Hidden in Harmony: Danger is Imminent (Harmony Series Book 1) Page 11

  “Our Doc Fennell?” Remmy asked. “Maybe he just went on vacation?”

  Collin knew the boy was in denial. “No, unfortunately that’s not the case. Something has happened to him. He had appointments scheduled and never showed up to meet with his clients. That’s not like him.”

  Remington thought for a few minutes before saying, “I’ll pray for him Dad. God protected Jonah when he was in the belly of a whale and God can take care of Dr. Fennell wherever he is too.”

  CHAPTER 16 – NAUGHTY BOY

  By the time Collin and Alayna went to bed that night, Collin was mentally exhausted. So much had gone on that evening, he hadn’t been able to converse with his wife at all. He wanted to hear her thoughts regarding Brock and Pastor Brown.

  Alayna wanted to share her thoughts as well, but not the thoughts Collin was expecting. “I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but we had a visitor stop by the house today while you were at work,” she told him.

  “A visitor. Who?” Collin asked.

  “A lady by the name of Victoria Pearson,” Alayna replied. She paused before going into more detail.

  Victoria was Brock’s ex-wife. She had supposedly come by to see if she could patch things up with him. The lady claimed she had been working tirelessly trying to locate him when she had gotten wind of his staying at the Russells’ place.

  The problem, Alayna told him, was that the story Victoria shared with her didn’t exactly line up with the story Brock had told. Their accounts about the cannibalism allegation were in perfect harmony; the part about how they split, however, was where their stories went in opposite directions.

  According to Victoria, the allegations had made her nervous. She had noticed odd things about Brock’s behavior. Sometimes he would say he was going for a walk and then not come back for hours. She would ask him where he had been and he would tell her some story that didn’t make any sense. For example, one time he said a neighbor’s cow had gotten loose and he had spent an hour and a half trying to help the neighbor lure her back into the fence. The problem with the story was that they lived in town and none of their neighbors had cattle. It was things like that she didn’t understand.

  When Brock came under the eye of detectives and their neighborhood was buzzing with gossip, she decided to stand by her man. Even though she wasn’t one hundred percent sure of his innocence, she had married him. She had made a vow that she would be with him until death parted the two. She wasn’t raised in a Christian home or trained up in church, but she understood that vows were promises. Brock had never mistreated her or their son, Scottie. The last thing she wanted to do was break a promise she had made to God.

  Victoria claimed Brock had a meeting with an investigator one afternoon and never came home. She said Scottie was devastated and blamed himself. Scottie had been getting teased by a lot of kids at school. They asked him if he followed in his daddy’s footsteps, how many people he had eaten, and questioned him about what kind of meat they had in their freezer.

  It was wearing thin on Scottie and the night before Brock ran out the door, Scottie told him about it. He asked Brock some difficult questions. He asked him why the investigators thought it was him. He asked why, if he had a look-alike that had committed the crime, nobody in town had ever seen the look-alike. He wanted to know why he sometimes left for work a couple of hours before he had to.

  Brock seemed offended by the questions. Victoria nor Scottie had any idea why he had left. They didn’t know if it was because of Scottie’s hard questioning, the investigators, the rumors floating around, or if it was a combination of all of those things. She had come to the Russell house looking for answers.

  Alayna said she had invited Victoria to stay for dinner, but Victoria didn’t want Scottie to know she was there. She didn’t want to get his hopes up until she had a chance to actually sit down and talk with Brock. She wanted, more than anything, to believe her husband was innocent. She wanted to be a family. She appeared to be genuinely in love with him, but feared he no longer felt the same way about her.

  Alayna also took advantage of her time with Victoria. She talked to her about God and invited her to church. Victoria did not seem opposed to the idea of finding a babysitter for Scottie so she could meet them at church Wednesday evening. She had asked that they not mention her visit to Brock. She was afraid he would skip town if he figured out he had been tracked down. Alayna promised not to say a word about it.

  Remington, who should have been known as Big Ears, lay awake listening to their conversation for hours. His parents thought for sure he was asleep and had kept their voices at a low whisper at all times.

  After a while, Collin and Alayna finally fell asleep. Remington could tell they had drifted off because Collin was snoring like a hibernating black bear and Alayna wasn’t talking. It seemed like she talked herself to sleep every night.

  Remington’s eyes refused to close. He thought about Dr. Fennell’s disappearance, how Victoria had shown up at the house, and about Brock seeing Nikki. He wondered what information he could pry out of Malachi. He wondered if Officer Branham was just not good at investigating cases or if he was a bad cop. He wondered why all of the victims seemed to share the connection to Harmony High School and if Dr. Fennell had a connection to Harmony as well.

  Curiosity was killing him. Even though he had just gotten ungrounded for sneaking up a few days ago and even though he had barely escaped a thrashing a few hours before, the boy slowly crawled out from under his blankets. Quietly, he stood to his feet and tip-toed out of his parents’ bedroom. He sneaked into his own bedroom where Brock was sleeping soundly.

  With his heart racing fast enough to win the Daytona 500, Remington used the moonlight shining through the window to snoop around while trying to keep his breathing to a minimum. Surely Brock had left some kind of a clue laying around — something that would tell him whether or not he had been at the library all day — something that would tell him if he knew Doc Fennell. Brock used a lot of big words, but Remmy doubted he was intelligent enough to cover all of his tracks. Even if he’s more intelligent than he looks, nobody is perfect. If there is a clue to be found, I am going to find it.

  Getting down on his hands and knees, the boy crawled ever-so-quietly to the foot of the bed. Laying down, he looked underneath. Nothing there, not even a crumb. He pushed himself back into a standing position and just as he did, Brock rolled over, with his eyes popping open for a second. Brock closed his eyes and Remmy let out a sigh. He thought his heart was going to completely drop out of the race. He pretended to be a statue for about a minute, just in case Brock was awake.

  When he was convinced it was a false alarm, Remington carefully shuffled over to the dresser. He opened the top drawer, only to discover it was a disaster. The clothes weren’t neatly folded the way Mom insisted he keep his drawers. How unfair was that!

  He carefully lifted each t-shirt and slid his hand along the bottom of the drawer; he found a couple of quarters, but that was about it. Determined to find any shred of evidence, he moved to the next drawer down; it was Brock’s underwear drawer. Remington hated the idea of looking through an adult’s unmentionables, but if he was hiding something, he knew that’s where he would put it. He shuffled through the drawer as quickly as possible — nothing there either!

  He checked the third and then the final drawer; not one piece of evidence. That didn’t mean anything. If Brock was guilty or even if he was innocent, he was going to find something that would at least point him in the right direction. His investigation was far from over.

  He peered around the room. How had he forgotten to check the dirty clothes hamper? Remington wished it wasn’t snuggled in that corner right next to Brock’s bed. Still, he had to check it.

  He tip-toed, still barely breathing, to the hamper. Fortunately, it was over-piled with dirty laundry and the lid was open. He picked up the pair of blue jeans on top, which still had a belt in them; they were obviously the pair he had just taken off before climb
ing into bed.

  Remington held them up to his own scrawny waist. These are huge! If he didn’t know Brock so well and had just saw the pants laying somewhere, he’d have thought they belonged to a much larger man. Looks could be deceiving; that was for sure!

  Poking his fingers in one of the back pockets, Remmy was thrilled to find Brock’s wallet. He took it out and opened it up. Inside, he found a photograph of a boy he assumed was Scottie. It was hard to see the picture by moonlight, but he was pretty sure that’s who it must have been. He also saw a photo of a woman he believed to be Victoria. He opened the main compartment and found a couple of dollars as well as a receipt for gasoline — nothing too helpful in there!

  Remington checked the other back pocket; it was empty. When he stuck his hand in a front pocket, he discovered a wad of papers. Pulling them out, he attempted to keep them from making any sounds; it was useless. There were too many papers and the harder he tried, the louder the noise was becoming.

  The sneaky teen, who apparently loved living life on the edge, decided there was no choice but to sneak out of his room with the jeans in hand. He would have to continue this investigation out of earshot of any of the adults. Continuously looking over his shoulder, Remington crept to the living room.

  He looked around one last time just to make sure he hadn’t been followed before reaching back into the pocket and pulling out the whole handful of papers.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Dad whispered as he entered the room from behind him.

  If he had any hair on the back of his neck, Remington was sure it was now standing straight on end. Why can’t I do anything right? he asked himself. I’m an idiot!

  “Would you believe me if I said I was… uh… sleep walking?” Remington asked sheepishly.

  Collin gave him the look that no boy likes to receive from his father. “The truth please.”

  Remmy’s voice cracked, “I heard you and Mom talking before you went to sleep. I wanted to find out if Brock went anywhere else besides the library. All of these papers were in his pocket and I was going to see if any of them are clues.”

  Dad glared at him for a moment, “Why didn’t I bust your behind earlier? I should have known that hug wouldn’t teach you anything, but… I have to give credit where credit is due. You were using your head with this one.”

  Looking around to make sure Brock, nor Alayna for that matter, was lurking about, Dad whispered, “Let’s take them out on the porch just to make sure he doesn’t catch us.”

  ◆◆◆

  Collin soon discovered his son had been onto something after all. In the mess of papers from Brock’s pocket, they discovered an odd note. It read, “11:30 am Tuesday — empty house on Spudd Avenue.”

  That’s tomorrow, Collin thought. What is Brock up to?

  Collin knew exactly the house it was referring to; it had been vacant for years. It was one of those houses that exists in every community — the one no one would buy because of a mysterious death that had supposedly occurred there decades ago. Everyone referred to the shack on Spudd Avenue as “The Creepy Masselli Place.”

  Rumor had it a young, ambitious journalist, fresh out of college had purchased the house back in the ‘70s. No one seemed to recall his first name. The residents of Clayville all knew him as Duke Masselli. He was a tall, muscular guy; the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to have as your enemy. They said he worked out at the gym five days per week. When he wasn’t working out or attending to a story, he frequently volunteered his time to mow his neighbors’ lawns. He didn’t even charge them for the gasoline.

  Masselli was a well-respected neighbor. Everyone liked him — that was, everyone except government officials. The majority of his articles exposed political corruption. He set his sights on uncovering mounds of manure hidden beneath the beds of mayors, governors, city councilmen, and those just beginning to run for office. It would be safe to say Duke had an abundance of devoted friends and a battalion of enemies.

  One afternoon, strange sounds were heard reverberating from his house. Neighbors hadn’t seen anyone go in or come out. The police received multiple phone calls from concerned neighbors.

  About ten minutes later, a squad car pulled up to the scene. When the officer knocked on the door, he heard nothing. He hollered, “Is anybody home?”

  After waiting another minute or two, the officer rammed his way through the door. Inside, he found Duke’s body. At first glance, it appeared his death had been caused by a fall down the stairs. He was laying with his head on the bottom step and his feet several steps higher. It looked like he had possibly broken his neck.

  When an autopsy was performed, the coroner claimed he had found nothing suspicious. However, the noises the neighbors described did not match up with an accidental fall. Multiple witnesses had heard what sounded like someone taking a baseball bat and whacking something or someone several times. One lady thought she heard a terrified voice crying out, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” somewhere in the middle of the thumps.

  Soon after his death, unusual occurrences started being reported at The Creepy Masselli Place. In the middle of the night, when no one was home, passersby would see strange lights in the windows. The police were called multiple times with reports of breaking glass, but nothing broken was ever found. On a couple of occasions, different people saw smoke coming out of the chimney. When it was checked out, the fireplace seemed cold; there was no evidence of a fire.

  There were so many rumors floating around about that house that no one within a two-hundred-mile radius would even think of buying it. So why would Brock have planned to be there at 11:30 am? Something didn’t feel right.

  ◆◆◆

  Collin ordered Remington to get back in bed. He stuffed the papers back in Brock’s pocket, insisting he would be the one to sneak the jeans back into the hamper. Like his son had moments before, he tip-toed into Brock’s room, stopping just inside the doorway to observe Brock for a moment — he was definitely still sound asleep.

  He crept to the hamper and dropped the jeans on top. Turning to leave the room, Collin stumbled over a pair of Brock’s shoes. Seriously, what grown man leaves his high-tops laying in the middle of the floor? Doesn’t he realize they could get trampled? Of all things to leave out, shoes? Really?

  CHAPTER 17 – THE KNOCK OUT

  Fortunately Collin didn’t fall, but the stumble was enough to wake Brock up, “Whoa! What has brought you into my private area of dwelling?”

  Collin froze like a popsicle, gazing at him blankly; he didn’t know what to say — things must have looked pretty awful. Being caught in another man’s bedroom in the middle of the night was humiliating. If Brock knew why he was in there, his life as well as the lives of his family members might be in danger.

  Collin remembered Remington’s pathetic excuse of sleep walking. That was it! Maybe he could convince Brock he was sleepwalking. He continued the deer-in-the-headlights look. Brock asked, “Collin, has your brain ceased normal functioning?”

  Collin didn’t move. He just kept looking off into space. Remington had heard the commotion. Being the bright boy he was, he figured out his dad’s game plan. Walking into the room behind Collin, he said, “Is Dad walking in his sleep again?”

  Brock chuckled, “That really transpires? I was under the assumption it only occurred in cinematic venues.”

  “No, Dad does this every now and then. Usually when he’s really tired or under a lot of stress.”

  Remington was quite the young actor. Grabbing Dad’s hand, he pretended to lead him back to the master bedroom.

  Brock bought into the whole charade hook, line, and sinker! In the morning, as a matter of fact, he asked Collin if he remembered walking into his room in the middle of the night. Of course Collin pretended to know nothing about it whatsoever.

  ◆◆◆

  After dropping Brock off at the tree nursery, Collin decided to play hooky from Just Right Shoes. Borrowing a cell phone from a complete stranger, he le
ft a voicemail for Nikki, claiming he was having car trouble and would be there shortly.

  Then, without telling a single soul what he was up to, Collin drove to Spudd Avenue. Parking nearly one block away from The Creepy Masselli Place, he was confident his presence would go unnoticed. He ambled down the sidewalk toward the house, not seeing a soul anywhere. He passed the house and walked another half of a block just to make sure no one was around.

  Seeing the coast was clear, he turned around and went back to The Creepy Masselli Place; he walked a complete circle around it. There were no broken windows. The doors seemed intact. There was no evidence of anyone being there in years. Hesitantly, Collin walked up on the porch and rapped on the door.

  As he had anticipated, no one answered. Checking to make sure the door was still locked, he turned the doorknob. To his shock, it wasn’t secured. Collin released the knob and stood there for a few seconds trying to decide if he should call the police. What would I tell them? “Hi, uh… I just came over to The Creepy Masselli Place and the door is unlocked?” That would have been about as stupid as trying to play fetch with a mountain lion.

  I should probably go back to the Jeep and forget the whole thing. Somewhere hidden away inside of him, however, was that ornery little boy that always had to go one step further than his conscience said he was allowed to go. He placed his hand back on the doorknob, turned it ever so slowly, and opened the door.

  “Hello?” he hollered from the entryway.

  There was no answer. Just like he had previously thought, no one was in the house; there couldn’t be. There was no furniture. Cobwebs decorated practically every corner. It was dusty. There was mouse poop on the floor.

  Collin stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. He wanted to make sure no uninvited guests could follow him inside. Watching his every step, Collin crept through the living room and found his way to the kitchen. About half of the cupboards were open. All of them were empty, with the exception of the one just above the refrigerator that had a dead, stiff, half decayed crow lying in it. Creepy was the word.