The Curse Оf Hollister House

Sunday

Once again, I found myself sitting in the attic with Alastair in the wee hours of the morning. I’d tried to go back to sleep after waking when a noise outside my bedroom window startled me, but as hard as I tried, sleep evaded me. I wasn’t sure why I spent so much time up here. I guess it was the one place in all the world I felt the safest. I’d spent most of my time up here when I came to live with Gracie after my parents died, and I’d almost lived up here after Stella was murdered and any innocence I might still have possessed had been completely destroyed.

I plucked the Nancy Drew journal Stella and I had kept off the pile of books where I’d left it and curled into the window to read. Most of the cases Stella and I took on were silly. I opened the book to find a page entitled The Case of the Missing Sock, which was followed by The Case of the Too-Salty Casserole. That one was a toughie. It seemed that the casserole Stella’s mom had made for dinner turned out too salty and she blamed the grandmother, who’d been visiting at the time, saying that she’d added salt to it after she’d finished mixing it and transferred it to the casserole dish for baking. The grandmother denied having done so, and an argument erupted between the two, which for some reason, Stella thought she could mediate by finding the truth about the too-salty casserole.

I smiled as I remembered the fun Stella and I’d had. I don’t think we ever did figure out how the casserole came to be too salty, but we did find that missing sock. The cases we opened became spaced further and further apart as we got ready to enter middle school. I think we both decided somewhere along the way that participating in a Nancy Drew club was for babies.

I opened the book to the end in an attempt to remember our last case. The Case of the Peeping Tom. I frowned. I’d totally forgotten about this one, which had been opened by Stella shortly after we started middle school. She was sure that someone was spying on her. I remember that she thought someone had been looking through the air vent in the girls’ locker room while she was changing for volleyball. How could I have forgotten about this? Sure, I’d been traumatized beyond description when Stella was murdered, and I pretty much blocked everything from my mind. But this? Why hadn’t I realized that a Peeping Tom would be an important thing to know about when investigating a murder?

I looked at the notes.

Day 1 – Someone was watching me through the vent in the girls’ locker room. The notation was written in Stella’s handwriting. I could hear someone breathing, but I couldn’t see their face.

Day 2 was written in my handwriting. I spoke to the other girls on the volleyball team. Several of the others reported a similar experience to the one Stella reported.

Day 3 was recorded by Stella. Chills were experienced when the creepy art sub watched me walk away after class. I think I might fake being sick tomorrow.

Art sub? I didn’t take art because I had private piano lessons during sixth period, which counted as my elective. I wondered if we could find out who the sub for Stella’s art class had been. I made a mental note to ask Cass. It was twenty years ago, but it would seem that employee records were kept forever.

Day 4 was again recorded by me. This case is closed on account of Stella being a big baby I am never going to speak to again.

Oh, God. I must have written that on the day Stella went missing. I guess that would explain why we’d never closed the case as we usually did. I guess it also explained why the logbook was left in my possession. I’d been the one to have it when Stella had died.

It was too early to call Cass, so I texted him and told him I had an important piece of news and that he should call me as soon as he woke up. A sub. Of course. We suspected the killer might be a substitute for the county. In my gut, I knew that if we could identify the person who subbed for Stella’s art class, we would find the killer.

Of course, once I’d stumbled upon this piece of information, I became hugely impatient. Cass was a deputy. He was probably used to being woken up in the middle of the night. Surely, he wouldn’t mind if I called his cell even though it was only four fifteen in the morning.

I called. He didn’t answer.

Dang. Maybe I should try 911, but this really wasn’t an emergency. Making a quick decision, I jogged downstairs to my room, pulled on some clothes, and headed out into the night. If Goliath wasn’t going to answer the phone, the mountain was going to go to Goliath. Or something like that.

When I arrived at Cass’s, I found his vehicle gone. I knocked on the door, and he didn’t answer. Milo came to the door barking like he was going to kill whoever was on the other side. I waited to see if the barking would wake Cass, but when he still didn’t come to the door, I figured he was out. But where could he be? It was still a couple of hours until sunrise.

I returned to my car and considered what to do next. I supposed Cass might have been called out on a call. Patricia’s murder had been wrapped up, so he could have responded to a call connected to Tracy’s murder, or he might be out on a call of a different sort altogether. Should I wait? Head home? Drive into town and go by the station to see if he was there?

I tried calling his cell again, but the call went directly to voice mail. I had to admit this had me worried. Despite the voice in my head telling me to wait before acting, I found myself calling Naomi, who answered right away.

“Callie? Is everything okay?”

“I’m looking for Cass. I have this gut feeling he might be in trouble, and I need your help.”

“Of course. What can I do?”

“The story you told us about running through the woods and seeing the man in the coat and then telling an adult who was watching the girls practice volleyball. Can you remember what the man looked like?”

“The man in the woods?”

“No, the man watching the game. The one you told about the man in the woods.”

“Wow. I don’t know. It’s been so long.”

“Try to remember what you can. It might be important.”

“Okay.” She paused. “I remember he looked familiar, yet I didn’t know his name. I think he had dark hair. Short. I don’t know. I didn’t pay all that much attention.”

“Stella thought the man who was subbing for the art class was watching her. Do you remember him?”

“I had marching band, so I didn’t have art.”

I tried to remember what Cass had told me about Harvey Underwood’s schedule at the middle school the year that Stella died. “I think the same guy subbed for Mr. Donnelly’s history class later in the year.”

“Oh, wait. I know who you are talking about.” She paused. I supposed she must have been thinking about what she’d seen, attempting to remember. Eventually, she spoke. “Yeah, now that you say that, I do think it might have been him. The thing with the guy in the forest happened early in the school year and the guy you are talking about who took over Donnelly’s class when his wife had a baby, subbed for him late in the year. I’d never made the connection, but it totally might have been him.”

“His name was Mr. Underwood. Does that ring a bell?”

“Not really. It was twenty years ago,” she reminded me.

“I know. But I suspect that Underwood might be the killer Cass is looking for. He worked as a sub here in Foxtail Lake when both Stella and Tracy died, and he worked in Rivers Bend when Hillary died.”

“Hillary?”

I explained who she was and how her death compared to Stella and Tracy’s.

“Does Cass know this?” Naomi asked.

“He does. He was at my place last evening, and when he left, he told me he was going to track down Buck Darwin and attempt to find out who he was covering for. I didn’t think he was going to do that last night, but I’ve tried calling him, and it went straight to voice mail. I’m at his place right now, and he isn’t here. I’m worried that Darwin told him what he wanted to know, and he went after the killer alone only to have the killer turn the tables on him.”

“And you think Mr. Underwood is the killer?”

“It fits. He was in all the right places at the right times. Stella thought he was watching her. You found him watching the girls’ volleyball team of which Stella was a member on the day of your encounter in the woods.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know. I guess we call one of the other deputies assigned to the town.” I thought about the options.

“Rafe volunteers for me sometimes. I have his number. I’ll call him. Why don’t you come over here and we can figure this out together?”

“Okay. I’m on my way.”