by Debra Webb
A shudder quaked through Rowan. “First, he must have landed a fatal blow for each one while they still lay in bed,” she suggested, “or surely one would have gotten away or tried to stop him.”
“Most likely.”
All the furniture had been removed from the room. Blood had likely splattered across the space in all directions. She stared at the window. On the curtains. She blinked. She stared at where the bed had stood. All over the linens. Shaking off the images, she moved to the closet and opened the door. It was empty as well.
“There’s no basement or root cellar.”
Rowan turned back to Billy. “There has to be an attic.”
“I think I saw the access in the hall.”
They moved back into the hall. The small framed square in the ceiling was eight feet off the floor.
“There probably isn’t a ladder around here.” Disappointment tugged at her. She had expected to find something that would fill in the missing details. It had been a foolish notion, but she’d hoped anyway.
“I might be able to reach it with one of those chairs from the kitchen.”
Rowan wasn’t so sure. She chafed her arms to ward off a sudden chill. While Billy brought a chair from the kitchen, she paced the hall, trying to block images of a teenage boy wielding an ax and chopping his parents to pieces. Screams echoed in her head. The screams of a thirteen-year-old girl. She could only imagine the terror of waking up to that nightmare.
Had she run out of the house and hidden from the horror...from her brother?
“It’s my lucky day.”
Rowan looked up to see what Billy had discovered. Beyond the access panel was a pull-down ladder. The sound of the wood-on-wood slide of the ladder scooting down splintered the air until it settled on the floor. Billy climbed up and poked his upper body through the access hole into the attic.
The first box he brought down had Rowan’s heart pounding again. While he went up for the second, she dropped to her knees and sorted through the contents of the box. An old shoebox full of photos. The deed to the property, recorded to Virgil and Patricia Mulligan. Property tax records.
Rowan removed the lid from the shoebox and riffled through the photos. Many were black-and-white. There were dozens upon dozens of photos of Nina—Norah. From infant to the summer she was twelvish. There were a couple of photos that showed the brother but his head was always turned away from the camera. It was as if he purposely ensured the camera didn’t capture his face. Amid the photos was Nina’s birth certificate. Same birth date as Rowan’s mother.
Billy sat down on the floor beside her. “My God, she looks just like you did as a child.”
If there had been any question in Rowan’s mind whether or not this Nina was actually her mother, she had none now. This was Norah as a child.
She turned to Billy. “I’m going to snap pics of some of these.”
He nodded. “You might be interested in this box, too.”
The second box was smaller. The contents were obviously Nina’s toys. A doll, a teddy bear and a couple of dresses from when she was small. There was a handheld mirror. Rowan’s breath caught. It reminded her of the one she had at home only smaller. The one at home had been her mother’s mirror.
One by one she snapped pics of the photos. Billy helped her put them back in the box and then she hoisted each one up to him as he stashed them back in the attic.
“You’re sure there’s nothing else up there?”
“Nothing but wiring, dust and a little insulation.”
When the ladder was back in place and the access panel replaced, Billy put the chair away and dusted off his shirt.
“You want to have a look around outside?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice at this point. Rowan peeked in the barn as they walked past it. An old tractor and a few other farm implements sat amid the cobwebs. Beyond the barn was another building that had collapsed in on itself. About all that was visible was the metal roof.
At the edge of the woods they found a family cemetery. The roar of the river was louder here. A short iron fence surrounded the cemetery. Rowan opened the gate and walked inside. Apparently at least a couple other generations of the family had lived here. There were eighteen headstones. Several smaller homemade wooden crosses marked the graves of pets. Names were scrawled on the crosspieces. Shaggy. Trixie. Toto. It was the lone headstone in the back corner that drew her attention. She crouched down in front of it and read the name and dates.
The child died at four years old.
Nora Mulligan. Our Angel.
If the little girl hadn’t died she would have been the same age as Nina. Had the same birthday. Rowan reminded herself to breathe. Twins. Nina and Nora were twins.
Nora. Norah.
Her mother had been a twin.
But was she Nina or Nora?
Thirteen
Billy had suggested they look up the cops who investigated the murders. They had decided to start with the sheriff.
Rowan was thankful the man wasn’t dead. After half a century it was more likely than not that most of the people who had known the Mulligans at the time of their murders would be gone.
The newspaper article cited Robert “Bob” Mount as the Jackson County sheriff at the time of the Mulligan murders. Discovering that he was still alive was only half the battle. Locating him hadn’t been easy since his wife had died a decade ago and their children had grown up and moved away before that. Luckily, one of the deputies had remembered Bob and was certain he lived in an assisted-living facility in the Goose Pond area. There was only one facility in that area, which made tracking the place down far easier.
Lake Grove sat in a picturesque venue just outside Scottsboro proper, just a short drive from the Goose Pond neighborhoods. The facility was made up of a large building that included the offices, the game room and lounge, classrooms for dance, art and music classes and a variety of small restaurants, three of them. It was more like a resort than an old folks’ home. The living spaces appeared to all be single-story apartments that surrounded a graciously landscaped common area. Each had a rear patio with a view to the lake. Sheriff Bob, as he was known by the staff and other residents, was only too happy to invite Rowan and Billy into his home. According to the resource coordinator, Sheriff Bob liked nothing better than talking about his days as sheriff of Jackson County.
Rowan hoped his memory was as good as his physical health appeared to be.
“Mercy, that was a good while ago.” He studied the copy of the article Rowan had brought with her. “This county never had a murder like that before or since.” He shook his head. “Awful business. Just awful. Reminded me of that Lizzie Borden tale.” He passed the article back to her. “What would you like to know?”
Rowan had asked Billy to lead the interview. She hoped the lawman bond would prompt greater cooperation.
Billy said, “Do you mind walking us through what happened starting when you received the call? Maybe you can also tell us something about the family.”
“I can do that,” Bob agreed. He tapped his right temple. “Mind is like a steel trap. I haven’t forgotten one thing about the cases I worked, especially the ones like this.”
There was a long pause as if the former sheriff was gathering his thoughts.
Rowan still felt shaky after the visit to the house and the unexpected finds. There was a hollowness echoing inside her. She had so many questions. How was it that each new discovery only added more questions? Her life felt as if it were spinning out of control from the past forward.
“I turned thirty-two that year,” Bob said. “I was a newly minted sheriff. I’d been with the department for a dozen years.” He sighed. “Things were different in those days. Folks respected a man who wore the uniform. The law meant something.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know the Mulligans personally. They lived in the vall
ey on the other side of the mountain. Lot of the folks who lived around that river were cliquish. Kept to themselves. You know what I mean.”
Billy nodded. “We have our share like that over in my county. They operate under a different set of rules.”
“You’re not kidding.” Bob drew in a big breath. “When the call came in, I was out in the woods. It was deer hunting season and I intended to nail me a big old buck. I’d been laid up after a car accident the previous season.” He paused again. “Took me nearly an hour to get back to my truck and then drive over into the valley. The man and woman had been dead better than twenty-four hours. Coroner estimated thirty-six or so. The house was ice-cold. We don’t get snow often, but it had snowed the night before. The fires they’d used for heat had long since gone out, slowed the decomp process a little, but God Almighty, it was the most unnerving thing you’ve ever seen.”
During the lull that followed, Billy asked, “Who found them?”
“We had one of those rolling stores. Pete Toliver drove the truck all over the valley, on the mountain, too. He said Patricia, the wife, had ordered some oranges from the school. The seniors were selling them that year to raise money for their class trip. Pete’s daughter was a senior. Anyway, he stopped to drop off the box of oranges and found the front door standing wide-open. He stuck his head in and called out, but no one answered. Snow had blown across the porch and into the living room. No fire in the fireplace. He worried there had been trouble so he went on inside. That’s when he smelled the blood.”
Rowan’s stomach churned. She knew that smell. She’d walked into her share of homicide scenes with the coppery odor so overwhelming she’d had to hold her breath.
“When I got there, my deputies were already processing the scene. Pete told me there was two kids, a boy and a girl, so we started a search party to look for them. We never found the boy but we did find the girl. She was about frozen to death and covered in blood. She was in the hospital for several days. Didn’t speak for weeks. When she did, she couldn’t remember a thing about what happened.”
“Sheriff Bob,” Rowan said, “do you know what happened to Nina’s twin sister?”
“Well, in the beginning I didn’t know she had a sister. Like I said, I didn’t know the family at all. But during the investigation we learned a good bit. The parents, Patricia and Virgil, were an odd sort, according to the few who had any dealings with them. They kept to themselves. Lived off their land mostly. Cultivated a big garden every year. Had chickens and pigs. A few cows. You probably saw the barn—there used to be a farrowing house farther on down from the main house but it fell in years ago. They must have had a hog killing right before they got murdered—the farrowing house was covered in blood.” He shuddered. “Course that was the way of it. Most folks shot their hogs once in the head and then cut their throats to let them bleed out. It was always a bloody mess. This was unsettling since that bedroom looked pretty much the same way. But you were asking about the little girl who died—the coroner checked his records and said it was pneumonia that got the little girl. She was about four, I think.”
Rowan’s chest felt so heavy she could hardly breathe. “The girl, Nina, she never remembered anything.”
Bob shook his head. “She swore she didn’t remember anything. Considering what few clues we had pointed to the boy, Richard, being the possible murderer, the state decided it was best to take her away from here before placing her in a foster home. In case he tried to come back and finish what he started...killing his family.”
“Is there anything else about the family that those who knew them found particularly odd?” Rowan asked. A theory was beginning to develop and she needed more information. She felt ready to shatter with this band of tension tightening around her chest. Her mind kept conjuring images of little girls and dead hogs and blood everywhere.
Bob’s brow furrowed with concentration. “Let’s see. There were a few things. Most of the women who ran into them from time to time said the husband, Virgil, liked to look a little too long. The wife was always very friendly, always inviting people over for tea. None ever went, considering the husband made them uneasy.” He rubbed at his chin. “There were a lot of strangers—out-of-towners—in and out of their place. Several neighbors mentioned the number of people who visited the Mulligans. I think they had big parties for hog killing. I guess that’s why there wasn’t much meat in their freezer. I think they shared with all those visitors. Maybe did some bartering. Lots of folks traded for the things they didn’t have back in the day.”
The conversation went on a little longer, but the former Jackson County sheriff had shared the known relevant facts with them as well as his conclusions. There was nothing else to tell, he affirmed. Just one of those unsolved tragedies that haunted the investigators for the rest of their lives.
Rowan mulled over all that she’d learned as Billy drove the long twisty road toward home. Now that she understood the events that had molded her mother, it was easier to see why she had been the way she was. Overcoming that sort of trauma would have required serious counseling. She wondered if any had been provided.
“I’m thinking the missing brother could be Addington.”
Rowan turned to Billy. “You read my mind. It makes sense. If they were brother and sister, that would explain the connection. With what we know happened, this could also clarify why my mother needed protectors. Maybe she was afraid of Julian. The story about an affair may have been nothing more than Julian’s way of hiding the truth while explaining their relationship.”
“Maybe his parents were his first kills.” He glanced at Rowan.
She nodded. “I was toying with that conclusion. And what was the deal with all those people coming in and out? Strangers—out-of-towners, as he called them. Maybe the Mulligans were dealing in more than livestock and homegrown vegetables. They could have been growing and selling marijuana or some other drug.”
“In a remote area like that, they could’ve been growing anything.”
Rowan felt giddy with possibilities. “The first time I dreamed of her, my mother said something to me—in the dream—that fits with this theory.” Billy braked to a stop at an intersection and set his gaze on hers. “I asked her why she left me and she said she couldn’t stay.”
Norah couldn’t stay because she had thought leaving this world would end Julian’s obsession.
She couldn’t have known he would only transfer it to Rowan.
Billy turned on the blinker to make a left turn. “She thought she was helping you.”
Rowan’s heart felt ready to crack open. All this time she had believed her mother hadn’t loved her enough to stay.
Maybe she had loved her too much to stay.
“I need a bottle of water, how about you?”
Rowan blinked, turned to him. “Yes. Sure.”
Billy went into the only convenience store between Skyline and Winchester. Rowan waited in the truck and decided to make a few notes about all they’d seen and heard while it was still fresh in her mind. She touched the screen of her cell intending to use the notepad. Instantly the battery died. Warnings had been popping up for the past hour.
“Damn it.” She tossed it aside and opened the glove box to looked for paper and pen. Even an old envelope or cash register receipt would work. She prowled through the loose papers and vehicle manuals. Her fingers curled around a small box. Something soft. She pulled it out of the pile.
Ring box.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach.
Biting her lip, she opened the box.
A brilliant princess-cut diamond winked at her. It was beautiful.
The air fled her lungs.
“Oh no.”
The sound of voices in the parking lot had her closing the box and shoving it back under the manuals and papers in the glove box.
Two men had exited the convenience store. Not Billy
.
Rowan sank into the seat and tried to slow her racing heart.
What did this mean?
Don’t be stupid, Rowan! Billy had decided to propose. For a while now she had felt their relationship was heading in that direction. She had hoped for more time. She had really hoped this wouldn’t happen until the Julian thing was over.
What if it’s never over?
Julian could disappear again and orchestrate his devious plans from afar.
“But he can’t live forever,” Rowan mused.
He was on the back side of his sixth decade of life. Seventy was looming just a few short years down the road. Yet even a few more weeks was enough time for him to destroy everything left that mattered to Rowan.
Billy opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. He passed a bottle of water to her and then opened his own. When he’d had a long swallow, he placed the bottle in the cup holder, fastened his safety belt and headed back onto the road.
Rowan could only stare at him.
When she’d summoned enough courage, she asked, “Do we need to talk about anything?”
He glanced at her as he reached for his water once more. “You want to talk more about today?”
“No.” She tried to focus on the road rolling out in front of them. Looking at him was too difficult. “I meant regarding us. Are we okay? Is there anything we should discuss?”
Billy blew out a big breath. “What did I do?”
No matter that her heart was pounding and her nerves were jangling, she laughed. “I’m serious, Billy. Is everything okay with us? Or is there something you need to talk about?”
“Actually, there is something.”
Rowan held her breath.
“Since Pryor has basically kicked me off the investigation, I was thinking of taking some time off. Like today, and doing our own investigation full-time.”
The announcement startled her almost as much as what she’d found in the glove box. “Are you serious? When was the last time you took time off?”