The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 10 - A Summertime Mystery

Friday night was very subdued in the Abernathy house that week. With Matt out on his date and Zackary spending the night with a friend, Greg and Susan spent time with Jessie while anticipating a busy weekend. They shopped for things for the new house on both Saturday, following services at the local synagogue for Greg, and Sunday, after church services for the rest of the family, gradually whittling down the number things their contractors needed them to select. Before any of them knew it, it was Monday again and everyone except Jessie and Zack had to work.

Tuesday however started out a bit differently.

"Where's Mom going?" Matt asked curiously when Susan left the house right after breakfast on that morning instead going directly up the attic to work as she usually did on most days.

"She has an errand to run," Greg said vaguely. "I think she may be going to visit Richard and Marion again before she comes home."

"Over in Malibu?" Matt asked curiously.

"I think so, why?" Greg asked the boy.

Matt shrugged. "Do you think now would be a good time to look at Max's book? You know, while Mom's gone?"

Greg looked at him curiously. "Would you like to?"

"Yeah. I read the letters while you and Mom were gone last Friday. It sounded like Max was about my age when Rosalie wrote him the first one," Matt remarked.

"Did it?" Greg asked in surprise.

"Yeah," Matt told him.

"What else could you make out from what she wrote?" he asked curiously.

"That he was probably in high school, had a girlfriend, read a lot, and lived in New York," Matt said.

"Yes, he did. I don't think he stayed there much beyond high school though," Greg told him.

"Oh yeah? How do you know that?"

"He relates his journey to California as beginning in Boston at the beginning of the book," Greg related. "From the way he wrote, I got the impression he was living there. Shall I show you?"

"If it's okay," Matt said eagerly, and at Greg's invitation he followed him up to the attic so they could look at the book together.

Greg withdrew Maxwell's book from his desk drawer as he sat down and showed Matt the first few pages it contained.

"You see here?" Greg pointed out a particular passage on one pages near the front of the book.

Matt leaned over to read the cramped handwriting. "Yeah, I see what you mean. This talks about a moving company to ship stuff from Boston to New York. That does make it sound like he started from there," he agreed. "Maybe his parents lived in New York so that's why he sent his stuff there."

"That would make sense if he intended to come back," Greg agreed.

"I wonder if he did," Matt said.

"There is no way to know what happened to Max after the slide," Greg commented.

"Yeah, I guess," Matt agreed.

Then he flipped forward a few pages and came to a whole list of names. Actually there were several such lists at the front part of the book. "Who were these guys?" he asked as he studied them.

"Associates of his, I would presume," Greg told him.

"Yeah, but why do they all have the same last name? Or the same two last names," Matt amended. "They're all called Tabor or Ashby."

"For the names in this particular list, that is true. It could be that these men were all family. But there are also these," Greg pointed out.

The list of names two pages forward was much more random, though both looked like contact lists.