Draw the Dark (14 page)

When I turned to Sarah, she was closing her phone. “What about the dispatcher?” I said.

“Oh, that.” She eyed me calmly. “The battery’s dead.”

My God, the things that were popping out of my mouth. What was I thinking? Sarah was the only person who would
talk
to me, and now I was digging into her life like s ome nosy brother.

“You’re right.” She pulled out her bike and swiped at the kickstand. “None of your business.”

The lady behind the front desk looked up, smiled when she saw Sarah, and said, “Hello, dear.” She only glanced at me before continuing, “How is the research coming?”

“Great,” said Sarah. “Christian’s doing a project and needed some help.”

“Oh.” The lady’s gray eyes fastened on me. “What exactly are you researching?”

“Mordecai Witek,” I said. “I’m especially interested in the murder.”

“Yes, isn’t everyone.”

“There isn’t much on the Internet.”

She gave me a tight smile that showed no teeth. “Some things are best forgotten. You didn’t live through the war, so you wouldn’t know, but there are many of us who are just as happy to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “So how do I find out more?”

Her smile wilted. She pointed toward a side room. “In there. Newspapers, principally. Sarah knows how to use the microfiche and databases. There are two terminals, so feel free. I am, however, leaving promptly at five.”

That gave us about an hour and a half. We thanked her and headed for the microfiche and computer terminals. Old photos hung on the walls: the foundry, the town hall, and groups of people in old-fashioned clothes waiting as a trolley trundled down the center of Main Street.

“Is she always like that?” I asked. When Sarah shook her head, I continued, “So why is she giving me a hard time?” Sarah just shrugged.

The microfiche reader squatted next to long gray file cabinets, and Sarah pointed to a label that read in spidery ink script:
Tribune
1/1887–12/1923. “Each drawer has boxes with microfiche of the paper dating back to when it started in 1883.” She pulled open one of the metal drawers, which was filled with square boxes, each representing a year’s worth of newspapers. “Over there, next to the computers, is the
New York Times
and the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
. You can cross-reference once you’ve got a date.” Tugging on a pair of white gloves lying in a box on top of the file cabinet, she pulled out a random box, thumbed on the microfiche reader, and showed me how to thread the film and which buttons to push to advance the film, go back, and zoom. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s really not so bad,” she said. “The layout of these old papers is pretty similar. National headlines at the top, local news about halfway down, obits in the back. You get a sense for what you’re looking for; you should be able to find it pretty quickly.”

“Mmmm.” It sounded like a lot of work. The computer databases were straightforward enough. Typing in
Mordecai Mendel Witek
didn’t do much more than bring up the same information I already knew, though.

“Who’s that?” Sarah asked, reading over my shoulder.

“An artist who used to live here. He was pretty famous, for a while.”

“You’re kidding. In Winter?” She read the Wikipedia entry. “Wow. I didn’t know any of that. No one ever mentions it.”

“You heard the lady out front. Some things are best forgotten.” I thought of Mrs. Krauss. “Some people probably want the past to remain just that. Dead and buried and forgotten.”

“Yeah, but a murder’s pretty sensational. At least
you’ve
got a date. I’m still backtracking through old deeds to figure out who lived in Dr. Rainier’s house when.”

At the mention of Dr. Rainier’s name, I groaned. “Oh crap. I forgot my appointment.”

“With whom?”

“Ah ... Dr. Rainier. She’s ... uh ... I’m supposed to see her.”

“Oh.” Sarah arched her eyebrows. “Well, call her.”

“Your cell’s dead.”

“
Christian
. Miss Maynard has a phone.”

I didn’t want to use the phone in front of that woman, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I dragged back to the front and explained that I needed to make a personal call. To my relief, Miss Maynard pointed me to a small office behind the front desk. “Use the phone in there. I like to keep this area free of traffic.”

“Uh. Sure. Thanks.” Like there were people breaking down the doors to get in. Once inside the office, I closed the door, dialed Dr. Rainier’s number, and prayed that it would flip to voice mail.

Of course, it didn’t. “Dr. Rainier.”

“Uh, Dr. Rainier, it’s Christian.”

“Christian. Where are you? Your session started fifteen minutes ago.”

I said, “I’m really sorry. It just slipped my mind. Could I make it up tomorrow?”

“Well . . .” I heard her flipping pages. “I don’t have any hours, I’m sorry. Can you make it today? Say, later? Six fifteen? Otherwise, I can see you Monday, but . . . I think it would be better if you came in.”

I calculated rapidly. The Historical Society would close at five. It would take me a half hour to bike to Dr. Rainier’s office, which was on the other side of town. I’d have to wait, but I was the one who’d blown the appointment time, so . . . I could do homework in the waiting room. “Sure, that’s okay. I don’t mind waiting. Uhm . . . am I in trouble?”

“For missing an appointment? Of course not. I could be Freudian about it and suggest that maybe you
want
to miss, but you don’t have to be an analyst to know that. Yesterday was pretty awful.”

That was an understatement. “No, it’s not that,” I said and was surprised when I meant it. “I’m at the Historical Society.” I gave her a thumbnail sketch of what I’d learned so far and added, “I wanted to find out more because I think . . . well, it might be important. Maybe it would explain some of my dreams.”

She was quiet a moment. “I’ve done a little research of my own, and I’ll be very interested in what you find, Christian.”

“Research on what?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Okay.” I thought of something. “How is Mr. Witek?”

“Fine. None the worse for wear, although he’s definitely waking up. He still can’t talk, but he seems to be responding more purposefully.”

That would go along with the way my nightmares seemed to have more . . . coherence. They were still fragmented and panicky, still just a collage of sensations and images, but this last one definitely felt as if there was some story there too.

I said, “That’s what I thought.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.”

I could hear her smile. “Touché. Anything else?”

“Yes. What is Mr. Witek’s first name?”

“Uhm ... David.”

Of course. “Okay. Thanks. Uhm, you wouldn’t happen to know if he has any brothers or sisters, would you?”

“Sorry, can’t help you there. All I know is that he’s got no living relatives.”

“Okay. Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome, Christian. See you in a couple hours.”

“She was cool.” I slid into a chair before a computer monitor, typed
Marta Witek
into a couple of the databases. In my dreams or time travels or telepathic contacts—I really didn’t know what they were—Marta seemed a lot older than the little boy, David. If I was remembering right, David’s father had told both of them to stay away from the foundry. So maybe it was worth a shot.

There was nothing in the databases.

I decided to cut to the chase. I tugged a pair of gloves and found the microfiche film spool for the relevant year. I threaded the film onto the machine and then fast-forwarded through the newspaper pages, pausing occasionally as they flickered by to get my bearings. I slowed at October, and it was then that I realized that Winter’s newspaper back then had been a weekly that appeared every Wednesday. So there would be nothing on the exact date in question—October 20, the day Walter Brotz’s body had been found. The Milwaukee newspaper item had appeared the following Tuesday, so I would have to go to the October 24 edition of the Winter paper to find the story.

The story, not surprisingly, was front page news, a screaming headline:

“Holy crap, I found it,” I said to Sarah. She crowded in to read over my shoulder.