Page 12 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

My eyes fell to the newspaper on the table, my mind still turning with the question, until my curiosity got the better of me. I rounded the corner to the sitting room, taking the laptop from the desk that sat in front of the picture window. The room hadn’t changed a single bit in my lifetime, down to the knickknacks on the fireplace mantel and the blue velvet tufted sofa that looked older than Birdie.

I sank down into it and pulled open the laptop, hitting a key. It whirred to life, illuminating the inbox of the farm’s email account. Iopened a new tab in the browser, fingers hovering tentatively over the keys before I finally started typing in the search field.

Nathaniel Rutherford Jasper, North Carolina

Dozens of search results pulled up, and I scrolled, my eyes skipping over them until I saw one from the State Archives of North Carolina. The link took me to another search results page, where a number of headlines from old newspapers were listed with Nathaniel’s name highlighted in the description.

The earliest ones looked to be no more than small-town news coverage, but in 1950, the headlines took a turn.

body found in adeline river

minister slain

sheriff asks for witnesses to come forward

jasper remembers nathaniel rutherford

one year later: still no answers

I clicked on the first one, and a high-resolution scan of theJasper Chroniclefilled the screen. The front of the paper was different from the one that sat on the kitchen table. The font had changed over time, and so had the layout of the columns.

Thursday morning, the Merrill County Sheriff’s Department responded to the call of Edgar Owens, who was fishing on the north fork of the Adeline River, just upstream from Longview Falls, when he discovered a body washed up on the bank. The man was identified as sixty-three-year-old Nathaniel Rutherford, longtime minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Jasper.

Longview Falls was the region’s tallest waterfall, where the Adeline River branched. It was a hiker’s destination and the site of numerousaccidents over the years. There’d even been a few people who’d jumped to their deaths.

The next article was longer.

The sheriff’s department has confirmed that the death of Nathaniel Rutherford is being treated as suspicious. Upon examination, the body was found to have a fatal head wound and multiple lacerations on the arms and neck consistent with a struggle. This would mark the first known murder in the quiet town of Jasper, and the sheriff has vowed to find the perpetrator.

The last known location of the minister was at the Midsummer Faire. Rutherford was expected at Frank Crawley’s barn afterward for a weekly card game with a group of men from the church. According to Crawley, Nathaniel never arrived. Those who were present at the game are undergoing questioning, but the sheriff has been clear they are not currently suspects.

To his estimation, Dr. Francis Pullman puts Rutherford’s time of death at approximately 8p.m., an hour after he was last seen.

I clicked on the next link.

The sheriff’s department is asking for anyone with information about Nathaniel Rutherford’s whereabouts on the night of June21 to come forward. No detail is too small. Anyone who saw anything unusual can call the sheriff’s department at 431-2200.

The headline of the last article was printed above a photograph of a man.

one year later: still no answers

Nathaniel was standing on the front steps of the church with a hat in his hands. I had to look at him closely to find the similarities between him and the man in the photo Gran sent. The edition date was1951, exactly forty years after the date written on the back of the photograph.

But there was no mention of his wife’s actual name in the articles, and the only pictures were of Nathaniel alone.

I leaned to one side and slid the photo from the back pocket of my jeans, that itch of curiosity growing more insistent. My leg was anxiously bouncing now, making the laptop shake as my eyes lifted to the kitchen. When I was looking into my mother’s disappearance, Ida had helped me request copies of old editions of theJasper Chronicle.She’d also been the one to pull the records at the courthouse for me.

I let the laptop slide onto the sofa and stood, my feet taking me back to the kitchen, where the soft sound of wind chimes drifted through the open window. Ida’s cellphone number was still scratched on the long list pinned to the side of the fridge, but I had it memorized. I dialed and a chipper voice on the other end answered on the third ring.

“June? Everything okay?”

“Hey, Ida. Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well, good. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see if you’d be able to find something for me in the county records.”

“Okay. What is it?”