The Curse of the Old Woods

by Elizabeth Andre

  Maya smiled brightly although she did look tired. It was late and dark and time to go. “All right, well, we’d better get Mrs. Forcier home,” she said. “I was thinking of doing more research. I’ve got a friend who works for the forest service. She can probably get us access to some of their archival documents. Would you like to come with me?”

  That was generous, thought Julie. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a partner on this case, and she did seem to be bringing more to the table than just good looks.

  “Yes. Yes, I would,” said Julie, tucking her phone and whatever Gabi had to say for herself into her pocket.

  “Great! I’ll text you the details tomorrow. Okay? Have a good night!”

  Julie got in her car, and Jason took his place in the passenger seat after loading all their gear in the trunk. They followed Steve’s Land Rover for about half a mile before it turned off to go to Mrs. Forcier’s house.

  “Do you think you wanna team up with them permanently?” Jason asked.

  “Maybe.” Julie had always seen herself as a sole proprietor. She wasn’t even so sure about bringing Jason along, even though the extra hands were useful.

  “I think Steve’s a good guy.” Jason was two years younger than Julie. Their relationship when they were kids had been contentious. She appreciated his company more as they both grew up. She founded her agency. He had yet to find a career that suited him, nor had he had a relationship last longer than three months. At least he’d managed to finish a degree in liberal arts last year at a local college.

  “And you think Penny’s cute.” Julie thought she was cute, too, but her eyes were more drawn to Maya. Also, Julie and her brother had promised each other years ago that they would never pursue the same gal at the same time or take each other’s seconds.

  “But she might be a lesbian. Yeah, yeah.”

  “Just because she’s into girls, doesn’t mean she’s not into guys. There are bisexuals, you know.”

  Jason scratched his goatee and considered this possibility for a moment. “True. Maybe I’ll ask her out. It’s been a while since my last date.”

  “First of all, you broke up with Angela a couple of weeks ago. Secondly, you should probably wait until after this investigation is over,” Julie said.

  “Are you going to wait until after the investigation’s over to ask Maya out?”

  “I’m sorry. What?” Julie thought she’d been pretty good about hiding her feelings for Maya, but clearly she hadn’t been good enough. She hoped Maya didn’t suspect, especially if she didn’t feel the same way.

  “You’ve been thinking about it, and you’ve just taken a turn toward her house, not mine.”

  “It’s dark and besides, who I like or not is none of your business.” She caught Jason smirking as she righted their route to drop him off and then take herself home. “And how do you know where Maya lives?”

  “There’s a thing called the internet and on the internet you can search for people. When I found out you two would be working together, I did some research on Maya. You know. Due diligence and all that.”

  He looked so smug that Julie thought he needed to be teased a bit. What good was it being a big sister if she didn’t tease her younger brother once in a while?

  “Did you learn that from one of your pre-law classes? Which I think you took after you did some pre-med but before you took an anthropology class?”

  Jason was defensive. “Hey now. I was exploring my options. Also, researching people on the internet is a smart thing. You never know what you’re getting into sometimes. I’m looking out for you.”

  Julie said, “I’m sorry, Jase. Thanks for using that wondrous, new-fangled thing called the internet for good. What did you find out about Maya, I mean, besides her address?”

  Jason shrugged. “Not much. She’s on social media but not a whole lot. She and Penny have a YouTube channel for their ghost hunting gig. They’ve got a few videos up but there aren’t that many views.”

  “Hmmm... I should check that out.”

  “Hey, Jules... A little advice…”

  “Oh, good God. Really?” She rolled her eyes and tried not to laugh out loud.

  “Break it off once and for all with Gabi. I know you’re still hooking up with her. She’s not good for you,” Jason said.

  “And that’s also none of your business.”

  Jason shrugged. “Okay. Okay. It’s your life.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Just remember. I’m looking out for you,” Jason said in a sing-songy voice.

  For one mad moment, she wondered if she should hook up with Gabi that night after all. Sex would take the edge off her mood and her mind off of Maya. She could drop Jason at his place and be at Gabi’s by about 1:30 a.m. at the latest. She reined in the urge to do more bed hopping with Gabi just to prove a point to Jason and possibly to herself. She didn’t need Gabi. She knew that.

  From there, conversation drifted to other topics—their parents who were planning their next cruise, their older sister who was getting married next month, the podcast Jason and one of his friends were planning on doing about comic books.

  Julie pulled up outside the yellow brick courtyard building where Jason shared an apartment with three other guys. She noticed he had a thoughtful look on his face.

  “I think Maya’s nice. You should ask her out.” Jason opened the door and got out of her car. “But only after the investigation is over. Ciao!”

  “Good night, you big dork,” Julie said.

  The most direct route home from Jason’s apartment took her past Gabi’s place. She glanced over quickly to the windows of Gabi’s apartment and saw darkness. The curtains were drawn. The lights were off. Either Gabi was fast asleep, or she had found someone else to scratch her itch. Julie drove home, congratulating herself for not parking and getting out of her car to see if Gabi was home and available. She told herself she didn’t care what Gabi was doing at that moment.

  Chapter Ten

  Digging through a forest of files

  Julie sat in front of the piles of paper records wondering, if they actually found a clue to what had happened to Katie, would they recognize it? Or would it stay lost in the seemingly insurmountable stacks of photos, newspaper clippings, research data, publications, maps, and gifts from forestry departments in foreign countries? The air was full of dust that swirled every time Julie or Maya, who was at the other end of the long wooden table, exhaled. Every time Julie inhaled, she coughed a little. The air was dry and smelled like an old bookstore, but not in a good way. Good old bookstores smelled of adventure. The bad ones smelled stale, like this archives room at the local forestry office.

  When they had arrived, Maya’s friend, Tia, had warned them that the archives were organized “up to a point.” That point appeared to be 1998 when the part-time librarian/archivist had been laid off in a round of budget cuts. Now, according to Tia, one of the administrative assistants in the forest service’s central office was supposed to do the archiving, in addition to other duties. Archiving always seemed to be at the bottom of the to-do list and was never done well, if at all.

  The shelves overflowed with books. The walls were covered with old photos and maps affixed with yellowed tape. Maya bent over a banker’s box, one of many a young woman had rolled in on a dolly shortly after they had arrived. The young woman, called Charlie, was really cute. Julie noticed how Charlie lit up when she saw Maya for the first time. From what Julie could see, Maya seemed to take Charlie’s obvious attraction to her in stride. Indeed, Maya had seemed amused by Charlie.

  “They really love patting themselves on the back,” Julie said after flipping through a file folder filled with 1970s newspaper clippings about forest service projects and project groundbreakings. She held up one of the photos. “They look like they were on speed or something.”

  Maya glanced at the photo of men in suits and one woman, presumably local officials, with toothy smiles standing in front of a pile of dirt and gripping shov
els with shiny blades. “Ah yes, a variation of the grip and grin.”

  Julie glanced at the photo again, eyebrows furrowed.

  Maya said, “It’s an old newspaper phrase for events where two people, say a local moneybags and recipient of moneybags’ largesse, grin for the camera while they keep a firm grip on the big check representing ol’ moneybags’ donation and shake hands. Or, in this case, they grip onto shovels that have never seen dirt. Hence, grip and grin.”

  “Where’d you learn that? Were you a journalist?” Julie replaced the photo back into the file. She imagined Maya with a notebook in hand chasing a politician or Ellen DeGeneres for a quote. She pushed the thought out of her mind when she realized that in the image she had conjured up, Maya was not fully clothed.

  Maya shook her head, and her curls bounced over her forehead. “Not me, but I’m descended from journalists on my mother’s side. My mom got her start as a reporter at a newspaper founded by her grandparents and great uncle. It covered the local black community. They were journalists of the crusading variety. Well, they had to be.”

  “What does she do now?”

  “The newspaper is long gone. She switched to graphic design.”

  If they weren’t in the middle of hunting for information that could help them with their current investigation, Julie would have loved to have heard more about Maya’s family history. She would have loved to find out more about Maya, but they didn’t have time for that either.

  “Grip-and-grin photos aren’t what we’re looking for, unfortunately.” Julie pushed the file aside and pulled another one closer to her. This one was particularly stale and smelled of old paper and rotten cheese. “What have you got?”

  “The forest service may not be able to devote much attention and money to documenting their history, but at some point, someone was quite meticulous,” Maya said, holding up a notebook, its pages yellowed and tattered. The black metal coils of the binding holding it together were rusted in spots. The thick cardboard cover was soft and spongy. “I found this at the bottom of a box crammed with photos and negatives. It’s like a diary, and there are several of them dating back to about 1952. The diaries include 1957 when Katie disappeared. There’s a name on the inside of the front cover, Gale Norton. He was clearly fascinated with the Promontory Woods from when he was a little boy. He writes about how different the woods feel from any other place around it and from any other land that’s part of the forest service.”

  Julie sat back in her chair that creaked like it had its own ghost. Not only could the forest service not afford an archivist, they couldn’t afford new chairs. “Different how?”

  Maya flipped quickly—she did everything quickly, from what Julie could tell—through a few pages of one of the notebooks. “He talks a lot about getting a prickly feeling whenever he goes to the woods. He described the hairs on his arms standing up straight as if he had been electrocuted. He also mentioned that the caretakers of Promontory Woods tended to either stay for only a month or two or for years at a time.”

  “How many years at a time?”

  “A few decades in at least one case. One guy only lasted a week in the job.”

  “Do you think Tia can find out how long your friend Mike Hogan has been on the job?”

  Maya nodded. “I’ll ask, and we should probably ask him some questions. It seems like he’s been on the job more than a week.

  “Were you thinking today?” Julie asked.

  “No. I’ve got some non-ghost-related stuff to do.”

  They made plans to meet at Promontory Woods the next day at lunchtime to track down Mike, and Maya returned her attention to Gale Norton’s journals. Julie rifled through some more files but was increasingly convinced that the notebooks were the holy grail they had been looking for.

  As Julie flipped through another pile of “grip and grin” photos, she glanced up at Maya who was intently focused on the diaries. She probably speed reads, Julie thought. Every time Julie saw Maya she noticed something different. This time, she noticed Maya’s neck. It wasn’t a particularly long neck, but it had an elegant curve to it as she bent over the notebook. The low-cut T-shirt Maya wore gave Julie a good view. Maya looked up, perhaps realizing she was being watched. Maya gave her a surprised smile before returning her attention to the diary. Julie felt her cheeks flush, and she looked down at the photos again. She wondered how much longer she and Maya could do the little bit of flirting they were doing. Julie wasn’t sure she was ready for anything more.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reading the research

  While Penny got ready to go see her new girlfriend, a modern dancer she’d met through a dating app, she teased Maya about going to the archives department to do some research. She kept putting the word research in air quotes.

  “In between doing some ‘research,’ did you play footsie under the table? Or did you make out in the stacks? Do archives have stacks?” Penny said as she strolled to her bedroom past Maya sitting in the dining room and then back to the bathroom. Each time Penny came through, she was wearing a different shirt.

  Maya laughed it off and tried to change the subject to the ongoing investigation. Julie was cute, but Maya really wanted to stay focused on getting closure for Mrs. Forcier and her sister.

  “I found something really interesting.” She showed Penny the notebooks that a forest service employee had used as diaries. Her forest service friend had allowed her to take the notebooks as long as she returned them in a week.

  “Wow. I don’t think a real archivist would have let you do that. Thank goodness for budget cuts. There’s good stuff in them, yes?” Penny briefly put her hand on the stack.

  Maya nodded. “Yes, but I have to wade through a lot of stuff to get to it. It’s amazing how many types of birds and bugs this guy logged.”

  “Are you gonna ask her out? Maybe not now in the middle of the investigation, but maybe after it’s over?” Penny asked as she exited the dining room once more and returned wearing a form fitting black t-shirt with a deep V-neck that showed off her cleavage.

  “Well, we’re meeting tomorrow to talk to the caretaker,” Maya said as she flipped through more pages, setting free puffs of dust.

  Penny took a seat at the dining room table. “That’s not a date. Ask her out for something more fun. Jess is taking me to the new Dutch-Indo fusion restaurant. Isn’t that fabulous? Isn’t that romantic?” She swooned.

  “Penny, I don’t know if I’m going to ask Julie out ever,” said Maya. She kept her head down and her eyes focused on one of the notebooks.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Even Steve, who normally doesn’t notice these things, noticed you were into her. He told me.” Penny spread out three pairs of earrings on the table. “Also, which earrings should I wear? I’m looking to present a casual-but-into-you vibe.”

  “Wear the light blue dangly ones,” said Maya. “So, how are things going with you and Jess?”

  Maya’s attempt to turn the focus of the conversation from Julie to her roommate’s date triggered a dirty look and a sneer.

  “Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy,” Penny said.

  “Okay,” said Maya. “Yes. I find her attractive, very attractive, but even though she’s single she seems unavailable. I’m not going for it.”

  This statement elicited more sneering and a guffaw from Penny. “When has that ever stopped you?”

  Maya sat up. “What?”

  “You love women who are unavailable, prefer them actually. You forget that I know you.” Penny got up and stepped in front of the full-length mirror hanging on a wall in the dining room. She smoothed down the front of her shirt. She turned to Maya. “How do I look?”

  Maya smiled a little. “I think you look like a hot bitch on wheels.”

  “Hey!”

  “What? I said hot.”

  “Okay.” Penny faced the mirror again and flipped her long black hair. “I do look hot, don’t I?”

  Maya rolled her eyes. “Yes. Yo
u look hot. Now go screw the tiny dancer.”

  “It’s not just screwing. We’re going to have a nice dinner at a great restaurant, maybe take a walk, and then screw. And I’m not a bitch. I’m a truth teller, dropping truth bombs.”

  “You’re a nitwit, but you’re a hot nitwit.”

  Penny blew her a kiss before flouncing out of their apartment. Maya had to work at Zaxy-Mart later that night, and she spent an hour reading the diaries and placing bookmarks at the pages she wanted to make copies of before returning them to the forest service. The most recent notebook, dated 1959, ended around June. The final words were, “I think I know how to find out what is wrong in Promontory Woods.” The pages following that entry were blank.

  Chapter Twelve

  Talking to Mike

  Maya pulled into the Promontory Woods parking lot. Julie texted her to say she’d be a few minutes late. Despite the heat and humidity of the June midday sun, Maya left the cool confines of her car to sit at a picnic bench. The caretaker’s cottage was a short walk away in the woods along a sidewalk winding up from the parking lot.

  Glancing around, Maya saw a few other parked cars, a single man in each of them. Promontory Woods had a reputation for being haunted, but also a reputation as a prime pick-up spot for men looking to have sex with other men. Maya had heard stories about the haunted woods from when she was a little girl. She’d started hearing about the sex stuff as a teen from the few gay guys she knew then who were her classmates. She heard a car door open and close. A man—middle aged, a bit paunchy—walked over to one of the cars, tapped on the window and leaned down. A short guy—thick, dark hair, powerfully built—got out of the car. The two men walked casually into the woods in the direction opposite from the caretaker’s cottage. Someone called Maya’s name.

  “Maya!” Julie had gotten out of her car and was walking toward the picnic table. Her hair was hanging down today and flowed around her shoulders. The light dress she wore looked designed to keep her cool in hot weather but still make her look like a woman who meant business. “Sorry. I’m late. Got a phone call I had to take just as I was leaving.”