the years many of the bindings had loosened. Most were missing corners; here and there whole sheets were torn in half. The Home News had, in those days, been a weekly, with few issues more than eight pages long, but it was obviously the only source of local news; Gilead had never had a paper of its own.
Carol watched as Freirs turned the pages. What struck her immediately about the stories she saw was their violence; rather than the sedate era she'd imagined, the newspapers conjured up an age of lawlessness, freak accidents, and sudden death. A local dentist, speeding from Flemington to Sergeantsville, had injured his best friend in an auto crash and had promptly committed suicide: Arrested as Drunken Driver, said the headline, He Goes to Office and Inhales Laughing Gas. A man in Pennsylvania had been shot down by a fellow hunter in an argument over a deer. A Baptistown man had been stung to death by bees.
Other news was more frivolous and bespoke a happier time. A convention of dance teachers in Atlantic City had proclaimed the end of jitterbug ('People are tired of the jumping dances such as the Shag, Big Apple, and other athletic steps,' explained one), and railroads still ran everywhere: a special train had been initiated, running from Flemington to the New York World's Fair, whose admission price had just been raised to fifty cents. A New Haven Railroad ad suggested Sleep on the Train – Wake Up Refreshed in Maine. Clearly some conveniences had vanished since then.
It took them nearly half an hour to work through the 1937 volume and the subsequent one before they came upon the article Freirs sought, in the issue of August 3, 1939. It had been an otherwise happy summer week, the populace keeping busy with a round of local fairs, auctions, and church socials. The weekend's weather had been hot; temperatures had run to 96 degrees during the day, 81 at night. The moon had been full. Amid the welter of other news the report of the murder near Gilead – Slain Girl's Body Found in Woods – would have gone virtually unnoticed if the two of them hadn't been looking for it.
The article was a brief one; no doubt many of the details had been suppressed. The girl, one Annelise Heidler, twenty, had been reported missing on the evening of July 31 by her father, a prominent Flemington attorney. Two days later a party of deer hunters had discovered her corpse suspended from a tree in the woods outside Gilead. It had been partially burned and bore markings 'of an obscene nature' made with black grease. 'Although police refused to speculate,' the article added, 'elderly residents of the town have opined that the perpetrator or perpetrators may have been imitating a similar crime committed on July 31,1890, in the same location.'
Freirs' eyes widened. 'Jesus,' he said, turning to Carol, 'it seems the murder had a precedent.'
'Somehow that makes it even more horrible.'
He nodded, not really listening. 'Let's see what the paper said.' Replacing the volume, he searched for the one marked 1890.
'There it is,' said Carol. She pointed to an upper shelf. Freirs had to reach for the book on tiptoe and tug to pull it out.
It was well that, this time, they knew the exact date of the article they sought,. because finding it in this early volume would have been difficult. The Home News had changed greatly in the intervening half century, and the version they were looking at now contained far fewer photographs; the typeface was smaller, the front page more cluttered, and the headlines, true to the practice of the day, maintained an almost enigmatic reserve: A Fatal Argument, The Closing of a Brewery, Unfortunate Accident in High Bridge.
Freirs leafed quickly through the book, watching the county's history pass in review. Mills had been erected; people had made fortunes in the railroad; a Baptistown farmer had set a state record with a squash that weighed 118 pounds.
He came across the article he wanted in the first issue of August. The county then had been suffering an unusually hot summer. The week's average temperature, the paper said, was 98 degrees in the shade. Ads recommended Hood's Sarsaparilla as 'an excellent remedy for summer weakness during the oppressive, muggy weather of the dog days.' A West Portal boy had gone blind from picking strawberries in the hot sun; eleven celebrants at the Hunterdon County Harvest Festival – 'the biggest gala in the history of the county' – had had to be treated for heat prostration.
The article in question was a relatively brief one, crowded out by optimistic pieces on the fair. Tragedy Revealed, it said.
Gilead, August 2. – Authorities here report the death of Lucina Reid, 16, daughter of Jared Reid of this town. She had been missing since the evening of July 31. Her body was discovered by searchers in the section of outlying woods popularly known as McKinney's Neck, the full moon aiding them in their task. Positive identification of the body was difficult, abominations having been practiced upon it, though further reports indicate that death was due to strangulation. Authorities are searching She heard Freirs catch his breath. For some reason, she didn't know why, she felt her own heart pound a little harder as she read the passage again.
Authorities are searching for Absolom Troet, 22, of the same town, believed to be the last to see Miss Reid alive.
For Freirs, it was like seeing a familiar face in the middle of a nightmare: it made the nightmare worse. So here the trail ends, he thought. The evil led back to Absolom Troet, the boy with the devil in him. Freirs recalled the blank space on the tombstone and, even in the heat of the library, felt a shudder.
'This is the guy who set fire to the farmhouse that used to be on the Poroths' land,' he said to Carol, knowing there was too much to explain. 'He was some kind of distant ancestor of Sarr's, and when he was a little kid he killed his whole family, burned 'em in their sleep. And now it seems he must have gone right on murdering.'
'God!' said Carol, shaking her head. 'I thought things like that only happened today.'
There was nothing about the crime in the following week's paper, but two weeks later a brief notice appeared to the effect that Absolom Troet, 'wanted in connection with the killing of a Gilead girl,' was still missing. 'Authorities have been unable to locate him,' the notice said. 'It is believed he has taken his own life.' There was no further mention of the crime.
'Well,' Freirs said, 'there's just one more item to search for.' Shoving the book back onto the shelf, he withdrew one still earlier, marked 1877.
It was a curious sensation, looking through these volumes in reverse. Time was running backward, and Hunterdon County grew younger. New Jersey, he saw, had been a rather wild place in '77; he read of cattle rustling, stable fires, and hunting accidents. A Milford boy had died in February from the attack of a 'mad bull,' another from the bite of a snake. In Flemington in March one Deto Turo, described as 'an Italian bootblack,' had stabbed three men in a bar. In June a Moses Rehmeyer, four years old, had fallen down a cistern and drowned, and a man had been sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment for horse stealing. One of the lead stories in July, Died from Drinking Too Much Milk, told of a cook 'employed on Gen. Schwenck's large dairy farm' who'd drunk herself to death after having become, in the words of the article, Very fond of fresh milk.' He wondered what the temperance crowd had made of that.
There were dozens of reports of fires – civilization in those days seemed to have been one colossal tinderbox – but it wasn't until he saw the notice Tragic Fire in Gilead, near the end of the volume, that he knew he'd found what he'd been searching for.
'Here it is,' he said.
The report was a brief one, buried near the bottom of the page.
Gilead, Nov. 1. – The farm of Isaiah Troet, 38, was the scene of a terrible tragedy last night when sparks from a wood stove apparently ignited combustible material in the kitchen. Eight of the family are believed to have perished in the conflagration that destroyed their home. Among the dead were Troet, his wife Hanna, and six children, all of whom were apparently asleep when the fire broke out. The volunteer fire brigade arrived too late to save the unfortunate family. Authorities from Annandale and Lebanon picked through the charred remains this morning and attributed the fire to 'an act of God.' The only survivor, nine-year-old Absolom Troet, had been outside at the time of the blaze, attending to a sick calf in the barn. Authorities say the boy will live with relatives.
'Can't we go now, Jeremy?' whispered Carol. 'This tiny print's beginning to give me a headache. Or maybe it's just thinking about all those poor people.'
'Sure,' said Freirs. 'Sorry for taking so long.' He slipped the book back on the shelf and wiped the dust of the old paper from his hands.
He thought about Absolom Troet all the way back to the farm. And he kept wiping his hands.
Sarr and Deborah were in the house when we got back. They were all fired up amp; full of the Holy Spirit; even when I was out here in this room, I could hear them clattering through the kitchen, humming little snatches of
