Chapter 18 Salem
CHAPTER 18
SALEM
The precinct was small, smaller than the BBC premises, and executed even more minimally, just a basic functioning building.
Salem walked in with confidence, and approached the only desk with a smile her socialite mother would’ve approved of wholeheartedly. An older lady sat behind the desk, with short salt-and-pepper hair, maybe in her mid to late fifties, reading a novel. She looked up when Salem approached.
“Good afternoon!” Salem greeted her cheerfully, imitating how she’d seen people do her entire life.
The older lady smiled. “Good afternoon to you as well, my dear. How can I help you?”
Salem flashed her student card, grateful that the university was fancy and it just had the crest on it, all student data and details stored digitally, so she didn’t have to tell the seemingly nice lady her real name.
“I’m a student at the university,” she explained, keeping that smile glued to her face so hard her cheeks were beginning to hurt from those muscles’ previous lack of use. “A senior,” she fibbed. “I’ve applied for the prestigious Excellency Awards, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them.”
“Of course I have.” The lady puffed her chest up. “Been right here in this precinct for nearly thirty years, my dear. Not much about the university I haven’t heard.”
Salem tried to contain the glimmer of hope taking root within her heart. “That’s wonderful,” she told her enthusiastically. “You’re in the perfect position to help me, then.”
“Have a seat.” The lady looked at her encouragingly, urging her to continue.
“I’m interviewing some local Mortimer population for a survey of the town.” Salem took out a notebook from her bag, sitting down on the wooden chair. “Just people who have lived here for ten or more years, and I’m hoping to just ask you some questions. Only if you’re not too busy, of course.” She doubted there was much engagement here, the entire area completely empty, not another soul in sight.
The lady patted her short hair down. “Nah, the weekends are slow and I’m the only one here. I got all the time in the world. What kind of questions?”
Salem shrugged casually. “Just regular questions, about how the town has changed in the last few years, about the university from an outsider’s perspective, normal stuff, you know.”
The lady seemed to consider for a split second, and then she nodded. “Only if you promise not to mention my name.”
Salem had no idea who she was. She was just calling her “lady” in her head.
She didn’t say that, just nodded and began to think quickly on her feet, trying to phrase questions so that they seemed innocuous but were not.
She pretended to rummage around her bag for a pen, quietly turning on the recording app on her phone and slipping it back inside. Pen in hand, she beamed at the lady.
“Shall we begin?”
The policewoman nodded.
“Just for the record, may I know how long you have been living in Mortimer?” Salem asked, starting with the most innocent question.
“Twenty-eight years,” the lady replied, clear pride in her voice.
“That’s great,” Salem agreed with her. “Has the town changed much in the time you’ve lived here?”
The lady considered for a short moment. “Yes and no. Yes, there are definitely a lot more people here now. Businesses growing and people buying houses. No, ’cause the spirit of the town is still the same. We’re all community here. We take pride in preserving our historic buildings. Except maybe the lighthouse, but that one was abandoned long before I started living here. Now no one goes near there. Local legends and all.”
Intrigued, Salem straightened. “What local legends?”
“Oh, they’re rampant in these parts.” The older woman waved it away. “This place is so old, people here made up stories about it and passed it down version by version. The lighthouse, well, it’s said back in the seventeenth century, when it was still in use…”
She paused for a breath and Salem waited.
“Yes, back when it was still in use, the caretakers just up and vanished. The investigators who came to check found half-eaten plates of food and upturned chairs, like they’d left in a hurry, but nobody seemed to know what had actually happened. Since they got no answers, locals refused to go up to the tower to turn on the light, and it just went out of use with time. Now it’s just standing there like a carcass, all rotten and decaying, but no carrions to feed on it.”
The imagery painted by her words reminded Salem of the vultures in her dream, the ones ripping into flesh right outside the lighthouse.
A shiver danced down her spine and she wrapped her cardigan tighter around her.
“That’s a morbid tale,” she muttered and the older woman chuckled.
“Yeah, it is,” she said, tapping her fingers on the table. “These parts are full of them. There are so many morbid tales and legends around Mortimer. Take your library on campus for example. Did you know it used to be a prison back in the day?”
Salem nodded. That one she’d known.
“Did you also know that some say the prisoners, they weren’t kept for crimes.”
“What else were they kept for?”
“Human sacrifices.”
Salem blinked in surprise. The shiver that had danced over her spine seconds ago was joined by another, as she wrapped her head around the rumor. “What?”
“I’m sure there’s nothing to it,” the policewoman reassured her. “Old places like this inspire so many conspiracy theories too. The library has some mad tales about it. Old, abandoned buildings around town, each with their own history and twisted tales. Even the woods, so many places hidden inside them. If I started, it’d be nightfall before I was done listing them all. This place is so rich in folklore.”
Damn.
Salem was not one for eerie stories and local legends born out of mysterious pasts and overactive imaginations. But she couldn’t deny, it was curious.
“Anyway.” The lady came back on track. “Though we have a pre cinct in town, crime is so low I can tell you how many times there’s been something serious in these parts. Best place I’ve lived.”
Taking the opening like the gift it was, Salem scribbled notes and thoughts and casually asked. “That’s so good to know. Anything serious that you remember?”
“Just some kids dying, rest their souls,” the lady informed her sadly. “Most were accidents, a few were not. The university is so big. Pressure is high too. Some kids can’t handle that and choose to end their lives instead. It’s very sad.”
A bitter taste filled her mouth. Salem ignored it and looked up like this was news to her. “That’s terrible! Their poor families. But the university is so prestigious, it must have been just one or two, or we would have heard about it, right?”
The lady shook her head. “I don’t remember the exact number but it was more.”
Salem kept scribbling, as though she was noting down every word. “How did they pass away?”
“Can’t say.” The lady shrugged. “Some were accidents. One overdosed on drugs, one even slit her wrists. It was gruesome.”
No common cause of death, Salem wrote .
“Anyway.” The lady changed the topic, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “The university is a boon for this town. Did you know they give scholarships to children born here? Both my boys graduated from the School of Law. Work as prosecutors now.”
Salem had not known that. That was an interesting little tidbit.
“That’s wonderful,” Salem complimented, wheels in her mind turning at how to bring the conversation back on the right track, when the lady, clearly proud of her sons, began speaking again.
“Yes, the scholarship was such a blessing for them,” she went on, enthused. “They worked so hard and got into one of them elite students’ groups too. It gave them so many connections. You might know it. It’s called Morti something. Mortimoria? Mortimerine?”
Salem froze, her pen hovering over the page in her hand.
“Mortemia?” she asked, forcing her voice to remain steady.
The older lady snapped her fingers. “That’s the one. Mortemia. Great group.”
Salem swallowed the lump in her throat, moved past it. She’d been forced to think of the group thrice in one week when she’d gone years without giving it a thought. What were the odds?
“Do you know how they became a part of the group?”
The policewoman shook her head. “Sorry, my dear. They didn’t tell me any of that. Just the name and how much it helped them.”
Salem adjusted her glasses, pushing them up her nose, just to expel the restless energy filling her body. “So, what does the group do?”
“I don’t know, honestly. My sons got interviews through them.”
Salem nodded, writing that down. Then she put her pen down and closed her notebook, showing that she was done. “Thank you so much for answering. This has been very helpful.”
The lady gave her a nice smile. “Of course, my dear. It was nice talking to you.”
Salem opened her mouth and pretended to hesitate, watching the older woman.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to overstep and make you uncomfortable,” she said softly, looking down at the desk like she was conflicted. She wasn’t. She was just imitating what she’d seen people around her do all the time.
“What is it?” the older lady asked again.
“I was just wondering… Do you know anything about the girl who died two months ago?” There was no way she didn’t know. She worked in a precinct and there had been a death right across that street at the university, and at least for a day, news and media had covered it along with locals talking about it.
The lady looked slightly uncomfortable. “You know I can’t talk about that.”
Damn it.
Salem nodded as if in understanding, swallowing her disappointment. “I get it. It’s just that it was my first week here and I’m a scholarship student too,” she lied through her teeth. “So, it scared me a bit thinking there was some kind of killer on the loose. That’s what everyone on campus was saying.”
The lady looked around even though the entire precinct was empty, in her own words from minutes ago.
“Completely off the record?”
“Of course,” Salem reassured her.
The lady leaned forward, her voice lowering. “It wasn’t murder. She killed herself.”
Salem did not entirely agree. She had seen the marks on the girl’s wrists, evidence that there had been something beyond suicide. Either the police had done a shit investigation, which seemed more and more likely as she realized they had chalked up all these deaths to students not taking pressure well, or the lady wasn’t telling her the truth. She couldn’t tell. All she knew was they had no reasons listed in any of the files as to why the supposed suicides had happened, none except stress.
So, either the investigators were incompetent or the investigation had been deliberately botched.
She highly suspected the latter.
“You didn’t mention what you were majoring in, my dear?” the older lady asked her.
Salem blinked and replied. “Journalism.” Did the university even have journalism? She couldn’t recall.
The lady paled a shade. “Oh, dear.”
Salem felt her eyes narrow slightly at the reaction. “What?”
“Nothing.” The policewoman shook her head. “Just… A journalism major came to talk to me a few years ago too. He had been an applicant for the awards as well. Scholarship student too. His project had been similar to yours, some kind of survey about the university. It’s just so similar, I got déjà vu.”
What the hell?
There had been an actual student with this bullshit project? Or had he made it up like she had to get answers? Answers for what? Could he maybe help her with answers?
“That’s such a coincidence.” Salem couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “Would you maybe happen to remember his name? Just so I can see if he ever published his project and get some help?”
The woman was shaking her head before Salem had finished talking. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible, my dear.”
“Why?”
The older lady leaned back in her chair. “Because his body was found a few weeks after he interviewed me. He had jumped down from the top of the damned lighthouse.”
I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.
—Bram Stoker, Dracula