Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

country-western combo performing either said or sang, and he waded in swinging with a beer bottle. Just as he’d done eleven years earlier, he hit a woman, but not fatally this time. One of the musicians’ girlfriends got in his way, and when Larry was drunk or angry—or both—he attacked first and looked to see who he’d attacked later.
    Like his brother before him, Larry was booked into the Marion County Jail in Salem. While Larry was incarcerated, Doris Mae was a familiar sight at the jail every visitor’s day. His brother, George, didn’t show up at all.
    In fact, George didn’t report for work, either.
    Nor was he seen in the taverns he was so fond of. He wasn’t so popular that anyone missed him very much, but a few people at the lumber mill wondered why he hadn’t called in sick.
     
    On the first night of spring, March 21, 1971, Silverton firemen answered an alarm that sent them to a run-down farmhouse on the Powers Creek Loop Road. Flames had licked through the roof by the time they arrived and they could hear the terrified screams of children inside.
    The firefighters raced to break into the smoke-filled house and groped for the youngsters. Fortunately, they found and rescued Doris and George’s five children. By the time the fire was finally extinguished, a gaping hole five feet in diameter had been burned through the roof.
    The older youngsters said that they were all alone in the place. Their uncle was in jail and their mother had gone out for a while; they didn’t mention their father at all.
    Doris Mae drove up and burst into hysterical crying as she saw the charred ruins. She was assured that her babies were safe at a neighbor’s house down the road.
    Doris was reprimanded for leaving young children alone, and she was contrite, promising that it would never happen again. She hadn’t been gone long at all, she said, and thought her older children would be okay looking after the babies. Clearly, a terrible tragedy had been averted.
    It was only a week later that the fire alarm sounded again and the address given was the same farmhouse. The Silverton fire crew raced back to the Light residence, fearful that this time they might not reach the children in time. This fire was not as severe as the first, however. Sparks from the crumbling chimney had ignited the roof again, but Doris had been at home and called for help right away.
    The firefighters felt sorry for the slender woman who lived alone in a house that was clearly unsafe and without even the smallest human comforts. For the children’s sake, and hers, too, they condemned the property and told her she would have to move out. She nodded her head distractedly when they asked her if she understood.
    On April 3, however, when Chief Larry Carpenter checked back, he found the house still occupied. Once again, he gave Doris Mae notice that she had to move out of the red-tagged house. No one realized that the Light family were only squatters, and that they hadn’t even been paying rent.
    The next day, the house was empty.
    Chief Carpenter contacted the out-of-state owner and explained that the property was a menace. He suggested that it should be razed before anyone was injured—or killed. The owner, surprised to hear anyone had been living there, agreed at once.
    On April 18, the Silverton firefighters burned the house, the sheds, and accumulated trash in a controlled training exercise. Nothing remained but the old car atop the well and some charred beer cans.
    Spring winds danced over the burned weeds and blew curls of ashes into the air.
     
    But soon nature regenerated the property. Lupines and California poppies and buttercups bloomed amid the ashes, and the old farm with its firs and cherry trees became a thing of beauty instead of an eyesore. Doris Mae never got to see how pretty the land there could be, despite her hope that she could stay there through the spring and summer and plant a little garden.
    Where she had gone was anybody’s guess. Sadly, nobody knew her well enough to wonder.
    The Lights had disappeared as quickly as they’d arrived, and folks in the region thought little of them. Pete Getchell missed his friend George Light and wondered why his old buddy had moved on without even saying good-bye. He mentioned it a time or two in the taverns and was finally semiconvinced that George had simply fallen back into his wandering ways.
    More than three years later, by August 19, 1974, the Lights were only dim memories