“Be my guest. See if you can get anything,” Ben said. “We’re not giving out the names of the deceased. We are saying we’ve found the bodies of the missing women. And, as I said, we warned people about the poison. Aside from that, we’re not disclosing anything else.”
“Do we know anything else?” Jon asked dryly.
“Well, we know this victim was found in a wall in a home that was just purchased. And when I asked Brenda about it, she told me that she posted on social media about buying the place, so anyone could have known. She also wrote that her first day in the house would be today.”
“I believe,” Sammy said, speaking up quietly, “that the body was put in the wall not long before your friend, Brenda, arrived. Strychnine isn’t as fast-acting as cyanide or some other poisons, so the killer kept the victim somewhere until…well, until she died.”
“Thank you,” Jon said again. “Someone had to have seen something. I’m going to find out who.”
“We’ll start removal and see what we can uncover. And it’s interesting. I’m wondering who these other remains belong to, as well. I believe the skeleton has been here a long, long time, but…”
“I saw a serious nick on one of the rib bones—one that showed through the fabric. The dress was cotton—organic—so most of it is gone, but…I believe our forensic anthropologist will agree with me that whoever she was, she was stabbed—which is likely our cause of death. I don’t know if that can help in any way with what is happening here today, but…”
“Everyone deserves justice,” Jon said. “No matter how long it takes.”
“Amen!” one of Sammy’s assistants—a big man of about thirty—said. He winced. “Sorry. I guess, well…what you said—justice, no matter how long it takes—it resonated.”
Jon nodded and started out of the house, passing two officers standing guard on the front porch, sternly watching for any trespassers.
He looked to the right and saw an older couple—a tall, thin man of perhaps seventy, and his wife, a tiny woman roughly the same age.
Not enough strength to manage the task, he thought.
He waved to them and then looked to the left. An attractive young woman in her early thirties, dressed in jeans and a rock band T-shirt watched, along with a young, tall, lean man with long, dark hair. He could have been in a rock band. He was slim and wiry but appeared young and strong.
Jon walked toward them.
“She’s in there, right? The second tourist? We just watched the news conference,” the man said.
“I’m afraid so. Or at least we believe it’s her. We’ll need to wait for an official identification.”
“We told the police we saw Brenda walk in all happy last night,” the woman told him. “And then she ran out—white as a sheet—a few minutes after. She seems so nice. What a horrible thing to have happened to her.”
Pretty damned horrible to the victim, too, Jon thought.
But he understood. Brenda was about to be their neighbor.
“You didn’t see anything yesterday morning or afternoon? Anyone arriving with a bundle, or…anyone arriving at all, for that matter?” Jon asked.
The young woman frowned. “Oh!” she said. “We have a door camera. It might have picked something up. I can bring up the video on my phone. I forgot—I totally forgot. I mean, it’s for our door and our front yard, but it might have caught something.”
“Please,” Jon said. “Anything would be greatly appreciated.”
She started fumbling with her cell, her fingers slipping as if she were too nervous to hold it properly.
But he waited.
“Ginger, do you want me to help?” the young man asked.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” Ginger said, walking down the steps from her porch to hand Jon the phone.
“You just push the little arrow,” she said. “Oh, and the time button is on the top—you can put it on fast forward.”
“Thanks.”
He owned and used the same phone, so going through the motions wasn’t difficult. But even using fast forward, it took some time to get through the day.
But then he stopped the video. And went back. He looked harder, wincing inwardly.
He glanced at Ginger. “I’m going to need to take your phone for a bit. I promise we will return it to you. The detective in charge needs to see this.”
“You’re not the detective in charge?” she asked, frowning.
“No, come on. Look at the suit,” the young man said. “He’s FBI.”
Jon nodded. “Yes, I’m FBI. I’ll—”
“But I need my phone. It’s my life,” Ginger protested.
“I thought I was your life,” the young man said, shaking his head with dry humor. “Ginger, let him take the phone. He’s FBI.”
“Thank you. We’ll see that no harm comes to it,” Jon promised.
He turned and headed back to Brim House. Once inside, he saw that the bones and bits and pieces of old fabric, leather, and buttons were being assembled on a tarp. Sammy was in the hole with the murdered woman’s corpse.
Ben stood by, watching, but quickly turned to Jon when he approached.
“You got something?” he asked, looking surprised and anxious.
“I do.”
Jon showed Ben the video.
Ben stared at him, disbelieving.
“A clown?” he exclaimed, the words all but exploding from him. “How in the hell do we ever find a damned clown at Halloween?”
Chapter 4
“I’m calm,” Brenda told Kylie. “I’ve—I’ve calmed down. The police have been great.”
They were still just down the block from the police station at the little breakfast place that, like so many others, played on history for its name: Witch’s Whistle. Police officers on break occupied three tables in the charming restaurant.
It had been a good choice.
“Of all the things that might happen,” Brenda continued, “I didn’t think some horrible monster breaking into my house to leave a corpse would be one of them. We even had structural engineers in—the place is sound. Yes, a house was there during the trials, but only the foundation and the four walls of that house remain, so…oh! Maybe curses are real.”
“I don’t believe curses from hundreds of years ago can cause havoc today. But people can,” Kylie said. “Brenda, the police will be done in the next few hours. Jon wants us to stay in the house.”
Tears suddenly welled in Brenda’s eyes.
“Kylie, I’ve dreamed of owning such a place all my life. The minute we met, you and I talked about the history of the town. And not just the witch trials—the giant elephant in the town—but also the seafaring and the skirmishes here before the actual start of the American Revolution. And so much more. To own something that lives and breathes history…”
“You still own it. And it’s still amazingly historic,” Kylie said. “That doesn’t change just because a horrible human being did something heinous.”
“No, it adds to the ghost history,” Brenda said and then winced. “Is it cursed? Am I cursed for buying the place?”