Chapter 20 #3
She went to immediately refute it but then closed her mouth for a moment. Finally, she came up with a meek reply. “Maybe.”
He’d been staring out at her backyard, looking at the same weird shimmering bits and pieces. “What do you mean by maybe?”
“One time I went to get some food for her because she wasn’t a big fan of the hospital food.
And even though I bought her meals all the time, half the time she didn’t even eat them,” she shared.
“That was frustrating, but, if it would do anything to help make her feel better, then I was all for it. Anyway, I came in very quietly one day because I thought she might be asleep. Instead she was talking, and yet nobody was there.”
She raised an eyebrow. “When I asked her who she was talking to, she gave me this angry look, as if I wasn’t supposed to hear. Then she told me that she’d been talking to herself.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“Giving herself marching orders to smarten up and to do better. I started telling her that she was doing great and that everything would work out fine. But it did, at the time, make me wonder who she could possibly be talking to.”
“But she wasn’t on the phone?”
“No.”
“And did it sound as if she were talking to herself?”
“No, it very much sounded as if she were having a two-sided conversation. I hate to say it, but it also sounded like she was getting a response.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment and just stared at her.
Devon groaned. “Tabitha’s probably been talking to people, entities, spirits, for a long time, hasn’t she?”
“It’s quite possible,” he confirmed. “Maybe with their help, she is trying to get back. Maybe one of them had enough clarity to give her some instructions, but, yeah, … that is definitely one of the possibilities.”
*
The next morning Camden got up bright and early, headed to the office, took care of a few issues, and then drove over to the retirement home, where he was meeting Mark Brewster.
As he walked into the home, the receptionist looked up at him and smiled.
When he told her who he was there to see, she frowned, and he held out his badge.
She nodded. “Is this an official visit?”
“It isn’t yet,” he clarified, staring at her, “but are you telling me that it needs to be?”
“He’s just not had very good days lately,” she murmured.
“And you’re thinking that I’ll cause a problem?”
“I don’t want you to,” she muttered.
One of the other staff members walked by. He smiled at the older woman and shared, “Hey, I just came to visit with Mark Brewster.”
“Oh, good,” she replied. “I just put him in the main reception area. Come on. Follow me.”
And, with that, he bypassed the receptionist and quickly positioned himself next to the other woman, who was showing him the way. Camden asked, “How is he doing?”
“Some days are good. Some days are bad,” she noted, her tone nonchalant. “This one is okay.”
“How long has he been here?”
When she looked over at him in surprise, he held out his badge. She shrugged. “Only for a few months. He was trying to live alone, but the nightmares get to him.” She looked in his direction to see if he understood.
He nodded. “I gather it’s been an issue for him over most of his life.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. “He’s had PTSD from that one event in a way that most people never, ever have to experience. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for him. I know what he went through.”
“Were you here back then?”
She nodded. “My family lived here,” she shared. “When we found out, it was pretty rough. Everybody was pretty heartbroken about it.”
“Did you personally know the victims?”
“I did,” she confirmed. “I was maybe, what would I have been? Maybe thirteen, fourteen. I was friends with some of the girls, and I knew the mom pretty well. I spent a fair bit of time over there after school. Of course, after that, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere for the longest time, in case this wasn’t an isolated incident.
My parents were pretty freaked out. Everybody was. ”
“That’s normal for anyone, I would think.”
“The thought that I’d even been in the house where this had happened was enough to get me locked down for quite a while,” she added, with a chuckle.
“I didn’t appreciate it back then, but I was still pretty racked up over losing my friends and the way it happened.
Of course, once all the details got out, it was pretty gruesome.
And just like everybody else, you do whatever you have to do to move on because you have to.
However, you can’t really ever get past it because it was never solved.
I hope you guys are back looking at it again. ”
Camden noted, “To a certain extent, and there’s definitely some interest, but it’s hard if we don’t get more information. And the trouble is, the adults who were around at the time,” he pointed out, “are dying off.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m retiring next year,” she said. “Lots of people who were here back then are gone.”
“So, were the family members into tarot cards or Ouija boards or any of that stuff?”
She turned to him and laughed. “I don’t think so, at least the girls weren’t.
The mom was a little”—she frowned—“different. She used to hear voices in her head all the time. And you know, nowadays, I’m sure we would have had her tested and on medication for it.
But back then, things were different. The family was poor, and there wasn’t a whole lot anybody would do to change anything or to brace the father.
I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he wasn’t the nicest person around. ”
“So I’ve heard,” Camden replied. “Plus, he probably wouldn’t have allowed his wife to be tested or to take medication anyway.”
“No, he sure wouldn’t. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter, even if she was a little tetched in the head.
The girls were very protective of their mom, and she had good days and bad days.
I don’t know that any medical explanation was really given for her mental state.
And I don’t know that anybody would have known her well enough to say what was going on—although maybe Melanie.
… Melanie was her best friend back then. ”
“Is Melanie still alive?”
“She is.” She eyed him speculatively. “She lives here. Do you want me to ask her if she wants to meet with you?”
“Sure,” he said. “That would be great. I’ll talk to Mark first and then maybe Melanie, if she’s open to it. We just really need to double-check with every person who was alive back then and who knew the family and the circumstances.”
“I don’t mind asking her,” the woman offered.
“She’s a pretty open, bubbly person. And that scenario?
As with everybody else, it really devastated her.
There was no rhyme or reason for what happened.
We were all pretty shocked. … For me, it was a complete change from childhood innocence to finding out that the world really was an ugly place sometimes.
That was awfully hard on all of us, regardless of our age. ”
“Of course.”
She motioned toward a small seating room and pointed. “He’s in there. I’ll go talk to Melanie.” And, with that, she disappeared.
He stepped inside and looked at the old man sitting there, just staring out the window. Walking over, he spoke up, so as not to scare him. “Mark, Mark Brewster?”
The man jolted and turned to him.
A wariness filled his gaze, a fear. Camden walked closer and sat down beside him.
Mark, his voice quavering, asked, “What do you want?”
Camden held up his badge and replied, “I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
He looked at him in horror. “I don’t know nothing about nothing,” he declared.
“And I don’t expect you to. Relax. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
That helped to settle Mark slightly, but not enough for Camden’s own peace of mind. “We’re taking another look into the Herschel family murders.”
The old man closed his eyes and shook his head. “That has haunted me for my entire life. Either I need to die so I don’t have to deal with it, or you need to catch whoever did it.”
“That’s partly why I’m here.”