The Missing Chapter

Eyes wider, she looked from me to Southworth and back again. “God, I don’t know,” she said in a throaty voice, spreading long-fingered hands, palms up. “That’s hard to say, it’s been so long ago, now. He wasn’t terribly friendly, I remember that much. Darlene — she’s our feature editor—” this explanation was for my benefit, “gave me the assignment, and the first time I called Childress at his mother’s house, he started out being just plain rude, said he was in Mercer only for personal reasons and didn’t want to be bothered with the press. When I told him a lot of people all over the county read his books and would love to know more about his work, he softened a little and asked me to call him again in two weeks or so. I did, and that time, he ended up talking to me.”

“Where was the interview? At his mother’s house?” I asked.

Gina Marks shook her dark head vigorously. “Oh, no. I did offer to go out there — it’s on the county road about halfway between here and Clark’s Grove — but he said he’d rather meet me in town. I ended up interviewing him one morning in a booth at the Old Skillet. It was about ten, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.”

“Was he forthcoming?”

“Not very! I got enough for my piece, but just barely. He seemed, I don’t know... sort of distant, and resentful, too, like I was intruding on his time.”

“Well, he did have a lot on his mind then,” Southworth put in.

“Did he talk much about his life in Mercer?”

Gina gave me a thumbs-down and a sour look. “No, and obviously, that’s what I had wanted. But all I got was that it was his mother who stimulated his interest in reading, and literature in general, starting when he was twelve or thirteen. Beyond that, he didn’t want to talk about Mercer at all. I think he looked down on this area as some sort of cultural desert. And it was obvious that he resented having to spend time here, even to take care of his mother. Frankly, Mr. Goodwin, the man didn’t impress me one bit. He was a snobbish, arrogant, shallow transplant to the big city who tries to ignore the place he came from and what it taught him.”

“So he didn’t mention anyone else from here — relatives, friends?”

“Oh, he tossed off some obligatory, predictable compliment to one of his high school English teachers, who died years ago,” she said hotly. “But it was so damn rehearsed, he’d probably used it in a dozen other interviews.”

“Did you talk to anybody else for your story?” I asked.

“No — he made me feel so guilty for invading his privacy that I was just happy to pull what I did out of him. And what I wrote ended up being almost entirely on his approach to writing, with very little about his years in Mercer. To be honest, I’m not proud of that piece. I’d do it differently today.”

I nodded in sympathy. “How many relatives does he have here?”

“Two aunts, and I think some cousins. I’ve never met any of them.”

“Is there any scuttlebutt around town about Childress that you’ve come across?”

I got a glare. “Nothing I’ve ever heard; It may surprise you, Mr. Goodwin, coming as you do from the self-anointed cultural capital of the western world, to learn that not all small-town newspapers are gossip sheets. We didn’t win all those awards we’ve gotten since Chet took over by chattering about personal lives and peccadilloes.” She sucked in air and let it out with an indignant whoosh.

“Whoa!” I leaned back and held up a palm. “I’m not taking shots at you or the paper. And I’m not interested in idle gossip for its own sake. Remember, we’re talking about the possibility that a murder has been committed.”

“Okay, sorry.” Gina smiled sheepishly and slapped herself lightly on the cheek. “I guess maybe I get a little defensive sometimes.”

“Dammit, get defensive!” Southworth barked, punching the air with a beefy fist. “I love to hear you defend the Mercury. I know Goodwin meant no offense, though. If he didn’t come up with questions like that, then he wouldn’t be a good reporter. Do you need to talk anymore to Gina?”

When I said no, she stood up and came over to me, offering a hand to show there were no hard feelings. I took it and smiled.

After she walked out, the editor motioned toward the doorway. “She’s damn good,” he said, “best we’ve got, and I know I’ll be losing her before long. There’s only so much variety and challenge you can offer an enterprising reporter like her in a town this size and on a twice-weekly. But... that comes with the territory — you train ’em to lose ’em. Tell me, what makes your boss and his client — and you, too, I assume — so sure that Childress was murdered?”

“Nothing tangible, except that life had been going more or less well for him,” I replied. “And he was supposed to be married in the fall.”

He nodded. “So I heard. I suppose you’re going to talk to his relatives?”

“The aunts, anyway. Can you point me toward them?”