Jeff Sherratt - The Brimstone Murders

“Hi, Sol. My name is Cathy Rogers. I own the paper.” The lovely woman reached across the counter and offered her hand to Sol.

I beat Sol to the outstretched hand and shook it. “Hi, Cathy,” I said, “maybe you can help us. We are looking for a girl by the name of Jane Simon-”

Sol jumped in. “Miss Rogers, what my young friend here wants to know is do you have an employee by the name of Jane? Simon could be her last name. She’s a dark-haired teenager who might be working here. We have reason to believe she may be in some trouble.”

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t hire teens. My husband, Tom, and I run the paper and…” At the mention of a husband, I deflated a little. “Wait, what did you say her name was?” Cathy paused. “A dark-haired girl? Did you say Jane Simon? My God , fair skin and deep blue eyes?”

My pulse raced. “Yes, yes, that’s her! Do you know the girl? How can we find her?”

“No, it can’t be. No… I’m sorry, gentlemen, I know of no one by that name. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Cathy started to turn away.

Sol leaned on the counter. “Wait a minute, my dear. Couldn’t you help us, please? The young girl is in serious trouble, and we’re here to see what we can do for her, that’s all,” he said with tenderness in his voice, a gentleness he rarely displayed.

Cathy turned away from us. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a muffled whimper. Was she crying?

“Cathy, we’re sorry, we didn’t mean to upset you.”

A man with tousled sandy hair standing next to a clanking printing press in the back of the shop looked our way. He paused for a few seconds before he walked cautiously toward Cathy. His eyes pinned Sol and me as he approached. When he got close, he studied Cathy’s face. “What’s the matter, honey? Are these guys bothering you?” He gave us a puzzled look.

Cathy raised her head. “No, no, Tom. It’s not that. It’s about Jane. Something they said reminded me of her, that’s all.”

Tom wrapped a loving arm around Cathy’s shoulder and his eyes shifted first to Sol and then to me.

“Did you gentlemen know Jane?”

The ten-year-old headline in bold,black type screamed at me: Air Force Man Kills Wife, Daughter, Self. I started to shake. But it wasn’t the headline that shook me. It was the picture below it-a man, a woman, and a little girl posed in the shade of a plain stucco house.

I bolted out of my chair and pointed at the picture. “That’s her. Same dark hair, eyes, and my God , the girl I met has a striking resemblance to the mother in the newspaper photo.”

Sol and I sat with Cathy and Tom in their modest office at the rear of the print shop. Cathy’s antique roll-top dominated the room, but there was a small work table in the center, and we all sat there staring at the ten-year-old edition of The Barstow Sun spread out on top of the table. After we’d told them why we came, explaining about my meeting with the teenage girl who called herself Jane, and after I showed them the scrap of paper from the waitress, Tom had dug out the old edition from their archives, a closet next to the restroom.

He calmly explained that the photo printed below the headline had been taken a few months before the tragic murder-suicide. But I was almost positive that the small girl standing next to her mother and father was the same girl I’d met, the same Jane Simon. The girl in the photograph was a pint-sized version of the teenager.

“Impossible,” Tom said. “She’s been dead for ten years now.”

Cathy’s hands were on the table, folded tight in front of her. “I saw her body and went to her funeral,” she said to no one in particular.

“Are you sure, Jimmy, absolutely sure that’s the girl you met behind the building?” Sol asked. “That’s an old picture. The girl’s just a kid.”

“Sol, I think so. I couldn’t swear in court.” I studied the newspaper photo. “But Jane, the girl from the cafe, told me about her father killing her mother. She was very convincing. I don’t think she was lying.”

“Look, Jimmy, you met someone, a dark-haired girl, sure. But the story about the murder and suicide was in the papers, anyone could’ve-”

“Sol,” I said. “It has to be her. It’s the same girl. Too many things match up. The family resemblance, everything else. Besides, why would a dead girl try to convince someone she was alive?”

Sol shook his head. “Irish logic?”

“You know what I mean.” I pointed at the picture again. “I’m convinced. That’s the girl I met. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s her.”

Tom and Cathy listened to our exchange without saying a word.

Sol and I fell silent for a moment.

Cathy moved her hand and partially covered her mouth. “It can’t be. It just can’t be. I can’t believe she’s alive.”

Tom added in a quiet voice, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Although I was now convinced the teenager I’d seen in the cafe and met later behind the Harvey House was the same girl who was supposedly killed ten years ago, I still had no idea what all of this had to do with Robbie Farris’ escape and his mother’s murder.

The four of us sat looking at one another not knowing exactly what to say. Cathy started talking, telling us about Jane Simon. She explained her involvement with the little girl, and why she’d lost it out in the front office. We sat silently and listened to her story.

“When I was a teenager myself,” Cathy said, “I babysat for the Simons, and naturally Jane and I became close, almost like I was a big sister to her. As she grew older, she had a difficult time adjusting to her parents’ constant bickering and arguing. Her father was an officer in the Air Force. They had a house here in town, but he was assigned to the old military base at Rattlesnake Lake. It’s closed now. They closed the base shortly after the shooting.”

Cathy paused to gain her composure-or maybe to gather her thoughts. She glanced at her husband, Tom. He nodded silently, and she continued. “Most days, Jane’s father stayed out at the base, but when he came home, there was hell to pay. Jane couldn’t handle it. When her parents started fighting, she’d call and ask if she could come and stay with me. Well, of course, I always said yes.”

She stood and walked slowly to her roll top desk. “On the night of the shooting, Jane had called, and when she did…” Cathy spun around. Her eyes were filled with dread. “I told her she couldn’t come over… I had a date.”

The implication was obvious. Cathy still held strong feelings of guilt. Jane would still be alive, if only…

I now believed that Jane hadn’t been murdered that horrible night, but Cathy had agonized about the girl’s death for ten years and she wasn’t about to accept the word of a stranger who said the girl was alive and living at a teen drug center right here in Barstow.

“Do you happen to know a kid named Robbie Farris?” I tossed out the question not just to change the subject, but on the slim chance that they might know something that would tie him to Jane’s appearance. As expected, neither Cathy nor Tom had heard of him.

“How about the drug center? Do you folks know where it could be located, or anything about it?” Sol asked.

They both shook their heads, and unlike the people in the cafe, Tom and Cathy seemed sincere when they disavowed knowledge of the center.

“Is there an old school or maybe a campground that could have been converted?” I asked.

I drew blank stares. Tom said, “Jimmy, again, nothing like that comes to mind. But the Mormons and the Catholic Church over on Mountain View. Both have teen recreation centers. No kids live in either place, at least that I’m aware of.”