All Those Who Came Before

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

  Glinda didn’t try to argue with her. “We’ll see you later, Auntie. I won’t be gone long.”

  “And I’ll pray for the both of you so the murderous ghosts don’t get you. You know–”

  “Appreciate that, old woman.” Glinda gently shut the front door before Myrtle could say another word, leaving her aunt talking to herself in an empty house.

  ON THE WAY TO 707 SUNCREST Glinda listened as Abigail talked about the house they were going to and how off balance the place made her feel. “Hearing that creepy voice scared me, but the house calls to me and I can’t resist it. It has since the first time I saw it.”

  “Some places have that power. I’ve known a few in my time. The past can weave a powerful spell on the present. Sometimes a place has echoes, almost supernatural impressions, of what has happened there. Good and bad.”

  Abigail was silent for a few miles and Glinda, assuming there was something more on her mind than the house they were driving to, asked what else was bothering her.

  “Do you remember,” Abigail began, “when I told you the reason I originally came to Spookie?”

  “I do. You said your first husband had been found dead, after years of being missing, and you wanted to start a new life. So you left the big city, moved here, and bought a fixer-upper house you made into a home. You made friends. Became the artist you always dreamed of being. Met and eventually married a great man. Adopted two talented, loving children from a family who lost their father and mother within months of each other...and you and Frank try hard to keep them close to their five siblings. You grabbed that new life.”

  “Hmm, you have a really good memory. That’s right. My first husband, Joel, disappeared. I was alone. Those were terrible days. His remains were found in his car two years after he went missing; victim, they deduced, one way or another of a gone-wrong mugging. The police never found out what really happened. I never found out. That was nearly a decade ago. Joel’s actual going missing, I mean. Then it was two years later that they found his body left in his wrecked car in an isolated woodsy ravine. But the police, and the private investigator I hired, never discovered what really happened to him. How he died. It tormented me for years, not knowing. Eventually, though, I put it behind me. I had to. I moved on with my new life; reclaimed my art, married Frank, and adopted Laura and Nick. I made Spookie my forever home. I’ve been happy.”

  “Okay, so why are you bringing this up now?”

  Abigail’s expression was glum. “That private investigator, Andy Bracco, recently passed away and his daughter, clearing out his office and files, wanted to tie up loose ends and sent me the entire dossier on what her father had collected on Joel’s case, thinking I would want to see it.

  “Apparently, and a total surprise to me, Bracco had never stopped trying to find out who killed Joel and had uncovered clues he didn’t have the time to follow up on. I wanted to stash the envelope with the file in it away, not open it, not read it; not tear open the old wounds. Problem was, Frank spotted the packet from Bracco before I could hide it and I had to open it. It brought back so many awful memories and feelings that I asked Frank to throw the file in the trash. He didn’t. Next thing I know he’d claimed the dossier. I caught him rifling through it the next morning at his desk, though I didn’t let him see I knew what he was doing. I’m pretty sure he’s attempting to finish what Bracco began.”

  “Oh, my,” Glinda muttered. She had a suspicion as to what was coming next. “He’s going to continue the investigation, follow the unused clues...attempt to find out how Joel died, if he can. Right?”

  “You guessed it. I don’t want him to but something won’t let me stop him, either.”

  “Could it be because deep down you want him to look for and find the answers...if he can? Could be you want to know the truth?”

  Abigail was driving along the gravel road, her hands clenched tightly on the wheel, but she muttered in a noncommittal voice, “No, I don’t believe so. I don’t want to know the truth. I don’t care. Not anymore. Joel has been dead a long time. Even if I find out what happened to him, he will still be dead. Learning exactly how he died will only torment me more. My old life is a closed book and it should be left closed. I want to go on being happy. Is that too much to want? Really?”

  A weary look had settled on her friend’s face. “But, on the other hand, don’t you think it would be good–if there had been sinister circumstances involved with his death...perhaps connecting another person who might even be responsible for his death, a killer for instance, that the truth is uncovered?”

  “A killer?” Abigail seemed unsure at Glinda’s words. “You think someone might have purposely hurt Joel? Someone killed him?”

  “Well, from what you’ve told me, Joel’s car did crash into that ravine. It was found wrecked. What happens if that crash wasn’t an accident? I’m sure that scenario must have crossed your mind at least once or twice. And what if that person has gone on, is still hurting, other people?”

  “That scenario has crossed my mind, but I’ve refused to go down that road. Therein would lie madness. Joel’s death was bad enough, yet if it hadn’t been an accident, that’s worse. But the trail will be so cold after ten years...it’s been ten years. That’s a long time.”

  Neither woman had to say what they might have both been thinking. A criminal could hurt or kill a lot of people in ten years. A little late to feel guilty about that then, wasn’t it?

  Abigail shook her head, her eyes never leaving the road. “I guess I hadn’t thought about that side of it. That if someone had killed Joel, they would keep on robbing and killing. I guess my only concern was for Frank’s safety, and for not having to relive that nightmare from my past. Makes me selfish, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it makes you human. First and foremost, you have to do what’s right for you and Frank, and for your family.”

  Glinda knew well enough not to say anything more on the subject or give any further advice, unless Abigail asked for it. Abigail would have to work out any of her inner conflicts on her own. The psychic believed she would deal with her Bracco problems one way or another.

  THEY PARKED IN FRONT of the Theiss house. Stretching up her neck to get a good look at all of it, Glinda felt a shiver uncoil somewhere inside her and move through her blood. The structure was different than how she’d imagined it in her mind. It wasn’t as innocent a place as she’d thought. She’d seen many vacant houses like it, rundown and forlorn, when she’d been a child bouncing from town to town on the carnival circuit with her itinerant mother. Sure, it was a rickety structure with flaking paint, a sagging porch, decaying wood and rusty children’s toys in its weedy front yard; simply another unwanted and deserted house, but she could tell it had once been a lovely home. It once had held laughter and love. No longer.

  Yet, the moment she set eyes on the house, she felt that 707 Suncrest was different. It looked...sad. Lonely. Worse, it had a black aura pulsating around it like a dirty cloud. Myrtle had been right about one thing: despicable crimes had occurred in this house and they had left their mark on its very soul.

  She got out of the car and, with Abigail close behind her, moved toward the house. Her eyes never leaving it and all that was around it. The trees, the overgrown yard, the well and ancient swing set. Inside, the house was crying and Glinda could hear it.

  The psychic was thankful the day wasn’t as oppressively hot as the ones before. There was a stiff breeze which cooled the air swirling around her. So she accepted the sweat beading on her forehead, the dizziness she was fighting against, wasn’t from the heat. It was the house. There was something wrong with it and it was lobbing psychic fireballs at her.

  She contemplated the shadows floating behind the windows; noticed the wispy translucent shapes slinking around the grounds. There was a crimson vapor hanging over the well opening. The leaves of the towering trees crowded around the building were home to eerie noises and rustlings like tiny invisible demons whispering to each other. The sound
s chilled the blood in her veins.

  “Yep,” she murmured in Abigail’s direction, “standing here on its soil, staring directly at it, I can see the house is haunted all right. There is something here. Something I wouldn’t turn my back on.”

  Abigail reached out and touched her arm. “Can you tell me what it is?”

  Glinda closed her eyes. Waited. Nothing came to her. No voices on the air, no portents. Nothing. The house was hiding its secrets. “I can’t. Not yet anyway. Something is blocking me.” She walked up to the porch steps. One of them was broken. She leaned down and put a hand against the warm boards on the front of the house. Instantly she felt the electricity knife through her flesh and come out as a gasp from her mouth. Her body jerked backwards and she almost found herself on the ground. Abigail caught her before she hit the earth.

  “Whoa. Are you okay, Glinda? Glinda!”

  Swaying, but still on her feet, she shoved out the words, “I am. Just give me a moment. Let’s go back to the car. I need to sit down.”

  They returned to the shelter of the car. Seated in the vehicle the two women talked.

  “What happened to you out there?” Abigail was regarding her with a troubled expression. “Your eyes rolled back in your head and you nearly collapsed.”

  Glinda didn’t know how to answer her. So many emotions were at war in her head. Fragments of sorrow, grief...terror. “There’s something wrong with that house, Abigail, I can feel it. And that something is malicious.”

  Abigail leaned against the seat, sneaking a peek at the hulking structure before them.

  Glinda wanted so much to tell Abigail to leave the place alone. It had, as Myrtle kept saying, bad juju.

  “I guess,” Abigail broke into Glinda’s thoughts, “you’re going to tell me to run away as fast as I can. Not come back, not paint this house. Correct?”

  “I can’t tell you not to paint this house, Abigail. It’s your job, your livelihood. I’ve helped people with my gift even when I knew there could be danger for me. So I understand. To be truthful, I don’t get the sense the house can actually hurt you. The evil that resides in it isn’t that kind of evil. But I do agree with Frank. I wouldn’t go into the house. Don’t walk on its floors or touch its walls. Just paint it. I don’t think anything can happen to you if you don’t engage with it.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Glinda felt the need to ask, “What happened here, Abigail? Do you know?”

  “Some of it. There were murders committed here in the late seventies. A family perished. One of them, the son, Lucas, was accused and sentenced for the crimes and still lingers in prison. Frank recently found out the details of the crime from his old detective partner, Sam Cato, and Claudia gave me more information or what she could remember about it.

  “She says Irma at The Fabric Shop might know more, the personal touch, because Irma had been good friends with all the Thiess kids way back when. That’s what I was doing in town yesterday, trying to see Irma, but her shop was closed.” Abigail went on to divulge more of what she’d learned about the Theiss house. It wasn’t much.

  It made Glinda uneasy to hear about the home’s jaded history, but when Abigail was finished Glinda looked at the house differently. A family murdered in cold blood. No wonder the place excreted gloom. Possibly that was why the place made her uncomfortable. Yet it wasn’t the house’s fault that people had died there.

  “Thank you for coming and checking this out for me,” Abigail finished the conversation. She was staring at the structure as if it had bewitched her, her eyes unable to break away.

  Glinda experienced another shiver. “Happy to do it. I only wish I could have given you a clearer reading of the house. Something more specific. I will if I glean anything else. I promise.

  “Okay, you can take me home now.”

  “All right.” Abigail started the engine.

  Glinda realized she wouldn’t be content until they’d driven away from the house at 707 Suncrest. It had made her feel slightly ill and she couldn’t understand why Abigail didn’t feel it, too. Or, at least, some of it.

  Once she was home Glinda expected she’d feel better. And she did. The longer she was away from the Theiss house the better she felt.

  Chapter 5

  After Abigail had left to pick up Glinda, Frank took a ride. He was on a leave of absence from his consulting job at the sheriff’s department, because things were slow, to work on his new novel. Sheriff Mearl hadn’t minded when Frank had called up and asked for vacation time. So his schedule and his time were his own to fill. But a novelist’s time, unless there was a set deadline, followed no one’s clock. Frank could easily slip away from his laptop for a couple of hours, or more.

  Frank climbed into his truck and set the GPS for Fairfield, the small city Abigail had left behind eight years before. Fairfield was approximately a hundred miles away from Spookie, so it wouldn’t take him but about two hours or so one way to get there. An easy enough day trip.

  From Bracco’s records, he had the name and the address of the gas station, a Quick Trip on the fringe of town, where Joel had gassed his car up and bought cigarettes on that fateful night he vanished. Frank had the manager’s name, who’d been on duty at the time, because Bracco had noted it as he had the two cashiers’ names and their addresses. Interviewing those QT employees, whichever ones were still working there, was a good place to start.

  He did wonder, on his drive to the QT, how many of the witnesses would still be employed there or how many would still live in the area. Ten years being a long time. But, he supposed, he’d find out who was left and who wasn’t.

  The day was sunny, warm, and the drive was enjoyable. Frank was one of those people who loved to drive. Anywhere. Anytime. Rain and snow didn’t bother him. He got a kick out of driving in them. Bad weather, unless it was extreme like sheets of ice over the roads or impenetrable fog, didn’t bother him. Driving, alone, was his preferred form of absolute freedom, or it had been absolute until cell phones came into being. There’d been a time when he could motor around for hours and no one could reach or bother him. Ah, heaven. Those days, of course, were long gone. The phone attached to his hip reminded him every second that was no longer true. He put the phone on vibrate and continued driving. He switched on the radio to an oldies station and sang along to an Eagles song he knew every word to.

  Driving was also an excellent time to mull over his work-in-progress, reflect on his characters, the plot and what scene he wanted to write next and how he would write it. So the two hours passed swiftly. Good music, fine weather and a wheel beneath his hands. There wasn’t much more a man could ask for. Well, except an eternal love and a billion dollars in a bank account.

  He drove through Fairfield. There were the normal city streets, the tacky sprawling shopping centers, the smaller strip-malls, the shiny-glassed business buildings, the residential areas with the neatly landscaped yards and, beyond the city’s limits, the compact family farms. The downtown appeared like one from the nineteen-fifties, all cozy and cute. Small city chic. Frank had driven through and seen a thousand communities just like it. A normal American city in the American heartland filled with hard-working men and women living their everyday lives.

  It felt odd to travel through the place where his Abby had once lived, worked and loved another man. He hadn’t wished ill on Joel but also grasped if Joel wouldn’t have passed to the other side, Abby wouldn’t have moved to Spookie; he never would have met and married her. There’d be no Laura and Nick or his quirky gang of mystery-solving friends. His life would be very different and a heck of a lot lonelier. His town and his novels kept him busy, but without Abby’s love and the children, he’d have nothing.

  I’m sorry you died, Joel, but your death gave me a great gift and I thank you. I’m taking tender care of your Abigail. We love each other. She’s doing her art. I want you to know she’s happy. We love our children, Kyle, Nick and Laura, and they love us. We have many friends. And maybe soon we’ll h
ave a daughter-in-law we are already fond of and, someday, grandchildren.

  Joel didn’t answer, but Frank had the feeling Joel would have approved.

  First he stopped at the Fairfield Police Station, a dreary looking brick building in the middle of town, and met with chief of police Alex Dunham. Being an ex-police officer, part time consultant now, gave him an instant comradery with the chief. They sat down in the chief’s office with the framed awards hanging on the gray walls and the shag green carpet beneath their feet. Frank introduced himself, explained why he was there and what he wanted.

  “I was hoping,” Frank launched into his appeal, “you’d let me have a look at the file on Joel Sutton’s disappearance–the case was around ten years ago or so–and the ultimate discovery of his corpse discovered in his car in a wooded gorge two years later. Maybe even make me a copy of the file so I can study it in further detail later.”

  Lounging in his cushioned chair with the desk between them, Chief Dunham leaned back and studied Frank with sharp eyes. “That isn’t usually the policy of the department...to let just anyone look at our reports, much less toddle off with a copy of one of them. But, in this instance, because you used to be and still are a part-time police officer, and the old crime is a distant cold case, I’ll allow an exception. We cops stand together; you know that. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind having that cold case off our books. At this point, I wouldn’t care who cracked it, as long as it was solved.”

  “Thanks, Chief Dunham. I appreciate it.”

  The chief tented his fingers on the desk, his stare meeting Frank’s. “Also, I know exactly who you are. I read about your exciting exploits in Chicago two years ago and how you saved those college girls. Excellent job. I am also a fan of your murder mystery novels. You’re quite a writer. So I know I can trust you not to use the report for anything other than your own research. Before you leave, I’ll have one of my men run off a copy of the Sutton file for you.” Chief Dunham used the phone on his desk and asked someone on the other end to pull the old Sutton file, make a copy of everything in it, and bring it in to them.