Letters to Hank

Chapter Seven

"So you're going to help me find them," Rose said as she buckled into the passenger seat of Scout's truck. "You're in it for good? No quitting? No panicking when we meet strangers?"

Rolling his eyes, Scout shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. The vehicle roared to life, a dark cloud of exhaust erupting from behind. "I can't let you have all the fun." He smirked. "I also want you to stop obsessing over this. The sooner we find Hank and Hazel, the sooner you can get back to a regular sleep schedule."

Though Scout was dead serious, Rose laughed. "The last thing you need to be worrying about is how much sleep I get. This is my last summer break before I start college. Let me stay up until two o'clock in the morning, would you?"

As Scout arrived at an intersection, he slowed at a red light and stared at Rose. "Where are we going?"

Rose opened her map app and typed in an address. "Turn right."

Obeying each of her directions, Scout drove for nearly an hour before pulling into a cemetery. "I hope she's here," he muttered as he pulled into a parking spot. "Do you even know where she's buried?"

Rose tugged out a piece of neatly folded paper from the shoebox and read the tiny words. "I think so. We should be close. The obituary says she should be right over here." She pointed off to her right.

Scout climbed out of the truck and met her at the hood. "It's not at all weird to be finding a grave that belongs to someone you never knew?"

"From Hank's grave, I found that he was a husband and a father. Maybe I can find something from Hazel's."

"How is a grave going to help you solve this little mystery?" Scout barred his arms over his chest and squinted at the graves that lined the rolling fields of headstones.

Rose shrugged and slipped the paper back into the box. She planted her feet on the graying, cracked asphalt and stared at Scout. "Unlike someone I know, I'm choosing to be optimistic." She started in the direction of Hazel's grave. Peering over her shoulder, she grinned. "You said you wouldn't back out."

"I did not," he objected. Nevertheless, he followed Rose and matched her stride. "I said—"

"You said that the sooner we find them, the sooner this will be over." Rose eyed the graves carefully, reading each name carefully and noting the dates. Finally, she stopped. Her heart slowing, she spoke to Scout without looking at him. "I think we still have some looking to do."

Hazel Ruth Gordon Kroyer

January 16, 1908—May 29, 1986

No more, no less. Rose closed her eyes, her high hopes disappearing like chaff in the breeze. She sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair and left her hand at the tip of her spine. "I'd hoped for something more."

Scout stepped beside her, his hands in his pockets. "This guy beside her has the same last name."

Rose dropped her arm and her breath caught in her throat. Beside Hazel's granite grave was another stone with a name that half-matched hers.

Alfred James Kroyer

August 22, 1904—December 24, 1979

"Her husband, probably," Scout murmured. "Does that tell you anything?"

"Alfred James Kroyer." Rose gnawed at her thumbnail before pulling out her notebook and jotting the name down. "It gives me another person to look up."

"Can I see the postcards?"

Rose, without a second thought, handed Scout the box as she read over all the notes she had taken. He carefully read a postcard from Salzburg, Germany, with his eyes squinted.

Heat waves here and no air conditioning anywhere.

Dear Hank,

We saw where The Sound of Music was filmed. Saw a few old churches and fountains. We had a good German guide with a thick accent. The schnitzel here is amazing. All so old and wonderful. We'll go by bus tomorrow to Vienna.

I hope you're OK. Don't forget your medications.

Love, Hazel

"He was on some sort of medication." Scout glanced up at Rose as she studied the graves and copied the names.

"What makes you say that?"

"Have you even read these?"

"Of course I have. Some are just harder to read than others. Hazel's handwriting is different in each letter."

Scout stood quietly for a moment. "Something isn't lining up."

"Well, duh." Rose snorted as she took the box back from Scout. "Why do you think I'm trying to solve this? Nothing lines up."

"Rose, have you thought that maybe you don't have the right people?" Scout shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulder slumped.

"I've got to. Their address is the same. And, in the picture, Hazel is right next to Hank. I've got them, I just have to find them."

"Well you found them," Scout said, motioning to the grave.

Rose stared at him, her lips weighed down with gravity. "I need answers, Scout. You've got to help me."

"I'm trying to think realistically. Maybe there's another Hank Gordon out there. Maybe—"

"Scout, please." She could feel him backing away again, doubting her abilities and losing faith in the mystery. She wanted to pull him from the pessimism though she knew it was impossible. "I have the right people, you have to believe me."

Scout gentled when he saw her distress. "Have you tried a phonebook?"

Rose stood stiffly. "No."

"Maybe you ought to look there." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and began walking toward the truck. "The library should have one. Maybe you can find Hank's wife or something."

***

"Heidi," Rose whispered, her finger pressed against the faded page of the phonebook. The library was nearly empty as she and Scout sat in a corner booth, books sprawled across the table between them. "Hank's daughter is named Heidi."

Scout looked up from his phone. "What?"

"She lives over in Virginia."

"Lives?"

Rose's heart pounded in her chest. She pulled out her notebook and jotted down the name. "Yes, lives. Says here she was born in 1939."

"So she was still a kid when he died?"

"Yes." Rose clicked her pen cap on and off, on and off. Someone shushed her from across the room though she failed to notice. "We've got to go meet her. She could have all the answers we need."

"Or she could be an old woman that doesn't want to talk to a teenager that won't stop clicking her pen."

Aware of her tick, she set the pen down and folded her hands neatly in her lap. "You said you'd help me. I'm not letting you back out of this. Not now, at least."

Scout closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. "Rose—" He didn't know what to say or how to justify the sick feeling bubbling in his stomach.

Rose quickly copied Heidi's address in her notebook and shoved it in her backpack. "Are you free next week?"