Aspen Allegations - A Sutton Massachusetts Mystery

Chapter 25

I pulled into the small parking lot at the back side of the Sutton town hall, my tires making gentle creases in the light layer of newly fallen snow. Winter was finally starting to arrive. Soon there would be a semi-permanent layer of white on the ground through February. Sometimes the snow would reach two feet deep or more and at other times there might be patches of grass showing through. But if we had a traditional winter there would always be some white around to add a glistening sparkle to the day.

The town hall's rear was on the lower end of a slope, so while the front of the building, on the opposite side, featured an elegant series of marble steps, I was down on the basement level. To the right were some garages for town trucks, and the General Rufus Putnam Hall, a.k.a. Sutton historical museum, was also alongside the parking area. It was closed up tight now, only open on certain days, but I knew well what was within that 1800s two-story building. It held a wealth of civil war items, historic farm tools, apple presses, and much more.

I moved forward toward the small door of the library. Glass panes on either side let me see into the narrow lobby which opened up into a small room. To the left were four shelves of children's books, while the right held perhaps six of adult material. The traditional check-out counter was straight ahead.

There was not a customer in sight.

I held a special, fond place in my heart for libraries. My father had worked in a library. My stepmother and one of my best friends had been librarians. Perhaps it was telling that they had all retired. It seemed that news stories kept talking about how libraries were shutting down, how web research was taking over library visits, and how people were turning to ebooks instead of physical books. It was over a year ago, in May 2011, when Amazon announced that their ebook sales had surpassed their physical book sales. And that trend seemed to only be continuing.

I myself was a part of the change. Certainly I had an appreciation for physical books. I had eight full bookcases of books in my home, everything from classic literature to science fiction to modern novels. But in terms of buying new material, I had reached my physical limit. I was buying on my Kindle. Not only was it instant, it wasn't adding to the clutter.

The elderly woman behind the counter had tight, mist-grey curls and wore a fawn-brown dress over her slim figure. Her eyes brightened with delight as I approached her. Her voice creaked with age, but held genuine warmth.

"Welcome, how can I help you?"

I snugged my notepad against my side. "I am looking into a drowning that happened back in 1968 at Lake Singletary," I explained. "Do you have the old newspapers on microfiche?"

She put a slim hand in front of her mouth to hide the laugh that began to erupt. "I'm afraid that machine was hauled away years ago," she explained. "We used to maintain a database subscription with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, to look through their archives but then they began to price that far out of our range. I suppose they had to find some way to stay afloat."

Discouragement settled over me. "Do you have any sort of archives then?"

She waved a hand. "Over there ..."

I turned and saw the section. "Thank you very much," I said. "I can figure it out, I'm sure."

I moved to the shelf, took down a pile of likely material, and brought it over to the low table. It certainly was a different experience than Googling material and having it flash by in neat order. I read through a wealth of unrelated items, flipping through page after page to look for a glimpse of what I sought.

Finally, I came across something that caught my eye. It was a special interest piece on the history of Marion's Camp. The land was first purchased by Mrs. Harry Goddard in 1928, just ten years before the 1938 drowning. Mrs. Goddard had set up the area as a camp for the Camp Fire Council, naming her project after her daughter, Marion.

The camp was enjoyed by thousands of children over the years, but at last the Goddard family decided to sell it. The Town of Sutton stepped forward in 1989, buying it for public use and turning the camp into the town beach.

I thought about the people living and working at the camp, knowing that the lake they treated as a playground had also hosted a number of tragic events.

There – a mention of the name Adam had brought up. Mrs. Beatrice Moggle. Apparently her mother had worked at the camp when it first opened, and Beatrice had grown up there, taking over from her mother in turn. She had been a fixture at the camp, handling cleaning and light maintenance tasks. Several of the articles on the camp seemed to use her for filler quotes about the camp's history and traditions.

I flipped through some more pages. Yes, there was a note of her passing, in the early seventies, and how many locals had fond memories of her quirky behavior.

I sighed. It hadn't been much of a lead, in any case. The newspaper reporters hadn't even thought to mention her vague thoughts in the write-ups they had made of the drowning.

I replaced the material on the shelves, gave a wave to the librarian, then headed back out into the snowy day. It seemed I was drifting further from a solution with every step I took.