by Kathi Daley
“How can we help you?” Mr. Moody asked.
“As I’m sure you know, the house at the end of the road is being used by the high school for their annual Haunted Hayride. During decorating for the event, Ms. Prescott and her friends found a locked room located off a hidden passageway. Inside the room were two skeletons.”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Moody said, her hand over her mouth.
“You’re saying Weston had two human skeletons hidden up there in that house?” Mr. Moody asked.
“Yes,” Woody confirmed. “We estimate the individuals would have died approximately twenty-five years ago. Did you live here back then?”
“Sure.” Mr. Moody nodded. “Maude and I have lived here since we married more than fifty years ago.”
“Did you speak often to Mr. Weston before his death two years ago?” Woody asked.
“Not often. We’d wave to each other if we passed on the road and he came over when my dang-nabbed tractor rolled over on me and patched me up.”
“And when was that?” Woody asked.
“I guess it’s been about fifteen years now. The man used to be a doctor, and I think he must have been a good one.”
“Had Mr. Weston lived alone in the house the whole time he owned it?” I asked, even though I was supposed to let Woody do all the talking.
“No.” Mr. Moody shook his head. “There was a boy who stayed at the house for a while after Weston moved in. He wasn’t quite right in the head, so Weston kept him inside most of the time, but he managed to sneak out every now and again, and Weston had to go out and look for him.”
“How old was the boy?” I asked.
“I guess around fourteen or fifteen. His name was Jojo, or at least that was what Weston called him. I seem to remember Weston telling me that Jojo was his sister’s kid and he was helping her out by letting him stay at the house while she was away.”
“And how long ago was this?” Woody asked.
“I remember the boy started coming around a few years after Weston moved in. I didn’t see him often, but Weston came looking for him several times over a four- or five-year period. At some point he stopped coming to visit. I think the tantrums got to be too much for the doc as the boy got older.”
“Did you ever see any younger boys in the area?” I asked. “Boys who would have been about ten?”
Mr. Moody shook his head. “Not back then. There’ve been some kids hanging around the past few years. I think they live in the neighborhood on the far side of the forest. Weston seemed to enjoy their company, so he encouraged them to visit.”
“Did Mr. Weston have any other regular visitors that you know of?” Woody asked.
“No. He was always real friendly when I ran into him on the road, but he liked his privacy. I can respect that.”
We spoke to the Moodys for a while longer and then returned to Woody’s car. “Are you thinking what I am?” I asked once we were seat-belted inside.
“If you’re thinking Mr. Weston’s nephew is the male skeleton, then yes.”
“It makes sense. Mr. Weston had already suffered a great tragedy with the loss of his wife and son. He came to Cutter’s Cove to find a quiet place to heal, and then his sister asked him to help with her mentally challenged child. Mr. Weston agreed, but the boy wasn’t an easy teen to deal with. He would sneak out, and I suppose we can assume got into a certain amount of trouble. Mr. Weston got into a conflict with the boy and somehow, he died. Maybe he fell down the stairs or fell and hit his head.”
“Wait.” I stopped Woody. “I had you up until that last part. You told me there was no skeletal evidence of trauma.”
Woody scratched his chin. “That’s true. The ME didn’t find any broken bones.”
“And what about the sister? If the male skeleton in the box was this nephew of Weston’s, why did she let her brother leave his body there? Wouldn’t she want to give her son a proper burial?”
“I suppose she could have been protecting her brother,” Woody answered.
“But if the death of the teen was an accident would he need protecting?”
“Maybe he killed the boy in a fit of rage.” Woody sighed. “I guess the next step is to track down the sister to see what she can tell us.”
I narrowed my gaze. “It seems as if, given the circumstances, Mr. Weston’s next of kin would have been contacted right away.”
“I didn’t find any other than the nephew who now owns the property,” Woody informed me. “The nephew lives in Italy and claims to have never met his uncle. His mother was Weston’s sister. She went abroad when she was in college and met the man she eventually married. She moved to Italy when she was just twenty-two and delivered her only child, a son, when she was twenty-six. She died when she was just twenty-nine, without ever having introduced her brother to her family. According to the nephew, he was as shocked as anyone when he was named as the sole heir to a farm owned by a man he’d never had any contact with.”
“If Weston played host to a different nephew after moving to Cutter’s Cove he must have had another sister,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s odd that the nephew didn’t know that. I’ll do some digging to see what I can find out. In the meantime, let’s check with the neighbor just south of here before we head back.”
I smiled at Woody. “Sounds good, partner.”
Chapter 11
As it turned out, the other neighbor, while very nice, had only lived in the area for fourteen years and, based on the estimation of the ME, the victims we’d found would already have been dead. The neighbor did say Mr. Weston was a quiet sort who liked to keep to himself and never really caused any problems or made any noise, so in his opinion, he was a good neighbor to have. He added that he had witnessed Mr. Weston taking walks along Harbinger Lane late at night, which had seemed odd to him. Woody and I discussed the fact that someone who wanted to avoid social interactions with others might choose to walk after his neighbors had turned in for the night; given what we knew about Mr. Weston, his late-night excursions didn’t necessarily mean anything.
The more I learned about the mysterious Mr. Weston, the sorrier I felt for him, unless, of course, he actually had killed two people in cold blood. I thought about the boy who haunted the house and wondered once again who he was and how he came to be there.
After we returned to the police station, I said good-bye to Woody, who promised to call me after he located the second sister. I needed to get home to meet with Mac and Trevor, but I had to admit I’d been having the best time with Woody that afternoon. I appreciated his willingness to work with me rather than simply shutting me out, as most cops would have done. It somewhat made sense to me that the adult remains we’d found could have belonged to Mr. Weston’s nephew, but that still didn’t explain the skeleton of the child or how the nephew died or why no one seemed to have noticed he was missing.
“I may have a lead on Chelsea’s stalker,” Mac informed me after we’d settled in around the dining table to work on our homework and discuss both mysteries.
“Okay. What do you have?” I asked.
“After we spoke at lunch I decided to do a little fishing. I dug into the social media accounts of all twelve student aides to see if I could pick out anyone who might be using a digital camera with a telephoto lens rather than just a cell phone, as most of the kids in school do.”
“And…?”
“Karina Hinton is a photographer for the school newspaper and she’s also a student aide fifth period. I don’t know if she’d have any reason to stalk Chelsea, but it seems she would have the equipment and opportunity. Not only does her stint as a student aide give her access to the attendance office but her role for the newspaper gives her access to areas of the school not all students have.”
I paused to picture who Karina was. Being new to the school, I didn’t know the names of all the students. “Karina is the girl with the long red hair who usually does the interviews for the theater events?”
“Yeah, that’s her,” Mac
confirmed.
Trevor took a sip of his soda, then raised a hand as if he had something to add. I glanced in his direction. “She also helps out in the computer lab from time to time,” he said. “I think she’s sort of like a teacher’s aide or something. I don’t know that Mr. Pruitt would give her access to the student passwords, but he’s left her alone with the class on a couple of occasions, so she could have gone through his computer and found the passwords.”
“She is pretty smart,” Mac admitted. “If she had access to Pruitt’s computer and he wasn’t careful with his own security she may have been able to get hold of them.”
I frowned. “I don’t know Karina well at all and it does seem she may have had the access she needed to send the photos to Chelsea, but she seems like a serious student with her eye on the future. I don’t think she’s the sort to be in to the whole social hierarchy thing. I can’t imagine her wanting to spend hours and hours every week stalking Chelsea.”
“Alyson has a point,” Mac admitted.
“Who else do you have?” I asked.
“Art Dupree. He’s a second-period student aide and has photos posted on his Facebook and Instagram pages from his trip to Alaska last year. Many of them were obviously taken with a telephoto lens.”
“I spoke to Miranda today. She seemed certain that nerdy Art would never break the rules and access information he’d been forbidden from looking at, but in my experience, it’s often the socially unable students who make the best suspects when it comes to bullying from a distance, which stalking obviously is.”
“The guy’s a strange dude,” Trevor agreed. “And I’ve seen him ogling Chelsea. I’d be willing to bet he’s our guy.”
“I’ll chat with him tomorrow. Who else do we have?” I asked.
“Mike Walker. He isn’t only the district’s IT guy, he’s also an amateur photographer who’s sold some of his wildlife photos from around the world.”
I was beginning to get a bad feeling about this. “So, this IT guy would have access to all three computers used and the student passwords. You don’t actually think…?” The thought was so disturbing, I found myself unable to complete my sentence.
“I hope not, but according to his Facebook bio he’s single and fairly young—just twenty-four. I guess he could have noticed Chelsea while he was on campus. He’s a college graduate with a degree in technology, so I don’t know why he would even mess around with a high school student, but I suppose there are all sorts of weirdos out there.”
“I think we should have a talk with this guy,” Trevor said. He balled a fist and hit the palm of his other hand with it. “Actually, I think I should have a talk with this guy.”
“Don’t go all Rambo on us. We don’t have any proof he’s the stalker,” I countered. “All we really know so far is that he likes to take photos, has a nice camera, and has access to the computers and passwords.” I looked at Mac. “Were there any photos posted to this man’s social media accounts that seemed like the ones Chelsea’s been receiving?”
“No. Nothing really stood out when it came to subject matter.”
“So how can we narrow our suspect pool down to one?” Trevor asked.
“I’ll talk to Karina and Art tomorrow,” I offered. “If neither seems like the stalker we’ll regroup and decide what to do. If it does look like Mike is our guy I think we should consider telling Chelsea’s parents.”
“I agree,” Trevor said. “In fact, I think if an adult is involved we should go to the cops.”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“Speaking of cops, how’d your meeting with Woody go?” Mac asked.
I filled both Mac and Trevor in on the new information I had gathered that day. I hoped Woody would call back that afternoon with news about the sister who was unaccounted for and maybe we could put this mystery to bed. It was less than a week until the Hayride, which Caleb and crew were still hoping to hold if the cops would release the house in time to get the decorating done. Caleb had let me know Wednesday, the 25th, was their drop-dead date. If they didn’t have access by the time school let out then, they were going to officially cancel the Hayride and refund the money for all the presold tickets.
“Are we sure there isn’t another farm in the area that will work?” Trevor asked. “I already laid down a month’s allowance on a horrifyingly gory costume.
“I asked, but Caleb said none came to mind. I told him if I thought of anything I’d let him know.”
“What about the Providence place?” Mac asked. “It’s not a farm that would allow for a hayride, but it’s a big old spooky-looking place just outside of town. The house is three stories tall, I think, and it’s on a large piece of land that just happens to back up to an old cemetery. Instead of a hayride, everyone can walk through the Haunted Cemetery. A narrated event could be followed by the party, which is the reason most people go anyway.”
“Do you think the town would allow the school to use the cemetery for something like that?” I asked.
“The cemetery is outside of the town limits and there are no burials there anymore. I suppose the school would still need to get a permit or permission of some sort. Maybe from the county? There’s a path that someone roped off at some point, probably to protect the old graves. It would seem to me that as long as a guide kept people on the trail the gravesites themselves wouldn’t suffer any ill effects.”
“I think it’s worth looking in to,” Trevor said. “A walk through a real graveyard sounds about as spooky as it gets.”
“I’ll call Caleb. If he’s open to the idea I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check it out, although we don’t have a lot of time to get permission if the land is owned by the county.”
“Maybe it’s privately owned,” Trevor suggested.
“I can look it up,” Mac offered.
I went into the kitchen to get snacks for everyone while Mac set up her computer. I was trying to decide between chips and dip and cheese and crackers when my cell rang.
“Hey, Woody. I was hoping you’d call. Did you find the second sister?”
“No. I did a thorough search that came up with birth certificates for Eliston Weston from 1935 and Sylvia Weston from 1942. I couldn’t find a single reference to a third child.”
“Are we thinking the teen Weston watched out for was Sylvia’s?”
“Not unless it was a secret birth. Sylvia moved to Italy in 1965. She had a son in 1968 and she died in 1971. The son she bore is the nephew who inherited the property. By all accounts, he’s never been to the States.”
I paused. “So who was the teen the Moodys remembered?”
“I’m digging further into Mr. Weston’s family tree, but it seems that except for him, people in his family died young. It appears neither of his parents lived to see him graduate college, and all four grandparents met with early deaths.”
“It seems like the family was cursed.”
“If I believed in curses I’d agree.”
I hung up with Woody and returned to the dining room with the chips and dip. It seemed it was becoming a junk food sort of day. After I set the food on the table I filled the others in on what the police had learned.
“The teen Mr. Weston took care of must not have been an actual nephew,” Trevor said. “Maybe he was the child of a friend of the family or a nephew by marriage. Did his wife have siblings?”
“Good question,” I realized. “You guys help yourself to the chips. I’m going to call Woody back to see if he checked the wife’s family tree.”
Woody didn’t answer when I called so I left a message asking him to call me back. When I returned to the dining area Mac and Trevor were both looking at her computer screen.
“What’d you find?” I asked.
“The Providence house is owned by the Providence family, one of the founding families in the area. The land, as well as the adjoining graveyard, are currently owned by family members living on the East Coast. The cemetery was only used from the late eighteen hundreds through the ear
ly nineteen hundreds. I can find the contact information if Caleb decides he’s interested in the house. I don’t know if the family will allow the property to be used for a party, but it could be worth a phone call to find out.”
I hesitated. “I didn’t realize the house was that old. It might be a historical landmark.”
“Actually, the house itself is only around fifty years old. The original structure burned down and was rebuilt in the 1960s. The last family to live in it moved away more than twenty years ago, so I assume the place isn’t in great shape, but again, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.”
I called Caleb, who was open to a backup plan. He planned to drive by, and if it looked like it would work he’d call Mac for more information on the family who owned the place. He still hoped it would work out to use the house on Harbinger Lane because a lot of the work to ready it had already been done, but the Providence house would likely be better than no house at all.
“So, do we focus on our English paper or our physics homework?” Mac asked once we’d determined we’d done what we could on both mysteries.
“Physics,” I said. “I’ve gotten behind and really need to get caught up before the test next week.”
“I don’t have physics or Advance Placement English, so I think I’ll head out,” Trevor announced. “If anything comes up you girls can call me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe we should…” My words were interrupted by the ringing of my phone. I answered the call, then turned back to them. “That was Caleb. His mother made dinner reservations with an old friend of the family and wants him to join them. He wants to know if we can do a drive-by of the Providence house.”
Mac shrugged. “Sure, but I’m not the one who has physics assignments to make up.”
“That’s okay; I can do them later. Trevor?”
“I’m in. Checking out a spooky house sounds like a lot more fun than homework anyway.”
“I’ll drive,” I offered. “I’m not sure where it is, so one of you will have to navigate.”