“Assuming he’s still alive, where would he hang out? What did he like to do?”
“Apart from give me a hard time, I don’t really know. I usually only ever saw him at the salvage yard.” Cyril and I had understood each other on some elemental level. We’d never had the need for the usual small talk—we just got right to the heart of whatever it was we wanted to discuss—and as a result, I didn’t know much about his past. All I knew was that he had once been a miner in Western Pennsylvania before he ended up in Millbury.
“He went to the auction once in a while, and he liked to fix things, but I don’t know of any other hobbies. I never saw him at the grocery store, although I suppose he had to go there sometime. I never saw him on the streets of Millbury or Sheepville, either. He didn’t have a washer and dryer, though, so he must have gone to the Laundromat now and then.”
“How about the pub? I’ll check there.” She waved a hand at me. “You can do all those other boring places.”
* * *
Early on Sunday morning, I made my usual pilgrimage to the salvage yard to feed the cat. I hadn’t slept well at all, tossing and turning for hours. Finally, at 5 a.m., I decided it was useless to try anymore and I slipped out of bed, not wanting to disturb Joe. I drank several cups of coffee while I tackled the fiendishly difficult New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, cursing editor Will Shortz even as I admired him, and waiting for daylight.
As I poured kibble into his bowl, the little black cat rubbed his way around my ankles.
“You don’t seem overly concerned,” I said to him, yawning. “You think he’s coming back, too, don’t you?”
I listened to the sound of dry cat food crunching.
“See yon lantern?”
My heart skipped. I could almost hear Cyril’s voice echo in the kitchen, and I looked over to where he had been pointing that day he’d told me a smidgeon about his past. A battered black iron and brass lantern stood on a shelf over the doorway into the living room.
“That’s a miner’s lamp. I keep it there to remind me of all that I went through to get to this place. How lucky I am to be done with that kind of life.”
I sucked in a breath. Cyril had worshipped Martha, and told me he’d never been happier. To a loner and an outsider like him, she represented a warm, happy home. Something he’d never had.
And yes, he was a tad resistant to her busy social calendar, but he still went to everything with her, didn’t he? He could have refused, could have stayed in his trailer. But he didn’t. He loved her so much that he suffered through those swanky occasions just to be with her.
There was no way that he’d disappeared of his own accord.
I said good-bye to the cat, hurried up the lane from the junkyard, got changed, and headed for church.
Our little community church was situated not far from Glory Farm, surrounded by open fields with an ancient graveyard in the back. It looked like an old-time picture postcard, painted white, with its bright red door and bell steeple, where bells rang every hour on the dot. We were so far out in the sticks and buried in the past that we still had live bell ringers instead of automated electric ones.
When I arrived, I was surprised to see Eleanor standing outside.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I’ve never really seen you at church, unless it’s for a wedding or a funeral.”
“I’m here for moral support.” She nodded to where Martha, dressed completely in black and wearing an enormous black hat with black netting, was making her way over to us.
“Oh, dear,” I said.