Detective Roger Levvy, who has been working on the Fields mystery for months, would not discuss it. Miss Cianfarra could not be reached, keeping herself imprisoned at home.

Where the message came from and what it conveyed to Miss Cianfarra could not be learned. When inquiry was made of her neighbors and fellow members of the suffrage auxiliary, it was admitted that no one had read the message in person. Miss Cianfarra was in communication last week either with Mrs. Fields or someone acquainted with the woman. This word came as the result of the personal advertisement Miss Cianfarra inserted in the Pittsburg newspaper.

The message Miss Cianfarra got is said to have told the whereabouts of Mrs. Fields. If she did not actually send it herself, then the understanding here is it was sent by a close friend who has known the secret of Mrs. Fields’ disappearance.

It is no longer doubted that Miss Cianfarra can solve the Alvera Fields mystery. It is fully expected that within a few days she will disappear to join the vanished wife and mother.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Felicity

The restaurant Oliver dragged me to after Debra dropped me off at home was bustling with pandemic-weary customers desperate for a slice of normalcy, yet I felt so alone. Although my dinner was cooked to perfection, I pushed the prime rib across the ceramic dish, through its juices, while my stomach churned with nausea. At the table next to us a teenage boy, with a mop of blond hair and a face that matched Kurt Cobain’s, strummed his air guitar to music pumping through his earbuds while his poodle-haired mother and shar-pei-faced father were glued to their cell phones. Oliver sat across from me expectantly, watching me with eyes that had dulled to a blue-gray that coordinated with the dying sky outside my window.

“Not hungry?” he asked.

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find my appetite again. The river roiled at the bottom of the hill that fell beneath the quaint eatery. Pennsylvania burned in the fall. Fiery trees lit the land ablaze, while a milky fog curled above the water in tendrils. I thought of Sydney and how the chill of autumn kissed her chubby cheeks with rosy lip-prints. Would those cheeks still be here for me to smother with kisses a month from now? A year? Ten years, when she would be too old to accept my smothering kisses?

“If we hurry,” Oliver continued, and I realized I had missed a whole conversation somewhere in there, “there’s a production of Steel Magnolias being staged at the theatre. I called earlier today and they still have a few open seats. What do you think? It’s been forever since we’ve seen a play.”