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Chapter 9

  Abigail had a kitchen full of noisy people drinking coffee and a yard full of the curious tracking back and forth from the tree house, debating over the graves she’d discovered.

  The newspaper story on the Summers family had opened her life, and everything in it, to the townspeople. Whatever new developments she discovered in their disappearance were the town’s business now, too. She didn’t know how the news had spread so quickly, but it had. She’d called Frank and then Samantha so she could get photos of the graves. She’d called the police, but had no idea how the other people who’d showed up at her house had learned of them.

  The sheriff was at the gravesite doing what he was good at, scratching his head, looking for clues, taking notes and trying to figure out how he could get out of doing anything which smelled like work.

  Abigail had snuck off to take a quick shower and put on clean clothes before she’d led Frank to the gravesite.

  “This feels like a wake,” she said, staring at the people milling around and feeling a heavy sense of loss. She hadn’t actually known the people buried beneath the ground, but she’d come to feel a strange sort of bond with them and mourned their senseless deaths.

  “It is,” Frank replied, his expression sad. “I can’t believe they’ve been dead all these years. I didn’t even know. I was too busy getting on with my new life in Chicago to bother. I didn’t try hard enough, didn’t look hard enough. What happened to them?” He seemed angry with himself. “And why didn’t I know?”

  “How would you? Frank, it’s not your fault. You didn’t look hard enough because you weren’t absolutely sure a crime had been committed. Thirty years ago no one looked hard enough for them. The sheriff at the time had a vendetta against Emily because she wouldn’t date him. So he pretended to look for them, but sabotaged the effort. It might explain why the graves weren’t discovered, or the tree house, hidden so deep in the woods.”

  Frank stood above the graves for a long time. “All these years no one knew they were here.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw tears in his eyes. It was hard to tell because a misty drizzle had begun falling. A rain which had come in suddenly with the people.

  “Edna knew,” Abigail mumbled. “She put those names on those grave markers, I’m sure of it. But how could she have buried her own sister, niece and nephew…hid it all those years…and not known who’d killed them? Unless she’d killed them or been part of someone else killing them. How can a sister, an aunt, do that and live with herself?”

  “People do awful things for money. Land. Security. Perhaps Edna wanted the inheritance and the house more than she feared carrying the guilt–or maybe she was mentally unstable as some people believed. Murderers don’t follow our rules. And are you so sure she was a willing participant in their deaths? She might have been scared into it or found them dead and buried them after the fact. Someone else may have done it and Edna never knew who or why.”

  “Then why didn’t she report it to the police?” Abigail wanted to know.

  “Good point. She must have had her reasons. Maybe she was afraid of Cal Brewster or something else to do with what’s in the red ledger book. The blackmail might figure into it somehow. I just don’t know.”

  She’d told Frank about Myrtle’s theory that Edna might have poisoned her parents and he’d told Sheriff Mearl. “He should have the parents’ bodies, as well as the three out there, exhumed. I don’t know if he will though. The crime, the remains are decades old. DNA testing might be able to yet detect poison if it’d been administered long term. If there are truly bodies in those graves, there could have been three murders…even five. Someone had to kill them. Edna’s now a suspect.”

  “Or Cal Brewster…or the ex-husband or the mysterious boyfriend or…a couple of others.” She hadn’t told Frank or anyone she’d found Jenny’s diary. She said Myrtle and she had been searching for the tree house and had found the graves by accident. Abigail had stashed the diary away, determined to read it first. Only then would she reveal she had it and hand it over to the sheriff.

  Samantha had left with her grave and tree house photos. She was going to use them in the next installment. Abigail had been surprised she was continuing the stories.

  “Of course. It’s an even bigger story now. We have three graves. If there’s really bodies under them–who killed them? I can’t stop the articles now. The publisher wants more. People want more.”

  “Don’t they always.” Frank hadn’t been happy. He still believed Abigail was in danger.

  After the crowds had thinned out the sheriff remained behind with Martha and Frank to ask more questions. Abigail wondered if he knew his father had also had a thing for Emily.

  “Sheriff,” Frank demanded, “are you going to exhume the bodies and have the state forensic guys run some tests on them? Edna’s parents too?”

  “Guess I’m going to have to. With all this publicity. It wouldn’t look like I was doing my job if I didn’t, now would it? We’ll dig ’em up and let the forensics crew have a go at them–not that I can see much sense in it. The bodies been in the ground thirty years and no one’s missed them. If Edna killed them, she’s not around to stand trial, is she? So what’s the sense?” The sheriff’s eyes barely concealed his scorn. If he’d had his way, the graves would have been left untouched. Finding them all these years later made the department look bad. A terrible crime had been committed and the police hadn’t had a clue it had. Now it would be all over the newspapers.

  “Justice,” Frank snapped, “that’s what.”

  “I can’t promise how quickly we can get the results. A couple of weeks. It won’t be a top priority. Not a crime this old.” Then the sheriff turned to Abigail. “Myrtle said she’d be gone how long?”

  “A week or two.” She’d given him the other details of Myrtle’s trip earlier.

  “I’ll make a couple of calls and see if I can track her down. I have some questions for her.”

  Abigail expected he did.

  When the sheriff departed, Martha, Frank and Abigail wandered out on the front porch. The rain was heavier and the day had become a gray shroud for the morning. They watched the rain fall.

  “Girl, ever since you came to town, you’ve sure stirred things up.” Martha was gently pushing the swing with her feet, a piece of toast Abigail had fixed her going into her mouth, a mug of coffee balanced in her other hand. “You just can’t let sleeping ghosts sleep, or lost graves stay lost, can you?”

  “No one could if those ghosts kept slipping a person notes.”

  Frank was sitting on the step below them; getting wet though he didn’t seem to care. Since they’d come out on the porch he’d been unusually quiet.

  Martha sipped her coffee. “So, do you two think Edna killed those three back there in the woods? I mean I knew the old woman and she was…weird. Like half the people in this town. But I never would have guessed she was a murderess. She didn’t look or act like one.”

  “Not many murderers do.” Frank broke his silence, his arms crossed and resting on his knees. “About ten years ago in Chicago there was this man, couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, bald with glasses, and as ancient as a rock. He lived by himself in a mausoleum of a house with a baby grand piano he could play like nobody’s business. There were dead plants everywhere. It was downright creepy. You couldn’t walk through the house there were so many dried up ivies and potted trees. I asked him why they were dead and he simply replied he liked them like that. To him they were beautiful. That should have been a big tip off.” Frank chuckled softly.

  “A neighbor turned the man in because he’d seen him killing dogs and cats and burying them in his garden in the middle of the day. Anyway, my partner and I called on him and had a chat about it. At first he appeared sweet and harmless. He sprouted poetry from memory and played us Mozart on the piano. He mentioned a son and a couple of grandkids. He served us tea and cupcakes.

  “But the old guy reacted so violently to our animal
inquiries I knew there was more to it. We got permission to dig up his garden and, low and behold, turned out he hadn’t only butchered and buried animals in his garden, but people, too. Seven of them.”

  “You’re kidding!” Martha was glued to the conversation. “Who were the victims?”

  “Salesmen. I should say salespeople. Men and women. Anyone who’d knocked on his front door over the years trying to sell him something or anyone whose looks or attitude he didn’t care for. He’d invite them in and–boom–hit them over the head with a baseball bat from behind. As many times as it took to kill them. Then, because he was a frail slip of a man, he’d cut them up into moveable pieces with his chainsaw and bury them out in the garden.”

  “Why did he do such horrible things?” Abigail shuddered, eyes on the rain a few feet away.

  “We never got the answer. First night after he was arrested he died in his cell of a heart attack. We never found out anything other than what he’d said when we’d taken him into custody.”

  “Which was?”

  “He didn’t appreciate pesky people banging at his door trying to sell him crap he didn’t need. He was on a fixed income.” Those were his words. So he killed them. It’d been going on for ten years or more.”

  “Good thing you and your partner were cops or you might have also ended up in that garden,” Abigail threw in. “And how was it no one ever caught on all those years…until the dead animals?”

  “Because he was smart enough to bury the people he killed at night. He only buried the animals during the day. People don’t see what’s in front of their eyes sometimes. That’s how criminals get away with what they do.”

  “Okay,” Martha conceded. “So what you’re saying is Edna could have killed her own sister and the kids. Who knows anyone really, is that what you’re telling us?”

  “You got it.” Snowball had jumped into Frank’s lap. He petted the cat and she scampered off into the rain. “Kitten’s grown like crazy,” he remarked. “Doesn’t look anything like that mud ball I brought to your door that stormy night.”

  “Yeah, I can’t get rid of her. I tried. She loves water and sneaks in the bathroom when I’m taking a bath, jumps right in with me. I have to fish her out quickly because I like hot baths and she starts yowling right away. When I wash dishes, she plops into the dishwater, soap suds and all. I’m always rescuing her. And if I don’t feed her by a certain time, she bites me on the ankle until I do.”

  Frank laughed. “No worse than my dogs. They’ll grab their dog food bag and drag it–all twenty-five pounds–right to my feet. Hint. Feed us now.”

  “Abigail?” Martha reached over and tapped her knee. “I wanted to tell you again how much I love your watercolor of my house. The picture’s hanging in my downstairs living room. I kept it in my office a few days before it was framed and everyone who saw it complimented it and wanted your telephone number. You did a great job. Hopefully you’ll get more business from it.”

  “I hope so, too,” Abigail said. “My savings will only stretch so far, as frugal as I am, and if I can’t make money freelancing eventually I’ll have to look for a real job. And the very thought of going back to advertising depresses me. I’d scream if I had to do one more newspaper ad.”

  “Right now you won’t have to. My picture’s next,” Frank reminded her. “And I’ll pay cash.”

  “Well, being a person on the clock, as you two aren’t, I’d better get in to work, rain or no.” Martha left the swing. “I need to sell a house today or a garage. Something. I’ll see you both later.” Then she was driving away in her car, waving through the window.

  Abigail waited for Frank to leave, but he continued to sit on her porch steps. She wanted to read the diary, didn’t want to be inhospitable, but he didn’t act as if he wanted to leave.

  “I was thinking, Abby,” he muttered after a few minutes. “If you really want to find out who killed Emily and her kids why don’t you take a trip with me to Chicago? We’ll talk to someone who might shed some light on what happened thirty summers ago. One of the only ones left who can. Todd Brown, Emily’s ex-husband. He lives four hours away and we can do it in a day, if we leave early.”

  She didn’t have to think about it long. “When do you want to go? We’ll split the gas.”

  “Tomorrow? And my treat. It’ll be a field trip. Get me out of the house cause I’m growing roots. It’ll be like old times, investigating something again. Besides I’d like to know the truth as much as you do. And I know all the good truck stops along the way with the best food and souvenirs.”

  “You got a deal. After this last week I’m ready for a road trip. I can’t think of anything better than traveling the highway looking for adventure with a friend and getting answers to our riddles to boot.”

  “We’ll leave about nine a.m.? Being the weekend, there’s a better chance of catching Brown at home.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Frank came to his feet and looked at her. “I’ve been dying to see this new movie with Tom Hanks. Stanley, the next town over, has a theater with eight screens and mouth-watering popcorn. I hate to go alone. Would you go with me tonight, Abby? We could get a pizza afterwards. We’d be just friends going to a movie together.”

  She thought of saying no, then changed her mind. She was lonely and tired of it. Frank was lonely. She of all people knew what it was like being one left over from a pair. And he was helping her to solve her mystery.

  “Sounds fun, Frank. I’d love to. You’re right, it’s no fun going alone. There’s no one to share the buttered popcorn with. You pick up weirdos and they never want to discuss the film. Safer to go with an ex-police officer. Weirdos never bother a woman with a cop beside her.”

  “There should be a showing around seven or so,” Frank said. “So I’ll see you around six?”

  She nodded and Frank left whistling. Abigail went straight to where she’d hidden Jenny’s diary. She read it sitting on the sofa. It didn’t take long. The entries began on June 18 and ended months later on August 13, 1970. It was in cursive, with the handwriting neater as if the child had been trying hard to make it pretty. Most of the pages were filled with little girl fluff. What she was thinking or feeling about things. Who and what she liked, what she and her brother did on their bike rides and thoughts on being a kid looking forward to summer vacation. In the beginning the entries were carefree and happy, but as the summer went on, and the adult world intruded, they became darker. Some of them, misspellings and all, made Abigail smile, while others made her sad.

  June 18

  Today was Chris and mine’s 10th birthday! Had a party, ice cream and cake. I got this neat diary, a box of chalk pastels, colored pencils, sketch pads and a huge bag of cashews (my favorite) and a Polaroid camera. Chris got the same. Except he got a put-together airplane instead of a camera. Dad sent us bicycles but couldn’t come because he had to work. I miss him. I hate divorces.

  June 23

  Mom has a new boyfriend. Saw him today while looking out my window. Don’t like HIM. He drinks too much and he pushes Mom around like Dad used to and she takes it. He is a bad man. I told Mom but she won’t listen. Mom says we can’t tell nobody who he is. It is a secret. Why? She won’t say. Chris doesn’t like HIM either. Once Chris saw HIM hit her and Chris kicked him and ran home. HE was so mad.

  June 29

  Aunt Edna is a wicked witch. She locked Chris in the dark basement all nite (without supper) cause he sassed her. I snuck food down to him after she went to bed and she caught me, shook me and I ran away to Mrs. Vogt’s house. Mom was out all nite with that man again. I am writing a letter to Dad to come get us. Aunt Edna is mean and she and Mom fight all the time over this money they keep talking about. What money? Mom, Chris and me are so broke.

  July 4

  the picnic and fireworks were great. Ate tons of cotton candy. Chris and I rode the Ferris Wheel and the Whip and spent all our allowance, empty soda bottle money and money we found along the road on the way
to Tinker’s General Store whenever we bought penny candy. Mr. Mason asked me about Mom, but I wouldn’t answer his questions.

  The sheriff followed us home that night pestering Mom again. But she wouldn’t even talk to him. Mom told me that his wife would break her face if she did. I don’t trust the sheriff. I don’t tell Mom this, but lots of nights he watches our house in his squad car. Creepy. Good thing not all police are as crooked as he is. There is one that is real nice. He brings us food. Plays with Chris and me. Talks nice to Mom.

  July 14

  Someone tried to run over Chris when he was on his bike. With a car. Chris had to go to the emergency room to have stitches. Mom cried and said it was because of her. I don’t know what she means. Mom let us call Dad and he said he was really coming this time. He promised.

  August 3

  Dad came and had a terrible fight with Mom in the diner, and Dad left town right away, didn’t even say goodbye to us. Chris hid in the tree house all nite and never came home. Next day Mom had a black eye and a chipped tooth. Bruises. I think her boyfriend did it, but Chris said it was the sheriff. Mom said Dad did it. Don’t believe that. I think Mom was fibbing.

  August 9

  Mom says we’re going to sell the house and move far away from here and start all over where no one will find us. Mom and Aunt Edna screamed at each other all nite. Chris threw up. He’s sick.

  August 10

  Mom didn’t come home last night and Aunt Edna is acting very strange. I snuck on the phone and called Dad, but he wasn’t there. Chris is still sick.

  August 13

  I am sick, too, now. My stomach hurts. I’m scared. Mom has been gone four days. I asked Aunt Edna where she was. Aunt Edna said she don’t know. I think she does. The phone doesn’t work. Maybe Aunt Edna didn’t pay the bill. Now I cant call Dad or anybody. Chris hasn’t left our room in three days and Aunt Edna won’t get a doctor for him or me. Says we’ll be fine sooner or later.

  August 13 had been the final entry. Pages had been torn out after that and the rest were blank.

  Who had been Emily’s secret abusive boyfriend? What had happened with Emily and the sheriff? Where were those missing pages? And was the Mr. Mason mentioned at the General Store the same John Mason who owned the store now? Mason had told her to her face that day in the store he’d never known Emily or her kids. Had he lied…and why?

  But it was what Abigail found tucked in the last pages of the diary which touched her most. Faded black and white Polaroids of Emily, Chris and Jenny at the twin’s birthday party and at the Fourth of July picnic. They were blurry photos of smiling children on bikes, playing with their hula-hoops and swinging on swings. There were pictures of their mom smiling and, someone who must have been Aunt Edna, scowling. She’d been a plain woman and that was being kind. She’d looked like an old crone even back then. Emily had been so pretty with her long light hair and her Cleopatra black-outlined eyes. Abigail didn’t think she looked like her in the least.

  Abigail reread the diary and laid it on the coffee table. Her mind churning over the glimpses of Jenny’s life and what they’d meant. The pictures were burned into her subconscious. She couldn’t stop thinking about Emily, Jenny and Christopher…these dead people who had taken over her life.

  That night at six she was ready to go when Frank arrived. Dressed in jeans, a cotton top and carrying a sweater because air-conditioned theaters were too cold for her, she met him on the porch and the two climbed into his truck. She’d show the diary to Frank later after the movie.

  She wanted to keep its contents secret, to herself, for a little bit longer. It was a piece of the living past.

  The theater was fifteen minutes away. It’d been years since she’d been in one without Joel. After buying their tickets, they were in line for popcorn and soda when Abigail glanced past her shoulder and spied John Mason. He was dressed in tan slacks and shirt and his silver hair was tucked under a blue baseball cap. Of all the people in the world to have to run into, she had to bump into him. Now of all times after having just read his name in Jenny’s diary–in an entry which made him a liar if it was true. No one could say fate didn’t have a sense of humor.

  She glanced away but he’d seen her and bee-lined it over to her. Her skin flushed as they made eye contact and exchanged the usual civilities, Frank giving her an amused look because he could tell she didn’t want to talk to the man. She’d told him how Mason flirted with her every time she saw him at the store and how uncomfortable it made her.

  “Imagine meeting you two here,” John Mason exclaimed. His eyes on Abigail. “I’d thought you’d be home digging up the back yard or something looking for more messages from people long dead, or helping Ms. Westerly invent more nonsense about a woman who’s probably living in retirement in Florida somewhere. Her kids both middle aged with kids of their own.”

  Abigail said nothing about the graves–not to Mason. He’d find out soon enough, but not from her. She felt uneasy being so close to him. Maybe because he’d known Emily and the kids and had lied…maybe he’d been Emily’s secret boyfriend, who knew. Now there was a strange thought.

  “I hardly think so, John,” Frank spoke up. “This morning Abigail found all three of them.”

  Any pretense of casualness drained from Mason’s expression. “Where?”

  “Beneath their graves in the woods behind her house. Read all about it and about the notes and stuff Abby’s discovered hidden in her home in the next episode of the Weekly Journal’s Emily Summers’ saga on Wednesday.”

  Mason looked at Abigail, his face unreadable. Some people didn’t appreciate digging up anything which might make their town look bad. Mason was one of those. Something unpleasant flickered behind the man’s eyes and Abigail wondered what he was thinking. He brusquely excused himself with an ingratiating smile, pleading he had to find a good seat and practically sprinted into the darkened auditorium.

  “Well that was rude.” Frank handed her a soda and a carton of popcorn.

  “Frank, how well do you know Mason?” she probed.

  “I’ve known him most of my life, but I don’t know him at all. He’s that kind of an odd fellow. More so since his divorce, which was way messy. No surprise, his marriage was even messier and his divorce left him bitter. He’s alienated from his kids. I think he has two of them. They moved far away; probably just to get away from him. The store is and has always been his life. Profit is his god. He smiled at you, Abigail. Mason smiling. That’s unusual.”

  She would have asked more questions but the movie had started and they could talk afterwards. So they went in search of seats.