Gwyneth gestured for them to step into the living room. “Police haven’t stopped by in many years. I thought they gave up looking for Cory and Angela.”
Ellie picked up on for the old family photographs from the lamp stand by the recliner. It showed an eighteen-year-old male, a twenty-something-year-old female, and Gwyneth, in her early forties, standing beside a man whose face had been torn out of the photo. Ellie glanced at the other photos around the room. Any that had an adult male had his face torn out of the photograph. Some were tall, others short, a few were black, and the rest were white. Ellie pointed it out to Gwyneth. “Who are these lucky guys?”
“Boyfriends,” Gwyneth said with disgust. “I got sick of looking at their faces.”
Peaches smiled softly at her. “Gwyneth, do you mind if I call you that?”
Gwyneth replied, “Call me what you want, sweetie.” She took a seat on the couch.
“Tell us about your son,” Peaches said.
Gwyneth nestled herself in the corner of the couch and stretched out one leg over the cushions.
“Handsome, like his father,” she explained while Ellie observed the photograph in her hand. The boy had multicolored eyes. One green and one silver, like a chunk of dirty ice. This is him. Ellie knew at once. She had her theories as to whom the hooded man could be, and she guessed right.
Peaches had come to the same conclusions but was much better at concealing his excitement and fear. “What’s his name?” he asked Gwyneth.
“Cory,” Gwyneth answered. “He was always a quiet child and became more reclusive in his teenage years. I thought it was a phase, but he never had a chance to grow out of it.”
Ellie studied the teen’s pale face and shy smile. He wore an olive-green fleece, jeans, and tennis shoes. If not for the eyes, he looked like a typical teenage boy. His sister, however, was a knockout. She had long hair like her mother and the same pretty face that had yet to be wrinkled by the sun.
“What happened to him?” Ellie asked.
Gwyneth moved her jaw like she was chewing rocks as she fought back years of torment. “I don’t know. I was on a date. He was in his room. It was about sunset. When I came home the next day, he was gone. I looked all over. I even called the police. No one knew where my baby had gone. I even reached out to his harlot sister. She wasn’t taking my calls. That evening, the police found her car parked on the woods on the other side of town. Some hiker called it in. It appears whoever left it there made some effort to hide it. I never heard from either one of them again.”
“There’s no way the sister could’ve taken him?” Ellie inquired.
Gwyneth shook her head. “Not in a million years. Angela liked to see herself as Cory’s defender, but she was much better at running than making difference in his life. She moved out the moment she got a chance, but that wasn’t before sleeping with nearly half the county.”
Ellie was reminded of the countless men in the photographs without a face, but didn’t see any use in pointing out the woman’s hypocrisy. “Was Cory bullied?”
Gwyneth thought about it for a long while. “I don’t know. He never talked about school. He never talked about much of anything. He’d be spending all his time drawing instead of helping out around the house like a real man. You want to see his room?”
Ellie and Peaches went that way. The bedroom was largely cluttered with odds and ends furniture. There were still some remnants of what was Cory’s. A twin bed with superhero covers, a cluttered desk and a dresser. Gwyneth pulled out some drawings from the drawer. Many of them had a medieval or steampunk flair to the art style. “These were Cory’s. He loved fantasy. Loved revenge stories the most.”
It seemed fitting. After all, he was coming after Ellie’s family because she ruined his revenge fantasy. “Did Cory know anyone named Andy or Andrew?”
“Not that I know of,” Gwyneth replied.
“How about Kenny, Pamela, Kimberly, or Michael?” Ellie asked.
Gwyneth shook her head.
Dead ends. Ellie needed some solid tie to Cory. She was the only one who’d seen his face, but there needed to be solid evidence.
Ellie asked about Cory’s high school. Gwyneth gave them the name of the place. Peaches proceeded to ask the woman a few more questions. “Did Cory ever contact you after he went missing?”
“Never.”
“How would you describe your relationship with Cory?”
Gwyneth dabbed a tissue under her eyes. “We weren’t that close, even after his father died when he was five. Garold was a baseball coach. He was killed by a drunk driver.”
“What about your relationship with Angela?”
“She left home to go to some college a hundred miles away. She wouldn’t even give me the name of the place, believe it or not. She would tell Cory these fantasies that she’d save him one day. Foolish girl. She’s the one that needed saving.”
They inquired about Gwyneth's home life, learning that she was living off of disability checks and didn’t get out of the house much unless it was to go on a date, which was a weekly occurrence.
When Ellie and Peaches had finished up, they went to the high school near the middle of the town of Lancaster.
“Feels good,” Peaches said, rolling down the window and letting the morning breeze wash over his face.
“The air?” Ellie asked.
“Knowing the bastard’s name,” Peaches replied. “Cory Barksdale. A true dead man walking.”
They pulled into the school’s guest parking. Peaches put his laptop on his lap and stole the school’s Wi-Fi. He looked up Cory’s record. There was nothing there. The man was a ghost apart from a few Missing Person’s articles. His sister, Angela, had a small record. The assault and battery charges against her where when she was fourteen and got off on parole. She was last seen at Stable College before going missing. She also went to Cory’s same high school but graduated a few years before him.
Ellie and Peaches went inside and inquired of the principal. She was a short, plump lady with a colored shirt and welcoming smile. She showed them school records at the behest of Peaches. Ellie and Peaches flipped through the various files in the cabinet until they found Cory’s from 1995, the year he disappeared. He was a straight “A” student. Ellie was surprised the boy’s mother didn’t mention that. Parents were usually proud of such things. In his school picture from that year, Cory’s face had a sweet smile.
Peaches asked the principal. “Do you remember much about him?”
The principal thought on it for a moment. “He was one of the quiet ones. Very well-mannered. Sadly, it’s those types of students we tend to forget. His sister though, she was the troublemaker.”
That intrigued Peaches. “How so?”
“She failed a few grades. Dated some of the sophomores when she was a senior. Let’s just say that she almost got herself into big trouble if it weren’t for her mother working out an arrangement with the father of the boy involved,” the principal said with gossiper’s glee.
“Who was the boy? The one she dated.” Ellie asked.
“I don’t recall his name. Let me see if I remember his face.” The principal perused the shelf of yearbooks nearby. The oldest one was all the way from 1956. She pulled out 1993 and flipped through the pages until she found an image of a teenage boy who was skinny and had a blemish-free face and sharp cheekbones. Ellie recognized him immediately. It was Andrew Maneau.
“Do you have any more of him?”
The principal pulled out the yearbook from 1995. With her stubby finger, she flipped through the black and white pages. Peaches and Ellie leaned over each of her shoulders. She leafed through the yearbook until she reached the club section. She stopped on the page with the art club listed. It had five members. Kimberly Jannis, Pamela Cornish, Michael Dillinger, Kenny Parkland, and Andrew Maneau.
“This is it,” Ellie declared. “This is the connection.”
The five high school students stood around an old cabin in the woods.
The elderly woman adjusted her glasses with her finger. “That is not anywhere on school grounds. They must’ve gone elsewhere to take the photograph.”
“Do you recognize the location?” Ellie asked.
The principal stared long and hard at the club photograph. “Jasper Hills maybe.
“Where’s that at?”
“It’s a summer camp that ran out of funding in ‘79. High schoolers use it as a party spot.”
Peaches and Ellie exchanged looks. “Can you give us the address?”
“Why would you want to go there?” the principal asked as she jotted down driving instructions on a Post-It note.
“Maybe we’ll learn something,” Ellie replied.
After getting what they needed, she and Peaches checked the address and compared it to where Angela Barksdale’s vehicle was discovered. They were on complete opposite sides of the town. Ellie wondered if that was coincidental or planned.
She drove through Amish country to reach the camp. Horses and buggies blurred by. Ellie remembered the fond memories of her childhood when her mother would take her horseback riding. By the doubtful look on Detective Peaches’s face, he wasn’t optimistic about this lead. Granted, they were grasping at straws. Their truck rumbled up through the tree-flanked road as they pressed deeper in the Pennsylvania wilds. They reached a rust bar gate under a wooden sign that arched over the road. The sign read “Jasper Hills Campground.” Someone had already pushed open the bar gate securing the road. Without issue, Ellie drove right in. They reached the recreation center. The building was wide, single story, and made of wood. The yard around it had been overgrown with tall grass and thorn bushes.
Much to their surprise, there was another car already parked here. It was a red sedan in almost mint condition. It looked like a rental. Ellie and Peaches parked next to it. Swarms of gnats swirled around their heads as they stepped out. Ellie checked the time. It was almost 10 am. Peaches fixed his gun to his belt and they walked toward the building, finding that most doors were locked by a massive chain weaved through the vertical door handles. Peaches pointed to a part of the grass that was pressed down with recent footsteps. Ellie followed behind him as he followed the trail. Neither of them talked as they moved deeper into the abandoned summer camp. They stepped into a soccer field that had grown over. Nearby were a number of park benches. Most had sunken into the dirt or had broken into wood scraps. When Ellie had lost the trail, Peaches kept on it by pointing out crushed blades of grass or a footprint in the mud.
Ellie didn’t know who they were following, but she knew she was looking for a cabin just like the one in the yearbook. It is generic looking: square with an A-frame roof and probably had three tiny bedrooms. After moving through the area with tables, they spotted the cabin in the distance. There were a few other cabins, but this one appeared to be at the farthest end of the camp and on higher ground. Pin oaks and other trees sprouted out around it. There was once a dirt path that linked to each cabin, but now it was only mud.
As they neared, Peaches unbuttoned the top of his pistol holster and gently rested his fingers on the gun’s grip. He paused for a moment, first to listen for any noise and then to overcome a bout with vertigo. Ellie helped support him. When she unintentionally touched his muscles, she thought of Troy and dread pitted in her gut. She reminded herself not think of it and pressed forward with the detective.
As they neared the cabin, they heard something shuffle and then a grunt.
Ellie crinkled her brow, perplexed as to what the noise could be. Detective Peaches moved forward with his hand ready to draw the gun. Weeds clawed at the base of the cabin. The windows were fogged. The noise wasn’t coming from inside but from behind the building. They moved slowly to minimize the crunch of their shoes on the earth.
Ellie and Peaches came to a stop at the back of the cabin. Standing in what would be the backyard was a man dressed in grey. His back was turned to them. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows and his pants were rolled an inch up the ankle. He drove the shovel into the wide but shallow hole before him and tossed aside the dirt into the building mound beside him.
The man mumbled to himself and wiped his forehead with the top of his dirt-covered hand. Resting on the ground nearby was shiny snub-nosed revolver that Peaches promptly pointed out to Ellie.
After a quick breath, the man in grey drove the shovel into the dirt again and shoveled out more for the mound. It appeared that hole was five feet wide and about three feet deep.
Ellie nodded at the detective. Peaches cleared his throat.
The stranger went stiff.
“Spin around,” Peaches said calmly. “Slowly, please.”
Keeping his hand on his shovel, the man didn’t move.
Ellie kept watching the revolver.
The man was looking at it too. Slowly, he turned back to Peaches and Ellie. His hair was a disheveled pompadour with faded sides, his brows were trimmed, he had strong cheekbones, and he sported a clean-shaven jaw with dimpled chin. His eyes went wide and his shoulders slack when he saw Ellie.
Ellie took a step forward.
“Andrew?” she asked her friend, who wore dirt-covered sweats. “What are you doing here?”
Losing all the blood from his face, Andrew tightened his grip on the shovel and batted his eye on the revolver nearby.
6
THE MISSING BODY
“Ellie, I-I didn’t expect to see you,” Andrew said, trying and failing to act casually. His clothes were covered in dirt and his flesh was sweaty.
“We could say the same thing,” Ellie replied, cautiously scanning the area just as Peaches had taught her. “You alone?”
The question made Andrew fidget. He tried to mask his nerves by resting his weight on his shovel. “Who told you where I was?” Andrew deflected.
Keeping his hand on his holstered pistol, Detective Peaches slowly walked around the area, looking at the various trees and foliage that could conceal an assault.
“No one,” Ellie admitted, taking a step forward. She couldn’t see what was inside of the hole he was digging, but she had her guesses. “We were following up a lead on Cory Barksdale.”
“Cory,” Andrew said, growing faint. The confident man that had launched Ellie’s art career was a nervous wreck. His eyes were wide, feral, and shifting between Peaches and Ellie constantly. His usually styled hair was a wiry mess. Loose dirt hung on the creases of his grey sweater pulled up to the elbows. He was a far cry from the cashmere-wearing millionaire Ellie saw at the party.
“You know Cory, don’t you?” Ellie pressed.
Andrew blinked once at her. He turned his attention to Peaches. “Why did you bring him here, Ellie? Those things I told you over the phone, about my past, were private. You’re betraying of our friendship.”
“Really?” Ellie said without a hint of sympathy. “I saved your life, Andrew, and you wouldn’t even tell me the name of the guy that gutted my husband. Instead, you saw it best to send me on a wild goose chase to find another member of your high school club. Oh, and by the way, Michael Dillinger is dead.”
Andrew looked uneasy. He kept his weight on the shovel and didn’t say a word.
Ellie put a hand on her hip, watching the man she called friend fail to make eye contact with her.
Peaches stepped forward. He spoke in his typical calming, trusting manner. “Andrew. We all want the same thing here. You’ve been carrying this burden alone for so long. Why don’t you tell us the truth?”
Andrew’s lip quivered. His eyes were on the earth. Sniffling, he put on a hard face and looked directly into Ellie’s eyes. “I didn’t know it was Cory until I saw the police sketch on the news. That’s why I came here. To see if it was really true.”
He glanced back at the open ground behind him. “We were drinking the night we hurt him. All of us were eager, nihilistic fools wanting to do something dangerous in the name of art. Art is about expr
ession, emotion, and memory. We wanted to make something that would stick with us forever. Something that few had ever done.”
“I assume we is Kimberly, Pamela, Michael, and Kenny?” Ellie interjected.
Andrew cast down his eyes again and nodded. “I was a bad person then. No one understood. Not my parents. Not my closest friends. Only the four of them. We started out with hurting rodents and, um, escalated.”
Ellie felt herself becoming nauseous looking at him. She’d dined with this man. They celebrated victories together and shared tears at the loss of relatives. “Why?”
Andrew locked eyes with her. “Every day we get drilled into our minds that everything we do in this life is meaningless. I wanted to find something solid. I thought it was through dominance and emotional experiences. It was all a steady decline, you see. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but the feeling was addicting.”
“What happened to Cory?” Ellie asked, not wanting to hear any more.
“It was toward the end of the school year. We all knew he was a nobody, so we befriended him and asked him to join us at the Willoughby tree as long as he didn’t tell anyone. We were terrified that he would, but the more we got to know him, the more we knew he was a man of his word. So, we brought him there, gave him something to drink and, when the time felt right, we… you know.”
Ellie crossed her arms. “I don’t know, Andrew. Tell me.”
Andrew gnashed his teeth. “I shouldn’t say it in front of the detective. We can finish this somewhere private, yes?”
Ellie glared at him.
Andrew fidgeted. “I hit him and then everyone else joined in. We’d never been in a fight before. We wanted to feel the rush, and, boy, did we feel it. Before we knew it, he was on the ground. Someone pulled out a knife intending on giving him a few shallow cuts, but things escalated. Cory wasn’t moving. We weren’t sure if he was breathing.”
Ellie fumed.
Peaches kept his eyes trained on Andrew. He had a much better control of his emotions.
Ellie blurted out. “What was your plan? To beat him up and just leave him there, or was it to kill him?”
Stolen Secrets: A Collection Of Riveting Mysteries Page 29
