Chapter 4: Lenore's Secret Project
Lenore Browning had just finished taking her shower and was ready to go to work on the newspapers that she and her visiting younger cousin Allen had managed to find after searching the Springwood Landfill earlier in the day. Dressing quickly, she made certain that she was dry and, after checking to make sure that the door to her mother's office was locked, she got to the downstairs dining room that she and Allen were using as a "processing center" where the newspapers – Springwood Shoppers dating to the second half of the 1960's - were being scanned and uploaded.
Lenore had no sooner stepped in to the room when her ten-year-old cousin looked up from the screen he was working at, and said, "Norie, you won't believe this! Check this out!"
Looking over the boy's shoulder, Lenore saw three Springwood Shopper front pages displayed side by side on the screen. The first one was mostly blacked-out, including the headline. The second one, in the middle, had a headline about the Apollo Moon program. But it was the third paper that jumped out at her. For one thing, there were no redactions. For another, the Apollo Moon Program only had a mention in the lower-left hand corner. But it was the headline that gave Lenore a lump in her throat: "Springwood Slasher Strikes Again!"
Allen smiled at his older cousin – who truth be told, felt more like a big sister to him – and said, "The first page with most of it blacked-out is from the Springwood Shopper Morning Edition published Friday, July 12, 1968, and is taken from the old microfiche file at the Springwood Public Library.
"The one in the middle is straight from the Springwood Shopper's website. It looks like it was completely redone!"
Lenore nodded. "And the last one is the one we found this morning at the landfill. This is very good, Allen. With any luck, we'll have the whole stack scanned, formatted and ready for uploading by the end of the week.
"I'll want the scanned hard copies packed and mailed off to your house in care of Uncle Max and Aunt Helen. That will be the last thing we do, tonight, before going to bed."
Allen shrugged. "Why not just pack it all up when we're done scanning everything, Norie? It'd be a lot easier . . . ."
"Because," said Lenore patiently. "If something goes wrong, and "They" find out what we're doing; I want at least some of the real, unredacted papers to be away from Springwood so we'll have a bargaining chip of some kind. You might need it to get me out of Westin Hills if "They" capture me before I leave Springwood to "attend college" out of state, when I graduate high school and become a legal adult, next year.
"For that matter we should probably mail copies of the CD's we make to Uncle Max and Aunt Helen as well. I want the people who took my brother - your cousin Chris - from us and murdered him so he couldn't talk about what he discovered, to be held accountable.
"And I can't do that if they lock me up the way they did to Chris . . . ."
Allen nodded. Though Chris and Lenore were older than he was, he always looked forward to his annual three-week-long summertime visits to his Aunt Karen and his older cousins in Springwood, Ohio. They always had time for him, and never treated him like a little kid.
He had been going there ever since he was six. But when he was eight, he did not get to go.
When Allen was eight, something horrible had happened.
Chris was 16 at the time, and Lenore was 14. They had just finished helping an old neighbor clean out their basement for a garage sale as a way to earn some extra spending money. While unpacking a punchbowl that had not seen the light of day for over fifty years, Chris had found that it was wrapped for protection in a copy of the local newspaper, The Springwood Shopper, where the headline and several of the articles within spoke of a vicious, serial child killer named Frederick Charles Krueger, whose reign of terror had just come to an end with his arrest.
Intrigued, brother and sister tried looking up "Frederick Charles Krueger" online, and were somewhat surprised to find absolutely nothing. A trip to the local library's microfiche room only deepened the mystery when all Springwood Shoppers from that time – including the date of the paper Chris found – were severely redacted with broad swathes of black Magic Marker.
"What now, Chris?" Lenore had asked.
Chris replied, "The only thing left for me to do is ask someone who was around at the time."
"Don't you mean the only thing left for us to do, Chris?"
"No," said Chris emphatically. "Norie, someone went to a great deal of trouble to erase this Krueger guy from the town records. It might be safer if I ask about him alone, without you being involved."
"What do you think happened, Chris?" said Lenore. "I mean, if this guy killed as many kids as the paper said he did, then how come we can't find out anything about him?"
Chris took the folded, old newspaper from his pocket. It was not a complete paper, and a good part of it was missing. But what Chris had, he had committed to memory, and found what he was looking for in moments. "This says that Krueger was about to be arraigned in court, but that the defense attorney assigned to the case stated that the police acted ". . . with a bad search . . . ," and then it ended."
"A bad search warrant?" suggested Lenore.
Chris nodded. "That's what I think, too.
"Now, I'm only guessing, sis. But maybe if Krueger was let off on some lame technicality – especially after killing twenty elementary school kids – that the townspeople might have formed a posse and taken the law into their own hands."
Chris then opened the paper to another section. "This part says that the lead Detective – some guy named "Thompson," - was understandably "outraged" and vowed not to let Krueger escape justice, no matter what some, "bleeding heart liberal judge," said.
"I think that maybe this Detective Thompson may have been in on it. Maybe other leading town citizens were, as well. If so, then they might want the whole thing forgotten, because as big a piece of scum as this Kruger was, they still committed a crime and might have to face a judge themselves for what they did, if it became common knowledge."
Lenore shook her head, and then said, "Then maybe we should just forget about that paper you found, Chris."
"No way, sis," said Chris shaking his own head. "I mean, this is big stuff! Some child killer had Springwood by the throat way back in the '60's and, nobody remembers it?"
"But Chris –"
"I'm gonna start by asking the librarian tomorrow, Norie."
"But what about me?" said Lenore. "We're a team!"
"For now, I want you to pretend that you know nothing," said Chris seriously. "For now, I'm going to make it plain that I am acting on my own. And if anyone – anyone! – asks if I told you anything about what I found, I want you to act dumb!
"I never spoke with you about it. I never showed you the newspaper. That's your story, and you're sticking to it! And that's how it's going to be until I find out more!"
"But what if the people behind the cover-up are still alive, Chris? If you're the only other person who knows anything about this . . . ."
Chris shook his head. "It's probably nothing, Norie; it's just a precaution. More than likely the only aim behind the "conspiracy of silence" was to keep the local property values from falling or something like that.
"In any case, we'll know, tomorrow."
The following morning, Chris said goodbye to Lenore, and left for the library. That was the last that she ever saw him.
The police came to their door a few hours after Chris left for the library, and told their mom and dad that their son – Lenore's brother – had been found comatose from a "drug overdose," and had been taken to Westin Hills for, "further observation."
Lenore had gone to Westin Hills with her parents, but was not allowed to see her brother. She was, however, asked to "assist the doctors and the police" by answering, ". . . a few questions that would not take too long."
What followed was a lengthy interrogation that would probably rival anything then being done at Gitmo. What surprised Lenore was that only the first few questions were actually about Chris' alleged drug use. They had asked her if her brother mentioned anything about "murders from the 1960's" to her. This went on for hours. Lenore denied everything.
Then the questions shifted to asking her about her dreams, of all things. Did she have any recent nightmares about being chased by a burned man with knives on his hands?
But Lenore held to her answers, and after a while, the doctors and detectives began to believe her, and allowed her to go home. But when she and her parents got back home, without Chris, they came back to a home that was completely and thoroughly searched. The police said that they had "a warrant" and had been looking for "drugs," but had found none.
Lenore never saw her brother alive again. Chris never came out of his 'coma.' He died a few days later. Lenore's parents split up a short time after that.
And Lenore decided to make it her life's work to find out who was responsible for framing and killing her brother and destroying her family.
Lenore took great care to make herself invisible at Springwood High School. She purposely dressed "clique-neutral" so as not to attract attention; either good or bad. And all the while, she kept her eyes and ears open, always on the lookout for anything that could be used to expose the Town's Secret and those who had a vested interest in keeping it a secret.
When her cousin Allen resumed his annual visits the next year, he had inadvertently discovered her Secret Project, and had immediately offered to help her find out what had happened to her brother and his cousin. Ever since then, Allen proved himself to be a good, hard worker, and over the years, the two cousins located fragments of old, unaltered newspapers here and there, wrapping plates and cups at garage sales and in parts of the Springwood Landfill.
Though she was worried for her young cousin's safety, Lenore was grateful for the help; especially now after they finally hit REAL pay-dirt in an out-of-the-way corner of the Springwood Landfill earlier that day when they found bundles of Springwood Shoppers from the 1960's, almost perfectly preserved.
Lenore was ecstatic. It was as though G-d Himself wanted them to find the documentation that would bring belated justice to those who framed her brother for daring to ask, "What really happened here in Springwood in the 1960's and why was it covered-up?" It was a question that cost Chris his life and Lenore her brother and her family . . . .
"What's next, Norie?" said Allen.
Lenore sighed, and checked the time on her phone. "It's getting kinda late, and we haven't eaten anything since lunch. What's say we order in a pizza, then do a bit more on The Project before calling it a night?"
When Allen enthusiastically agreed – provided that they ordered a pizza from Luigi's - Lenore placed the call for a large pepperoni pizza and onion rings, and the two returned to their work. A short time later, the two cousins heard a loud pounding at the door.
"Maybe you should get it, Norie. After all, it might be Taylor making the delivery."
Allen noticed his older cousin blushing a bit when he made his suggestion. Taylor Albert Swift was the boy down the street whose parents ran the local Luigi's Pizza Franchise. And Allen suspected that his older cousin liked him. That was kind of why he chose Luigi's Pizza. His older cousin was always so serious because of her brother's murder. And even at age 10, Allen knew that Norie needed time with kids her own age.
But Norie shook her head, sighed, and pulled a twenty and a ten from her purse. "Just give this to whoever it is who made the delivery.
"But if it is Taylor . . . look, Allen, just tell him that I said "hi," but that I can't come to the door right now because I'm in the middle of something very . . . important."
Allen smiled wanly as he took the money from his older cousin, and went to the front door to get the pizza.
Lenore sighed. Her little cousin meant well, of course. And she could tell that Taylor really did like her. Moreover, she kind of liked Taylor. Lenore knew him growing up, and they had played often when they were little kids.
But Lenore had no time for friends these days; especially boyfriends. They would only be in jeopardy from whatever it was that she was investigating. Besides, Lenore had spent the past few years establishing an image of invisibility; an image that she would lose big-time if she were to date any boy; especially a boy unfortunate enough to be named Taylor Swift . . . .
The first indication to Allen that it was not Taylor making the delivery was that the pounding on the door became louder and louder. Allen said aloud, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!"
The second indication that it was not Taylor was when Allen opened the door. Norie's friend Taylor Albert Swift was a somewhat average-looking kid about her age. That definitely did not describe the teenage boy standing at the door.
This boy looked like . . . well, like Tarzan, and behind him, stood a girl who looked like Jane. Both were dripping wet and wore what looked like rough-cut leopard-skin swimwear stitched together with leather thongs. And they both looked angry.
"Uh," said Allen. "Y-you aren't the pizza guy . . . ."
The 'Tarzan' boy took a step forward, blocking the open door, and in a low, menacing voice, said, "We gotta talk, you little perv . . . ."