A. Renee Art

Janet, Merc, and Connor approached the doors of the Roberts Mansion when they recalled the report that Vivian was found in front of her home. She was found by Mary Martinez, the newest maid who was hired there.

Entering the unlocked home, they were met with the kind of opulence befitting an upper-class politician’s family: High ceilings, curved staircases, statues, expensive furniture, and a painted family portrait in the living room above the fireplace. Janet mentioned that Sheriff Howard had given her the code to the security room, so they decided to start there. They found it on the first floor next to what appeared to be a gym.

On a table in front of some key hooks was a small, golden, ornate key, labeled “Trisha.” On the wall above, were several labels for keys to the attic, guest room, garage, servant’s room, and nanny room. Janet grabbed the only keys that were there, the servant’s room, Trisha’s and the nanny’s room. Merc picked up a copy of two maps to the mansion, divided between the first and second floors, from a drawer and a security desk logbook. Connor found a shelf of employee record files marked every five years beginning with 1970. The last files were labeled with the years 1990-1995, ending with the year of Vivian’s murder. He then went over the boxes of videotapes and televisions, checking for tapes labeled with the pivotal year.

“Think we should try watching these,” he asked Janet.

“The sheriff told me they went over the tapes from that night over and over,” Janet explained. “Nothing came from it. Either the killer was lucky enough to not be caught on camera, or they knew where the cameras were and could avoid them.”

He sighed with relief, saying, “That’s fine. You never know what’s on a randomly stored unmarked VHS these days, anyway.”

Janet and Merc exchanged looks of confusion and Merc shrugged. While leaving the room to search the rest of the floor, they heard knocking at the front door.

“Who’s that,” asked Janet.

“Probably the girls,” assumed Connor.

“They’re supposed to be at the church. They can’t have finished already. We just started here.”

“I’ll go check,” Merc said and headed for the front door while calling, “Hey Liddie, is that you?” Opening the door, he saw no one. “Maddie? Caylix?” Still no answer. “What the hell?” He returned to Janet and Connor and shrugged with confusion.

They dismissed it as the wind or perhaps some small rubble from the house giving way and falling against the door and moved on to find and explore the nanny’s and servant’s rooms, both on the first floor. First was the nanny’s room.

According to her employee sheet, Dorothy Patterson was the longest serving employee of the Roberts Family, hired in 1962. She did housework and later became the nanny in charge of childcare when Trisha was born. Exploring her desk, the first thing Janet found was a letter of resignation from Dorothy, reading:

January 31, 1996

Dear Charles,

I have worked here for your family for over thirty years, over twenty here at the mansion, and I am glad to have worked here and gotten to know so many people. I appreciate the opportunity to care for your daughter, Trisha.

I am glad to see Trisha become a wonderful young lady, despite the tragedy that befell her mother. She used to be so lonely when you and Vivian were away, busy with family business and town events. If there is a silver lining from what happened, it’s that you and Trisha have become closer.

I will always hold onto and cherish the moments when Painscreek was a better place. I’m sorry that I am leaving and won’t be able to serve you anymore. I wish you happiness and good luck to Trisha in college.

Thank you for everything and please, take care of yourself and Trisha.

Sincerely,

Dorothy Patterson

P.S. Thank you for paying off the mortgage to my cottage, despite my not really using it in over a year, but it’s obvious that I no longer need it. I will have left the key to the door under my mat in case you or Trisha happen to need it one last time.

P.P.S. Her things are still there, by the way. I’ve kept them all this time.

The only other thing they found was a blue baby bonnet under her empty bed.

Next was the servant’s room, which had nothing but an old chore list and a broken bunk bed. As far as keys left, that left the one to Trisha’s old room, but there were other rooms left to search on the ground floor, starting with the gym.

Five lockers were in the gym, one for each of the Roberts family members, and one each for Derrick Tyler, and Bernard Hopkins. According to the marked-up schedule that remained, Bernard was exercising three times a week compared to everyone else. Connor found and took a key from inside Bernard’s locker.

Next was the gallery, containing a personal collection of various artworks, some from local artists, others from across the country, and even a lesser famous Monét. Janet couldn’t believe it was just sitting here, unlooted. She made note of it in her notepad, along with the name of a curator friend of hers for later. Finally, it was time to go upstairs.

They came upon a pool table and a bar with more unopened wine and suddenly Merc and Connor felt a little older and cooler. Janet managed to bring them back to task and they headed for Trisha’s room.

When Janet opened the door to the room, she had second thoughts about the three of them going in.

“Actually,” she began, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for two teenage boys to be in here.”

“She doesn’t live here anymore,” Merc said.

“I know, but wherever she is, a girl’s old room remains sacred. Also, I might have better insight into her psychology here compared to you two. You understand, don’t you?”

“I guess a guy with a video camera going into a girl’s room, even an abandoned one, isn’t a great look,” Connor said.

Janet lightly nodded.

“We’ll go find Vivian’s office,” Merc said. “It’s marked on the map alongside the tearoom.”

“Alright, then we’ll head for the master bedroom,” agreed Janet.

The boys left, leaving Janet alone to explore alone. Instinctively, she headed for the closet first. There, under some old clothes near a blanket and old toys, was an old music box. An old worn diary was also nearby. She took both items with her to the window to read the diary in its light. Good thing she sent the boys away. She set the music box down on the sill and dove into the pages.

It told about how Scott Brooks, a “strange” and “quiet” kid was being bullied. Nonetheless, she managed to become good friends with him and Derrick Tyler, who is five years older than Scott. She writes about her various adventures with both boys, including a bike race between Scott and Derrick and finding a snake and running away from it, along with exploring the mansion attic.

As for Trisha herself, she loathes her after-school activities, which seemed typical for an upper-class teen: ballet, music, and proper etiquette. Every month she met with her mother in the tearoom at 3:20 pm, “on the dot!” She also laments her dad being away on business and, other than “teatime with mom,” her mom was also always busy. The only adult she seemed to count on the most was, no surprise, Dorothy. She even wished she was her mother instead.

That’s when Janet noticed a written code to Trisha’s father’s study room—44871. Getting a little excited, she accidentally knocked over the music box, which played a few discordant notes as it spilled out a drawer key.

Picking it up and looking over the other side of the bed was a nightstand with a keyhole and an empty open birdcage nearby. Only the top drawer had items inside—a key with a wooden house front and a cross with a note from Scott saying, “Please hang on to this. Someday I’ll tell you everything.”

Janet added them to her bag and saw that the birdcage wasn’t exactly level on the ground. Lifting it up revealed another diary of Trisha’s, starting from the early 90’s.

Derrick accepted a new job as her father’s new chauffeur and to celebrate, they and Scott buried a time capsule in the cemetery. They promised to open it in ten years—April 1^st, 2000.

About a year later, she was dating Scott. It seemed that even her mother approved. She liked Scott, who by then was working at the mansion as an assistant to Andrew Reed taking care of the gardens with him and thought he was a great worker. Her father liked him too and even took him hunting on some days. It seemed like things were looking up for Trisha as far as her relationship with her parents was concerned. She had even worked up the nerve to tell her mother that she was thinking of becoming a journalist. Vivian supported this and even got her lessons in photography from Oliver Gibson, the town photographer.

Then, in early 1994, Vivian had a sudden change of heart about her daughter dating Scott. She suddenly became adamant that they shouldn’t see each other anymore, saying Trisha should be with someone of the same class instead of with a poor orphan. This was unusual, since Trisha remembered her mother remarking on Scott’s good manners despite being an orphan. If anyone would notice manners, it would be the woman who emphasized “proper etiquette” and set up monthly tea times with her.

She later recalled Father Matthew, the man who adopted Scott, speaking with her mother after church one Sunday. Perhaps he was the reason her mother suddenly hated seeing Scott with her. No matter though, Trisha wrote that she would sometimes secretly meet with Scott in the toolshed behind the mansion. Meanwhile, she decided that she would find out what changed her mother’s mind and find out why Father Matthew was against her and Scott dating. She asked Scott if he knew why his dad had told him to stop seeing her, but he didn’t know, and he had asked him.

Months later, in October, Scott suddenly asked her if she had a younger brother named Vincent. She didn’t but asked her mother the same question at dinner. After hearing that Scott told her about that name, Vivian immediately declared dinner to be over and sent her to her room. She could later hear her parents arguing. A few weeks later, Scott was fired. Trisha laments saying that she’s miserable and still in love with him. She did have her dad still on her side, saying that he still liked Scott, but that if Vivian said Scott wasn’t right for her, then she should move on. During this time, she sometimes seeks refuge at Dorothy’s cottage.

One day, she went to see him at the cabin. She claimed to have looked everywhere for him, inside and outside of the cabin, including the basement, but couldn’t find him.

The final entry simply read, “Mom is dead. I can’t write anymore.”

Janet closed the book, gathered everything, and left to meet the boys in the master bedroom. She found the door to that room open, with no one in it. She called their names and got a reply from the tearoom/Vivian’s office.

When she arrived, Merc explained that the tearoom was locked so they tried the master bedroom, which already had its key in the lock. Upon the discoveries they made were a journal belonging to Vivian, the key to the tearoom (labeled as such), and a hotel key from Ann’s Inn.

“We didn’t read the journal yet,” Merc said.

“Did you say you found a key from the inn,” Janet asked.

Connor panned his camera around the room before stopping at Janet. “We thought it was weird, too,” he said. “No guess as to who had it.” He searched through the smaller drawers where a lamp sat and came across two more Vivian journals and a key labeled “attic”.

The main desk, explored by Janet and Merc, produced a bunch of hate mail accusing Vivian of ruining people’s lives and a front-page story from The Painscreek Herald about the twentieth anniversary of the mining disaster. Another drawer held another paper telling the news of Dr. Henry Johnson’s death. He was found in his car at the bottom of Cherry Creek Lake by an anonymous swimmer on July 11^th, 1995. They estimated that the doctor could have been there as long as fifteen days.

Beneath that paper was a letter mentioning Dr. Johnson. It explained an investigation into funds donated to the local hospital. Apparently, there was evidence that Dr. Johnson was embezzling funds from the Roberts Relief Foundation, which was established for Painscreek Community Hospital. He had an offshore account and had been taking a total of $160,000 as of February 1995.

“Damn,” Merc quietly exclaimed. “You think Vivian is connected to his death somehow?”

“If you mean if she killed him,” Janet began, “I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be the best way for her to get the money back. Probably an accident.”

The top main desk was locked, so they left for the attic, which yielded nothing new. Same with the garage, which, for some reason, was connected to the attic via another staircase. Looking around, they found, strangely, a drawer of beer bottles in one of the wooden drawers with a pile of bottle caps on the countertop.

After finding nothing important, Janet suggested they return to the main part of the mansion by going back the other way since she found another room for them to investigate.

“Charles Robert’s study. I found a security code for the door in Trisha’s diary.”

“You think it was Charles who did it,” Merc asked.

“When a girlfriend or wife dies unexpectedly and under horrendous circumstances, the boyfriend or husband is always the first suspect. That’s because he usually turns out to be the culprit. But in this case, it wasn’t Charles. He was out of town at the time.”

“Might have been someone he knew,” Connor suggested.

“It’s a possibility.”

Once in Charles’ study room, Janet headed straight for the desk. There was nothing but an old calculator, some pencils, a medical book, and chess pieces. The top middle drawer, which she expected to be locked, since it had a combo-scroll on it, was partially open, but empty.

“Nothing,” Merc said. “That’s surprising.”

“Well, he and his daughter did move out of Painscreek,” Janet replied, placing the medical book on the desk. “It makes sense for him to take any important papers with him. We’ll check around the grounds, then return to the inn.”

The three spread out taking different parts of the yard surrounding the manor. Janet found a misplaced box of Da Vinci Wine, Connor investigated the opened shed, and Merc followed a small pathway heading for a gate.

Connor found the shed to be unremarkable after a while and stepped outside it when he saw Merc next to the door breathing heavily. Even though he ran, it wasn’t a long way for him to be out of breath.

“Merc, what is it,” he asked him.

Merc only shook his head. Janet joined them seconds later. She asked them if they found anything, to which Connor said he didn’t, and Merc shook his head again. With that, they began to make their way back to the inn.