Evelyn flipped the drawings to their back. Written in crayon, the text read, “Max and me.”
Evelyn lowered the children’s drawings.
“What did my father do to you?” Evelyn asked aloud.
The house was silent. She needed more evidence. She needed to know this girl’s name. She researched “Adders, Georgia murder” on her phone. There was a story about a husband who shot his cheating wife in 90s, but that had nothing to do with a little girl or Maxwell. She tried more in-depth searches but found nothing under murder. She leaned back in the leather desk chair and scratched her swollen nose. She winced at the action and searched, “Adders, Georgia kidnapping.”
No results.
“Adders, Georgia missing girl.”
A hit. Actually, multiple hits. But one with a familiar face stood out. Evelyn clicked on it.
Evelyn opened the photocopied version of a news article on her small phone screen. June 29, 2003 was the date on the news article, over a decade ago. It displayed a picture of a cute blonde girl with big blue eyes, a wide carefree smile, and faint freckles on the bridge of her nose and under her eyes. Mary Sullivan, seven years old, left in the morning to visit friends, the report said, before vanishing. She was known to bike everywhere and frequently left the house. Her guardians didn’t report her absence until 8:42 pm that night. No trace of her was ever found.
Evelyn glanced through the rest of the web pages. There were reports of other girls missing over the last three decades, but nothing more on Mary.
Using a photocopied version of the Mary’s missing person poster, Evelyn found the names and contact information of Jack and Angie Sullivan, her aunt and uncle/legal guardians.
Evelyn dialed the number.
After a few rings, she heard a “Hello?” It was a male’s voice, gruff and brutish like a frontiersman.
“Mr. Sullivan?” Evelyn’s voice echoed slightly in the hidden study.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
“It’s about Mary.”
She could practically hear the air leaving Jack’s room. “What about her?”
“I want to help you find her. My name is Evelyn Carr. I’m a private investigator.”
“Mary’s long gone. Don’t waste your time.”
“All I need is a few moments with you. It won’t cost you anything, I swear.”
“It will cost me, Investigator Carr. Only I’ll be paying with my peace, not my wallet.”
“Can we meet this afternoon?” Evelyn asked, not willing to take no for an answer.
Sealing up the secret study, Evelyn headed to the Sullivan residence. It was a single-story house with drab paint and junk-littered front yard. Multiple big dogs barked at Evelyn from a wide, fenced-in pen beside the house. Jack opened the screen door upon Evelyn’s approach. He was a tall man with a keg-like torso, more muscle than fat, and a bushy, soot-colored beard that covered half of his face and fell a few inches past the V-neck of his white t-shirt. Deep lines were etched around his unreadable blue eyes, and wrinkles snaked over his untamed brows and across his forehead. His breath smelled like PBR and, from what little Evelyn could see beneath the mustache that ran over his upper lip, his teeth were slightly crooked and yellow.
“What happened to your nose?” Jack asked.
“My husband’s a bad driver,” Evelyn replied, stepping past him and into the dirty home.
“I’ve heard that one before,” Jack said behind her.
Dog fur and dirt gathered in the corners of the house, a handful of dirty dishes jutted from the sink, and a black splinter crack disrupted the image on the large living room TV screen. The home’s sour scent combatted the cheap air fresheners plugged into nearly every outlet. Evelyn noticed there were no pictures of Mary on the walls or anywhere for that matter. When asked about it, Jack replied, “You wouldn’t want to be reminded of your failure all day, either.”
Evelyn took a seat on the couch with cat claw marks on the lower portion of the armrest. In between the cushions, she could see powdery Doritos fragments and loose change. Was the messiness a reality of Mary’s childhood, or a result of her vanishing? Evelyn wondered.
A willowy woman stepped out of the bathroom and seemingly floated to the nearby recliner. Angie’s arms and leg looked like sticks of skin and bone jutting out of her yellow floral dress and sandals. Her upper ribs pressed hard against her pale skin and could be seen at her neckline. Sunken and touched by age, her green eyes spoke of sorrow. Her hair was cut evenly just below her jawline and was splashed with the color of wet ash.
The Sullivans waited for Evelyn to say the first words. “I want to know about Mary’s disappearance.”
“You aren’t local, and never has an outsider cared what’s happened in Adders. Why does my niece concern you?” Jack lingered nearby with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“I make my living looking for the forgotten,” Evelyn said.
“You said this was free,” Jack reminded her.
“It is,” Evelyn retorted. “Mary has some significance in my life, let’s just leave it at that. Now are we going to talk or waste even more time?”
Jack and Angie traded looks and then gestured for Evelyn to proceed.
“Tell me about Mary. What was she like?”
A tiny, sad smile formed on Angie’s hollow face. “Mary loved to play. She loved the outdoors. Every summer day, she’d ride that bike of hers. Up and down. Up and down. It had little tassels on the handlebars. Do you remember the tassels, dear? The little ones on the handlebars?”
Jack stared at her a moment. “Yeah,” but the word sounded more like a grunt than anything.
“Did she act any different leading up to and on the day she vanished?” Evelyn inquired.
“No,” Angie replied, her reminiscing smile fleeting. “The only change is that she never came home for supper.”
“Describe her home life,” Evelyn asked.
Angie gave Jack a sharp look. “Peaceful. Happy. Normal.” Something about her tone suggested a more sinister reality.
“Discipline and order, that’s what keeps a house in line,” Jack said with gruff resolve.
Evelyn began to realize why Mary was away so often. “Was there anyone who wanted to hurt Mary?”
“Apparently someone did,” Jack said.
“Did she have any stalkers or people you suspected after she vanished?”
“There was one,” Angie said, looking Evelyn in the soul with her jaded eyes. “Maxwell Quenby.”
9
The Trio
Jack boiled at the mention of Maxwell’s name. He grumbled what seemed like the foulest assortment of curse words he could muster.
Evelyn ignored him and spoke to Angie. “Tell me about Maxwell.”
“He lived in that old plantation house outside of time,” Angie said. “Some days, Mary would bike down his street. Maxwell would give her candy and other gifts. We thought he was harmless, truly, but then Mary vanished.”
“That police, incompetent as they are, wouldn’t arrest Maxwell,” Jack said. “Not enough conclusive evidence, they said. To hell with them. Everyone knows that the Quenbys donate to the department every year.”
Evelyn jotted down the information, realizing that her family had their hand in a lot of honeypots. “Did Mary visit Maxwell often?”
Angie and Jack traded looks.
“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “Mary would bike all over the place. God knows the people she met during her travels.”
Evelyn tried pressing them for information regarding Mary’s other friends and the times she’d stay out late. Jack and Angie answered the best they could, but time had clearly muddled their memories. None of the information was useful. Before she left, Evelyn asked a final question. “What happened to Mary’s parents?”
“One’s in jail, and the other is dead.” Jack glared at Evelyn. “Don’t have an affair.”
He let Evelyn piece the rest of the story together. After the
meeting, Evelyn called a cab and thought of her next move. Her mind drifted back to her father, a man she’d never seen, and his odd reputation. She wondered what it must be like to live under a parent's shadow and to shoulder that burden alone. Maybe he did run away? Or did he become the man in the white mask and Mary was his victim? If that was true, what did that mean for Evelyn? Would the revelation be enough to end her and Terrence’s plight?
She returned to Quenby House. The white flowers on its vines shimmied in the breeze. Such a beautiful place for such evil. Evelyn entered the house. The afternoon sun vanished as she shut the door behind her. She rested her back against it and took a deep breath. Her busted nose throbbed and had her head pounding. If my father is a monster, what am I? Evelyn struck down the thought. She’d never defined herself by her parents or lack thereof. Why start now?
She glanced up at the mural of trumpeting angels painted across the domed ceiling.
“Help me,” Evelyn mumbled to the cracked mural of heaven. She noticed something shift on the ceiling, almost as if the paint was moving. Suddenly, the baby-faced angels began to swirl around the inside of the dome. Their little mouths opened to scream, but no sound escaped. Within seconds, their snowy skin blackened as if they were being grilled. The paint blue sky turned black. The puffy white clouds turned blood red. All the angels screamed and burned, yet no sound escaped their lips.
Evelyn clenched her eyes shut. The air inside the house became thick. Stop. Please stop.
After counting to ten, Evelyn reopened her eyes. The ceiling painting had returned to normal. The atmosphere was normal. Evelyn hunched over, feeling like she’d vomit. She was uncertain if this was a vision or a hallucination.
She noticed that the foyer had grown dark around her. It was 1 p.m. when Evelyn arrived. She twisted back to the door and windows, seeing the sunset. No way. She looked at herself. Specks of dried paint were splattered on her fingers and shirt. She noticed the door to the hall was open. She stared at it cautiously. Half of her wanted to see what lay within; the other half wanted her to run like hell. Remembering that the car would put her back in the house no matter what, she carefully approached the door. Heart racing with fear and anticipation, she peeked her head into the pitch-black hall.
Evelyn found herself holding her breath as she flipped the light switch. The bulbs flickered in ceiling-mounted glass cases. Across the very same wall where she had painted the last mural, there was another, fresher painting that was triple the size and stretched over the entire wall, door to door. Ceiling to floor.
With the ceiling lights still flickering, Evelyn stepped into the hall. With each flash, a portion of the mural revealed itself. The nearest showed a road that looked a lot like Quenby Avenue. A blonde girl on her pink bicycle was in the process of stopping in front of three people wearing white masks. Black splotches had been used for their eye holes. From them, inky tears dripped down the wall and unto the hall’s floor.
Another light flicker later, and Evelyn saw the next part of the mural. The girl was riding her bike into the woods as three masked figures chased after her.
The light kept strobing.
The third part of the mural showed the masked figures carrying away the blonde girl while her bike was abandoned by a fat tree with an owl hole.
Evelyn walked through the hall that seemed to blink out of this existence every other second.
The fourth showed three figures dragging the girl by the plantation house and towards a cotton field.
The fifth and final aspect of the mural displayed an orange, yellow, and red fire blazing up from the center of the cotton field. The masked figures stood around it. Two looked into the flame. One looked directly at Evelyn.
Evelyn covered her mouth, involuntarily tasting the paint on her palm. She felt herself shake. Her steel resolve shattered. The lights suddenly stopped flickering and returned to normal. The wet mural began melting away the images.
“What do you want me to do?” Evelyn asked the house, which felt like the most insane and most sane things she’d done since she first heard that scratching sound in the basement. A cold breeze drifted through the house. She felt her chest tighten as she looked at the painted fireball dripping away.
Evelyn exited the house and allowed the clean Georgia air to circulate through her. “If I find those men, will you set me free?”
Silence. Like always.
Evelyn tucked her blonde hair behind her ears. She knew she was on her own.
She walked down the red brick road and onto the street. Evelyn tried to imagine herself as Mary. The little girl’s hands on the bicycle handlebars. Her tiny feet churning the pedals. Evelyn turned to her right. The single-lane street ran in a line, well past Quenby House and into a more heavily trafficked street that was too far away to be seen.
Evelyn kept on, keeping an eye out for any evidence left behind after a near twenty-year murder. The odds were slim, but she had to try. She walked into the trees opposite of her property.
Twigs cracking beneath her shoes, Evelyn marched deeper into the woods. Soon the road vanished in her wake and only sentry oaks surrounded her. Their points reached to the cloudy heavens. Their shadow cast over Evelyn in oddly-shaped blobs while unseen birds screamed out of sight. Beetle and other ground bugs scurried under felled leaves upon Evelyn’s approach. Evelyn stopped in front of a massive oak with an owl hole. Evelyn twisted about the wooded area. No bike. Figures. With a case this cold, she was grasping at straws. If the killers were smart, they would’ve hidden the evidence.
That’s when she saw it. The pink plastic casing from a handlebar pressed into the earth by time and nature. Tattered but glittery plastic tassels streamed out of the end of the casing. Just like Angie said.
Evelyn was alone, yet she felt someone’s eyes on her, seemingly watching her from all directions at once, if that was possible. Evelyn shut her eyes, collecting herself. You’re tired. That’s all, Evelyn lied to herself. Deep down, she felt like a pawn in someone else's game, meddling with forces of which she had no comprehension.
Digging her fingernails into the packed dirt, Evelyn removed the handlebar’s plastic casing from the ground. The rest of the bike was nowhere to be found. On her hands and knees, Evelyn crawled and dug around the area, looking for more of Mary’s items. She saw a corner of a half-inch binder sticking out from the earth. Evelyn pulled at it, removing the white, three-ring binder from the soil. The papers inside were completely washed out and decomposed into small misshapen squares. One laminated page survived, with faded Sharpie writing. “6-29-2003.”
Evelyn shook off the loose dirt on the drawing and used her hand to get rid of the rest. Created with crayon, it showed a little blonde girl clutching a doll in one hand and using her other hand to hold the hand of a beardless man in front of a huge house with pillars. Maxwell and the Quenby House. Evelyn recognized the doll, too. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the same one she found in the scorched cotton field. A shiver danced down Evelyn’s spine.
The picture included three more stick figures in the background. They had frowns and angled brows, watching in the distance. All three looked nearly identical, except one had long brown hair and the other two had short hair.
Evelyn brushed her thumb across the three jealous stick figures and removed some excess dirt from their faces. Mary knew she was being stalked. Why didn’t she tell her guardians?
Evelyn studied the back of the drawing. She re-read the Sharpie note. The date stuck out. June 29, 2003. The day Mary vanished. Evelyn removed her phone and reviewed her picture catalogue. She opened the photos she took of her father’s secret study and swiped through the images until she found one of Maxwell’s plane tickets to Hawaii. That was dated 2003. He left June 27th and got back on July 2. Her father couldn’t have taken Mary during that time. Unless, Evelyn thought of another possibility, Maxwell returned home during that vacation time. It was unlikely, but he had a few days to do so. Also, Hawaii seemed like such a random destination.
Brushing the dirt off herself, Evelyn left the woods and contacted the cab driver.
“Have you lived in Adders for a while?” Evelyn asked the driver as he rolled to a stop twenty minutes later.
“My whole life,” the man replied. “This town has a way have sucking people in and keeping them forever.”
Evelyn tried not to be creeped out by the man’s cryptic answer and asked, “Do you know about the disappearance of Mary Sullivan?”
The man thought for a moment, pulling at one side of his thick mustache in a provocative manner. “Many believed she was murdered, not kidnapped.”
“Why say that?”
“Because Mary wasn’t the only person who vanished. None of the others were ever found either.”
Evelyn remembered the Missing Persons reports from all those decades ago. “You think the same guy took them all?”
The cab driver shrugged. “I have no idea. Besides, that’s old news. The little girl was the last one to go.”
Evelyn processed the information. “Did anything else happen that year?”
“I don’t think so. If you’re so curious, I can take you to the police station. Sheriff Yates knows more about it than anyone.”
“Take me to him,” Evelyn commanded.
Looking at Evelyn’s paint-stained hands and swollen nose in the rearview mirror, the drive said. “You’re not very normal, you know that?”
“Good, I’ll fit right in.”
The driver took Evelyn to the sheriff’s office. The building was rectangular and brick with an American flag post jutting out of the front lawn. Unsure how long the meeting would take, Evelyn told the cab driver to go on.
Evelyn bounced up the steps and pushed through one of two glass doors with the sheriff department decal on it. She approached the young woman at the receptionist’s desk, who didn’t look a day over twenty-one. She had short blonde hair, a cute, naive face, and a yellow blouse. A deputy wearing a green uniform and black felt hat leaned on the counter with a lusty grin on his face. “Come on, Sunshine. Come out with me tonight. I’ll show you my secret spot.”
The Haunting of Quenby Mansion Omnibus: A Haunted House Mystery Page 10