Perth County is a rural swath of southern Ontario covered by miles and miles of farmland as far as the eye can see. The vast fields of corn and cattle are dotted by the occasional small town. These towns are usually quaint, little villages found at a crossroad where the settlers set up their homesteads when they were ready to retire from working in the fields. From the beginning, these towns were dedicated to the older folks.
In the far northeast corner of Perth County, there is a small town called Leicester. Leicester has a few hundred residents, one grocery store, one gas station, a hardware store, a police station (an office), and one café where many locals spend their mornings or afternoons catching up on the town gossip.
Everyone that lives in Leicester pronounces the name the proper way, ‘Lester’, but visitors from out of town usually pronounce it ‘Lee-Chester’ or ‘Lee-ster’.
There are very few new homes in Leicester as there is nowhere to find work, other than as a farm hand, so there are seldom new residents moving into town. Almost everybody that lives here, has lived here their entire life. Even today, the residents are mostly older, retired folks enjoying their golden years. The houses in town are also older, modest, generally well kept, and have their own unique qualities – covered front porches, gables, turrets, stained glass windows, hidden rooms, tunnels, secret trap doors, and various other odd features that only the owner of the home would know about.
There is one elderly, kind, lady in Leicester, Mrs. Goldsmith, who is the town’s most senior resident. Mrs. Goldsmith, we think, has celebrated at least 106 birthdays; nobody is certain exactly how old she is, not even Edna (that’s her name) herself. We know she was born before the roaring 20s because she remembers them, and she remembers them well. She comes to the café in town (Bart’s Cafe) once a week to have her regular cup of coffee and buy her loaf of bread, and she will often sit down and tell stories of Leicester and all that went on during that delightful decade prior to the Great Depression. In the stories, she talks of herself as a young girl, maybe 6 years old, in about 1923, so the best we can figure she must be 106 years old or thereabouts.
Now, Edna, or Mrs. Goldsmith, as I mentioned, makes her way to Bart’s Café once a week. However, I didn’t mention how she gets there. Being 106 or so, she isn’t exactly as spry as she once was, so she calls me and gets me to drive her the three blocks to the café, which is located on the main corner in town. As a matter of fact, I do a lot more for her than just drive her to the café; I drive her for groceries, to the park, to visit her friends for tea in the afternoon, and anywhere else she needs to go. Helping Mrs. Goldsmith has become one of the most important duties I have. I am Sherriff Chuck Dover, or just Sherriff Chuck, as most people refer to me. I’m the Sherriff, and the only police officer in Leicester and I have taken on the role of escorting and protecting Leicester’s most pertinacious resident, Edna Goldsmith.
I became Mrs. Goldsmith’s protector because in recent years she has been seen wandering the streets of Leicester with nobody aware of where she is going, when she is going, or even the fact that she is gone. One stormy winter day she was found walking on the far side of town by herself. It got to the point where everyone in town was worried that she’d get herself into a situation she couldn’t get out of.
A couple years have gone by since that day and she has become slower, weaker, and more confused so we decided it was time to give her a tracking bracelet so we’d know where she was at all times of the day. Now, this bracelet isn’t foolproof, it only works if she wears it.
There was one day when we were trying to locate her and the signal from the bracelet led us to her bathroom on the main floor of her house – there it was sitting beside the sink while Mrs. Goldsmith was out walking beside the river in the park. So, we’ve now implemented a second system where we have cameras focussed on the three doors that access her house. If she leaves or enters any of these three doors, she will be seen on camera. We aren’t watching 24/7, of course, but generally we know when she has left her house.
This brings me to the fateful day last July. The day when it all went down. The day when Mrs. Goldsmith went missing and everybody in town joined in the search.
The day was like any other in mid July; hot, sunny, quiet, everybody was moving slowly because of the heat and the humidity. I was at my desk in the station minding my own business when I got a call from Mrs. Goldsmith’s next-door neighbour, Dorothy McDaniel. Dorothy was concerned that she hadn’t seen Mrs. Goldsmith in three days which was out of the ordinary because Edna made a point of contacting Dorothy at least every second day just to check in, if nothing else.
I sat forward in my chair as I spoke to Mrs. McDaniel, “Now that you mention it, Dorothy, I haven’t seen her around at all either. She hasn’t called me to drive her anywhere since her most recent trip to the café last Tuesday, and this is Friday.”
“This is Saturday,” she corrected me using her Perth-county accent, ‘Saturday,’ sounded more like ‘Sara-dy.’
“Yes, right, it’s Saturday. That’s four days since I’ve heard from her,” I said.
“I’m getting a bit concerned, Sherriff Chuck.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “I’ll take a hike up the hill to her house to see what I can find. You can meet me there on the front lawn, if you like. Before I leave, I’ll rewind the video to see if she was recorded leaving the house at all since Tuesday.”
By the time I arrived at Mrs. Goldsmith’s house half an hour later, I’d confirmed that she had not left her house in the past four days.
Dorothy was waiting for me on Edna’s front step, sitting on her only outdoor chair, “Hi, Sherriff Chuck, any news?”
“Nope, nothing. She hasn’t left this house since I was here on Tuesday and her bracelet is sending me a signal that she is inside this house. Or, I should say, IT is inside this house.”
“Well, that concerns me,” Dorothy retorted. “Can we get in the house? I knocked already and there’s no answer, but, as you know, Edna doesn’t have ears like the average person anymore.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a key chain with a dozen keys on it, “Ta-da! I came prepared. I always come prepared when I arrive here.” I found the key belonging to Mrs. Goldsmith, slid it into the lock and opened the door.
The door let out a long slow creak as I gradually swung it open, careful not to hit anyone that might be standing on the other side. We stepped inside the house.
“Hello. Hello, Edna!” I called out.
No response.
I called louder, “Mrs. Goldsmith? It’s Sherriff Chuck!”
No response.
Dorothy and I looked at each other blankly.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“What do we do?” she repeated. “Who’s wearing the badge?”
I nodded. “Come with me.”
The two of us proceeded to scour the basement followed by the main floor and found nothing out of the ordinary. There was a half-eaten piece of toast on the kitchen table. There was a pair of slippers in front of her favourite chair and the TV was left on. None of this was unusual to someone who’d been in this house a hundred times, like I had. Mrs. Goldsmith often left the TV on.
There was only one more floor in the house; upstairs where the bedrooms are. I had never been to the top floor before so I had no idea what to expect up there.
“How accurate of a reading can you get on that receiver?” said Dorothy referring to the small unit I carried with me that received the message from Mrs. Goldsmith’s bracelet.
I pulled it out of my pocket. “It seems to be telling me that the bracelet is exactly over here,” I walked to the exact location; clear across the living room to the far side of the house against the wall. I looked around, lifted couch cushions, looked under the couch, nothing. Then I remembered this unit gives a perfect two-dimensional reading, but is not as reliable in the third dimension, up and down.
“She could be straight above us, or straight below,” I said, looking at Dorothy.
“Shall we go up?” she asked.
We crept up the stairs to the top floor, calling out as we ascended. No response.
At the top of the stairs, I flicked on a light, illuminating the hallway in which we stood. I could see four doors leading to individual rooms; one was closed, three were wide open. The receiver was telling me Mrs. Goldsmith, or her bracelet, was in the room with the closed door.
A bit apprehensive, we decided to clear the other three rooms first. Two of the rooms were bedrooms and one was a bathroom, all three were empty, except for the furniture, and all were undisturbed.
The only thing left to do was to check the room with the closed door, which, I suspected, was Mrs. Goldsmith’s bedroom.
I knocked on the door. No response. I knocked harder and called out. No response.
I looked at Dorothy, she looked at me, I turned the knob and gently pushed open the door.
Inside, the room was dark except for the sunlight creeping around the edge of the old drapes on the window. The window was open a crack and the breeze blew in softly. The floor was covered with an old area rug, the bed, against the opposite wall, was unoccupied and unmade. There was a small TV on the bedside table, it was turned on to a channel with nothing but a screenful of static - the sound was off. Looking to my right, I saw Mrs. Goldsmith’s closet, open and full of clothes haphazardly strewn around. The air smelled of moth balls.
“The receiver is telling me the bracelet is over here.” I walked across the room to a bookshelf beside the bed. No sign of the bracelet. More importantly, no sign of Mrs. Goldsmith.
After fumbling around on the bookshelf for several minutes, looking for the bracelet, we decided to call off the search of the house.
Dorothy came with me back to the station.
As we turned the corner heading to the station, we couldn’t help but notice a dozen or so townsfolk gathered in Bart’s café across the street. We changed course and walked in, joining the social agglomeration.
“Sherriff Chuck! Dorothy!” Called Bart from behind the counter. “What brings you in here on such a fine day?”
“Well Bart, I’m perplexed,” I said, as the room went silent.
“Perplexed? About what?” said Bart. I went on to explain everything I knew. Within minutes Bart was on the phone calling various townsfolk and asking them for help.
Before I knew it, most of Leicester was standing in the main intersection of town.
“I’d like to thank everyone for coming out and joining us on this most important day in the history of our town. As you know by now, our most senior resident, Mrs. Goldsmith, has gone missing. We have thoroughly searched her house already, but we haven’t yet begun to look in any other part of town. Within the next few hours, I’d like every house in Leicester searched, every house, every yard, behind every bush, every tree. I’d like for no stone to be left unturned by nine o’clock tonight.”
With that, the loyal folks of Leicester dispersed and began to search every nook and cranny in town.
By nine o’clock sharp, they had all returned to the main corner and reported finding no sign of Mrs. Goldsmith. Not one crumb. I thanked everyone for helping and asked them to keep looking and keep thinking of places she may have gone. While they were searching, I had called every farmer within five miles of town and asked them to search their fields. I called in the OPP who brought a team of divers to search the river; they searched the river in town and a mile in both directions – thankfully, they found nothing. A team of hounds was brought in, we brought out a piece of Mrs. Goldsmiths clothing for them to pick up the scent and they scoured the town and found nothing. By the time all of this was completed, it was sundown. I called off the search and asked everyone to reconvene at 7AM sharp tomorrow.
I closed up the station and walked straight home for the night, in my front door, up the stairs, emptied my pockets on my night table, jumped straight into bed. The whole time, all I could think about was where the heck Mrs. Goldsmith could be.
Right when I was about to fall asleep, a light flashed from my night table. It was the receiver. It was sending me a message. I bolted up, picked it off the table and stared.
Mrs. Goldsmith was moving.
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Not only was Mrs. Goldsmith moving, she was moving inside her house.
I jumped out of bed, threw my clothes back on and ran downstairs. I grabbed my flashlight, my key chain, and headed out my front door just in time to be greeted by a giant flash of lightning and crack of thunder.
Great, I thought, just what I needed. My house was only a couple of blocks from Mrs. Goldsmith’s, so, given the incoming storm, I decided to drive.
Moments later I was opening Mrs. Goldsmith’s front door again; I didn’t bother to knock this time.
“Mrs. Goldsmith!” I called out to no response again. “It’s Sherriff Chu…” My voice was cut off by another, closer, crack of thunder. This time the strike caused the street lights to go out. Just like that, the town was black.
I turned on my flashlight and flicked on a light switch right there in the foyer. Nothing. A power outage, just when I needed power the most.
Making the best of what I had, I pulled out the receiver and saw that the signal was pointing me to a location in the house about ten feet in front of me. Shining my light in the vicinity, I could see clearly no one was there. A quick search proved the bracelet was absent as well. So, again, the 3D effect of the house was fooling the signal. Mrs. Goldsmith was either straight upstairs, or straight down. A quick search of the upstairs showed me nothing had changed since earlier in the day. There was also the possibility of the attic, I found the access in the bathroom closet, but there was no way a 106-year-old lady was climbing up there.
I was now convinced that Mrs. Goldsmith was in her basement.
The rain began to pound on the windows as I crept down the back stairs of the old house, the beam from my flashlight preceding me. The basement was unfinished, musty, dusty and creepy. As I reached the bottom of the stairs another crack of thunder startled me. The flash coming in the small cellar window illuminated the room for a split second. I though I saw a human shape off to my right. I reluctantly shone my flashlight in that direction and found it was a coat tree with several coats hanging on it.
Past the coat tree was Mrs. Goldsmith’s giant oil furnace. A real relic, it was as big as a Ford Econoline van. When Dorothy and I were here earlier we searched this entire room, or so we thought. Walking slowly past the coat tree, I noticed there was a narrow gap between the furnace and the old stone wall – just wide enough for me to slide through. Before I entered, I paused and shone my light in. There were cobwebs connecting the back of the furnace to the wall. The receiver indicated I was in the right place. I knew if Mrs. Goldsmith was in this cellar, she was back here.
I slid into the tight space.
I had to brush cobwebs from my face as I inched forward. The hulking furnace was cold and clammy and I could smell the unburnt oil. Being July, it had been dormant for months. I felt as if it was pressing me tighter and tighter against the wall. Claustrophobia set in.
Halfway through, my light caught a shadow on the wall, it was a crawl space opening at my knees. I crouched down, the furnace pressing my shoulders. The faint smell of vinegar reached my nose. Leaning on one hand I could shine my light into the crawl space. I was afraid to lower my face into the opening. Suddenly I felt something crawl up my arm and across my back – I lurched. My light caught a thin tail whisking by. My worst fear was real - a rat. I heard it scurry away behind me.
Again, I shone my light into the crawl space and this time lowered my head to look in. On the other side of the wall was a small room, seemingly darker and clammier than the room I was currently in. I could feel a cool breeze across my face coming from the room – the vinegar smell became stronger. I gathered up my courage and crawled through the hole in the wall.
Inside the small room I had to duck as the ceiling was too low for a person of my modest height. My light caught another small animal scurrying past. I shone my light on the wall in front of me. There was a shelf full of old canned food and a few jars of pickles, pickled eggs and other foods. I was in an old fruit cellar. I shone the light around the room. The shelf circumvented the room and it was covered in cans and jars all around. I picked up a can of tomatoes and looked closely at the label. It must have been fifty years old or more.
Then I gathered up the nerve to call out. “Mrs. Goldsmith. This is Sherriff Chuck….” I heard something shuffle behind me. A hand touched my shoulder.
I swung around.
“Thank you for the light Sherriff Chuck. That lousy storm made my lights go dark.” I shone my light in the face of an old lady.
“Mrs. Goldsmith, is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me, who else would be down here?”
I inhaled a deep breath. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been down here in my fruit cellar. I’ve done some canning….and why the heck are you crawling around behind my furnace?”
“I was looking for you. You’ve been here all day?”
“Well, the better part of it, yes.”
“Everyone in town is very worried. Nobody has seen you in days.”
“Well,” she explained, “don’t worry about me, I’ve been busy for a few days now.”
With that, the power came back on, a bulb in front of my face lit the room. On the far side of the room, I saw a table with empty jars on it and a bowl full of small cucumbers, further past the table I saw an old door.
“Where does that door lead to? Is that how you got in here?”
“Yes,” she said, “follow me.”
Mrs. Goldsmith led me through the door and up a rickety old set of stairs to another door. She wrestled with the knob and opened it up. Stepping through and looking around I realized we were in a small shed. She opened yet another door and we were outside, in the back corner of her backyard.
“Damn,” I said, looking around me, “I guess the search party didn’t look in your shed.”
“Search party?”
“Yes! I wasn’t kidding, the whole town has been looking for you.”
I left Mrs. Goldsmith to her own and returned to my house where I texted everyone in town to let them know she was safe and sound and we could call off the search.
The next day some of the elders in town planned a get together at Bart’s. Everyone including Mrs. Goldsmith showed up. Everyone that stopped in proclaimed how happy they were that she was safe.
“I’m so happy to see you again,” said Dorothy.
“Welcome back Edna!” said Bart.
She looked at them all like it wasn’t a big deal. Because to her, it wasn’t.
And that’s the story of the day Mrs. Goldsmith went missing.
BT
