The blurry figure on our magical screen became clearer. It was Mitch, and he was reaching into the back of a closet.
“What is he doing?” Penny asked.
“I doubt he just got a spur of the moment urge to do some dusting,” I said.
I watched with curiosity as Mitch pulled a shoebox out of the closet, and walked with it to his kitchen. He stuffed it into a trash bin and then dusted off his hands.
“Looks like he’s pretty darn eager to get rid of that box,” Penny said.
“For sure,” I responded thoughtfully. I watched Mitch carefully. He seemed to be relieved that his chore was done.
He headed back through his house, and then made his way around to the back yard where he resumed work on his bumper.
I pulled on the end of my braid and continued to watch Mitch. “He seems so much less anxious now,” I murmured as I watched him walk over to his stereo, crank up the music, and then nod his head a little bit to the music, and pick up his screwdriver.
“It’s like getting that box out of his closet had some kind of significance for him,” I said. “He feels lighter now.”
“I wonder what’s in it?” Penny said. “It’s got to be related to Shirley… don’t you think?”
I nodded. “I think we should sneak into his kitchen and look through the box,” I said.
“Breaking and entering… on Halloween?” Penny said. She clapped her hands. “Ohh… exciting! I’m in! This is so much better than writing down my lines for introducing the puppet show. Did you know Cora actually wants me to plan out what I’m going to say? Ha! I’m just going to wing it. I’ll be fine. It’s just a show about a pack of sharks. Or was it wolves? Whatever.” She waved a hand dismissively.
Then she pulled out her phone. “It’s only four o’clock, so we have a whole hour before we’re supposed to meet Cora at the park to get set up. That’s plenty of time for a quick snoop session!”
“There’s a reason why we’re best friends,” I said happily, looping my arm around her shoulders. I gave her a tight squeeze. “I don’t think anyone else would break into Mitch’s house with me. But you’re excited about it.”
“Of course I am!” Penny said. “Let’s find out what’s in that old shoebox! Let’s crack this case wide open!”
5
Penny and I darted across the open lot in front of Lackey Mechanics, where we’d been parked just minutes before. I could still hear the heavy metal music coming from the back yard. It was louder than it had been when we were visiting with Mitch, thanks to the fact that he’d just turned it up. The sound was grating to my ears. I much prefer relaxed, low key music than the intense sounds of metal. I tried to block it out as we scurried over to the front door.
Penny yanked the front door open. “It’s unlocked!” she said triumphantly.
“Shh!” I put my finger over her lips to remind her we were in the midst of a covert operation.
We hustled inside, and I closed the door behind us with a soft click.
The house was dimly lit compared to the bright outdoor sunshine. I led the way to the kitchen and then pulled the trash can out from under the sink. The shoebox was right on top, sitting on a pile of what looked like empty beer and soda cans. “He doesn’t recycle!” I said, appalled.
Now it was Penny’s turn to shush me. She did so with enthusiasm.
The faint thud of music emanated through a window toward the back of the kitchen, which I was sure led to the back yard. I walked over to the window and peeked outside. I could see Mitch, with his back to the house, working on his truck. He now had a big new bumper in place, propped up on two sawhorses. It was black and beefy, and looked like one of those grilles that’s supposed to protect the hood of the car in case of a run-in with wildlife.
“We’re okay,” I said quietly. “He’s still working.”
I walked the box over to the kitchen counter, set it down, and opened it up.
Penny joined me in shuffling through the contents. There were piles of old pictures, receipts, a few cards, old fishing licenses that said “Oren Lackey” on them, and other keepsake items. As I rummaged around I found a set of keys, a beat up keychain, and a GI Joe figurine.
Penny found the photo first. “Check it out!” she said in an excited whisper. “That’s Shirley Allen, right?” She showed me the photo.
It was a small, faded color photo of two people. The young, pretty woman in the photo was definitely Shirley. She wore a long skirt, and she had two braids and a crown of daisies around her head. I recognized the half-coin pendant around her neck. The young man in the photo was perhaps a few years older than Shirley. He looked an awful lot like Mitch, but I knew it couldn’t be. He had the same dark hair and Greek features, but he was about Shirley’s age, if a little bit older. In the photo he was shirtless, and wore loose fitting pants with holes in the knees. Around his neck was a necklace with a silver half-circle pendant. Shirley was kissing him. I flipped the photo over. “Shirley and Oren” was scrawled on the back, along with a heart. “Forever and Always. ‘68.”
“This was taken two years before Shirley died,” I said.
“And Oren was married in ‘67,” Penny said. She pulled a piece of paper from the shoe box, and I saw that it was a wedding license. My friend may not be the best at focusing, but when she applies herself she can be very clever. She went on. “He was married to another woman, Fay Lackey. Remember her? I used to see her around town when I was a kid; she was married to Oren until she passed away, a few years before he did.”
“Woah,” I said to my friend. “If Oren was already married to Fay in ‘68, when this picture was taken, that means Oren was cheating on his wife.”
“With Shirley,” Penny said.
Another thought occurred to me. I pointed to the necklace in the photo. “That’s the same necklace,” I said. “And the necklace we found has the words ‘Forever and’ on it. I'm guessing Oren wore the other half -- the half that said ‘Always.’ I bet he only wore it in secret, so his wife wouldn’t see. Maybe he kept it…”
I dug around in the box, until my fingers touched something that felt like half of a flattened coin. As I pulled it out, an idea hit me. “This is the final clue that Shirley’s ghost was leading us toward!” I said to Penny. “We got the first one, ‘Beaver Pond.’ Then we got ‘stain on Bug.’ This is ‘Other half of coin!’ This is the final piece of evidence that Shirley wanted the cops to find, all those years ago! I bet she thought that if she directed the cops to figure out who wore the other half of the coin, they’d find the killer!”
“And Oren was the guy who wore the other half of the necklace,” Penny said, as she pointed to the little half disc of silver that hung from Oren’s neck in the photo.
“Got him!” I said. “Now we just have to take this evidence to the cops. Maybe they’ll be able to get a dive team into the pond and they’ll find something we missed, or they could analyze that blood stain in the back of the --” I stopped short when I heard the sound of a door opening, not too far off.
Then there were footsteps in the hallway.
I looked wide-eyed at Penny. She appeared just as panicked as I felt.
I slipped the photo into my vest pocket, and dropped the coin necklace in there, too.
Penny swooped up the box, and made a run for the trash can. I think she was going to try to toss it back in there before Mitch found us, but she froze before she got there. I’m sure she was petrified, just like I was. I heard his footsteps getting louder, and then he called out. “Someone in here?”
“Eek!” said Penny.
I tried to hush her. If Mitch would just turn and go into another room, we might be able to climb out the window, I thought.
Mitch’s steps stopped as Penny's cry hung in the air. Then he started walking again. “Who’s there?” he called out.
He appeared in the doorway, and he did not look happy. “You two,” he said. His eyes landed on the box in Penny’s hand. “What do you think you’re doing, goi
ng through my trash?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops,” he growled.
He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and dialed. “I’d like to report a burglary,” he said into the phone. “I have two women in my kitchen right now who entered my house without my permission. Ain’t that against the law? ...Yes sir… yes, sir, I will… mm hmm.”
He glared at us as he spoke. When he hung up, he folded his arms over his chest. “Cops’ll be here any minute,” he said.
“Oh, good!” Penny said. She sounded bold, as though she’d recovered from her initial panic. “That means we can tell them all about what your uncle did. He killed Shirley Allen and dumped her body into Beaver Pond -- and we can prove it!”
Mitch’s face paled again, but he didn't stop glaring at us.
“Go on then, try to prove it,” he said. “That all happened years ago, and my uncle is dead. None of that changes the fact that you two broke into my house.”
He was right. I felt my heart beat a little bit faster.
I was starting to question whether our evidence would really hold up, anyway. Did the fact that Oren and Shirley wore matching necklaces and may have been romantically involved really prove that he killed her?
And how would finding her half of the necklace in Beaver Pond prove that her body had been there?
I was starting to see the case through the police’s eyes, and it wasn’t good. I wouldn’t be able to tell them that about Shirley’s desperate message without speaking to the fact that I could see ghosts, and I wasn’t ready to go there.
I gave Penny a panicked look, and she seemed to read my mind.
She spoke up. “Hey, we were just trying to do the right thing and figure out who killed a nice hippy lady fifty years ago,” she said. “We wanted some answers, and we found them, so we’ll just be on our way.”
“I don't think so,” Mitch said. “You bothered me before with your questions, but breaking into my house crosses the line. I want to see you both leave here in handcuffs.”
“Is that really necessary, Mitch?” I asked. I tried my best to send him some peaceful energy, but it didn’t seem to have an effect. His face stayed hard and his arms remained crossed over his chest.
“We really were just trying to do a good thing and find some answers for Shirley’s family,” I said. “You know Ava Allen, right? It’s really tough for her, having the mystery of her aunt’s death go unsolved.”
This seemed to affect him, but just a little. His face softened but then turned hard again as the sound of sirens off in the distance floated into the kitchen.
“I don't care,” he said. “You’re both going to jail.”
“But it’s Halloween,” Penny said. “And we’re supposed to go to the park soon and help our friend Cora set up for the town party. Marley here is going to be a beautiful bohemian gypsy fortune teller and I’m going to be a cat and MC the kids’ puppet show. It’s going to be so fun! And if we go to jail we’re going to miss it.”
“And you might miss it, too,” I said. “You’ll miss the dancing and the music and all the fun. You’ll have to go to the police station and fill out a bunch of paperwork. It will be a big ordeal.”
“Ugh, an ordeal!” Penny said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Such an ordeal. Believe me; been there, done that. So just let us go and let’s forget all about this, why don’t we?”
The sirens grew louder.
“I hate parties and dancing,” Mitch said.
“Who hates dancing?” I asked. Now I had some serious concerns about Mitch Lackey. I loved dancing, and it truly disturbed me that he wasn’t a fan.
“Dancing is the best,” I said.
“I’m not very good at it,” Penny said. “Except for line dancing, which I can kind of sort of do, but sometimes I also mess that up.”
“Girl, you can totally line dance,” I said. Penny used to really struggle with self-confidence, and I didn’t want to see her fall into that old pattern. “Remember last Wednesday when that Billy Radcliff song came on, and you totally --”
“Do you two ever shut up?” Mitch cried out, his voice tight with annoyance.
Just then there was a pounding on the door. “Police!” a voice called out. It sounded like Chris Wagner, Penny’s ex-boyfriend.
Then we heard more footsteps in the hallway.
“Oh, great,” Penny said. “Chris is going to arrest us.”
“And we’re going to miss the party,” I lamented. “Cora is going to be so mad at us!”
“Are we going to have to spend the night in jail?” Penny asked.
“You’re going to be there a lot longer than that,” Mitch said. “Breaking and entering is a felony.”
I was starting to wonder if Penny and I would be able to find a way out of the jam we were in. If we didn’t, the day was going to go down in the history books as the worst Halloween ever.
6
Police Captain Chris Wagner appeared in the kitchen doorway, with his partner Ted McDougal slightly behind him. Chris did not look happy to see me and Penny, nor did he look all that surprised.
“I had a weird feeling it would be you two,” he said with an exasperated sigh as he lowered his gun. “What’s going on here? You might as well fill me in.” He looked from Penny to me to Mitch.
All three of us spoke at once.
“Chris! Mar and I solved Hillcrest’s most mysterious cold case,” Penny said.
“This is all just a misunderstanding,” I said.
“These two broke into my house,” Mitch said.
“Oh, boy,” Chris said. He reached up and rubbed his forehead. Then he looked at Penny. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Town Park soon? I just saw Cora heading there and she said you were going to meet her to help with set up for the party.”
“Yeah, but we had an hour to kill before we were supposed to meet her,” Penny said.
Chris shook his head.
Mitch looked furious. He pointed to Chris. “Do something, man! You’re a cop! Arrest these two! I want to see handcuffs.”
He was really worked up. I sensed something beneath his anger. His energy was off. I remembered my intuition that he was hiding something. Why was he acting so guilty about the box of keepsakes? Why had he been so eager to stash it in the trash? And why was he using anger as a defense mechanism?
I spoke to him in a calm tone. “Mitch, something’s going on with you emotionally.” I focused on feeling peaceful as I spoke, and I tried to flow that tranquility over to him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Chris’s face turned pink. My statement seemed to embarrass him for some reason. Maybe it was because he’s a stereotypical jock when it comes to talking about feelings, meaning he’ll do anything he can to avoid it. He adjusted his belt and cleared his throat. “Marley, I don’t think Mitch here wants to --”
Penny interjected. “Maybe he does,” she said. She eyed Mitch. “What do you think, buddy? Want to tell us why you’re feeling so upset and angry?”
Mitch surprised us all by nodding. He lowered himself down into a kitchen chair as if he was suddenly too exhausted to stand, and placed his head in his hands. “Man, I should have come clean two years ago, when he died,” he said.
I could see that my wave of peace had washed over him and relaxed some of his tension. And as he spoke, he seemed to calm down even more.
I sat down on one of the wooden kitchen chairs next to him. “You mean when your uncle died?” I said softly.
He looked up, directly at me. For a minute I saw fear in his eyes, and he looked sort of like a child. “Yeah, when Uncle Oren died. I knew he was an angry old man sometimes, but I didn’t expect --” He stopped short, and looked at his hands.
Penny took a seat, too. Then Chris, and Ted. Once we were all seated around the table, Mitch went on. “See, I knew Uncle Oren had anger issues. I think I picked that up from him, workin’ with him all those years like I did. But I always thought his crazy outbursts were pr
etty harmless. Then, when he was on his deathbed, he told me something.”
We all leaned in.
“What did he tell you?” Penny asked.
“He said -- he said he killed Shirley… he was havin’ an affair with her, way back all those years ago. He said they got into a big fight one night, and he just lost it, and did her in. He had to get the secret out, before he died. He wanted to tell someone. He felt guilty about it. It tore him up inside real bad.”
Mitch looked around the table at us as he went on. “Then he died, and I was left with the secret. I thought it would look real bad for the family, so I kept it to myself. But it was eatin’ me up inside. I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“You're doing the right thing now,” I said, giving him an encouraging nod. “It’s good to get this out in the open. Thanks for being honest. I know Ava Allen will appreciate it.” And so will Shirley’s ghost, I thought.
Chris pulled out a notepad and started jotting some notes down. After he wrote a few things, he spoke. “Mitch, do you think you could come to the station with us, and say all of that again on a recording? We’d better do this correctly.”
Mitch nodded.
Chris stood up. “Good,” he said. He eyed Penny and me. “You two better come with me in the cop car. Ted, I suppose you’d better cuff them. Sorry girls, it’s just what we have to do to follow the standard operating procedure. Mitch, we’ll take down your official statement about the break-in when we get to the department… that is, if you still want to press charges?”
Mitch eyed us.
He looked like a man unburdened. His expression was softer, his shoulders less tense, his eyes clearer.
He met my gaze, and a flash of understanding passed between us. I sensed he felt better, internally. I felt happy about that.
He looked away.
Cold Cases and Haunted Places Page 11
