Page 17 of Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal #2)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Oscar slept fitfully; the van wasn’t the most comfortable place for a nap, and the biting cold didn’t help with that. Chris and Tina had snuggled up together under a blanket for warmth, though whether they were sleeping or just resting their eyes he couldn’t tell.
Eventually, they gave up and went back inside, to find Nigel coming up the stairs. His expression was grim, but he only said, “Let’s tell Mrs. Simpson we’re done and get some lunch. I’m starving.”
When they entered the diner, despite the lunch rush, Josh hurried out of the kitchen. “Man, I’m really sorry,” he began.
Oscar held up his hands. “No need to be. You shouldn’t have had to lie for me to start with.”
“Hey, are you Oscar Fox?” one of the men in line asked. “Can I have your autograph? My dad and I used to watch all your games back in the day!”
A few others wanted him to sign things as well, and one woman asked for a picture with him beneath his jersey on the wall. By the time he was done with them, Kayla was already serving the table where the others had settled.
“We ordered for you,” Tina said, when he slid into the chair beside Nigel. “I didn’t think you’d turn down a pepperoni roll.”
“Never,” he agreed, taking a big bite and chasing it with ice tea. “Nigel, did you find something in the letters?”
Nigel had been even quieter than usual on the ride from the library. Now he took a bite of his club sandwich, as though to buy time. “Not just the letters,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I ended up looking through a few newspaper articles, the birth and death records, and marriage licenses. Fortunately all of those are digitized, and I have subscriptions to various sites through the university, so it didn’t take too long.”
Chris narrowed their eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you’re beating around the bush here?”
Nigel glanced at Oscar. “I’m afraid some of this doesn’t, ah, reflect very well on your family.”
Oscar’s heart sank. “You mean the Corbetts? But I thought…that is, they helped create the town by founding the distillery.”
It sounded stupid—of course that didn’t mean they were good people. But the connection had seemed something to be proud of, something good his ancestors had done…
“We all contain multitudes,” Nigel said tactfully. “So, the letters. Most of them were from Ivan to his wife, who was in Pennsylvania. Apparently, Ivan had left his family behind and come to West Virginia alone, with the intention of establishing his business. Eventually, once it was up and running and he had built a house, they joined him here.”
Nigel paused to take another bite out of his sandwich, then wash it down with ice tea. “Their reunion was delayed by a number of months, however. Do you recall the spring house at the distillery?”
“Of course.”
“I got some beautiful shots of it,” Chris said. “Definitely putting those up for sale on the site once we get back.”
“The spring is why Ivan wanted to build his distillery there.” Nigel picked up a fry but only stared at it distractedly. “Apparently, it was believed to have some sort of healing properties.”
“Did it?” Tina asked.
“Well, it was pure, which didn’t hurt.” Nigel shrugged. “Look at it this way: people used to take ‘radium baths’ by sitting in caves with natural radiation. Humanity’s track record of identifying things as healthy or harmful is…spotty.”
Tina grimaced. “Good point.”
“The pertinent point is that Ivan, and others, believed it.” Nigel dropped his fry and pushed his plate to the side. “There was only one problem: he didn’t own the land it was on. That didn’t stop him from starting to build anyway.”
The heavy sensation in Oscar’s chest intensified. “Why do I have the feeling things are about to take a turn for the worse?”
“The land was owned by a woman named Agnes.” Nigel took out his notebook but didn’t open it. “It seems that her widowed grandmother had left it to her, though I couldn’t find any specific records. Agnes herself was unmarried, so she was the sole property owner at that point.”
“I bet that made her popular with the local men,” Tina said.
“I doubt it,” Oscar said. “We’ve seen the land, remember—you might be able to scrape out a tiny farm right on the bottomland, but most of it is too steep and wild to be worth much, at least at the time. The timber barons would have passed through long before Agnes’s time, and I assume there’s no sign of coal on the land to make it attractive to the mining companies.”
“You know the history of the area better than the rest of us,” Nigel said “From what I saw, there’s no mention of the property having much value other than the spring, which of course is what drew Ivan to it. Once he started to build, Agnes sued Ivan, and the courts put a temporary injunction on any construction until the case came to trial. Ivan was…not pleased.”
“Did he at least try to pay her for it?” Oscar asked without much hope.
“He says he made an offer in the letter, but,” he flipped open the notebook, “quote ‘the damned woman says the spring is too dear to sell.’”
“Oh yes, how dare she not just hand over her property to some man,” Tina muttered.
“And I doubt he was offering a fair price, even given the land was otherwise worthless,” Nigel said. “Here is where things get…a bit murky. In the next letter, Ivan says ‘The matter is taken care of, in my favor. Building will recommence as soon as the formalities have been concluded.’” He looked up from the notebook. “Keep in mind, he’s writing this before the court date. I had to do some digging in the newspaper archives, but managed to find a small article that says Agnes failed to appear before the judge, so the matter was decided in Ivan’s favor by default.”
Oh no. “He knew she wasn’t going to be there,” Oscar said numbly.
“Find her bones,” Chris said, eyes widening. “Oh fuck. He killed her and hid the body, didn’t he?”
“Or paid someone to do it for him.” Oscar pushed his plate aside, all appetite gone. “God damn it.”
“It does seem the most likely interpretation,” Nigel said apologetically. “I couldn’t find any record of her afterward. As for what her family thought…well, they were poor mountain folk, and Ivan Corbett was a rich man from Pennsylvania, building a business that would bring jobs and life to the area. Even if they went to the law to report her disappearance, I doubt there was much interest in finding her.”
Oscar sat back heavily. “So Ivan was an entitled dick who murdered a woman to get his way. Honestly, maybe he deserves to be stuck in that warehouse for all eternity.” He sighed. “I thought…I don’t know. I thought the fact his distillery helped create the town was a good thing, but the whole business was founded on blood.”
“That’s capitalism for you,” Chris said sympathetically.
“One more thing,” Nigel said. “I did manage to find birth records for Agnes. She was twenty-five years old when she vanished.”
“And every twenty-five years she kills, or tries to kill, whoever she perceives as the heir to the distillery,” Oscar concluded. “They get the same amount of time to enjoy it as she got during life. Fuck!”
“Is that all?” Tina asked Nigel.
“Not quite.” He bit his lip. “Agnes’s last name was Dillon. Virginia Dillon, Oscar’s great-great grandmother, was her younger sister.”