18
Mandy already knew she wouldn’t sleep so didn’t bother.
She oversaw the careful collection of the infant bones by the ADME, as the forensic anthropologist, Debs, was still busy at the first scene.
Using a pair of tweezers, Schwartz delicately lifted each tiny piece from the old pottery, placing them in a glass jar roughly the size of a baby food container. The irony was not lost on any of them.
“I have no idea if these are eighteenth- or twentieth-century remains,” Schwartz stated.
“But even I can tell you these bones were sealed in the crockery already devoid of soft tissue. Otherwise, we’d see evidence of decomp and the contents would be a much messier affair, especially for the, uh, ledger. ”
“Someone interred the bones of an infant—”
“Or infants,” Schwartz corrected. “Can’t tell you that, either.”
“Infants, sealed up with a historic register,” Mandy revised. “Then dropped it with a probably-still-living female into a well, which was then, in turn, boarded up. Did I get that right?”
“That scenario would be consistent with what we know thus far. Though…” The ADME’s professional veneer cracked. “How totally completely fucking horrible. And sadistic. Not to mention twisted.”
“Kind of like burning someone alive at the stake,” Mandy murmured.
But she wasn’t ready to discuss it further just yet.
She needed time to think. And, in all honesty, to talk to Betty, who’d clearly wondered about it herself.
Sometimes, local legends were simply legends.
But sometimes they were based on something more.
Given the extraordinary developments, they were well beyond the official handbook for jurisdictional procedure.
After a bit of discussion, Mandy and Schwartz agreed all human remains would head to the ME’s office, while all collected evidence would go to the state lab under the auspices of Major Crimes.
As town police chief, Mandy wouldn’t be left out in the cold, per se, but next steps would happen nearly a hundred miles away in Concord.
Given the geographic disconnect, not to mention Mason’s nearly primal moan of suffering upon being forced to hand over the register, Mandy snapped extensive photos of the ledger pages.
That would give the historical society plenty of content to research, while the original volume was entered into evidence.
She sent Betty and Mason on their way with the photographed pages and instructions for strict radio silence.
Bad enough the media was already salivating over human remains found on the old Dixon property; they might be able to pass that off as a historic relic/coincidence, which would lose traction soon enough.
But baby bones sealed in colonial-era crockery?
No way that wasn’t a viral story in the making.
Like all small towns, Shereford wasn’t that fond of outsiders. And Mandy could already tell, neither were Theo and Raquel Collins. Which was another thing giving her a headache. How had Raquel known? Not even Mandy or the ADME had encountered anything like this.
Mandy had been up for nearly thirty-six hours. Her town was in crisis. Her thoughts were in chaos. She needed to stop, think, and strategize. She also needed a hot shower and a solid meal.
She did as she’d been doing since she was a teenager trapped in a claustrophobic town where her father was sheriff and she felt like a bug stuck beneath a microscope; she climbed into her vehicle of choice and got the hell out of there.
Night driving in the mountains involved caution.
Wildlife, not to mention drunk tourists, could appear without warning.
Mandy wanted to say she was a consummate professional with not just a badge but hours of training behind her.
Honestly, she felt sixteen again, taking corners too hot, hitting straightaways like a rocket, then roaring her way up the next incline.
She drove not for the destination, but for the journey.
Not to see but to know. And maybe, not to remember, but to forget.
And as always, the single thread throughout all of her years, she ended up right back where she started.
The tiny, inescapable village of her youth.
The home her parents chose because they thought it would be a great place to raise a child, without ever considering someday that child might be a teen, then an adult.
Mandy pulled up in front of Betty’s house. Where all the lights were still on. Almost as if the older woman was expecting her.
“I made you a sandwich,” Betty greeted her at the door.
“I’m fine,” Mandy replied out of habit.
“Don’t be stupid.”
That was harder to refute. Mandy stepped inside, accepted the sandwich.
Which involved slow-roasted turkey, homemade stuffing, and cranberry sauce, though Betty had been out all day, same as Mandy.
Sometimes she couldn’t decide if such offerings were a gift or a rebuke.
Because God knows the best Mandy could do for sustenance after such a grueling experience was corn flakes. Fine, Cap’n Crunch.
Sandwiches, at least, didn’t rate full dining room regalia. Mandy was allowed to carry the late-night offering to the sofa, where Betty had both a cup of steaming tea and two fingers of whiskey sitting on a side table. Tough day for both of them.
“You’re spiraling,” Betty stated.
“You are too.” Mandy nodded toward the older woman’s beverages.
“My word,” Betty sighed. “I never thought, never anticipated…This was a day for the ages.”
“On that we agree.”
“You have questions.”
“More than I assume you have answers.”
“On that we agree.”
Mandy took a bite of sandwich. Damn, it was good.
And, man, was she starving. Funny the things you could overlook until they all but slapped you in the face.
Is this what her mother had done for her father?
Greeted him with food and sympathy, knowing she’d married a cop and this came with the job?
Mandy had grown up with a lawman father, and sometimes the sheer resentment over missed meals, events, promises had gnawed on her like a rat.
Her parents, best she could tell, had had a solid marriage.
The resentment had belonged to Mandy and Mandy alone, which had only alienated her more as she grew up.
With age came regret, which was mostly useless, so Mandy tried to focus on understanding instead.
“My father would disappear into his study after hard days. Kiss my mother on the cheek, pat me on top of the head, then grab his food and retreat behind closed doors. I always assumed he was going back to work, maybe writing down his thoughts while they were still fresh in his head. Now I wonder if it wasn’t so he could collapse out of sight of prying eyes. ”
“Probably a bit of both.”
“What do we know?” Mandy mused. “I’ve been trying to break it down in my head. We can be pretty certain a young female was sealed into that well, alive long enough to try to force her way out. I’m leaning toward historic crime. Like early eighteenth century.”
“The register would support that. No entries after 1791.”
Mandy kept staring at her. That wasn’t the main reason behind her reasoning, and they both knew it.
At long last, Betty exhaled. She raised her glass of whiskey. “You’re wondering about the local legend. How much of it did we just uncover, turning folklore into fact?”
“So are you. And Mason. I heard you both whispering.”
“She appeared midwinter,” Betty recited softly.
“Walking straight out of a blizzard without any coat or shoes, appearing before the townsfolk like a product of the storm itself. Jet-black hair, bloodred lips. A maid barely out of the classroom. She told them she’d lost her way in the woods.
She begged for a cup of tea, a chunk of bread.
The villagers felt sorry for her, a mere girl all alone in the world.
They offered her a hot meal and warm shelter.
Afterward, with no means to pay for her food and board, she announced she’d best move on. ”
“The villagers begged her to stay,” Mandy provided. “The men staggered by her beauty, the women drawn to her tender years.”
“She agreed to work for her keep, tending the young, nursing the old. House by house.”
“But then the children started dying,” Mandy intoned. “House by house. First the older ones, then the younger ones, then the babies. House by house by house.”
“And the townspeople began to whisper.” Betty’s voice picked up. “Surely there must be a reason. Some great sin or terrible evil driving their punishment. A witch, stealing away the souls of their children.”
“A witch with jet-black hair and bloodred lips.”
“They rounded up the girl they’d allowed to live in their midst. They demanded she repent her evil ways. And when she refused—”
“Protested her innocence, more likely.”
“They dragged her to a frozen pond, where they hacked a hole in the ice and tied rocks around her waist. Let this be the test: A god-fearing woman would be saved.”
“Poor thing,” Mandy murmured.
“Staring into the icy abyss, the young woman swore one last time she was not a witch. And then she uttered a great and terrible curse. As they had accused her of, so it would be. They would lose a child every winter, to remind them of their treacherous ways.”
“A pretty safe curse, if you think about it,” Mandy interrupted. “In those days, I’m sure at least one child died every winter.”
“But according to the legend, she would appear with the snow and lure away an innocent into the woods never to be seen again. That’s fairly specific.”