The monitoring of Michelle McKinney continued even though she didn’t do anything suspicious for the next few days. There was no way to be sure she still had the journal; it was possible she’d passed it along to someone else when Ronnie was off-duty. Either way, Missus McKinney didn’t leave her office at all for the next few days. Ronnie wished, more than anything else, that she had one of those spy toys she saw advertised on TV that she could sneak into her target’s office.
Nothing interesting happened until Wednesday. Ronnie followed the alderwoman’s car on her bike to, of all places, the little restaurant that Adam Monroe ate at every weekday. Hiding in the bushes, she saw Michelle McKinney sit down at the same table as the landlord and start talking like old friends. Ronnie listened, but the words gold, paintings, and journal never came up once. From what she could see, they certainly looked tense, but Amaranth Jones and the Kidnapped Penguin had taught her what “confirmation bias” was and how it could lead detectives to getting hooked on a “red herring.”
She was back on the bench outside of Town Hall the next day, staring glumly at the building. There were no more leads on the gold, the stuff about the painter had gone nowhere, and Ronnie hated having to wash and fold all these disguises by herself when her parents were gone. This wasn’t a fun adventure at all!
The public park was visible from where she sat, yet it was so far away. She could see kids playing and strangers having picnics in the summer sun. A group of girls passed by on the nearby sidewalk, Cindy Moss among them. The hair on the back of Ronnie’s neck stood up, but none of them noticed her where she sat. She was honestly bored enough to consider hanging out with them (even if they were gross girls and not cool skater girls) if not for the fact that they would see through her disguise immediately.
Why was she even out here? Ronnie could have spent her whole summer at home reading like she’d initially planned. As fun as it was to go around in disguise and pretend to be a clever detective, what was the point if all she did was spend tailing someone she couldn’t even prove knew anything about the gold? What was the point of being Ronnie Black if she wasn’t having any fun while doing it?
She stood up and chased down the passing group of girls. They were walking away and couldn’t see her, and as she got close, Ronnie slowed to a stop. Her heart was hammering in her chest, sweat was forming on her brow. Ronnie shook her head–Enough of that!–and said, “Hey!”
In addition to Cindy Moss and Naomi Turlington, the group also had Drew Fox, June Choi, and Rosa Langton. Nolan didn’t know any of these girls very well, so Ronnie didn’t have any difficulty pretending not to know any of them. They were a little confused when anyone would visit Larson, South Carolina for their summer vacation, family or no family, but otherwise believed her story.
“June and I go to the same church,” Rosa said. “We met in Sunday School. You’d be more than welcome to come one week.”
“Thank you, but I’m going to church with my family and cousin while I’m here, actually.”
“Ah, cool.”
They made their way to a small ice cream shop. Around other guys, Nolan would normally get mint chocolate chip or something just to avoid the anxiety of asking for pink ice cream in front of a bunch of boys. Ronnie was free to get two whole scoops of a strawberry cone before sitting down.
“You’ve all been friends for a long time?”
“Me and Naomi live next door to each other,” Drew said. “And then I became friends with June in third grade.”
Naomi added, “I met Cindy through Girl Scouts. We just kind of gravitated together, like magnets, I think.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Ronnie said. She took a bite of her ice cream. “What kind of stuff do you like to do together?”
“Sometimes, someone’s mom will drive us to the movie theater. There’s not a lot to do in town.”
June said, “Me, Naomi, and Rosa were on a girls soccer team last fall. We really want to do it again this year.”
“That sounds cool.”
“You can… Oh, right. You’re just visiting.”
Ronnie nodded. She would rather be inside reading, of course, but it sounded like fun to have a bunch of friends you could play soccer with. No point in thinking too hard about it. Ronnie wasn’t a real person, just a character for Nolan to play.
That evening, after dinner, Nolan sat down to read, but it was hard to get into the book while thoughts of hanging out with the girls ran circles in his head. Even though Ronnie wasn’t real, the other girls had accepted her without question. That had felt pretty good. Really good, even. Nolan didn’t realize that one could have that much fun just talking with a bunch of ordinary, uncool girls.
He’d been aware of how little he really knew about any of the girls in his school year, but it was another thing entirely to actually be confronted with the fact as though he were a complete stranger. Surely, Nolan had noticed them hanging out together at school? Yet there was so much about their relationship to each other that he couldn’t learn by observing secondhand.
Nolan closed the book.
Even if he knew for sure that Michelle McKinney and Adam Monroe were friends, they probably knew other people too! The journalist and recordkeeper might not have been involved in the conspiracy, but why would the TV report know for sure who was? There were probably co-conspirators whom Ronnie had completely overlooked in her research!
All he needed was one person who looked a little suspicious. That might be enough to track down a new lead.
The next day, Ronnie marched back to the library and sat down at her trusty computer once again. It didn’t seem particularly happy to have her back; if anything, it was even slower than it used to be. What other causes was Michelle McKinney championing, and who did that affect? What other properties was Adam Monroe interested in? They were mentioned in other papers with other names here and there, but the smoking gun was the front page of an edition from five years ago.
“Flower Shop Opens on Historical Main” read the headline above a photo of her two suspects and several other people from the TV report. More names from her research jumped out at her from the caption below the photo, but her focus was on the elderly lady in the center–the oldest person in the photo–being handed an oversized key by Adam Monroe.
“Elizabeth Fabel is a lifelong resident of Larson, SC,” the article read. “Since she was a little girl, it has always been her dream to open a flower shop of her own, but her husband and children always come first. But Larson is known for cherishing its history, and a campaign by local alderwoman Michelle McKinney–”
That was all Ronnie needed to know. It wasn’t the best lead, but it was better than the nothing she had before. Another long walk took her down the hill to Main Street Roses and Blooms, a shop that Nolan would rather die than enter willingly. A small bell jingled when Ronnie stepped inside to be met with a blast of cold air. There were indeed flowers of every kind on the shelves, and turning around a corner, also an old woman trimming a fern behind the checkout counter.
“Oh, hello dear,” Missus Fabel said, adjusting her small glasses. “How can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m looking for information about the town’s history, and people said you might be able to help fill in some details?”
It made her stomach turn to lie to an old lady like this, but if she was in on it…
“Oh, my, it’s been a long time since a young person has been interested in local history. Of course I’ll answer whatever I can, but I’m afraid my memory isn’t quite what it used to be. You understand.”
Ronnie nodded, flitting through potential questions in her head. She couldn’t ask about the gold directly; that would just make Missus Fabel suspicious. It would have to come up organically (a word and technique she’d learned from Amaranth Jones and the UFOs!) if it did at all.
“How old are you, exactly?”
“Why, I celebrated my sixty-seventh birthday in February. Easy to lose track, though. Feels like the world is changing more and more with every new year.”
“People are trying hard to keep Larson from changing, though.”
“It’s good to see the next generation taking care of what they’ve inherited.” She smiled fondly. “It was always a concern of my father’s that all the effort they spent getting this nation back on track after the war would go unappreciated. Maybe in the city, but not here.”
“Back on track? I know that the town had a big revival around that time, when the name was changed. How did that happen?”
“It was good work by hard-working men. The steel mill brought in so many jobs, the people rallied around their free speech and fought to protect themselves from the state trying to take away control. I see the news sometimes, and it makes my heart ache to think how much this town of ours sometimes feels like the last refuge for the American Dream.”
“Was it just the steel mill? That shut down, but the town didn’t die out. Where else did the money come from?”
“Hard-working Americans, that’s who.”
Ronnie had to suppress a groan.
She asked, “Do you remember the town being renamed to Larson from Earnest?”
“No, that was before my time, but it was–”
The bell rang again, and the elderly lady looked away from Ronnie to say, “Hello, Michelle. What brings you here?”
Ronnie’s heart stopped and froze cold in her chest. She spun around, but wasn’t tall enough to see over the shelves herself. That meant Missus McKinney hadn’t seen her yet. As the footsteps got closer, Ronnie excused herself and walked behind a nearby shelf to listen in.
“We need to talk. That so-called documentary has people asking around about that stupid Indian gold rumor. We’re trying to clamp down on it before it gets out of hand, but if more people start snooping, someone is going to find out about Graham and ask more pointed questions. The last thing we need is a real network hearing about a controversy and poking their noses where they don’t belong.”
“Slow down, Michelle. What’s going on?”
“George and I are going to schedule to have the paintings destroyed–”
“Michelle!”
“I know how you feel, Elizabeth, but it’s important. You need to start making arrangements to sell the shop. We might just have to bulldoze the block. Any trace of the connection–”
“Michelle McKinney, I will not be ordered around like this in my own shop. As for that slanderous painter, he may have been a troublemaker trying to discredit the good men who saved this town, but those paintings are still an important part of our history, as is this building. It is your history, too, and you will respect that fact in my presence.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Missus McKinney mumbled. “I said what I came to say. We’re moving forward with or without you.”
She stormed out of the shop, door clanging shut behind her. Time seemed to still for a moment while Ronnie’s mind whirred. If she stayed, Missus Fabel would probably stop talking to her once it became clear what Ronnie’s goal was. Michelle McKinney, however, was frustrated and likely to let something slip. All Ronnie would need to do was run home, grab her notes, and corner the alderwoman.
Ronnie ran out the door and took off toward home.
I'm not sure if it quite makes sense, but I want Keith Graham to be Michelle McKinney's deadname
Anyway, things are indeed heating up!
Color me surprised that they actually are moving to cover things up now. I honestly thought Ronnie's perception of time pressure was just her being a kid that's too into detective stories.
Thanks for the chapter can’t wait for the next one!