Chapter 14 of 18Some Accounts

The archive key felt like a small, cold pebble in Father Bert’s palm, slick with his own nervousness. He fumbled it, dropping it on the linoleum with a clatter. It spun under a bookshelf, coming to rest near a stack of old hymn books.

Dorothy Mercier knelt to retrieve it, her knees creaking a soft protest. “Oh, for the love of Pete,” she murmured, pushing herself back upright. “Getting down is easy enough. The getting up part is where the trouble starts.” She handed the key back. “Well, Father,” she added, “it seems even the saints need a good system for their paperwork.” She didn’t mention the fan tucked into her waistband, ready for the heat that would bloom inside her without warning. It was a Tuesday, the last day of September, and a north wind was pushing lake-effect clouds across the bay.

Father Bert, 74, gave a small, apologetic cough. His bald head gleamed under the single fluorescent light in the St. Hubert’s parish archive room. “Indeed, Dorothy. A system.” He chuckled faintly. “Or perhaps less enthusiasm for the past.” He gestured to the rows of boxes. “As you can see, this is not exactly the Vatican Secret Archives. More like a forgotten closet.”

“You keep everything, then?” Dot asked, scanning the shelves. Funeral programs bound with twine, taped parish-history interviews from the early nineties. “Everything that makes its way here,” Father Bert confirmed. “What are you hoping to find?” “I’m after photos, Father. The parish’s photo book from that year. Kermiss, 1989.”

He waved vaguely toward a shelf. “Kermiss photos, you say? Might be over there, by the communion records.” “A specific year,” Dot clarified. “1989.” “Ah. Yes. Someone donated a whole album of Kermiss pictures a few years back. Not quite up to the standard of your mother’s Belgian pie, I remember.” Dot’s stomach tightened. A small ache. “I’m sure it wasn’t.” She found a thick, green-bound book labeled, in careful cursive, “St. Hubert’s Parish Activities, 1980-1995.” She pulled it out, thick with dust. Inside, photos were glued onto heavy cardstock pages, dates neatly handwritten beneath them. She flipped through years of booyah kettles and sack races, past the mid-eighties farm crisis when faces looked thinner, until she found the page for “Kermiss 1989.”

The page held several prints. A large, square photo of the booyah cooks, another of children on ponies, and a wider shot of the pie tables. Her eyes stopped on the pie table photo. The arrangement looked wrong. The corners of the print were raised, not flat against the page. It had been remounted. And where one corner of the photo of the pie tables should have been, there was a gap. A faint glue outline, a lighter shade of faded cardstock where something had once been. The exact size, she realized, of the trimmed NOV-89 print she’d found in the Wagon Wheel’s album, the one now in her kitchen drawer. It was an absence, a negative proof.

“This page, Father,” Dot said, tracing the faint outline with a fingertip. “It looks like a photo has been removed.” Father Bert leaned in, peering through his bifocals. “Removed, you say?” His hand went to the back of his neck, rubbing slowly. “Yes. See here?” Dot pointed. “A distinct outline. It was glued here, once.” “Ah. Well. Things get misplaced over the years.” He shrugged. “Happens, you know. Sometimes photos are borrowed for family histories, not always returned.” He straightened up, his eyes meeting hers briefly before darting away. “Some accounts, Dorothy, the Lord audits. Not us.” “So the parish doesn’t keep a record of what’s borrowed?” Dot asked. “Well. Not always a formal one, no.”

Dot filed the gap, and the sentence. She closed the book. “Well. Thank you for your time, Father. I appreciate the access.” “Of course, Dorothy. Always.” Father Bert nodded, relief evident in his posture.

On her way out, the church bake sale table still had a few items. A woman with a kind smile stood behind it. “Cherry or apple Belgian pie today?” the woman asked. “Just $3.50 a slice.” “Cherry, please,” Dot said. “Looks delicious.” The woman wrapped the slice in wax paper. “Baked this morning. From Peg.” “Well. Tell Peg she does fine work.” Dot handed over a five-dollar bill. It felt like an exit fee.

Back at the farmhouse on County K, Dorothy Mercier spread the parish photo album across the kitchen table next to the trimmed Wagon Wheel print. Two missing pieces. One photo, cropped to remove her mother from the frame, and a corresponding gap in the parish records. It wasn’t a coincidence. Someone hadn't merely trimmed her mother out of one photograph; someone had made sure no whole copy survived. Exhibit D. The case note read: *deliberate suppression of evidence*.

A day later, Wednesday evening, the sky over Green Bay was a wash of bruised purples and grays. Dot walked the bay road, the wind tugging at her jacket. She was heading for the Legion’s burger night but turned instinctively toward the water, the familiar pull of a late-September sunset.

She saw Ren Colby before Ren saw her, a figure in a good navy coat, walking with the precise, measured gait Dot had observed before. Ren turned, seeing Dot, and offered a small, polite smile.

“Ms. Mercier,” Ren said, her voice smooth, unaffected by the brisk air. “Fancy meeting you out here. Taking the air?” “Something like that,” Dot replied. “You too?” “Indeed.” Ren nodded, then hesitated. “I was just wondering, Ms. Mercier, whether the estate has opened the safe yet.” “The safe?” Dot repeated. “That’s a sudden pivot.” “Is it?” Ren asked, a flicker in her eyes. Dot tucked her hands into her pockets. Her adjuster’s tic kicked in. “At the board meeting it was ‘the inventory conveys, including the office safe.’ Tonight it’s ‘has anyone opened it.’ Inventory doesn’t ask twice, Ren. Not typically.” She watched Ren’s face. “Why the sudden interest?” Ren didn’t deny it. “Curious. Estate matters are so… protracted.” Her silver bob caught the last light of the fading sun. She looked out at the churning bay for a moment, then back at Dorothy. Her gaze held. “Curiosity, then. Not a specific concern?” Dot pressed. “I was wondering,” Ren said, her voice softer now, with a faint, almost imperceptible shift in her vowels, the kind that might belong to someone who had left New Ghent long ago but still carried some of its dust. “Do you remember your mother’s handwriting?”