Free Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself by Seymour Shubin

yet.
    Which lane was this, if either of the two? He couldn’t tell for sure, but soon he began thinking of it as the one where they’d parked the motor home, the seats facing the dune, though at a slight angle. His father was still behind the wheel, his mother in her usual seat next to him, and he in one of the seats behind them, though sometimes he’d sit next to his father, hungering with a teenager’s hunger to be able to take that wheel.
    He thought of the coziness of that motor home, of his bunk along the side and their little room in back with its accordion-like doorway. And how they would all watch TV at night, or read under the lamps or play gin rummy.
    Soon he saw two people, a man and a woman, materialize in the distance on the beach. They wore heavy coats and woolen caps down over their ears in the cold and wind. He hadn’t seen a single person that time they’d been here, and for a few moments he just sat watching them walking closer. And then he came out of it and back into the icy reality that no one must see him. He backed away from the dune fast, then made a U-turn and headed toward the road, the car bumping over the hard ruts. When he came to the road he stopped just long enough to make sure no cars were in sight in either direction. Then he drove to the intersection that led to South Minton.
    He remembered how he had pleaded with his father not to go there, and then how he’d sprawled across the sofa not wanting to be seen through the windows. He hadn’t seen a second’s worth of the town. Now he saw that the turn-off led, after a couple of miles of cottages and woods, to a frozen-looking bay fronted by shops, houses and eateries, quite a few of the places art shops and many with the look of being closed for the winter. He drove through a tangle of streets, some with much larger houses, past a firehouse, then — almost startling him — a small police station, and now what announced itself to be the Municipal Building. He was looking for whatever building might house the Breeze but he couldn’t find it. However, he did find the library, a long low building that still had several strings of Christmas lights dangling, darkened, from the roof.
    He parked at the curb across the street and looked over at it. The enormity of what he hoped to do was becoming overwhelming. How could he, a stranger, go in there and ask for God-knows-how-many old issues without stirring suspicion, without someone asking what’re you looking for, can I help? What would he answer? He’d assumed he could get away with some kind of generality, but that was stupid, stupid.
    Though it seemed as if he’d been thinking about this forever, he had to think it out more, he just couldn’t —
    He pulled away from the curb. He drove slowly, telling himself this was just to give him time to think; but when he came to the street that led back to Route 6, he took it — and drove faster. And once out on the road he almost floored the pedal.
    He could never go into that building. Never!
    But then, about ten miles away, he pulled into an abandoned service station and parked, the motor running.
    He had to think harder. As if he hadn’t all these years! As if he hadn’t gone back and forth in his head a million times — do this, don’t do that, you must find out, but why? — you must, but you didn’t kill her, yet you’ve got to know!
    He tried to focus on what had finally come together to bring him here.
    One was another call, about month ago, from Elsa Tomlinson. “Alan, I hate to rush you, but can you start next week? The week after at the latest? It’s very important, I need you here.”
    He hadn’t even told his firm yet he would be leaving.
    The second was a message on his answering machine. From Anna. It was a simple one:
    “I’m going to sleep, honey, but I just want to say I miss you.”
    He stood there, staring at the machine. There was nothing special about the message, but it made him feel hollowed out. They’d