Read Online The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders by Mignon F. Ballard - Free Book Online Page B

on hold long enough to point out the small room where back issues were kept on microfilm, and Augusta, fascinated by the whole procedure, hovered over my shoulder as I scanned several weeks of news. “Imagine getting all that information on that little piece of film!” she said as the pages rolled past. I didn’t bother to explain that technology had developed an even more advanced technique used by most contemporary publishers.
    Rachel Isaacs’s murder took up most of the front page of the October 5 issue that year. Londus Clack had discovered the girl’s submerged body caught on debris just beneath the surface of the water as he trimmed the tall grass around the lake. She had been stunned or knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, then apparently was shoved into the water to drown.
    â€œâ€˜The victim could have stood if she had been able, as the water was only about four feet deep in the spot where she was found,’” Augusta read aloud. “That poor girl! What a cruel thing to do!” She sank onto the chair next to mine, her gray-green eyes filled with the horror of it.
    â€œThey just left her there—left her to drown,” I said. Even though the girl had been killed several years before, reading the article made the tragedy seem fresh and new. “Who would do such a thing?”
    â€œThat’s what we want to find out.” Augusta nodded toward the screen in front of us. “Let’s see what else it says.”
    Like D. C. Hunter, Rachel was fully dressed in shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers, and her roommate said she had gone to the Old Lake to jog. The weapon used to strike the girl was never found, I read, but a coroner’s report didn’t rule out the possibility it might have been a stout stick later camouflaged by others of its kind in the lake’s murky waters.
    Rachel Isaacs’s smiling photograph looked out at us from the front page of The Messenger . It was made the week before her death, the article said, for a college annual she would never see. She was a freshman and looked it: pretty, heart-shaped face, bright smile, short dark hair that appeared to be naturally curly. And the expression in her eyes gave the impression she had just heard a really good joke and couldn’t wait to tell it.
    Friends planned to dedicate a sundial in her memory in the campus garden, I read, and the girl’s roommate was so distraught she was under a doctor’s care.
    Augusta shook her head. “It seems as if she had absolutely nothing in common with D. C. Hunter, yet the two were killed near the same place at approximately the same time of year.”
    â€œThere has to be some kind of mad reasoning behind all this,” I said, “but I can’t imagine what it might be.”
    â€œThe article doesn’t mention the Isaacs girl receiving any kind of note or letter,” Augusta said, scanning the story again. She glanced at the office across the hall. “Do you suppose the editor might remember anything about it, or has she not been with the paper that long?”
    Josie Kiker had been editor of the tiny weekly for over twenty years, and it didn’t look as if her desk had been cleared since she’d started. When I poked my head in the doorway she looked up from her computer and stretched, shoving a mop of gray-streaked red hair from her forehead. “Did you bring me a scoop or you just out slumming?” With a sudden kick, she sent a straight chair sliding in my direction. “Have a seat. I need a break anyway—back’s rebelling.” Josie pushed up her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “What can I do for you?”
    I told her what I had overheard the policeman say about D. C. Hunter supposedly receiving some kind of mysterious letter. “Just like that other girl got.”
    She reached for a pot of what looked like liquid coal that simmered on top of the filing cabinet.