns’s shiny cuffs were biting into my wrists.