Page 75 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
“We all got a right to a little privacy. It’s why I ain’t never bugged my brother about his shed, and he ain’t never bugged me about my bathroom.”
“Your bathroom?” Norah quirked an eyebrow.
“Never you mind.” Ralph shook his finger at her. “Fact is, you had a way of not only frettin’ but also not givin’ up trying to find reasons so you didn’t have be afraid. Even if it meant steppin’ onothers’ toes, or hurtin’ their feelings, or just being dad-blamed nosy.”
Norah let her shoulders droop. They were probably sagging lower than Ralph’s now. He noticed and gentled his tone.
“I’m not sayin’ Naomi was right not to tell you about LeRoy back then. I’m no fan of that boy anyway. I’m just sayin’ I understand a bit why Naomi didn’t say anything. She wanted something for herself and didn’t want to answer twenty questions and give fifty reasons to justify her decisions were good ones.”
Norah nodded. She had to consider what he was saying. Ralph wouldn’t exaggerate the truth, and he wouldn’t candy-coat it either.
“What else did Naomi not tell me?” Her question was rhetorical, but it spawned another she truly wanted answered. “Do you think Naomi didn’t tell me some things because she was worried I’d bemoreafraid?”
“You mean did she keep secrets to protect you?” Ralph clarified.
Norah nodded.
“You bet I think she did.” Ralph’s face wrestled with various expressions as he fought back emotion. “That girl loved people as much as you feared for people. Both are good and bad, you know? You fear for people, but then you’re mighty protective of them too. Naomi, she loved people hard, but then they could use her and spit her out ’cause she’d let them.”
“Yeah.” Norah remembered, and with the memory came a revelation. Ralph was silent, letting her think. After a moment, Norah sucked in a determined breath and reached out to give Ralph’s forearm a squeeze. “Thank you, Ralph. For being honest.”
He smiled.
She smiled in return and then headed back toward the house, sidestepping a grave so she didn’t walk over it. It was time she looked at the cold case files again. This time by herself. And let Naomi speak to her from beyond the grave, and maybe shed new light on what Norah’s fear had always blocked her from seeing.
She fingered the folder of Isabelle Addington. Sebastian had been right. There wasn’t much in it of substance as to who she was, nor was there much regarding the story surrounding her murder. A few handwritten notes by a Constable Talbot stated that the initial crime scene had been hidden, then later discovered by Euphemia James and Lewis Anderson. Apparently, Lewis Anderson had identified the alleged victim in all probability to be Isabelle Addington. Constable Talbot’s note stated that Mr. Anderson had followed Miss Addington to Shepherd, having had firsthand knowledge that she was staying at 322 Predicament Avenue. However, no body had been found.
Two names were scratched in pencil and underlined. Norah stared at them for a long moment, recalling the visit to the Oppermans’ descendant Betty and her husband, Ron. There on the copy of the old pencil scratching were the names Floyd Opperman and Mabel Opperman—along with a question:But if she’s dead, where’s the body of Isabelle Addington?
Aside from that, Norah could see why the case file would have disappointed Sebastian. There was nothing to expand on the tale. Not that would be worth episodic retelling on his podcast anyway. And his wasn’t a podcast of ghost stories and the paranormal, and spouting off the so-called sightings of Isabelle Addington through the years wouldn’t add much either.
Frankly, there wasn’t much basis for Mrs. Miller to sue the bed-and-breakfast as though responsible for her husband’s heart attack should she decide to take legal action. But then enough time had passed that Norah was fairly certain the Miller family had accepted that their loved one’s death was the result of natural causes and not the fault of Norah and her business.
As to the question this Constable Talbot had written concerning the mystery of Isabelle Addington’s missing body, Norah wondered if that wouldn’t be enough to show beyond doubtthat the house wasn’t haunted by Isabelle after all. Her body had never been found—unless she was to believe the postmortem photograph of that woman trulywasIsabelle Addington. And if so, it was never proven that she’d been murdered on the premises of Predicament Avenue. It put to rest the notion that her ghost snuck through the house, scaring people and causing heart attacks.
Yes. She’d call Rebecca, her lawyer, and feed her that idea. Just in case.
Norah closed the folder. Isabelle Addington wasn’t her primary focus now. She bit the inside of her lip as she stared at the great number of photocopies and notes and folders that had to do with Naomi’s disappearance.
She pulled out a spiral notebook and made a timeline to remind herself of the events. Naomi’s disappearance and the subsequent search for her. The hunter who found her remains three months later in the woods—a place with no connection or reason anyone could think of other than it being remote. Norah pulled out paperwork outlining the questioning of suspects. Her parents had been cleared, she had been cleared, coworkers, Aunt Eleanor...
Norah winced as she read the names of a few suspects with no alibis but no motives either.
Ralph Middleford.
Otto Middleford.
Mike Dover.
Norah’s breath hitched.Mike Dover?Detective Dover had been a suspect? She’d never known that, or if she had, it hadn’t registered for some reason. Norah thumbed through the pages, reviewing notes.
Mike had been employed by the same combination retail store and pharmacy as Naomi was at the time—him working in the store, her in the pharmacy. The two had been seen flirting a few times, but coworkers later stated it was congenial and therehad never been an issue between them. Mike had been at the store that night when it closed. He’d been the third person in the store besides Naomi and the pharmacist, who had an alibi. Mike Dover did not. According to his statement, he’d locked up, driven home, and fallen asleep in his apartment where he lived alone.
Norah sank onto a chair. Dover had been inserting himself into her life here and there, especially since Mr. Miller’s heart attack, and had reawakened not only the stories about the first murder victim of Shepherd, Iowa—Isabelle Addington—but also the questions that seemed to pop up again about Naomi’s unsolved murder.
She focused on a printout of LeRoy Anderson’s information—height, weight, other physical attributes. He’d also not had an alibi, but according to the notes, he’d had a motive. The baby.
Norah wrote in her notebook.
