Aspen Allegations - A Sutton Massachusetts Mystery

Chapter 24

Matthew spotted me the moment I stepped through the doorway of the Sutton Senior Center; he came over to draw me into a warm hug. "How are you doing?"

I was comforted by his embrace and looked into his blue eyes when I stepped back. "I am fine, but how about you? It was your home that was broken into."

He shrugged, guiding me back toward the main room. "Nothing was taken, besides the computer of course. The door has already been replaced; we are as good as new."

Jeff and Adam were waiting for us at a table. Jeff's eyes held concern. "Thank goodness there was nobody home at the time," he commented as we sat. "If that man has already killed once, who knows what lengths he might go to in order to further protect his secrets."

Adam nodded. "That's true," he agreed. "We can only hope that the danger for y'all is past now. After all, the computer is gone. Whatever data was on it has presumably already been destroyed. There shouldn't be any reason at all for this person to come back and harass you any further."

Jeff nodded. "I adored my father," he stated. "He meant the world to me. But I know he would not want other innocent people slain because of whatever is going on here."

Matthew looked to him. "What have the police said?"

Jeff shrugged, his oval face becoming shadowed. "Certainly they see that this is all related somehow. However, as you know, they found too many fingerprints. The computer itself is gone. As Adam says, the thief has probably destroyed it beyond repair. Really, that is all we had to go on, in terms of figuring out what this was all about." He looked to me with only faint hope in his eyes.

I nodded in resignation. "We have vague feelings, of course, about one of the three men being involved. But we don't even have a guess as to what it might have been about. Eileen's sister had no idea. Even a motive we thought we had – the missing money – ended up being a dead end."

I laced my fingers into each other. "Sure, we could make guesses until the cows came home about what Sam might have felt or what Richard might have dreamt about and so on. But it was over forty years ago. The men won't say. Nobody else knows what was in their hearts. Nobody even watched the whole situation unfold, besides the four men who were there."

Adam nodded his head. "Well, and that decrepit woman out at Marion's Camp," he pointed out.

I glanced up at that. "There was a witness?"

He spread his hands before him. "I'm not sure she could be called a witness, exactly," he cautioned. "She heard a scream and a yelp. The night was layered in mists and she had no idea what was going on. She figured it was just some teenagers at horseplay on the lake. It was only the next day, when the police began interrogating everyone on shore, that she realized just what she had heard."

My pulse quickened. "Is she still around town?"

He laughed out loud at that, his eyes brightening. "Dodgy Mrs. Moggle?" he asked in delight. "Heck, she was older than Methuselah even when I was young. Always waddling along the shore in the bruise-purple dress of hers, with the grimiest hiking boots you could hope to see. Looking for reeds or pond scum or something." He shook his head. "Nah, she probably died back in the seventies."

My shoulders slumped again. Another dead end. I looked between the men. "Maybe there is something we missed here? Some tiny detail that seemed unimportant?"

Matthew shrugged. "Maybe the reports of the time would have more details. Did you try looking them up?"

"I did some Google searches," I began hesitantly.

He laughed out loud. "You know, we do in fact have a library in town," he pointed out. "Maybe you should take a visit down there."

"All right," I agreed with a smile. "I'll swing by there tomorrow and see what I can find."