EUNICE AND TYRONE

THE FIFTH IN A SERIES OF SIX STORIES.

Travis Freestone was born to be a private detective. He blended into the background like his nondescript 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 Town Coupe. If there wasn’t photographic evidence that he’d been somewhere, nobody could ever prove that he had been. The man was stealthy.

Freestone had ordered the Ford through Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal”. When the salesman asked him what color he wanted, Freestone said, “Whatever is the least noticeable.” What he got was a car finished in Sandshell Beige with chrome bumper guards and chrome and black belt line trim. Equipment included a fender-mounted spotlight, for night work, quad headlights because that’s the only way Ford made them, and dual exhaust outlets. The Z-code 390ci V8 was equipped with a four-barrel carburetor and sent power to the rear wheels through a three-speed Cruise-O-Matic transmission and a 3.00:1 rear end.

Freestone could outrun just about anything he ever needed to, and then blend into the background if things got hot. He was good at what he did and commanded top dollar for his work. He and Franklin Danbury had that in common. They had a lot of things in common, in fact. Danbury used to tell him, “Go right up to that line where you might end up in jail, and then cross over it. Then go to the one where I might go to jail and stop there.” Freestone understood.

The facts he had to start with on the Arabella Edwards case were thin. He’d started cases with less, but this one was going to put some miles on the Galaxie, and maybe another wrinkle or two on Freestone’s forehead.

The woman who’d claimed to be Arabella Edwards’ aunt was where he started. When he explained that she stood a good chance of doing time for holding back on any of the facts concerning the case she was far more forthcoming than she had been with the woman she’d raised from the time she was one. The fact that Christmas would be awkward never played into the methods Freestone employed. The more he listened to her story, the less he figured they’d be getting together for Christmas, anyway.

The “aunt” explained that she’d accepted the baby as part of a deal when she was only 11 months old. The couple she took her from had originally been granted the baby from an orphanage that was somewhere in Dallas Fort Worth. “The couple hadn’t been able to have children of their own, had recently come into some cash, and had skirted the ‘regular methods’ of adoption by getting a newborn ‘off the books,’” she told him.

“I didn’t ask a lot of questions,” the aunt explained. I knew they were in a fix. I’d lost a baby of my own a year or two earlier and couldn’t have another one. It just worked out well for all of us.” Freestone jotted down notes on the spiral top notebook he kept in his shirt pocket. When he left the aunt’s house he made his way over to the offices of the Waco Tribune-Herald. It didn’t take him long to put two and two together, based on news stories from the time period around Arabella’s birth. Based on where the aunt had picked up the child and the troubles she explained the baby’s new adoptive parents had gotten into, he quickly surmised that a relative was somehow associated with either Clyde Barrow or Bonnie Parker. They were having to flee rather than getting caught and used some of the cash they’d obtained recently to purchase a child. Then, they used more of it to make it go away so they could flee more easily.

The key to the whole story was the orphanage that had been somewhere in Dallas-Fort Worth that had closed down in the same time period. Freestone made his way to a payphone and called Danbury, back in Fort Stockton. “We’re getting closer,” he said. “I’m heading up to Dallas. I’ll probably be there for a few days. I’ll stay in touch.” The back tires on the Galaxie spun as he headed out of the parking lot and north towards Dallas.

The next leg of the journey was a lot slower and tougher to piece together. It didn’t take long to determine that the orphanage that had shut down was none other than The Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. While not an orphanage, it could have been mistaken for one. Finding any records of who was involved, the names of any of the young girls who resided there would be key to learning the backstory he was looking for.

Freestone’s time in Dallas-Fort Worth ended up being longer than he’d thought. The phone calls to Danbury kept the attorney up to speed. Trips back and forth from Fort Stockton to Fort Worth in the Galaxie became numerous, as did the billing hours Danbury was having to charge his young widowed client. It was on the third trip to Fort Worth that Freestone drove over to Arlington to visit the site of where the now defunct home stood. Grounds were located next what had recently become Arlington State College.

Tucked back in one corner of the old grounds where the home, handkerchief factory, infirmary, and scattered odd out buildings had once stood was the cemetery that held the remains of the babies who were stillborn and the mothers who died giving birth. Most were identified using only numbers. But there had to be records of the names behind the numbers. The highest number he found indicated the last person to be buried in the cemetery.

Eventually, that number was identified as Esther Kimble.

Going through public records at the Tarrant County courthouse eventually led Freestone to Eunice Kimble. Eunice Kimble provided the trail to Wichita Falls and Tyrone Brooks. It was the break Freestone had been looking for.

Back in Fort Stockton, Danbury and met for coffee at the Grounds for Divorce so the detective could brief him on the latest news. “If you put any more miles on that Ford just for this case, you’re going to have to trade the damn thing in,” Danbury laughed when Freestone told him that he’d be heading back north to Fort Worth and Wichita Falls after taking care of a few details for another client.

“I’ll never find another one this nondescript,” Freestone laughed. He didn’t laugh often. Danbury barely recognized him.

That evening Danbury made arrangements to take Arabella Edwards to dinner at the Silver Slipper Supper Club to relay all the latest information. It was completely professional, of course. But over the months they’d been meeting at Danbury’s office, first to work on her late husband’s estate, and then to investigate her own past, the two had become friendly. It would be the first time he’d asked her to meet outside the office. At first she was a bit put off. But then, she determined it might be exactly what she needed. She hadn’t been out much since her husband’s passing. It would be a treat.

Danbury picked Arabella up in the Jaguar at 7:00. As they passed the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store Danbury nodded over in the direction of the parking lot towards a beige Ford parked under the pecan tree. “That’s the investigator I’m using on the case in that beige Galaxie,” he said.

She glanced over in the direction of the store. “Sorry. I must have missed it.”