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OLD GORGE ROAD
A KENTBURY MYSTERY
By Cheryl Nugent iUniverse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Cheryl Nugent
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-2125-4
CHAPTER 1
It was cool for August. Gaffer White hugged a ragged jacket to his wiry arms as he carried the day's bounty up the steep climb to the cottage. A day working for Mrs. Newberry meant two or three days worth of groceries and, to top it off, the lady gave him a ride to Old Gorge Road where he now negotiated the narrow path through the woods to his home.
The music made by the birds and insects dwelling there was wasted on Gaffer. He took no pleasure in hearing the rhythm of water rushing over the rocks, splashing and falling into streams and pools on its way to Lake Raynard. The powerful beauty of the place did not give him pause or engender joy. The animals that shared the woodland with him were not his friends. The white tail deer, the raccoons, skunks, muskrat, beaver and squirrels; the snakes, turtles, toads and frogs were just there, like the trees. Gaffer did not trap or hunt; the creatures were not his prey. He missed the opportunity to interact with nature. He did not consider himself part of it. He did not consider himself part of anything. No one ever pointed out a beautiful flower to Gaffer, read him a story, asked his opinion or sought his advice.
The old stone cottage where he made his home was borrowed, which is to say, Gaffer moved in after a fire, never paid rent and no one ever tried to kick him out. Uninhabitable, the fire chief declared, and so it was thought until Gaffer moved in. The two top rooms were unusable and the roof was damaged in the front, but a makeshift tarp kept most of the rain out. The kitchen and two extra rooms downstairs were more than enough for the short, skinny man most folks considered simple-minded. Built into a hill, the fieldstone walls of the sad house made it cool in the summer and, with a kerosene heater, not too bad in winter. The owners of the 1840 cottage were city folks who never bothered Gaffer, which suited him admirably. He never wondered why. He did not know that the owner's son drowned in the ocean and the boy's mother lost her mind, the father killed himself and the part of their estate that was a little cottage off Old Gorge Road was stored in files at a lawyer's office in New York City.
The fire conveniently occurred about the time Gaffer's mother passed away, almost sixteen years ago. The Great Depression was on then. His choices, as far as he could see it, were to take to the road and live the life of a hobo, or find some permanent arrangement in the town where he was born and raised. The fire gave opportunity, something rare in Gaffer's life.
Gaffer scavenged the dump, mowed lawns, did odd jobs as they came along, happy to exchange his labors for a good meal, old clothes, or anything else someone could part with that made them feel charitable. His daily concerns were food and listening to his radio.
Gaffer missed his mother when she died. She was simple-minded too, or so folks said. When she became pregnant, sometime early into the century, everyone thought it was a disgrace, they even thought, but would never actually say—rape. When Weird Aggie, (the name most folks knew her by), gave birth to a sickly baby boy, they expected he would die; "for the best," folks said. But somehow Aggie managed and the baby lived. With uncommon kindness for the time, Aggie's employers let her stay on, baby and all. For the first six years of his life, Aggie called him Baby, which then became Bobby when some effort was made to send him to school. School was a disaster. At fourteen Bobby found work for himself. He dug graves, dug ditches, tarred roofs, carried bricks on house sites and someone gave him the name Gaffer. He was often the brunt of a crude joke, but since he never knew exactly what a joke was anyway, it provided little fun for his tormentors.
Right after Aggie died, people came around to offer their help, but since they didn't know what to do and Gaffer didn't either, the do-gooders went away. That was at Mrs. Logan's. He hated that house. He liked the big house where he lived for so long. But the people there died and lawyer people came and made Aggie and her son move to Mrs. Logan's.
Gaffer accepted his lonely existence, and friends were people who said hello or gave him a ride home from work. The women were usually nicer than the men. Gaffer never knew a woman, in the biblical sense, but he did see sex of sorts performed once when his fellow workers insisted he accompany them to the back of Bugler's Tavern. The act made no lasting impression. It did not stay in the boy's mind to provide dreams, fantasy or desire.
Thunder clouds were gathering; the summer light was fading. The trail to the cottage grew darker as the woods became thicker. Gaffer never wondered why he couldn't see as well as he used to or why his bones ached in cold weather.
No papers encumbered his life but, only two days ago, there was a real letter that came when he was at the Romano's. The man who delivered it wasn't anyone Gaffer knew and he called Gaffer "Mr. White." He talked about papers somewhere, but Gaffer didn't understand most of it. He wanted to do his job and he wanted the man to go away. He put the letter in his pocket but it was almost forgotten until he remembered there was money in the letter, so he kept it close, and when he showed it to one of the few people who were nice to him, they read it for a long time and said he shouldn't tell anyone, and maybe it was even a joke. He didn't think it was a joke. Maybe he would show it to Mr. Newberry since he was very smart, but for now he'd keep it all; the money could buy a new blanket, maybe a warmer coat and he'd hide the rest.
Gaffer might have wondered how the man found him or knew who he was, but Gaffer rarely wondered about anything. He never wondered about his birthday, who his father might have been or what it would be like to drive a car. He didn't wonder about the people he saw in the summer who came to The Gorge and Lake Raynard, thrilled by the intense beauty and primitive magic of the place. Trespassers might have bothered him if they found their way to his remote dwelling, but he never imagined it and could never imagine what he might do if such a trespass ever occurred. Local boys used to come to the cottage sometimes, yelling things at him, but that had not happened in years.
He could smell the cheddar Mrs. Newberry put in his bag. His imagining this summer night reached as far as a cheese sandwich. A movement caught his eye as he neared the broken steps by the front door. It was not like an animal movement but what else could it be? Hunger overcame fear. The smell of cheese spurred him on. A hearty sandwich beckoned.
Pain. The heavy stick that whacked him on the head drew blood. Blood was running in his eyes. The groceries scattered as Gaffer fell to his knees. Dragging. Someone was dragging him into the cottage. Gurgling noises, flaying arms and legs he couldn't move. It hurt. Stop it! They were pulling his pants off. Wrestling with his jacket! Don't, please don't! He could smell the kerosene and feel it soaking his legs. His hand met flesh as it scratched in defense of his life. He saw the person then. He thought he saw his mother. He longed for her. Wonder did enter his mind then and a great, screaming question formed there before it shut down forever.
Why?
CHAPTER 2
Six short years after the end of World War II, the Borough of Kentbury was booming. The town revolved around the Tyler-Sykes Iron and Steel Mill, in place since the 1700's when it made cannonballs for the War of Independence. The mineral-rich hills of the county were mined by early settlers and the Native Americans before them. In the 1850's, the Jersey Central Railroad came to town, ensuring Kentbury's prosperity as an industrial center surrounded by farming communities. The population of 2,500 included the descendants of expected Anglos and Scotch-Irish, as well as the early German and Dutch settlers, the old names dotting the area for generations. But with each wave of immigrants coming into Ellis Island, a few always seemed to find their way to the rolling hills of Hunterdon County and to the Borough of Kentbury, established 1722.
The colonial hamlet had a rich history, most of which was known to the locals and anyone who had passed through the sturdy brick schoolhouse where countless citizens learned the Three Rs from teachers who seemed to be in place forever. An annual Thanksgiving play assured the town's history would not be forgotten when Mrs. Bigley's fifth graders re-enacted eighteenth century events for an enthusiastic audience. The once heavily-forested area was home to the Leni-Lanape, later called Delaware by the Europeans. It was not uncommon to find arrowheads in local woods and fields. The town's founding family, the Kents, still had a home within the town limits, although their estate was reduced from thousands of acres to five, a once-grand house now in disrepair, and an old car no one could drive. The two heirs to the once sizeable fortune were a brother and sister said to be mad, to never wash, to possibly share a bed and to eat any foolish child who might trespass on their land. The ghoulish lore made for little intrusion on the private property, as well as fueling delightfully creepy stories older children could pass on to the younger generation.
Because Kentbury's economy depended more on industry than on farming, the town prospered during wars. The Mill was cited for its contributions in every war America fought in and had its place in history for other things as well, like furnishing power shovels that dug the Panama Canal. The Great Depression hit hard, like everywhere in America, but a year after Hitler rolled into Poland, the President of the steel works, Randolph Tyler, sold several innovative ideas to the War Department, so by the time the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the little town in New Jersey with the old iron and steel mill was out in front of its competitors and among the top producers on the east coast with lucrative government contracts.
Prosperity remained. Returning GIs came to Kentbury to find work and begin a life they fought for, dreamed of and believed in. Some were boys returning home, others were newcomers finding their way to Hunterdon County because of good jobs and affordable housing that began dotting the area on once-rich farmland. Developments they were called, and while they missed being the frenzied assembly-line homes of Levittown, they went up fast, provided construction jobs and more homes for all the new families moving in. There was talk of a four-lane highway going into New York City that would make travel back and forth a quick, one-hour commute. The railroad already had a steady stream of country-to-city commuters who didn't mind the long train ride that allowed them to have the best of both worlds—work with city salaries but the affordable charm and quaintness of the country to call home. Many celebrities had weekend or vacation homes in the area and even though no one would argue that it was, by all standards a "hick town," it offered beauty and clean air, good schools and nice people, safety and predictability. Folks rarely locked their doors. Crime was usually petty theft by several known characters. People talked about murders that happened thirty years earlier, but none in recent memory, and domestic violence was a hushed, behind-closed-doors problem that could, if it got out of hand, involve Kentbury's small police force.
In the spring of 1951, former Marine Sergeant, Terrence Andrew Kramer, began his career in Kentbury as Deputy to Police Chief Ernest Campbell, known either as Chief, which made sense, or Bull, which only made sense to those who christened him with the nickname some fifty years earlier. To his new deputy, he was Chief.
A returning war hero to townsfolk, Terry Kramer preferred to forget the war and his medals and why he was awarded them. The hell that he went through in the Pacific was private, he did not dwell on it, he did not find solace in a bottle like some he knew. The shrapnel in his leg did not remind him to hate, but rather was there to tell him to live. He had won, and he damn well better make the most of the life he had snatched away from the gaping void that swallowed so many of his fellow Marines. Of his original company sent to the Pacific in 1944, he was one of ninety-four survivors. Names and faces, sounds and sometimes smells returned, unbidden, usually in the night, but Terry managed. He knew he was lucky. He was alive. He came back to his hometown, he had a good job that made him want to get up in the morning, and he had a beautiful wife he adored.
The chief's version of coffee greeted Terry with the now-familiar smell of burnt socks. He had two cups of his own brew at home which, thankfully, was all he needed.
"Terry! Morning. Nothing much happening this morning," the chief said, sitting behind the old wooden desk in the large office that had served as Kentbury's police station since 1922. The chief's desk sat near the windows looking out to Main Street. Terry's desk was on the other side, near the bathroom, and down the hall was a door leading to the jail, a two-cell lockup which, happily, rarely had guests. The sturdy, turn-of-the-century building also served as the town hall, with offices upstairs and a small library run by the colorful Dolly Argyle, who took the job over from her mother who had been the town librarian/historian for almost forty years. Tuesdays and Fridays, before she went upstairs to open the library, Dolly brought in a bag of doughnuts for Kentbury's finest. The chief was enjoying one while he talked, letting Terry search the bag for his favorite cinnamon cruller he knew would be there. Both men were trying to give up cigarettes; the chief because his wife was convinced by their doctor that it was aggravating his heart condition, and Terry because Joyce didn't like it and bought him a pipe which she said was much more sophisticated. He was fighting the cigarettes but couldn't take to the pipe.
"Rupert Taggert threw his garbage all over Main Street again last night," the chief said, beginning the day's report to his young deputy. "His son picked it up and promised it wouldn't happen again, but I don't see how he can guarantee that unless he gets his old man to give up the booze. Oh, uh the road boys'll be tarring up on Old Mine Road today. I'll be running over to the county courthouse and I'm gonna grab a bite of lunch with Sheriff Zimmer, so we can meet back here this afternoon," he finished.
Some days were like that, quiet, even boring, but they also had their days of robberies, road accidents, husbands beating up their wives and kids that needed more help than the police could usually offer. Terry preferred the quiet days.
"Oh, yeah," the chief went on, "Ethel Barrow called a few minutes ago saying she saw a fire up in the gorge last night. I suspect she gets a good view from her place, but nobody else has seen anything. Still, it might have been some kids or something, so go have a check on that would ya?" he said.
"Sure enough, Chief," Terry answered.
"That thunder storm last night would've put out a three-alarmer, but you might as well go talk to her and see if she can give you some details. Ethel's old, but she's not silly," the chief said, using one of his favorite compliments.
The amiable police chief and his new deputy were getting on just fine. The fellow before Terry Kramer had been a disaster. Arrogant and self-important, the chief only agreed to take on Leonard Smith to appease some of the Town Council members when his deputy of four years moved to Arizona. This time they wanted a veteran. Leonard was a local boy who had been in the army, and even though Leonard only got as far as Fort Monmouth before the war ended, he came from an old Kentbury family. Small town or not, politics lived here as everywhere else and Leonard got the job. He lasted six months. By the end of his time on the two-man police force, he had alienated almost everyone, including his original mentors. By a strange irony, Leonard moved into Terry Kramer's old deputy job in the next county and rumor had it that he was just as stupid there as he had been in Kentbury. It was a move up for Terry to come back to his hometown, since Chief Campbell was planning to retire in a year or two and the deputy could expect to step into the job. Terry Kramer was a local boy too, a Marine who had seen action in the Pacific, been wounded, had a nice young wife, and didn't feel he had to brag or bully to do his job. People liked him and he was fitting in well.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from OLD GORGE ROAD by Cheryl Nugent. Copyright © 2014 Cheryl Nugent. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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