It Ends Here

by Willow Rose

  "I am so deeply sorry for your great loss."

  As she stared at the picture between her hands, thinking about the upcoming funeral and how to cope with it, there was a knock on the door. Leanne wiped a tear away, then walked to open the door. Outside stood a little girl Leanne knew lived down the street.

  The girl, Anna Mae, studied Leanne, her head slightly tilted.

  "Yes?" Leanne asked, wondering what the girl was doing there. "What can I help you with?"

  Anna Mae grinned. "Is Timmy here?"

  Leanne's eyes grew weary. She clasped her mouth and bent down with an air of deep compassion in her eyes. The poor child had no idea?

  "Oh, dear. Sweet girl. I am sorry, but…" Leanne swallowed before continuing. "Haven't you heard? Timothy is dead. He died, sweetie. I’m so sorry."

  Anna Mae smiled. There was something about the way the smile was crooked on one side that made Leanne's skin crawl.

  "Oh, I know that he’s dead."

  Leanne felt confused. She stood up straight. What was this? "You knew? But…but…? I thought you…"

  "I just wanted to see his dead body."

  Leanne blinked. Confusion was exchanged with anger in her eyes as she slowly realized she hadn't misheard the child.

  "You wanted to…what? Excuse me?"

  Anna Mae was still smiling. "Do you miss him?"

  Leanne shook her head. "What…what are you…why would you ask that?"

  "Do you? Are you sad that he's gone?"

  Leanne shook her head in confusion. "Who…who does such a thing?" she asked, appalled. Was this some sort of joke? Would a child stoop this low? "What…what are you?"

  "Well, are you? Do you cry at night because you miss him so much; do you?" Anna Mae asked. It looked to Leanne like she was enjoying this.

  Having had enough of this, Leanne moved away from the girl. She stared down at her, walking backward, her hands shaking. She rushed inside, then slammed the door shut. Anna Mae stood out there for a few minutes more, then turned around and walked away, skipping down the road. Leanne watched her from the window, shuddering, then picked up her phone and called Anna Mae's aunt. She knew the girl's mother, the town's local whore, would never care what she had said.

  "Please, have that girl stay far away from us. Make sure she never comes to our house again, or I'll have to call the sheriff, do you hear me?"

  Leanne hung up before Carol could object. She still stared at the girl in the street and didn't let her out of her sight. Anna Mae wasn't leaving; she was sitting underneath a big tree across the street as a cat walked by. The girl grabbed it by the tail and pulled it till the cat hissed. Then she let go, and it ran off hissing and wailing. Then the girl laughed.

  Her husband, Tom, came up behind her. "Who was that?"

  "That girl. You know, Joanna's girl," Leanne said. "She wanted to see Timothy's body. She scares me."

  Tom scoffed. "She's just fooling around. Don't let her get to you."

  "Do you think she did something? Do you think she might have hurt our son?" she asked.

  Tom shook his head heavily. The distance between them since they got the news about Timothy seemed to be growing every day. It was like they no longer knew how to be around each other. They were secretly blaming each other for not keeping an eye on the boy, but never daring to say it out loud.

  "You heard what the sheriff said that day. It was an accident," he said. "Accidents happen. I think Anna Mae is just being Anna Mae if you want my opinion."

  20

  I should probably have gone home at this point. I was done with the article, it was being printed, and there was no more for me to do in Webster. Except there was. At least I felt like there was. I couldn't let go of the death of that young boy and the old story. So, instead of driving back to Cocoa Beach, I drove through town. I passed the city limit sign and entered the countryside. I drove past Lone Oak Plant Nursery, then stopped at a gated entrance to a big estate that I knew belonged to the Cucumber King. I pushed the button on the Intercom at the gate.

  "Yes?" a voice asked. "Who is this?"

  "My name is Rebekka Franck. I’m a reporter. I want to do a piece about your son and how he died."

  "We don't talk to reporters. We're not interested," she said and was about to hang up.

  "Wait, there's more. I believe these abandoned houses like the one your son went into should be demolished. That's the angle of my story. I believe it's time the local politicians wake up and take action. We need to prevent further tragedies. Demolish death-traps like the one where your son died. But I need your help; I need your story to wake them up."

  Silence followed before the voice said: "When the gate opens, you take a left and follow the trail all the way to the bottom. I'm in the gray building to the right."

  With those words, she disappeared. Next, the gate opened slowly, and I was let inside. I drove up the dirt road, then took a left and followed the trail. It was nice and sunny out. The rows and rows of cucumber fields lay in front of me as far as I could see.

  I drove along them till I reached the end where three big gray buildings showed up. I parked in front of the one to my right and got out. The sound of voices trying to be heard over the water splashing followed as I approached the opening in the big building. Inside were maybe twenty people working. One was pouring big baskets of cucumbers onto a conveyor belt, where someone else sprayed them with water before another person picked out the bad ones and threw them away. Another conveyor belt transported them through more water, and then someone else was sorting them by size. It was like an entire factory. I spotted a woman wearing a straw hat. She was talking to one of the workers. I assumed she was Mrs. Cunningham and approached her. She finished talking to her employee, who left, then looked down at the cucumber in her gloved hand.

  "It used to be citrus fruit. Did you know that?" she said. "Webster used to be real big on oranges. But then came the big freeze in 1894. All the citrus trees in the area died. Most farmers went bankrupt, except for my grandfather. He acted fast and changed to cucumbers. That was how he survived. And soon, his enterprise grew so much that they quickly gave him the nickname the Cucumber King, a name that has followed my family for generations and now belongs to my husband, who took over when my father retired. The original Cucumber King, my grandfather, was the one who started it all. He was the sole reason that Webster in the early 1900s became known as the Cucumber Capital. In 1937, a group of local farmers, with my grandfather in front, formed a co-op and without any funding from state or county, they built a market in the middle of Webster from which they could auction off their produce. And they built it themselves. They harvested cypress trees from the swamps, and it is still standing today. They used mules to drag the lumber. That's how the Farmer's Market was born."

  "I see. Interesting. I read that it is now listed in the top ten attractions to visit in Florida. I’ve eaten at the restaurant there every day since I got here. The food is good. Solid."

  Mrs. Cunningham gave me a look. She was still holding the cucumber in her hand.

  "You really think you could get them to tear down that old building?"

  I shrugged. "All I can do is try."

  Her eyes looked into mine, and she scrutinized me. Her hand clenched the cucumber.

  "That's all anyone can do, Mrs. Franck. That's all any of us can do. Follow me."

  21

  She led me to a house behind the gray buildings, and I guessed it was where she and the king lived. We walked onto the porch, and she told me to sit down. She took off her gloves and placed them on the patio table in front of me, then went inside. She came back a few minutes later, carrying iced tea in two glasses. She handed me one. I drank from it, then realized it was unsweetened.

  "So, what is it you need from me?" she said and sat down in a rocking chair. "How can I contribute to this cause?"

  I leaned forward, glass still between my hands. It felt nice and cool between my fingers. I swallowed a sip of the tea while Mrs. Cunni
ngham rocked in the chair while using her hat as a fan. It was very hot out now, and I felt drops of sweat run down my stomach. I had dressed in too many clothes, thinking we would be inside. It was a thing that confused me often in Florida, what to wear. Outside, it was always so hot, so a little light dress would be enough, but as soon as you went inside a restaurant or someone's house, you'd freeze immediately because of the AC.

  "I need your story," I said. "I need you to tell me about Alexander and about losing him. If we're to get these politicians up from their comfortable couches, we need to give them something big, something that can stir them up. A big emotional story like yours could do just that. I know it won't be easy, considering…"

  I didn't get to finish the sentence before she stopped me, holding a hand in the air. She drank from her glass, then nodded.

  "All right. You've got me convinced."

  I nodded, thinking this was going to be tough as heck, but if I played my cards right, it could end up being quite a story. This was a story with strong emotions, and those were the ones I did best.

  I grabbed my phone and used my Dictaphone app. I placed it between us on the small table.

  "Tell me about Alexander. Anything that comes to mind about him. What kind of a boy was he?"

  A deep silence broke out. Mrs. Cunningham was still rocking in her chair, waving air in her face. She didn't look at me, but at the fields in front of us, or the buildings next to us.

  She cleared her throat.

  "He was a…wonderful kid. I guess all moms say that about their sons, right?" She glanced at me briefly, then looked down at the porch again.

  "Most mothers, yes," I said. "But what made him so special? What did you find to be extraordinary about him?"

  She scoffed, then shook her head. "Funnily enough…his curiosity. He was always asking about everything. I sometimes got the feeling he was trying to get to know everything there was to know in this world by the time he reached eighteen and…"

  Mrs. Cunningham stopped herself. I gave her time to gather her thoughts. She was never going to see him reach that age or see what he'd become. That had been robbed from her.

  "As I said, he was a very curious boy."

  I nodded. "They say he walked into the house on his own, probably because he thought it was an exciting place to play. Had he ever talked about the house on Second Street? Was he curious about it?"

  She nodded and drank again, looking out toward the building where we had met.

  "He always wanted to go in there for some reason," she said, her voice small and weary. "I had told him that it used to be an orange grove, the biggest one around here, and how they had hung those…slaves back in the old magnolia tree, back when there was that riot. He knew all the history, and he also knew that…this boy had died in there once."

  "Timothy Peterson?" I asked.

  She nodded. "It happened when I was just a child. An awful story. The town was never really the same again. People still don't like to talk about it. It'll probably be the same with…Alex."

  "They thought it was an accident back then, right?" I asked. I glanced at the phone to make sure it was still recording everything that was being said. We were moving into the important stuff now. "But it wasn't."

  She shook her head. "No. Timothy was murdered. But that was back then. It was a different story. It shook the town badly. To think that someone could…hurt such a young child was…well… Alex fell, he hurt his head, they said. It was different than back then."

  "I have read many comments in the newspapers from people comparing the two stories, have you done so too?" I asked cautiously. "Do you see any similarities?"

  She looked up, then put her glass down, hard. She cleared her throat again.

  "Just tell them to tear that darn house down before someone else gets hurt in there, will you? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be. Thank you for your visit. You can let yourself out."

  22

  I sat at my laptop and wrote down what Mrs. Cunningham had told me. It wasn't much yet, at least not enough for an article, but something was shaping inside of me. The way she had looked at me when mentioning the murder of Timothy Peterson had made me certain that I was onto something. This town was still licking its wounds from what had happened back then, and even though no one dared to say it out loud, it was obvious; everyone was thinking it. They were all asking themselves the same questions. Had it happened again? And would it ever end?

  To answer the second question, you'd need to answer the first. And I intended to do just that. Something was off here; my intuition told me. I just couldn't figure out what.

  I finished typing the interview into a Word document, then saved it for later use. Then I wrote a series of unanswered questions before closing the document and opening a browser. I stared at the blinking cursor for a few seconds, then glared down at the phone lying next to my laptop.

  Sune was usually my go-to guy when it came to getting access to places I wasn't allowed. He was the one who had done time in juvenile because of hacking when he was a teenager. He was the one who used to help me when I needed it, even if it meant him risking getting caught again. And he was good. He could get in anywhere. He would do it willingly for me because, back then, he had been crazy about me. Now, things had changed. I couldn't just call him up and ask him to break the law for me anymore.

  Could I?

  I held the phone between my fingers. I wondered for a few seconds what he would say if I asked.

  Then I put the phone back down again. We weren't exactly acting friendly toward one another these days. Lots of ugly things had been said between us. The kind of things you couldn't just forget or easily forgive.

  No, there was no way I could ask him to do this. I'd have to do it myself. Sune had taught me a lot over the past several years, and I'd have to make do with that. I wasn't a very skilled hacker just yet, but I could do stuff. Basic stuff. Over the past few years, I had improved my Linux skills, I had learned Python language, and I had learned how to use Wireshark, the most widely used protocol analyzer. Sune had taught me to understand security concepts and technologies. Teaching me the basics of PKI—public key infrastructure, SSL—secure sockets layer, IDS—intrusion detection system, firewalls, and so on.

  I had practiced my skills using Virtualbox, which was a virtualization software where you created a safe environment to practice your hacks before taking them to the real world. But I had never done anything real. Not yet at least.

  I took in a deep breath, remembering Sune's advice that a good hacker always thought outside the box. It was all about making a system work in ways it was not designed to.

  So, I did. I found the medical examiner's database through the sheriff's office. At first, I tried to get access the obvious way. I used admin login and tried to guess the password, using a webpage a famous hacker had created with options. I tried a lot of different combinations, but it was no use. Then, I ran a password-auditing tool, and bingo, after a couple of hours at it, I had gained access.

  I smiled and was about to grab my phone to call and tell Sune, thinking he was going to be so excited when I stopped myself. That wasn't the kind of relationship we had.

  Not anymore.

  I looked through the database, then searched for Alexander Cunningham's name and found the medical examiner's report and the autopsy.

  It was almost too easy. Sweat prickling on my forehead, and slightly satisfied with my own skills, I skimmed through it, then took pictures of the screen with my phone, making sure to get all the pages. I then hurried and got back out again before anyone noticed I had been there. If there was one thing Sune had taught me it was to cover my tracks. I always masked my IP, and I always cleared the history on my computer afterward. And I never ever bragged about what I had done. Many hackers were caught from bragging on Twitter. Twitter attached GPS coordinates to photo uploads by default. It was important never to leave a trace they could follow, Sune had taught me, along with everything he believ
ed that I needed to know about digital forensics.

  Satisfied, I closed the lid on my computer, then opened the documents on my phone and started to read. Reading an autopsy was more on my turf. I knew how to read between the lines and to distinguish between what was important and what wasn't.

  And what I found on the very first page was very important indeed.

  23

  I spent most of the following day on the phone. I called every editor I knew or had heard of, trying to sell my story. But no one wanted it. It wasn't until I reached an editor at Florida Today and told her about what I had found that I sensed an opening.

  "If you can prove a crime has been committed, then, yes, we’ll buy it," she said. "If it turns out to be connected to the murder forty years ago, then you have yourself a national story in USA Today."

  I hung up with a sense of eagerness inside me. I could smell that there was a scoop here somewhere. I just had to find a way to dig it out. I grabbed my phone and called Sune as I drove to the Farmer's Market for lunch.

  "I need to stay a little longer," I said. "I can't come home yet. Can you keep the kids for a few more days?”

  "What? What are you talking about? You can't do that, Rebekka," he said. "I have a life too, you know?"

  "I've been gone three days. I think you can take the kids for two more days if needed. I fell upon another story while I was here. Florida Today will run it. But it will take a little while. It's a lot of money, though, and that will mean that I won't have to work for weeks."

  Sune went silent. "Exactly what kind of a story are we talking about? Is it another interview or…?"

  I sighed and parked in front of the old wooden building with the four rocking chairs on the porch. A little girl sat in one of them, rocking back and forth with a small dog in her lap. I spotted Adeline coming out with a friend, holding a box of leftovers in her hand.