Scott noticed a new machine sitting beside the reader.
“It’s a miracle,” he said, taking a seat in front of the computer.
“What is it?” Janis pulled over the plastic chair from the microfilm machine.
“It’s a directory for the microfilm collection. Check it out.” In the search box he typed in “Giles Snyder” kept the time frame at “ALL” and hit Enter. A half minute later, they had their results.
“Whoa,” he said. “Three pages of hits.”
Janis pulled the pen and notebook from Scott’s pack and began jotting down the dates and page numbers. “Looks like they start with a bang in August, 1957 and then sort of taper off.”
When Janis had finished writing, Scott performed a search for “Eleanor Snyder.”
The computer returned another long list of hits.
Janis looked from the screen to her notebook and back. “The dates are practically identical.”
She stood and scanned the drawers of the file cabinets. They were organized by blocks of years. She knelt and rumbled a drawer open. Her hands disappeared inside and returned holding two square-shaped boxes. By then, Scott had changed seats and snapped on the microfilm reader.
“Start with this one,” Janis said, opening a box and handing him a small reel of brown, acetate film.
Scott fit the reel on the machine’s left spindle, threaded it beneath rollers and across a glass plate, and fed it into the receiving reel. He gave the reel a few turns before shoving the assembly beneath the machine’s microscope. A blurry image projected onto the light-filled screen. He twisted the knobs controlling the focus and zoom until a legible page of newsprint took shape.
“Our first hit is August seventeenth, 1957,” Janis said. “Page A-one.”
“Wow, front page.” Scott speed-turned the hand crank on the receiving reel.
He scrolled through half the film in this manner, then progressed issue by issue until he and Janis were staring at the front page for August 17, 1957. The headline took up the top quarter of the screen. Scott scanned the lead paragraph before sitting back, both hands pushed into his hair in disbelief.
“So, let me get this straight,” he said as Janis read on. “Murder Creek’s first murder in thirty years was committed by…”
“The last murderer,” Janis finished for him.
Scott reread the headline.
MURDER CREEK MAN KILLS WIFE AND FLEES. MANHUNT UNDERWAY.
The body of a Murder Creek woman was found slain late Friday night in her home. Mrs. Eleanor Snyder, age 36, was the victim of an apparent gun shot wound to the chest. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband, Mr. Giles Snyder, age 38, is missing and wanted by police.
That was as far as Scott could read. The unreality that Giles Snyder was the last murderer spiraled through him, making him dizzy. Janis took over the reel, progressing it to where the story continued on another page.
“The plot thickens,” she said after a moment. “Listen to this: ‘Also missing is the Snyder’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Chastity. She is presumed to be in Mr. Snyder’s custody and may be in danger. A man and girl fitting their descriptions were reported hitch-hiking on State Road 40 late Friday night. Anyone with information on their whereabouts should contact the Murder Creek Police Department. Chief McDermott warned that under no circumstances should the subject be approached. ‘Giles Snyder is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous,’ he said.’”
“Does the article say anything about a motive?” Scott asked.
“No, just the breaking facts. Mrs. Snyder was found dead in the Snyder home on a Saturday morning, the victim of a shotgun belonging to her husband. Witnesses placed Mr. Snyder at a bar the afternoon before—pay day. The article says he worked at an area slaughterhouse. By the time his wife’s body was discovered, he and his daughter were long gone.”
“Sounds fairly cut and dry,” Scott said.
“I’d agree, except that I’m getting another one of my something’s-off feelings.”
They spent the next hour going through the rest of the articles. It was no surprise to Scott that Mr. Giles had never been found—Chief McDermott had suggested as much when they had met a couple of days ago. His daughter hadn’t turned up, either. Later articles speculated that Mr. Giles may have fled with her to Mexico. As far as a motive, the police had filed it under “domestic dispute”—at first tentatively but as time went on with more and more certainty.
The final articles were written on anniversaries of the murder. By the twenty-fifth installment, the original shock had been replaced by a thinly-veiled reverence, the kind reserved for mysteries and legends. There were a couple of quotes by Mayor Walpole. The mayor at the time of the murder, a man named Hoppenfield, had since passed away. “I’m not from Murder Creek, but I was a freshman at the University of Florida that summer,” the article had Walpole saying. “I remember reading about the shooting. It haunts me still.”
Janis snorted. “Spoken like a true politician.”
“Do you think Dr. Fields and Mrs. Snyder had something romantic going on?” Scott asked. “Crime of passion sort of thing?”
“It’s not a bad theory, but it doesn’t work,” Janis said. “First, it doesn’t explain why David threatened Dr. Fields. It also doesn’t explain why David believes Mr. Snyder will kill again.”
Scott nodded in agreement. “Off the wife and lover, and who’s left?”
“I think the daughter is the key to everything,” Janis said. “She was thirteen when the first murder happened. Subtract thirty years from David and the others, and they would’ve been about the same age. In such a small town, I’m sure they knew Chastity and vice versa. Might even have been friends. I think that’s why I keep feeling a connection between the bad thing and David’s group. It’s also why David knows so much.”
“What if Dr. Fields did something, I don’t know, objectionable when they were under his care?” Scott ventured. “Something Mr. Snyder found out about? That would explain David and his friends’ threat to slit his throat and Mr. Snyder’s motive to actually carry it out.”
“But it doesn’t explain him murdering his wife,” Janis said.
Scott rubbed his lips in thought. “No, I guess not.”
“That said, I can’t think of a better theory, not with the time we have left. Which means our next stop is…”
20
Dr. Fields’s office was a two-block walk from the library. As Scott led the way, Janis glanced at her wristwatch. It was almost 9:30, which meant they had less than a half hour before Scott’s parents would come looking for them. Could they connect the rest of the dots by then? Even Janis had to admit the odds were slim. But she and Scott had learned more that morning than in the last four days. If their string of leads could just point them to Mr. Snyder’s next target…
Janis nearly ran into Scott’s back. He had stopped to study the line of two-story brick buildings across the street. A plaque beside one door read simply, Harold Fields, Pediatric MD.
“There should be a back door,” Scott said.
At the end of the block, they crossed the street and doubled back along an alleyway that was almost identical to the one behind the Purple Dragon hobby store.
“This one,” Scott whispered, lifting his chin toward the upcoming door. “Anyone inside?”
Janis concentrated and spread her awareness throughout the pediatrician’s office.
“It’s clear,” she said. “I went ahead and unbolted the lock.”
“Thanks.” Scott tossed Janis a pair of surgical gloves from his pack and pulled a pair onto his own hands. Janis put hers on, as well. They had learned their lesson after David’s house. Scott peered around before grasping the knob. “There’s an alarm, but it feels like it’s been turned off.”
The door opened onto a dim hallway whose smell was that of every doctor’s office Janis had ever been in. She followed Scott, closing the door behind them. A beam of light shot from Scott’s hand.
<
br /> “Remembered the flashlight this time,” he said.
They crept along the hallway. A couple of exam rooms opened to either side of them. The hallway ended at a waiting area, where chairs lined the walls and a child-sized table held an assortment of games.
Scott swung the beam to a closed door to his right. “Front office,” he said, reaching for the knob. “It’s where the patient files are kept and—hey, it’s already unlocked.” He sounded surprised.
A small desk fronted a window that communicated with the waiting room. A couple of four-door filing cabinets stood beside the desk. But the patient files Scott had spoken of were in a closet-sized room in the back of the office. Janis had worried that Dr. Fields might have thinned them over the years, but the shelves in the room were nearly filled to capacity.
Scott closed the door and flipped a light switch. An overhead bulb came on.
“Let’s pull them all,” he said, tucking his flashlight under his arm and sliding a file out far enough to read its tab. “We’re looking for Chastity Snyder, David Dacula, Paulo Ruthaven, Duane Arnaud, and Markus Lester. I’m already at the Ds, so I’ll start with David.”
“I’ll find Chastity’s,” Janis said.
She pulled a “Smith” and slid it home, moved a few folders to her right, and pulled a “Solomon.” She checked the names on the intervening folders.
“David’s isn’t here,” Scott said.
“Neither is Chastity’s.”
Janis moved to the Rs. It took them another minute to confirm that Paulo’s, Duane’s, and Markus’s records were AWOL, as well.
“I thought maybe Dr. Fields had thinned them, but check this out.” Janis held up a dull manila folder and pointed to the tab where the patient’s name and birth date was printed. “Nineteen forty-seven.”
“Yeah, and I remember seeing a ’42,” Scott said. “Dr. Fields didn’t throw out anything.”
“But if there was something incriminating in those files, he might have hidden them.”
While Scott headed out with the flashlight to search the rest of the office, Janis remained in the file room. She went folder to folder, reading the names on the tabs to make sure the ones they were seeking hadn’t been misfiled.
“They’re not here,” Scott said when he returned some fifteen minutes later.
Janis was just finishing her own search. “Maybe he took them home,” she said. “Or destroyed them.”
“Or maybe someone else took them.”
Janis felt the skin fold between her eyes.
“The door to the file room was already unlocked,” Scott explained, “and the office alarm was off.” A thought seemed to occur to him, and he waved for her to follow him. She cut the light to the file room and closed the office door behind her. Scott’s flashlight beam bounced around the hallway as he bounded ahead. Back in the alleyway, Janis squinted against the sudden daylight.
To the left of the door, Scott was bowed before what looked like a cover to a utility box. From his thieving wallet, he produced a small screwdriver and went to work on the pair of screws holding the cover closed. Seconds later, he pocketed his tool and set the cover down against the wall.
“Look!” he said triumphantly.
He held up a twisted pair of cables—one blue, one white—that had been cut clean through.
“This is the telephone line,” Scott explained. “Security systems, like the one for Dr. Fields’s office, connect to it. If there’s a break-in, a signal is sent along the line to a security company or the police, probably the second in this case. Snip the wire and the signal can’t reach its target.”
“Any way of telling when it happened?” Janis asked, leaning nearer.
Scott aimed the ends of the severed wires toward her. “Exposed copper tarnishes pretty quickly, but these cuts still look shiny. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two ago. Mr. Snyder, maybe?”
“I’m not feeling his energy,” Janis said, removing her gloves. “Anyway, this doesn’t match the break-ins at the beach houses. With those, he left no physical evidence. But here…” She gestured to the wires.
Scott replaced the cover and began screwing it in place. “Who else would have an interest in the files?”
“A collaborator of Dr. Fields’s, maybe? If David doesn’t think Mr. Snyder is done, there must have been someone else involved in whatever made David threaten Dr. Fields, whatever motivated Mr. Snyder to murder him. The collaborator may have wanted to cover his butt.”
Scott appeared to think about that as he stuffed his tools into his jacket pocket and removed his gloves. When he went to put the gloves in his other pocket, a perplexed look wrinkled the skin around his eyes. His hand emerged holding what looked like a leather bracelet.
“What’s that?” Janis asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his face smoothing. “I found it in one of the examining rooms, underneath the padded table.”
Janis held out her hand. “Let me see that?”
As Scott set it on her outstretched palm, Janis concentrated into the lines that constituted the black bracelet. Janis found that items worn, especially those worn for long periods of time, picked up qualities of its wearer. The bracelet’s lines radiated a cold energy, one she had felt before.
“It belongs to David,” she said.
“Our David? Do you think he’s the one who broke in here?”
With a fingertip, Janis wiped away a film of dust. “This has been inside too long. And you found it in an examining room?” An image flickered through Janis’s mind. She could feel her powers recovering. “I think the explanation might be even wilder than him breaking in.”
Scott pushed his glasses up on his nose and raised his eyebrows.
“I think he was still a patient of Dr. Fields,” she said.
“A patient? He’s in his late forties!”
Janis shrugged. “I can’t explain it either. It’s part of the puzzle. But if we’re going to start fitting all of these pieces together, we’re going to need to figure out a way to stall your parents.”
“Crap.” Scott looked at his watch. “It’s five till.”
“What if we tell them we know who the killer’s next target is?”
“Do we?” Anticipation filled Scott’s face.
“Not yet. It would be a delaying tactic until we did know.”
“Hm. A lie that borrows against future veracity.”
“Pretty much,” Janis said. “But it’s your parents, so it’s your call.”
Scott’s lips twisted as though he were sucking on an especially bitter Lemon Head. Janis felt his distaste beginning to yield to concession when a shout sounded from the end of the alleyway.
“Hey! What are you two doing?”
Janis started and wheeled toward the approaching figure.
“Put your hands against the wall,” Detective Buckner ordered.
Scott’s gaze dropped from Detective Buckner’s stern visage to the thieving tools, which the detective had arrayed across his desk along with two pairs of crumpled surgical gloves. There was no engineering their way out of this one. Detective Buckner had recovered the items from their pockets in the course of a pat down. Five minutes later, they were sitting in his office at the police station.
“You know, there’s enough here for me to lock the two of you up,” Detective Buckner said.
“Yes, sir,” Scott mumbled.
“Even though I can’t prove you broke into the office, and even though you had no stolen items in your possession, this demonstrates your intent to break in. This is serious. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” Janis replied, her red hair draping her bowed face.
Detective Buckner sighed. “It seems like every time I look up, I find the two of you prowling around.” He paused as though awaiting an explanation, but Scott remained silent. So did Janis. On the ride over, they had worked out their strategy telepathically. Offer nothing.
“And am I to understand you went to Statham yesterda
y to visit David?”
Scott’s sternum stiffened. How in the world—?
Detective Buckner must have observed his surprise. “Your names were on the visitor’s log.”
Oh.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re still carrying on your own investigation. And after I specifically ordered you not to. Now look at where it’s gotten you. I need you to explain yourselves.”
“With all due respect,” Scott said, “we would prefer not to talk without my parents and an attorney present.”
“Well, your parents are on their way,” he said. “And you won’t need to bother with an attorney because I’ve already decided that I’m not going to charge you with anything.”
Janis raised her face. “You’re not?”
“Neither of you have any priors. I checked. I even called your school. From what the front office could tell me, you’re good students, well-behaved, have solid attendance records. I’m not going to mess that up.”
The Program must have altered our records, Scott thought toward Janis. We’ve missed plenty of school.
“But I have a condition.” Detective Buckner said, holding up a finger.
Scott swallowed. “Yes?”
The detective slid the incriminating evidence to one side with a forearm and leaned forward. His practiced eyes moved between them. “I’m not sure if there’s something you saw or heard, but I believe you know something about Dr. Fields’s murder you’re not sharing.”
Careful, Janis warned. He seems a little too interested.
The detective’s face had taken on a darker shade. He no longer appeared to Scott like someone trying to help them, but rather someone trying to coerce them into helping himself.
“I’d like to hear what it is,” Detective Buckner finished.
Without meaning to, Scott darted a glance toward Janis.
“Um…,” he began.
XGeneration (Book 5): Cry Little Sister Page 14