Part 3 — Ray Dunmores Secret
The note on school letterhead went on after the line I had read in the parking lot. Dad wrote that in 1979 he had been a witness in a federal case. He saw a man named Vernon Kell commit a serious crime, and he told the government what he saw. After the trial the Marshals gave him a new name and a job far away.
Ray was never his first name. The mugshot with the torn corner was Vernon Kell, who had gone to prison for decades, and who had friends. Dad had to give up his town, his family, and his old picture. He took the night custodian job because it put him in a quiet building under no spotlight.
The woman in the gray coat was named Carolyn. She was the daughter of another informant in the same case, a woman who had died in 1985. Dad promised her mother he would watch over the girl. For thirty-five years he sent letters, gifts, and money, and paid her tuition through the school district scholarship fund under a plain name.
That was what Clint had stumbled onto. He had looked at Dads old records on a call for insurance and recognized the case from a news archive. He called the old prison contact for Kell, not meaning harm, but meaning profit. He asked what it was worth to know where the informants daughter lived.
Dad found out on a Thursday. He took the envelope to the post office, mailed it to Carolyn, and told Clint he was going to the Marshals on Monday. They argued at the top of the basement stairs. A step gave way under Dad, and he fell. The state police reviewed the scene and confirmed an accident, with no one pushing him.
It was a hard thing to hear, but it was true. Clint had not killed our father. What he had done was lie to the world about him, and for money. He stood in the parking lot, pale and shaking, and said, I never meant to hurt him. I only wanted the money. I said that was the sorrow of it.
The Marshals took our statements. Kell, now eighty, had never received a single piece of information about Carolyn, because Clint had been caught before the call connected. Clint was charged with attempted extortion and obstruction, and he pleaded guilty. My father spent his life mopping floors so that a stranger could live free, and he never once asked for credit.
Carolyn came to our house for dinner that Sunday. She laughed at the peppermints, and she cried at the old school photos I had found in the attic. She told me my father once sent her a card that read, Be brave, and be kind, and keep your coat zipped.
The school named the new library the Ray Dunmore Reading Room. Hundreds of former students sent letters, and we framed forty. In the corner there is a jar of peppermints, free for any child who is having a bad day.
Clint comes to the library now when he is allowed. He sits in the quiet, takes a peppermint, and says nothing. I think Dad would let him.
