LITMIR.BIZ

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isn’t crazy about Martha. She’s sweet to her in the condescending manner well-off people reserve for those who aren’t their financial equals. Madison might not be a tall, willowy blonde, but she’s a much more serious student than Sterling Seabright.

      “Well, go on up. You know where she keeps her stuff.”

      Sterling’s bedroom is furnished with a canopy bed, ruffled curtains and a shelf of basketball trophies and horse show ribbons. Displayed on the walls are her oil paintings, but they’re not in the same class as Eddie Breyer’s.

      On a shelf is a photo of Her Majesty and Cody Kipke riding a float as last year’s Pumpkin Festival Royalty. The room is a far cry from the one Madison shares with her little brother Toby, who keeps a garter snake in an aquarium and throws his dirty socks in the corner.

      Madison slides her hand between the mattress and box springs, but it’s too obvious a hiding place for something as important as a diary. Next she goes through the chest of drawers, feeling beneath the soft cashmere sweaters and silky slips. Nothing. She rifles the dressing table drawer. Once again she comes up empty. Where do you hide something you don’t want anyone to find? She’d never leave it in her locker, so it has to be here.

      “Did you find what you’re looking for?” Martha calls up the staircase.

      “Yes, I’ll be right down,” she says, opening the closet door and running a hand over the shelf above the bar. She flips through the hangers and sees the plastic garment bag where Sterling keeps her new lavender gown. There’s something hard and rectangular in the bottom. She slides down the zipper as quietly as she can.

      “Madison, dear? You’re holding up the show.”

      “I’m coming Mrs. Seabright.”

      Madison reaches inside the garment bag and pulls out a book. It’s the diary Sterling mentioned back in the summer when they were friends. When she pulls the zipper back up, the metal teeth catch in the delicate chiffon. Mrs. Seabright calls her name again so there’s no time to deal with it. As she passes the dressing table she sweeps a bottle of perfume into her hobo bag, grabs the Social Studies book from the bed stand and skips down the stairs.

      “Have a safe trip to the lake, Mrs. Seabright,” she calls on her way out the back door.

      Martha watches from the kitchen window as Madison pedals toward the gate. She can’t shake the notion that the Buckley girl is up to something. She tries to be a fair-minded Christian woman, but the Buckley’s are simply not up to Seabright standards.

      The car is ready to go, waxed and buffed to a mirror shine, the white walls spotless. It’s going to be a lovely drive, the breeze blowing through the gold and scarlet treetops, the big car purring over the road like a contented cat.

      “Come on Martha, let’s go,” calls Russ.

      “One minute. I want to make sure I have everything.”

      “We wouldn’t want to forget the kitchen sink,” he says cheerfully.

      Martha goes up the stairs and looks around her daughter’s room. The jewelry box is locked and in its proper place. There’s the usual clutter of perfume bottles, lipstick tubes and fingernail polish on the dressing table and the clothes are arranged neatly in the closet. Still she senses a subtle change in the order of things.

      Madison flies back over the bridge. She can’t wait to get home and open the diary. Sterling has secrets and Madison is going to find out what they are.

      * * * *

      Saturday basketball practice is held in the park above the river. Cody trots across the withered grass to the court, a slight limp reflecting the persistent pain in his groin. A cold wind blows up from the river, the team taking turns at the free throw line. Coach Breyer pulls Cody off to the side. He has an engaging personality, a pleasant round face, unruly auburn curls and a genuine interest in motivating his team both athletically and scholastically. He seems more like a big brother than an authority figure… just one of the guys.

      “The limp is getting worse, my man,” says Coach. “What did the doctor say?”

      “Not much. He made me go to a specialist in Waupaca.”

      “What kind of specialist?” It’s a delicate subject. Coach means well, but he asks too many questions.

      “A urologist. I thought it was a pulled muscle, but I guess it’s something else.”

      “What kind of something else? He’s not going to sideline you is he?”

      “I won’t know until the lab results are in. In the meantime, I’m being reassigned to the library. No sports of any kind.”

      “Okay, okay. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. I’d hate to lose my star player is all. Have you heard anything else from the girl?”

      “Not yet.”

      “It’s probably nothing then. I wouldn’t stress on it.”

      “That’s what I’m thinking.”

      “I’m always here for you, Cody. Believe it or not, I was once a teenager myself.” Coach gives him a comradely clap on the shoulder. “Now, go back home and get off your feet.”

      Cody walks away with mixed emotions. He likes Coach, but wishes he hadn’t confided in him. Some things are best kept to one’s self.

      * * * *

      With Mike at the wheel we rattle across the Little Papoose River into Abundance and pull into the Stop and Go. If it weren’t for the bubble-top water tower you’d hardly know the town was here. The business district is two blocks long with several for rent signs in the windows, the result of a dwindling population and a crippled economy. Young people move to the city, the elderly line up for orchestra seats at the local cemetery and rock bottom prices at Walmart in New London lure customers away from local shops.

      Abundance is small enough that everyone knows who gets DWI’s or qualifies for Food Stamps and big enough to have a right side and a wrong side of the tracks. On the right side are big, Victorian houses with giant shade trees and on the wrong side is the trailer court, the dump and Buba’s Biker Bar.

      Tammy tells Mike that she’ll pick up the triplets at daycare and bring home a couple frozen pizzas for dinner. I watch him set chocolate milk and a bag of potato chips on the counter. In the last hour his face has become uncharacteristically red and blotchy. I chalk it up to a stressful morning and a cold wind. I buy a bag of cheese curds, a sack of dry dog food and two scratch-offs.

      When we arrive at the station Mike goes to work on his report. No calls have come in about a missing girl. The dog lies down beside my desk and I start looking through the year books while Frack is sent to break up a dispute at the trailer park over ownership of a 20 year old automobile sitting on blocks.

      Sherry Mendiola, our civilian dispatcher, swivels her chair in my direction. She’s cute and perky with a head of bouncy honey-colored curls. “What is that big brown thing on the floor?” she says. “When he snores he sounds like my husband Henry.”

      “For now he’s Fargo,” I say, naming him after my favorite movie. I tell her how he stood vigil over the dead girl.

      “If you find out who the dog belongs to, it might lead to the girl’s identity,” she says.

      “That’s what I was thinking. I’ll start by showing him to the crowd at Gladys’s tonight.”

      I spend the next half hour scouring the yearbooks for a photo of our victim. Wisconsin is full of natural blondes, evidenced by the ethnic groups that settled its towns: Scandinavia, Rhinelander, Berlin, Demark and two Germantowns. In Abundance there’s a sizeable Danish and German population.

      I check the yearbook photos against the ones on my camera-phone and see no matches among last year’s graduating seniors. This year’s book won’t be out until the end of the year. Finally, a girl on last year’s junior basketball

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