Dead in a Flash by Brynn Bonner

Author:Brynn Bonner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

nine

ON THE WAY TO OUR lunch date with Sheriff “Big Jim” Ogdon’s granddaughter, Esme was optimistic we were about to find out something so compelling it’d wrap this up and we could write a report and be done with it.

“Weren’t you the one telling me never to say a thing like that just a few short days ago?” I asked, wagging my finger at her.

“Yes, and I meant it—still do. But after talking with Nancy Collier on the phone, I expect we’ll be able to learn a lot from her. She tells me she’s been bustin’ to tell somebody what she knows for years and never could get anybody to listen. She’s tried to contact Senator Stan several times over the years but she always got a polite note from a staff person saying thanks, but no thanks, for her interest.”

“How solid do you think her information is?” I asked.

Esme shrugged. “I don’t imagine it’d hold up in court, if that’s what you’re asking. And her information is secondhand. But it may be enough for our purposes. We’ll see.”

“I’ve been thinking about what Denny said about how different things would’ve been back then as far as investigative tools and techniques. And fire investigation, too. It really was a different time. Nineteen forty-seven,” I said, and Esme rolled her eyes.

When we do our scrapbooks, I always do an intro page to set the context for the political and social culture of the times. Doing that for so many years had embedded historical tidbits in my brain, and at the mention of a date, they sometimes come spewing forth.

“Nineteen forty-seven,” I repeated, more firmly. “An average house went for sixty-six hundred dollars, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the average salary was below three thousand dollars a year, it was a lot. And a postage stamp was only three cents, so people wrote a lot of letters, which is very good for us. Let’s see, grocery prices? Bread was around thirteen cents a loaf, tomato soup, twelve cents a can. Throw in a little sliced cheese and a pat of butter and you could have a nice soup and grilled cheese for under half a dollar.”

“Yes, but as you say, let’s look at the value of the dollar back then,” Esme said. “What was it worth in today’s dollars? Five bucks?”

I did some mental calculations. “Closer to eleven,” I said.

“So, not such a cheap meal after all. Now do tell, what else was happening back in nineteen forty-seven?”

I knew she was being cheeky. Esme isn’t particularly enchanted by these little eruptions of factoids, but I ignored her and went on. “Germany was getting divided, Israel was getting created, and here at home, according to some very interesting folks, we had our first UFO land at Roswell. Oh, and The Howdy Doody Show premiered. You think maybe there was a connection?”

Esme laughed, despite herself. “Could be,” she allowed.

“Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, the first instant camera was presented to

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