Murder Scene

by Richard Montanari

  ‘The dice on the floor beneath the body. One of them is a three. One of them is a one. Does this mean anything or am I just reaching?’

  ‘Everything is within reach,’ Will said.

  For the next half-hour they tried to apply this aspect to the lives of all concerned, thinking maybe a birthday was March 1, or 1931, or perhaps an address or phone number. No luck. There was no point in plugging in 13. The results would have overwhelmed them.

  At midnight they took a break. Ivy held up the bottle of Maker’s Mark. Will nodded.

  Ivy retrieved a glass from the kitchen, poured Will a double. He took the glass from her, sipped the bourbon, savored it.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’

  A few minutes later Ivy’s phone rang. She answered. It was Gary Baudette. Ivy made a few notes, signed off.

  ‘BCI found something in Chevy Deacon’s place,’ Ivy said.

  She sat down at the laptop, opened the mail app, clicked on the email message from Gary Baudette.

  It was a high-resolution photograph, and took a few seconds to load, revealing itself top to bottom.

  The picture was of a dead black bird in a dusty shoebox. As with the crow at Lonnie Combs’s place, it had no wings.

  ‘Where was this?’ Will asked.

  ‘Under the bed.’

  ‘Anything tying him to Josie Mollo?’

  ‘No,’ Ivy said. ‘Not yet.’

  Ivy looked at the dead crow, and considered when it had happened for her. She concluded that she’d made the decision somewhere between her mother’s house and her house, a decision to let go of thoughts and ideas and hopes and fears she’d kept inside for twenty-five years, things so private and close to her heart that, until this moment, she’d believed she would take them all to her grave.

  Will Hardy was the right person.

  Now was the right time.

  For two full minutes Will did not say a word. Perhaps he was speechless. Then he said again, simply:

  ‘Wow.’

  They were standing in the basement in front of the walls of calendars and photographs. Above the computer monitor was the corkboard bearing the photographs of Josefina Mollo, Paulette Graham, Charlotte Foster, and others. Ivy pinned a grainy picture of Elizabeth Hollis next to them.

  Will pointed at the corkboard. ‘And these are the known dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ivy said. ‘I never had a solid link until today.’ She held up the photocopy of the crime scene photograph taken in 1969. ‘This is the link.’

  Will tapped the picture of Charlotte Foster on the corkboard. ‘Who is this?’

  Ivy told him the story of the discovery of the girl’s body.

  ‘She was found in a remote field in Summit County. Like Paulette, the animals had gotten to her. Manner of death was ruled undetermined.’

  Ivy pointed to the column of photographs. ‘These are also girls who went missing that year. None of them ever turned up, as far as I know. I’ve tried to follow up as quietly and discreetly as possible, without disturbing the families. Mostly internet searches, Facebook and Twitter searches, and the like. There is no trace. Even after twenty-five years.’

  ‘And these?’

  He was pointing at the other columns, each of them with four photographs.

  ‘Same scenario, different years. All four girls disappeared within thirty miles of where we’re standing.’

  ‘And you feel these are all connected?’

  It wasn’t a feeling, Ivy thought. Still, she needed to make her case.

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  ‘What are we looking at?’ Will asked. ‘Some kind of ritual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A religious ritual?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Will looked at the newest pictures, photographs Ivy had taken of the Josefina Mollo crime scene. He compared them to the pictures taken of Elizabeth Hollis. The crown of wings was almost identical.

  ‘What’s the link between Lonnie Combs and Chevy Deacon?’ Will asked.

  ‘In a small town like this, I wouldn’t be surprised that they knew each other. But this kind of relationship would have to go deeper than two lowlife creeps doing bottom-shelf shots at a roadhouse.’

  Will remained silent.

  ‘These were ordinary men,’ Ivy said. ‘Less so than that. Lonnie Combs couldn’t even wash the dishes in his sink, or do a load of laundry. He was a cheap drunk and a kiddie freak. Chevy Deacon beat up his wives, and couldn’t even conceal the fact. How on earth could they hide the depth of darkness this would require, the level of secrecy? I don’t see it.’

  ‘So you believe that there is something going on at a deeper level.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That these men were used.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which would mean that they were murdered.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ivy walked over to her file cabinet, returned with a thick folder.

  ‘Look at these.’

  Ivy spread out the files on the table.

  She put out newspaper clippings from long ago, decades. Stories of accidental deaths under suspicious circumstances, deaths ruled to be suicides. Suicides from 1994, 1969, 1944, 1919. There were even two from the Abbeville Ledger dated 1894.

  ‘All these men. All ruled suicide,’ Ivy said. ‘All in Holland County, or right near the Holland County line.’

  Ivy watched Will. She saw the wheels turning.

  ‘The dates.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The dates.’

  ‘Missing girls, men found dead by their own hand, all within twelve months of each other.’

  ‘Notice anything about the years?’ Ivy asked.

  ‘They’re all twenty-five years apart.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Will tapped his finger on the pile of photos and news clippings.

  ‘This just became something else, didn’t it?’

  Ivy wanted to say that it became that for her a long time ago, in the time it took to snap that picture of her sister. The image of Delia on that day was how her sister remained in her mind, her whole life forever captured in a fraction of a second.

  ‘Every twenty-five years a new rash of killings and disappearances,’ Will said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it coincides with the Appleville Festival. And the return of the white raven.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if Elizabeth Hollis’s killer was even twenty years old back then, he’d be seventy now. It doesn’t compute, does it?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Maybe he has a protégé. Someone younger.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ivy said. ‘It’s crossed my mind.’

  The two of them stared at the mountain of information in front of them.

  ‘Of all the things I know about this, there is at least one thing I believe to be true,’ Ivy said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘All these girls? Going back to just after the Civil War?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘It’s all the same case.’

  Autumn – Harvest

  Being the True Diary and Journal of Eva Claire Larssen

  September 16, 1869

  This coming week is the Appleville Festival. I feel that little May will arrive just as the festivities get under way. I have twice been to see the doctor in Chardon this month and he assures me that all is well. Mrs Schuyler has been so kind to me. She has kept my duties light, and has even commissioned her son to make me a special stool on which I can sit in the kitchen.

  September 21, 1869

  Little May is born! Six pounds ten ounces. She has sparkling blue eyes like her father. I am blessed.

  October 9, 1869

  I am back on my feet again. Little May is beautiful but so very fussy. Mrs Schuyler is helping me with all the things I do not know about being a mother, which is almost everything.

  October 18, 1869

  Willem came to the kitchen today. He brought hi
s camera and took a photograph of all the girls just outside the back door. Before he left he took me aside and pressed something into my hand. It is a beautiful gold ring. He said we will go to the county seat and be wed, if I will have him.

  I am soon to be Mrs Willem Schuyler, Mama.

  October 30, 1869

  Willem left for school today. He will be gone for two weeks, then we will be married.

  November 5, 1869

  Dr van Laar has become a ghost in the village. He seems to spend all his time on the third floor of Veldhoeve. Or down at the seven groves – counting, ciphering, proclaiming things to the heavens, raising his fists. Of the few times I have seen him up close he has been pale and drawn.

  I fear that he has an illness.

  November 11, 1869

  He stands beneath the sugar maple in the Fairgrounds, watching, waiting. Night after night. His figure is slight, but tightly coiled, like a serpent. I am afraid for myself and Little May. Willem will be back this Friday, a day that cannot come too soon.

  This will be my final entry, dear journal. Tonight I will hide this journal well in Godwin Hall. If something terrible befalls me, or little May, I want you to know what happened.

  It was Dr Rinus van Laar.

  60

  Will looked at the certificate. It hardly seemed real. At the top of the official document it read:

  VILLAGE OF ABBEVILLE

  CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY

  At the bottom were various codes and permit numbers regarding plumbing and electrical and HVAC and smoke detectors. But the two things that mattered, the two things that Will understood, were the signature at the bottom, right beneath the word Approved.

  The night they received the certificate Will and Detta celebrated with a takeout meal from Bullfinch Tavern (Carl Bristow had been right, the food was great), and Will even opened a bottle of Moët.

  He was at first a little hesitant about pouring his daughter a glass of sparkling wine, but Detta promised not to start swearing and breaking things. Will found it funny, to Detta’s obvious relief.

  On the table that night were a number of books Detta had ordered at the library. To Will’s surprise there existed a Complete Idiot’s Guide as well as a For Dummies book on running a bed and breakfast. There were also a few more professional tomes on the subject, which Will decided to order for purchase. He had always been one to write in the margins of his textbooks, and had the feeling that Detta’s boss would not appreciate this practice.

  Godwin Hall was beginning to fill up with furniture, and every time Will turned a corner, and saw a room almost fully fitted, he was amazed how well it was coming along.

  Will also purchased a few different software subscriptions, most notably a web authoring package. Detta was getting quite proficient at it, and had come up with three different ideas for a Godwin Hall website; had already established an email relationship with all the main travel and lodging sites.

  As a trial balloon she had mentioned Godwin Hall on a Facebook page and they’d gotten a handful of inquiries about rates and availabilities.

  At just after noon, on a late September day, Will heard someone knocking on the front door. He opened the door to find a young man on the porch. He was tall and lanky, collegiate looking in ivory chinos and dark blue vest sweater over a white Oxford shirt. He had a large manila envelope in his hands. Will’s first thought was that Detta would love his tortoiseshell frames.

  ‘Hi,’ Will said.

  ‘Are you Mr Hardy?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘My name is Zach Johnson,’ he said. ‘Eli Johnson was my grandfather.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Will said. ‘You’re Cassie’s brother?’

  ‘She’s my cousin.’

  ‘Ah, okay,’ Will said. ‘Please. Come on in.’

  ‘I can’t really stay too long. But thanks.’

  Zach walked inside, looked around the foyer, the parlor.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘This is really nice.’

  Will had earlier in the day finished tacking in a new carpet runner on the stairs. The brass grommets gleamed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Will said. ‘It’s a process.’

  Will found that he had been saying this a lot lately. He imagined he would for a long time to come.

  ‘My grandfather used to talk about this place now and then, about its heyday. He told me he never came here without a jacket and tie.’

  Somehow, even with his limited acquaintance with the old man, this sounded like Eli.

  ‘I was sorry to hear of your grandfather’s passing,’ Will said. ‘I only met him the one time, but he was a kind man. He welcomed me to Abbeville, in fact. He was among the first.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Zach said. ‘We moved away when I was small, so I only saw him when we came here for the fairs. I wished I had known him better.’

  ‘Are you here for one of the festivals?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘I’m here to wrap up a few loose ends from Eli’s estate. We might stay the weekend.’

  The young man glanced out the door, toward the street, then back at Will.

  ‘To be honest, I had no idea who you were,’ he said. He pointed at the handwriting on the package. The inscription stated, simply: For Will Hardy. ‘That’s all I had to go on, just the name. I put it aside for a while, then forgot about it. We still get The Villager mailed to us, but I don’t really read it anymore. About a week ago I picked it up and saw that article about you and Godwin Hall. I then realized that the package was meant for you.’

  He handed Will the parcel. It was not that heavy.

  ‘Eli wanted me to have this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know what’s in it?’

  ‘No,’ Zach said. ‘I figured that was between you and my grandfather.’

  Of course, Will thought. He hoped he hadn’t offended the young man. He held up the package. ‘Thanks for bringing this by. I hope it wasn’t too much out of your way.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Are you sure I can’t get you a cup of coffee or tea?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m running late already.’

  The young man moved toward the door. Before leaving he hesitated a moment.

  ‘I’m pretty sure Eli said he met my grandmother here. Right before he shipped out for the service. He said they had dances here back then.’

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  ‘He used to say that he was sorry that this place closed down, that it was part of what made Abbeville special for him.’

  Will opened the door. The young man stepped through.

  ‘Thanks again for this,’ Will said.

  Zach Johnson walked down the front walk, turned once at the street, waved. In that moment, in that light, Will could see the resemblance to the old man.

  61

  As summer turned the corner to fall, the challenges facing the Abbeville Police Department evolved with the colors of the leaves. The months of August and September were when the festival seasons kicked into high gear in Holland County.

  Especially this year.

  An increase in the number of visitors to the area, along with all the trials they brought with them, were considerable. Parking, crowd control, littering, vandalism, the myriad problems associated with alcohol consumption. Whenever more people gathered, the number of petty criminals increased proportionally.

  The investigations into the deaths of Paulette Graham and Josefina Mollo had all but stalled. The two girls, along with their alleged killers Lonnie Combs and Chevy Deacon, had been interred, and the discussion of the cases had moved from the coffee shops to the taverns.

  Ivy had twice revisited the field where Paulette Graham had been discovered and, because it had been months, there was nothing to be found. If there had been a crown made of crow’s wings, the organic material had fully disintegrated. The field was full of dead grass and low shrubs. She’d found some rusted wire, but BCI could not make a definitive ma
tch to what was found more recently.

  Ivy had contacted Paulette’s extended family and paid a visit to their home. She kept the true purpose of her visit close to the vest, telling Paulette’s family that she was merely conducting a follow-up. What she wanted to know was whether the Graham family had suddenly come into a great deal of cash, as had Emmett Mollo.

  When Ivy broached the subject she immediately saw that they became furtive, avoiding eye contact, having to suddenly be elsewhere. In the end they denied receiving any unexpected windfall. But Ivy made note of the new sixty-five-inch television in the family room, and the presence of at least ten new storm windows installed on the rather dilapidated house.

  Walt Barnstable had followed up on the currency they had found on Chevy Deacon. Anything regarding banks and banking was federal, and Walt, who still had contacts from his days as an insurance investigator, had put in a request to follow up on all this through the proper channels, that being the FBI and, subsequently, the Treasury Department.

  Nothing from them yet.

  Ivy had returned to restoring the photographs they had gotten from Mickey McGrath, and continued with her magnum opus, the full restoration of the picture of Delia on the Fairgrounds behind Godwin Hall.

  Ivy June had begun getting around without the aid of her cane and her walker. In the past two weeks she had been seen a few times at the Bullfinch, regaling the regulars with her stories of skullduggery from Holland County’s past.

  Frankie was beginning to settle down, to adjust to her forever home. Where at first the dog would react to every loud noise by bolting under the dining room table, she now was beginning to take it in stride. More or less. Ivy had rented the Blu-ray edition of Black Hawk Down and Frankie had toughed out what was one of the loudest movies ever.

  Ivy soon learned the difference between leash-walking a terrier and leash-walking a Shepherd. At least she was getting an upper body workout every morning and evening.

  On the day before the opening festivities of Appleville, Ivy got a call from Gary Baudette.

  ‘I ran across something I think you might be interested in, Ivy,’ he said. ‘I did some further tests on the contents of Chevy Deacon’s vehicle. Do you remember those six burlap bags in the back?’