Authors: Mollie Cox Bryan

Tags: #Cumberland Creek Mystery

Scrapped (9 page)

BOOK: Scrapped

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Chapter 22

All the arrangements were made. Annie hated the drive to the prison, with its twisty mountain roads. Queasy barely touched it. She’d visited several times for research for the book, which was now at the publisher’s office, thank God. If she had to look at it one more time, she would scream. She had worked on it. Rewritten it, checked her facts, rewritten it again. She was so finished with that book.

But she felt compelled to visit this Mary Schultz, the young Mennonite woman who recently murdered her father with an axe, claiming he’d abused her. It was fascinating to ponder, but what Annie wanted was inside information about the communities at Jenkins Mountain. Not only did she want to avoid the place, but it was also a closed-off community. Nobody would talk to her.

By now, Annie knew the prison drill—she wore a T-shirt and sweatpants, nothing with buttons, which, if they fell off of her, could be saved and used as a weapon. Annie handed her bag to the prison guard, who searched through it. She looked at Annie and smiled a weary smile.

“How are you today?” she asked politely.

“Fine,” Annie said. “How about you?”

“Uh, well, another day, another dollar.”

“I hear you.”

The guard kept the bag. “Go ahead.”

When Annie walked into the room, she was shocked at how fragile and small Mary was. This woman killed her father? How could that be? She was expecting a big farm girl—not this petite person in front of her.

The papers didn’t give much information. Everything had happened quickly, and for months it was all handled within the Mennonite community. No press access until the young woman was brought to the local authorities by her church pastor, who claimed that she was insane and could not be cared for by her family or the community. In fact, she was a threat to them.

“Good morning, Ms. Schultz,” Annie said.

Mary looked up and nodded, barely meeting her eyes. Pale. Plain. Brown hair cut short, uneven, as if she’d taken a pair of old scissors haphazardly to her hair.

“I’m Annie. How are you doing?” she said, sitting across the table from her.

A pause. “I’m still alive, and that’s something, I suppose.”

Annie smiled. “Indeed,” she said. “I hear you’ve had a rough time of it.”

Mary smiled weakly at her and almost met her eyes. “I’m not going to talk to you about my case,” she said. She spoke succinctly, her voice soft and quiet. “My lawyer doesn’t think it would be a good idea for the appeal. And I agree with her. I don’t want any sensationalism.”

“I understand. But if you ever change your mind, I’d love to write your story. But right now, I’m working on another project,” Annie told her. “I’m writing articles about the murders. You heard about them, of course.”

“Yeah,” she said, running her fingers along the edge of the table.

“Do you know those families?”

“Yes.”

“What do you know about them?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the Carpenters. They were Old Order Mennonites, right?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’m not sure,” Annie said. “I’m just asking.”

“Well, yes. They are one of the few families left in the hollow who are actually real and Old Order. They go to my church . . . or my old church, I should say.”

“What do you mean by ‘real’?”

She shrugged. “They’ve never been involved with any of the others. . . .”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“A good bit of mixing is going on. It’s very rare these days that the generations stay what they call pure in their faith,” she said.

Pure in their faith?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“You know,” Mary said and smiled, “just like all young people . . . a Mennonite might fall in love with a Baptist.... It’s complicated when it’s Old Order . . . you know. . . . Depending on the family . . . there could be a shunning. That’s bad . . . really bad. . . .”

Annie thought of the young woman’s funeral she’d attended. Nobody went except her parents.

“Was that Carpenter girl being shunned?” Annie said out loud, but mostly to herself.

“I don’t know. I’ve had a few problems of my own, and I’m not exactly a favorite in that community right now,” she said. “But I could ask around.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Annie said. “Look, Mary, there’s no real reason for you to help me. I appreciate anything you can give me, though. Someone is out there murdering young women. I’m supposed to write about these women, write about this case. I’ve got a job to do. I know you’re having a rough time. I can see that.”

“I killed my father,” she said point-blank. “I belong here. This is justice, right? Even though the man abused me for years, my killing him was the worst of the crimes.”

“I read that you went to the church and asked for help.”

“I did. And I wrote to other churches. Nobody would help. All I kept hearing is that I needed to forgive my father,” she said. Suddenly tears were sliding down her cheeks. “This is better. Being here. It’s better than being out there. My family? My church? They’ve turned their back on me. I’ve not exactly been shunned, but I have nobody. And all I’ve ever done is everything they wanted me to. Except . . .”

Annie willed away tears and swallowed hard. “I think you did the right thing in defending yourself,” she finally said. “No matter what the justice system says . . . or your family or church.”

Mary looked at her with a glimmer of something. Was it hope?

A knock on the door. That was it. “Time’s up, Ms. Chamovitz.”

“Okay, thanks,” Annie said. “I’ll be back. Once you get settled in, think about things. Maybe you’ll have information for me.”

Mary nodded.

Annie took a deep breath. She hated this place. She’d visited this place too many times over the past year. It was dingy and sterile, just as you would expect a prison to be, but it seemed that the women’s side of the prison was worse. It left her with a feeling of profound sorrow. But this was better than going up to Jenkins Hollow and snooping around herself. It had to be.

Chapter 23

“Invisible ink? That is too much!” said DeeAnn at the weekly crop. “It could be fun.”

“But, of course, someone would have to know it was there to put the solution on it to read it,” Annie said.

“Well, sure. But you could leave it as a part of a time capsule for your children, for example. Send them on a treasure hunt for it. It might make getting a sweet note from Mom a little more fun,” Sheila said.

“But I love that vanishing-ink pen. That makes a lot of sense to me,” Annie said. “I love the fact that I can draw lines on my pages with it. Journal along those lines, and in a few days the lines vanish. How cool is that?”

“Very. So many new products, so little time,” Vera said.

“And money,” DeeAnn said. “Good thing we share.”

“Speaking of sharing, I heard that you went to the prison again,” Vera said to Annie, then reached out for an angel food cupcake.

“Yes. I saw Mary Schultz,” Annie said.

“What did you find out? Anything?”

“She won’t talk to me about her case. I totally get that. But I did find out that the Carpenters are an Old Order Mennonite family. I’m wondering if there was a shunning of that young woman.”

Paige spoke up. “Shunning? That would have to be because of a serious issue. We don’t do them . . . my church, that is.”

“But you’re not Old Order. I’d not even know you were a Mennonite by looking at you,” Cookie said.

“I wouldn’t know you’re a witch by looking at you,” Paige said and laughed. “But yes, there’s a big difference between us and the Old Orders. But we respect them a great deal, you know. A shunning is serious business. When a young person is shunned, it’s usually because of romance. You know, they’ve gone against their parents’ wishes. They’ve married someone outside the religion. And that’s it. No turning back.”

“It seems kind of unchristian,” DeeAnn said. “But that’s just little ole me talking. It just seems like being a Christian would give them a bit more forgiveness. . . .”

“That’s all very New Testament,” Annie said and drank from her beer glass.

“Yep,” Paige said. “And we are all about the Old Testament.”

“It’s so harsh,” DeeAnn said.

“Not any harsher than the fire and brimstone,” Vera said.

“That’s not harsh,” Paige said, lifting her voice. “C’mon.”

Vera could hear the history teacher in Paige’s voice, who didn’t come out very often at the crops, but her dance students claimed Paige was one of the toughest teachers at the school.

An awkward silence filled the room.

Cookie cleared her throat, looked up at them through her long strands of black hair, which had fallen in her face. “It’s all Christianity, right? Just different takes on the same philosophy.”

“So, if there was a shunning . . . Let’s say Sarah was involved with someone, and Rebecca was her friend and may have known something. But a shunning is not murder. Why kill them?” Annie said.

“I had an aunt one time who said she’d rather be killed than shunned. It’s a very painful experience,” DeeAnn said.

“Maybe the reason they were killed had nothing to do with the shunning,” Sheila said.

“Could’ve been some crazy man who hates redheads,” Cookie said. “Could be that simple.”

“Yes, but what about the rune symbols carved into them? I mean, to me the killer is leaving a message on them,” Annie said as she doodled the runes on a page of scratch paper.

“I’d be more interested in hearing about Vera’s weekend in New York than about all this religious stuff. What’s gotten into people? All we talk about are murders and religion,” Sheila said and bit into a chip.

“Yes, I think it’s time you told us what happened last weekend,” Annie said and smiled.

“A lady never tells,” Vera said, smiling back at Annie, feeling her face getting warm.

“Well, now, doesn’t that beat all?” Sheila said, cutting a photograph.

Vera sat with her page, pictures, and pens, smoothed her hands over the thick paper. The sex between her and Tony sizzled—even when they were younger. He was the only man she’d slept with besides her ex-husband.

Tony reached inside of her soul somehow and touched a wild part of her—so wild that it scared her sometimes. It was like a wild beast escaping out of a cage. And lately her sexual thoughts dwelled on Tony, but occasionally, on other men, as well.

It was the oddest thing to be forty-one, almost forty-two, and suddenly discover a rampant, evolving sexuality that had been so repressed for years, she hadn’t even known it existed within herself. It was certainly not a topic for discussion at a scrapbook crop.

Did DeeAnn just say she had gotten a gun? Vera thought.

“Yes. I went and learned how to use my gun. It’s in my purse. I have a permit for it. I’m not listening to any of your liberal nonsense, Annie. I’m almost as liberal as you are—but not with a goddamned killer on the loose in Cumberland Creek.”

“I’m just saying that it seems a little drastic. Yes, there’ve been two murders, but they seem related. You don’t have red hair, you don’t live in the hollow, and you aren’t eighteen. It seems to me the last thing we need in Cumberland Creek is another woman carrying a gun in her bag,” Annie said. “How many times has Bea almost shot someone by mistake?”

Sheila’s stifled giggle escaped, sending them all into fits of laughter.

Chapter 24

Beatrice loved Sunday mornings so much better since she had stopped going to church twelve years ago. Church was always more of a social and community event for her because she was never a believer in the traditional sense. Oh, she believed in God, all right, and knew God as well as anybody could. But she had a different view of Him and certainly a different view from what the local Baptist church claimed. Some folks thought that meant she was an atheist, and she’d even heard the whispers at Dolly’s old beauty shop. She was that weird non-believing quantum physicist. But if only they knew that the mystery of the universe was always its beauty, and the more she studied it, the closer to God or Spirit she felt.

Sundays in Cumberland Creek were glorious days because most people were in church. Between the hours of nine and eleven, one could walk the whole of the town without seeing anybody, which suited Beatrice, who was not a woman for small talk and gossip. So as she stood on her porch, waiting for Vera, she took in the quiet of her growing town.

Trouble was, with the growth came more problems than just annoyances, like lines at the grocery store and post office. Why, before all of this recent nonsense, Cumberland Creek had little crime in its history, with no murders in thirty or so years.

She wrapped her scarf around her neck and ears and relished the rustling sounds of the crumbly fallen leaves blowing in the breeze. She couldn’t believe that Friday would be Halloween already. She couldn’t wait to see Lizzie dressed up like a pea pod. How cute was that going to be? Just a year ago, she never would have imagined enjoying Halloween as much as she did now. For that matter, enjoying life as much as she did now. So much of that had to do with her granddaughter. Unfortunately, she barely remembered Halloween with Vera. She recalled an angel costume—or, wait, was that a ghost?
Bah.
Who knew? It was too long ago.

Beatrice loved having Vera in her life. But she didn’t have many specific memories of Vera’s childhood. The memories, some of them were just one big—albeit happy—blur. She remembered more about her work and her husband than she did about Vera. She took very few pictures. It wasn’t like today—everybody had a camera, and mothers, especially the scrapbooking ones, always took these little digital cameras everywhere. They didn’t want to miss a move and not be able to chronicle it.

Last year Beatrice handed Vera all the scrapbooks she had kept of her daughter for years, even with how busy she was as a young mother. She surprised herself that she had so many of them.These scrapbooks were mundane compared to what people did these days. They consisted of pictures snapped of Vera during special occasions, like birthdays and graduations. And then the dance recitals had taken over. Even so, Beatrice had managed to put something together, even during her busy career years, albeit without stickers, fancy cutouts, and glitter.

Vera’s car pulled up to the curb, drawing Beatrice back to the present. “Are you ready?” she yelled at Beatrice.

Beatrice just shook her head. “What do you think? I’m standing here for my health?”

Vera waved her mother’s attitude off and reached over to open the door.

“Where’s Elizabeth?” Beatrice said, looking into the empty backseat.

“She’s with her dad. She’s got a little fever. Teething, I think.”

“Aunt Rose will be disappointed.”

“Well, if it matters that much to her, she could come down off that mountain,” Vera said, looking into her side mirror and pulling back onto the quiet road.

Beatrice chortled. “I’ve been telling her that for fifty years.”

“I’ve never understood it.”

“Me neither,” Beatrice said. “But it makes her happy to stay. It’s her domain, and it seems to work out for her. Where are you going?” she asked, because Vera was going in the wrong direction.

“Annie’s coming along. I thought it would be good for her to meet Aunt Rose. I asked Sheila to come, but something’s up with her oldest daughter, Donna,” Vera said as she pulled over to the curb and tooted her horn.

Annie’s door flung open, she turned to kiss her husband, and they were off.

“So this woman has never ventured off the mountain?” Annie said later, after she was situated in the car, as they turned off the main road.

“That’s right,” Beatrice said. “And she has an in with all the mountain folk—even the nesters and Mennonites. She’s an herbalist. Knows her stuff. They call her before they call a doctor. That used to drive Ed crazy.”

“Oh, I remember . . . ,” Vera said in a faraway voice.

Beatrice loved this old road. She knew every twist and turn, every bump and dip. She loved the way fields on either side gave way to heavy woods, with high tree branches swaying over the road.

“You know who else knows a lot about herbs? Cookie,” Annie said. “She also knows about runes.”

“Runes?” Beatrice said.

“Yes. Cookie figured out that’s what those symbols are that were carved into the bodies and painted on your house.”

“You don’t say,” Beatrice said, digging in a cloth bag. “Scone? I just made them this morning. I call them my good-for-travel cinnamon scones.”

Annie reached her hand in the bag and pulled one out for Vera, who reached for it and then suddenly swerved as a loud
thud, thud
came from the rattling car.

“Damn,” Vera said, pulling over. “Must be a flat tire. Anybody know how to change one?”

Annie shrugged, still eating her scone.

“Surely we can figure it out,” Beatrice said. “But what a pain in the ass. Can’t you call someone?”

“Mother,” Vera said, opening her door. “Who would I call out here?”

“Does the cell even work?” Annie pulled out her phone. Dead.

“Lord, how did civilization manage without the cell phone?” Beatrice said, getting out of the car. “Let’s see. That is a very flat tire.” She bent down and touched it. “What is that?” She reached her finger and felt along the rubber. There was not just one, but three huge nails puncturing the tire. “Nails.”

“Do you have a spare?” Annie said.

“I’ve no idea,” Vera said. “Bill’s always dealt with these things. Where would it be?”

“Probably in the trunk,” Annie replied.

Beatrice harrumphed. “Yeah, probably. Thank God you didn’t bring Elizabeth. This will probably take some time.”

Annie and Vera slipped out of the car to a cool day and took in sweeping views of mountains and farms in the distance. Annie rolled up her sleeves.

“I’m sure we can figure this out,” she said, lifting the trunk.

After messing with the jack and getting nowhere, Annie tried to place it again. “It looks like it should go right there,” she muttered as she crouched down beside the tire, smelling the rubber, the grease, and the gravel from the road. It would help if she felt better. She felt so weak these days. Maybe she just needed more sleep.

“Oh, here comes a car,” Beatrice said.

“Maybe they’ll stop,” Vera said.

“That’s Cookie!” Annie exclaimed.

Annie stood up, and sure enough, it was Cookie in a rental car—a yellow Volkswagen Bug. She waved and pulled along the slim berm that dropped off into a ditch along the hillside.

“Look at you ladies. I wish I had my camera,” she said, grinning, with her hands on her hips, after getting out of the car. She was wearing old blue jeans and a thick gray wool sweater. The color brought out the gray in her green eyes and was set off by huge dangling silver earrings.

“Would you just be quiet and help if you can?” Annie said, smiling, brushing her hands together.

“Shoot, I can change a flat,” Cookie said. “But he can probably do a better job than me. Upper body strength and all that,” she added and pointed at the Bug. A large man was trying to get out of the small car. “Found him walking along the road. I offered to give him a lift.”

He was dressed in what the locals called “plain clothes”—black Mennonite garb—and tipped his hat to the women. “How do?”

Annie noticed the three earrings in his right ear. He was no Mennonite.

Beatrice took over. “Fine to meet you, Mr., ah . . .”

“Name’s Luther Vandergrift,” he said, sizing up the women with a few brief looks.

“Can you help us out?” Beatrice said.

“No problem,” he said, taking off his hat and crouching next to the car.

In no time the old tire was off, looking like a pitiful, huge fake snake with nails sticking out of it. Huge nails.

“What are you doing way out here?” Vera asked Cookie while Annie tried to help Luther by sliding the new tire onto the rim.

“It’s my annual retreat. I told you about it. I do it every year, a few days before Halloween. That’s why I couldn’t come with you to Aunt Rose’s today.”

“This is a retreat? I thought you were going to a spa or something,” Vera answered.

Cookie smiled. “No. I take my tent, some food, water, notebooks. And it’s just me and the sky.”

“It’s too damned cold to be camping out up here this time of year,” Beatrice said.

“I do okay. I’ve got a great sleeping bag.”

“What about the bears?” Vera said.

“I’m okay with the bears,” Cookie said, moving her head around so her dangling earring caught the light. “If they are okay with me.”

“You’re certifiable,” Beatrice said.

“So they tell me.”

“Thanks,” Luther said to Annie while she helped hold the spare tire in place.

She smiled back and nodded, half listening to the other conversation, trying not to stare at his earrings. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen men with earrings—there were plenty of them back in D.C., where she used to live and work. You just didn’t see many of them around Cumberland Creek. If you did, it was usually a teenager. Certainly not any of the Old Order Mennonites.

Annie wasn’t certain, but she thought one of his earrings was a cross. She couldn’t make out what the other two were. His beautiful blond hair looked like spun gold, falling in waves around his ears and down onto his neck. It made seeing the earrings’ details difficult.

He gave the tire one last wrenching and grunted. “There.” He stood up, and Annie saw very clearly that one of his earrings was the same rune symbol that was painted on Beatrice’s house. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and she felt the rush of blood through her body as she tried to take a breath. The feeling just tipped her right over the edge. She’d been just feeling lousy. Now this.

“Are you okay?” he said and grabbed her, steadied her as her knees wobbled.

“Annie?” Vera said.

The women swarmed around her, and she realized this was not what she wanted. She needed space and air and room to move, but they were all around her, fanning her as she lay on the ground now. His face between the women’s concerned faces, all looking down at her.

“Maybe she got a whiff of fumes,” someone said.

“I’m fine,” Annie said. “Really. I just need some air.” She struggled to get up, and the man reached for her. His blue eyes met her deep brown eyes, and they locked, softened momentarily, but his touch made her pulse race. She felt fear and anger ripple in waves through her arms and shoulders as he placed his arms around her and led her to the car.

This was not like her. She had looked into the face of murderers and rapists, dogfighters, crooked cops, and she had dealt with them all. She was slightly embarrassed. And ill. Was she coming down with something?

Cookie was on the other side of her. “Take some deep belly breaths, dear. You’re going to be fine.”

Cookie looked her in the eye, and momentarily Annie thought,
She knows. Cookie knows about the earring, and she’s trying to calm me down.

For God’s sake, she was on a mountain—not too far from Jenkins Hollow, thinking her yoga teacher and friend was sending her psychic thoughts and Luther was transmitting evil through his fingers. He didn’t even know her. As long as Annie could get air and space and she could think her way around this, she’d be fine.
Get it together, girl.

As she sat in the car and took a deep breath, she looked closely at Luther’s face and smiled faintly. She took a deep drink from one of the water bottles that they had brought. Her thoughts were still jumbled, but she wanted to remember his face. As she recalled some of the research she’d done on runes, she thought that this was too much of a coincidence and that she could be looking at the face of a murderer, the man who strangled one young woman and placed her body in the raging Cumberland Creek River, the man who chopped the arms off of another young woman and left her body in pieces in a huge recycling bin. And she certainly couldn’t allow Cookie to drive off with him in her car. But a persistent pain jabbed in her gut.

She leaned her head back onto the car seat and took a deep breath.
Think. Think. Think.

“I’ve never known a Mennonite man to wear earrings. Who are your people, son?” Beatrice said, loud enough for everybody to hear.

BOOK: Scrapped

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