But Not Forgotten

By Janet Dawson

IT'S BEEN 50 YEARS SINCE FERN CHATFIELD DISAPPEARED. WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?

DID SHE RUN AWAY? OR WAS SHE ABDUCTED?

MAGGIE CONSTABLE WANTS TO KNOW HOW THE STORY ENDS.

A warm June evening. A high school graduation party. Fern ends her relationship with her boyfriend Hank. He doesn't take it well. In fact, he tries to hit her. But Fern's best friend Maggie intervenes.

After Hank stalks off into the darkness, Fern says she's going to walk home.

But she never gets there.

Fifty years have gone by. Maggie's a tough-minded veteran reporter, accustomed to pursuing the truth. This story has haunted her for years. She goes to her 50th high school reunion, determined to find out, once and for all, what happened to Fern.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janet Dawson
• Release date: Mar 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781944153137

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BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Janet Dawson

Bodie Blue Books

Alameda     Monterey

Copyright©2018 Janet Dawson

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduces into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This novella is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

Cover design: Bodie Blue Books

ISBN: 1-944153-12-8

ISBN-13: 978-1-944153-12-0

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BY JANET DAWSON

CHAPTER ONE

GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.

The words spanned the top of the poster on an easel near the front door. Beneath the legend were photographs, twenty-one in all. Like the name tag I wore, the photos were taken from the yearbook and showed how we looked fifty years ago, the year we graduated from Willow Creek High School. Under each picture was a classmate’s name. Twenty of those had a date and cause of death. The earlier deaths, all male, were mostly accidents—a head-on collision, a fall while hiking. The one exception was a classmate who’d been killed in action in Vietnam. In the past ten years, death had taken an equal opportunity toll among men and women, cancer and heart attacks, mostly.

The twenty-first photograph was labeled with a name, Fern Chatfield, and a date—graduation day. It was followed by a question mark. A fifty-year-old question mark.

I moved away from the poster as a man and a woman approached. The man’s name tag told me he was Curtis Lockwood. He didn’t look like his senior picture any more. After five decades, none of us did. He had been on the basketball team all those years ago. I recalled that younger boy as tall and skinny. Over the years his hair had thinned and he’d gained a pot belly and jowls, as well as a few scars and bags under his eyes. The woman next to him, his wife, presumably, looked vaguely familiar. Then I remembered. She had been a junior while we were seniors.

Seems a bit strange to see Fern’s name up there, he said.

She shrugged. Where else would it be? I mean, Fern’s dead, right? She must be.

Some people say she ran off. Though I suppose she could be dead. There’s the bar. I could use a beer. They moved away.

Fern must be dead. Or was she still alive, out there somewhere?

I gazed at her photo, sipping my wine. Then I glanced down at my own tag, reading my name upside down. Maggie Constable. And no, my senior picture didn’t look like me, either. My dark hair was turning silver at the temples. I had extra pounds, wrinkles, arthritis and other issues of age.

Belinda Wellfleet, one of the organizers of this fiftieth high school reunion, looked up from the nearby counter. She was checking in new arrivals, handing them their name tags and a souvenir booklet. For now there was a lull. She glanced at the poster, then at me, picking up on my thoughts. Do you ever wonder what happened to Fern?

Of course. All the time.

Well, not every waking hour. But often. For me, it’s the defining mystery, the one that’s never been solved—yet.

Fern was my best friend. She disappeared the night of our high school graduation party. She’d walked away from the building, through the parking lot to the street, then she turned, waving at me from the pool of light under a street lamp. I never saw her again.

I raised my eyes from Fern’s picture to that of another classmate, Hank Silvestri. He had died earlier this year. A heart attack, according to the legend under his photo. I stared at the picture, at his dark hair, heavy-lidded eyes and surly face. The high school bad boy. Back then he’d cultivated the image and the reputation. And it was well-deserved. I turned away from the poster.

Tonight’s reunion gathering was being held in a large room at the Willow Creek Community Center. The building was of recent construction, part of a complex that included the library and an auditorium for performances. This center, on the eastern side of town, was much larger than the old community center I remembered from my high school days. That one-story structure, long since razed, was where the graduation party had been held fifty years ago.

The registration fee for the reunion included tonight’s pizza party, as well as a buffet dinner tomorrow night at Verley’s Barbecue on Main Street. I stood to one side and leafed through the souvenir booklet. Many of my classmates were now retired and had grandchildren. For me, neither criteria fit.

I tucked the booklet into my handbag and walked past the tables and chairs that had been set up in the middle of the room. A long table against the back wall had a lot of people crowding in front of it, no doubt because this was the table that held the booze. This Friday night was bring-your-own-bottle to go with the pizza that was due to be delivered. I had contributed a bottle of Chardonnay and I needed a refill. I sidestepped one person and dodged between two others, finding the bottle I’d brought. After I poured wine into my glass, I turned from the table and came face to face with Rita Bernard.

Maggie Constable! You haven’t changed a bit.

People always say that. And yet we have, inside and out.

Rita, who lived in the wilds of Wyoming, asked if I was still in California. On hearing my affirmative answer, she said, Oh, I couldn’t live there. It’s too big, with too many people. And those earthquakes. It just wouldn’t feel like home.

It felt like home to me, the minute I crossed the state line, more than forty years ago, with me singing along to California Girls, the Beach Boys’