Mary Jane's Grave

by Stacy Dittrich

  I called and scheduled appointments with each of them, and while waiting for them to arrive I went online to search through the websites on Ceely Rose. All of them gave the same facts I already knew—except one. While most of them claimed that Ceely had murdered her entire family, one site stated that an older brother, Randall, had survived the murders. Fortunately for him, he had been out of town when the murders occurred.

  Hmmm, I thought. Very interesting. Then I began a search through local archives for Randall Rose. I immediately came upon his obituary, not the original, but a statement of facts about his death. There wasn’t much to it. He had apparently fallen off the roof of a barn and broken his neck.

  There was only one problem: the date he died was recorded as March 8, 1898. This was five days after Mary Jane Hendrickson had died and exactly one year and five days after his family was murdered by his only sister.

  I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I printed the page to add to the file. I wrote a note on the page to go look at Randall’s grave at the Pleasant Valley Cemetery, directly between Mary Jane’s Grave and Malabar Farm.

  That was the most I could do right now because the secretary of Major Crimes had just informed me that the teens were here, two with their parents because they were under eighteen.

  As I’d expected, the interviews took up most of the day. Everyone gave a similar account of Danielle’s attack, and for the most part Danielle’s description about when had they arrived at the grave was accurate.

  Yes, they all admitted, they’d been drinking and scaring one another. However, the other teens, unlike Danielle, claimed that they’d stayed together and hadn’t gotten separated. They claimed that they’d merely turned around, and suddenly Danielle was gone.

  When I questioned them about the other teens at Kari Sutter’s murder, they said they’d never heard of them.

  The accounts that Charlie gave me were the most interesting. The whole group had told me that as soon as Danielle disappeared, their flashlights suddenly lost power. Three of the kids then went down the road to get help because they’d heard about the earlier murder and had started to worry about Danielle.

  The other three stayed put, but as they walked around yelling for Danielle, they described more “strange things” that began to happen. First, a sudden steep drop in temperature got their attention big time. The teens claimed that it became so cold they were actually shivering—a tad unlikely for early fall.

  Next, they reported that someone started pitching rocks and sticks at them from the woods and that they heard a baby crying noisily. And last, sitting beneath the pine tree that appeared to have blood running down it, they all saw a gray- haired old woman dressed in white.

  That was the last straw. At that point, the terrified teens ran as far as they could from the mysterious woman perched under the tree, heading away from the gate and toward the back of the cemetery. And that was when Jeff Mason tripped over Danielle’s body, lying on the ground. One look at her and everyone freaked out, because Danielle looked dead as a doornail.

  If memory served me, Walter Morris had told me that Mary Jane Hendrickson’s house stood at the back of the cemetery before it burned down.

  Meanwhile, Danielle’s friends had returned, reporting that help was on the way. Mysteriously, their flashlights were working again, and even more mysteriously, the old lady had disappeared. The temperature had begun rising back to normal and the kids could hear the approaching sounds of sirens.

  The only thing I could figure out from all this was that Danielle had been left alive because the killer realized the other teens had gone for help. He or she only had time to put the burns on Danielle and drag her to the back of the cemetery. None of the kids had seen anyone else either before or after their arrival at the grave, other than the old woman by the tree.

  After the last teen left, I sat at my desk staring at the door. It was now more than a coincidence that all the witnesses were claiming to hear and see the same things, but it couldn’t be real, could it?

  How could this stuff be? I thought. Maybe it was special effects or someone who really knew how to stage a prank. Either way, the supernatural trappings were meant to distract the witnesses, no doubt about it.

  I looked at my watch and saw it was getting late, but it was still light enough for me to run over to Pleasant Valley Cemetery and snap a few pictures of Randall Rose’s grave. Before I left, I checked with the crime lab to see if they had come up with anything. According to Bob, the news was the same as for the Kari Sutter murder—nothing.

  I called Michael to let him know what I was doing. It was near dusk when I arrived at the cemetery, so I grabbed my flashlight just in case. Unlike Mary Jane’s Grave, Pleasant Valley Cemetery stood along the side of Pleasant Valley Road. Anyone driving by could read most of the headstones.

  Walking through the tombstones and reading the names, I saw they were all members of the same families: the Moffets, Mengerts and Tuckers. I also noted that these were also the names of roads that ran off of Pleasant Valley, telling me they were important, land-owning families back in the day.

  The Rose family was buried in the back, and I noticed that there was no road named after the Roses. Oddly enough, they were joined in eternity by Randall, who was buried in the very last row beside one member of each of the other families. Four plots, their headstones about five feet apart, made up the last row of the cemetery. No one else.

  After I took a few pictures of his grave, I turned to walk away. For some reason, though, I looked over at the grave next to Randall’s, and the one next to that one, and so on, before I stepped back and looked at all four graves in front of me. Then, with a shudder, I read the names and dates out loud.

  Randall F. Rose

  Died, March 8, 1898

  James L. Mengert

  Died, March 13, 1898

  Albert M. Tucker

  Died, March 18, 1898

  Gerald T. Moffet

  Died, March 23, 1898

  To my amazement, all the men, all in their early twenties, had died five days apart—within twenty days of Mary Jane Hendrickson’s death. I whipped out my trusty camera and took enough pictures to fill an entire memory card.

  For some reason, none of the men, including Randall, had been buried with the rest of their families. In-stead, they’d been hidden in the back. Now I had to find out why.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As I drove home, I still couldn’t figure out how no one had made this discovery before. The notion that maybe someone had and then tried to hide it occurred to me, but I decided to put it aside for now and concentrate on getting home to my waiting family.

  I was almost there when Michael called me. “Are you going to be home soon?” he asked, his voice tense.

  I felt a chill run through me. “I’m almost there now. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. I called Laurie to watch the girls for a while so we could talk.”

  My heart skipped a beat, then another one. “Sounds serious,” I said, trying to sound calm.

  “It is. I’ll see you soon.” And then he hung up.

  By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was a nervous wreck. I was sure this had something to do with Vanessa and had to keep pushing away my alarm bells signaling that Michael might be going back to her.

  When I walked into the living room and saw him sitting on the couch drinking whiskey, I became really concerned. This was a man who rarely drank hard liquor. I sat down next to him and put my hand on his.

  “Michael, what happened?” I asked gently.

  In reply, he handed me the papers he was holding, and I felt my heart sink. I had only to read the line, Vanessa A. Hagerman; Petitioner vs. M. Michael Hagerman; Respondent, to know what this was—a motion filed byVanessa to revoke his visitation rights with Sean.

  “That vengeful bitch,” I murmured, shaking my head in disbelief as I read the papers. According to the papers, the cause of the motion was, of course, me. Vanessa cla
imed that my past high- profile cases put me and my own children in danger, that I was reckless in doing so, and that I had no regard for my own children, let alone hers. She claimed that when Sean was here, he was at risk from the “criminal element” that I have, by being on the force, “chosen” to surround myself with.

  Depositions were scheduled for two weeks from today. Still trying to appear calm, I handed Michael the papers.

  “Her claims are ridiculous,” I told him, biting out the words. “I’m a law enforcement officer, for Christ’s sake. So are you! Of course we’re around criminal elements. I can’t believe a judge would sign this crap!”

  I was beyond angry.

  He nodded and handed me another piece of paper. “This was just dropped off a little while ago.”

  It was a subpoena for me to attend and give testimony at the deposition. I threw the subpoena down, stood up and headed for the phone. Michael was right behind me.

  “CeeCee! What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling Vanessa. I’ve had just about enough of her bullshit.”

  “You can’t call Vanessa! She’ll take that as a threat, and it’ll get brought up in the testimony. Please, Cee,” Michael pleaded.

  I turned around and saw his face. The man was tortured, deep frown lines creasing his forehead. I could see that this was killing him, which in turn was killing me. I grabbed him and began to cry.

  “So we can’t see Sean until this is over?” I said through my tears.

  He pulled away and looked at me. “No, there’s no temporary order in that motion. I’ve already called my attorney and he said everything stays as is until the final hearing. Actually, he didn’t think there was any reason to be concerned about this.”

  “How can he say that? It’s your son!” I protested.

  Michael led me back to the living room, where we both sat down again. I wiped the tears from my eyes and felt myself calming down somewhat. It was then that I had a thought—one that made me shudder—but I had to suggest it.

  “Michael,” I began quietly, “maybe if you moved out she’d drop all this. Just for a little while, until she calms down.”

  He looked horrified. “Forget it, CeeCee! I am not giving her what she wants—and I’m not letting her manipulate us. We’ll let the court settle it.”

  “But custody cases can take months, Michael, even up to a year.”

  “I’m aware of that. Just don’t bring that up again, okay? I’m not leaving you.” To my relief, I saw that he meant what he said.

  There was no point in arguing with him; he was as stubborn as I was. So we sat quietly for a while until an idea dawned on me. “She just threatened this yesterday, Michael. How’d she get the paperwork drawn up, filed, signed, and served in one day?”

  “I noticed that the papers were filed with the court last week,” Michael replied.” She’s obviously planned this for some time. I guess yesterday was her last attempt before having me served.”

  The pain in his voice returned and I swore at Vanessa for hurting this man I loved so much. If Vanessa had been standing here, I would have wrung her neck with my bare hands. I’ve never had so much contempt for a person as I did for her right then.

  I was so keyed up that I decided to join Michael with my own glass of whiskey.

  “Michael?” I put my hand on his arm and looked at him intently. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine, honey, don’t worry. I just hoped that she’d give this up, but apparently I was wrong.” He sighed. “You know, I’m pretty tired and I think I’m going to go to bed. You coming?”

  “Honey, I’m too wired. I’ll be up in a bit,” I said, giving him a kiss and watching him wearily climb the stairs.

  I sat up for another hour after I put the girls to bed, trying to figure out a solution to this nightmare. I ended up feeling more frustrated than ever.

  Since I wasn’t able to fix my personal life, I found my thoughts drifting to my case. I realized I needed to find out how each of the four men whose graves I’d found had died. After that, I had to figure out how they were connected with everything. And only one person could tell me what I wanted to know—Walter Morris.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I didn’t sleep much that night, mainly because Michael didn’t. He was restless and kept getting out of bed to walk around. I hated to see him like this, but there was nothing I could do. He was already dressed and ready for work when I got up, and he was unusually quiet and distant most of the morning until he left. My heart ached for him.

  I decided to skip going to my office and drove to Walter Morris’s house. Thoughts about Michael hovered around me during the entire drive until I pulled into Walter’s driveway. I grabbed the photographs of the men’s tombstones and arranged my notes before knocking on his door. After five minutes without an answer, I was getting ready to leave. Walter’s car was there, but I assumed he was still in bed. It was early, but it wasn’t that early.

  As I turned to leave, I heard the familiar shuffling of feet coming from the other side of the door. Walter finally opened the door. By the look on his face, though, he didn’t seem too happy to see me.

  “Oh, it’s you, young lady. Forget something last time, did ya?” He eyed me suspiciously.

  “Actually no, Walt, I didn’t. I happened to discover some other information that I’d like to talk to you about, if you’re willing.”

  He stood there looking at me, and I suddenly knew that he wasn’t going to let me back in.

  “I told you all I can tell you, young lady. I’m sorry you wasted a trip back down here, but there’s nothing else to say.” He started to close the door.

  I put my hand on it. “Walt, please. I have some pictures I want you to look at, and then I’ll leave. You can look at them right here—I don’t even have to come in,” I said in my most enticing voice.

  Walt reached up, took off his glasses, and began rubbing his eyes with one hand, the other holding on to the walker. “All right, young lady, let’s see those pictures. I’ve never been one for rudeness, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  I shuffled through my folders, quickly in case he changed his mind, and pulled out the digital photographs of Randall Rose’s grave and the others, thrusting them forward. He reached out and grasped them in his gnarled fingers.

  I didn’t know how good his vision was, but he only looked at them for a few seconds before handing them back to me. A strange, defeated look was on his face. He let out a deep sigh.

  “Can you tell me anything about those, Walt? I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but those men died right after Mary Jane Hendrickson did, including Ceely Rose’s brother.”

  “Yep, it’s a bit strange, isn’t it, young lady?” he said cryptically.

  “Yes, it is, and I think you know why,” I said. I was getting a bit impatient with his game- playing.

  “Maybe I do, but you’ll have to figure it out on your own. You’ve come this far, right? Now you’ll go the rest of the way.” He paused. “You can’t come back here anymore, Sergeant, it just won’t do. No one is supposed to talk about this, ever.”

  “If no one was supposed to talk about it, how did the story get started in the first place?” I countered with a somewhat forced smile.

  “Because someone did talk. Now be on your way, young lady.”

  Walter shut the door as I stood there flabbergasted once again. He dangled important information before me, and then shut the door in my face. It was infuriating.

  When I got back to my office, I logged on to my computer to research the deaths of James Mengert, Albert Tucker, and Gerald Moffet. It took quite a while to find anything, but I got lucky with James Mengert, who drowned in a nearby pond. Then Albert Tucker apparently choked to death on a piece of food. I couldn’t find any cause of death—odd or ordinary—on Gerald Moffet, but I’m sure it was along the same lines as the others. They had all died of “ordinary, everyday” accidents, but the timing was sure one hell of a coincidence.


  Feeling stuck again, I pulled the file on the robbery that had taken place at the gravesite several years ago. I had only briefly skimmed through it earlier, but now I was paying closer attention to the interviews with the suspects. Several had casually commented on some unusual occurrences while they were robbing a carload of teenagers.

  First, each of the suspects claimed that the car had “died.” The lead suspect had said, “I don’t know, it just died. It’s never done that before.” Second, one of the suspects said he thought the car had caught fire because he smelled something burning, but no one else did.

  All of the suspects, prior to the robbery, were at the grave and tried to cut the pine tree down with an ax; predictably, it wouldn’t budge. After that, they tried to set the tree on fire, but instead, one of the suspects ignited his own arm. Clearly not one of the brightest in the group.

  In one interview, the suspect had claimed, “I don’t know what the deal was, but that tree didn’t want to come down, so we gave up.”

  And last, not one of the suspects had a prior criminal record. They were former straight- A students and college graduates. All of them claimed they didn’t know why they did it. “Something just came over us, I guess.”

  For these young men to put on ski masks, grab baseball bats and surround a carload of teenagers, then beat and rob them, was extremely unusual. All had been sentenced to at least ten years in prison.

  I threw the case file aside and stretched. I knew I was missing something, and then suddenly it came to me. I grabbed the photographs from the Kari Sutter murder and began flipping through them, stopping at the large photograph of the bloody M painted on the tree. I set it aside and grabbed my timeline of the Hendrickson family. I hadn’t paid much attention to it earlier, but taking another look at it, I realized that the first names of all the Hendrickson women started with M: Mary Jane, Made-line, and Maryanne.