The Curse Оf Hollister House

“But you are still looking at Underwood?”

“Very much so.”

“And the homeless guy? Buck Darwin. What is going on with him?”

“He is in custody awaiting trial. As I said before, he hasn’t done a thing to clear himself, but he hasn’t pled guilty either. He seems to be in some sort of a holding pattern. I almost feel that by pleading no contest, he is waiting for something to happen.”

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew. It just seems that he is working really hard to stay in the neutral zone between declaring either guilt or innocence. The whole thing is rather odd.”

“Okay, so at this point you have a man in custody who neither of us thinks is guilty yet hasn’t done a thing to prove his innocence, and a substitute teacher with opportunity but no apparent motive. Is that really it?”

“So far.”

“What about the creepy man Paisley told me about?”

“Craig Grainger. He is still on my list, but I don’t see how he could have strangled Tracy and then buried her in the grave with only one functional hand.”

I guess Cass had a point. It would be hard to strangle a person or dig a grave with only one hand. I know I had a hard time doing many of the simple chores I once had. “So unless this Harvey Underwood did kill Stella, Hillary, and Tracy, you have no viable suspects because I am going to assume Buck Darwin was not around Foxtail Lake when Stella died.”

“As far as I know, he wasn’t, but like I said, he isn’t talking. He isn’t from around here, but I suppose a drifter could move in and out of a particular area over time, so it is possible he was in Colorado both ten and twenty years ago.”

As soon as playtime was over, we headed to Naomi’s office to check the menu for each animal and begin preparing the meals. We fed the dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens first, and then moved on to the larger animals. Cass seemed to be on a first-name basis with every animal living at the facility. I wasn’t sure why, but I found that endearing.

Once everyone was fed and tucked in, Cass and I headed toward our favorite pizza place.

“I’ve been wanting a Froggy’s Pizza ever since I’ve been home,” I said as we slipped into a booth in the back.

“Best pizza in town,” Cass agreed. “Are you still a cheese-only purist?”

“I think I am. But if you want toppings, we can do half and half.”

“Actually,” Cass answered, “I like cheese. Beer? Wine?”

“I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine.”

“Red or white?”

“Red. Cabernet or whatever the house special is.”

Cass got up to place our order, and I sat back and took in the ambience. As many of the businesses in town had, Froggy’s had gone all out with Halloween decorations. Spiders hung from fake cobwebs attached to the ceiling, fake jack-o’-lanterns with built-in lights had been placed randomly around the room, and a giant Frankenstein greeted customers as they walked in the front door. When I’d lived here years ago, a man named Fred Parker had owned the place. I wondered if he still did. Fred had seemed old fourteen years ago. I figured by now he must be at least sixty-five, or maybe even seventy.

I looked up as Cass approached with a beer for him and glass of wine for me. He set them on the table and then slid into the booth. “They’ll bring the pizza out when it’s ready.”

“I’ve been admiring the decorations.”

“Fred always does the holidays up big.”

“So he still owns the place?”

Cass nodded. “His grandson, Trevor, runs the place day-to-day, but Fred is very much still around, lurking in the background, keeping an eye on things.”

“So it didn’t work out with his son taking over?”

Cass shook his head. “Brian had other plans and moved away shortly after you did. Trevor is only twenty-one, but he seems to really want to take over the business and has worked hard to prove that he’s up for it. Fred hovered over his shoulder to a degree that would make me want to shoot him during the first couple of years, but he seems to have mellowed a bit now. He still pops in, but usually only to make his presence felt, and then he leaves.”

“Is Brian’s sister, Jessica, still around?”

“She is,” Cass answered, and then frowned.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“It just occurred to me that Jessica is someone I should talk to about Tracy’s disappearance. I’m not sure why her name hasn’t come up before.”

“Jessica knew Tracy?”

He nodded. “Jessica used to work at the hair salon with Tracy’s mom. She quit a few years ago, finished her degree, and took a job as a guidance counselor. She works two days a week at the middle school and three days a week at the high school. I hadn’t thought about it, but she was working at the high school when I interviewed the middle school staff, so I never did talk to her. As a counselor and a friend of the family, she might very well have useful insights into what was going on in Tracy’s life when she disappeared.” He smiled at me. “Thanks for the prompt.”

“My pleasure,” I answered, even though I hadn’t done anything. “Are you thinking the attack on Tracy was personal rather than random?”