Page 155 of Trouble Comes in Threes

“One and the same. The guy’s name was Clive Maxwell. He lived there for about a year and a half before he was arrested for manslaughter. He got out of prison a couple of years ago.”

“Manslaughter? Who did he murder?”

“His daughter.”

It took me a moment to recover from my shock. “Sarah?”

He hesitated. “You know her name?”

“An old neighbor called me Sunday afternoon. They were both teenagers at the time. She told me she thought Sarah buried the box, and I guess her boyfriend’s name was Jason. The initials in the notes fit. She didn’t know any last names, though. She told me she heard Sarah died years back, but she didn’t know the details.”

“Her father beat her to death,” he said in disgust. “His younger daughter saw the whole thing and was a witness in her father’s trial. The idiot turned down a plea bargain and thought he could convince his daughter to lie for him. Turned out, she was all too eager to put her daddy away for life.”

“She saw it?” I asked in horror.

“Yep, and it wasn’t pretty. I gathered hitting them wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, but he was trying to get something out of her. The younger sister?—”

“Luna,” I said. “I heard her name was Luna.”

“Luna said she wasn’t sure what her father wanted, but her sister knew and refused to tell him, only saying she’d buried the box somewhere he’d never find it. She told him he had taken something important away from her, so she did the same to him.”

“She was talking about her boyfriend,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. The contents of the box had been sad before, but this was tragic.

“Yeah. Ol’ Clive was beside himself with rage and beat the shit out of her. He even used a kitchen chair. When his rage ran out, he tried to get her to tell him where she’d buried it, but she was unconscious at that point. She died a few weeks later.”

“Oh dear lord,” I said, feeling lightheaded. “You said her father got out of prison a couple of years ago? Do you think he’s the one looking for the box?”

“I’d bet money on it.”

“How in the world did he find out about it?”

“Your employee?—”

“Jeremiah.”

“Jeremiah,” he corrected, “knew him through mutual friends. He mentioned they were working on a property on Olive Street, and it was a pretty extensive excavation. Clive told the group that he used to live on that street. Then he figured out that he’d lived next door to the house your crew was working on. He told Jeremiah that his daughter had buried something important to him and asked him to let him know if y’all came across a wooden box.”

“He knew she’d buried the wooden box?”

“It was the girls’ mother’s box. He’d kept it in his room, and the daughter—Sarah—had taken it.”

“And put her things inside it.”

“Appears so. I talked to a friend of Jeremiah’s and he said Jerimiah planned to tell Clive that he’d found the box, but he was gonna make him pay to get it back. Based on what Austin said, Maxwell’s muscle killed Jeremiah before he could tell him where to find it.”

“The package.”

“The package,” he affirmed. “But damned if I know what it is.”

“Floppy disks.”

“What?”

“Long story short, but the box broke this morning, and an old Ziploc bag with two floppy disks fell out. They’re in my purse now.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at my office.”

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