On the way to the church, Caylix said she was feeling better.
“You gave yourself a real fright,” Lydia said.
“It was a little more than that. My brother and I are from Japan, a country kind of obsessed with the supernatural. It’s not unusual for the media, including newspapers to have a segment about a ghost or haunting on a near daily basis.”
“The U.S. has its own hauntings. The show Unsolved Mysteries talks about them too.”
“True, but I’m talking about a country about the size of California. There’s hardly enough room for the living, much less the dead. I guess it was just one of Andrew’s hallucinations.”
As they neared the church, Lydia asked Madeline to see Andrew Reed’s house key.
“Why would a detective investigating a murder ask for a key to a house where someone accidentally died in a fire,” Lydia wondered.
“He used to work for the Roberts,” Madeline answered.
“So did Wanda Tyler and she died of cancer.”
“Depending on when he died, he probably knew something about Vivian’s death. Maybe that’s why he burned.”
Lydia wrote down Maddie’s theory. That’s when they arrived at the sign for Painscreek Trinity Church across from the town’s farmer’s market and headed for the building. Remembering one of the messages left at the inn, they quickly located the key and opened the front door.
Before going in, they saw some numbers chiseled on the stone near the door—1203. It didn’t seem like it was part of an address, so Lydia wrote it down before they went inside.
As expected, it was empty, the pews practically cleaned out. Even the bulletin board was cleared of its posts. There were two floors. On the right side on the first floor was a confessional room. Inside were two locked drawers with combination number scroll locks, one in each of the two booths. They couldn’t get into them, so the girls left. Afterwards, they easily cleared the downstairs bathroom, and the kitchen and dining room on the left side of the pews. There were still some boxes, a table, and some chairs left, along with some kitchenware left behind. No one was brave enough to check the fridge. A room marked “Storage” was locked. Across it was a door leading to a dark flight of stairs. Maddie volunteered to check it out.
It turned out to lead to a locked door.
“Probably a basement,” Caylix thought.
That left the upstairs part. The first door opened, revealing a small bedroom. Judging by the posters of an airplane and a baseball player, along with an actual baseball and accompanying bat laying on top of a desk, it once belonged to a little boy.
“Scott Brooks’ room,” Lydia said.
They checked the drawers for any clues but came up empty. Lydia noticed a wooden toy plane next to the baseball. There was a date carved into it, May 3rd, 1985. Maddie noticed the airplane poster was slightly torn and had something metal behind it. Tearing it down revealed a safe.
“Ohh, jackpot,” Lydia exclaimed upon seeing it. Her excitement was short lived upon finding it locked. “Dang it.”
“It’s probably cleaned out anyway,” Caylix said as she snapped a photo using Lydia’s camera.
“I guess.” Looking and twirling the toy plane’s propeller in her hand, she saw the date again. “Wait a minute.” She had to try it. Judging by the display, the code required four numbers punched on a keypad using numbers 0-9. She entered a condensed version of the date from the plane. “5-3-8-5.” The lock miraculously clicked open, but there was nothing inside. She sighed.
“What did you think this was, a computer adventure game like Myst,” Madeline quipped. “Besides, Scott ran from town. Whatever was in that safe, if it was important to the case, he might have taken it with him.”
“I really thought we had something from a safe belonging to the one person who was brought in for questioning by police.”
“Hey, check this out,” Caylix said, looking at a calendar from September 1993. “Looks like Scott didn’t stay here the entire time. According to this, he moved out on September 4th.”
“He must have moved out to the cabin that day. But this was two years before Vivian died. Why would he move into a cabin to live by himself?”
“He was also planning to meet his girlfriend Trisha on the 17th.”
Lydia wrote the dates down in her notebook.
One upstairs bathroom and another locked room on the same floor later, they found themselves in the priest’s office. Bookshelves of old religious texts, reference books, and dozens of recorded sermons on cassette tapes were left behind. Behind the desk were pictures of previous priests, six in all. The final two were Father Calvin, and Father Matthew Brooks.
Looking through the desk, Lydia found a picture of Father Brooks with his adopted son, Scott, as a younger boy. Underneath was a file folder labeled “Scott’s Bills.” Opening it, there was a newspaper clipping of what happened when Scott was questioned by police. According to the article, on the night of Vivian’s murder, Scott and Vivian met to discuss “personal stuff…between him and her” and later expressed shock upon hearing the news of her death.
“Usually, when one expresses shock over someone’s murder,” Maddie said, “it’s clear they’re not the murderer.”
The next papers Lydia flipped to were hospital bills for Scott Brooks. Remembering that Janet told them of his stabbing incident, they assumed that these papers were for his stay. Next was a bill of sale for a car formerly owned by Father Matthew Brooks and a bank statement under his name, connecting to the church’s money.
“Payment for Scott’s hospital bills,” Lydia said. “He sold his car for $4,892.58.”
“The bill payments don’t add up though,” Caylix noticed. “The total hospital bill was close to $10,000. Looks like he secretly got the remaining money from the church’s account.”
“He was his son. Besides, I don’t think the town would have been willing to help someone who was practically a murder suspect pay his hospital bills, even if he himself was almost killed. They probably thought he deserved it.”
There was one final paper. A letter from O’Malley and Associates. The letter mentioned the possibility of representing Scott Brooks if he ever became a full-fledged suspect in Vivian Robert’s murder. Since he was released without being arrested, they instead invited Father Matthew to keep in contact if things were to change and advised them to not make press statements just in case.
“We should take this file to Janet,” Lydia said putting it in her backpack.
Another drawer was locked behind a combination. Thinking it would be just as empty as Scott’s old safe, the girls began leaving the room. Maddie lingered for a bit longer, staring at the bookshelf in the left corner on the other side of the room before joining the others. Before leaving, one of the other desk drawers yielded a key labeled “Storage Room.” Venturing into that room downstairs led to nothing else of importance. The three left the church altogether to return to the inn.
Seeing Janet, and the boys there, Lydia asked how their investigation went.
A. Renee Art 
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