The Bicycling Man

By Ann Stratton

Every town has its historical mysteries and Helen has just discovered her town’s very own. There’s a story here somewhere, and the truth to be revealed, and she takes it upon herself to solve it. The mystery man only appears when the conditions are right. He disappears in the blink of an eye. What is his story? Helen sets out to find out everything she can about him.
But there’s her college classes to keep up with and her sister too, who’s got troubles of her own. Grandma Chen and her Mah Jong buddies might help, but they’re more interested in arguing about who’s related to who, and telling old stories.
It’s all up to Helen to solve the bicycling man’s mystery, maintain her grade average, and support her little sister.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Stratton
• Release date: May 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005212278

Ann Stratton

Ann Stratton started writing at age thirteen with the usual results. After a long stint in fan fiction, honing her skills, she hopes she has gotten better since then. She lives in Southeastern Arizona, trying to juggle all her varied interests. 

Book preview

The Bicyclist

The Smashwords Edition

Ann Stratton

A Blind Woman Production publication

Copyright © 2020 Ann Stratton

To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.

* * *

Well, that’s interesting, Helen Chen said, peering closely at the smeary computer screen. The guy in the next carrel gave her a dirty look, but she ignored him. Previous users had put finger prints all over the screen and then sneezed on it, leaving disgusting tracks across the glass. Zooming in on the readout did nothing for the resolution of the data there. Yech. She dug in her purse for the packet of tissues and the little bottle of hand sanitizer, dampened a tissue with a squirt of sanitizer, and started scrubbing.

The guy on one side and the kid on the other side of her in row of library computer carrels looked up when they registered the sanitizer’s sharp scent, but neither of them offered to help or call the librarian for more appropriate cleaners. The kid made a disgusted face, but watched anyway. The guy on the one side made a big show of pinching his nose and holding his breath and diligently not noticing what she was doing.

It took nearly the entire packet of tissues and too much of the sanitizer, but finally the screen was clean enough to read. Helen stuffed the wad of wet smelly tissues in the corner of the carrel, washed her hands and the mouse one more time and put the sanitizer back into her purse. At least she could see what she was looking at now, even though the astringent smell of the sanitizer prickled her nose and made her want to sneeze. She scrolled around the photograph she’d found, zooming up on the part that had caught her attention.

The photograph had been scanned from an old newspaper photo, so the resolution was still pretty grainy, but at least she could get a better look at it. According to the caption, the gathering celebrated the opening of a new bank branch, an imposing brick building with high windows and two stories, with the name of the bank painted on the door and front windows. She couldn’t quite read it but it looked like it might say First National.

A party of solemn white men, dressed in fitted dark jackets and top hats and adorned with an array of magnificent mustaches and side whiskers, squinted into the sun at the photographer. Several white ladies dressed in puffy shouldered blouses, swooping skirts, and giant hats stood with them, also squinting into the sun. One held a parasol, but she angled it away from her head, probably at the photographer’s command, so that the shadow didn’t fall on her face.

That was pretty standard. Helen looked at all the faces, grainy, squinting, hairy, blobs of eyes and mouths. She zoomed in on them, which didn’t do much for the resolution, and scrolled the picture around to the side she wanted, a view of the street in front of the brick building. A dog and a kid, standing there watching the goings on, and farther back, a man on a bicycle. By his attitude and expression, he didn’t realize the photographer had caught him in the image. By a trick of the timing, the man on the bicycle was as clear as a scanned newspaper photo could be, and Helen could see nearly every detail of his face, clothes, and bicycle.

His expression was bland, the expression of someone not thinking very hard, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His hair was dark and messily grown out from a flat top, his t-shirt was white with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, his pants were photographic grey, rolled up over knobby ankles and penny loafers. They looked like jeans. His bicycle was a cruiser model, probably red and white by the shades of grey, with fat tires. He held its broad handlebars with an easy grip, not leaning too deep into them.

The man himself might have been Asian, though the distance and resolution weren’t good enough to be any more specific. What set him off from the other people in the photo, besides that, were the clothes he wore. They weren’t period specific, they didn’t match the rest of the people in the photo, and if they weren’t there, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him.

But they were, and so was he, t-shirt, jeans, and all.

Helen zoomed in and out, trying to get a decent look at him. The timer on her library computer dinged, reminding her she was out of time and she realized someone stood behind her, breathing impatience down her neck. She shuddered and sent the photo to the printer, backed out of the archives and closed out of her account.

The teenager behind her almost knocked her down, trying to get into the chair as she got out of it. The girl threw the wad of sticky tissues at her with a disgusted noise, shoved the keyboard around and pulled up her own account.

Helen gathered up her purse, went to the counter to drop the tissues in a wastebasket, earning a sour look from the librarian, and paid for her print outs. She decided not to just put it in her purse, where it would get lost or bent or otherwise messed up, folded it to show the man on the bicycle and slid it into her wallet for safer keeping.

Outside, the sun almost blinded her and she pulled her sunglasses out of her purse. A brisk breeze blew around her, hot and smelling of gasoline fumes and asphalt, kerosene as a diesel truck rumbled past. Helen coughed, turned away from the library and started walking up the block. She really should have brought a hat, because the sun pounded on her head with a heavy hand. Of course, it didn’t help that she was wearing black again, t-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, the whole ensemble. She wore black to remind herself that she was alive. If she didn’t have to think about other colors, or picking out the right shade and pattern, she could devote more energy and thought to more important things, like her sister.

She pulled the printout from her wallet and looked at it again in the bright sunlight. The sun washed out the details, but she could still see the