[Not Just Any Other] Ghost Story

Chapter 25

"Two months," said Jane, taking a box of cereal out of the cupboard. "It may seem like a lot, but with Thanksgiving coming up and then Christmas, it'll be January in no time."

"Why exactly are we talking about January?" Sarah asked as she stirred her tea. The Darjeeling was still too hot to drink, and the spoon clanked against the sides of the mug with each hasty pass.

"Oh, I just figured that with you going off to college right after the holidays, we should probably start focusing on getting you ready before we get caught up in the season's madness," her aunt said while pouring her corn flakes. "Living in a dorm is like having your first apartment. We're going to need to get you bedding, a shower caddy—"

"Sure. Yes. You're probably right, but there'll be plenty of time for that," Sarah cut her off before she listed the entire contents of the Target back-to-school section. "For now, I want to concentrate on finishing my capstone project. You know, I think I'm finally tying all of the pieces together—"

"About that," Jane now interrupted her. "The principal called me yesterday and I'm afraid that you can't keep attending school any more."

Sarah dropped her spoon with a clank. "Why not?" The question came out shrill from surprise.

Jane cleared her throat. It was an obvious play to buy time and ease her attitude. "Principal Orr sees your presence at New Bedford High now as a distraction. And since you've technically already graduated, he has no legal obligation to continue to allow you to be there," she said.

"A distraction? A distraction?" asked Sarah, her pitch increasing with each repetition. "For whom, exactly?"

Reaching across the table, Jane touched her hand. "I realize it's not what you had planned, but there's truly nothing more I can do," she said.

Sarah's heart sank, but she wasn't ready to give up. "If that's how it is, so be it. But I'm still going to finish the project. I'm so close to tying everything together and then this whole town will see what has been buried under their noses for over eighty years."

Jane finished pouring the milk into her bowl and set the box down. "Is that right? What exactly is it that you think you've uncovered?"

Sarah hesitated and took a sip of the fragrant tea to think. She hadn't told her aunt about the details of her research project yet because until recently, everything seemed so circumstantial. But now that all of the pieces were now falling into place, she not only wanted to fill Jane in, but probably needed to in order to continue.

"So you know that house on the corner with the black siding, right?" she asked, setting her mug down.

Jane nodded. "The old teardown with the bones Quinn found," she replied.

"Yes," Sarah said, ignoring the omission that she was also just as present at the gruesome discovery as Jane's favorite police officer had been. "I found who the owner was around the time those bones got there. His name was Arthur Tuffin and he was a salesman in this area before the second world war."

"Is that so?" asked Jane with an impressed expression. "That must have taken some digging."

"You don't know the half of it," Sarah whispered, recalling her and Ever's escapades in the basement of City Hall that led to the almost serendipitous finding of the document. "Anyway, I think that those bones belonged to Arthur's wife, who he killed and then bricked up behind the fireplace."

Now Jane dropped her spoon, splashing milk from the bowl as it hit the corn flakes. "Sarah! That's quite an accusation. What evidence could you have found to come to such a conclusion?"