“What?” Thea couldn’t get the questions out quick enough. “Who did he kill? How many?Why?”
“There were five deaths in total, I think. Honestly, I tried to tune it out. I was a new mom and that was terrifying enough. I don’t know much at all.”
Thea’s brows knitted together, mind racing. It must have triggered a lot of fears that Nina and everyone else in town had long since tried to bury. “Was it printed in any newspapers? TheStone Grange Gazette, maybe?”
“Possibly,” shrugged Nina. “You could go ask Rita at the library if she has anything in the archives. Just be careful, Thea. There might be a killer around again and I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
“I’m always careful,” said Thea, though she was already itching to text Bryce, get her coat on, and head down to the library to find out more. Stone Grange’s very own killer — maybe even two. Could they have been connected somehow?
If they were, Thea would find out. Serial killers were her forté, and she wouldn’t let this one go now. She was too close to finding out the truth for that.
* * *
Bryce was thankful that Peter had taken the role of Albert the Albatross today. What she wasn’t thankful for was that, with the weather as dreary and wet as it was outside, kids and adults alike had come to waste their Saturday in the arcade. It was chock-full and rowdier than Bryce had ever seen it, so much so that she’d had to call the police station after a group of teenagers had tried prying open one of the coin slot machines to steal the wad of fake fifty-dollar bills stuffed in there. Officer Sara Shaw had responded promptly, and after having reprimanded them with threat of arrest, she now wandered the arcade like a prison warden, looking as restless and glum as Bryce felt.
Thea seemed not to notice any of it when she ambled in just after Bryce’s six o’clock evening break to throw an old, soggy pile of newspapers on the desk.
“Oh, God,” Bryce grimaced. “Who’s dead now?”
“Nobody. Yet.” Thea shook out her rainbow-patterned umbrella, the raindrops spraying across Bryce in the process, and then displayed one of the pages in front of her. “I talked to my mom today about the murders. She said this isn’t the first time there’s been a killing spree in Stone Grange. Did you know about the murders of ’96?”
“Here?” Bryce’s eyes widened as she inspected the newspapers. The pages were dusty between her fingers, the ink smudged and the edges stained yellow, but she could make out the headline well enough:‘Does Stone Grange Have A Serial Killer On Its Hands? Second Body Found In Woods Outside Of Town.’
The date listed below was July, 1996. Exactly twenty-five years ago.
“Here.” Thea sifted through the pile, opening to another article and pointing. A harrowing mugshot of a dark-haired, cruel-looking and craggy-faced man was pictured beneath Thea’s pink fingernail.
‘Roger Morris, Stone Grange’s Chief of Police, Convicted On Five Charges Of First Degree Murder,’ headlined the double page spread.
“How awful is that?” Thea said. “He’d lived here all his life.”
“Why don’t we know anything about this?”
“Exactly,” she smirked. “It was kept on the down-low apparently. The town didn’t want it getting out that one of their own had turned out to be a killer.”
Bryce’s brows knitted together in confusion. It made no sense to her, not really. Every week, she and Thea scoured every database they could for new killers to talk about, and yet one from their own town had gone unnoticed all these years? “Do you think it’s connected to George and Isaac’s deaths?”
“Doesn’t it seem suspicious? The murdersdidstart up around the same time of yearandthe bodies were found in similar ways — and a police officerwasone of the original victims.”
“Squawk!”
The high-pitched noise gave Bryce a heart attack, and she looked up to find Peter flapping his wings at her side, and a long queue of people waiting to exchange cash and tickets behind Thea.
“Jesus, Peter. Can you not do that right next to my ear? You scared me.”
“Sorry.” Peter adjusted the beak of the costume so that he could see better and gestured to the customers. “I just thought you should know people are waiting.”
“And you couldn’t have said that in words?”
Peter shrugged, face gleaming with a light coat of sweat. “Just getting into character.”
Thea shuffled away from the desk, taking the newspapers with her while Bryce served the customers. By the end of it, Bryce was sick of the coppery smell of coins and the sound of Peter wishing the patrons a “squawking great night.” She was grateful for his help, though, even if he couldn’t do much heavy lifting with the gloves on his hands and his tail feather stuck in the slatted vent behind the desk.
“Thanks,” she said, when they were done.
“No problem.” Peter offered a dimpled, lopsided smile that Bryce knew to look away from hastily or else risk enduring another uncomfortable date proposal. Luckily, Thea returned as soon as they were done and spread the newspapers out again.
“Anyway, I totally think we should talk about this on the pod —”