THREE…
“What is that?” Cleo sliced cold chicken into strips to set on top of their Caesar salad.
“This is the personal journal of a retired teacher by the name of Lois Walsh. Lois Walsh is or maybe was the best friend of Claire’s Aunt Sara. Claire brought this with her for me to read.”
“Do you want white wine or beer to go with our dinner salad?” Cleo pointed to her glass of wine that was already poured. Beside her glass was a chilled box of wine and a case of lite beer. “Why do you have the personal journal belonging to Lois Walsh?”
“Do we have corn muffins or garlic bread to go with the salad?”
“Corn muffins.”
“Beer then.”
Hank picked up a tray of plates and cutlery then followed his wife out of the kitchen patio doors to their screened porch. “Lois Walsh is the missing childhood friend of Claire’s Aunt Sara.”
“Missing oh, so that’s why Claire wanted to meet with you this morning?”
Hank nodded as he poured a can of beer into a chilled glass mug.
Cleo dished up her salad then split a warm corn muffin and began to spread butter on both halves. “If someone Claire knows has gone missing, doesn’t she still have contacts in the FBI? I realize she’s leaving the sheriff’s office, but couldn’t some other police departments help investigate as well?”
“Claire’s Aunt Sara,” Hank placed a generous helping of salad on his plate, “originally did call Claire after filing a formal missing persons’ report. She was worried and thought the local Steamboat sheriff’s office might need assistance, but that was four days before the journal arrived in Aunt Sara’s mailbox.”
Cleo held her wine glass just above her plate. “Okay, so the Steamboat Springs police haven’t seen this journal yet?”
“No, not yet.” Hank stabbed a strip of chicken with a piece of cut romaine lettuce. “And having started to read this journal from the back, I can understand why Claire is being cautious.”
“Claire knows this journal is material evidence. However, as a former FBI agent and one term Estes Park Sheriff - Claire also understands what an aggressive network news producer could turn this journal information into - if it was leaked.”
Cleo’s glass came close to her lips then she put it back on the table beside her plate. “What the hell did Lois Walsh do that a former FBI agent needs the help of a retired history professor instead of her former colleagues?”
Hank washed down a sizable bite of warm corn muffin with a swallow of cold beer. “It’s not so much what she did - as who she did it with that could send politically charged religious shrapnel in a multitude of directions.”
“Not again?” Cleo took a swallow of her wine. “Are you and Claire about to get involved with another potentially controversial secret?”
“If Lois Walsh’s journal is factual there’s no new controversy there’s a huge new scandal.”
“Damn! We just started to get our lives and our privacy back from the fallout of The Count Of Baldpate case.”
………..
Claire’s instincts had merit. A retired history professor could ask the kind of questions to the kind of people necessary, under the pretext of research for a new book.
As a former FBI agent, especially one who had investigated the Baldpate murders, Claire couldn’t ask directions to a bakery without causing media curiosity.
Thanks to Google and Bing, Dr. Rule began preliminary research without leaving his office above the garage.
However, still aware of his own recent brush with media attention and agencies that monitored certain search criteria - he kept his initial curiosity limited to tourist websites.
The Chamber of Commerce website for Steamboat Springs, Colorado had very efficiently listed all local churches. Currently, there were three Catholic Churches in Steamboat Springs.
In 1963 and 1964 when Claire’s Aunt Sara and her friend Lois Walsh were high school seniors there was only one Catholic Church - Saint Martin’s.
Hank found nothing in the county records that listed any information about Saint Martin’s except its tax-exempt status, legal property description with property utility easements, original construction blueprints and some sporadic renovation plans.
Since neither Sara nor Lois had been members of the Catholic Church, Hank went searching for how Lois might have met her mystery-man? Her journal described him as a student, who had left the Air Force. That explained why he was older, but not why he was a student working at St. Martin’s Church in 1963 and 1964.
The local newspaper The Steamboat Pilot had since changed its name to Steamboat Today, but the online archives of earlier years were a treasure chest that promised local, social history.
The weekly society pages detailed events held for all seasons. There were church picnics, school dances and hayrides, community barbeques, business sponsored toboggan and ski races. No matter what happened the local newspaper had covered them all.
After two days of diligent searching Hank noticed that local churches often banded together to offer combined community services. And the basement of St. Martin’s seemed to host the greatest number of events because it was the largest of Steamboat’s churches.
………..
All four of Hank and Cleo’s boys arrived late Sunday afternoon to stay overnight so they could help their parents set up for the annual Labor Day, Monday barbeque.
Every year they set up a long table inside the screened porch that became the best buffet line location for food, to keep insects from becoming part of the menu.
The patio partially shaded by a pergola was staged with coolers of ice and two bar areas, one for nonalcoholic beverages and one for alcoholic beverages. Multiple folding chairs and tables set for four or six guests were scattered beyond the brick patio out on the lawn, but under the shade of mature tree branches.
In past years Cleo’s family had always arrived thirty to forty minutes later than the time requested–except for this year. This year Hank told his family one time then Cleo’s family an earlier gathering time which meant everyone arrived when all the food was ready.
Claire and Ken Gage had been the first nonfamily guests to arrive, but only by a few minutes.
Hank greeted them and then took Claire aside. “When everyone else is settled and busy stuffing their faces, I need to share what I found so far.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
An hour later, host and hostess were able to sit at a table set for four with Claire and Ken. Hank’s wife and the Estes Park guests had full plates, but Hank only sipped a chilled beer.
“Where does a little person like you put all that food?” Ken Gage was truly impressed by the cooked ribs, coleslaw, potato salad and hotdog on Cleo’s plate.
“I have a very steep set of stairs in my store, and it seems I spend a great deal of time retrieving something on the very floor, where I’m not.”
Claire laughed. “She’s not exaggerating Ken. I’ve actually walked up those stairs.”
“Cleo is half my size and she’s always been able to out eat me, but I’m the one who gains weight.” Hank scanned the rest of their table groups of friends and family. “Only our boys could out eat Cleo, but they ate so much growing up we thought we might need to buy a personal fridge for each one of them.”
Cleo rolled a bite of hot dog to one side of her mouth. “You’re not being entirely accurate, you know. You don’t eat as much at one sitting, because you eat all day long.”
Ken shook his head. “I’d forgotten how much I missed the banter between the two of you. Going forward we shouldn’t let so many months pass from now on between visits.”
Claire washed down a portion of her potato salad with a swallow of lemonade. “Ken hasn’t read any of it, but he knows about the journal Hank, as I’m sure Cleo does. Do you think you found something helpful?”
Hank nodded, “I hope so. You might get your Aunt Sara to check the local Steamboat newspaper. From their archives there could be more photos transferred to old microfiche, or other digitized articles.”
“Online, I was only able to find information for a couple of early historical, local social events. But for one special Steamboat founding anniversary in the 1960s there was a gathering of local Girl Guide members who hosted a school play to raise money for a statue.”
“In the photograph was the mayor, your Aunt Sara, Lois Walsh, their Girl Guide leader, the priest of St. Martin’s Church and a young church deacon, named Simon Telford.”
“Telford wasn’t listed in any Steamboat church, civic or county records as staff because he was a transitional deacon. He was studying for the priesthood. I believe he might be the student Lois described in her journal.”
“When I checked Air Force records there was a Simon J. T. Gardner, the right age who was in Colorado Springs. He trained then worked as a radar specialist from spring 1958 to the summer of 1963 and was honorably discharged.”
“I can’t get access to any Catholic Church records, either online or by phone or even by appointment in person through the Denver Diocese. So far, I found nothing beyond that early social community page from the Steamboat newspaper.”
Hank rubbed a hand across his short salt and pepper black curly hair that was becoming more salt. “I typed Simon Telford into Google and Bing, but got nothing.”
“I even called the Denver Post to see if a journalist contact I knew could get me a list of graduating Catholic priests from 1963 to 1973. He told me I could do that myself, but that any petition for information must be submitted in the form of a written request with a detailed explanation. The Catholic Church is extremely private especially given the decades of accusations they’ve had to sort through and explain.”
Claire grinned. “Well, the Catholic Church isn’t completely protected from the FBI. And with a name, some journal pages and Lois’s missing person’s report I might be able to pry open something in the DC office. When Margaret Hawkins was transferred from Paris–she was not only promoted she was appointed to head up an FBI Division in DC.”
**[Sequel to: “The Count Of Baldpate”]
Author website: www.patchworkpublishing.com