Dr. Wymbs lived at the institute and rarely appeared in town. He had a small staff of nurses and a housekeeper who cooked and cleaned for him. No one knew exactly how many patients resided at the asylum, but the mansion had enough rooms to house at least a couple of dozen. Noah had told Brian he had never laid eyes on the reclusive doctor in the two years he had been police chief. The doctor kept to himself and his patients, and there were never any concerns.
At least not until the trunk was opened.
Brian sat in his office downtown looking at a copy of the weekly that had come out that morning, pleased he had been able to break the story. He had fielded several calls already that morning from the news syndicates and other media sources. The story had sparked plenty of interest, as he knew it would. Of course he also had to field a call from Mrs. Picklesmeir, the angry head of the Women’s Garden Club, and he failed in all attempts to appease her. He assured her that he would do a big photo spread on the tour for the next week’s issue, but that did little to satisfy her concern that townspeople wouldn’t know the details of the tour since they weren’t in the paper.
The Hollow News came out every Thursday, and most people read it to find out about the upcoming weekend’s church suppers, club meetings, school fund-raisers, and auctions. From what Brian had gathered when he took the job as editor, news seemed secondary. There was a small staff—basically Brian. He had a secretary, Beverly Crump, who really kept the paper running. She inputted all the press releases from the various social organizations and clubs, and that filled more than half the paper’s pages. Brian had to cover the local board meetings and do a feature story or two. The only other staff member was Isaac Monck, in his early sixties, who covered the local sports and recreation as well as writing a fishing column.
Brian remembered how difficult it had been to leave his job and Boston to take over as the editor of The Hollow News. He knew what he’d be giving up with his police beat, but he had no idea what he was actually taking on in Smokey Hollow. But Darcie had pleaded with him.
“What kind of life do you want for us?” she had quizzed him six months before.
There wasn’t an easy answer. He had the life he wanted, the job he wanted, and he didn’t see the need for a change. But all that changed when Darcie got pregnant. His initial reaction to her pregnancy was not good and had almost led to a fight. She was supposed to be the one counting days. He had left that control up to her.
“I told you it might not be a good night,” she had said afterward, almost in tears.
It made him feel like a jerk, and he apologized. Then he said something even stupider. He wondered whether they should have the baby. The look of horror she gave him sent chills down his spine, and he tried to backpedal. What the hell was he thinking? She was a school teacher for Christ’s sake. She adored children, and for him to suggest something like that….
It was one of those moments he wished he could take back, because he knew it was something that would mark him for the rest of his life.
It took a while for him to smooth that one over. By then she was suggesting they move to the suburbs where maybe he could find work at a small-town newspaper. So he scoured around for job opportunities, and that’s when he stumbled upon the job at The Hollow News. The longtime editor was retiring.
They drove north to check out Smokey Hollow. Darcie fell in love with its small-town charm, of course. He knew she would. Brian felt nothing but a bad taste in his mouth, like he was choking on the mist the town derived its name from. What he saw were his dreams and hopes of a journalism career going up in flames.
“But just think,” Darcie said. “You’d be the editor of your own newspaper.”
True. He’d be the editor, reporter, photographer, and copy editor. It was basically a one-man band, and he’d be playing all the instruments, but nobody would be listening except people like Mrs. Picklesmeir and her Women’s Garden Club members. That was his audience.
He remembered looking at Darcie as she slept in the car on the drive back to Boston. He watched her sleep, usually something he did with great affection, but this time it was with contempt and…what?…speculation? It wasn’t the first time the thought crept into his mind. Did she get pregnant on purpose?
It didn’t matter. He took the job, and they moved to Smokey Hollow.
Brian thought back to one of his first feature assignments when he settled in at the paper. Beverly had told him about a visit to the school by the assistant fire chief to talk about fire safety and prevention. He had rolled his eyes and wanted to stick a pencil through his forehead. Damn Darcie for this.
“Really?” was the only response he could give Beverly.
If she was insulted by his comment, she didn’t show it. Maybe she already sensed his frustration and understood. Maybe she was just being cordial, like most of the people he had met in Smokey Hollow so far. Certainly not arrogant like a lot of the people he encountered during his city beat.
“It can be quite entertaining,” she said. “The kids love it. He brings along Marshall.”
“The fire marshal?” he said, perking up a bit. He had loved talking arson forensics with some of the fire marshals in Boston.
“No, Marshall,” she replied, as if expecting him to know better. “His puppet. I figured you’d seen him at the fire station. The assistant fire chief is a ventriloquist.”
Brian sat for a moment, soaking in the information. He grabbed his notepad and camera.
“This I got to see,” he muttered before leaving the building.
Simon Runck was the assistant fire chief. He was in his mid-forties, with a square-ish head and sharp jaw, a touch of gray in his hair, and a bit of a paunch. He sat on a stool on the stage in front of the students at the elementary school, his puppet in his lap.
“Say hello to Marshall, girls and boys,” he said to the audience, which yelled back a greeting in unison.
Brian stood off to the side of the gym-café-torium. The dummy was dressed in a little fireman’s uniform, complete with a cap perched on the shaggy black hair on its oversized head.
“Howdy, boys and girls,” the dummy said in a high voice.
Brian watched Simon and could see his throat moving up and down, as if he were swallowing something, but his mouth, open a small crack, barely moved. Not bad, Brian thought, but knew the kids were fixed on Marshall, so the assistant chief didn’t need to be too convincing.
Brian began snapping pictures.
“We all know how important it is not to play with matches,” Simon said.
“Yes,” Marshall piped in. “Especially since I am mostly made of wood.”
The students burst into laughter.
Brian jotted some notes.
At the end of the show, Brian took more pictures of the students as they approached the dummy. Some of them shook Marshall’s wooden hand. When the kids dispersed and filed back to their classrooms, Brian introduced himself to Simon.
“Nice to meet you,” the fireman said. “I heard you had taken over at the paper.”
“Yeah, me too,” Marshall said. “About time they kicked that old loser out of there and brought in some new talent. Maybe that fish wrap will get a bit more interesting.”
Brian chuckled. “Nice. But I think Beverly Crump really runs the place. She’s the one who told me to come here today.”
“You should put me on the front page,” the dummy said. “Class up the rag a bit.”
“I will see what I can do.” He turned to Simon. “How long have you been doing this act?”
“Act?” Marshall said. “Who’s acting?”
Simon laughed at his own crack and looked at his puppet. “That’s enough, Marshall. The man’s trying to conduct an interview.” He turned to Brian. “I came to Smokey Hollow about eight years ago. Guess I started with Marshall a few years before that.”
“What made you come up with this idea?”
Simon looked deep in thought, and then brought his eyes to meet Brian’s. “I start
ed practicing ventriloquism back in high school. Kind of my way of dealing with teen angst I guess. I was a bit shy and nervous, and Marshall gave me a voice, even though it should be the other way around.”
Brian jotted his comments down, before looking up from his notepad. “And I guess a career in ventriloquism didn’t look promising, so you decided to be a firefighter?”
Simon chuckled. “Ventriloquism was more a hobby than anything.”
“Maybe for you,” Marshall butted in. “This is a way of life for me.”
“And what brought your act to this exciting town?”
Brian saw Simon’s eyes drift away in thought, but they came back and he smiled.
“I had actually become afraid of fire. Not very good for a firefighter. It was somewhat depressing. A town like this, I’ll be honest, does not have a lot of action.”
“Yeah, I gathered that,” Brian said. Which is why I’m here doing this silly interview, he thought.
“It seemed perfect for me. Ends up being a lot of sitting around the fire station. That’s how this happens,” he patted his belly.
Brian laughed. At least Simon was honest. He thanked him and Marshall and turned to go.
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing you,” Marshall said.
As Brian tucked his notebook in his pocket and gathered up his camera, he looked back at the pair.
“Are you still afraid of fires?”
Simon grinned. “Around here, there’s not too much to worry about.” He looked at the dummy by his side. “And Marshall helped me a lot with that.”
Brian smiled and waved. Before he left, Marshall had to get the last word in.
“In case you were wondering, I’m not afraid.”
On his walk back to the office that day, Brian felt a little depressed. What had he gotten himself into? No, what had Darcie gotten him into? Is this what the rest of his life was going to be like, covering stories like this? Good career move, Keays, he said to himself. They will be polishing up that Pulitzer soon. Who was the real dummy here?
But now Brian had latched on to the kind of story he never imagined he’d find in Smokey Hollow. The whole town was buzzing about the discovery of the skeletons. The only problem was that he now had a whole week before he could put out more details on the story. The other news media would have daily updates. A weekly was not a good way to dispense real news.
Of course, Steem was going to be pretty tight-lipped on any information on the investigation. That was obvious from the captain’s demeanor. He wished Noah was taking a more active role in the case instead of just being the local lackey for the State Police. He’d probably be able to goad him into leaking whatever information he could get out of Steem and Wickwire. That was if they’d give the chief any information.
He already knew they were having trouble locating Ruth Snethen. Tax records had shown she owned the house at the time the newspapers in the trunk were published. So the real question was, did the trunk belong to her? If not, what was it doing in her house?
Brian stared out his office window toward the Mustard House atop the ridge, with its gables and four great brick chimneys. Nurse Snethen worked there. But did the trunk have any connection with the Mustard House?
Brian thought maybe he should pay a visit to Dr. Wymbs.
He drove out of town and up the rise. He kept the windows down in his car to let air in. He despised air conditioning, and the day was turning into a hot one. He could feel sweat trickle down his chest. At the top of the rise, he turned left onto Ridge Road and drove along it, the Mustard House looming larger as he got closer. Brian slowed and eased into the gravel driveway that snaked its way toward a small parking area in front of the institute.
There were only two cars in the driveway, a large Cadillac and a small economy coupe. Of course the patients wouldn’t have any vehicles, but he wondered where the staff members’ cars were parked. Maybe there was an employee parking area in the back.
As he stepped out of his car, Brian looked down toward the town. It was a great view of the small village, and its Main Street looked picturesque. He spotted his newspaper office and Cully’s Pub across the street from it. Down the street from that was the police station, where no doubt Chief Treece was summing up his uneventful day of reviewing parking fines and illegal brush burns. He’d had the case of a lifetime fall in his lap, yet he’d rather sit back and let the bozos from the State Police have all the fun. Brian couldn’t understand that.
As he studied Main Street, it dawned on him that the town wasn’t quite suited for a post card. He scanned the shops and buildings along the downtown drag. On one bookend was the Town Hall and fire station. On the other end were the library and the elementary school. Between the municipal buildings were a hardware store, a taxidermist shop, Wigland, Wibbels Fruit Market and Real Estate, and Mrs. Picklesmeir’s Flower Shop. But Brian had never realized how many empty storefronts dotted the Main Street business section, with their soaped up windows and for-rent signs. There were almost as many empty spaces as there were occupied shops.
He remembered Darcie and him taking their first stroll along the downtown sidewalk one Saturday afternoon and her telling him how charming she thought the town was. He hadn’t noticed it up close then, but maybe it took a view from a distance to really see the town’s condition. It was like seeing someone’s smile without noticing the cavities.
Across the way he could see the town’s water tower cresting the rise on the opposite side of the hollow. The name of the town was painted on its tank, but Smoky was spelled without the ‘e’. Brian remembered Beverly Crump telling him it had been that way for a long time and many citizens were embarrassed by the mistake, but the town selectmen never bothered to have it corrected. The letters were faded and chipped from winter winds. Maybe the selectmen were waiting for the mistake to be erased by Mother Nature so they wouldn’t have to expend the effort themselves.
As Brian’s eyes dropped from the letters, he noticed a figure standing on the catwalk that surrounded the water tank. It looked like a man, and Brian figured it must be a city worker since no one else would have reason to be up there. That would be trespassing, and Chief Treece would have to go up and bring the man down. Now that would be an exciting end to his shift.
The man appeared to be staring down, maybe surveying the town like Brian himself was. But then he thought that perhaps the man was going to jump. There was no reason for Brian to think this, but the idea popped into his head. He recalled several times on the beat in Boston when he’d be sent to the scene of a jumper threatening to leap off a high-rise. Not once did one jump. They never did. All talk, no action.
The man made no effort to climb over the rail. So…he wasn’t a jumper. At least it didn’t look to Brian like the man was doing anything except standing there, arms resting on the railing. Maybe he enjoyed the view. Brian was about to turn away when he realized the man now seemed to be looking across the valley…at him. Was the man watching him, or did he just happen to notice Brian on the opposite ridge? Brian had the urge to wave, to see if the man would wave back.
It’s nothing, he thought, and turned away.
The Mustard House was Tudor style, reminding him of a Swiss chalet except that the building was long with two wings off the main central section. It was two stories, but the many gables lining its front gave it the appearance of being much taller. The narrow windows along the second story were enclosed with bars. Brian wondered if the inmates of the asylum stared out those windows at the town below. How frustrating it must have been for them to be so close to civilization, yet trapped behind bars, locked in their rooms.
He also wondered what the inmates were like. How crazy were they? It was a private sanitarium, so he assumed they weren’t dangerous criminal lunatics. Those kinds of inmates would be housed at the state mental facility in Concord. Surely the occupants here wouldn’t be like that.
But this was where Nurse Ruth Snethen worked, and she had kept a locked trunk full of baby skeletons
in her attic.
Brian approached the large wooden door. The yellowish-brown paint on the building was faded, overdue for refurbishment. He looked for a doorbell but could not find one. There was a large brass door knocker on the middle of the door, and he grabbed it, lifting it up and banging it down three times. He stepped back. His notepad was in his back pocket. He didn’t want it in view. That sometimes made people nervous and scared potential interviewees away.
He waited with anticipation, but no one opened the door. After a moment, he grabbed the doorknocker again and rapped it a few more times, this time a little harder. He waited, finally hearing the soft patter of footsteps. There was a sound of a bolt being withdrawn, and the heavy door swung open slowly.
A short, middle-aged woman with graying hair stood on the threshold, apparently startled to see Brian. She had a purse in her hand and a small tote bag.
“My goodness,” she said, trying to compose herself. “Where’d you come from?”
Brian smiled. “I just knocked at the door. My name is Brian Keays.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“But I knocked,” Brian said, confused. “And you answered the door.”
“Oh no,” she said, almost defending herself. “I didn’t hear you knock at all. I was just leaving.”
“And you are?” he asked.
“I’m the housekeeper.”
“Oh. Well, I came to see Dr. Wymbs.” He continued smiling.
“For?” She eyed him with suspicion.
“A private matter.” Hold off on telling them you’re a reporter as long as you can.
“Do you have an appointment?” She stood her ground in the doorway, as if afraid he might barge in.
“Not quite,” he said, wondering if the doctor was that busy. Then he thought of something. “Police Chief Treece sent me.” Not quite a lie—Noah had told him about the doctor, so surely the chief expected him to come up here.
She looked puzzled. “The police have already been here.”
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