Confirmed Rumors
When Sam checked them out of the motel and asked for directions, the old man at the front desk kindly photocopied a decades-old map of the area and drew their route with a red marker, making a couple of notes about the discrepancy in road names. He also told Sam that the drive from Rosswood to Fairwater (in Tremblay county) takes about an hour and a half, but up to two hours if the weather turns bad.
Dean made the trip in just under an hour.
The plan had been to head straight to the local library to find out more information about the Seff family, Tremblay House, and maybe read some further accounts from Mike James and Joe Kowalski or locate them and talk to them in person. That had been the plan, but a quick glance to the back seat and Sam knew they'd better rethink their first stop. He quickly told his brother that, if Dean valued his upholstery at all, he'd better find a hotel. And fast.
"Wow," Dean said as he and Sam headed for the library. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite that shade of green before. Well, there was you after I told you exactly what was in head cheese..."
"Yes," Sam snapped at his brother's smirk. "And thank you so much for letting me in on that little secret after I ate it."
"Hey, I told you what was in MacColla's black pudding... told you you shouldn't try it. But, no, you were always the suck-up. Saying you wanted to be cultured or whatever."
"How is Mal these days?" Sam asked, purposely avoiding bad memories and latching onto the good.
"Its been awhile, but the last time I went for a visit, the old girl was insisting on being called Malvina again. Can you imagine – 72 years old and she is still at the top of her game."
Sam chose not to comment. His brother had such a wistful look of admiration on his face that Sam didn't want to spoil it. To be honest, he was hoping to retire from hunting much sooner than that. Of course, Mal was more of a specialty bladesmith than a hunter – only taking time to hunt if needed (or, on the rare occasion, desired).
To Sam, the woman had always been a bit grandmotherly, though a little gruff and rough around the edges. She reminded him of Annie Oakley (a Scottish Ethel Merman version, anyway), always in an "anything you can do, I can do better" battle with any male hunter to come along. To watch the woman and his father argue, sometimes good-naturedly and sometimes not so much, was always entertaining.
"What was that?" Sam asked as he realized his brother had talking, mumbling, and he hadn't been paying attention.
"What?" Dean asked, caught off guard. "Oh, I just said that I hoped she'll be OK on her own."
"Mal?"
"No," Dean said with exasperation as he opened the library door for his brother. "I was talking about Kole."
"Oh, I'm sure she'll be fine. I mean, its not like she was coming down with something." The casualness of Sam's remark did not go unnoticed by his brother.
"Huh?" Yeah, he really couldn't come up with much better a question.
"Well Dean, after cruising the curvy back country roads at light speed, she was bound to feel ill eventually. The way you drive, I'm surprised this is the first time its happened."
"What do you mean 'the way I drive'? There is nothing wrong with the way I drive."
"Have you paid any attention to your cousin at all? Have you noticed that, not only does she refuse to drive, she won't even sit in the front seat..."
"OK, yeah I've noticed I guess. So what?"
"Dean," Sam bordered on condescending, "her friend was killed in a car accident. Ever since, she's had a sort of phobia. Easily getting carsick would seem pretty normal... especially the way you drive," he added, under his breath, but loud enough for Dean to hear.
It was on the tip of his tongue to mention the what happens when Sam drives – a hitchhiking woman in white pops in, the Impala nearly gets totaled by a semi... which was as far as his brain got before his mouth snapped shut and backed out of the jab. He didn't want to talk about that night, or the following events in the hospital, let alone be the one to bring them up.
oo0oo
They had a sort of unspoken system when it came to dealing with locals and laypeople (non-hunters). A child or a young-ish woman got Dean's attention, an older woman (motherly or grandmotherly) or teen was approached by Sam, and (recently) any college-aged kid or male was met by Kole. A quick look to the help desk, and the blue-haired, bespectacled woman behind it, gave them all the information they needed to get them started on their research.
While Dean located a free table at the (strangely) populated library, Sam neared Mrs. Prim (as the nameplate told him) with his brightest boyish smile. As expected, Mrs. Prim looked up when she noticed him approaching and, with one look at his face, melted into Grandma who would willingly answer any of his questions (with a promise of milk and cookies, should he be a good little boy).
Mrs. Prim (oh, call me Esther, deary) led Sam down to the basement where the old town newspapers were kept (and what a gentleman, not letting me carry those heavy boxes), all the while giving Sam the information he knew wouldn't be in the papers. Local gossip.
"Now, that was before my time, of course. Well, not technically before my time, but I wasn't old enough to string words together to form a sentence. However, my Auntie Sophia and Annelisa Seff were girlfriends way back when. Now, I don't mean girlfriends like the kids do today, of course. I simply mean that they were close friends – got together for lunch and shopping, at the beauty parlor and such.
"Apparently, Leonard Seff was an even bigger name around these parts than it is now, if you can believe that. Story goes, he built that beautiful house for his lovely wife and son to be a kind of castle he thought they deserved – drew up the plans, even brought some of the materials over from Europe and everything."
"Materials?"
"Oh yes, deary. Now, they weren't from Germany, where I believe his family began. But, I think he found land in England or Ireland or France – my, I can't remember now – that had been in sweet Annelisa's family and brought over some of the remains of a house or cottage or castle or something back here to build their wonderful house."
They got to the shelf where the newspapers for the time period Sam asked for were held, when Esther stopped, sighed, and shrugged.
"I guess my old memory isn't what it used to be," she ruefully told him. "Finally, someone asks what I know, and I can no longer remember the details. Isn't that's just Murphy's Law for you?"
"Actually, ma'am (he gave in at her reprimanding look) – Esther, I enjoyed the story. The article I read seemed to believe that everyone already knew about the Seff family. As an outsider, I'm glad to hear a local's point of view."
The small woman – really, she was only half Sam's size – smiled appreciatively. She quickly located the newspapers and began loading them into Sam's awaiting arms. It was odd. He had been doing 'the research thing' (as Dean put it) for quite some time, yet he had never asked for newspapers and gotten thick black binders as a result.
"M- Esther," he corrected himself before he could fully voice his 'ma'am', "these..." he faltered.
"Well," Esther smiled, "aren't you sweet, deary. All flustered, trying to figure out the nicest way to ask me why I'm handing you binders instead of newspapers." She let out a mischievous little laugh.
"Well, uhm..." Sam stuttered.
"Deary, this newspaper was about 20"x11" for the longest time. It almost resembled a book with all the pages simply folded in half and piled into one another. This," she nodded towards the binder, "was my granddaughter's very bright idea."
"Your granddaughter?"
"Stella..."
"Let me guess," Sam smiled, "named after her very bright grandmother?" Esther smiled her affirmation and continued.
"Stella – she's 24, you know (Sam blushed). Stella cut the newspaper pages in half and trimmed them up a little. Then, she slipped the pages into these protective sheets, put the sheets in binders, labeled them with the months and years... saved the library a lot of money on transferring the newspapers that macro-fish, or whatever."
"That is very clever," Sam smiled again. "Preserves not only the papers, but also the original look and feel. Preserves the history..."
He knew his brother would give him grief about his little display, if Dean had witnessed it. His older brother may excel at charming women out of their pants, but Sam was equally skilled in charming them out of information. For example, on their way back up the stairs to the main part of the library, Sam discovered that Mike James left town right after high school. He had gotten a football scholarship somewhere and had never come back. Even his family moved away.
Joe Kowalski, on the other hand, went to a community college nearby. He had stayed close because he helped take care of his ailing mother, as it was just the two of them. Both of the Kowalskis, however, were killed in a car accident on their way to the hospital. According to Esther, the mother had taken a turn for the worse and Joe was trying quickly get her the help she needed. It was dark and the weather was bad, and the poor boy lost control of the car.
So much for getting any more information from the two people who were as close to witnesses that they had heard of. The boys, Esther told him, had only been interviewed the one time – as they didn't seem to know anything that would help.
Sam found Dean and reluctantly relayed all of the information he had. Really, the only thing the knowledge was good for was to save time and trouble researching and coming up blank on their own.
Dean, though, surprised his little brother and had some information of his own.
"You found another witness?"
"A better witness," Dean told him with a smile as they left the library. "A witness who was actually there the night that the cheerleaders disappeared."
Sam looked at his brother for a moment, trying to decide if he even wanted to ask how Dean had gotten this new lead in such a short amount of time. Someone who had been at the house, someone who lived nearby (considering they were walking), someone who the police and the reporters were seemingly unaware of... Yeah, Sam had to know.
"Well, Sammy-boy," again with that irritating smirk, "you have your talents and I have mine. While you were chatting up Grandma Moses in the basement (and now a leer and a wink), I was spending time with my own little librarian. She told me about the fifth cheerleader -"
"Fifth cheerleader? There were only four..." Sam trailed off when his brother stopped and raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say 'do you want to hear this or not?' "Sorry... so this fifth cheerleader..."
"Yeah, seems there were five girls on the squad. There were the four local-from-birth girls who were at the house for whatever reason, and there was one girl..." he trailed off, allowing Sam to finish.
"... who was either new to the school or new to the squad." At every school Sam had ever attended, it seemed the varsity cheerleaders came in packs of five or six. Here, they had only four names – the devil is truly in the details.
"Well, according to little miss library, it was both. The book worm's older sister was in the same class with said cheerleaders."
"Little miss library? Book worm? How do you get all this info and not get a name?"
"I got a name," Dean said defensively. "It was Stella."
oo0oo
Corrissa Swan might have technically lived in town, but it was pretty obvious that she was not a part of the town. It wasn't anything specific really – it was the little things. Things like the privacy fence that, at first, seems to section her yard from her neighbors'. But, on closer inspection, it is pretty plain that the wood does not match – that the fences are actually the neighbors' (who have not bothered with any sort of fencing on the remaining sides of their lawns).
There were also the barely visible edges of wood sticking up out of the grass at the front corner of the lawn. Taking a look at the houses around them, Dean and Sam could see the perfect rows of identical black mailboxes on wooden posts. Every house had them – except for the Swan house.
As they walked up to the front door, they saw bits of toilet paper in the trees and bushes, remnants or eggs and shaving cream (not to mention small dents caused by rocks) on the house and the car in the driveway, and a couple of scorch marks on the porch near the front door.
Dean lifted his fist to knock on the door, but it opened before he could connect. In the entryway stood a woman who, at first glance, looked to be nearing forty. But, after taking a moment to look closer, Dean could see that she was only a little older than he was. However, it was clear that years of stress and strain had prematurely aged what had once been a quite beautiful young woman.
"What?" she rasped.
Dean and Sam shared a quick look. Usually, this woman would have fit into Dean's range – right age, right gender. But, it was obvious that she was not a typical witness. The boys had talked about what angle they planned to play while interviewing Corrissa Swan – police, reporters, etc. – but they couldn't come to an agreement. It was about this point that Dean really wished his cousin was here. Then, at the thought of Kole, he quickly came up with a ridiculous (but hopefully believable) story.
"Good evening ma'am," Dean said with a pleasant (rather than on-the-prowl) smile. "I wonder if we might have a moment of your time." He learned long ago from his father that, when in doubt, avoid giving out information.
"If you've come to tell how great Jesus was and how God will save my soul and whatever, don't bother. I'm not religious." She began closing the door, but Dean took a step forward to block the path.
"No ma'am, we're not peddling Bibles or anything. We were just wondering if we could ask you a few questions."
"You reporters? Because, I don't know if that local rag told you, but I will sue if you connect my name to - "
"No ma'am," Dean stopped her before she could get too upset, "we're not reporters. We're students... over at the college. Our professor gave us your name – said we should talk to you."
"Your professor? Name isn't Ricky Leeds, is it?" She said the name with such contempt and a sneer that Dean found his in.
"Well, I don't know about the 'Ricky' part," he said, turning to Sam and giving an exaggerated eye roll. "We didn't exactly... endear ourselves to Professor Leeds."
"Huh," she huffed a laugh and seemed to relax a little. "I guess that explains why he sent you to me. I knew that ass had become a teacher, though I never expected him to get as far as teaching a college course. So, what is this class of your?"
"Its a pre-law class," Sam took over. "Everyone was given an unsolved case to look into."
"Are students usually allowed to question people in an investigation?"
"Well," Dean stepped in again, "everyone else was given high profile cases and all the background available to the public. They don't actually question anyone; they just pair up and approach the material as if they could then talk to witnesses and..."
"Basically," Sam picked up, "its all a sort of 'what if' situation. What if we were given these cases? How would be proceed? That sort of thing."
"Yeah," Dean finished, "but everyone else got national cases. I guess being the newbies in town, Leeds thought it would be safe giving us a local case. You know, since we haven't heard any of the local gossip."
"Oh yeah," Corrissa said with disdain, "I'm sure his reasons were purely ethical." She heaved a heavy, weary sigh. "Look, I have a couple minutes right now. Why don't you guys come in and ask whatever you need to."
"Thank you ma'am," Dean said as they walked through the door and she closed it behind them. Sam tried hard not to laugh – he didn't think he had ever heard his brother use the term 'ma'am' so many times in one conversation.
