The Curse Оf Hollister House

Chapter 21

“I guess I was expecting a decent turnout, but there was no way I was expecting this,” I said to Naomi, who just happened to have a volunteer shift at the haunted barn that paralleled my own.

“The haunted barn is always a popular event. We have a good turnout every year, especially on opening night. Most folks want a chance to go through before everyone posts about their experience on social media and spoils the surprises along the way.”

“I get that. It does seem like if you tape a show or are planning to attend an event on any night other than the first, you’d better stay off social media if you are worried about spoilers.” I looked out at the line that wound around the parking lot. “I don’t see how they are going to get all these people thorough before the barn closes at midnight.”

“Not our problem because our shift ends at ten.”

“I guess.” I had to admit to having my doubts that we’d get out of here on time. I hoped so because I hadn’t eaten and I was starving. Maybe making plans with Cass had been a bad idea. “I just hope our relief shows up by ten. I’m both starving and exhausted.”

“You did really well with the training today. Did it feel a bit more natural than it did on Tuesday?”

“It did, yes. I had a much better idea of what to do and how to relate to the dogs I worked with. I’m looking forward to my shifts next week, and of course, volunteering with Cass is a blast. I missed him this afternoon.”

“I guess he had to work.”

I nodded. “He has two murder cases to solve, both of which are pretty complex.”

“Are you still thinking that Stella and Tracy’s deaths are linked, but Patricia’s isn’t?”

I nodded as I counted out the change due to the person I’d been helping. I wasn’t sure we should be talking about this here in the ticket booth of one of the busiest events of the entire year, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to us, and we were standing in a secure building with a glass enclosure between us and the customers we were serving. “Cass and I retraced Stella’s final afternoon this morning. We started at the middle school, then went to the site where the barn where it is believed she died used to be, and then on to the burial site. I have to say the entire experience was very sobering.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“I don’t know that Cass learned anything he didn’t already know, but I found out for the first time that Stella hadn’t taken the normal route the two of us usually did that day.”

“She didn’t?”

“She took the wooded path that starts behind the baseball field and ends up on Aspen Drive. Cass thinks that someone might have been waiting in a car on Aspen Drive for school to get out, and Stella just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Naomi frowned. “I know the exact place you are talking about. I know we weren’t close in middle school, so you might not know that I was on the track team.”

“I sort of remember you were on the track team in high school.”

“Middle school too. I used to run a loop that took me north from the middle school through the woods, across Aspen Drive, north of the place you are talking about, then south through the woods, and then I’d cross the very spot you are describing, and end up back at the school.”

“Did you see anything on the day Stella went missing?”

She shrugged. “Not that I remember. But I did see an old truck parked on the road near the little footpath that connected Aspen Drive with the school on numerous occasions that fall.”

I paused and gave Naomi my full attention. “Did you see anyone in the truck?”

She shook her head and then continued to count out change and sell tickets. “No. Not that I can remember. The truck was old and beat up. I don’t remember seeing anyone in the cab, but there was a camper on the back. I guess someone could have been inside that.”

“Did you ever see anyone lurking around nearby?”

“There was this one time when I saw a man partially hidden in the dense forest off to the side. It looked like he was going to approach me, so I picked up my pace and took off as fast as I could. After that, whenever I saw the truck on the road, I took the long way around to get back to the school.”

“Did you tell the deputy who was looking into Stella’s murder about that truck?” I asked as I handed a woman the ten tickets she’d asked for.

“No. He never asked, and to be honest, I didn’t make the connection until just now. I’d seen you and Stella walking along the road after school a bunch of times when I was out running. I assumed she was abducted somewhere along the main route to her house.”

“We should tell Cass what you just remembered,” I said. I looked out at the ticket line, which seemed to have just gotten longer. “I need to take a quick break to call him. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Tell him the truck was white with a lot of dents and rust, and the camper was sort of a brown and tan color, also old. I doubt the truck is still around. It looked to be on its last legs twenty years ago, but I suppose you never know.”

I could hear the complaints from the line when I closed my window and announced that I was going on a short break. The ticket booth was a portable shed of sorts with windows that opened and closed and an interior counter that the service organizations in the area had purchased to use for this purpose. In addition to being useful, it could be locked up, which meant it was secure.

“Hey, Cass, it’s Callie,” I said after I stepped away to make my call.

“I was just about to head in your direction.”

“That’s great, but I have something to tell you that I don’t think can wait. Naomi just told me that she ran track in middle school, and during the weeks before Stella went missing she saw an old truck with a camper parked on Aspen Drive right near the trail leading back to the school.”

“An old truck with a camper. A white truck with a brown camper?”

“Yeah. So you knew about it.”

“No. Not in connection with Stella at least. But someone I spoke to when Tracy went missing mentioned an old white truck with a brown camper that had been seen parked on the road near the middle school.”

“It can’t be the same truck. Naomi said the one she saw was old twenty years ago.”

“It might be unlikely that it is the same truck, but it is possible. I’m heading out now. Tell Naomi I’ll want to talk to her. Tell her not to leave until I get there.”

I hung up, returned to the ticket booth, and reopened my window. I passed on Cass’s message to Naomi and then got busy selling tickets. It looked as if the line was somewhat shorter. I still didn’t see how everyone was going to get through the haunted barn by midnight, but as Naomi had said, that wasn’t our problem. Our replacements showed up right about the same time Cass did, so we turned things over to them, and the three of us headed back toward town, where Cass knew of an all-night diner.

It didn’t take Cass and Naomi long to figure out that the truck she’d seen twenty years ago and the truck witnesses had seen near the middle school in the weeks before Tracy went missing were one and the same. Now, all Cass had to do was track it down. No one Cass had talked to had mentioned a license plate number, but he planned to go back to talk to everyone again. Maybe he’d be able to jog someone’s memory. Even without the license number, Cass had enough to put out an APB on the truck. Given its age and the fact that it was a white truck with a brown camper, it didn’t seem as if it would be too hard to find.

“I wonder if the same truck was seen in Rivers Bend before Hillary went missing,” I said after we’d ordered and our coffee had been set down on our table.

“I’ll pull the files and check,” Cass answered.

“I feel like this is a real lead,” I said, more confident that we’d find Stella’s killer than I had been at any point before.

“Didn’t anyone mention the truck when Stella went missing?” Naomi asked. “I mean sure, the stretch of road where it was parked is sparsely used, but it is used on occasion. Someone must have seen the truck parked there on the side of the road.”

“I’ll go back through everything again, but I don’t remember seeing any mention of a truck in the original paperwork. Maybe, like you, anyone who saw the truck didn’t think it being parked there was all that important.”

“I guess. But it still seems like someone would have said something. I realize that I have no room to make a comment about others not mentioning the truck because I didn’t either, but I was twelve, and no one asked me if I’d noticed any strange cars or trucks around, so it never occurred to me to bring it up.”

“You told Callie you saw a man in the woods watching you on one occasion. Can you describe him?”

Naomi slowly shook her head. “It was so long ago, and I only got a glimpse of him. I wondered what he was doing just standing there behind the shrubs. But I can’t remember much at all about him.”

“Height? Weight?” Cass asked.

“Average, I guess. I know that doesn’t help, but I don’t remember that he stood out as being tall or short or thin or fat, so average is all I can come up with.” She frowned. “He had a coat on.” She furrowed her brows even deeper. “I remember that it was cool but not cold that day, and I thought it was strange that he had on such a long coat when it wasn’t even snowing.”

“Did you notice anything else?” Cass asked. “Was he holding anything?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. It all happened really fast. I was jogging by, I noticed him standing there, and he took a step forward, which scared me, so I ran.”

“And did you tell anyone that you’d seen the man when you got back to the school?”

Naomi’s eyes widened. “I did mention it to someone. A man standing by the gym. I think he was a teacher, but I’m not sure. He might have been a parent. I told him there was a strange man lurking around in the woods and he told me he’d check it out.”

“And then?” Cass asked.

“And then I headed to the locker room to shower.”

“Was anyone else around besides the man you spoke to?”

“There was someone in the gym when I went through.” She paused and tugged a bit more at the memory. “The volleyball team. I remember the girls were practicing.”

“Stella was on the volleyball team,” I said.

“So maybe the guy in the forest was there to watch the girls,” Cass said. “How long before Stella went missing did this happen?”

“A while. Maybe a month. A few weeks at least.”

“And after that day in the woods, did you ever see the man in the forest again?”

“No. Like I told you earlier, I changed my route and started sticking to the main roads after the man scared me.”