“Since 1934?” says Mitch. “That’s eighty years.”
“If that person never got caught, if everyone believed the curse, then why stop?”
He shoves past us and down the walk toward the car parked on the street. I chase after him.
“Wait, are you talking about your uncle? He’s 91. He’s had a stroke.”
“Not until five months ago. The same night your husband died. Look, there’s stuff you don’t know.”
“Like what?” I grab his arm to stop him. “Is this what you wanted to tell me?”
He won’t look at me. “Thea, I didn’t know, I swear. I’m just now putting it together.”
“Putting what together?”
Jeremy pulls away and strides to the car. I jog to keep up with him. “I can’t believe it. But it all adds up. It all adds—”
He stops and falls to his knees, burying his head in his hands. I kneel beside him.
“Jeremy, tell me what you wanted to tell me.”
“I didn’t know… I didn’t know.”
He stands up quickly. “The junkyard. It needs to be searched.”
We all watch as he climbs in the driver’s seat of our rented Hyundai and starts the engine.
“Hey!” Mitch shouts, running to the car.
“Why did you leave the keys in it?” asks Rita.
“We have to go to the junkyard,” Jeremy shouts. The locks click as he puts the car in gear.
“Wait,” I pull the door handle until he unlocks it, and I climb in the front with him.
Mitch grips the window frame. “What the fuck, man?”
“We have to get back to the junkyard now,” Jeremy replies, hands gripping the wheel. “Get in.”
Rita raps at my window on the passenger side. “What are you doing?” she asks as I roll it down.
“Not sure. But you need to stay with me to make sure I don’t get murdered, right? To catch Beverly?”
I look across Jeremy to Mitch at the driver’s window. He sighs, throws his hands in the air.
But they both climb in the back seat.
“He told me not to go near it,” says Jeremy as we pull away from the curb. “He told me never—”
He’s still shaking his head, choking on his words.
“It’s okay, Jeremy. What are you telling me?”
He’s agitated, fidgeting in his seat, gripping the wheel. The car swerves.
“Pull over,” Mitch orders from the back seat.
But Jeremy keeps driving. “He had the totems. There was a box of them I found in his bedroom closet after his stroke. I thought he collected them from the Throne, that he was clearing them away from his property, but what if—what if he was making them?”
He glances over at me, then in the rearview mirror at Mitch and Rita in the back.
“My uncle thought the curse was real. He believed in it. He told me…he warned me. He—he threatened me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before his stroke. When I first got here, I was asking questions about the Throne. He said I’d die…I’d die if I even went near it. ‘If you touch that Throne,’ he told me, ‘don’t expect to live long.’ He said, ‘That will be my only warning.’”
“I don’t understand. Why did you stay? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Tell who? Tell them what? That my uncle threatened me with a witch’s curse? I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He swallows hard. “My mom kicked me out.”
Rita leans forward. “Look, your uncle might be a recluse, a zealot for property rights, and a good old-fashioned asshole, but it’s still a big jump to serial murderer active over eight decades.”
“Mrs. Burns said he saw Jesse Root die,” says Jeremy. “What if it was his fault? My uncle’s? What if Martin let his friend drown back when they were kids?”
“And then…” I say, finally following Jeremy’s thoughts, “because of the guilt of letting his friend die, he blamed it on the curse of the Witch’s Throne?”
“He had to keep the legend going. He had to make the story true. Anytime a person sat on the Throne, he had to make sure they died.”
Jeremy chokes on the last word, inhales sharply, and I realize he’s sobbing. “I’m sorry, Thea.”
He gives in to crying for a moment, head bowed over the steering wheel, still driving us through the dark streets of Portico.
“You think he killed George?” I whisper.
He throws his head back and shakes his head, hard, as if trying to clear his mind. He drags his arm over his face, wiping his tears with his shirtsleeve, and sniffs loudly. “The junkyard. It needs to be searched.”
“For what?” asks Rita between us.
He glances at her. “For two missing people. Jane Simmons and Thacky Olsen.”
Rita sits back. Silence gels in the interior of the car. The sky outside is black.
“Okay,” I say, “let’s go to the police.”
“And tell them what?” asks Rita.
“Everything Jeremy just told us. Roger McMillan’s book. The junkyard. Officer Tims will listen.”
The night he died, George and I argued.
I refused to eat dinner at the Corner again. We’d been there every night. It had been raining all day. Again. I had to get out of the room, if only for an hour or two.
The girls wanted pizza. They were both homesick, whining, even Juliet. I agreed to let them stay at the Apple and order pizza if Lydia kept an eye on her sister and they promised not to leave their room until we returned.
George and I were mostly silent at dinner, a mediocre fat-and-salt meal at a chain in Medford. George had two beers, but on the walk to the parking lot he stumbled.
“Are you okay?”
“Mmm.”
He’d barely talked while we ate, and that’s how I could tell he was drunk. Most likely, he had been sneaking shots from his flask, the one he didn’t think I knew about. He wasn’t talking because he knew I’d be able to hear the slur in his speech.
Officer Tims does listen. He’s the only person at the station, the secretary and dispatcher having gone home for the night two hours earlier.
He listens as Jeremy explains his suspicions.
“That’s a lot to take in,” says Officer Tims. “A lot. Every murder in Portico in the past eighty years...all committed by the same person.”
“Is it enough reason to search the junkyard?” I ask.
The officer is sitting at his desk, and as he listens to Jeremy, turns over and over in his hands a geode paperweight. He places the geode carefully on the desk before him without making a sound, then looks at me.
“I’ll call Judge Henry.”
George pulled away from me and got in the car without answering. I waited until we had told the girls good night and went back to our room before confronting him.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
He was lying on his back, flipping through channels. He didn’t acknowledge my question. I wrenched the remote from his hand.
George was slow to anger. Really, the only time he got angry was when he’d been drinking. And I could tell he was very drunk. I saw it in his watery, unfocused eyes. I heard it in his slurred speech. He’d been playful with the girls, tickling them until tears streamed down their faces, roughhousing with them. He only did that when he was drunk. They loved the attention. He was the fun dad to them.
He shook his head vaguely, slowly, twisted his mouth into a sneer. Gave a dry, humorless laugh.
I sighed. “What is it?”
He looked up at me with watery eyes. “It’s day three.”
An hour later, we’re waiting in the car while the police search the junkyard. The rain has returned in force, cutting visibility to a few feet in the dark.
We’ve been told to stay in the car, out of the way.
Mitch has resumed his place in the driver’s seat. Beside me in the back, Jeremy is restless.
“I’ve got to get home to my uncle. The physical therapist has gone home by now.�
�
“We’ll drive you there,” I tell him. “Right after this.”
A flashlight pops up in the near distance, and I watch it bounce closer. Shadow dissolves into form. It’s Officer Tims. Mitch rolls down the window and he leans down, rain streaming from his hat.
“We found something.”
None of us speak. Officer Tims looks away, then back into the car. “Human remains.”
“It’s day three. Since you made the video, you mean? Since you sat on the Throne?”
“What else?”
“And…you’re scared?”
He shook his head slowly and started to lean back onto the bed, then collapsed into the pillows, rolling over.
I left him alone while I changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth, my dinner roiling in my stomach. I hated arguing with him. I wanted to go home. I rinsed my teeth, leaned forward into the counter, closed my eyes, and let myself have a small fantasy that I could walk out right now. Not even take my clothes. Grab my purse, tell the girls we were going home. They’d be thrilled.
I went back into the bedroom. He was sitting up again on the bed, his back to me. When I sat on the opposite side, he turned.
He was holding the flask. He offered it to me. I shook my head.
Another humorless laugh, a scoff at me, really. Then he took a swig and asked me, “What are we doing, Thea? Why are you still married to me?”
The police take Jeremy away.
We all get out of the car when this happens, watching Jeremy duck into the back seat of the cruiser.
“The officer wants to talk to us,” Mitch says.
Mitch, Rita, and I gather as Officer Tims explains the details he’s allowed to share.
“The remains are of a man and an adolescent girl. The male remains are in an advanced state of decay. Decades. The adolescent female is more recent.”
“Thackery and Jane Simmons.”
“We’ll need to test them, but yes, based on what Jeremy Fisher has told us, that would be the assumption.”
“So, it was Martin Fisher?” I’m gripping Mitch’s arm, trying to remain standing. He holds Rita’s umbrella again, the rain roaring around us. “He…he killed George?”
“No. Mrs. Drake…” Streams of water pour from the officer’s hat. He’s wearing a plastic covering over it to keep it dry.
“Then how?” I ask. “Why?”
“Martin Fisher could not have had anything to do with your husband’s death. The hospital records show he was admitted hours before you yourself say that George left your room at the Apple.”
“Then Jeremy…”
I see his face in the dashboard lights of the car, sobbing, I’m sorry, Thea.
“...did he?”
I sway. My knees buckle. Rita’s arms grab my waist. Mitch wraps his around me from the other side.
“No,” says Officer Tims. “Jeremy Fisher was at the hospital. We interviewed dozens of EMTs and hospital staff who say Martin’s nephew was with him the entire time. We’re not sure of the extent of the younger Mr. Fisher’s knowledge of or involvement in these crimes, but he was not the cause of your husband’s death, no more than Martin Fisher.”
“Beverly Donneville,” says Rita. Officer Tims frowns at her.
“Let’s talk about that,” I said, lying back on the bed and opening a magazine, “tomorrow morning when you’re sober.”
George shot up from the bed. My stomach flipped. I let the magazine fall to the bed.
“We’re not ignoring this. Not anymore.”
“Ignoring what?”
“You don’t...you…” He was slurring. He stumbled, fell against the bed.
“George, my God, look at you. You are drunk.”
“So fucking what!”
“Shhhh. The girls will hear you.”
“Oh yes, sorry, God forbid they hear a profane word. I know how we have to pretend everything is okay for them. God forbid anyone fight or even disagree.”
“What is happening? Why are you doing this? Is it the book?”
“It’s the book. It’s everything.”
“The book will be fine.”
“Will it? I have nothing on Beverly Donneville. Nothing to use against her.”
“You’ll find something. There’s always something.”
“There’s nothing.”
“You proved her a fraud once. You’ll do it again.”
“Last time was lucky. I had something I could use, something someone else gave me, helped me with…” He took another drink. “Someone always helping me.”
“What can I do?”
“What can you do? You can be honest. Tell me what a failure you think I am.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. I’m drunk. You should try it sometime. Drunk people tell the truth.”
“Let’s go home. Let’s leave right now.”
He laughs bitterly. “It’s day three. I can’t go home until I survive the night. Not until I figure out how the Donnevilles are taking advantage of this town, its history. Not until I figure out how all those people died.”
“That’s not your job.”
“That’s exactly my job. My self-proclaimed occupation. Professional skeptic. I have to find the truth. Prove there is no curse.”
“You’ve done it. You sat on the Throne. You survived. It’s day three.”
“The night’s not over.”
“So go to bed. In the morning, you can wake up and write about how the Throne is a hoax and Beverly Donneville is a fraud.”
“That’s not how it works. Anybody can sit their ass up there and run away. It has to be a performance, just like them.”
“A performance? Listen to yourself. You don’t have to show them up, George.”
“Oh, I don’t? You think I’ll sell any more books if I don’t prove again and again and again that they’re liars? This is what I do, Thea. How else are we going to make a living? Who’s going to pay for our food, our clothes, the girls’ college tuition, that enormous house you wanted? Huh? Who’s going to pay for it all? You?”
“Why not?” I stand up from the bed. “I do every other single thing.”
“Not everything.” He sat up and swung his legs over the bed. “Not this one thing. Only I can do this.” He pulled on his boots.
“You’re going out there? Why in God’s name would you do that?”
“Because this is what I do. I confront people on their bullshit!”
At the door, he paused. “If I don’t come back, maybe you’ll want to call my brother.”
“Maybe I will.” We faced each other, defiant, a million unshouted accusations.
“Finally,” he said. “Some honesty.”
He left. That was the last time I saw him alive.
“I didn’t really think he would die,” I say, the rain roaring in my ears. “That would have been so stupid.”
Rita is soaked. She has lost the black umbrella at some point. She shouts at Officer Tims. “Where was Beverly Donneville that night?”
“Rita…” warns Mitch.
She ignores him. “Did you check her alibi?”
“George fell,” says Officer Tims. “It was a tragic, random accident.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I look at the display. My mother again. I want to smash the phone under my boot.
“He was drunk,” I say. “He could have easily tripped and fallen over his own shadow in the state he was in.”
“His blood alcohol level was quite high,” agrees Officer Tims.
“You still have to question Beverly,” says Rita.
“Enough!” I turn on her. “You brought me here for nothing. For no reason, away from my daughters who need me.”
“That woman is lying!”
“So? She didn’t kill him. No one did!”
“You can still help George,” says Rita. “You still want to help him, I know. You sat on the Throne. You can stay here until the three days are up.”
“George doesn’t need my help anymore! I’m done helping him. And in three days, I’ll still be alive back in Illinois, trying to get through each day.”
The phone vibrates again. I take it out, intending to throw it across the junkyard until I see the display.
It’s Calvin.
I gasp. Calvin’s serious face, squinting in the sun. I took the photo the last time he was at our house, playing with Juliet in the backyard. He’d showed her how to start a fire from scratch. He was into survival skills at the time. Even Lydia had shown interest, tried to start her own fire from the flint and tinder.
“Calvin?” I accept the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Thea.”
“Thank God.”
“Thea, listen. Your mom asked me to call.”
“What?”
“She couldn’t get through to your phone. She asked me to try. You’ve got to get home, Thea. Whatever’s happening there in Oregon, it can wait. It’s Lydia.”
Lydia.
“Thea? Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I’m here. What is it? What’s wrong with Lydia?”
“She’s missing. She left for a walk this morning, and now your parents can’t find her anywhere. She won’t answer her phone. None of her friends know where she is.”
“Oh my God.”
Mitch mouths silently, What’s wrong?
“Thea,” says Calvin, “listen to me. Your mother’s called the police. She’s crazy with worry. Go home.”
“Okay…okay.”
I disconnect.
“What is it?” asks Mitch. “What’s happened?”
“I never should have come here. Take me to the airport. Now.”
JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | JUNE 1
Maybe there is a curse. Ever since we got here, we’ve had bad luck. Martin Fisher wouldn’t let you on the property. The Donnevilles showed up. The girls have been unhappy the whole time. So have I. The rain won’t stop. You’ve grown more and more distant the longer we stay in this town.
Sosie Powell called here today looking for you. I told her you were writing.
Which we both knew was a lie.
I’ve decided to go home tomorrow, and I’m taking the girls with me. We’re already packed.
You’re still sleeping now. As soon as I finish this page, I’m taking the girls out for the day, getting them outdoors for a while.
The Witch's Throne (Thea Drake Mystery Book 1) (Thea Drake Mysteries) Page 20