Spells for Forgetting(42)

“Can I help you?” Sophie peered up over the stack of papers on her desk. The old woman had worked here for as long as I could remember. She had to be nearing a hundred years old.

“I need to access the city records for a deed,” I answered, keeping my distance from the desk. I didn’t like the feeling of being back beneath that roof and I’d learned to keep a wide berth from the residents of Saoirse.

The moment she recognized me, her silvery eyes narrowed. She didn’t move.

“Just need a copy of the deed to the cottage and I’ll be out of your way, Sophie. Couldn’t find it at the house.”

She rose from her chair slowly, her gaze going to the hallway, as if she was hoping Jake would appear. She was afraid of me. “Don’t want any trouble,” she said.

I lifted my hands into the air. “I’m not going to give you any.”

“Good.” She kept an eye on me, picking up the ring of keys from her desk and shuffling to the wall of file cabinets. Half of them were rusted from the damp air, plastered with peeling handwritten labels. “Four Poplar Drive, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

She searched for the right drawer and pulled it open with the key still dangling from the lock. Her small hands flitted over the manila folders inside, but she paused every few seconds to glance back at me. There was no telling what kind of stories they’d all conjured up over the years. Enough time had passed for them to paint me into whatever they needed. In this case, it was Lily’s killer.

Behind her, the old rotary printing press still looked as if it was in use for the Journal. Abbott Wittich had taken the small weekly newspaper over from his uncle when he was maybe twenty years old, and he’d run it with only Sophie as his receptionist and one or two boys from town who delivered the papers.

Dutch had worked here for an entire year before I’d gotten him the job at the orchard, and I still remembered the ringing and clicking of all the turning brass cylinders and the slide of the paper on the big rolls. Abbott would stand over the massive contraption with a burning clove cigarette in his mouth and the sleeves of his crisp white button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows. It was a wonder the place hadn’t burned to the ground.

“That’s odd,” Sophie murmured, her hand freezing midair before she pulled a folder from the drawer.

“What?”

She set the folder on top of the file cabinet and searched through the tabs again. “It’s not here.”

Her mouth twisted as she closed the drawer. When it was locked, she took the folder from the top and came back to the desk. She placed it in front of me.

The label on the file was printed with a typewriter. 4 Poplar Drive—Salt property. But when I lifted the top of the folder, it was empty.

“Might not have been filed when it was changed into my mom’s name,” I said, thinking aloud.

“No, it was filed.” Sophie set the folder down, pointing to the label. “Did it myself. The orchard, too, when it was signed over to the town after Henry died. But I didn’t see it in there, either,” she thought aloud.

“Can’t you email it to me or something?”

Sophie stared at me, her brow wrinkled. Of course she couldn’t.

“Well, where else could it be?”

“Beats me. You’ll have to order a copy from the county office on the mainland.”

I sighed, letting the folder fall closed. I didn’t have that kind of time. The county offices were in Seattle and it would take an entire day to make the trip on the ferry, get to the records office, and then get back to the island. But the house couldn’t be sold if I didn’t have the deed.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

The door opened and the woman who stepped inside froze, eyes going wide when she saw me. The copper red hair was a dead giveaway. Clara was one of the Hersches’ daughters. She’d been a few years younger than me in school, and from the look on her face, she knew exactly who I was.

“Thanks.” I pushed the folder back across the desk and zipped up my jacket, shouldering past Clara. I could hear their voices before the door had even closed behind me.

Four days and I was no closer to getting this done than when I’d first stepped off the ferry, but I wasn’t leaving Saoirse until every loose end was tied off. Until I was sure I’d never have a reason to come back.

But I should have known the goddamn island wasn’t going to make it that easy.





Twenty-Four


    JAKOB


I glanced up to the calendar on the wall before I scratched the date at the top of the report. James McAlister had been waiting at the door of my office when I climbed out of my truck to report his fishing boat stolen. It was much more likely that the rusted, moments-from-sinking vessel, which hadn’t been seaworthy in years, had sunk in the cove.

The words on the copied form were almost illegible in places, a reminder that the ink needed to be changed. But my eyes were the only ones that would ever see the report anyway.

I signed my name at the bottom and drained the whiskey in my mug. It still smelled of coffee, with a brown ring from yesterday staining the lip, but the sink in the small kitchenette that I shared with the Journal had been clogged for weeks.

The door down the hall scraped and Sophie’s high-pitched voice sounded a moment later, followed by another.