Cold Cases and Haunted Places

by Trixie Silvertale

  I peered closer at the silver object. “Looks like it’s made out of a nickel, doesn’t it?” I asked. “Maybe one that was flattened on the train tracks?”

  Penny nodded.

  The surface of the flattened nickel was still covered in silt, which I scrubbed away with my thumb. I felt ridges and bumps on the metal. Penny watched with interest as the silver object became more exposed. “Something is engraved on it,” I said, as more of the surface came into view. The little bumps I was feeling were words on the coin. I saw half of a heart, and ‘Forever &’.

  “So it’s a nickel with half a heart on it,” I said. “Hey… a nickel… a coin… this is --”

  “Half a coin!” Penny practically shouted in my ear. She jumped up, off of the log. “Just like on our list of evidence!”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “And this half of a coin was turned into a necklace.”

  Suddenly I knew where I’d seen the shape before. “You know what?” I said to Penny. “I’m pretty sure the ghost of Shirley was wearing a necklace just like this when I talked to her. I thought it was a silver half moon, but guess it was really a half nickel. You think she died wearing this?” I held up the silver pendant.

  “It would make sense,” Penny said. “Her body decayed, but this metal remained.”

  I eyed the half coin. “I wonder where the other half is?”

  Penny shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “Why would someone wear half of a nickel around their neck? And how is this supposed to help us find her killer?”

  I shrugged, too. “I think we need more background info,” I said. “All I really know about Shirley is that she disappeared when she was 26. What were the other details of the case?”

  Penny jumped up with excitement. “Good point!” she said. “We should check the newspaper archives, and see what we can find out! And if we head back to town, we might as well stop into the cafe for a snack. All that swimming made me hungry.”

  I couldn’t argue there. I was ready to break for lunch and then find out more about Shirley Allen’s mysterious disappearance. I slipped the necklace into my vest pocket, and together Penny and I headed back to my van.

  3

  As Penny and I cruised into town, we caught sight of the local elementary school’s costume parade. The little kids traipsed down the street with orange, pumpkin-shaped buckets in hand, dressed as everything from Power Rangers to puppy dogs.

  We stopped to watch and cheer them on, and then we carried on to the Death Cafe.

  The establishment’s owner, our friend and witch-sister Annie, really gets into the Halloween spirit. The whole interior was done up with cobwebs, fake spiders, and skeletons. It looked awesome, and Penny and I admired the decor while we enjoyed fresh baked pumpkin muffins and hot Earl Grey tea. Annie was busy with customers, so we couldn’t fill her in on the case like we wanted to. Instead of chatting with Annie, we ate at a table near the front windows and watched the tail end of the Halloween parade go by.

  An hour later, we climbed the steps to the second story of the library. We entered the historical records room and headed over to a long metal shelf labeled “Hillcrest Crier Archives.”

  “Let’s get cracking,” Penny said as she eyed the shelf. “Oh, but first, I’m going to look up cat costume makeup,” she pulled out her phone and started typing. “I’m thinking about how I’m going to do my makeup tonight. I’m going to dress up as Turkey.”

  Turkey is Penny’s familiar, a calico cat. Like my own familiar, a snow-white owl named Skili, Turkey had opted out of the trip to Ava’s that morning.

  I smiled, thinking about how my friend would look dressed as her familiar. He often wore little bow ties, which would probably make a fun addition to Penny’s costume.

  But then I let my smile fade, and I focused on the long shelving, packed with plastic bins. “Let’s do that later,” I said, as I eyed the bins. They were labeled by year and month. “We’re here to look up facts about Shirley, remember?”

  “Right, right,” Penny said. She sounded distracted. “I think I’m going to do really thick black eyeliner that goes out from the corners of my eyes in big swoops. I mean, I know I’m dressing as Turkey and he doesn’t actually have eyes that look like that, but I also want to look cute. I think really dramatic eye makeup could be fun, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said. I walked along the shelving, reading bin labels as I went. “Ava says her aunt died in the summer of ‘71. So summer would probably be June, July, or August.” I located the three bins we needed, and pulled them out.

  I pushed one toward Penny. “I’ll start with June, you start with July. Just scan the obituary pages, and maybe the police reports section, if they had that back in the seventies.”

  “The disappearance of a local would probably make first page news,” Penny said.

  I sat back on my haunches. “Good point,” I said as I opened the bin. The smell of old paper wafted up at me. The papers were yellowed and musty. I heard Penny sneeze, and I knew she’d opened her bin, too.

  I removed the newspapers one by one and skimmed the headlines, the obituary section, and the police reports. After about thirty minutes, I reached the bottom of the June bin. No luck. I moved on to the August bin, and glanced over at Penny’s progress as I went. She was engrossed in an article.

  “Did you find something about Shirley?” I asked.

  “Nope, but I did find an article about an old disc golf course that used to be where the college is, now.”

  I knew there was no point in trying to redirect her energy, so I refrained. Penny will do what Penny wants to do. I’d been her friend long enough to know that. I pulled open the lid to the August bin, and was halfway through the stack of yellowed papers when I spotted it.

  Local Woman Shirley Allen Missing: Last Seen Leaving Work.

  “Got it!” I said, pulling the paper from the stack.

  The paper beneath it caught my eye as well. Search Continues for Missing Local, it said. I removed that one too.

  Penny bounced up, and came over to my side. Together, we started poring over the articles.

  The first stated that Shirley Allen, a 26 year old female, was last seen leaving her work at the Hillcrest Market. The reporter interviewed her friends, parents, and sister, all of whom said that they had no idea where Shirley may have gone. She’d not seemed depressed or unusually upset about anything in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. They also said she didn’t have a boyfriend, husband, kids, or a roommate. She lived alone.

  “Yikes,” Penny said. “This isn’t very helpful, is it?”

  I pulled out the necklace from my pocket, and set it down on the ground next to the faded paper. “But look at this half of a heart…. Doesn’t this look like something she would wear if she was in a romantic relationship?”

  Penny looked at the necklace. “Maybe it’s a friendship necklace. Seems like she had lots of friends. Maybe it’s like those Best Friends Forever necklaces that we used to wear in eighth grade. Hey, do you still have yours?”

  “I don’t think it’s a friendship necklace…” I said. “Shirley Allen was a grown woman. I think she’d be more interested in wearing jewelry that related to her significant other than her best friend.”

  “What do you have against best friends?” Penny asked.

  I settled into a cross-legged position, with the paper in my hands. “Nothing,” I said. “I think I still have my BFF necklace in my van somewhere. I’ll totally dig it out and wear it again -- that would be fun. But I don’t know… I just get the feeling that the half of a heart indicates a romantic relationship.”

  I focused again on the text before me. When I finished studying the first paper, I moved onto the second. On the bottom half of the front page, there was a whole write-up about Shirley. It included a picture of her. She was making a rabbit-ears peace sign for the camera. She had a flower painted on one cheek, and her hair was in two long braids. She wore a flowy white skirt, a wide belt, a loose tank top, and
a bunch of long necklaces. I picked out the silver half-coin amidst the other charms, beads, and feathers. In the background of the photo, I could see the outside of the market. It actually didn’t look that different -- same sign and everything -- which was crazy, seeing as the photo was snapped fifty years prior.

  A vehicle in the image caught my eye. It was a VW bug that I recognized. My van is a vintage VW and I absolutely love it, so they’re always on my radar.

  “Nice,” I said. “That’s the vintage Beetle that sits outside of Lackey Mechanics, down by the gas station.”

  “Right!” Penny said “But it wasn’t vintage back then… It looks like it was pretty new.”

  “I wonder why Mitch doesn’t drive it,” I said. I’d never seen the owner of Lackey Mechanics, Mitch Lackey, driving the cool old car. He just let it sit idle in his yard.

  “He’s too into his trucks,” Penny explained. “I don't even know why he has that Bug.”

  Her words made my eyes grow wide. “Penny -- whoa! This is a ‘Bug’... and that’s one of the words in our list of evidence!” I pulled Ava’s therapist's notes from my pocket, and set it down on the floor between me and Penny so we could both see it.

  Coin stain of bug pond other beaver on half

  “Okay, so we know what the Beaver Pond clue was about,” I murmured. “That must have been where her body was dumped. Let’s eliminate those words.”

  “That leaves us with: Coin stain of bug… other... on half,” Penny said slowly.

  I mulled this over for a minute. “We think we know what the coin was about, too, so let’s take that word out as well. That leaves us with: Stain of bug other on half.”

  “Well, it was half of a coin, so maybe we should take out ‘half’ and ‘of’, too,” Penny suggested.

  “Right,” I said. “That leaves: Stain bug other on.”

  “Stain on other bug?” Penny suggested.

  “Or ‘Other stain on bug’?” I said.

  I pointed to the photo. “I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that this picture has a Volkswagen Bug in it. Maybe Shirley knew the person who was driving it -- like it was one of her friends or something. Maybe this car is important to the case for some reason. I think we’d better go check it out. We could ask Mitch who used to own it before it ended up at his shop.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Penny admitted.

  4

  I pulled into the front lot at Lackey Mechanics and turned off my van. The property consisted of a three bay garage with a small office area attached, plus a one story house that looked as if it had seen better days. The VW Bug that I’d spotted in the photo of Shirley was parked in a patch of overgrown grass to the left of the garage. Mitch Lackey, a guy in his fifties who had taken over ownership of the shop when his uncle died, was nowhere to be seen. A closed sign hung from the door to the shop’s office.

  I got out of the van and walked over to the Bug.

  Part of me was interested to see if we’d spot any clues, but part of me just wanted to ogle another vintage vehicle. I have a real thing for them.

  It was fun to see the simplistic ‘70s-style dashboard, which was complete with some of the same dials and silver knobs that I know well from my own VW van. The interior of the car was in fair shape, except for a thin layer of dust that covered the whole thing. The seats were made of pale gray fabric that was faded due to sun, but otherwise intact.

  I pulled on the driver’s side door, and it opened. I stuck my head inside and looked around at the interior.

  I felt the car move a little bit and heard the trunk opening. Then I heard Penny’s voice. “Mar, come here!” she said. “I see a stain!”

  I extracted myself and hurried to the back of the car. My friend was right -- there was a big brownish stain on one end of the trunk.

  “This could be from anything…” I said as I looked at it. But even as I said the words, I got the heebie-jeebies. Finding a stain of this size in the Bug’s trunk, when Shirley’s message specifically mentioned “stain” and “bug,” couldn’t just be a coincidence.

  “Right,” Penny said. “Could be from anything. What car has been around for fifty years without getting a stain or two on the upholstery? I mean, I’m sure your van has some coffee stains on it.”

  Of course she was right, and she knew it -- because she’d been the one to spill several cups of coffee over the years.

  She went on. “This is probably just some, you know, hot chocolate or raspberry syrup or espresso or wine, definitely not a nasty old blood stain that turned brown after a bunch of years…”

  I got goosebumps. Whether my friend had meant to or not, she’d just convinced me that the stain was an old blood stain. I raised my eyebrows and looked at her. “You think maybe Shirley’s dead body was in this trunk at some point?” I asked. “Maybe she wanted someone to find this stain because it’s evidence.”

  Penny and I just stared at each other for a minute. I was starting to get seriously creeped out.

  “We should see if we can find out who used to own this car,” I said. I closed the trunk firmly.

  I was on edge as we followed the faint sound of music around to the back of the shop. We found Mitch Lackey out back working on one of his two trucks. A bumper lay out on the cracked pavement in front of the truck, and he was pulling out screws on the hood of the car where the bumper had been. Heavy metal was playing on an old boom box that was positioned in the weeds nearby. Mitch smelled of cigarettes, though he wasn’t smoking one at the moment.

  He stopped work and wiped his greasy hands on a rag when he spotted us.

  “Hey, I’m actually closed for the holiday,” he said, as he took a step toward us. “You need an oil change or something?”

  I nodded. “Actually, I probably do.” I’d been so busy over the last year and a half, learning magic and opening my healing retreat center, that I’d actually sorely neglected my poor van.

  “But that’s not why we’re here,” Penny said.

  “We’re here because we have a few questions about the old VW Bug out front,” I explained.

  Mitch eyed us suspiciously. “Oh yeah? What kind of questions?”

  I picked up a hint of fearful energy from him. At first it was hard to tell if it was his energy or my own, since I was definitely on edge, too. But my fear had a certain flavor, and the anxiety that I sensed now was distinctly different. It was his. He was hiding something.

  I watched his expression carefully as I went on. “How did it end up here?” I asked. “Did you buy it from someone?”

  “Why, you want to buy it off of me or something?” Mitch asked.

  I shook my head. “No, we’re curious about who used to own it because we’re looking into the disappearance of Shirley Allen.”

  His face paled. He stopped wiping his hands. He just froze for a few seconds. Then he turned around and walked to his truck.

  He placed the rag on the hood, and picked up a screwdriver. “I don’t know nothin’ about that,” he said. “I inherited that old car from my Uncle Oren two years ago when he died. I also inherited the shop, house, and all of his junk. That’s got nothing to do with a missing lady.”

  He turned and faced us again. “It’s not for sale, either. Like I said, shop’s closed, and I’m busy with my project here. You two have a good day.”

  “Your Uncle Oren,” Penny said. “He was a mechanic too, right?”

  I nodded, remembering the man. He’d been quite old when he died -- in his eighties, if I remembered correctly.

  Mitch didn’t respond. He delivered a steely look, and then stepped forward. “I said, see ya later. This here is private property, and it’s my day off. Do I have to call the cops and tell ‘em you’re trespassing on my land?”

  “Sorry for intruding,” I told Mitch.

  I looked at him and delivered what I hoped was some soothing energy, because I knew it must have been uncomfortable for him to live with the anxiety that I felt coming off of him in waves. Then I beck
oned for Penny to follow me, and together we retreated.

  Once we were back in my van, Penny spoke.“That was definitely weird, right? The way he reacted?”

  “Totally weird,” I agreed. “I think he was hiding something.”

  “But what?” Penny asked. “He’s like, fifty-something, which means he was just a kid when Shirley went missing. It’s not like he did it.”

  “But maybe his uncle did,” I suggested. “And Mitch doesn’t want us to know that.”

  “What's our next move?” Penny wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But he was suspicious for sure. Can you believe he threatened to call the cops like that?”

  Penny pointed to the corner of the shop. “There he is!” she said with excitement.

  Mitch was walking around the garage, heading for the front door of the house.

  I hurried up and started my van, just so Mitch would see that Penny and I were on our way out.

  I pulled out of the drive and headed down the road back to town. But as soon as we took a corner and were out of his sight, I pulled off into a nearby campsite. The van jostled about as I steered us down a narrow, rutted dirt road, into a thick stand of trees.

  “Spontaneous camping adventure?” Penny asked. “I’d love to, Mar, but don’t you think we should keep working on this case?”

  I laughed. “I wish we were going camping, but no way, girl. We’re getting close, we can’t give up now.” I got out of the van, and Penny followed suit.

  “I want to see what he’s up to,” I said. “He was right in the middle of his big bumper project. Why did he stop so suddenly? Something we said made him abandon his project. I want to see what was so important in his house.”

  I used my finger to draw a square in the air before me. “Locus,” I murmured. Immediately, shapes began to form in the air before me. Penny hurried over to my side, and together we watched the image in the air become clearer and clearer.

  There are some definite benefits to being a witch. One of them is that Penny and I could spy on Mitch without walking all the way back to his house and peering through the window. A simple Location Spell did the trick. The spell would give us a glimpse at whatever Mitch was doing.