Chapter 1
I cinched the scarf more tightly around my head and wedged the hard hat into place. I’d learned the hard way that not covering my hair and my head could mean a mess, sometimes a bloody one.
The doorframe appeared to be solid, and when I pushed hard against the floorboards with my right foot, they held solid, too. I walked into the Scruggs Store and crouched beneath the collapsing roof. Not much left here I could safely search through, but I was going to do my best. I’d paid good money for this salvage job, and I was going to get what I could.
I’d driven past this old gas station all my life and had mourned as the vegetation took it over and began to pull it down over the past few years. I knew, though, that no one in our rural mountain county was going to buy the place, not after someone had been murdered there twenty years ago. A single gas pump on a country road wasn’t enough incentive to take on that bad mojo.
It was a loss, though, because the station had been there for almost a hundred years – first as a country store and then as a welcome fueling spot twenty-five miles from the nearest city. I was determined to not let it all disappear when the bulldozers parked outside knocked it down. My fifty dollars had gained me entry and rights to anything I could carry out before the station was destroyed, and I was going to get my money’s worth while saving a bit of history along the way.
I was new at the salvage business, but I knew enough about local history and had watched enough Barnyard Builders, American Pickers, and Salvage Dawgs to feel like I could find the good stuff. I headed to the left toward what used to be the check-out counter and hit paydirt right away. The original counter was still there, complete with a hand-written sign about check cashing as well as a Virginia lottery sticker from somewhere in the last decade of the previous century. A few coats of poly on this baby, and it would make a great piece of wall art for someone who loved that 1990s feel or just wanted to relive their heyday.
A few good pries with my crowbar and I had the whole countertop sitting by the door ready to go. That piece alone was worth my investment, but I wanted to go a bit further in, see if maybe there was some old stock of soda or something. People paid ridiculous prices for skunked beer and flat Pepsi. The coolers were underneath some rafters, so I moved gingerly toward them. Most of the shelves were empty, probably raided before the building started to cave in, but I could see the glint of light off glass in the back. Jackpot! The overstock was still there, it seemed.
I picked and tested my way to a door that seemed to open behind the wall of refrigerated units and prayed it wasn’t locked. I didn’t feel like kicking in a door and bringing down the roof. Luckily, the knob turned, and I was in. Not cases and cases of old stock, but enough to turn a good profit. As I carried out a few boxes of soda and Yuengling, I thought about how tight the margin for a store like this must have been. The owner had to keep enough supply to satisfy customers’ last-minute shopping needs – gallons of milk, snacks, a few packs of diapers probably – but not so much that he couldn’t make a profit on what he stocked. It was hard going.
Maybe it was easier, though, since he and his family lived at the back of the store, like a lot of shop owners back in the day. I thought about what it would have been like to grow up in that little house, to have people coming by all times of day and night to get cigarettes or pick up a sandwich from the little kitchen in the back of the store. I might have loved it, and I knew my son, Sawyer, would have thrived with all those people to talk to. His extroverted tendencies were in diametric opposition to my introverted ones. But I thought it probably also would have grown tiring and tedious.
As I set a sixth case of Cheerwine by the door, I made my plan for a last foray into the store and then, hopefully, into the house behind. I could just make out a doorframe in the far back corner, and since I’d noted the exterior bathroom doors before I came in, I figured this must be the way into the house. The only problem was that I was going to have to crawl my way back there. My forty-six-year-old body wasn’t much for crawling despite the fact that Sawyer was in a “Be a rhino with me, Mommy” stage.
Still, that little boy needed his mommy to buy him cheese crackers and milk, so crawl I did. And when it was necessary for me to be thinner than my crawling hips would allow, I shimmied my way like a snake and decided I wasn’t going to suggest Saw and I try that animal imitation out.
I made it to the door, though, and I was hoping that the quick look I’d had at the house hadn’t been deceptive. Luckily for me, this roof was still standing at its full eight feet. I levered myself to standing and looked around at what reminded me of the living room of my high school years. A big black television from before the age of flat screens sat in one corner, and in front of it, a couch with overstuffed arms and red plaid fabric was under a rumpled blanket and a throw pillow. It looked like someone had just gotten up from a Sunday afternoon nap.
A quick scan told me there wasn’t anything worth hauling out of here, but I was glad to find that the exterior door was easy to open in case I did find anything. If only I had seen it before I covered my entire front in dust from my army crawl back here.
I made my way into the kitchen and felt sorrow hitch in my chest. A wire rack with moldy cookies was waiting next to a plastic tub designed just for cookie storage. My mom had the same one, and I loved coming home from school and raiding the freshly baked stash. Beside it, the mixer was bowl-less, and I saw the stainless-steel bowl in the sink, ready to be washed. A mug of half-drunk tea sat at the edge of the counter. Someone, probably a woman, probably a mother, had been interrupted in her work.
I took a deep breath and said a word of gratitude to that woman before I started flinging open cabinets. I only had a few more minutes before Saw or our Maine Coon cat, Beauregard, got bored of watching funny cat videos in the car or someone saw them and came to investigate who had abandoned their toddler and a giant feline in their Subaru Outback at a derelict gas station. It wasn’t my favorite choice of things to do, but Sawyer was safely in his car seat, the car was locked, and Beau was better than any guard dog, especially since he weighed in at a solid twenty pounds under his copious striped fur. The plight of a working single mom required creative problem solving, and sometimes creative problem solving involved a guard cat.
I found some vintage cookie cutters and a set of Corel dishes that I quickly loaded into the dishpan I had emptied into the sink. If I couldn’t sell them, then someone would appreciate the set at Goodwill. A few pottery mugs and really nice knife block I could use at home rounded out my haul from this room.
After I deposited those items on the small porch outside the living room door, I plunged into the first of the bedrooms. I didn’t think there’d be much to salvage here since the clothing wasn’t going to be old enough to be truly vintage, but I hoped to maybe find some children’s clothes in good shape for Sawyer and maybe a coat for me. I hit the jackpot straight off. Lots of four T pants and shirts that would fit Saw in a matter of weeks at the rate his two-year-old body was growing and even a couple of pairs of shoes. I tried not to think of the murder when I was in this room, but I prayed for this little boy. Prayed he was okay in all the ways.
There looked to be only two more doors in the small hallway, and the one at the end of the hall was likely the bathroom. I hadn’t been in many abandoned houses, but I’d learned the hard way that opening the bathroom door was a bad idea. I skipped that one and went on to the other bedroom.
The curtains were pulled tight, and while the light would have been helpful, I was in a hurry. I just headed for the closet with my flashlight and rifled through the clothes before pulling boxes down in case there were antiques or any particularly great caches of photos or mementos I needed to rescue. When I had started this work, I’d made a vow that I would try to return anything personal to the owners if I could, so I always salvaged photo albums, boxes of children’s art, and any other pieces of family history I could. Then, I spent ten percent of the money I earned from selling the other things to try to get those back to their owners. I couldn’t afford to do more than that in terms of shipping or ads in local papers, but I figured the least I could do was try that. Sometimes, it worked. Often it didn’t, and if it didn’t, I tried to console myself with the fact that maybe people just wanted to leave the past behind altogether. I probably would.
I didn’t find a coat for me in the closet, but I did see a small jewelry box shoved up on a high shelf. I chuckled. My jewelry box was in exactly the same place because Sawyer had developed a deep interest in wearing – and breaking – every necklace I owned. I wasn’t about to let him swallow my grandmother’s diamond ring, not when that was our financial back-up as well as a precious memento of my granny.
I tucked the jewelry box under my arm and turned to swing my flashlight around the room. As my light swept over the bed, I saw a lump in the corner under the window. I thought it might be a pile of discarded clothes, and with winter coming soon, I found myself praying that someone might have discarded their coat over a chair. The fact that my heart was racing made me pray even harder.
I made my way around the bed to get a closer look, and I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming. A woman was sitting in an armchair, and she wasn’t moving – not even breathing.
I stepped back, took a deep breath to push down the panic because I didn’t want to alarm Sawyer, and walked out of the side door of the house.
It felt awful to have to drive away from that house, but there was no cell service for a couple of miles. I threw the jewelry box in to the floor below where Beauregard reclined like the prince he was and headed north toward town. As soon as my phone showed three reliable bars, I pulled into the nearest driveway and dialed 911.
“Yes, this is Paisley Sutton. I just found a dead body in the old store on Scotch Road.”
The dispatcher, used to traffic accidents and reports of four-wheelers on the roads I imagined, was a bit flustered, but he managed to tell me he was sending officers and that I should wait there. I explained I was two miles up the road and would get back to the store as soon as I could. He didn’t even ask why I’d left the scene. We all knew the mountains wreaked havoc with cell service.
“What we doing, Mommy?” Sawyer asked from the back seat.
“Mommy has to talk to the police, Love Bug,” I said as I ripped open a packet of fruit snacks with my teeth and handed it to him as I simultaneously swung the car back onto the road toward the store. “You’re going to get to see police cars!” My son loved anything vehicular, and I was counting on flashing lights and maybe a kind officer who would show off a siren to help my toddler though this change of plans. He was going to miss his playground time, and if these police cars didn’t make up for slides, it was going to be a hard fight for a nap.
My maternal worries were mostly allayed though as Saw started bouncing in his seat as soon as he saw the blue flashing lights by the store, and when I pulled over and told him to wait patiently, he said, “I will, Mama,” and craned his little neck to see the police officers in uniform.
I walked to the first officer I saw and introduced myself. “I found the body,” I said, and the young black woman nodded. Then, she looked over my shoulder at the car. “Your son?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I’m a single mom, so he goes with me everywhere. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he sure is excited about seeing police cars.”
She snapped her notebook shut with such briskness that I had a flash of fear that she was going to scold me for neglect. Instead, she tilted her head at the car and said, “Mind if I sit with him?” She pointed to the radio and flashlight on her belt. “My guy loves my toys.”
I felt a flood of relief as she headed toward the backseat of my car and knocked on the door before asking Sawyer if she could sit down. When she patted her knees and let Beau settle in her lap while Sawyer squawked her radio to high heaven, I knew he’d be fine and went to see what I could find out about the woman inside.
An officer was on the front stoop of the store, and so I walked up and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned, I recognized his face from the election posters I’d seen around the county for the past couple of months. He was our new sheriff, Santiago Shifflett, the first Latino sheriff in the area, and, thankfully, the man I’d voted for.
“Sheriff, I found the body.” That was a sentence I hadn’t thought I’d utter even once in my life, but here I was saying it again. “Want me to take you in?”
“Ms. Sutton, thank you for calling it in. We actually found her already, but I would like to ask you a few questions.” His voice was kind but serious.
“Of course.” I had prepared as best I could to tell my story in the few quiet minutes of the drive back to the store. “Do you mind if we sit though? Sawyer, my son, got up at five-thirty, and the adrenaline is starting to wear off.”
“Sure,” he said. “That work?” He nodded toward the bulldozer at the edge of the lot and headed that way.
I climbed up in the seat, and the sheriff stood below. A deputy brought over two bottles of water, and I gulped mine down with gratitude. “What do you need to know?”
Sheriff Shifflett leaned against the tracks of the dozer, and I felt a little of my tension ease. If he wasn’t worried about getting his uniform dirty, I felt like I could trust him. After all, I walked around with some stain – food, poop, playdough – on my clothes every day of my life. “Let’s start with why you were in the house.”
I pulled out my business card with “Save The Story,” the name of my business, printed across the top. “I do historical salvage from old buildings. The owners gave me permission to go inside and take whatever I could.” I gestured to the stack of soda and beer beside the small circle of officers on the store’s porch.
The sheriff glanced over his shoulder and the back at me. “You found soda?” There was a lightness to his tone, and I could just see the start of a smile in the corner of his mouth.
I smiled. “I know, right? People pay a lot of money for old soda.”
“They want the soda itself? Not just the bottles?”
“It’s kind of like having old toys in the original box. Original condition means more value, I guess.” I shrugged. “I don’t question it. I just buy groceries with it.”
Shifflett pursed his lips. “Whatever it takes to pay the bills.” Sometimes people said that with mockery, but the sheriff seemed sincere.
“Exactly.” I then told him about searching the house and about going into the back bedroom. “That’s when I saw her. I didn’t touch anything, and I’m sorry I had to leave the scene but—”
“Cell service, I know.” He turned and looked at the house. “Did you notice anything unusual in there?”
I looked back up at the store and then beyond it to the attached house. “No. I mean, it’s was disconcerting to go into that house and see that it was like the people who lived there had been abducted by aliens. But I assume they left a long time ago, like after the first murder.”
The sheriff turned back to me. “You knew about that then? And you still went in?”
“Like I said, groceries.” I’d grown up nearby, and the murder had been a big deal, especially because they thought it had been someone who frequented the store. “Besides, there’s a story there, one that needs to be remembered, and not just the story of the murder, the first one, I mean. Those people had lives before and after the father of that family was killed. I wanted to remember that, to help other people remember that.” I took a deep breath, surprised that I’d shared that much with this man I’d just met. It wasn’t really relevant to the investigation, after all.
But the sheriff didn’t seem put off at all when he turned back to me. “I get it. Part of why I do my job, too. Crime happens to people and is committed by people. It’s not just a thing that happens or that happens in one moment and then is gone. It’s the people involved that get my attention.”
I studied the sheriff’s face for a second and then nodded. But then, I heard Saw’s call, “Mama!” and knew my time was limited. “I hate to ask, but can I take the things I gathered from the house?”
He shook his head, “I’m afraid not. They’re part of the crime scene. But if you have a minute,” he glanced over his head toward the car, “maybe you could show me what you were taking. It’ll help us sort out the scene but also, hopefully, I can get it to you later.”
I nodded. “Of course.” I took a quick look at my car and saw the deputy handing Sawyer her radio and gauged I had about five more minutes. I quickly walked him through the store and pointed out the countertop and the cases on the porch before showing him my haul outside the door of the house. He made notes and studied each pile of goods.
But then, I heard Sawyer’s wail and knew I needed to go. “Thanks, Sheriff. You have my number, so call if I can help further.” I waved as I jogged around the front of the store.
I hurried back to the car, where Sawyer was working up a good tantrum. I thanked the officer, gave my son a kiss on the forehead, and then climbed into the car. Eleven fifteen – it was time for a picnic lunch before my toddler went into total meltdown.
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