Barry Jones' Cold Dinner. John Schlarbaum
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remember, we close at eight tonight.”
Just then a boy about seven came over to the table and asked Linda for help finding a book on beetles.
“I’ll be right there, Christopher,” she said as the boy wandered back to the children’s corner. “As for you, Mr. Cassidy, is there something I can help you find - or are you still regrouping?”
“I think my group has been re-established, thank you. And please call me Steve. Only my enemies call me Mr. Cassidy and I don’t think you fit into that category.”
“Okay, Steve,” she said sarcastically. “What brings you here today?”
“Telephone books actually. Local ones for the past eight years.”
“I was expecting something a little more challenging,” she replied with a laugh, “but maybe you’re just testing me. In any case, the books you require are on the reference shelf against that wall.”
“Thanks,” I said, returning her smile.
“Just doing my job.”
I watched as Linda made her way over to the beetle boy and knew instinctively that she would someday be a candidate for Mother of the Year. Unlike me, she radiated love and patience for kids and their thousand and one rapid fire questions. Not that I don’t like children, I do. Just as long as they aren’t mine, of course.
My mind drifted back to my meeting with Maria and I wondered if she had any children. Angry with myself for the lost opportunity to find out, I stood quickly and dashed the thought out of my head, trying hard to concentrate on the task at hand.
The phone books were slim, which wasn’t surprising as the ten or so communities represented had populations ranging from 266 to 2540 - excluding the City of Kelsey Lake listings.
I started with the 1989 directory and quickly located a listing for “Barry Jones” of 15 Duke Drive in the Town of Delta section. I wrote the information in a small police notebook (one of many I’d kept after leaving Vice), and continued to look in the telephone books for the following seven years. Each one contained the same listing, name, address, and number. Apparently, the soon-to-be widow had never called the phone company to request a name change. It also indicated that Mrs. Jones and her two children continued to reside in the same house which Mr. Jones had left on March 20, 1990, never to be seen or heard from again.
Was there anything sinister with the grieving wife’s actions, or in this case, inaction?
Probably not, I concluded, but thought it was curious nevertheless. Just because I couldn’t stand the idea of living alone in my house after my parents had died only months apart, didn’t mean Mrs. Jones should feel the same way. Besides, unlike my Mom and Dad who were planted in the ground, Mrs. Jones fully expected her hubby to waltz back in the front door at anytime.
Still the idea seemed macabre.
I closed the current phone book but then reopened it. For the next several minutes I read line by line each of the Town of Delta’s listings. With each discarded name, my spirits fell. There were no listings for Maria Antonio, or M. Antonio, or for that matter, any other surnames with the name Maria preceding it.
“Are you looking for my number?” Linda asked as she took a seat beside me.
She had again seemingly materialized without warning, catching me off guard.
“Actually . . .,” I began to stutter - nervous for reasons I couldn’t explain.
“I’ll save you time,” she said pointing to a listing in the open book.
“L. Brooks? You’re married?” I looked at her ring finger and found it bare.
“Was married,” she replied happily. “The best - and worst - six months of my life.”
“But you’re what - nineteen?”
Linda blushed ever so slightly. “You transplanted city guys know how to load on the charm, don’t you?” I just stared back at her. “I’m twenty-two,” she finally said. “That’s plenty of time to screw up one’s life, at least temporarily.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
“What - make me feel good about myself?” I returned her broad smile. “Why don’t we just drop this topic, okay? Cause I’ve always been told that you’re only as old as you feel.”
“I guess I would agree with that,” I said.
“So if I’m twenty-two, that makes you . . .”
“Fifty-four.” It was my turn to catch her off guard. “Well,” I began to qualify my answer, “physically I’m only thirty-one, but I feel like a fifty-four year old.”
“And how would you know what a fifty-four year old feels like?” Linda scoffed light-heartedly.
“I used to date much older woman,” I deadpanned.
“With lines like that I don’t suppose many women your age would find you interesting,” she replied with a smile that quickly turned into an uncontrollable laugh.
I concede it was a funnier line than mine. What I thought was even more humorous though, was that twice within the past hour two perfect strangers had correctly identified that my love life was in need of repair.
Was I really that transparent?
“So are you glad to be back home?” Linda asked in a gentle tone, when our mutual laughter died down.
I thought about it for a moment.
“After a rough start, it’s definitely turning out to be better than I’d hoped.” A short time later, I left the community centre feeling somewhat rejuvenated. Not only had I met a beautiful intelligent woman, who had never once alluded to my very noticeable facial scar, but she had invited me to her apartment the following evening for dinner.
Now if only the Jones file could be resolved so effortlessly.
I debated what I should do next. The thought of driving past the empty lot where my house once stood depressed me. I then toyed with the idea of finding Linda’s apartment building to decide if I should spring for a bottle of wine or a six-pack for our little get together. (I quickly came to the conclusion that a nice chardonnay would go great with her infectious smile.) I even dismissed the notion of touring past the Jones place for a look-see - at least for now.
Although it was still relatively early, I went back to the village’s only motor inn to go over the case file again. A few hours later however, I was awakened by a car horn honking outside of my window. I then glanced at the pile of papers sprawled across the bed, ones that I’d been reviewing when the need for a siesta overcame me. I straightened out the documents I’d slept on and picked up a few more strays off the floor. As I put them back in the folder, I hoped I hadn’t lost any.
Not that it would matter a great deal. The case was simple enough: On March 20, 1990, at 8:15 a.m., 45 year old Barry Jones - after kissing his wife goodbye and telling his two boys to behave in school - walked out the front door of his residence, entered his brown Buick and then drove off the face of this wondrous green planet. Or so it would seem.
Now seven long years later, Mrs. Jones was petitioning the courts to declare her chronically absentee husband legally dead, at which point the Global Insurance Company would have to pay out Barry Jones’ life insurance claim.
Terence McCormick, Global’s chief adjuster, had assured me that in most disappearance cases the company went along with the local police department’s reports and settled very quickly. But when the policy was for $750,000 and taken out by Mr. Jones only three months prior to pulling a Houdini, the company (as one would imagine) needed to confirm if the initial investigation had been run by Elliot Ness or Barney Fife.
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