Impotent Death: A Paranormal Mystery

Chapter Eleven

     Later that afternoon, Ruth and I sat crouched in Kevin's secret office, examining the chest filled with sand and snacking on peanut butter sandwiches. We were determined to find any piece of evidence that could tell us who stole the money and why they'd felt the need to fill the chest with sand.
     "Now that I think about it, there were a few others who knew about this room," Kevin said through Ruth. "Robyn was one of them, actually. Also James Howard."
     "And why did you randomly show those two this room?" I asked before I stuffed the rest of the sandwich I was eating into my mouth.
     "I honestly can't remember. It may have been to impress them or... really? That's kind of a sad excuse, Kevin."
     I swallowed the bite I'd been eating and asked, "What is?"
     "He says because he's been dead for so long he can't remember certain details of his life."
     "Well, that's helpful," I grumbled. "I guess it could have been that James Howard guy. But we don't really know a lot about him. I could ask Mrs. Harrison and Bakersfield again to see if they know anything."
     "James was an old colleague of mine. He was never a very talkative person and he often hung out in bars getting drunk," Ruth repeated to me.
     "Sounds like someone else I know," I said, looking at the wall Ruth kept looking at.
     "Hey, I'm a very talkative person."
     "Yeah, but you liked to go get drunk. Especially right before someone was murdered in your house. If you hadn't been drunk, you could've caught the killer."
     "Or that's why the killer chose to frame you; because they knew you would be drunk," Ruth pointed out. "I think whoever killed Robyn was either at your brother's party that night or knew you would be. You think I'm right? Good."
     "So now we have James Howard as a suspect. Who else at the party could it have been? Think, Kevin," I said. I scooped a handful of sand from the chest into my palm and let it slip out between my fingers. "I guess it's also possible the robbery and murder were separate events—but probably not. Whoever stole it probably filled it with sand to give the false impression there was still something in here. But that actually seems kind of pointless."
     I continued playing around with the sand as Kevin tried to come up with more suspects. One of my fingers suddenly caught on something other than sand—a thick piece of fabric. I pulled it out and looked at it closely. It was dark grey and about half the size of a penny.
     "This looks like it came off of a piece of clothing," I said as I held it up for Ruth to see.
     She took it from me and squinted at it. "You're right. This was probably left behind by the thief! This is great, Makayla! Let's look for other stuff in there."
     Excitement rushed through me as we started scooping up more sand to check for more evidence. To our utter astonishment (and great delight) we fished out four strands of dark hair. They were short, meaning they belonged to a man.
     "Oh my gosh, this is perfect!" I exclaimed, holding the hair in my palm. "This is literally evidence! Someone left behind some of their hair when they stole Kevin's money. We have to do DNA testing on it!"
     "Couldn't we ask Hannah's dad to run some tests?" Ruth suggested. "He's a detective, right?"
     "That's true! Marcus Green is a forensic analyst! Just like Anthony was," I realized, standing up. "Wow! Never in a million years did I think we would ever get this close to solving the murd—I mean... I knew we would solve it eventually," I said instead when Ruth gave me an unhappy look.
     Ruth took the hairs from me and studied them for a few moments. "Kevin, did James Howard have black hair? No? Okay, so it couldn't be James Howard. He was a redhead."
     "Who do you know who has black hair like this?" I asked Kevin. "Anyone—just list off names."
     Ruth was quite for a minute until she began reciting names: "Caleb Whiteman, Sam Dunford, Benjamin Weller, Carl Sanders, Kessler War—how do you say that? Okay, that's a weird name. War-burt-on—"
     "All of these people really had this dark of hair?" I asked, gesturing to the hairs in Ruth's hand. "Think, Kevin. Who really had dark hair? Who had the darkest hair out of those five and would want to ruin your life?"
     "I don't know," was the response.
     I sighed. "Well, make your best guess. What were those names again?"
     Ruth repeated them. "Caleb Whiteman, Sam Dunford, Benjamin Weller, Carl Sanders, Kessler—War-burt-on—"
     "Wait!" I cried suddenly. "Did you say Weller? Could he have been related to Robyn Weller?" Maybe I was getting onto something with this.
     "Yes, in fact. Benjamin was Robyn's cousin. They were pretty close, so I used to see him sometimes. I think the whole Weller family used to live in Mosier," Ruth said.
     "This is perfect! Maybe Benjamin had a reason to kill his cousin—a lot of times crime happens because of family issues. But why would he want to frame you?"
     "It beats me. We got along really well. We had a lot in common, me and Benjamin. He was a nice fellow too, I couldn't see him wanting to frame me," Ruth repeated. "He did have pretty dark hair though..."
     "Did you tell him about this room?" I asked eagerly.
     Ruth looked over at Kevin for a response. "No, I didn't know him that well."
     I paced around the room a few more times before saying, "Tomorrow, I'm gonna talk to Mrs. Harrison and Bakersfield again. Maybe they'll remember Benjamin and be able to tell us something useful about him."
     Before anyone could say anything else, we heard a shout coming from the direction of the tunnel. "Makayla, Ruth! Dinner's ready!"
     "Oh, looks like we better go," I said to Ruth. "Leave those hairs and the piece of fabric on the desk. We can come get them later."
     Ruth did as she was told and together we crawled back through the tunnel to get back to her room; only this time it wasn't such a filthy process. While I'd been trying to catch up on all my homework, Ruth had spent her free time cleaning out all of the secret passageways we'd found (including the slide in the bathroom). She'd even been able to find an air freshener to put in this one so it didn't smell so gross.
     Ruth and I had just barely emerged from her closet when our mom came marching into the room with her hands on her small hips.
     "What is going on with you two? I've called your names at least seven times, and you're just now responding? Playing in the attic again, huh?"
     Ruth and I exchanged a small glance and I mumbled, "Sorry. Um... what's for dinner?"
     Luckily, our mom was so engaged in telling us about the special Thai peanut dish she'd prepared that she didn't seem to have noticed we ignored her question. Ruth and I gave each other a mental high five.
     Dinner that night really was delicious, so I could see why my mom had been so set on bragging about it. The things we discussed, however, were not as delightful.
     "Our trip to San Diego is this weekend," our dad was saying as he scooped himself a second serving of Thai noodles, "but only kids who get good grades in school get to come. I'm talking about you, Makayla," he said, as if I didn't know I was slacking at my own schoolwork. Cameron and Benjamin snickered to themselves.
     "Hey, you guys don't have good grades either," I snapped at them.
     "Well, they're at least passing all of their classes, which is more than you're doing," my mom pointed out.
     I set my fork down. "Can I please come? I love San Diego! I want to come to the San Diego Zoo, and SeaWorld, and go to the beach..."
     I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks! How could my parents just leave me behind at home while they all went and had fun together? I needed an escape from this house. I stole a glance at Ruth, who was looking at me sadly. I knew she'd be miserable if I couldn't be there with her.
     "So if I get my grades up this week, I can come?" I asked my parents.
They looked at each other and nodded. "That's always been the deal."
"Okay. I guess I'll try extra hard to get my grades up this week. I mean, finals are coming up, so I should be spending more time on homework anyway," I said, more to myself than anyone at the table.
But why did the vacation have to be this week? Ruth and I had finally found some sort of lead with solving the murder! How could I just drop it now? I would have to find a way to balance school and investigating the murder...