Fox Files with Isabel Long

You'll be happy to hear (maybe? I guess I shouldn't assume...I was happy to find, how about?) that I stayed on the planet earth this week for Fox Files. I did go back in time though. Only a few years though, so it wasn't terribly jarring. Well, no more than traveling through time and space while you sleep can be, really.

Anywho, I met with a PI (how cool is that? I know I'm weird but I just want to picture them all in long trench coats sneaking about and how it just must be the coolest job!). Her name is Isabel Long and I had such a good time meeting with her! She was not what I expected. Older, not old though. Silvery hair and a pretty face with high cheekbones.

Let's get into it!

*I plopped into the place and it felt vaguely familiar. I was born in Boston and still go back to visit family and since this ended up being in Massachusetts, I guess that's why it felt familiar to me.*

Cali: Hi!

*I stopped her on the street. Out of a crowd, I knew she was the one I wanted to talk to.*

Isabel: Yes?

Cali: This is going to sound strange, but I'm working on a column for the paper I'm at about people in the city and I'd love to talk to you if you have a moment. My name is Cali Fox.

Isabel: I suppose.

*It was almost a question, and I don't think she really wanted to talk to me, but the way these dreams work it's like they have to. Which is both weird and convenient.*

Cali: Great! Thank you so much. It will be painless.

*I laughed but she did not.*

Cali: What’s your name?

Isabel: Isabel Long — Isabel Long, P.I.

Cali: Private investegator?

Isabel: Yes.

Cali: That has always sounded like so much fun! Do you like it?

Isabel: I do.

Cali: I'm not sure I'd be good at it, but it always sounded like such a great job.

Isabel: Well, as a former journalist, I'm not shy about approaching anyone, which comes in handy. I can see right through someone when they are trying to bullshit me. Like now. These aren't your questions. Are they?

*I felt my face redden.*

Cali: No. Sorry. I got excited. I have always thought it would just be such a cool job. I always start off with the same one. What’s your favorite color?

Isabel: Hmm, nobody has asked me that since I was a little kid. But I would say 80 percent of my wardrobe is black.

Cali: It works for you. Tell me about where you are from.

Isabel: I grew up on the eastern part of Massachusetts. If you look at a map of Cape Cod’s arm, the town is in its pit. Like so many of their generation, my grandparents came over on the boat from the Madeira and Azores islands, so my early life was steeped in Portuguese traditions and saintly ambitions. (I dropped the second part when I was a hippie in college.) My late husband, Sam and I lived in Boston, but we deserted that city for a small town, Conwell in the western part of the state to bring up our kids.

Cali: How small?

Isabel: About a thousand people. It has one store, one school, one church, one stoplight, and one bar, the Rooster Bar and Grill, where I work Friday nights tending bar.

Cali: A P.I. and a bartender? You know everyone's secrets, I bet.

*She didn't answer beyond a raised eyebrow. I'm pretty sure it means she does, in fact, know a lot of secrets.*

Cali: What do you like to do for fun?

Isabel: Last fall, I was coming off a bad year in which I grieved for my husband Sam, a great guy with a bad ticker I found out one day in our living room. I also lost my job as editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper, one I had for 15 years, after it got sold to a chain. I worked for the damn paper for over thirty years. So, I was ready for a change in my life. I have a relationship with Jack, the owner of the Rooster, a local boy, so this newcomer is learning how to have fun in the sticks like dancing to country music and going to demolition derbies. But the real fun is using the skills I developed as a journalist to solve cold cases in the hilltowns. I am a sucker for a hard luck story. Got one for me to try?

Cali: Only if you believe in time travel. Or maybe worlds beyond Earth.

Isabel: I'm sorry?

Cali: I'm kidding. Sorry, weird sense of humor. Tell me about the people in your life.

Isabel: My mother, Maria, also a widow, came to live with me when she and I got tired of being alone. She may be 93, but she’s sharp and also a big mystery lover. She frequently accompanies me on interviews and offers sage advice. She is my Watson, you might say.

I have three adult children who live in the same town. Ruth, who has a little daughter, is skeptical of my being a P.I. The boys, well, their men now, Matt and Alex, are fine with it.

I already mentioned Jack. He’s never had a serious relationship although he’s in his late sixties. (I am not saying how old I am.) He was married for a minute to a local gal when they are young and in those days you didn’t shack up unmarried. Jack’s not crazy about my being a P.I. because I’ve gotten hurt a couple of times by bad guys. But he’s getting used to it.

There are many people I’ve met through my cases. Either they’ve hired me or at one time were a person of interest, a source or even a suspect. I can’t forget the Old Farts, who are a group of gossipy old men who meet early in the morning at the backroom of the general store. They don’t know I call them that or the nicknames I’ve given them like the Fattest Old Fart and Bald Old Fart. I visit them semi-often to get hot tips and give them a hard time. Those nosy bastards deserve it.

Cali: What’s going on in your life now?

Isabela: I’m actually in a middle of a case. Lin Pierce, who used to own the P.I. firm I work for, hired me to find out what happened to his sister who was kidnapped fifty years ago while she was sleeping in a carriage in the front yard. I am encountering serious blockades with this case, not surprising given how old it is. But I believe I’ve just gotten a break-through. Sorry, I don’t want to jinx it.

Cali: Wow. That's very sad. I can't imagine trying to find answers in a case that old.

Isabela: It is a challenge.

Cali: I love true crime and I'm always mystified when old, cold cases are broken open and suddenly we have answers. Do you have any goals or plans for your future?

Isabel: I’d like to solve a mystery from my childhood. My close cousin, Patsy, was abducted and her body found years later when the woods were cleared for a subdivision in my home town. I’d like to bring closure to her parents and find the bastard who did this.

Cali: Oh wow, you have your very own true crime case. I'm very sorry for your loss. What are you doing to get there?

Isabel: Getting my chops and developing my skills handling these local cases.

Cali: What do you think the biggest thing in your way is?

Isabel: I guess my fear that the person responsible will be someone I knew and trusted. Now that would be awful.

*I could feel whatever moves me working it's way through me so I tried to make a graceful exit but things were just getting good and I was really sorry to go.*

Cali: Wow, that's very cool. I really enjoyed talking to you. I won't take up any more of your time. Good luck with your case and I hope you find out what happened to your cousin!

*I was just out of sight when I woke up in bed.*

Isabel Long was easy to find. She'd worked a lot of cases.

One mystery that leads to another...

Isabel Long stumbles into her next case at a country fair when she is approached by a woman whose grandson's body was found there four years earlier.

Shirley Dawes took in Lucas Page after his mother had abandoned him, doing her best after failing to protect her own children from her late husband, a no-good abuser. Shirley's clearly had a hard life although by what people say, she did a good job raising him.

But on a Saturday night, Lucas Page dies in a ravine behind the fair's demolition derby, and nobody saw what happened. The official ruling was that he slipped and fell.

Along the way Isabel finds compelling evidence Lucas might have a connection to a string of break-ins in the hilltowns — yet another unsolved mystery. Was he part of a ring of thieves? Or was he trying to do the right thing but died as a result of it?

Isabel soon has her hands full with case number five.

I found a book about the case she'd talked about in our meeting. It's by Joan Livingston and you can find it HERE!