THE HAMMER FILES: The Oakmont Lead

A Trail of Letters

The wooden box sat on my desk, a time capsule of a life I’d only half-lived. I ran my thumb over the old wrapping paper one last time, a silent prayer to a ghost. Then, I pulled at the paper, and the box creaked open like a coffin.

Inside was a mess of loose papers, yellowed with time and age. They were small, folded notes, some barely bigger than a postage stamp. I unfolded one. A hand-drawn heart. Another, a scrawled “I love you” in a teenage girl’s handwriting. A third, “I’ll never forget our summer.” I felt the years melt away. This wasn’t a girl from the old neighborhood. This was Angela. This was the light I had lost.

Beneath the loose notes, a collection of sealed envelopes, tied with string, caught my eye. The postmarks weren’t twenty years old; some were less than five. The box, Erma had said, had been sitting at Alison’s house for twenty years. The math didn’t add up. The only answer, the only possible answer, hit me with the force of a lead pipe. Aunt Alison, that bitter old crone I’d always dismissed, must have had a heart after all. She had been receiving Angela’s letters all these years, carefully unwrapping and re-wrapping the box with each new one.

I opened the letters, starting with the oldest. A baby picture. A lock of hair. A photo of a little girl in a first-grade class. Jackie Angel. Through these silent relics, I was meeting the daughter I had never known. I saw the trail of a woman I had loved and a daughter I had lost.

As the years on the letters progressed, the hope faded. The notes became less a prayer for a reunion and more of a confessional. The last letter was brittle, its edges worn thin with stress and despair. The handwriting was shaky. It told of a habit, of the “hard dope,” and of a face she no longer recognized in the mirror. It ended with a final, desperate plea: she was going to Oakmont, Michigan, to get clean. “Don’t come looking now Jack.” the letter concluded “You wouldn’t recognize me if you found me.”

A name. A place. A lead. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I had before. My hands, which had been numb with grief, now felt a cold, hard resolve. I had a mission. And I had a name.

Related posts:

THE HAMMER FILES: Case by Case Noir-Graphic Novels From the Memoirs of Jack Hammer. THE HAMMER FILES: Jack Misses the Mark The Desk of Jack Hammer THE HAMMER FILES: A Gift from Christmas Past