by D J Monroe
Had Creed known he was gay back in school? There were rumors but- Nate shook his head and took another long drink of the cold, refreshing beer. Nate himself had barely known he was gay.
But that had nothing to do with what happened that fateful day at school. The day Nate and Creed had somehow become unlikely heroes.
Fifteen: Unearthing the Past
In the kitchen, Creed busied himself preparing their lunch. He tried to ignore the busy spirit that darted around him, filling the room with a positive energy. But when he found that impossible, he stopped chopping up celery and turned to the room.
“Okay, I know you’re here,” he said to the empty room and waited.
All he heard was the sandwiches sizzling in the skillet behind him.
“I know you’re here and I think I know who you are,” he continued. If Nate walked in right now, he was going to think Creed was crazy. He glanced at the doorway and continued. “We’re doing our best to try and find out what happened to you, Tammy. Please be patient.”
Creed felt the energy leave the room, almost reluctantly and turned back to his work. He flipped the sandwiches and reached for a green pepper. Taking a little breath, he smiled and began to hum. It wasn’t often he got the opportunity to do something for someone like Nate, to help.
Nate had looked tired after the visit with his dad. And the unexpected visit from the cousins, seemed to just completely take the wind out of Nate’s sails. Creed could understand. Spending just a few hours with his mother, even though it wasn’t confrontational, left exhausted. He shook his head and wondered, for the millionth time how his sister did it day in and day out.
Nate didn’t need this drama added to the chore of getting this house ready for market, the mystery of his Aunt Tammy’s disappearance and their decision to pursue the investigation themselves. Then, his thoughts strayed to the visit with Nate’s dad. That information was swirling around in his head bringing up more questions than he could even put into words.
When the sandwiches were browned to perfection, he placed them on a plate, along with chips and a pickle. He fixed himself a plate as well and rummaged around in one of the cabinets finally finding a platter that he used as a makeshift tray. With those two plates and the little plate of vegetables, he hurried back out to the porch.
“Lunch is served,” Creed said, placing the tray on the table that separated the rocking chairs.
“Wow, this looks amazing,” Nate said.
Creed thought Nate looked better already and smiled. “I’ll bet you’ve never had grilled cheese with pepperoni before.”
“Not that I can remember,” Nate said, picking up one of the sandwiches and inspecting it briefly. “You even cut them in half.”
Creed nodded. “They’re my favorite and mostly what I eat,” he said, his smile broadening as Nate bit into the crunchy bread.
“Oh my God,” Nate groaned, closing his eyes and savoring the bite he’d just taken. “Oh my god. You were right.”
“I’m telling ya,” Creed joked. “I have skills.”
“Yes, you do,” Nate said, smiling.
They were quiet for a while. Creed concentrated on his lunch and kept his eyes on the sun-dappled grass underneath the gigantic oak trees that shaded almost the whole yard.
“So, where should we start with our investigation?” Nate asked.
“I saw some newspaper articles lying on the box near the camera. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that someone kept the articles about Tammy all together,” Creed said.
“We can always hope,” Nate said, popping the last chip into his mouth and reaching for a pickle. “If anyone did that, it was probably grandma.”
Creed nodded in agreement.
“I wonder if the newspapers reported everything?”
“Who knows. At least it should give us a place to start. We may have to look at the actual police files to get all the details,” Creed said, watching Nate. He seemed more relaxed since he’d eaten, crossing his long legs and linking his fingers together in his lap.
“Do you think the police will give us access to that?” Nate asked.
Creed grinned. “I happen to have a way around that. Besides, you’re a reporter. I’m a photographer. It wouldn’t be the first time someone investigated a cold case on their own.”
“Especially, if there was a book involved,” Nate added, wiggling his thick eyebrows. Now, he was grinning at Creed.
“Good angle.”
“Maybe there really is a book in here somewhere,” Nate said, his gaze traveling across the lawn and out to the street.
Creed kept quiet, letting him think. Then he remembered the spirit in the kitchen and how it had appeared to leave when he talked to it. “Did your dad say something about his mother getting involved in the occult trying to find Tammy?”
“Yes. What about it?”
Creed shrugged. In spite of the proof right there in the camera, every time he mentioned the occult or supernatural Nate challenged him.
After a minute or so, Nate got to his feet. “Let’s go see what we can find upstairs.”
They made a detour on their way to the attic room to the kitchen. Nate pulled two beers out of the refrigerator and handed one to Creed. Then they started toward the stairs, their footsteps sounding heavy on the old wood.
Creed picked up the camera and looked through the viewfinder. Tammy Palmer was exactly as she had been when Creed looked into the camera earlier that morning. She stood in the open doorway looking frightened or worried about something. All the while she twisted and tugged at what appeared to be a locket on a chain around her neck. He watched as she backed away, attempting to close the door.
“What do you see?” Nate asked, sifting through the yellowed newspaper clippings lying on the nearest box.
“Same as this morning,” Creed reported.
Nate sighed. “These are all newspaper articles about Uncle Charles.”
“Exactly where did you find the camera?”
Nate hesitated looking over the sea of boxes. They were covered with dust, some of them open some of them taped closed. Finally, he pointed to a waist high stack in the corner furthest from to the door. Stepping over some scattered items, Creed went to it, opened the top box and shook his head. What he saw looked like financial papers and tax documents on top. He lifted those and peered deeper into the box, shuffling through the folders.
Creed was very aware that Nate had come up behind him and was glad he had the folders to keep his hands busy. “Nothing here,” he announced.
“I saw some newspaper clippings in another box,” Nate said absently. “Can’t remember exactly where.” Nate moved away from him.
Creed carefully returned all the papers and folders to the box, closed it and lifted it off to the side. He opened the next one, finding more folders with dates on the tabs. It appeared to be more financial paperwork.
Behind him, Nate continued to move around the room, opening random boxes and reclosing them.
“Here it is,” Nate announced.
Creed stood and looked across the room to where Nate was bent over a box. He lifted some of the newspaper clippings out, sifted through them and shook his head.
“Sorry. These are just more newspaper reports about Charles sports accomplishments,” Nate said.
Disappointed but not surprised, Creed went back to searching. “At least we know someone kept track of things like that. Maybe they kept all of the information about Tammy, too.”
They worked around the room in silence for another half hour with Creed’s frustration growing by the minute. Finally, he stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips and said, “Okay, Tammy. If you want our help, you’re going to have to help us.”
Their eyes met. Nate looked surprised.
Creed shrugged and grinned. “I thought it might be worth a shot.”
Nate chuckled and went back to work.
Just as Creed decided to start looking for picture albums, instead of newspaper cli
ppings inside of boxes, Nate made a sound.
“Bingo,” Nate said.
“Thanks,” Creed whispered, just in case someone was listening.
He carefully stepped across the boxes they’d strewn around the floor and ended up close beside Nate. Both men stood there looking down at a box with the words Tammy Palmer written across the top in neat block letters. It looked like it hadn’t been opened in a long, long time.
“Holy cow,” Nate said, touching the top of the box almost tenderly.
Their eyes met and Creed touched Nate’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
Nate hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “If it brings Dad any closure at all-“
“Then, let’s see what you found.”
Creed noted that Nate’s hands were shaking as he opened the box. At first, it just looked like a box full of pictures, photos that had just been dumped inside, no rhyme or reason.
“These must have been her photographs,” Nate said, his voice quiet, almost reverent.
Creed picked up a handful and sifted through them. Tammy had indeed taken pictures of everything from cats and dogs to girls she probably went to school with to the elderly. She even took pictures of single leaves or single flowers and butterflies. Most of them were black and white but a few were color.
“She had a good eye,” Creed said, studying one close up of a butterfly and wondering how she’d gotten that close.
“Might have been a professional if she’d lived,” Nate said, reaching into the box.
“Most definitely.”
At some point, someone had started putting the pictures in photo albums and Nate opened one with an audible cracking sound. The pages were yellowed and the pictures had started to fade. Nate handed the book to Creed and lifted out two more.
They stood there for a few moments, looking through the albums and then Nate put them aside and reached into the box again. He lifted out a brown paper bag, as faded and ragged as the albums.
“What’s that?” Creed asked, carefully placing the albums on a nearby trunk.
Nate opened the bag and looked inside. He reached inside and pulled out a pair of broken glasses. They looked like they’d been stepped on.
“Her glasses,” Creed whispered. A little jolt of electricity almost singed his fingers when he picked them up. The longer he held them, though, the more that electricity hummed up his arm. Ignoring it as best he could, Creed held the glasses up to the window and peered through the lenses.
“And her shoe,” Nate said, lifting an old penny loafer out of the bag, the penny still intact, gleaming dully. “She wouldn’t have run away leaving her glasses and a shoe behind.”
“No, she would not,” Creed agreed, thinking of his own sister. He could only imagine how Tammy’s family must have felt when the police gave up and closed the case.
They studied the shoe for a moment and Nate looked down in the box again. “Yep, we have indeed hit the jackpot.”
Creed placed the shoe back into the bag, set it on top of the picture albums and looked over Nate’s shoulder to see what he’d found. The newspaper clippings had been placed in the bottom of the box, held together with what were now rusty, partially bent paperclips. A pretty young girl’s face smiled up at them from the yellowed, ragged edged articles.
Creed recognized Tammy right away. Briefly, he wondered why they were just tossed into the bottom of a box instead of put safely into a photo album or folder. Those thoughts disappeared when he read the big, bold headline. “Local Girl Missing” It was dated June twentieth of nineteen seventy-three. This had to have been front page news back in those days and in this small town.
Stooping to reach inside, Nate lifted a stack of the articles out and handed them to Creed. Then he squatted, shook the box a bit and lifted out more.
Easing the old paper clip off of the paper he held in his hand, Creed slowly flipped through them feeling as if he’d taken a step back in time. The headline didn’t change much from story to story. The picture of Tammy was almost constant, probably a school photo, long dark hair parted down the middle, pretty dark eyes and a wide, friendly smile. The next thing he noted were pictures of the family. Creed recognized Nate’s dad scowling angrily at the camera. Another young man’s face appeared in another picture.
“That’s my uncle Charles,” Nate told him, pointing.
There were other pictures and Creed guessed that it was Tammy’s parents. Nate pointed out his Aunt Judy who looked like she was about ten or eleven at the time. Creed looked back through the articles again, looking only at the pictures. He could almost feel Everett’s anger, sense Tammy’s parents’ grief. Was that the spirit helping him or were the emotions just that intense that they translated over all these years. Judy just looked shell shocked. She probably didn’t even comprehend the enormity of what had happened at that point.
“Are you getting any kind of vibrations or feelings or anything from these articles?” Creed asked.
Nate shook his head and chuckled. “No.”
The emotions coming from what he held in his hand were sweeping through him in great waves, making his knees shake. “I sure am,” he confessed.
“You must be more sensitive to that kind of thing than I am,” Nate said as he lifted the box and shook it gently.
Something shifted inside the box. Creed reached inside the box to find yet another stack of newspaper articles and a manila envelope. He handed the envelope to Nate. These articles were loose, not clipped together in any way, almost as if they were tossed in there as an afterthought. They were all articles about Tammy which looked like they’d been printed on the anniversary of her disappearance.
“What’s in the envelope?” Creed asked.
“Birthday cards,” Nate said, his voice quiet. “Looks like a card for every year after her disappearance. All signed by Grandma.”
“There’s a question mark on the envelopes,” Creed said. “She didn’t know where to send them.” Creed’s heart ached at the sight of all of those birthday cards. How Tammy’s mother must have mourned.
They stood there in almost reverent silence for a while.
Finally, Nate sighed and placed the empty box on the floor. “I think this is all we’re going to find up here.”
“I agree,” Creed said. He gathered up everything they’d found and placed it back in the box. “This is at least a good start.”
“Yeah, let’s take this downstairs. It’s getting hot up here,” Nate said, reaching for their empty beer bottles that they had placed side by side on the deep windowsill.
“Okay,” Creed said. Downstairs they could spread things out and start making notes of what information they had and what they were missing.
Just as Nate turned to leave the room, Creed’s eye landed on a photo from one of the articles that had fluttered to the floor when they weren’t looking. “Nate.”
“Yeah,” Nate turned.
“Look at this,” Creed said. Now he was the one with shaking hands as he held up the article for Nate to see the photo he’d found.
“Two two six,” Nate whispered. “That’s the door in the-”
Sixteen: Suspects and Alibis
“Grab the camera,” Creed said as they headed out the door.
Nate snatched it from the top of some boxes where they’d left it and started down the stairs. Creed followed behind carrying the box that contained everything that was left of Tammy Palmer. Nate was relieved that it was at least ten degrees cooler down on the first floor.
“Let’s use the kitchen table so we can spread all of this out,” Nate said.
“The lighting is better in the kitchen, too,” Creed said and followed Nate into the kitchen.
Nate and Creed worked together clearing the last of the boxes and other items off of the table. Once that was done, Creed placed the box in the center of the table. Nate turned it on its side and stood there looking at it for a moment, not really sure what to do next. Finally, when he realized Creed wa
s not going to intervene, he pulled the photo albums out and placed them to the side. And then, without really thinking about it or not knowing why, he opened the paper bag and took out Tammy’s shoe and her glasses. He left the envelope with the birthday cards closed but placed them on the table near the other items.
Nate felt Creed studying him from the other end of the table and their eyes met. Creed nodded and Nate was relieved to know that Creed understood perfectly what he was doing.
“I have to admit, I don’t really know where to start,” Nate admitted, once everything was right there on the table in front of him like a gigantic puzzle.
Creed shrugged, still holding onto the article with the picture of the door. “We’ll just have to start somewhere, make notes and try to piece this together as best we can.”
“A timeline for starters,” Nate suggested.
“That’s a good idea. Maybe just get the story down and then fill in the blanks as we find them,” Creed said, sounding more sure of himself. He reached for his legal pad and pen lying nearby. Folding the first page back, he sat down in the chair closest to him. “You read, I’ll take notes.”
Nate stood there for a moment looking at what they’d found and finally nodded and reached for the article in Creed’s hand. “Let’s start with this one.”
“Okay.”
Nate spread the article out on the table, pressing the creases out with both hands, being careful not to tear it.
“Okay, this article is dated July fifteenth, nineteen seventy-three,” Nate said.
Creed wrote down the date.
“There are three photos with this story. One of Tammy, one of a man wearing what looks like a tuxedo, his arm around a woman wearing some kind of fancy dress. She’s holding a baby. Her head is turned away from the camera as if someone just said something to her.” Nate paused and held the newspaper clipping up studying the grainy picture closely. Finally, he shook his head. “And the photo of the door,” Nate added, listening to Creed’s pen scratching on the paper.
“Do we know who the couple is?” Creed asked.
