A Blossom Fell

By B.G. Foster

In a small town in sunny southern California in the fifties, life is good . . . for most people. The only bad thing to happen was the kidnap and murder of a young girl from the local cinema a few years back. A man was caught, convicted and executed for the crime and life returned to normal. But when a respected teacher, Miss Montgomery, learns of another incident at the cinema from one of her young students, Beverly, the past reappears.

Miss Montgomery’s concern leads her to seek answers but when Beverly’s sister suddenly disappears, concern grows in the town. Is there a connection between this disappearance and the past kidnap and murder, or should the focus be on the girl’s own family?

There are secrets in the family, secrets that connect them with others in the town. But how far can Miss Montgomery and others delve into this conspiracy of secrets without placing the children involved in jeopardy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.G. Foster
• Release date: Nov 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9788461739820

Book preview

A Blossom Fell

A BLOSSOM FELL

B.G. Foster

Copyright

Copyright © 2016 B.G. Foster

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN 978-84-617-3982-0

B.G. Foster

Apartado 47,

Busot, 03111, Alicante, Spain

Dedication

‘This is dedicated to the one I love’: Peter Gilpin 1944-2013

Acknowledgements

The idea for the book came from my memories as a child growing up in Buena Park where a family did suffer the loss of a child. I was encouraged to write by my husband Peter Gilpin and great friend Ann Davis. Their encouragement led to the book being finished. Rachel Bentley has been an invaluable and generous project manager for me, providing information and interest in preparing the manuscript for e-book publication. Lloyd Raworth, a dear friend, created the book cover. My thanks to them all.

January 1957

Chapter 1

Miss Montgomery came down the porch steps, crossed the street, and began the walk to the school. She had been teaching at Grand Avenue School for many years. And she had taken this walk many times. She was part of old Buena Park, if anything about Buena Park was really old.

It was just another Californian town that was growing fast. The sun was bright, there was no breeze, and there was no haze. It took only a few minutes to get from her home to the school. This morning was different because she was feeling so washed out with the ’flu that even this short trip seemed too long.

She had gone back to school yesterday. When she had found out what had been happening with her class she had gotten so mad she hadn’t noticed how feeble she really was. Away from her class for one week, and it had gone bad on her. It was embarrassing to be called into the principal’s office as soon as she walked through the school entrance. The substitute teacher had complained to the principal and school board, and said he would never come to the school again.

Miss Montgomery knew that substitute teachers always got some bad behavior from students. These teachers came in at the last moment, didn’t know the students, or the work, or the sort of rules that she operated in the classroom. She felt humiliated by her students’ bad behavior. She had been so upset and angry about the way they had acted, that she refused to speak to them for the whole day. She had written on the blackboard ‘I am so embarrassed and disappointed by your behavior towards Mr. Martin that I don’t want to talk to you or hear from you’.

She put instructions on the blackboard for each lesson, handed out and collected their work, and sat silently at her desk at the back of the classroom. After Augie asked a question, and she didn’t answer, no one in the classroom spoke again. They seemed genuinely shocked by her behavior and were afraid that she might never speak to them again.

Today was different; despite not feeling well, she would teach as she usually did. Most of the afternoon would be taken up with book reports. The students lined up outside the door of their classroom. As they came in the children looked nervous and wary. Nobody would say boo to a goose today.

After lunch, and her reading a few pages aloud from ‘Prester John’, she called them one by one to bring a monthly book report. Each student was expected to write something about any book they had been reading over the past month. She strongly encouraged them to read and to write, and she made them practice.

When Beverly Dean came to sit beside her with her report, she seemed especially still and scared. She was a solemn, silent child, dressed in secondhand clothes that were too big for her and too heavy for California.  She had written on the half-page form, in a big round hand; ‘I read a story about a little girl at the movies, who was bothered by a man who sat next to her. So she went to sit with her sister, but the man kept looking at her. When the movie was over she was glad to git home’.

Miss Montgomery read the page again and corrected the spelling.

‘This isn’t really much of a book report, Beverly. You haven’t put the name of the book or the author, and you’ve only written,’ she counted the words quickly, ‘45 words. The reports are supposed to be 100 words, you know that.’

Beverly was silent.

‘Where did you read this story, Beverly?’

Still silent, tears began to form in Beverly’s eyes.

‘Can you show me where you found this story?’

Tears began to course down Beverly’s face. Miss Montgomery felt bad that she had made the girl cry by speaking more sharply than was necessary. She said very gently, ‘Beverly, there is no reason to be so upset. Go back to your desk until you calm down. Then we can talk about this again.’

Miss Montgomery went on checking the book reports of the other children. Beverly continued to cry. Finally, the teacher spoke the class. ‘Beverly and I are going to the sick room for a few minutes. She isn’t feeling very well. You keep working on your reports, you are on your honor to behave while we are out of the classroom.’

The teacher was confident that the students would do as they had been told. The silent treatment usually worked very well.

When she began gently questioning Beverly, the child said nothing, crying quietly at first then with big shaking sobs. When she stopped, Beverly said that she had made up the story in her book report, she said hadn’t read a book. She said it was a true story; it happened to a little girl a long time ago, so was this cheating? Miss Montgomery said it depended on whether she meant to fool anyone. Beverly said her sister had told her about a little girl who had been taken from the movies, and killed by a man and that it had happened in Buena Park. Her sister said she could put it in the book report. Miss Montgomery had taught this sister, who was an altogether different sort of child, bright and troubled and troublesome. The teacher thought it unlikely that Beverly would have thought up this scheme, or carried it out. But she was very upset. Had something happened to her in the movie house? Or was she upset because she had been caught making something up? Was she worried about getting her sister in trouble?

Beverly wanted to know if the story about the little girl was true. Miss Montgomery decided it was best to tell her what had happened.

‘Yes it is; a child, Janet Kerr, 10 years old. She was kidnapped, molested, and murdered by a man who lived in Buena Park. The man was caught, and punished.’

Beverly gave her a long look. ‘That’s what my sister said; the man died in the gas chamber.’

The teacher needed to get back to her class and she needed time to think about what Beverly had told her. ‘Let’s go back to class. We’ve been away too long. I don’t know what I am going to do about your book report. But don’t worry yourself. We’ll figure something out.’

It was almost 30 minutes before they returned. Beverly looked liked she had been crying very hard. She had red eyes and was sniffing. The students had apparently been working at their desks.

The rest of the afternoon Miss Montgomery was distracted by what she had learned from Beverly, and found it difficult to concentrate on her students. Her mind kept going back to the exchange with the child, and she wanted to talk with her some more, or speak with the principal, but he wasn’t in his office and she had a job to do in the classroom. These days she often found it hard to concentrate, she had done the job for so long that she could do it automatically.

Miss Montgomery and the principal sat in his office. She told Mr. Greene about the book report, and her worry about the story in it and how upset the child had been.

The principal was a quiet man who always seemed calm; he listened carefully to teachers and children. He almost always had a practical way through problems. After listening to his teacher, he thought for a moment or two,

‘Most likely Beverly is upset because she has been caught cheating, that makes straightforward sense. Instead of writing a book report she just did what her sister suggested.’

‘What I don’t understand is how upset she was; she was hysterical with her tears and sobs, I have never seen her like that.’

‘Has she started her period yet? Maybe it is mixed up hormones and guilt about cheating?’

Miss. Montgomery snorted, ‘This girl is like a ten-year-old; she’s not ‘started’ and not likely to for a few years, is my guess. Maybe I am making too much of this; we should just leave it, and see what happens.’

‘I think you better speak with her mother. She may wonder why Beverly has come home in tears. You and I know that no one in Buena Park likes the Janet Kerr stuff to come up. It reminds everyone of a bad time, and makes people think that Buena Park isn’t a safe place.’

The principal was thinking he would tell Jess Stock, his School Board boss, about the incident, it might take his mind off the complaint by the substitute teacher. Afterwards he found himself thinking about the Janet Kerr murder. He went to the file he had kept about Janet Kerr. On top was an excerpt from the Santa Ana Register: a series about infamous crimes in Orange County.

The most notorious event in Buena Park’s history was the kidnapping and murder that occurred on May 19, 1951. A 10-year-old girl named Janet Jean Kerr was lured from Podolski's Theater on Grand Avenue by a musician named Frank Fitzgerald. She was taken to his motel room at the Pine Auto Court, half a mile from the theater. There she was sexually assaulted and murdered, her head bludgeoned with a heavy object. Fitzgerald worked as a guitar player at the Elephant Bar, which was directly across the street from the theater.

He wrapped Janet’s body in a motel bedspread and drove her out to Live Oak Canyon, in eastern Orange County. He buried her there in a shallow grave, and returned the borrowed car to his boss at the bar. Fitzgerald was arrested on May 20, 1951, but he denied having anything to do with the crime. Crime scene evidence at the auto court showed otherwise. A search was conducted and Janet’s body was found five days later. Hundreds of citizens and U.S. Marines from the El Toro Base aided in the search.

A trial was held in 1951, which ended in a hung jury. A second trial resulted in a murder conviction with a sentence of the death penalty. Appeals and attempts to overthrow the conviction did not succeed. Fitzgerald’s attorney contended that he was mentally ill and could not be executed for the crimes that he had committed. Fitzgerald was later ruled to be sane, and executed in the gas chamber at the California State Prison in San Quentin, California on February 19, 1954.

The Kerr tragedy was not talked about in Buena Park by those who lived in the town at the time of the murder, but children were warned about dangerous strangers, and some parents refused to let their children go to Podolski's movie house. After the town became a proper city with incorporation in 1953, the business leaders and mayor emphasized Buena Park’s position as the center of the heartland of southern California, and talked up the city’s potential for development with freeway access, and with Knott’s Berry Farm, an already established tourist center.

The little duplex apartments where the Deans lived were set back from the road. There were houses on Western Avenue that partly hid the duplexes. They were shabby, the window frames and doors needed painting. Compared to other homes nearby they looked very small for the families living in them. Cars, toys and dogs were every which way around the driveway. Beverly hadn’t been in school today, and there was no note or telephone call from her mother. The Deans didn’t have a phone, so Miss Montgomery decided she would have to visit without letting them know. She didn’t like to do that to her school children and their families, so she was breaking one of her own rules. But it was important to make sure Beverly was okay.

The door to the duplex was just one step up from the sidewalk. Miss Montgomery knocked quietly. From behind a screen door Mrs. Dean looked at her without recognition. She looked like an older, worn out version of Beverly.

‘I’m Beverly’s teacher. She wasn’t in school today. I’m sorry to come by like this, but I was worried about the child.’

Mrs. Dean hadn’t opened the screen door, and didn’t react to Miss Montgomery’s explanation.

‘Would it be all right if I came in, Mrs. Dean. Your neighbors don’t need to know your business.’

Mrs. Dean startled, looked through the door to her right and left. ‘Please come in, I don’t mean to be rude. I was so surprised to see anyone here.’ She had a soft voice with a southern accent, probably Texas or Arkansas.

Miss Montgomery stepped straight into a small living room; it was tidy but threadbare; an old sofa, a TV chair, a Formica table and chairs. The most striking think was that there were no pictures, or doodahs, nothing to show that Mrs. Dean or her family really lived in the room. Miss Montgomery knew that there were four Dean children, but there was no sign of them or their things in the living room.

The teacher repeated her reason for the unexpected visit. Mrs. Dean listened and said nothing. Finally, she asked if Miss Montgomery would like a glass of Hawaiian Punch.

‘I have forgotten my manners. I am not used to visitors.’

She seemed genuinely confused, and puzzled by this unusual experience.

‘Is it all right if we sit down, I need to talk with you about Beverly?’

‘Don’t you want some Hawaiian Punch?’

The teacher didn’t accept the drink. She was thirsty and she would have loved a glass of lemonade, but she couldn’t face Hawaiian Punch in a jelly glass. She and the mother talked for a while. Beverly had come in from school in tears, not able to tell her mother what was wrong. She had gone to her bed and stayed there, not getting up for supper, to play or do her homework.

‘Beverly always tries to do her homework, and sometimes she asks me for help. I wasn’t good at schoolwork myself, so I’m not much help to her. Susan will help if she’s in a good mood. But she gets fed up real quick, if Beverly doesn’t ‘git it.’ Beverly usually helped with supper and the washing up, but not Friday night. Mrs. Dean didn’t seem concerned with what was bothering her daughter or if she was ill. She seemed okay at the weekend, but when Beverly didn’t get up when she called her for school, she got the other children off, then checked on her. Beverly still wasn’t talking, but then she didn’t say much at the best of times.

‘Beverly is like me, she’s not very good with her words, but she’s a sweet child, the easiest of my children. I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and took it into her. Later she got up and went to the church club with her sister and brothers.’

The Deans were members of the 5th Baptist church, just around the corner on 9th Street. They went on Sunday to the service, and to the Sunday school. Mrs. Dean went to the Tuesday evening prayer meeting, sometimes the Dorcas Circle and the children went to the after school club. They had joined as soon as they came to Buena Park, and the church, the pastor, and the church members were the center of their lives. Mr. Dean worked away from home most of the time, but when he was home he was a strong churchgoer too. Mr. Dean made sure they went to church, and did the right things even when he was away. Although they didn’t have a telephone, he would call the pastor and find out if they were all right. Mrs. Dean seemed like a big child herself, serious and well meaning, but slow witted. She seemed to have learned to take things at face value, and not ask too many questions about her life or her children’s lives.

The Deans had only just moved to Buena Park when the Kerr girl had been kidnapped and murdered. It was a terrible thing. Mrs. Dean had been to the funeral because the Kerr family had attended their church. The man who had done this thing had been caught and sent to the gas chamber. It was what he deserved. He was not a churchgoer, and had led a sinful life. Her children would have been too little to know much about the whole thing, so she was surprised that Beverly seemed to know and ask questions about it.

Beverly sometimes went to the movies with her sister, not often, and only in the afternoons. Mrs. Dean didn’t really like them going there at all, but Susan would ask and ask If something had happened at the movies, Susan and Beverly would have told her. It wasn’t like Beverly to make something up, or cheat. The few times she tried anything at home, she’d got caught. She just wasn’t the kind of girl to get away with lies or cheating, not like her sister who could talk herself out of anything. Mrs. Dean smiled with pleasure as she talked of Beverly and Susan. She loved her children, and was proud of them.

Pastor Wilson always said she was doing a good job for Jesus and her children. She didn’t have much money, or schooling, but she was strong in her belief, and tried to make a good home. Mr. Dean was sometimes critical of the way she dressed, or kept the house, or was too easy on the children but that was just his way of keeping her on her toes. She needed to be reminded of the right ways sometimes.

Miss Montgomery left the house, thanking Mrs. Dean for her time, and saying that she expected that Beverly would be in school as usual the next day. She had learned that Mrs. Dean didn’t know what was upsetting the child and somehow wasn’t overly interested.

Mrs. Dean seemed like many of the women who came to Southern California with their husbands and children to make a better life. Some thrived in the sunshine and opportunity, some turned wild or mean, and others, like Mrs. Dean, were unchanged, they kept going, looked after their families just getting by. Life was hard for her. She wondered about Mr. Dean, what did he do that took him away so much, what kind of husband and father he was. She guessed from what had been said that he might be a bully of one kind or another, controlling everything at home, even when he wasn’t there. She had known a few fathers like that: all smiles and thank you's when you met them, and mentioned their children, like that with her because she was the school teacher, but all the ‘Big I Am’ at home.

She felt tired and depressed perhaps it was the leftovers of the flu. Her head was spinning, she needed to sit down, at home, with a glass of water, and read the Santa Ana Register. She always felt better after she read the newspaper. She would come back to this tomorrow, if there were anything to come back to. Maybe she would go see Mr. Podolski at the movie house after school, just to check that nothing had happened to Beverly or Susan that led to this silly book report. She went home, read the Register, made supper for herself and her mother, and went to bed early.

The teacher was feeling better the next day, and after school she decided that it was worth it to go see Mr. Podolski. This would be a quiet time at the cinema, maybe he would know if some incident with a man and little girl had really happened during a movie recently. She would have to be very careful about how she asked him or she would get nothing at all out of