by DL Benning
Your Friends Came to See Me
—Book 1—
The Ford Heights Murders
DL Benning
Your Friends Came to See Me
—Book 1—
The Ford Heights Murders
Introducing Investigative Medium Lynn Monroe
DL Benning
Copyright © MMXXI by DL Benning
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953640-14-7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-953640-15-4 (Kindle edition)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021917004
Published by McCrady Park Books, an imprint of A Page Beyond, Fishers, Indiana.
This book is a work of fiction, channeled from the Other Side by a self-taught medium. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is either coincidence or confirmation.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. The Beginning
Chapter 2. There’s a Clairvoyant in Elmwood?
Chapter 3. Meeting the Women
Chapter 4. A Woman Named M
Chapter 5. Carol
Chapter 6. Julia
Chapter 7. Fred Enlists
Chapter 8. Agnes
Chapter 9. Detective Roman
Chapter 10. The Search for Evidence
Chapter 11. Meeting Captain Simon
Chapter 12. Moving On
—Chapter 1—
The Beginning
It was March 11, 2016—a cold, damp day in Ford Heights, a south suburb of Chicago. Today was the day my Uncle Fred and I were putting my Aunt Mary into hospice care at the nursing home where they both lived. The nursing home director had called a week earlier to recommend the change. Aunt Mary had stopped eating.
Aunt Mary was deteriorating from Parkinson’s disease and miserable from a lifetime of anger and sadness. Uncle Fred, the source of much of her misery, asked for my help. Lisa, the nursing home social worker, called a family meeting with Uncle Fred and me to walk us through the next steps of hospice care.
After we finalized the hospice care details, Lisa reminded Uncle Fred that he would need to update his power of attorney documents once my aunt passed, as he had been diagnosed with early-stage dementia. I wasn’t sure what a power of attorney was exactly. After she explained, my uncle looked at me and said, “I want you to do it.”
Huh? I looked at him with what I am sure was a shocked look on my face. My uncle was a difficult man and had not been a good husband to my aunt. We were not close.
“Fred, you and I haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye over the years,” I said. “I’m sure your sister or her family might be better to handle this for you.”
“No, Lynn,” he insisted, “I want you.”
Gulp. I sat there for a long, uncomfortable moment with both the social worker and my uncle staring at me.
“Okay,” I whispered, hoping no one would hear me, including myself.
Lisa walked us through the power of attorney paperwork for healthcare decisions. She then advised us we needed a lawyer’s assistance to establish financial power of attorney. She said the nursing home manager could arrange for a trusted, local attorney to help us.
On my way home that afternoon, I called my husband, Sam. When I said hello, he heard my voice crack and asked lovingly, “Honey, what is wrong?”
I started crying and said, “She is dying. Aunt Mary’s dying. Fred wants me to be his power of something, and I am not sure what it is.”
Sam asked, “He wants you to be his power of attorney?”
“Yes,” I said through the tears.
Quietly, he said, “So what did you tell him?”
I kept crying, “I said yes. I had to. He has no one else, and he needs me to do it.”
“Okay. It will be okay,” he said reassuringly. “Just take your time coming home. We’ll figure it all out.”
I nodded, hoping he could hear my head moving.
As promised, the nursing home director arranged for the lawyer to meet with us at the nursing home to prepare the financial paperwork. The lawyer had been the beloved mayor of Ford Heights for several decades.
The morning of the meeting, the lawyer called me to say he was unable to leave his office and needed to reschedule. My anxiety and sense of urgency to get the documents completed must have been obvious, even over the phone. He suggested we move the meeting to his office.
A few hours later, I chauffeured my uncle to the lawyer’s office in downtown Ford Heights. The building looked desolate. I wondered aloud if we would be safe in this neighborhood. My uncle told me it was fine.
Sure, I thought to myself, what do you know?
We parked and went in anyway. I found myself wondering if my car would still be there when the meeting was over.
The lawyer’s office was a time capsule from the 1970s. It was dimly lit, and the paneled walls were covered in framed pictures of the former mayor himself with different celebrities, including the Pope. Sarcastically, I wondered how much that photo had cost him. The tables were covered with copies of newspapers that mostly featured the former mayor on their covers. The desk and credenza were covered with piles of papers, and the air smelled of dust and stale cigarettes.
I had one mission today: to get the power of attorney paperwork completed so I could pay Fred and Mary’s property taxes. For a few weeks, my aunt had been obsessed with getting the taxes paid. She talked to me about it continuously. All I wanted to do was pay the tax bill so she would stop asking me if I had done it yet.
Fred and the lawyer spent the beginning of the meeting visiting and talking about their backgrounds. They discovered they had both gone to the same high school. They started recounting high school stories, talking about different classmates and memorable football games. The attorney realized he had graduated with Fred’s sister. This started another whole conversation about Fred’s sister, her husband, and their children.
I waited impatiently, hoping they would notice and get down to business. It seemed like we were never going to get to it. A few times, I tried to steer the conversation back to the documents, but they kept ignoring me. Fred had insisted upon putting me in charge, but dismissed my attempts to get the job done.
After forty-five minutes of idle conversation, I finally got them to finalize the paperwork. It was exhausting for me. I was so relieved when the lawyer’s staff came in to sign and witness the documents. The lawyer, doing his job, asked Fred if he also wanted to write a will. This made perfect sense to me. Two birds with one stone, I thought. My uncle started talking out loud to himself about how he should do it.
“Spread everything out, and divide it all up,” he said. “That makes the most sense.”
I was thinking, Divide what up? Two crappy houses that looked like an episode of Hoarders?
Somehow the conversation meandered back to a homecoming football game. I rolled my eyes and, in my head, started screaming. It’s been over sixty years—let’s stay focused, boys! They talked about the football team, coaches, and then the school mascot. This is where the conversation took a nasty turn. My uncle said the mascot was a cougar. The lawyer said he was wrong—it was a panther.
My uncle got pissed. “Let’s go,” he commanded.
Let’s go? I couldn’t believe he wanted to leave now, after all the time we had spent there. The will wasn’t even finished. As I was grabbing up the pap
erwork, and running after my uncle, I apologetically told the lawyer I would call him to finish the rest of the paperwork. But I knew that would never happen. Fred was clearly angry, and I knew he wouldn’t want to make the trip back. He complained all the way back to the nursing home about the lawyer and the damn mascot.
Dinner service had already started by the time we got back. Visiting at a nursing home during mealtime is quite an undertaking. As we walked into the dining room, I saw my aunt slumped over in her wheelchair. She was asleep, her mouth open, breathing softly. My heart was breaking. She looked so worn out. I got my uncle settled at the table. The whole time, I was wondering why the staff brought my unconscious aunt from hospice to the dining room. It just didn’t make sense.
Nothing made sense lately. I had been in an altered universe the last month. I had been put in charge of Fred and Mary’s care, their property, and all their business affairs. Why me? I kept thinking. How is it possible I oversee all this? They had no one else. For years, they isolated themselves from both sides of the family. I was overwhelmed and completely exhausted, trying to balance working full time and running to and from the south suburbs multiple times a week. The drive alone took almost three hours roundtrip from my northwest suburb of Elmwood, and it was wearing on my soul.
As I kissed my aunt goodbye that night, I bent over and whispered gently in her ear. I told her it was okay to go whenever she was ready. I told her that I would take care of everything. Twelve hours later, she took me up on my offer.
I got a call at six in the morning from Bernie, a nurse from the nursing home, saying my aunt was gone. Bernie said she heard Aunt Mary taking her last breaths from the hallway. Bernie had rushed into her room, but Aunt Mary was already gone. I thanked her for calling me and rolled back over to go back to sleep.
The weight of the moment fell on me a moment later. I shot up in bed and yelled, “Oh my God! My aunt is dead. And I’m in charge!”
My husband rolled over, startled, and said, “What’s going on? Who’s dead?”
As I jumped out of bed, I said, “My aunt, my Aunt Mary. She just died.”
I quickly called Nurse Bernie back and told her I was on my way to the nursing home. I asked her to have Uncle Fred ready to go with me to the hospital.
I threw on some clothes and was on my way in less than thirty minutes. The first and only person I called was my sister Ann. Ann was a doctor and the only one I thought would care that my aunt died. My aunt had been estranged from everyone else for many years.
By the time I arrived at the nursing home, the staff already had my uncle dressed and ready. He seemed very calm considering he’d just lost his wife. We drove to the local hospital to catch up with the ambulance.
The ER team took us into a small exam room. The on-duty doctor told us she was dead in the ambulance, that the ER team tried to revive her in the hospital. He said he was very sorry for our loss, but I told him she was ready to go. I thanked him for his kindness.
A nurse took my uncle and me into a private room down the hall from the ER. On the door was a piece of colored paper with a faded rose on it. I had never seen a dead body before, except on television. I wanted to wait in the hall, but my uncle insisted I accompany him into the room. There she was, her body so still and just lying there on the table, lifeless. It was weird. It looked like her body, but I could tell she was gone. Her soul had left.
My uncle went up to Aunt Mary’s dead body and started praying out loud. He was reciting from memory a Bible verse that I didn’t recognize. He started sobbing and threw himself on top of her, telling her he was sorry over and over. He said he could have done better.
I was thinking, Hell yes, you could have done better! You could have fixed the toilet that was broken for thirty years, you could have fixed the stove that was broken for ten years so she could cook you a meal. You could have let her have her friends and family in her life. The list went on and on in my head.
Somehow, despite all his faults and my many resentments, I found compassion for him in that moment. After all, he had just lost his wife of more than forty years. We stayed there a few minutes while he composed himself.
As we were leaving the room, the hospital chaplain approached us and asked if he could pray over my aunt. My uncle whispered quite loudly to me that the chaplain wasn’t Catholic. The chaplain and I smiled silently at each other. My uncle, thinking I didn’t hear him, said it again but louder. I apologized to the chaplain and explained that my uncle preferred the prayer be done by a Catholic priest. He said he understood. He asked if he could help us in any other way. I asked for information on body donations and when we might find the priest at the hospital.
My uncle didn’t want a funeral for Aunt Mary. Instead, he wanted my aunt’s body donated to science and then to have her cremated. He said he wanted Aunt Mary’s ashes taken to her parents’ grave. The ashes were to be spread only on her mother’s side, not her father’s. In all ways, my uncle was exacting.
The hospital staff was having trouble finding a place that would take her body donation. While we were waiting, we walked down to the hospital chapel. We both knelt on a pew and said our prayers. A female minister approached us and offered prayers and her condolences. As she approached me, my uncle whispered loudly that I wasn’t Catholic anymore. The minister smiled and said, “God loves her, too.” My uncle seemed surprised by her comment.
It had been many years since I had been in a church setting. Uncomfortable with the silence, I started looking around the chapel. I hoped to see a sign from my aunt or her angels. I am a medium and often see orbs of light or energy shadows that others cannot. I didn’t see anything this time; however, I did feel a sense of peace.
The chaplain found us and gave me some business cards for places to donate my aunt’s body. He told us the Catholic priest would be visiting the hospital within the hour. I decided to call the donation centers while we waited for the priest. The first company I called interviewed me over the phone. They agreed to take her body and gave me a time slot for collecting it.
As we made our way to the hospital cafeteria, I remembered the church in Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred’s hometown. I had gone to services there with them many times over the years. They had both been involved with the church volunteer group. I called the church and left a detailed voicemail for their priest.
After a few hours, the hometown priest still had not called back. I started to wonder if he had gotten my voicemail, how long it would take him to get to the hospital, and whether he would arrive before my aunt’s body was taken away. I could tell my uncle was getting antsy. He was clearly ready to leave the hospital. We decided to go back to the nursing home. Even though I had my doubts, I assured him the priest would be there in time to pray over Aunt Mary.
We walked the long hospital hallway in total silence. Even though it was uncomfortable, I was peaceful, and I felt my aunt was also finally at peace. Her life was not a storybook tale, that was for sure. She had become a prisoner, first in her home and then in her own body.
When Uncle Fred and I walked into the nursing home, two hospice employees were asking the receptionist where to find my aunt. I interrupted and told them she had passed. They shared a puzzled look and said they had just seen her the evening before. I wondered to myself, How does life pass so quickly? Less than twenty-four hours after we had transferred Aunt Mary into hospice, she was gone.
Fred and I walked back to the room he and my aunt had been sharing. There were her bed and the few belongings she had brought with her. It was a sobering thought. I wanted to cry, but Fred had a new imperative. He wanted a haircut. In truth, he probably just needed to get out of that room. They had been roommates for a month at the nursing home, with forty-plus years of marriage before that. His life had just changed. We took the elevator down to the nursing home salon.
Shortly after he finished his haircut, my sister and her husband arrived at the nursing home. I was grateful they made the long drive up from Champaign to help me. Fr
ed said he was hungry and wanted to go to Burger King, so we all went out for a quick meal. We kept the conversation light hearted and shared fond memories of Aunt Mary. After lunch, we all went back to the nursing home and got Uncle Fred settled in. We said our goodbyes and left to go back to my house.
On her way to Ford Heights that morning, my sister had contacted our siblings and my Uncle Leo, our aunt’s only living brother. My Uncle Leo was sad now that both his siblings were gone. I am sure he felt orphaned, although he and my aunt had been at odds for most of the last twenty-five years.
Aunt Mary and Uncle Leo had not spoken for all that time because Uncle Leo’s wife has made an insensitive comment at my dad’s funeral. That the comment was true was immaterial. Aunt Mary thought it was inappropriate for the situation and wrote off both Uncle Leo and his disrespectful wife. Like in so many other Italian families, “You’re dead to me!” was the final exchange of the argument.
But when Uncle Leo’s wife became sick, he and Aunt Mary started talking again. When Uncle Leo’s wife died, they buried their resentments entirely. My Uncle Leo remarried nine months later, and Aunt Mary insisted I take her to his wedding.
As I settled into the long drive home, I did feel sad. Not because my aunt died, but over how miserable most of her life had been. For too much of it, she was noticeably unhappy. She hadn’t married Fred until her mid-thirties which was not the norm in the 1970s.
I was told she had been in love once before she met Fred and had eloped. My grandparents had the police find her and bring her home. Her parents forced her to have that marriage annulled, and she became their caregiver and sole provider until their deaths.
She met Fred while working at a printing company. He was a traveling printing supplies salesman and would regularly visit her office. There was an instant spark between them. He invited her on a date to dinner and the local dance hall. They married quickly, and she moved to Chicago with him. And just like that, she was out of our lives.
