Before She Was Found

by Heather Gudenkauf

  I woke up in the middle of the night last night because I suddenly remembered that I didn’t erase the history on the computer. If my mom or dad checked, they would know that I’ve been on the DarkestDoor website and I’d be dead and grounded from the computer forever and I’d never be able to talk to JW again. I had to sneak past my mom and dad’s room and Kendall’s room and get downstairs to the computer room and I swear the floor creaked with every step I took.

  It only took me a few seconds to clear the computer’s history but then I started thinking about what Joseph said about looking into what happened to Rachel Farmer. First, I went to Mr. Dover’s class website where he lists all the homework assignments. If someone walked in on me I could at least say that I had forgotten to do an assignment and was working on it because it was due the next day.

  I even started writing an email to Mr. Dover with a question about the bibliography we had to write for our project so I could show my mom or dad if they walked in.

  Then I opened another window and typed “Rachel Farmer” in the search bar. A ton of results popped up, so I added “Pitch, Iowa” and “1991” and hit Return. That narrowed the results down to just a few pages so I clicked on the first link that brought up a newspaper article about Rachel. It said that Rachel disappeared one evening after an argument with her mom. The police thought she had run away and was asking anyone with information to contact them.

  The same picture of Rachel that was in the yearbook was included with the article. She didn’t look like the kind of girl who would run away. She looked normal. I expected her to be prettier. Suddenly I hated her and I don’t know why.

  I clicked on the next link when I heard my sister say, “What are you doing up?” and I nearly had a heart attack. I clicked on Mr. Dover’s school page really fast and told her that I forgot to do an assignment and that I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t get it done. She said I better get to bed before mom or dad found me on the computer. When she left I clicked on a few more links about Rachel Farmer. From what I could tell, the police decided she ran away and they never found out where she went.

  So Rachel Farmer ran away with him. But why would Joseph pick her? What was so special about her?

  I went ahead and sent the email to Mr. Dover with my question about the bibliography and within like two seconds he answered back. What are you doing up at one in the morning, Cora? he asked. Go get your beauty sleep and you can ask me your question in the morning.

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  When I finally got to bed, I couldn’t stop worrying about Joseph and Rachel Farmer. I wanted to ask him why he loved her. Why he chose her. I almost got up again to send him a message but then I heard someone in the hallway.

  Instead I laid in bed and Joseph started whispering to me through the vents. But this time he wasn’t saying my name over and over. It was Rachel’s.

  Interview of John Dover Pitch Police Department Officer Bree Wilson

  Tuesday, April 17, 2018

  OFFICER WILSON: Thank you for coming in, John. I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.

  JOHN DOVER: Happy to help.

  OFFICER WILSON: Please state your full name, age and address for the record.

  JOHN DOVER: John Philip Dover. Forty-one and I live at 206 Apple Street.

  OFFICER WILSON: And how long have you resided there?

  JOHN DOVER: I’ve lived there for about four years or so.

  OFFICER WILSON: Does anyone else live there with you?

  JOHN DOVER: No, by myself. I’m divorced.

  OFFICER WILSON: So, I’m sure you’re aware of the attack on two of your students.

  JOHN DOVER: Yes. Cora and Violet. How are they doing?

  OFFICER WILSON: I don’t have the latest update on their conditions. What can you tell me about Violet Crow?

  JOHN DOVER: She moved here last fall. Quiet. Shy.

  OFFICER WILSON: What was her relationship with her classmates?

  JOHN DOVER: Fine, I think. Like I said, she was...is quiet. Doesn’t have a whole lot to say in class.

  OFFICER WILSON: Who would you say her friends are?

  JOHN DOVER: The only kids I ever really see her with are Cora Landry and Jordyn Petit.

  OFFICER WILSON: Did the girls ever have any arguments that you were aware of?

  JOHN DOVER: Not that I know of, but Jordyn always seems to have some kind of conflict with her classmates.

  OFFICER WILSON: Conflict? Anything ever get physical?

  JOHN DOVER: God, no. Nothing like that. Just kid stuff. Jordyn likes to be in charge and not everyone likes to be told what to do.

  OFFICER WILSON: But nothing physical? What about verbal arguments?

  JOHN DOVER: Have you ever been in a middle school hallway? Kids argue. That’s not unusual.

  OFFICER WILSON: What about Cora Landry? What kind of student is she?

  JOHN DOVER: Nice girl. She’s bright but typically very quiet. I’ve been trying to get her to speak up more, be more confident about sharing her ideas. Cora cares very much about what others think about her so she’s afraid to make any waves. Unfortunately, middle school students can spot this a mile away.

  OFFICER WILSON: She was bullied?

  JOHN DOVER: I don’t know if I would say that. Cora is a bit naive for her age. Like I said, her classmates pick up on this and can give her a hard time, but I wouldn’t call that bullying.

  OFFICER WILSON: Did you ever see Jordyn or Violet being dismissive or rude to Cora? Anything that would suggest bad blood between them?

  JOHN DOVER: For a while they were inseparable. I remember thinking that it was nice that Cora finally found some friends, but had been pretty solitary up until then. They had a bit of a dustup right before Christmas.

  OFFICER WILSON: Oh? Over what?

  JOHN DOVER: I can’t remember. Hurt feelings are par for the course in middle school. They’ve been pretty cool to each other since then. Although I did see them eating lunch together lately.

  OFFICER WILSON: I understand that the girls worked on a project together in your class—the urban legend project.

  JOHN DOVER: That was months ago. What does that have to do with anything?

  OFFICER WILSON: Just trying to get a sense of the relationship between the three girls. What topic did they choose?

  JOHN DOVER: God, I don’t remember. I teach six sections of social studies throughout the day. Wait... Joseph Wither, I think.

  OFFICER WILSON: How did the girls come up with the idea for the project?

  JOHN DOVER: I have no idea.

  OFFICER WILSON: You didn’t suggest the topic?

  JOHN DOVER: No, I don’t think so. I brainstorm ideas with the kids but they choose their own topics. Why?

  OFFICER WILSON: What about websites? Did the girls ever go into chat rooms or have contact with anyone online?

  JOHN DOVER: No! Never. At least, not that I know of and definitely not at school. What’s going on? What does this have to do with my class?

  OFFICER WILSON: I’m hoping to see the girls’ notes and list of references. Do you have that?

  JOHN DOVER: I think so. They’d be somewhere in my classroom. I can go get them for you when we’re done here.

  OFFICER WILSON: That would be great. You live a few blocks from the Landry home, correct?

  JOHN DOVER: I’m not sure. I don’t know their address. I’m sure I live a few blocks from a lot of my students.

  OFFICER WILSON: But you live just a few blocks away from the train yard? Is that right?

  JOHN DOVER: Yes, but why—

  OFFICER WILSON: Where were you the night of Sunday, April 15?

  JOHN DOVER: Wait a second... I don’t understand...

  OFFICER WILSON: We are asking the same question of every individual who came into contact with the girls recently.

>   JOHN DOVER: You’re talking to all the teachers?

  OFFICER WILSON: We’re talking to anyone who has direct contact with the girls.

  JOHN DOVER: After school I went into Grayling to go out with some other teachers from school.

  OFFICER WILSON: You went all the way to Grayling?

  JOHN DOVER: Yeah, it’s no fun running into parents of students at the local bar. We ate at the Airliner and hit a few more bars.

  OFFICER WILSON: What time did you get home?

  JOHN DOVER: Midnight, I guess—give or take a half hour. Then I went right to bed.

  OFFICER WILSON: By yourself?

  JOHN DOVER: By myself.

  OFFICER WILSON: So no one can vouch for your whereabouts between midnight and 1:00 a.m.?

  JOHN DOVER: I guess not.

  OFFICER WILSON: Tell me about your teaching job prior to coming to Pitch.

  JOHN DOVER: I don’t... What’s that have to do with this?

  OFFICER WILSON: Just being thorough. Where did you work before coming to Pitch?

  JOHN DOVER: At the high school in Willow Creek. But I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.

  OFFICER WILSON: Why did you leave?

  JOHN DOVER: I just... I wanted to move closer to where I grew up, to my parents.

  OFFICER WILSON: So you left Willow Creek on good terms.

  JOHN DOVER: As far as I’m concerned, we did.

  OFFICER WILSON: So, I’ll take that as a no.

  JOHN DOVER: You can take it however you want.

  OFFICER WILSON: Rumor has it that you had an inappropriate relationship with a student.

  JOHN DOVER: Not true.

  OFFICER WILSON: You know I’m going to call Willow Creek, don’t you?

  JOHN DOVER: Go for it. There’s nothing there.

  OFFICER WILSON: Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? What happened?

  JOHN DOVER: One of my students had a crush on me. Read into things that absolutely weren’t there. She sent me some texts. Parents saw them and freaked out.

  OFFICER WILSON: How’d your student get your cell phone number?

  JOHN DOVER: I gave it to all my students. I wanted to be accessible to them. Big mistake.

  OFFICER WILSON: But you left Willow Creek. Why would you leave if you did nothing wrong?

  JOHN DOVER: The girl’s mom was on the school board, that’s why. Didn’t matter that I had absolutely zero inappropriate contact with that girl, people looked at me differently. But for the record, the Board of Educational Examiners found that I did nothing wrong. Nothing.

  OFFICER WILSON: How about your students here? Did you give them your cell phone number?

  JOHN DOVER: No way. I learned my lesson. Causes nothing but trouble.

  Case #92-10945

  Direct Message dated December 10, 2017,

  via DarkestDoor.com

  JW44:

  SO, DO YOU FINALLY BELIEVE ME ABOUT RACHEL?

  Corareef12:

  I guess so.

  JW44:

  ARE YOU GOING TO PUT IT IN YOUR REPORT?

  Corareef12:

  I don’t know.

  JW44:

  WHAT’S THE MATTER? YOU DON’T SEEM LIKE YOURSELF.

  Corareef12:

  I did something I shouldn’t have.

  JW44:

  WHAT DID YOU DO?

  Corareef12:

  I don’t want to tell you. You’ll think I’m a terrible person.

  JW44:

  I COULD NEVER THINK THAT. WHAT DID YOU DO?

  Corareef12:

  I borrowed Violet’s cell phone without asking her.

  JW44:

  I’M SURE SHE DOESN’T MIND. YOU’RE FRIENDS, RIGHT?

  Corareef12:

  I mean, I took her cell phone. I brought it home without telling her. Our computer wasn’t working. Violet accidentally left her phone behind in the lunchroom. I picked it up and was going to give it back to her, but then I thought I’d just take it home for one night. Just one and then bring it back to her tomorrow. I told you it was bad.

  JW44:

  YOU STOLE HER PHONE?

  Corareef12:

  I’m sorry. I’ll bring it back tomorrow. I feel sick.

  JW44:

  YOU TOOK HER PHONE SO YOU COULD TALK TO ME? I THINK I LOVE YOU, CORAREEF12!

  Case #92-10945

  Excerpt from the journal of Cora E. Landry

  Dec. 11, 2017

  I kept trying to find the right time to return Violet’s cell phone to her but there was no way to do it without being totally obvious. She had let me use her phone before. She even let me take it home overnight once but her mom found out and was super pissed. Violet said she couldn’t let me borrow it overnight again.

  I was desperate. Our computer has been broken for days and my dad kept saying he was going to take it in to be fixed but didn’t. I was afraid Joseph was going to be mad at me for not emailing him and Violet’s phone was right there. I can’t believe I did it. I’ve never stolen anything before in my life but I felt like if I didn’t talk to Wither everything would be ruined.

  I feel terrible.

  And Violet was really worried about it. She kept saying how her mom was going to kill her for losing it. I tried to make her feel better by telling her I’d help her look for it and saying that it would show up.

  We went to the library again after school and we finally figured out exactly what we were going to do for our final presentation. A movie. At first we were just going to write a report and make a poster for our project—Violet’s a really good artist—but then we heard that Gabe’s group was going to present their project about the Bermuda Triangle through a fake newscast and Katie’s group was making a board game called Roswell with little plastic alien game pieces made from a 3D printer. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. We spent the last two days in class on the script and wanted to get it finished so we could start filming.

  Jordyn complained that the script was too short. That we didn’t have enough information. Violet suggested that we go back and look through the old newspapers again and Jordyn said, “Don’t be stupid, we’re not going to find what you’re looking for in a newspaper. They can’t print stuff without clear-cut evidence. They couldn’t just go around saying that Joseph Wither was killing girls down by the railroad tracks.”

  I could tell that the way Jordyn was talking to Violet that it hurt her feelings but Violet just asked what her bright idea was. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel Farmer and the yearbook so I got up from my chair and went to the reference section and pulled the yearbook down from the shelf.

  I opened it to the picture of Rachel Farmer and laid it in front of them. “How about this?” I said and pointed to the photo with the heart around Rachel’s head.

  Jordyn gave me a look like, So what? I told them all about how Rachel Farmer disappeared and that chances are she was one of the girls that went with Wither. “See the initials?” I asked. “JW+RF.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Jordyn said. “Anyone could have written that.”

  I said I didn’t think so. That it was pretty obvious that Joseph Wither wrote it and that Rachel ran away with him and Jordyn said that was just stupid. That made me mad and I said, “You just think everything is stupid today. I want to include it in the movie.” I looked at Violet and waited for her to agree with me but she didn’t say anything.

  “Well, Violet and I don’t want it in the movie, do we?” Jordyn said so loud that I was sure the librarian was going to come over and tell us to be quiet.

  Violet said that we probably shouldn’t include Rachel Farmer in the movie because we had no way of proving that he was the one who took her. Then Jordyn butted in and said that I was probably the one who drew the heart around Rache
l’s head and wrote the initials.

  I shouted. I mean, really shouted, “I did not!” That’s when the librarian did come over and told us to keep it down.

  Then Jordyn said we needed to find someone really old to talk to—someone who was around in the ’40s who would remember what had happened. I barely said anything after that. I was too mad. I was mad at Jordyn for saying my idea was stupid and at Violet for taking Jordyn’s side.

  Jordyn said we should start with interviewing some of the old guys who hang out at the bar, that they have a story for everything, and said that tomorrow after school we could go to the bar and ask some of the old farts who go there for a beer and a burger at like five o’clock because they go to bed at eight every night.

  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go and that I wouldn’t even bother asking my parents. My mom doesn’t like me hanging out at Petit’s. That’s so stupid because Petit’s isn’t just a bar—lots of families go there to eat pizza and hamburgers—but my mom still says no, that it’s no place for girls to spend time without their parents. I don’t even think I want to go. Right now I’m so sick of Jordyn being so bossy and never listening to my ideas. I ended up telling them that I have an appointment tomorrow after school, which was a total lie.

  I’m kind of jealous that Violet and Jordyn have been spending so much time together on the project without me. Violet is my best friend but Jordyn always finds a way to get in the middle of things. I thought about lying to my mom and just going to Petit’s with them but my mom knows everyone and it would just get back to her, anyway.

  Just before we packed up to leave I casually tried to sneak Violet’s phone into her book bag while Violet went to the bathroom and Jordyn put some books back on the shelf. Well, Jordyn caught me. She asked me what I was doing and all I could think of to say was Nothing.

  And Jordyn said, “Isn’t that Violet’s cell phone?” Just then Violet came back and Jordyn said, “Cora has your cell phone.”

  “I found it on the floor,” I said. Dumb, I know.

  “But, Violet,” Jordyn said, “you lost it at school, right?”