“So this town wasn’t always called Braden Heights?” Dean asked groundskeeper-for-hire Arthur Keating.
“No, sir,” Keating said, scratching the underside of his jaw through his patchy gray beard. “Probably have to go back to the late sixties, early seventies to find references to Braden Heights by its original name, Larkin’s Korner. That’s Korner with a K.”
“That free local paper, The Corner Press,” Dean said. “Named after the original town name?”
“Yes, sir,” Keating said. “But you’re not likely to find many in town make that connection. Second or third generation families. And some of those probably never knew, since the paper refused to adopt the K spelling. Original editor couldn’t abide the intentional misspelling in the town name.”
“Other than the goofy spelling,” Dean said, “why’d they change the name? You mentioned a tragedy…?”
Having stood for a while, Keating took a step back to lean against the riding mower. He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “Most of the land around here was owned by Ruth Larkin’s family. Still is, I imagine, except for some parcels of land they’ve sold to the town or private developers. The construction going on around town? Wherever you see that, you’re most likely looking at lots the Larkin family owned previously. Was a time the Larkins were the prominent family in this area, but they cleared out in the early sixties, after the tragedy. But who could blame them?”
Dean contained his impatience. For a man who professed not to trade in gossip, Keating sure seemed to revel in the telling of it. “And this tragedy…?”
“Right,” Keating said. “Ruth Larkin’s son, Calvin Nodd, a doctor no less, snapped. Maybe it started in the war, after the things he saw over there. Heard he had regular nightmares, the wake up screaming and drenched in sweat type of night terrors. Or maybe the Larkin family played that stuff up later to garner sympathy for the man.
“Anyway, he came home in one piece, which was better than some. And he brought a new bride with him. For a while, he seemed happy. But he was home less than a year when his wife died in childbirth. Baby girl survived, though. Nodd became something of a hermit after that, avoiding contact with most folks, but he raised that girl on his own. Don’t imagine he was a model father, damaged as he was. As you might expect, that little girl ran a bit wild. Years later, sixty-two it must have been, she gets herself knocked up and runs off with a drifter boyfriend. Rebels of a feather, I guess. Doc Nodd never heard from her again.”
“Must have been hard for him.”
“Yes, sir,” Keating said. “Comes home from the war traumatized. Back then they didn’t recognize PTSD or that kind of thing, but I imagine he had major head issues. Then his wife dies in childbirth less than a year after they’re married. Finally, his daughter flips him the bird and runs off carrying a grandchild he’ll never see. That there is one big downward spiral.”
“A spiral that ended with him snapping?”
“Supposedly, he tried to strangle one of his patients, during childbirth no less. Almost killed her and the baby. Would have, if not for the attending nurse. Doc Nodd skipped town before the case went to trial. And just like his daughter, he was never heard from again.”
“Why ‘supposedly’?” Dean asked. “Isn’t this a matter of record?”
“Well, some of it is and some of it isn’t,” Keating hedged. “Rumor had it the Larkins paid off the woman’s family and the nurse and maybe a few others to keep quiet about the whole incident. And by ‘paid’ I mean paid handsomely. The papers published some vague nonsense about Doc Nodd having some kind of episode, war-related psychological damage overcoming him for one terrible moment. They brought up the death of his wife, abandonment by his only child, and so on. Mother and child were fine. Maybe her family even believed it was an unfortunate episode. They left soon after the incident so they wouldn’t be around to answer any troubling questions.”
“If the Larkins paid off everyone involved,” Dean said, “how’d you find out this information?”
“Information might be too strong a word for what I know,” Keating said. “Like I told you before, this is rumors, whispers passed around. You can’t buy off a whole town’s silence. So and so knew one bit of it, someone else knew another piece of it. You hear enough, you start to put those puzzle pieces together. It was an old-fashioned cover up, by all accounts, but it’s not like the Larkins had to cover up an actual murder, although they might have tried, if it had come to that.”
“That the end of it?”
“Once the dust settled, it seemed like the doctor and his entire family had dropped off the face of the earth, but the Larkins’ sterling reputation had suffered a bit of tarnish. Wasn’t much longer before they pulled up stakes. Still owned much of the land, mind you, but they were nowhere to be found. Heard at the time that they’d relocated to Europe, but that’s about as specific a location as I ever heard. Few years later, the town changed its name. To honor a local war hero, or so they said. Only us old-timers know the real reason. It’s taken all this time, but it looks like the Larkins—whoever is left among them and wherever they are these days—are finally selling off any land they still own around here.”
Dean calculated that if the disappearing Doctor Nodd was still alive, he’d be ninety, possibly older. Certainly in no condition to brutally murder and eviscerate four healthy young men, even if he could have extricated himself from a fatal car crash unwitnessed. But he could be responsible for unleashing whatever had committed the murders. While his mental gears turned, Dean said, “That’s quite a story.”
“And every word of it true,” Keating said. “Of course, we’ll probably never know about the Riza copycats.”
“Wait—copycats?”
“Five other local girls who got themselves in a family way and left town, just like the Doc’s girl. Not sure if they thought it was a romantic notion, leaving behind the small town for the big city. Most folks blamed the recession, lack of jobs and opportunity. Rough times, certainly. Nobody could blame them for leaving, wanting something better. Of course, my own feeling on the matter is the big city’s more likely to chew you up and spit you out. But there’s a reason they got that expression, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Some people got to find out for themselves different don’t mean better.”
“What happened to the copycats?”
“Their families never heard from those girls again. Not one of the five came crawling back. Damn poor odds, right? Always thought that was mighty peculiar.”
“Yes,” Dean said. “It is.”
“Well, sir, if you don’t mind, I need to finish up here.”
“Thanks for your help, Arthur,” Dean said, shaking the man’s hand before he climbed back up on his riding mower.
The engine fired up as Dean hurried back to the Holcomb residence.