After finishing breakfast, Belle indulged in a second cup of coffee on the front veranda with Red, savoring the quiet ambiance of a true country morning. The sun was shining its reassurance, so she felt better about revisiting the master-bedroom situation. It was only eight thirty a.m. Nobody in horror movies ever gets murdered that early in the morning.
Armed with a pair of pliers—plundered from her father’s toolbox—which could’ve extricated someone from an auto wreck, she knelt in front of the crawl-space door and assessed both the risks and rewards of the task. With one eye closed and the other merely a slit, she slowly, gently closed the pliers around the lock.
“Dear God, please don’t let anything jump out at me.” She glanced down at the dog. “You ready for this, Red?”
He yawned and rested his head on his paws.
After one good squeeze, the lock dropped to the floor in a pile of rusty crumbs.
“On a positive note, if something horrible happens, I’ll have a great excuse to call the authorities.”
She bobbed her eyebrows at Red, but he offered only a few sweeps of his tail across the dusty floor as encouragement.
After applying some elbow grease to open the swollen door, she shone a flashlight inside the crawl space, blinking rapidly in case a bat or some multi-legged creature shot out and latched onto her eyeballs.
Nothing but a bunch of spider webs, dust bunnies, a screw, a ball-and-paddle set, and a crunched-in shoebox that looked purposefully shoved back against a support beam.
“Okay. Here’s where I find the body parts.”
She pulled out the box and, after a breath of mental preparation, flicked the top off. No physical remains of any once-living species, but the headless, naked baby doll did give her a bit of a start. How intriguing—and thoroughly macabre.
She placed the flashlight on the floor and sat Indian-style as she picked up the doll. Glancing down the neck hole, she noticed rolled up papers. “What the hell?” she whispered. Scrolls of paper stuffed inside a doll stuffed inside a shoebox stuffed inside a locked crawl space like one of those Russian dolls. The government should be so careful concealing classified documents.
Maybe they were love notes sent to her old aunt by a secret lover, some yokel who said “shucks, ma’am” a lot and operated a tractor. Or maybe a map to a fat bag of cash and jewels buried in the backyard. That would certainly come in handy right now.
Whoever the papers belonged to, they obviously contained someone’s darkest secrets. Shame on her for salivating at the chance to invade that privacy.
Then she remembered her father telling her about his cousin, Judy, whom he had barely known, who’d died when she was a teenager. She carefully pulled the scrolls that appeared to have been torn from some type of composition notebook, crisp and yellowed with age, from the torso cavity.
After thumbing through pages of animal sketches, Beatles doodling, and references to a kid named Frankie surrounded by hearts, she concluded they weren’t the musings of a lovelorn widow but of an innocent girl. She smiled when she saw the name Annette Funicello written in cursive.
She flipped through a few more pages.
He hurt me again.
I hate when he hurts me.
I hate his guts. I wish he would die.
Belle swallowed hard as she reread the lines that sounded like a sick poetry stanza. Her stomach churned her breakfast at the implication of “he hurts me.”
Her breath slid out in a hiss. “Were young girls ever safe?”
She tossed the papers aside in disgust but grabbed them again, as curiosity had her in its grip.
He is mean. I don’t want to go there anymore.
Underneath the phrases was a sketch of a large head, a man’s clean-shaven face with big scary eyes, angry lines over them pointing down, a squiggly line for the mouth, and a large shock of angrily scribbled hair on top. The pressure from the girl’s pencil stabs had nearly perforated the paper.
The messages sent Belle’s mind into a whirl.
I hate when he touches me. I want to be good.
Beneath the phrases was another sketch of a round head with pigtails and tears under the eyes. At the bottom of the paper, Judy’s name written several times in neat cursive, and doodled hearts and sunflowers contrasted the sinister suggestions.
Belle sat quietly in a sea of painting supplies scattered about the floor. Who was this bastard that did this to her? Was he ever caught? Hopefully, he was rotting in hell or at least still rotting in a jail cell. After another moment of reflection, she placed the papers and the doll into the box and pushed it back into the crawl space.
After about an hour spackling various dents and holes throughout the second floor, unable to shut down the haunting reverberations from what she’d read, she returned to the master bedroom and FaceTimed her father.
“How’s it going, princess,” he asked. “I knew you couldn’t get along without my expertise.”
Belle laughed. “I do need you, but not for what you’re thinking.”
“What’s up?”
“What do you know about your cousin, Judy?”
“Only what I’ve already told you,” he said. “My uncle, Wes, was killed at work in an accident at the old mill when we were kids. I was only about four or five at the time. Our families never were close, even when he was alive. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I found what I think is Judy’s diary, so I wanted to learn more about her.”
“Wish I could help, honey,” he said. “She was an only child and died when she was a teenager. I’m the youngest of all the cousins, so I don’t remember much.”
“You know anything about your aunt Marion?”
“Only that she was never the outgoing type, but she really became like a recluse after Uncle Wes died. And this is only what I remember from your grandmother’s stories.”
“And Judy died how?”
“Aunt Marion said some kind of infection or something, but nobody knew for sure. I remember them saying she was a troubled kid, but if your father drops dead when you’re that young, it can happen.”
Belle was quiet as she absorbed the details about Judy.
“Too bad your grandmother wasn’t still around. She could’ve told you more.”
“Yeah. I wish she was here, too,” Belle said.
“What’s in that diary,” he asked in a playful tone. “Some kind of juicy mystery?”
“Kind of. I think she was abused.”
“Oh boy.” He was silent for a moment. “Does she name anyone?”
“No, and it’s driving me to distraction wanting to know if the guy who did it was ever punished.”
“Jeez, Belle. You’re talking over fifty years ago. You better let it go, or you’ll never get anything done. You sure you don’t want me to come help you?”
“Dad, you just had your knee replaced.”
“Two months ago. I’m almost one hundred percent.”
“Almost.” She took on a motherly tone. “Let’s wait another month until you’re fully recovered, or Mom will break both of my knees.”
Her father laughed heartily. “Okay, kid. Don’t make yourself crazy over this diary thing.”
“I know, but I feel so bad. How could someone hurt a child like that?”
“I can’t imagine it, honey. But I know what I’d do if someone ever hurt you or your sister like that.”
“I want to find out what happened to him. What if he’s still out there molesting kids?”
“If he’s even alive after all these years.”
“Good point,” she said, her thoughts racing several steps ahead. “Maybe I can ask some locals if they knew Judy and Marion.”
“Or you can run it by the police. Just don’t go around pissing everyone off up there questioning them like you’re Angela Lansbury.”
“Grandma loved Murder, She Wrote,” Belle recalled in amusement.
“I know. I can’t tell you how many times she watched those reruns while she lived with us.”
“I loved watching them with her when I came over.” She paused to visit with some fond memories. “Okay. Let me get back to work in here.”
“Okay, kid. Stay out of trouble.”
“Always. You, too,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him.
After they ended the call, she thought about a trip into town later on. She wanted to stop by the farmer’s market anyway. Maybe she’d run into some chatty folks who looked like they knew everyone’s business.
Better yet, maybe a certain local law enforcer could offer some insight.
***
Later that afternoon, Belle ventured into civilization on her bicycle instead of by car since the oppressive humidity had yielded to fresh, New England summer air. As she pedaled along the quiet road shaded by a canopy of trees, Judy reappeared in her mind. She’d texted her father asking if he could locate a picture of Judy from his old family album. In the meantime, she’d already created her own image. Probably blond hair, flowered sundress, red sneakers, scraped knees, cherry-Popsicle stains trimming her lips—and a crushed soul hidden beneath all that sweetness and innocence.
“Good afternoon,” Belle said as she pulled up to a produce stand and left her bicycle against a nearby tree.
“’Afternoon.” The old woman seated under an umbrella attached to her chair smiled as she glanced up from her copy of Country Home. “We have a nice variety of greens and the sweetest strawberries around.”
“You have any kale?” Belle asked, rummaging through the varietals of lettuce.
“Sure do. First year for it.” She dropped her magazine and moved perilously close to invading Belle’s personal space. “Last year I decided I’d plant some after you city kids passing through on your way to the new winery kept asking for it.”
“Shrewd business move,” Belle said. “Except I’m not passing through. I’m here for at least the summer.”
“Are you the gal who bought the Ashford place?”
Belle smiled good-naturedly. “Do you guys send out a newsletter or something?”
“Better than that,” the woman said. “We got a town crier who never misses a scoop. Happens to be my husband, the sheriff.”
“Yes. I’ve already met him. I’m Belle Ashford. Pleasure to meet you.” She wiped a hand wet from veggie-caressing on her shorts before extending it.
“Shirley Morgan. How’re you liking it here?”
“I love it,” Belle said. “Very quaint.”
She grabbed a basket for her bundles of kale and lettuce and proceeded to gently pick through the mountain of ripe strawberries. When it came to gossips, she got the feeling she’d hit the jackpot with Shirley Morgan.
“Tell me something,” she said casually. “Why is the Ashford place such a big deal around here?”
Shirley was silent for a moment. “In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly a hotbed of scandal and intrigue. Something has to keep people talking.”
“For a minute I thought my photo would end up on the wall in the post office’s rogue’s gallery for preventing the sale of it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Shirley said, spraying rows of greens with a hose. “Why would we be upset by you coming in and fixing up the place?”
“It’s almost two acres of buildable land. You guys would’ve made a killing selling it off to a developer.”
“Now that’s the problem with this country, ain’t it? People selling off beautiful things to make a fast buck.”
“I’m sure you could find a few Native Americans who’d give you an ‘amen’ to that,” Belle said.
“You said you were here for the summer? You gonna use the place for a vacation home?”
Belle’s smile quickly collapsed at the reminder of her treasonous motive for being there to begin with. “Yeah, uh-huh,” she lied.
“Good for you,” Shirley said. “You have a husband and kids joining you?”
Belle shook her head and wondered if she shouldn’t get the coming-out thing over and done with now. One word to Shirley and by tomorrow the whole community would either throw her a Pride parade or burn an effigy of her on her front lawn. It would be nice to eliminate the suspense.
“Well, I’ll keep an ear to the ground for you,” Shirley said. “I know a few ladies with single sons if you’d like a hand getting the ball rolling.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I have my hands full with the house.” She moved away from Shirley and her matchmaking offer as though they were a contagious disease. After a few minutes faking interest in a rack of handmade wind chimes, she felt safe resuming her mission. “So did you know the Ashfords at all?”
“They were quiet folks, kept mostly to themselves, but sure I knew them. Wes died young in that accident at the mill. But I got to know his widow and the daughter fairly well. My mother-in-law used to teach catechism when I started dating Bob, so I got to know some of the kids.”
“You’re not harassing the sheriff’s wife, are you?”
The low, sultry voice so close to her ear startled Belle—as well as sending a ripple of chills up her neck. She whipped around to find Deputy Alexandra Yates smiling at her, but the real show was the tan, muscled arms straining against her rolled-up short-sleeve uniform.
She regarded Shirley with mock authority. “She’s not giving you a hard time with bad country-bumpkin wisecracks, is she?”
“Not at all, Ally,” Shirley said. “We’re having a lovely time shootin’ the breeze and getting to know one another.”
Belle flashed Ally a cool, ‘so there’ smirk, but Ally’s return smile was so smoldering Belle nearly squished her handful of ripe strawberries.
“The Ashfords were her people,” Shirley said to Ally. “Did you know that?”
“Of course she did,” Belle said.
“I liked Mrs. Ashford,” Ally said. “She was a little batty in her old age, but I never minded going to her house on wellness checks. She’d always have a snack waiting for me.”
“You knew her well?” Belle said.
“As well as anyone could. She wasn’t really big on socializing. She ended up with dementia for a while before she passed, but you could still have a conversation with her…sort of.”
“Interesting,” Belle said. “I didn’t know either of them, but since I’ve taken over the house and learned more of their story, I wish I’d had the chance to get to know Marion before she died.”
“She’s been gone for five years now,” Ally said, “but I’d be happy to answer any questions about her if I can.”
Talk about an offer Belle couldn’t refuse.
“That would be great,” Belle said. “Let me give you my cell. You can text me when you’re free.”
Ally and Shirley looked at each other like Belle was a traveler from another dimension.
“Or we could go to dinner tomorrow and talk,” Ally said.
Belle’s knees weakened at the invitation, producing an avalanche of beets from the compartment she’d been leaning against. All three of them remained still until the beets stopped thumping to the ground.
“Whelp, I guess I won’t bother asking my friends about their single sons,” Shirley said in a deadpan and walked away.
“I’m so graceful,” Belle said as she scooped up the beets.
“Could happen to anyone.” Ally crouched to help her. “Shirley stacks these bins too high.”
“I’d have you over for dinner, but the kitchen is still barely habitable.”
“I’m sure you have better things to do around there than cook for someone. Let’s meet in town. Do you like Italian? Franco’s is fantastic.”
Ally had this unnerving habit of pausing for a moment and staring before and after she’d made an important statement. Belle couldn’t figure out if it was a cop thing or she was an expert at seduction. Whatever the explanation, Belle reminded herself that, of all the things she needed to accomplish in Danville that summer, falling in love was not high on the list. It wasn’t even on the list.
“Franco’s sounds perfect.”
“Great,” Ally said. “I’ll make a six o’clock reservation.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Belle forced the smile off her face so she wouldn’t seem too eager. After all, she agreed to dinner plans to gain information about her father’s cousin, and to see if justice was ever served or ever could be, not to hook up with a country deputy—devastating good looks notwithstanding.
Talk about a cliché.
After she’d sufficiently reproached herself for getting all riled up over Ally, she paid for her fruits and veggies and headed home.
***
As Belle waited at a cozy corner table at Franco’s Ristorante for Ally to show, she felt the vibration of a text on her phone in her back pocket. Thinking Ally was canceling their date, she was relieved when she remembered they’d never exchanged numbers. The bad news was the text was from her ex, Mary, a robust, grape-cigarillo-smoking cosmetologist with no “inside voice,” who likely texted her because things hadn’t worked out with the woman she’d met on a free dating site the day after Belle broke up with her.
If you’re getting lonely up at that big ole house, I’ll come up n keep you company.
Belle wasted no time in replying.
Gee, as tempting as that sounds…Hell no!!!
She shook her head in despair. How had an intelligent woman with all other aspects of her life seemingly in check always managed to attract shallow, over-zealous women with zero self-awareness? She had to draw the line somewhere.
Since turning forty months earlier, Belle was determined to be her best self by becoming the empowered, self-reliant woman she’d so often read about on HuffPost. But first she had to renounce her inner serial monogamist and vow to engage only with women truly worthy of her time.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Ally said before reaching the table.
Belle’s phone slipped through her fingers and onto the floor as she approached. Ally in civilian clothes was an even more spectacular sight than Ally in her khaki brown deputy uniform. The off-the-shoulder black top showcased her sculpted upper body, and tight white Capri pants showed off everything else.
“Five minutes doesn’t count as keeping someone waiting,” Belle said as she rose to give her a light kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to meet me.”
“No problem. You’re pretty busy yourself, but we have to eat, right?”
“Right.” Belle smiled warmly. “And women cannot live on carbs alone.” She pulled out the bottle of sauvignon blanc chilling in a bucket. After Ally nodded, she poured her a glass.
“Thank you.” Ally eyed her all the way through her drawn-out first sip. “How’s it going up there?”
“It’s coming along. Definitely a much bigger undertaking than I’d anticipated. To be honest, I’m not sure what I anticipated. They make it look so easy on those DIY shows. I’m going to have to hire a few people, especially for the outside.”
“I can recommend some reputable locals if you want.”
“That would be great, thanks. I have to do something radical in that backyard. I’m thinking a stone patio and koi pond.”
“Awesome. I happen to love flower gardening,” Ally said, absently caressing the tablecloth with her butter knife. “I’d be happy to offer my design services for a very nominal fee.”
Oh, God. Was she flirting? Was the “nominal fee” remark a clever attempt at sexual innuendo?
Belle paused for a breath and a sip of wine. She should’ve let it go, and in the spirit of her new, more discerning dating criteria she would’ve, but Ally wasn’t some second-rate woman rallying what was left of her charm at last call.
She lowered her voice an octave for effect. “What’s your idea of nominal?”
“Dinner.”
“Dinner?” Belle’s disappointment escaped before she could apprehend Ally’s meaning. “As in dinner?”
“Sure,” Ally said. “You can grill me something on your new stone patio when it’s all done. I’m a patient woman. I can wait.”
“All right. I’ll accept your offer, even though I should be ashamed of myself for taking such flagrant advantage of you.”
“Just being neighborly.” Ally shrugged. “It’s what we do for each other around here.”
Belle smiled. Ally wasn’t flirting. She was a good soul—generous and humble, and not the kind of woman she could lure into bed first and find out if they were compatible enough for a relationship later.
After they’d finished dinner and were on to cappuccinos, Belle contemplated ordering dessert to stay in the presence of such a captivating woman. For once, not only the stunning sex appeal of her companion was keeping her enthralled. Maybe it was the laid-back, bucolic atmosphere, but conversation with Ally was easy and familiar, with no need for affectation and no pressure to impress.
Ally checked her watch. “Wasn’t I supposed to answer questions about the Ashfords?”
Belle laughed at how Ally almost seemed able to read her mind. “Yes, you were. See what happens when you add good food and good wine into the mix?”
“And good company,” Ally said.
Okay. Now she was flirting, but Belle refused to take the bait so easily. “I’m so curious about them because I found a sort of journal at the house tucked away in a crawl space.”
“Oh? Is that why you asked me about Marion?”
“Yeah, but the journal isn’t Marion’s. It was a girl’s.”
“How do you know? What’s in it?”
“Some typical kid stuff, but unfortunately, I think Judy was the victim of sexual abuse. I mean, she didn’t use those terms, but she wrote about a man hurting her. I felt safe assuming the worst.”
“If a child’s writing about an adult hurting her, it most likely was sexual,” Ally said gravely. “Did she write down any names?”
“Just her own, Frankie, and Annette Funicello.”
“Given that ‘Frankie’ is probably Frankie Avalon, I can rule him out as a suspect right off the hop. Where’s the journal?”
“At the house, right back where I found it. I can bring it by the station tomorrow if you’d like.”
“Would you mind if I swing by after we leave here and pick it up? I won’t get any sleep tonight unless I take a look at it.”
Belle bit her lip trying to conceal her delight at the thought of Ally coming back to her place in a semi-official capacity. “Sure, that’s fine.” She came off just cool enough to be convincing.
Ally smiled as she sipped the last of her cappuccino. As long as they were sharing pertinent information, Belle figured she could also ask about Ally herself and, in the process, ascertain her relationship status.
Just as she was about to inquire, her phone vibrated again with another text. No way was she checking it. It had to be Mary. The universe was sending her a clear, awkward reminder that she was to use only her head and not her hormones when it came to interactions with Ally.
Ally seemed distracted anyway as she brushed leftover crumbs on the tablecloth into a minute pile. “Now that I know this, so many other things about the Ashfords make sense.”
“Like what?”
“Marion’s reclusiveness, the general, strange mystique surrounding them…” Suddenly her eyes flashed with revelation. “Wait a minute. Now I’m wondering that if Judy was abused, did that have anything to do with her untimely death.”
“Untimely? She was sick, wasn’t she?”
“That was the story, but whoever saw a death certificate?”
Belle was drawn in. “What if she had the clap and got it from the perv who molested her? Then it’s murder, isn’t it?”
“The clap? And I thought I was careening into far-fetched speculation.”
Belle shrugged innocently.
“We don’t even have a suspect,” Ally said. “An adult male in the home is usually the first person of interest in these cases.”
“Eww, you mean my great-uncle could’ve been a molester?”
“I hope not, but he’s dead, too,” Ally said. “So that would make all this a moot point.”
“No. It couldn’t have been him,” Belle said. “She was only like five when he died. A five-year-old definitely didn’t write this journal, and it was in present tense, like it was ongoing.”
“You’re certain an older girl wrote it and not a child?”
“You can tell by the tone. You’ll see.”
The waitress appeared at their table with the check. After a brief squabble over who would pay, they settled on going Dutch. This time, anyway.
Belle was already anticipating their next dinner date.