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Jenna observed David Cavanaugh closely, noting the way his eyes avoided direct contact. Was it the sign of a guilty conscience or the mark of a man grappling with unseen demons?

The possibility of David leveraging local lore to distract them was not lost on her, nor was the chance that grief had frayed the edges of his reality. But she had another, more unsettling thought—what if there was truth of some kind in his supernatural story? Given her own experiences with the dead, how could she deny that dim possibility?

“Mr. Cavanaugh, why do you believe Kip Selves’ ghost is haunting St. Michael’s?” Jenna’s voice cut through the quiet. She leaned forward, her green eyes fixed on the elderly man before her.

David sat with his hands clasped tightly together as if in prayer or perhaps in an attempt to steady himself. His age-lined face held a seriousness that hinted at deep convictions rather than fanciful fabrications.

“I sense his presence there constantly,” David murmured, the words slipping out like tendrils of mist. “And I’ve seen him, Sheriff. More than once.”

The way he spoke, with such quiet certainty, piqued Jenna’s interest despite her skepticism. It was not the timbre of a man seeking attention or concocting lies. This was genuine belief. The sense of kinship she felt with David in that moment was unexpected, an acknowledgment that sometimes the search for facts led down paths not found on any map. But as a law officer, she couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging in ghost stories. Not when there were real victims and a killer at large.

“You’ve seen him how, Mr. Cavanaugh?” she pressed gently, aware that she was treading on delicate ground.

David took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling with the effort of someone carrying a great burden. “Dim figures,” he began, the words spilling out in a rush now, “glimpsed in the corner of my eye during late-night practice sessions.”

He inhaled and exhaled sharply.

“And footsteps,” he continued, “echoing in empty corridors when no one else is around.” His hands unfolded and gestured helplessly, as if trying to grasp the intangible. “The feeling of being watched when I should be alone—it never leaves me, not even when I step outside the sanctuary.”

Jenna knew that St. Michael’s Catholic Church was an old building, filled with the echoes of its past—a perfect breeding ground for tales of hauntings, especially in a small town like Trentville, where legends and history intertwined seamlessly.

“Go on,” she encouraged, her tone neutral. There was more here than simple superstition, she felt it—a clue perhaps, hidden beneath the layers of folklore and fear.

“I believe Kip is being punished,” he said, eyes alight with fervor. “Punished for automating the carillon, for silencing the human touch that brought music to our town, and for killing my sister as an act of vengeance against those who love music. He’s not allowed permanent rest.”

She asked, “And you believe that although Kip died in 1960, he has returned to kill again?”

“I think he never left.” David leaned forward, eyes locked with hers. “He’s condemned to wander the church for as long as it stands. And it seems that even death itself has not stopped him from murdering at least one more time.”

Jake’s chair creaked as he shifted, his voice cutting through the mounting tension. “That’s quite a leap, Mr. Cavanaugh. Are you suggesting a ghost is responsible for these crimes?”

“Let’s stay focused on the tangible,” Jenna suggested firmly, her voice a rudder steering them back to reality. “We need to understand the connections between the victims and the church—ghost or no ghost.”

Jenna regarded the elderly man with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. There was an earnestness to his belief that didn’t look like simple delusion, yet what he proposed defied all logic.

“Mr. Cavanaugh,” she said, “you’ve made some serious allegations about a presence at St. Michael’s Church. But why would Selves’ ghost kill again after all these years?”

David’s expression softened, sorrow etching deeper lines into his weathered face. “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking down at his hands before meeting her gaze once more. “Perhaps his hunger for beautiful voices couldn’t be sated with just one life. Or maybe... maybe he’s trying to create a choir of the dead.”

Silence settled in the room. David seemed to sense his guests’ discomfort and leaned forward, his eyes intense behind the glint of fading sunlight on his spectacles.

“I realize this complicates your investigation, Sheriff,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper now. “How does one bring a ghost to justice? Perhaps it would be better to speak with Father Walsh,” David suggested, his gaze unwavering. “To request an exorcism. It’s long overdue, in my opinion.”

Jenna nodded slowly, not in agreement but in acknowledgment of his conviction.

“Thank you, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Jenna said as she stood up, signaling the end of their meeting. “We’ll take everything you’ve said under consideration.

Jenna extended a hand to him, her touch light but firm. “Mr. Cavanaugh, we appreciate your cooperation.” Her voice held the practiced neutrality honed from years in law enforcement, though her mind churned with the sheer strangeness of David’s tale.

Stepping out into the fading warmth of the day, Jenna and Jake moved towards their cruiser. Jake waited until they were seated inside the relative privacy of the car before he broke the silence, turning towards Jenna with furrowed brows.

“What do you make of that? Is he genuinely delusional, or is this some kind of elaborate misdirection?”

Jenna turned the ignition key, the engine’s rumble a grounding contrast to the bizarre notions still echoing in her head. She fixed her gaze on the rearview mirror, seeing more than the dusty road behind them. “I’m not sure, Jake. But one thing’s clear - we need to find out more about Kip Selves.”

“Are you sure he even had anything to do with all this?” Jake said, his tone laced with skepticism. “David’s story could be a way to throw us off track. It might just be a distraction from his own guilt.”

“That’s true. But if there’s even a sliver of truth in anything he said …”

Jenna paused for a moment, weighing her choices carefully.

“Then we investigate,” Jenna cut in, her decision swift. “We look into every angle, no matter how unlikely it seems.”

“Even ghosts?” Jake asked, the corner of his mouth twitching in a half-smile.

“Even ghosts,” Jenna affirmed, though her practical nature wrestled with the notion. “We need to revisit Kip Selves’ history.”

“Alright,” Jake conceded, glancing at Jenna with a new level of respect. “Where do we start?”

“Old records, interviews with anyone who knew him, worked with him, argued with him, anything that sheds light on who Kip Selves really was,” Jenna said, her words clipped and focused. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll find our connection to the murders.”

They drove on, the brick facade of the Sheriff’s Office building coming into view. The truth lay somewhere within the tangled web of facts and folklore, and Jenna Graves was determined to uncover it.

Jenna maneuvered the cruiser into its familiar space beside the Sheriff’s Office, the bricks of the building flushed with the warm glow of the descending sun. The day had already stretched her mind in unimaginable directions, and now, as they strode through the doorway, Jenna anchored herself to the task at hand: mining the past for clarity.

In her office, the hum of outdated fluorescent lights filled the air, casting a sterile light over her desk. She logged onto her computer, drumming against the top of her desk as the Trentville Dispatch archives loaded. Jake leaned over her shoulder, watching the screen with an intensity that mirrored her own.

“Here we go,” Jenna muttered as she navigated through the digital records, her eyes scanning for any mention of Kip Selves.

The first article to catch her attention heralded the opening of Trentville’s inaugural electronics repair shop, operated by none other than Kip Selves. The piece described him as a visionary, a man who recognized the burgeoning need for such services as radios became a staple in the homes of Trentville’s citizens.

“Looks like Selves was quite the entrepreneur,” Jake observed, his tone a mix of admiration and skepticism.

“Seems so,” Jenna replied, her gaze still fixed on the screen. But her detective’s instincts prodded at her. It wasn’t just Selves’ business acumen that interested her, but how his story of progress might intertwine with grim tales lurking beneath the town’s surface.

As the dimness of evening began to creep into the corners of the room, Jenna felt the weight of the day’s revelations press upon her. Yet, a spark ignited within her—a flame fueled by curiosity and the unyielding drive to seek answers. With each click and scroll, the pieces of Kip Selves’ life during those decisive years came into sharper focus, revealing the blueprint of a man whose legacy endured far beyond his mortal days.

The room was quiet save for the soft clicking of the keys as she navigated the digital archives of the Trentville Dispatch . An image loaded on the screen suddenly gripped Jenna’s attention.

“Jake, look at this,” Jenna called out.

It was a black-and-white photograph accompanying a human interest story from decades past. A young boy stood beside Kip Selves, both of them surrounded by the innards of radios and other electronics. The caption identified the boy as Larry Clark, Selves’s protégé. Jenna’s pulse quickened as she recalled seeing Larry just last evening, a fixture of St. Michael’s Church, his silver hair now betraying the years that had passed since the photo was taken.

“Is that Larry from the church?” Jake peered over her shoulder, squinting at the screen.

“Yes,” Jenna confirmed, a chill coursing through her despite the warm July air outside. “He was Selves’ apprentice back then.”

“He looks young. No more than ten. It must have been exciting for him to be in the middle of all that new technology.”

Jenna thought of the man she’d watched tune the pianos at countless community events, whose gentle laughter had so often filled the rooms he entered.

“Larry has always been part of this town,” Jenna murmured. “I grew up watching him work. He’s... he’s kind.” Then she thought of her own years as deputy sheriff, learning from the man who was still her mentor. “But if the man he was apprenticed to … if Kip Selves was in fact a killer…”

“You’re thinking that could have affected Larry?” Jake’s question was laden with doubt. “That he could have followed up with murders of his own? But then what about the effect Selves had on David Cavanaugh if he knew or suspected … ?”

Jenna heard David Cavanaugh’s words about Selves again in her mind: “Dim figures … glimpsed in the corner of my eye.” Was David deluded, his consciousness twisted by death and pain? Could that have turned him into a killer? Or had it merely left him prone to flights of superstitious dread?

At the moment, It seemed to Jenna that they two possible suspects for the murders of Ezra Shore and Caroline Weber—David Cavanaugh and Larry Clark.

“The ring should tell us,” she muttered, the clack of keys punctuating the somber silence in her office.

Finally an old Purdue University yearbook loaded on the screen, and Jenna found a series of group photos of the class of 1970. Rows of black and white portraits stared back at them, young faces frozen in time. She scanned the page until her eyes settled on one group in particular. The caption underneath read: ‘Electrical Engineering’.

“Jake,” Jenna says, her voice barely above a whisper, “look at who attended Purdue University and graduated in 1970.”

Jake gasped aloud at the face and the name that appeared amid the students.

“So it’s him,” Jake said.

“That's what we're going to find out." Jenna replied.