Mary Jane's Grave

by Stacy Dittrich

  “You have no idea what it’s like, Sergeant, to lose a child. Melissa was my baby girl and what they did to her…” He stopped and took a deep, breath. “That’s not important now. What’s important is it’ll all stop and hopefully she can rest.”

  “Who? Melissa?” I asked.

  “Mary Jane,” he said confidently. “You see, Sergeant, for a century my family’s been tormented over her murder. Those men were savages, and they killed my great-grandmother and uncle. For years, I’ve had to stand by and watch as her name was run through the mud with witch this, and witch that, while Ceely Rose was an icon. It wasn’t right.” He coughed lightly. “And then they took my Melissa. That was when I knew Mary Jane was giving me a sign that it wouldn’t stop until I did something.”

  “But you waited twenty years, Martin? Why?”

  “Believe it or not, I tried to make it go away, but when I came up here about a year and a half ago to visit my father, I saw nothing had changed. I saw the bottles and the broken tombstones. I knew it was time. This had gone on long enough, and these kids needed a lesson. Nicholas and I moved up here with my father a year ago and began to plan. He’s an MIT grad, you know, Nicholas is.” He looked up, remembering Nicholas, and put his head back down. “Nicholas did the most. He was a genius with special effects and stuff like that. It was so easy.” He drifted off into space.

  “Martin.” I tapped my pen, snapping him out of his trance. “Did Melissa ever know about your family?”

  “Of course not!” he barked. “Do you think she would’ve gone down there if she did? My own wife didn’t even know. Our family history was hidden in shame and secrecy, for something that we didn’t even do.” He looked at me and gave a small smirk. “By the way, did you like your flowers, Sergeant?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The roses I sent you. Did you like them? They were my way of saying thank you for saving me the headache of having to take care of that little bitch Meghan Dearth.”

  “I can’t say I’m that flattered, Martin. One question I have is why didn’t you kill Danielle Horton?”

  “She was too fat.” He laughed. “Once we knocked her out, we were having too hard of a time setting everything up. Plus, there were too many of her friends around, so we decided just to send a message.”

  “And the dog skin? I’m assuming you did that so I would lead you to Daniel, right?”

  “Very good, Sergeant. I’m sorry about your swim in the lake a while back, but Nicholas thought you were going to see him. I only told him to follow you and see what you were up to.” He laughed again. “But it was his idea to chase you down the road that night. He thought if we scared you enough, you’d back off the history lesson…and us. Apparently, we underestimated you.”

  “Apparently.”

  I thought back to the night I was pushed into the lake, and when I was followed after being at the grave. Both Martin and Nicholas had well passed the brink of insanity long ago. Looking into Martin’s eyes told me that much. I remembered the interview I’d had with Gary Fenner.

  “Martin, there was a fatal car accident about fifteen years ago, a group of boys after they left the grave. Did you have anything to do with that?”

  He looked confused and shook his head. I remembered Gary’s description of the woman in white he’d seen. It differed from everyone else’s. In addition, Gary claimed she was holding a baby.

  “Martin, do you know what color Mary Jane’s hair was?”

  “I don’t know. Any pictures of her were destroyed. I know my grandmother’s and mother’s hair was red.”

  I couldn’t help getting a chill. I would chalk that incident up to the short list of the unexplainable. Things I refused to think about, questions that had no answers.

  “Martin, Madeline and Mary Jane both refer to ‘the gift’ in their letters. What was it?”

  Martin shut his eyes. “The gift, Sergeant, is not something you or anyone else could possibly understand. It was very powerful.”

  “Is it supposed to be like ESP or make them a clairvoyant? Something like that?” I thought he was being slightly dramatic.

  “More powerful than those put together. As you’re very aware, Sergeant, it was the gift that killed those men five days apart. What on this earth or in any human being is capable of that?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s capable of that, it’s called drowning, choking and farm accidents to name a few,” I said sarcastically.

  He laughed and stared at me with pure evil in his eyes. “You know with your intelligence what is mythical and what’s coincidence. Their deaths were no coincidence, Sergeant. She told them they would die five days apart, and they did!”

  “Human beings are notorious for subconsciously determining their own fate. These men, each hearing a curse placed upon them ensuring their deaths within five days of each other, became overly cautious, nervous and absentminded. After the death of one, the others became basket cases on the fifth day. What would be a normal walk along the edge of the pond became an intense challenge not to fall. Focusing all energies on the edge, he fell in and drowned, same with the others. It was coincidence, Martin, and if you would’ve seen that, maybe you wouldn’t have been driven to kill.”

  He smiled. “If only you knew how wrong you really are. You read the letters; you read how Mary Jane visited Madeline two months after her murder. It was the gift that made it possible.”

  I slammed my hands on the table. “Listen to yourself, Martin!” I knew it was pointless to reason with someone who had reached the level of insanity that he had, but I couldn’t help it. “Madeline had just watched her baby brother get tossed back and forth like a football before getting his head caved in by a tombstone. After that, she watched her mother get beaten, raped, hung and set on fire before being dragged to the woods and raped, herself. To top that off, the sick bastard got her pregnant. Now, if you think that any normal sixteen-year-old girl, whether now or back in 1898, wouldn’t be half out of her mind or, most likely, totally and completely delusional, you are sadly mistaken! Martin, Madeline probably went over the edge the night that happened. Understandably, but she was crazy just the same! Why can’t you see that?”

  He remained smiling. “If thinking that makes you feel better, Sergeant, so be it.”

  “A few more questions…Whose white dress is on the chest in the closet?”

  “It was Mary Jane’s favorite dress. My grandmother kept it.”

  “How did you guys get my car to turn on by itself the day Captain Cooper and I were in the cemetery?”

  “Nicholas did that, don’t ask me how. But I have to tell you, Sergeant, how we laughed at you two, your faces when that car blared on!”

  “I can’t say I’m amused.”

  I talked to Martin for more than an hour before finally getting his full confession on tape. His voice was filled with such intensity, I felt myself sympathizing with him, an emotion I wasn’t accustomed to when it came to murderers. I formally charged Martin with the murder of Kari Sutter, and I also charged him with attempted murder in the attack on Danielle Horton.

  By the time we were finished and I called for the corrections officers to take him away, I was exhausted. My back and legs were throbbing, despite the four aspirin I had taken earlier.

  Michael was in my office, waiting to take me home. After several calls from the sheriff and the chief offering their congratulations on the arrest, I welcomed the thought of sleep. Michael had to help me up to our bedroom and out of my clothes. I lay on our bed drifting in and out of sleep while he prepared several ice packs to place under my back and legs. My pain replaced by fatigue, I did my best to stay awake until Michael returned. Reaching out to touch his face was the last thing I remembered before drifting into a deep sleep.

  I slept in the next morning and didn’t make it to work until early afternoon. I had already gotten the okay from Naomi. The only thing I did in my office was check my messages. I had another issue on my mind that I needed to deal with: Walter
Morris, also known as Nathaniel Drake. I had to know, and needed to hear from his own mouth, if he had any knowledge of what Martin and Nicholas had been doing, and specifically, did he do anything to stop it. It was almost as if he was waiting for me when I pulled into his driveway. He was sitting in a lawn chair on the front porch.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said somberly. “After they were here yesterday, I knew it was only a matter of time. What questions do you need answered, Sergeant?”

  Walter stared straight ahead, sitting up with both hands clenched on the handle of his cane. He was cold, distant and unfriendly, not the Walter I remembered.

  “Did you know? Did you know what they were doing, Walter?” My words were almost inaudible.

  “I suspected. Oh, yes, did I suspect…but I didn’t dare ask. By the time they got here, young lady, they were both already out of their minds with the sickness. Runs in the family, you know. My wife, Maryanne, and her mother were as fruity as they come. Not that you could blame them, considering what they’d been through and all. No matter what, I loved my Maryanne.” He leaned forward and set his cane at his feet. “Made-line treated Maryanne like the devil himself. Even when Maryanne was just a little thing, a toddler, Madeline would refer to her as ‘the bastard.’ When I met and married Maryanne it was the same thing. I remember the first time I met Madeline. She said, ‘I’ll pray to our Lord for you, sir. I’ll pray that he forgives you for loving a bastard.’ That cunt. I know she had been through something awful, but Maryanne never asked for that. Quite frankly, I hope Madeline Hendrickson is burning in hell for what she did to my wife.”

  “I understand,” I said, and had another thought. “Maryanne was dead for a week before she was found. Where were you?”

  He winced slightly. “Away for three weeks…job opportunity came up. Not that we needed the money, but I wanted to get away for a while. We were having some husband and wife problems and I think Maryanne’s mental issues were really getting the best of her—I couldn’t take it. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  “Why the name change, Walter?”

  He sighed. “I wanted a fresh start. No one ‘round here knew me anyway—I always kept to myself—so when Maryanne died, I moved out here to this farm. The money those families paid them to keep quiet was phenomenal. Maryanne and I never had to work, and I had the money when she died.” A tear streamed down his cheek.

  “Walter? Is there anything I can get you before I leave?”

  “No. It’s all over, and that’s what’s important. Now I can at least have some peace.” He held out his hand. “Sergeant, believe it or not, I truly thank you.”

  I disregarded his hand and leaned over to kiss his cheek. I drove away thinking I might become a weekly visitor. However, that would never happen. The next morning, Walter Morris died. He had found his peace.

  That day, saddened by the news of Walter Morris’s death, I requested the exhumation of Mary Jane Hendrickson and her son. They had been murdered. Even more than one hundred years later, they were still victims and their bodies needed to be processed. It would take a week or so for the judge to sign the request and get everything together. As I was leaving for the day, Naomi walked into my office with some interesting information.

  “You know we’ve been checking into Martin’s and Nicholas’s backgrounds, right?” I nodded. “It seems that Nicholas attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a certified genius. As you probably guessed, most of the equipment in the cellar was stolen. Nicholas would give himself fake identities, get jobs in computer software companies or stores where the equipment was sold. He’d work there one day, steal all he needed and vanish without a trace. By the way, Savannah Police filed their own murder charges against Martin, for Daniel Griffin’s death. Of course, it’s just a formality. Ohio will never hand him over. He’ll get the death penalty here.”

  “If he’s proved competent to stand trial,” I added.

  “True.”

  I said my good- byes to Naomi for the day and went home to start dinner before Michael arrived. Sitting on our sofa afterward, Michael tried to persuade me to play hooky the next day.

  “I can’t, Michael. I have entirely too much to do.”

  He frowned. “What? Everything’s done with the case. What more could you possibly have to do?”

  I smiled. “I have a lot to do, darling. I have a wedding to plan.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I didn’t keep my word about never returning to Mary Jane’s Grave. My intentions were good, but I couldn’t resist. I knew it wasn’t necessary for me to be at the exhumation of Mary Jane and Ezra, but I had to see.

  Usually, a court-ordered exhumation requires the body is placed back in the grave within forty-eight hours. In this case, the judge gave seventy- two hours because Mary Jane and her son would not be going back under the tree. Amazingly, as the story got out to the media, residents throughout the county called for a proper burial of the two and contributed thousands of dollars. A new headstone was purchased, one that would include all residents of the cemetery, including Mary Jane and Ezra. She would be placed next to her sister, Sophia.

  Curiosity being as it was, researchers and anthropologists from all over the state converged on the cemetery that morning at seven A.M. None had ever opened a grave more than fifty years old, with the exception of one anthropologist from Kent State University who had helped unearth mummies in Jordan.

  Before the dig began, the police chaplain spoke a few words in memory of Mary Jane and her son. Afterward, a backhoe moved in to clear the first foot or so of dirt. Even if Randall and the others hadn’t buried Mary Jane and Ezra very deep back then, the bodies surely would’ve sunk farther into the earth by now. Several of the researchers told everyone not to get their hopes up. Since neither Mary Jane nor her son was buried in a casket, chances were, nothing would be found, not even bone.

  The rest of the digging was done with shovels so as not to disturb any remains. Two to three feet down the ground becomes nothing but thick clay, hard to dig through.

  It was late afternoon before any remains were retrieved. One of the researchers dug up a piece of yellow bone about the size of a twelve-inch ruler. After that, it was like a gold mine. Numerous teeth were found, which caused everyone to give one another high fives. Teeth retain DNA much longer than other bone, so these could be tested against DNA taken from Martin Drake. The last piece found was a small yellow, cuplike piece of bone, about half the size of someone’s palm. Some of the anthropologists speculated it was more than likely part of Ezra’s skull, but it was too early to be sure.

  The dig was successful. A normal person wouldn’t think so; all the remains, small pieces of yellow bone, could easily fit into a shoe box. There wasn’t enough to find out how they died, but there was plenty to confirm who they were and give them a proper burial. Since murder has no statute of limitations, the homicide of Mary Jane Hendrickson and Ezra Hendrickson had to be written up as a legitimate, solved murder case with no arrests due to the suspects’ deaths. The historical aspect of the case had people fascinated everywhere.

  Martin Drake was found incompetent to stand trial. He was remanded to the Ohio State Psychiatric Hospital in Massillon indefinitely. He was now the sole survivor of the Hendrickson family.

  More than one hundred people attended the funeral of Mary Jane Hendrickson and Ezra. The flowers, balloons and teddy bears laid at their tombstones were phenomenal. News stations broadcast most of it.

  If there was a small problem of people trespassing at the grave before the murder case, the problem now grew into epic proportions. Every weekend hundreds of curious tourists, teenagers and ghost watchers rained down on the cemetery. Half the manpower of the police department was used consistently to run everyone out. The township erected steel gates with padlocks where the dirt road began back to the cemetery. Family members complained it was unlawful because they weren’t able to gain access to deceased relatives, and they filed a lawsuit. The co
urt ruled the cemetery must be accessible to the public from dusk till dawn, so the township got creative.

  They met with the historical society from Malabar Farm that put on weekend “Ghost Haunts” that led groups to the Ceely Rose house. They were thrilled to add Mary Jane’s Grave to the tour so they could tell the real story. In doing this, the township got a percentage of the admission fees. There were designated nights and times for the haunts that the township agreed to allow the tours into the cemetery. This basically satisfied the curiosity of the public. They could now visit both the Ceely Rose house and Mary Jane’s Grave lawfully. Of course, there were still the few stragglers who went down to the grave once in a while, but it wasn’t any different than before the murders.

  Several weeks after the burial of Mary Jane and Ezra, I was served court papers naming me as the primary defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by the family of Meghan Dearth. They also named the Cincinnati Police Department, Simone Vardona and the Richland Metropolitan Police Department. The case was thrown out in the first pretrial hearing.

  A month after the case was officially closed, I was standing in the entrance of the Hidden Hollow Camp lodge. The lodge stood on one of the highest hills in the county and overlooked all the others. The view was breathtaking. Mary Jane’s Grave sat at the foot of it, deep in the woods. I was deep in thought when I felt a small hand grab mine. I looked down and saw Sean, looking ever the gentleman in his little tuxedo. He looked terrified.

  “Sean, honey, what’s wrong?”

  “What if I make you fall down when I’m walking with you?” The strain on his face intensified.

  I laughed. “Honey, if I fall, it’ll be my own doing, not from you.” I squeezed his hand as the music began. “Are you ready?”

  He nodded. Sean and I made the slow, short walk into the lodge and down the makeshift aisle created for my and Michael’s wedding. Since we were having only our family and closest friends attend, the audience was small but intimate.