The Halloween House Read online

  “I can help you hang them tomorrow if you’d like,” Tony offered.

  “I’d appreciate that. I still need to find some pumpkins for the porch. Did you get yours at the market?”

  “No, I got them at the farmers market in Kalispell. I’d say we could run down there and pick some up for you, but I don’t think we’ll have time. I’m fairly certain the little seasonal nursery south of town is selling pumpkins. We can run over there tomorrow if you’d like.”

  When the dogs had had their fill of exercise, we headed back inside, and I fed all the animals while Tony whipped up the omelets and toast. Not the gourmet meal I’d been expecting when we’d set out for dinner tonight but delicious, especially after the crazy evening we’d had.

  “What else did you dig up on the Harringtons while I was at the clinic this morning?” I asked as we ate.

  “I ran out of time to look too deeply, but I pulled the report for Hillary Harrington’s disappearance. There was an adequate if not inspired investigation. The man in charge could have done a lot more to follow up on leads that initially didn’t seem to go anywhere, but I can’t say anything was swept under the rug, as some residents at the time seemed to think.”

  I took a bite of my cheesy omelet, chewed, and swallowed. “It does seem as if Hillary’s disappearance set off the series of events that escalated as time went by, and the fact that the father didn’t come for his children is, in my opinion, the oddest thing of all. I think there’s a story to uncover.”

  “I agree. And now that I’ve finished my project and have some extra time on my hands, I’m willing to do some more investigating. You in?” Tony asked.

  “I’m in. We were supposed to play video games tonight, but how about we clean up here, then head downstairs? We should come up with a list of questions to ask Mrs. Bradford. She might be willing to meet with us tomorrow, and I want to be ready to get the most from our conversation.”

  “Researching all the deaths while the Harringtons lived in that house might waylay us. I suggest we focus on Hillary’s disappearance, then see where that leads us.”

  It felt wrong to be excited by the idea of investigating the probable murder of a young girl, but I was. It felt good to be back in the thick of a mystery with Tony again. Digging for facts and developing theories really was a rush if you allowed yourself to admit it.

  The first thing Tony did was pull up the report of Hillary Harrington’s disappearance he’d hacked into earlier in the day. As we knew, she was fourteen when she moved with her mother and siblings to Harrington House. According to statements obtained at the time, she hadn’t been happy about the move and was resentful that she’d had to leave her school and friends behind. While the other Harrington offspring seemed to have gone along with their father’s wishes, Hillary acted out in a loud and forceful manner. Not only did she sneak out of the house on numerous occasions, but when she made her way into town, she made sure that anyone who would listen knew what a monster her father was for destroying her life and the lives of her brothers and sisters.

  I guess I could understand why she was so upset. To be torn from her world and isolated with only her siblings for company had to have been unimaginably difficult. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why the girl’s father would have done such a thing. No matter how many different ways I tried to look at it, the move seemed cruel and unnecessary. Frankly, I was surprised to find that Hillary was the only Harrington to have acted out over it.

  “I wonder if a boy was involved,” I murmured, interrupting as Tony went through the notes he’d taken. “Hillary went to bed and then snuck off during the night. Her bloody clothes were found in the woods the next morning. Sneaking off alone after dark seems to me to be the sort of thing a girl looking to hook up with a guy would do.”

  “That was considered an option,” Tony answered. “From the interviews conducted, if she was meeting a boy, no one knew who he might be. Of course, it also tracks that she might have kept that information to herself. From what I’ve gathered, her father wasn’t at all happy to find out she’d been going around town bad-mouthing him. One teen said Hillary’s father had hired a man not only to help out with household repairs but to make sure Hillary stayed locked up in the house.”

  I frowned. “What man? Is there a name?”

  Tony looked at his notes. “It just says a man. I haven’t found any other references to a man hired by Hillary’s father, so the report might not even have been accurate. The one really consistent thing I’ve found is that the interviews were spotty. It appears information may be missing.”

  “I had a chat with a man named Colton at the clinic today. He told me White Eagle hadn’t been incorporated back then and was little more than some residences and businesses that had sprung up from the lumber operation in the area. According to him, there was only one person, Peter Bennington, who was hired to enforce the law, and he focused on crimes that took place closer to the little settlement where most of the people lived. Harrington House must have seemed even farther from town back then. Maybe he did a perfunctory search before moving on to crimes closer to the area he was hired to protect.”

  “I guess it might have happened that way. Still, Hartford Harrington was a rich and powerful man. I would think he’d have pushed for answers, but apparently, he didn’t.”

  The more I learned about Hartford Harrington, the less I liked him. He sounded like a sociopath who seemed to have decided he no longer wanted his family, so he’d stashed them away where they wouldn’t interfere with his life. What a scumbag. “Okay, go on. What else do you have?” I asked after I tamped down my anger just a bit.

  Tony returned his attention to the computer screen and took a minute to look at his notes. “As we know, Hudson Harrington thought Wilbur Woodbine was responsible for Hillary’s disappearance. He said Wilbur lived on the adjoining property, and for reasons he didn’t fully understand, Hillary took a liking to him. Hudson caught her sneaking off to visit Wilbur, a man in his twenties, on several occasions. Hudson was aware that his sister wanted to punish everyone around her for disrupting her life, and he made the leap to there being more than friendship going on.”

  I made a face. “Did he think they were having an affair?”

  “Not in the strictest sense. From what Hudson said to others, it seemed he thought they were doing things a grown man shouldn’t be doing with a child.”

  “Did he have any proof? I mean, more than just a hunch?” I asked.

  “Not that I could find. But that was a very long time ago, and I don’t have a record of Hudson’s actual thoughts about the matter. All I found was speculation and secondhand accounts of conversations.”

  “So Hudson confronted Woodbine and was shot and killed.”

  Tony nodded. “Wilbur never wavered from his insistence that he didn’t have an inappropriate relationship with Hillary. He said she was an angry and lonely child who sometimes came over to his place to complain about her life. He’d listen and offer sympathy, but that, he said, was the extent of it.”

  I furrowed my brow. “I suppose it could have been that way, but I can also understand why Hillary’s brother might have had a problem with her having a secret relationship with a grown man. The whole thing feels hinky.”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  I tried to put myself in the mind of a fourteen-year-old adolescent who had basically had her entire life pulled out from under her. I couldn’t even imagine how devastating that would be. Fourteen was such a difficult age anyway, but to feel imprisoned by your own father for no apparent reason? At least I didn’t know of a reason. I just didn’t get it. “Who else was looked at regarding Hillary’s disappearance?”

  “No one,” Tony answered. “Other than Wilbur, no one else stood out as a suspect. You have to remember, there was no real police force in town, just one man paid to keep the peace. The family was new to the area, and other than Hillary, who snuck out on a fairly regular basis, the others seemed to honor the father�
��s request to remain at home, so they didn’t know many people. There was no physical evidence other than the bloody clothing found in the woods, and nothing to link anyone to Hillary’s disappearance. This Bennington hit a dead end and moved on.”

  “Who found the bloody clothes?” I asked.

  “Hudson. When she wasn’t in her room and no one could find her in the house, he set out on his bike to look for her. She’d wandered off into the woods behind the house before, so he went there and found her clothing about halfway between Harrington House and Wilbur Woodbine’s home.”

  As much as I enjoyed a mystery to research, I was hating this one. A fourteen-year-old most likely had been murdered with no one knowing how it happened, and her older brother, who believed she’d been murdered by their neighbor, was killed trying to avenge her death.

  “So what now?” I asked. “Hillary disappeared so long ago. It’s going to be hard to pick up any threads now.”

  Tony nodded. “It’s going to be tough unless someone saw something.”

  “I’ll call Mrs. Bradford tomorrow and take it from there. I assume Peter Bennington is dead?”

  Tony nodded. “I have his notes, but whatever else he knew or suspected died with him. A lack of witnesses is true of most mysteries that are never solved. Anyone who might know the facts dies off, leaving only those who base their theories on tidbits of information that more often than not don’t or can’t form a clear picture. But we’ve been in this situation before and things came out okay. Maybe we’ll be lucky again.”

  I hoped Tony was right. I didn’t suppose there was anyone left alive who much cared if the mystery was solved or not. The story of Hillary’s disappearance had gone unanswered for so long, anyone who would have known her was probably dead. I thought of her father and wonder again why he had dumped his family here, why he hadn’t responded with help when things began to go south. Was it possible he was somehow involved? I guess the fact he was in San Francisco while his family was here made it unlikely. But there was definitely something wrong about the family. Maybe the father had grown tired of Hillary’s rebellion and hired someone, as was speculated, to keep her in line. Maybe she’d resisted and things had become violent. Again, I didn’t see how we could determine the likelihood of any of our theories at this late date, but I was still interested in trying to find answers that might very well be buried forever.

  I glanced at Tony, who was frowning at his computer screen. “What is it?” I asked.

  “I was checking my email before we turned in.”

  “And…?”

  “And someone sent me a photo of a woman standing on what looks to be the same bridge Jared Collins was on in the other photo.”

  “The bridge in Norway?”

  Tony nodded.

  “Do you know who the woman is?”

  “I think it’s your mother.”

  Chapter 5

  Sunday, October 21

  My head had been spinning since the moment Tony had told me the woman in this new photo looked an awful lot like my mother. This woman was young; I doubted she was more than twenty, if that. She had blond hair, while my mother’s hair was dark, and she was wearing large sunglasses, so it was impossible to see her eye color. I’d wanted to call my mother at that very moment to confront her, but Tony had pointed out that it was almost midnight, my mom would most likely be asleep, and we didn’t know for certain the photo was of her despite the similarity. I finally agreed a conversation with Mom could wait for daybreak. Of course, what that really translated to was me spending the entire night imagining every possible scenario when I should have been sleeping. Was my mom a spy of some sort, as I had begun to imagine was true of my father? Had Dad needed to disappear while Mom had to stay, which led to his fake death? Was Romero Montenegro really her much younger lover, or was he a spy too, who had been spending time with her in some official capacity? The questions went on and on.

  And then I spent a good hour trying to remember if Mom had ever mentioned visiting Norway. I didn’t remember her saying she had, but I also didn’t remember her saying she hadn’t. Unlike my father, who had specifically said he’d never been to Europe, I was fairly sure the subject had never come up.

  Tony thought it was a bad idea to shove the photo in front of Mom’s face and demand answers, which I was inclined to do, so I started with a call to my Aunt Ruthie. If my mother had ever gone overseas, surely her sister would know about it.

  “Hi, Aunt Ruthie,” I said after I felt I’d waited long enough into the morning not to wake her. “It’s Tess. I hate to bother you, but I’m doing one of those family tree things and have a few questions.”

  “I’d be happy to tell you what I know, and I’d love to see the results of your family tree. I’ve been meaning to do one but haven’t found the time.”

  Great. Knowing Ruthie, she’d keep asking about it, so I’d really have to do one. Maybe I should have come up with a less time-consuming lie. “I’m at the part where it asks about relations in other places. You know, like in Europe. Do you know if we have relatives in other countries?”

  “I imagine we do. Most folks do, if you look back far enough. But if you’re asking if there’s anyone I can identify by name, the answer is no. I think at least part of our family comes from France. And possibly Italy. I’m really excited to see what you find out.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It is, although I’m only just getting started. On another note, have you or anyone in our family traveled to Europe?”

  “Does it ask that?” Ruthie asked.

  “No, but doing the research has made me curious.”

  “I see. I’ve never been to Europe. Grandma and Grandpa talked about going, but they never made it over either. I’m pretty sure the only member of our immediate family to make the trip is your mom.”

  My eyes grew big. “My mom?”

  “I’m sure she must have told you about the trip she took after high school. She went with a friend. Darla, I think, was her name. She was there for six weeks, or maybe it was eight weeks. It was so long ago, it’s hard to remember now. Between you and me, something happened on that trip your mother never wanted to talk about. I’m guessing it was a vacation romance. Whatever it was, she took it hard. When she got home, she didn’t want to share the details of her trip. It must have ended up being a painful memory. I suppose that’s why she doesn’t bring it up. She must have stored it away with her keepsakes. I’d say you should ask her, but she’s pretty down about Romero, so it might not be the best time to bring it up.”

  “I’ll tread lightly. Thanks for sharing what you remembered.”

  “Anytime, honey. Anytime. Now, you be sure to tell me what you find out about our ancestors. I’m very excited to hear.”

  “Yeah. I will. And thanks again.” I hung up my phone, put my hands on my head, and groaned.

  “Is something wrong?” Tony who had just walked in from the outdoor deck where he’d been watering his herbs, asked.

  “I have to do a family tree.”

  Tony raised a brow. “A family tree?”

  I explained what I’d discovered, along with the potentially time-consuming lie I’d told to get it.

  “So, if your mother went to Europe out of high school, she might have gone to Norway. It doesn’t explain who took the photo or why it showed up in my in-box, though. Had she met your father yet then?”

  “No. She didn’t meet Dad until she’d been out of school a year or two. I think she was around twenty or twenty-one. If she’d just graduated high school she would have been around eighteen when the photo was taken.”

  “So, we have a photo of your mom standing on the same bridge as Jared Collins at about the same time, despite the fact that if he’s your father, as we suspect, they wouldn’t meet for at least a couple of years. Can that be a coincidence?”

  I leaned forward and let out another loud groan. “When you put it that way, it seems unlikely.” After a minute, I added, “So what now? Do I talk to my mom? Do
I ask her about her trip?”

  “I think it might be okay to ask about the trip. Your Aunt Ruthie did mention it to you. I’m not sure I’d bring up the photo, though. She would wonder where you got it, and that might open up a whole other can of worms. Maybe you can just ask her if she has photos from the trip, if you can see them.”

  “I could do that, although Ruthie thought asking Mom about a trip she took to Europe might not be a good idea while she’s mooning over Romero.”

  Tony sat down next to me. “Maybe you could put a spin on it, mention the family tree, which it now sounds like we’ll have to create. Tell your mom you spoke to Ruthie, who brought up her trip. Be up front about your hesitation to ask about it because she’s upset over the situation with Romero, but that you’re curious and would like to hear about it when she’s ready. Maybe she’ll want to share her memories.”

  I leaned back in my chair and stretched my legs out in front of me. “Maybe. But Ruthie said Mom came back from her trip upset. She didn’t want to talk about it. Ruthie thought Mom might have had a vacation romance that ended badly. If she’s angsty over Romero, she might not want to talk about a trip when some other guy broke her heart.”

  Tony shrugged. “If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she’ll tell you so.”

  I decided to take the risk and called my mom. She was happy to hear from me and hoped I’d be stopping by. It was Sunday, after all, and we’d gotten away from our family dinners because everyone seemed to be so busy lately. I told her I couldn’t stay for dinner, but I’d bring lunch to her place. We could eat on her patio and catch up a bit. I didn’t tell her what I wanted to know or why. I figured I’d spring that on her when I got there.

  Shaggy was coming over in a little while to meet Buddy, and Tony assured me that he’d do everything in his power to make sure the meet and greet went off without a hitch. Initially, I’d thought Shaggy a questionable choice, but the more I thought about it, the more Tony’s suggestion seemed right on. Shaggy could take Buddy to work with him, and he was an easygoing guy who wouldn’t get upset if Buddy had a few emotional and bladder issues to work through.