Molly: House on Fire

by R. E. Bradshaw

  Molly,

  If you’re reading this then I’m already gone. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you one last time. You were always in my heart, Molly. I never forgot you.

  I don’t have the strength to write much and I don’t know who’ll find this after I’m gone. If it isn’t you, I can’t take the chance of saying too much. If it is you, Molly, then I know you will figure all this out. You were always a smart girl.

  Your momma was murdered, as I’m sure you’ve probably figured out by now. I got a call last October, a coin collector looking for your momma. He said she’d given him my number for contact information, if he couldn’t reach her. Said he had letter she wrote him back in 1991, where she asked about $3 gold pieces struck at the Charlotte mint in 1861. He told her no such coins existed. The Charlotte mint never produced a single coin of that type.

  He forgot about her letter, until a Charlotte minted $3 gold piece was located in a bank vault in Raleigh. A man who once worked at the mint could be traced to the person who originally opened the safe deposit box. The coin was one of a small collection of proofs from the mint. This sparked his curiosity and he dug out your momma’s letter. That’s how he reached me. The letter made me curious, too. There’s a legend about some buried gold involving the Branch family. Ask around, folks will tell you, so I won’t waste time telling you now.

  Your momma never spoke to me about any gold. I doubt she had more than fifty dollars to her name when she was killed. I lost touch with her after she got out of the hospital in ’89. The last time I saw her, she was working in old Judge Whitehall’s law firm as a secretary. She looked good, clean and sober. I told you that on your seventeenth birthday. Do you remember? But I wasn’t surprised when they said they found her drunk in a ditch. I didn’t look into it because I really loved your momma and it was time for me to let her go. I feel terrible now that I know she was killed.

  When I started looking at her death in October, I began getting threatening emails. Never could trace where they were coming from, just some random Gmail account that lead nowhere. It got me thinking that someone didn’t want me to know Sarah was murdered. I asked myself what anyone could have gained from her death. She had nothing. Then it dawned on me. She had you. You were about to turn eighteen. She was preparing to come get you. Sarah had a secret and she was about to make her move, before someone stopped her. I can’t tell you what it was. I’m close to putting it together, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of time. Look at my notes and keep digging. I know you’ll figure it out.

  My house was broken into twice before Cheryl was murdered. The police saw Joey with that knife and ignored everything I told them. My investigation was making someone very nervous. He broke in trying to find out what I know and Cheryl stumbled onto him. That’s what happened. Solve your mother’s murder. It will lead you to Cheryl’s killer. Please, get my grandson out of jail. I’m sorry things ended the way they did between us. I thought it best to let you put Dobbs County behind you and you did that, Molly girl, you did that. I would never have asked you to come back here if my Joey didn’t need you. He’s a good boy. Help him, please.

  I am proud of the woman you became. I know you’ll do the right thing. You always had a good instinct for right and wrong. You were a hungry child that wouldn’t steal, that held her head up and looked people in the eye. That’s what I remember about you, Molly. I loved you, more than you’ll ever know. You remember that, no matter what you find out.

  Love,

  Joe

  Molly stood up and walked to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face until her emotions were in check. She dried her face and looked in the mirror. Solving her mother’s murder meant reliving that life, digging up everything she worked so hard to forget. Joe was asking a lot. If Molly started asking questions about her mother’s death, surely someone would bring up Evan’s. Were Joe’s parting words of pride and confidence just another way of reminding Molly of the debt she owed?

  So many people watched a skinny, tough kid take on the world. A few extended a helping hand. Molly had grown to know that helping hands often came with unwanted consequences. The social worker was kind and understanding, but she always removed Molly from the home. As an adult, Molly could see the woman was just doing her job. What Molly saw as a child was completely different. She was not the one that needed help, her mother was. Molly did not need to be removed from the home, her mother did. There was nowhere for Sarah Harris to turn back then, except to Molly. Now, Joe was turning to her too.

  The sun was up when Molly stepped out of the bathroom. The few minutes she took to hold back the rage had worked. No one knew the fury that burned in Molly’s soul, not even her few closest friends. She did not have many and what they knew about Molly was what she wanted them to know, not much. Even the love of her life, Stephanie, was never privy to Molly’s secret past. Maybe if the relationship had lasted she would have eventually told her, but as it was, Molly was glad that she had not. She was not ashamed of her roots. Molly just never wanted anyone’s pity. Pity did her about as much good as the piteous looks and shaking heads that watched a man kill her mother’s soul, one painful fist at a time.

  The digital readout on her phone said it was now 6:30 am. She heard stirring downstairs as the Dawson family rose for the day. Tammy and Brad’s lives went on below her as Molly turned back to the files. She closed the one on her mother and opened the next file in the stack. This file contained a complete record of Molly’s adoption. She was shocked to see Joe was able to copy a sealed file, but then he had been a fixture around the courthouse for so long, nobody would have thought twice about him digging through old files. Molly’s birth certificate was attached to the front of the folder. She had never seen the original before. There was Evan Branch’s signature, proving something she had always wondered. He really was her father.

  Molly flipped the page and began to scan the adoption documents. Her mother signed over full custody, her signature a shaky scrawl. “Deceased” was written where her father’s signature should have been. The Kincaids signed under Sarah Harris and Molly was given away like a piece of property, deeded to new owners. Molly was lucky the family that took her in was kind and loving, she knew that, but it still stung to know she was passed over to total strangers without anyone ever asking her what she wanted to do. The Kincaids later told Molly that an acquaintance knew of their desire to adopt an older child that might benefit from a nice home and a good education. This man was in law enforcement and he knew of Molly’s plight. He suggested they meet her, which they did, and decided it was a good fit.

  Molly remembered meeting them and being so heartbroken that she barely spoke. Her mother did most of the talking. Molly stared at the milkshake they bought her at the diner, listening as Carol went on about the schools Molly would attend and the things to which she would be exposed. Sarah had been thrilled and the Kincaids lived up to their promises. Molly received the best education money could buy. If she were studying ancient Rome, off they would fly to see the real thing. Molly studied the Iliad and the Odyssey where Homer wrote them. Molly was the Kincaid’s project. Carol and Donald delighted in filling Molly with all the knowledge she could absorb.

  Molly owed the Kincaids more than she could ever repay. She did her best by helping to purchase their retirement dream home, in the artistic community of Santa Fe. Although they did not want her money, Molly made sure they were comfortable and well taken care of. She called frequently and visited when she could. Carol was exploring her inner Georgia O’Keefe, while Donald was working on his passion for writing biographical novels, but never finishing one. He was subject to fall in love with the story of a secondary character in one novel, and start researching that person. It was a running joke that if he ever completed a project, Molly would take off work and travel around the world with him in eighty days. They called yesterday morning to wish her happy birthday. Molly really did love them, but at a distance. Her mother was too heavily imprinted on her to let someo
ne else take her place.

  Molly was about to set the adoption paperwork aside, when she noticed the judge’s signature. Judge Marshall Whitehall presided over Molly’s adoption. Sarah Harris worked for this same judge. This must have been how she secured a job with him later. They knew each other and he was aware of Sarah’s challenges. It was a gesture of kindness, by another man whose hands the law tied. Molly would need to talk to the judge. Sarah Harris spent the better part of two years working in his office. He could know something and not be aware of it.

  The final folder was thicker than the other two. Flipping the cover open, Molly came face to face with the burned out shell of her former home, drifting smoke from the smoldering remains frozen in time. An eight by ten glossy, black and white print held the moment, a snapshot of the scene of her crime. The rest of the folder consisted of police and fire department reports, Evan’s death certificate, investigator’s notes, and the transcripts of the Grand Jury testimony in the case.

  Molly remembered that the Grand Jury inquiry was brought about to placate Evan’s mother, who insisted loudly her son was murdered. The prosecutor told Joe it was just to make sure all the bases were covered. Molly had been nervous that her mother couldn’t pull off testifying, but she stayed sober, and valiantly told the tale of how Evan caused his own death while attempting to beat her senseless. Molly told the jury she was not there and only saw the aftermath, but she had witnessed this man beat her mother on many occasions. That part of her testimony was true. As it turned out, no one cared that Evan Branch was dead, except his mother and brother. There were many people in Dobbs County sleeping better with one less Branch to fear.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Molly stepped out of the room at eight o’clock. The house was quiet. She saw Tammy leave earlier, taking the boys to school. Redressed in the clothes she wore yesterday and carrying the files beneath her arm, she descended the stairs. Randy sent a text message a few minutes ago, saying he fetched her belongings from her house and was at the office. He thought he would be in Waitesville in about three hours. Molly sent a message back telling him to come straight to the bed and breakfast and wait for her there.

  Molly left a note on the kitchen counter, telling Tammy she was going out for a bit and to expect Randy around eleven. She felt uneasy about leaving the house without setting the alarm, but settled for locking the door behind her. As she reached in her pocket to unlock the car, she felt the plastic coin case and knew she had to find somewhere safe to hide it. If the coin was what people were dying for, she did not want to carry it around or leave it where it could be found. Once she was safely locked behind the doors of her car, Molly pulled the coin out of her pocket.

  Careful not to break the case, she opened it. Touching only the edges of the coin, she laid it on the center console. Molly took close-up pictures of both sides of the coin with her phone, and replaced it in the case. She needed to know more about it, but whom could she trust to ask? She flashed on an idea. Starting the engine and then the onboard computer, Molly asked the navigation system to find the nearest shipping outlet. Once the route was downloaded, she put the LFA’s purring engine into drive, and headed to downtown Waitesville, seeing it by the light of day for the first time in almost thirty years.

  The navigation system took Molly through the heart of old Waitesville. Railroad tracks divided the town, running parallel with Central Avenue. The wealthy and middle class lived on the east side of the tracks, the blocks laid out on the natural steps of the land, rising from the riverbank below. The poorer citizens spread west from the tracks, out on the flood plain, on cheap bottomland not fit for farming in the wet months and barren in the dry ones, but people still placed all their hopes in the sandy soil. Some folks clawed a living out of the river washed land. Most of them lost all their possessions at least once to high water. Home location, in relation to the tracks, clearly defined one’s social status in Waitesville. Molly grew up on the wrong side.

  Like many small southern towns, downtown was the heart of Waitesville. And like so many of those same towns, the citizens watched the quaint shops and small family owned businesses die out, one by one, replaced by strip malls and shopping centers. Then came the giant indoor malls on the outskirts of town, followed by the big box stores. People began to come downtown only to do city or county business. Molly could tell by the new streetlamps and awnings, decorative benches and bronze artwork, that Central Avenue was undergoing a revitalization attempt, a pattern in small municipalities as they tried to boost revenue. Small town life had become popular again, and Waitesville was doing its part to reinvent itself.

  The car’s electronic voice led Molly to the corner where the old drug store used to be. Joe would bring her here for ice cream, served up by a man in a white apron at the soda fountain. She found a parking place about a half a block further down, dropped a coin in the meter, and walked into a memory. The continuous wall of buildings on both sides of the street could have been anywhere USA. Molly noticed the signs declaring Waitesville’s proud place on the list of national historic districts. The worn redbrick sidewalks, brick banded buildings, arched windows, and paneled storefronts linked by key architectural elements screamed Historical Society mandates. Molly knew renovation guidelines had their place, but her firm once represented a man nearly run out of business, by overbearing conservationists with more money than education. Molly had to prove her client’s building was an original Art Deco design, and forcing him to conform to a Victorian theme was in fact corrupting history.

  The storefronts looked better than they had when Molly lived here. Most of the old businesses were gone, replaced by trendy restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, and even a pub. Spread among the libations and urban delicacies, Molly saw a cigar shop, an antique store, and a few law offices, among them the law firm of Whitehall and Associates. She made a note of the address emblazoned on the forest green awning in gold. A white-haired old man, hunched with age, exited the building. He shuffled toward a waiting car, climbed in, and was driven away. Molly wondered if the old man was Judge Whitehall. He was a tall, handsome man when she saw him last, but he would have to be in his seventies now.

  Molly stuck the phone back in her jacket pocket, feeling the absence of the Walther she left in the car. Surely, she was safe in broad daylight, on a busy downtown street. On the corner, she passed a boutique with stylish women’s wear displayed on emaciated mannequins. Molly was five seven, with a taut athletic body that came from hard work and a conscientious diet. She was an ideal weight for her height and build, but she looked heavy compared to the mannequins in the window. Acquiring a salubrious self-image was hard enough for young women, without being held up to unhealthy standards. Molly decided right then that she would not be patronizing that store, and if the mall was her only alternative, she would just wait for Randy.

  Stepping across the street, Molly walked up to the front entrance of the old drug store. The sign above the door read, “Pop’s Soda Fountain.” Other signage indicated Molly could enjoy a deli sandwich, “hand scooped” ice cream, or old-fashioned malt. She was wondering if the navigation system was correct in leading her here, when she saw the shipping company logo on the front door window. Molly was about to entrust a coin of unknown potential value to the hands of strangers and hope it made it to its destination.

  She climbed the granite steps and opened the front door. A bell above the door announced her arrival, which turned the heads of the customers seated at small tables to the right of the large open space. Heads nodded, as they do in small towns, a silent greeting to both stranger and friend alike. Very similar to the small wave from each approaching car, whether you recognized the driver or not, it was a polite gesture Molly believed they must teach in driver’s education classes in rural areas. On her left, the long wooden counter, pock marked and worn smooth with age, stretched nearly the entire length of the room. The original display cases, from when this was an actual apothecary, were stuffed with Pop’s memorabilia and tee shirts
touting Waitesville as “America’s Hometown.”

  Molly spotted the shipping counter at the back of the store. Crossing the creaking wooden floor toward it, she heard what she often did when strangers saw her, “Is that Jodie Foster?” Molly had to admit the resemblance was uncanny, but being mistaken for a superstar had its drawbacks. She could not remember all the times she had to explain to autograph seekers that she was not the famous Academy Award winning actress. She was sure she’d lost some of Ms. Foster’s fans, when in disbelief they would storm off, murmuring under their breaths about what a bitch Jodie turned out to be. Molly kept walking, hoping no one would approach her. She was thinking about signing the autograph, if asked, just so she would not have to explain who she really was. She was relieved when no one moved to intercept her.

  In the corner, Molly found a small express box, bubble wrap, and a shipping label. No one was at the counter, so she used the surface to fill out the label. She put so much wrap around the coin she had to pop a few bubbles to get it in the box, which she did as quietly as she could. As stressed as she was, if Molly started popping the bubbles loudly, she might have done the whole sheet. Bubble wrap popping could be very cathartic. She found some tape and sealed the coin inside the box. She knew the address by heart, having sent many gifts, letters, and checks to “the old man by the sea,” as she called him. A woman, with dark blond hair, pulled into a net covered bun, stepped up to the counter. She wore a white apron and was drying her hands on a dishtowel. She was short and round, and for some reason Molly thought she knew her.