Mary was about to delete the search request when her gaze slipped to the first article, about a farmer in Lancaster County outside of Philly, an Amish man named Eb Stoltzfus. Eb and his friends were reportedly having problems with corn borers. Real helpful. Mary thought a minute. Eb. Ebenezer. She clicked to the next article. Sure enough.
' 'Ebenezer Squeezer' was my favorite song,' said Jillian Cohen, a second grader at Gladwyne Elementary School. 'I liked it the best in the whole recital.'
Mary jolted to alertness. Eb, not Heb? Ebenezer Darnton. Maybe that was the real name of the homeless man. The only way anyone knew his name was that he had told it to the neighbors. Maybe the neighbors were hearing Heb but he was saying Eb. The cops had followed their procedures for identifying him, but Mary had been more thorough herself in her neighborhood survey. She searched EBENEZER DARNTON and pressed GO!
Shit. It was 6:50. Maybe Marta would be late. Maybe Marta would die. Think, girl. If the search is too narrow, broaden the time. Mary hit a key to search all archives from 1950 to present.
What to do? Last try. She typed in EBENEZER and punched GO!
Yes! Mary punched up the first article. It was the police blotter from February 7, 1965. Her heart leapt with hope until she read:
A brown 1964 Oldsmobile was reported to be stolen from a parking lot on Joshua Road in Plymouth Meeting. Ebenezer Sherry of the Plymouth Meeting Police reported that this was the twelfth automobile stolen from township residents this year and feared that auto theft was on the rise, even in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
News flash. Crime spreads to suburbs. Mary sighed and hit a key for the second article. Maybe this was a bonehead idea after all.
Ebenezer Yoachim, 68, died today at Sinai Gardens Convalescent Home. Mr. Yoachim owned the Yoyo Dry Cleaners on Cottman Avenue and until his illness was a baritone in the barbershop quartet called the Troubadours. Mr. Yoachim is survived by his wife, Rachel Newman Yoachim, and his son, Samuel.
Mary felt let down. An obit. Couldn't be Darnton. One story left. She hit the key without enthusiasm. It was from April 12, 1965, and appeared in the business section.
Ebenezer Darning, of Greene Street in Center City, was promoted to teller at the main branch of Girard Bank.
Mary blinked, surprised at the similarity of the names. Darning/Darnton. She sat up straighter and scrolled down the page. Underneath the blurb was a thumbnail photo of a young man with a confident smile and a smooth chin. EBENEZER DARNING, said the caption. The man in the news photo was black, like Darnton. It was surprising. A black man promoted in that era? That was around the time of the Civil Rights Act. Racial discrimination was rampant then. Darning must have had brains and guts.
Mary leaned closer to the computer screen to see the bank teller's face. She couldn't tell what he looked like from the tiny photo, so she moved the computer mouse and clicked the cyber-magnifying glass over the man's face. The photo blossomed into pixelated squares but was still too small. The man's eyes looked closed, as if the shutter had been snapped at just the wrong moment. Mary clicked the mouse button again.
My God. She stared at the enlarged photo on the screen. The sight pressed her back into her desk chair. It was a photo of a young Eb Darning, but she could have been looking at an autopsy photo of Heb Darnton, his eyes sealed in death. Without the beard, there was a clear resemblance around the eyes, a protruding of the brow and a largish nose. It looked like the same man, over thirty years younger. Was Eb Darning the same man as Heb Darnton?
To be sure Mary needed to compare the computer image to the photos of autopsy photos in the file. Had she discovered something significant? Was this related to the evidence the D.A. had uncovered? Could everybody in the world type better than she did? Mary leapt from her desk chair and ran down the hall to the glass conference room.
9
The blizzard intensified as night fell outside the jury room in the Criminal Justice Center, but Ralph Merry was pleased. The jurors were going the right way, which was finding Steere innocent. Ralph believed 100 percent in the Fourth Amendment and argued that Steere was justified in defending himself when he got carjacked. Plus it would made a more upbeat ending for Ralph's book.
The jurors weren't allowed to sign any deals yet, but Ralph's wife, Hilda, had gotten calls from two literary agents in New York, who said several publishing houses were interested in the inside story of the Steere case. That's what publishing companies called themselves—
'The man's guilty!' Kenny was saying. He had lifted himself from his seat and leaned halfway over the table on his strong arms, almost in Christopher Graham's startled face. 'The brother walks up to the car, all the man had to do was drive away. That's it. He didn't have to
'Damn right,' added Lucky Seven.
Christopher regained his composure and squared his broad shoulders as he stood behind his chair. He hadn't had much contact with black people, but he wasn't about to be intimidated by anything weighing less than a ton. 'You can't look at it that way, Kenny. You have to put yourself in Steere's shoes.'
'Fuck that, man. Steere had a SL600. Twelve cylinders! Car like that'll climb trees.'
'Thas' right.' Lucky Seven nodded, though Kenny ignored him.
'If I had a car like that and some crazy old dude come up to me, I'd take off and leave him spinnin'.'
'If
