by Becky Durfee
Jenny paused, waiting for Dawn to react; taking the cue, Dawn eventually said, “Okay…a child who is possessed by a spirit with ties to Eden believes they were all murdered? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“I know,” Jenny assured her, “it’s absurd, but I assure you that’s what’s happened.”
“I-I-I…I don’t even know what to say.”
“I can imagine,” she replied sympathetically. “It’s a lot to swallow. I’m used to it by now…” She braced herself and added, “I’m a psychic, so I receive this type of contact on a fairly regular basis, but the first time it happens to you, I know it can be rather overwhelming.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Jenny let out a little giggle. “I guess I should explain this whole situation from the beginning. The child, Addy, had driven with her parents along Route 1 on her way to a family vacation, and it appears the spirit latched on to her as she drove by Eden. Her parents didn’t know exactly what had happened at that point; they only knew that Addy became insolent after that car ride, referring to cops as pigs and talking about her hatred of the man. Considering she was just a small child, they didn’t think she would have ever heard such terms, especially in this day and age, so they were pretty sure she wasn’t simply repeating something that someone else had said.”
Dawn remained silent, inviting Jenny to continue.
“For several years, her parents suspected that she’d been overtaken by a spirit from the sixties, but they didn’t know who it was. Actually, they still don’t know who it is. That’s why I ended up retracing their steps from that family vacation, hoping I could get an indication of who this person may have been. As I drove by Bedford, I felt a tug that led me to Eden. I can only assume the spirit belongs to somebody who resided there at some point.”
“So, what makes you believe it was a murder?”
“My husband and I didn’t know anything about the property when I got led there, so we went to the local police station to ask what had happened at that location. It was then that we learned about the…” Jenny paused to choose her words carefully; Dawn had lost her brother at Eden. “…the tragedy. But while we were at the police station, I couldn’t help but feel like the former sheriff had something to do with the deaths all those years ago. The spirit contacting me was quite adamant that there were no sleeping pills and that The Family’s mass overdose had not been self-inflicted.”
Dawn spoke slowly, as if trying to absorb her own words as she said them. “You think the sheriff poisoned them?”
“I don’t think that, necessarily,” Jenny replied, “but somebody certainly does.”
Jenny heard a sigh on the other end of the phone, which she could only imagine was the sound of a woman who was rethinking everything she had once known to be true. She continued, trying to put Dawn out of her misery. “I would like to get to the bottom of it, if at all possible. I know the sheriff is long since dead by now, so justice can’t be served in that respect, but if I can determine what actually happened back at Eden, perhaps this spirit will find solace and be able to cross over. Unfortunately, this person has been hanging out in limbo for fifty years, trying to find someone who will listen to his side of the story—or hers.”
“And you don’t know who it is?” Dawn asked.
“No,” Jenny replied, “sadly, I don’t. I’m under the impression that the members of the family went by assumed names, so it may be hard for me to find out who it actually is in this case.”
“That’s true. My brother was called Music Maker when he lived there.”
“Music Maker?”
Dawn made a sound that implied affirmation. “The Family believed that people shouldn’t be labeled by what their parents had dubbed them before they even had a personality. That type of branding was just part of the government’s way to control people, according to them. They believed that people should be allowed to choose their own names, and they didn’t have to take the form of a first and last name like convention dictated...it should have been more personal—more indicative of their character.”
“Did everybody feel that way?” Jenny asked. “Is it possible that some of the people kept their given names?”
“I don’t believe so,” Dawn replied. “I am pretty sure it was required that they leave their old name behind.”
“It was required?”
Bitterness rose in Dawn’s voice. “Yeah. There were a lot of requirements involved with becoming a member of The Family.”
“Can you remember what they were?”
“Some of them,” Dawn replied. “One of them was that they had to cut all ties with their families…their real families.”
The inconsistency struck Jenny immediately. “If the members had to cut ties with their families, how do you know about what went on there?”
“We bent the rules a little.” She let out a sigh, suggesting she was having trouble formulating the words. “Robert was rebellious, yes. He wanted to change the world and stick it to the man and all that, but he had a good relationship with me and my mom. He wasn’t willing to cut ties with us altogether, so we pretended that we didn’t know him. We acted like we were just a local family who sympathized with their cause, and we hired them to do odd jobs from time to time. Sometimes Robert did the work for us; other times it was someone else, but it enabled us to stay in touch with him and at least see how he was doing.
“We even managed to sneak in a little alone time with him,” Dawn continued. “A few times, he stayed over for dinner under the guise that he was doing work at our house. My mother had to pay him for his time, of course, to make it look like he had actually done some work. How sad is that? Having to pay to have dinner with your own child?”
“I’m sure it was worth every penny to her,” Jenny concluded.
“Oh, absolutely. It was for me, too. I remember being delighted on the days I could see him. I was, what, twelve or thirteen? And he was my cool big brother, you know?” Her voice became softer. “He was my idol.”
Jenny bowed her head. It seemed that time didn’t heal all wounds; it simply made them more bearable to live with. A deceased sibling would always leave a void, no matter how long it had been. Putting renewed vigor in her tone, Jenny asked, “Okay, so what was the reasoning behind isolating these people from their families? Was it an attempt to make sure members of The Family stayed at Eden and didn’t return home?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. It was part of the brainwashing. Jove, the spiritual leader of the group, claimed that he was all about choice. You get to choose your own name. You get to choose if you wear clothes. You get to choose when you sleep…and the theory was you get to choose your own family. Apparently, though, if you wanted to be part of Eden, you needed to leave your real family behind. I’m sure you can see the irony; Jove claimed to be all about choice, but then he had a rule that said the members weren’t allowed to see their relatives. Where’s the freedom in that?”
“Well, for your sake, I’m glad that Robert found a way to make it work.”
Dawn’s voice grew soft again. “I am, too. I just wish that he never got caught up with those lunatics to begin with. He might still be here today if he hadn’t.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Jenny began, “but how did he get involved with The Family?”
“Of course I don’t mind,” Dawn replied before adding another sigh, her tone returning to its troubled nature. “My mother always blamed herself for it; she was only sixteen when he was born. She was unmarried—hardly in a position to raise a child. She was a child herself, for goodness sake. Needless to say, she made mistakes. I mean, all new mothers make mistakes, but she probably had more than her share due to her age and her circumstances. Throughout my childhood, she always told me she hadn’t been strict enough with Robert—that maybe she was a little too concerned with her own social life to provide him with the structure that he needed growing up. As a result, he lost interest in school and fell into drugs at a rel
atively young age. He officially dropped out of high school on his sixteenth birthday, which was the earliest the law would allow, but he had stopped going long before that. He had become a member of that counter-culture of the sixties…you know, free love and all that. When he caught wind of the fact that The Family had moved into town, he was all too eager to join them. They didn’t work; they lived off the land; they did drugs freely—it seemed like the perfect fit for him. He was a bit upset that they required he write off his family, but he and my mother figured out how to get around that. My mother had since gotten married to my father and had a different last name than Robert, so they could pretend they didn’t know each other.” She let out a cynical laugh. “Not that it mattered anyway; to them he was Music Maker, after all. He could have been anybody’s child.”
Jenny made a face. “I thought your mother and Robert both had the last name Morton.”
“They did—after a while. My father ran off with another woman, so my mother changed her name back to Morton. She didn’t want to have my father’s last name after the way things ended.”
Had Jenny not gotten remarried so quickly, she would have probably gone back to her maiden name as well after divorcing Greg. Becoming a Watkins had been a mistake—something she symbolically would have wanted to undo. “I get that,” she said, “and good for her…no offense.”
“None taken. I love my dad and all, but that was a bad move on his part. There are much better ways to end a marriage. I completely understand my mother’s animosity, even if I don’t necessarily share it.”
A million thoughts were running through Jenny’s head; she had to focus on just one aspect to ask about. “Okay,” she began, gathering her bearings, “when you had these visits with your brother, did you see any indication that he was contemplating suicide?”
“None,” Dawn replied definitively. “And neither did my mother, which is something she agonized over for the rest of her life. I felt so bad for her…I know she thought this stint at Eden was just a phase Robert was going through, and that eventually he’d come to his senses and leave the group. That’s why she was willing to help them so much—she figured that while he was going through this little identity crisis, she could at least make sure he had enough to eat and had clothes on his back. But when it ended like it did, she was heartbroken. Honestly, she was never the same after that.”
“I imagine she wasn’t.” Jenny placed her hand on her belly again, saying a quick, silent prayer that she didn’t outlive this child. She wasn’t sure she could handle it. Pushing that thought aside, she asked the million dollar question. “So, Dawn…do you think it was suicide? Or do you think it may have been murder?”
Silence ensued, which Jenny respected. This was not an easy question to answer. Eventually, Dawn said, “I don’t know. I might be inclined to say it’s both. I mean, their spiritual leader had them brainwashed pretty well; if he had told them all to take a bunch of pills, I imagine they would have. What would you call that…murder? Suicide? I don’t know.”
“So you think Jove was responsible, and it wasn’t the sheriff?”
“Do you really think the sheriff would have killed people?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny replied. “I’ve learned in my last cases that nobody is above suspicion. Just because the man wears a badge, that doesn’t mean he’s of sound character. And the spirit was very adamant that the sheriff had something to do with it when I went to the station. In fact,” she added, “the current sheriff is the old sheriff’s son, and he specifically talked about how pleased his father was when The Family disappeared.”
“He was pleased?”
Jenny realized her word choice may have been insensitive. Taking a moment to figure out how to rephrase it best, she said, “Pleased may be too strong of a word, but he did say that The Family gave his father a lot of trouble. His father was relieved when the incident happened.”
More silence caused Jenny to wonder if she had offended Dawn. The answer became apparent when Dawn simply replied, “I could see that. They did break a lot of laws at Eden.”
“I know of drugs, theft and public nudity,” Jenny said with relief. “Was there anything else?”
Dawn giggled. “I think you could add public fornication to the list. They took the term free love to the fullest extent of its definition, but as far as I know, they left that on the property. The nudity, too. They always had clothes on when you’d see them in town.”
“How did they get their drugs, do you know?”
“I don’t,” Dawn confessed. “Well, they grew their own marijuana, but I’m not sure how they got their other, harder drugs. I wouldn’t think they’d have enough money for that. Nobody at Eden was gainfully employed…they got everything they owned from working odd jobs or stealing. I can’t imagine they could afford a habit for four dozen people.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, I suppose,” Jenny replied.
“I guess so.”
“Now, how was the relationship between The Family and the police? Was there a lot of animosity there?”
“There was certainly no love lost, but I’m not sure the extent of it. My mother used to complain that Sheriff Babson was unnecessarily hard on them, but she didn’t give me details. I was a kid, after all. But I’m also sure my mother had a biased opinion. To be fair, the sheriff probably had some legitimate complaints about the group. The Family was part of that authority-hating counter culture, and I have to believe that they did their fair share of things to make the police department genuinely upset.”
Jenny thought back to young Addy spitting on an officer who was doing little more than standing at the entrance of the State Fair. “You’re probably right.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead or anything,” Dawn continued. “I’m just being honest.”
“Well, honest is what I need if I’m going to figure out what really happened back then.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to tell you much about the relationship between The Family and the police. The one thing I can tell you is that it’s very reasonable to think that Jove directed everyone to take pills. I know my brother wasn’t acting suicidal, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have done it if Jove told him to. Their allegiance to him was blind; I think they would have done anything if that lunatic said it was a good idea.”
“It sounds like Eden was more of a cult than a commune.”
“I’ve never called it a commune,” Dawn confessed. “It was absolutely a cult, in every sense of the word.”
Chapter 12
As Zack continued his nap, Jenny joined the others in the hotel restaurant. Strategically pulling her chair up next to Dr. Wilson, she took advantage of a break in the conversation to direct her statement quietly at him. “I just got off the phone with a relative of one of the members of The Family at Eden. She believes that the spiritual leader would have been capable of orchestrating the suicide.” Jenny held up her hand, correcting herself. “At least, he would have been able to coordinate it. He seemed to have the members wrapped pretty tightly around his finger, so if he gave the command, it would have happened. Whether he had it in him or not remains to be seen.”
“That’s useful information,” Dr. Wilson replied flatly.
“I’m hoping that Kyle will be able to track down a couple who apparently left The Family right before the tragedy; it would be great if we could have the inside scoop about what actually went on in there. I’d also like to send Zack back to the police station when he feels better—he’s sleeping off a headache right now. Hopefully, he can get a good idea of the relationship between the sheriff and the folks at Eden. I’d love to find out more, but I certainly don’t want to go there myself, all things considered.”
“The arrest records should be telling,” Dr. Wilson replied, “and they are available to the public, if you know where to look.”
“Of course!” Jenny proclaimed. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner.” She stood up
excitedly and patted Dr. Wilson on the shoulder. “Excuse me for a second.”
Walking over to the bar, she called Kyle to ask him to look into the criminal records from Bedford throughout the sixties—particularly people who got arrested multiple times before the tragedy but never after. He agreed before adding, “I found the names of the people who had left Eden. It wasn’t easy, but I finally made the connections. They were Troy Bauer and Sabrina Devereaux. I found Troy, alive and well in Minnesota, but Sabrina passed away about a decade ago.”
Jenny pumped her fist in triumph. “Do you have Troy’s contact information?”
“Sure do,” he replied. “I’ll text it to you.”
“Thanks. Have I told you lately that you’re the world’s greatest private investigator?”
“I’m pretty sure you have.”
“Good,” Jenny said. “I wouldn’t want you to forget it.”
The camera was once again situated in the corner of the room; Mary had resumed her place in her chair, the look of worry apparent on her face. The other members of Mary’s family had returned to their hotel rooms so they wouldn’t be a distraction as she tried to convince Matthew to cross over. Even Jenny sat way off to the side.
“You know what you have to say, correct?” Dr. Wilson said to Mary.
She responded with a slight nod, looking as if she was mentally preparing herself for the task ahead. Closing her eyes, she appeared to be drawing every ounce of strength and focus she could muster from somewhere deep within.
“Are you ready to get started?” Dr. Wilson asked.
After a pause and a deep exhale, Mary spoke with conviction. “Yes, I’m ready.”
Just as he had done before, Dr. Wilson went into the hall and retrieved Devon, who entered the room as if he hadn’t a care in the world, followed by his mother, who looked as if that very same world was situated squarely on her shoulders. Devon galloped eagerly over to a table and sat down, kicking his feet in and out from underneath the chair. The deafening silence seemed to have no impact on the oblivious little boy.
