The Stone of Sadness (An Olivia Miller Mystery Book 3) (2 page)

Olivia stood up and shook Dave’s hand. “I’m good, Dave. It’s nice to see you again.”

John turned to Olivia and hugged her. “Call me or email me if you need anything. I really do appreciate this.”

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Have a good trip.”

John lifted his suitcase and the men walked across the front porch and out to the car. Olivia waved, closed the door, and looked at Lily.

“Want to go out, girl?” Lily jumped up and wagged her tail. “Come on. Let’s go out back for a bit.”

Olivia was thankful that John’s huge back yard was fenced to keep Lily from wandering. There was also a small barn in the yard where John enjoyed his woodworking hobby. Lily could stay outside and use the barn for shelter or shade whenever John was going to be gone for more than a few hours. John told Olivia that if she had errands or such, she could keep the barn door open and leave Lily in the yard.

As Olivia led the dog to the back door off the kitchen, she glanced down at the newspaper on the floor. Her cousins stared back at her from the front page. She paused for a moment looking at the two smiling faces. Olivia breathed a heavy sigh and turned away.

A puff of the night breeze pushed the sheer curtain of Olivia’s bedroom window over the windowsill and it fluttered in the dark before settling back into place. The light from the full moon streamed in through the open window and pooled on the wide pine floorboards. Olivia’s sleep had been fitful with strange dreams tormenting her.

Her eyes flew open as though some loud sound in the house was the cause for waking her. Her tank top was wet with sweat. She lay still, listening. She turned her head slightly and shifted her gaze to the foot of the bed. A little girl with long blonde hair stood there watching her. Olivia bolted upright, her heart pounding.

The girl was gone.

Stupid dream.

Olivia shook her head and sucked in a long breath of the humid air. Lily was sitting in the corner of the room her tail swishing back and forth across the pine floor, her posture alert, friendly, and attentive. She was looking at the spot at the foot of Olivia’s bed where the little girl had been standing in the dream. Lily whined. Olivia’s brow furrowed as her gaze shifted from the dog to the end of the bed.

“Lily,” Olivia whispered, even though she and the dog were the only ones in the house. Lily’s tail thumped. The dog stood, crossed the room and rested her head on the mattress.

Olivia pushed the sheet back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She rubbed her forehead, stood and walked barefoot to the bathroom where she splashed her face with cold water. She let the water run over her hands and then rubbed them up and down her arms trying to cool off. She padded along the hall to her room and climbed back into her bed. Lily sat on the floor and looked up at Olivia with wishful eyes.

“Oh, okay,” Olivia told the dog. “But it will just make both of us hotter.” She patted the mattress inviting Lily to jump up. The Lab accepted the invitation and snuggled along Olivia’s legs. Olivia glanced once more at the foot of the bed before she scrunched down under the sheet and tried to fall sleep.

Olivia woke to the sounds of a truck’s door slamming shut. Lily had her front paws on the sill of the second floor window and was looking outside. A low growl vibrated from her throat. Olivia shot a look at the clock as she pulled on her shorts. Eight, already. She peeked out over Lily’s head and saw a cherry red pick-up truck in the driveway. The doorbell rang and Lily checked Olivia’s reaction to decide if she should bark or not.

“It’s okay, Lily. It’s the contractor. Come on, girl.” At the bottom of the staircase, Olivia unlocked the front door and swung it open while holding onto Lily’s collar. A tall, tanned, young blonde in jeans and a t-shirt stood on the front porch. She smiled showing a perfect row of white teeth. She extended her hand.

“Hi. Olivia Miller? I’m Jackie Connors. The contractor.”

“Oh. I was expecting a man,” Olivia said. “Ugh. That was a pretty stupid comment, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

Jackie shook her head and smiled. “It’s okay. It happens all the time. People tend to hover around me at first when I start a job thinking I probably don’t know what I’m doing.” She referred to her clipboard. “So we’re expanding and improving the sunroom, right?”

Olivia nodded. “Yes. My cousin showed me the plans.”

Lily sniffed Jackie and gave her a lick on the hand. Jackie petted Lily’s head.

“I just like to review everything before we get started,” Jackie said.

A blue truck pulled up the driveway and two guys got out carrying paper coffee cups. “Morning,” one called to Jackie as he put his cup on the roof of the truck and swung his tool belt around his waist.

Jackie raised a hand to the men in greeting. “Here’s some of my crew,” she told Olivia. “Can we look at the sunroom together?”

Olivia, Jackie, and Lily walked along the brick walkway to the rear of the house. Jackie indicated from the plans what they were contracted to do and reviewed everything with Olivia.

“So that’s it. We’ll be done with the whole thing in two or three weeks. Some days the crew will only be here half days. We’re running about four different projects at once so I’ll be here off and on going between here and the other places we’re working on. But all that is built into the estimate I gave your cousin and it won’t interfere with the time frame we quoted. As long as the weather holds for the first week, we’ll be good. The interior finishing won’t be dependent on the weather conditions. You’ll see other members of my team working here. It won’t always be these two guys. They’re all good experienced workers. My cell phone number is on the paperwork I gave your cousin. Call me with any questions or concerns you have. Anything at all. Every few days, I like to meet with the owner to review where we are on the project.”

“Sounds good,” Olivia said. Lily was following the men back and forth to the truck as they brought out the lumber and tools. “This is Lily by the way. Looks like she plans on helping.” Olivia chuckled.

Jackie smiled at the dog. “Nice dog. We’ll be glad for her company. Okay, we’ll get to work then. I’ll be here most of the day today. I like to stay when the project starts in case any surprises show up.”

“Thanks. Let me know if you need anything. Hopefully nothing unexpected will rear its head,” Olivia said. She started back to the front of the house.

“Hopefully not,” Jackie agreed.

Olivia held up the old newspaper article in front of her laptop so Brad could see it as they Skyped.

“Here are their pictures on the front page,” Olivia said to her boyfriend.

“That’s horrible, Liv. Who could do something like that?” Brad asked. Brad was in Maine running his bookstore while Olivia was minding her cousin’s house.

“That’s exactly what I said,” Olivia answered.

“Nobody ever mentioned the murders to you?” Brad asked.

“No. I guess it was so long ago that it just never came up. I didn’t even know that I had these distant cousins.” Olivia put the newspaper on the kitchen table next to her laptop. “It just seems so terrible that no one was caught and brought to justice. It seems so wrong.” Olivia glanced down at Mary and Kimmy’s pictures.

“There mustn’t have been enough evidence,” Brad offered.

“They must have collected and retained evidence from the crime scene. Why can’t they run it through some DNA testing thing now?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they lost it,” Brad said.

Olivia got a far away look in her eyes.

“What are you thinking?” Brad asked.

“Well, I was thinking of going to the police station and asking about it. Or maybe go to the District Attorney’s office and ask what became of re-looking at the case a few years back. You know how John told me there was a newspaper article about cold cases in Massachusetts and this was one that the DA’s office was looking at again.”

“It was almost forty years ago that the crime was committed,” Brad said. “They must have given it their full attention back then. There must have been a lot of pressure to solve it, what with a young mom and her little girl killed. And, so violently. Maybe there just wasn’t enough evidence to arrest and prosecute.”

“I just want to know,” Olivia said.

“You’re not going to start looking into this are you?” Brad asked. “Not after last summer? Please don’t.”

Last summer Olivia was consumed by finding out the cause of her aunt’s death and the events of that nearly got her killed.

Olivia didn’t answer.

“Liv.” Brad had an edge to his voice. “No. Let it be. None of us want a summer like last year. Don’t stir anything up. Please. Just spend some time relaxing. Clean out John’s attic like you said you would. Take your class in July and then come home to us for a few weeks before your fall classes start.”

Olivia still didn’t say anything.

Brad sighed. “Joe and I are still recovering from last year. Joe has just started to sleep through the night without waking up in terror.” Brad and Joe had helped Olivia uncover her aunt Aggie’s killers. Brad continued, “I couldn’t take another summer like last year. Don’t do this, Liv. Let it alone.”

“Brad, I’m not going to stir anything up. It was forty years ago. What could I possibly stir up? I just want to know why no one was arrested for this.”

“Olivia.” Brad never called her that unless he was being serious about something. “I know you. It won’t stop there.”

“I think I’ll go down to the library and look up some old newspapers from 1973 to find out what was written about the murders.”

Brad’s face was stern.

“Come on, nothing’s going to happen to me in a library, Brad.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Brad muttered.

Olivia ignored his comment and changed the subject. “I’m looking forward to you and Joe coming down to visit. Lily will love you two. You’ll like her. She’s a perfect dog.”

“I’ll be glad to see you. And, the dog.” Brad grinned. “Joe’s already planning the meal for Friday night, but he won’t tell me what he’s making.”

“I won’t ask. I want to be surprised. Are you bringing the blueberry cake?”

“You bet.” He smiled. “I need to get back to work, Liv. Talk tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Olivia smiled back at him.

“Stay out of trouble,” Brad warned.

Olivia shook her head. “You worry too much,” she told him.

“I’m dealing with
you
, so no, I don’t worry too much.” Brad’s face was serious. “And maybe you don’t worry enough.”

“Good night, Brad.”

“Night, Liv. Love you,” Brad said.

Olivia’s heart still warmed whenever he said those words to her. “Love you, too.” Olivia closed the Skype session just as Lily put her warm nose against Olivia’s thigh and nuzzled her to go out.

The night never cooled off and the day dawned hot and muggy. Olivia tossed and turned all night in the bedroom’s sauna-like conditions and when morning arrived, she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. She decided she would install John’s air conditioning unit in her bedroom later in the day. She showered, made breakfast for herself and Lily, and let the dog out so that she could spend the day in the yard supervising the sunroom workers. Olivia checked with them to be sure Lily wouldn’t get in their way while she spent a few hours at the library. The men reported that they were pleased to have the dog’s company.

Olivia made the ten minute drive to the library and parked in the front parking area. She got out, walked across the lot, and climbed the granite steps to the old, oak door of the Howland Public Library. She stopped at the information desk to inquire about old newspapers and was directed to the third floor microfiche library. The librarian showed Olivia how to use the machine to scroll through the articles and how to print the ones she wanted. Olivia flipped through the newspaper films until she found what she was looking for.

The first article reported that on the day following the murders, two local men, eighteen and twenty years old, had discovered the car and the bodies around 10am in a clearing approximately seventy-five yards up a wooded dirt road in the Howland State Park, two miles west of the Howland town center and three miles west of the Monahan’s home. The young men were on their way to fish at the lake when they made the discovery. They went immediately to the police to report the grisly murders.

Mary Monahan was found fully clothed on the ground with her head partially under the vehicle. The daughter was in the front seat of the car. Mrs. Monahan’s throat was slashed twice and she suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. Olivia winced recalling being stabbed in the gut herself last summer. Her hand moved instinctively to her stomach as she continued reading.

The daughter was stabbed once in the chest and her throat had been slashed. The left rear car door was open. Sperm was found at the scene but neither the mother nor daughter had been sexually assaulted. The husband, George Monahan, reported his wife and daughter missing around suppertime on the day of the murders.

Mrs. Monahan had dropped her son off at kindergarten, did an errand in the nearby town, stopped at a hardware store in the town next to Howland around 2:00pm, and then was not seen again that day. There were stories about Mary and Kimmy in the newspapers every day for ten days, and after that, the articles were more sporadic until they disappeared altogether. A nineteen year old local man was a suspect and the police felt that the case was solved but no arrest could be made due to lack of evidence.

Olivia wondered how there could be a lack of evidence. Mary must have fought back. She must have had the killer’s blood and skin under her nails. There was sperm at the scene. If the police suspected the nineteen year old man and felt the crime was solved, how could they not make an arrest? How could they let him off?

Olivia rubbed her temples and shifted her gaze away from the microfiche reader. Her eyes burned. A headache was brewing from reading for so long on the tiny screen and she felt hot and miserable. The accounts of the murders of the young mother and her little daughter made Olivia’s stomach roil from the horror of it as she imagined the mom’s panic and desperation to protect her child and the utter despair that must have crushed her when she knew there was no escape.