One More Time

39.

"Wait, wait, wait. You're doing a nationwide search," Sam questions.

"Yep," Dean nods.

"The NCIC, the FBI database-- At this point, any Mary in the country who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me," Dean admits.

"But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town," Sam says.

"I'm telling you, there's nothing local I've checked so unless you've got a better idea," I shrug.

"The way Mary's choosing her victims, it seems like there's a pattern."

"I was thinking the same thing," I nod.

"With Mr. Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run--," Sam starts.

"Both had secrets where people died," I finish.

"Right. There's a lot of folklore about mirrors-- that they reveal all your lies, your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them."

"Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it and punishes you for it."

"Whether you're the one who summoned her or not," Sam nods.

"Take a look at this," Dean says. He prints out a photo, showing it to him.

"Looks like the same handprint."

"Her name was Mary Worthington-- an unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana."

*Fort Wayne, Indiana*

"I was on the job for 35 years, detective for most of that. Now, everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder-- that one still gets me."

"What exactly happened," I ask.

"You three said you were reporters."

"We know Mary was 19, lived by herself. We know she won a few beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th, someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cut out her eyes with a knife," I nod.

"That's right."

"See, sir, when we ask you what happened, we want to know what you think happened," Dean says. He walks over to a filing cabinet and grabs a box from on top of it.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to have a copy of this," he admits, setting it on the desk. He pulls out a file, flipping through it. "Now, see that there, "T-R-E"?"

"Yeah."

"I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer," he admits.

"You know who it was?"

"Not for sure. But there was a local man, a surgeon, Trevor Sampson. And I think he cut her up good," he admits, showing us a picture of him.

"Now, why would he do something like that," I ask.

"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, "T." Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell T's wife about their affair," he explains.

"But how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?"

"It's hard to say. But the way her eyes were cut out, it was almost professional."

"But you could never prove it," I say.

"No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous."

"Is he still alive?"

"Nope. If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secret. But she never could." My eyes widen, and I look over at them.

"Where's she buried," Sam asks.

"She wasn't. She was cremated."

Damn. Well, there goes the option of burning her bones.

"What about that mirror," I question. "It's not in some evidence lockup somewhere, is it?"

"Uh, no. It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."

"You have the names of her family by any chance?"