He looked away, embarrassed. “Well, I still don’t know what will happen with the kidnapping charge. Whether it will become a state crime now Willem and Marion Mclary are dead, or…or if it can just be ignored.”
“When will you know?” I asked, following him and the female officer into the gloomy house with its feeble lighting in cobwebbed shades.
“Once this mess has been sorted out.”
“They’re dead children, Mr. Murray, not a mess,” Della said sternly. “And if you bring a case against Ren, I’ll contest it. I’m the only living Mclary left. And I say I wasn’t kidnapped.”
Martin squeezed the back of his neck, indicating his stress levels were as strained as ours. “Another topic for another day. For now, let’s focus on what we found.”
Together, we moved deeper into the house toward the narrow staircase leading upstairs.
The steps groaned and cracked as we trailed single file up and up, then followed obediently down the dingy corridor. I’d never been upstairs, and I guessed one of these rooms had been Della’s nursery once upon a time. Now, they were just store rooms with junk and miscellaneous boxes with a master at the end with a stripped mattress and stained carpet.
The sweet smell of decay hinted that this was where Marion Mclary had decided to do the deed.
“We found this,” the female detective said, marching to her colleague who was taking photos of a hidden panel in the wardrobe. “A cubby full of documents.”
“What sort of documents?” Della asked as we moved deeper into the room, peering at the scattered paperwork all over the bed and yet more coming from the secret hole in the wall.
“Birth certificates.”
I inhaled sharply, stalking toward the bed and fisting a few stained pages. Some were hand scribbled, and others were computer printed. Some girls. Some boys. Too many to count.
“They asked whoever sold their child to give them their birth certificate too?” Della stood next to me wrinkling her nose in disgust. “That’s not just sick. That’s…diabolical. It’s as if they fully believed they were buying an animal and had the bill of sale to prove it.”
Martin Murray nodded. “I agree. A case like this can’t explain the rationale of the people who committed the crimes.”
“How many?” I snapped, doing my best to rein in my hope that mine existed in the pile.
The female officer said, “We’ve counted. There’s one hundred and sixty-seven. Compared to the two hundred and seventeen names, I’m guessing some kids were born and never registered, some didn’t have their birth certificates, and a few were sold with the child, if what you say is true, Mr. Shaw, and they were moved on once they could no longer do the work required.”
“Have you found mine?” I asked quietly, wishing I didn’t have hope bubbling in my chest because I already tasted bitter disappointment.
But to finally have that piece of paper? To finally be free to marry Della? It would be a gift after such a grotesque day.
“No, I’m afraid not.” The female officer scanned the pages in front of us. “I mean, there’s always a chance we’ll find more, but not at this stage. However—” She turned to a colleague and collected a page protected by cloudy cellophane. “We did find this one.”
Della was the one to take it. Only right, seeing as it had her name on it.
In shaky calligraphy, her name, Della Donna Mclary, stated she was born on 27th of June to Willem and Marion Mclary.
She gave me a weak smile. “I’m going to scribble that out and make it Wild instead.”
I chuckled softly. “Or I could just marry you and make it legally Wild.”
Her face fell. “If you can somehow make Wild legally yours, first.”
“I’m working on it.”
She smiled sadly. “Work on making your birthday the same as mine, too. Can’t break a lifelong tradition now, can we?”
I ran a finger over her birth certificate, stopping on the date. “I don’t care when I was born. I’m sharing yours forever.”
Martin looked away as I glanced at him, he’d been listening but pretended to give us privacy and another moment or two to study her birth certificate before holding up yet another document.
This one was dog-eared and had been written on something soft, so the pen had almost pressed through the page, leaving embossed letters and not just ink. “This was in the secret cubby, too.” Passing it to me, he nodded for me to take it.
I did, gingerly.
I didn’t want to touch what they’d touched. I didn’t want to read what they’d written, but as my eyes fell to the top line, and I understood what it was, I passed it to Della.
I couldn’t have it against my skin.
And besides, something this important should be read correctly with no pauses or stumbles. Something this important should be burned and never read at all.
Della flinched as she took it from my hands. “A suicide note.”
“Yes.” Martin Murray nodded. “One that explains a little but not a lot. But one that I feel will mean more to you than to us.”
With that cryptic comment, he left us to talk to the team by the wardrobe, and Della and I drifted to the window where torches and spotlights shone through the darkness, illuminating skeletons of those who weren’t as lucky as us.
I coughed and swallowed, my hands balling. “Should we read it?”
Della skimmed it. “I don’t know.”
We stood there for a moment, soaking in the ramifications. Finally, I stood taller. “Read it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” Crossing my arms, I waited.
Slowly, she smoothed the page and began.
“To whomever finds this.
“My name is Marion Mclary and I have ten minutes left to live. When my husband returns from the fields, I’m going to take the shotgun and shoot him in his heartless chest and then, I’m going to put myself out of my misery.”
Della glanced up, her face whitening before her eyes locked back on the page.
“The kids are gone. Half of them sold at rock bottom price to Kyle Harold and half poisoned by the creek. At least none of them will escape and tell the world what we’ve done.
Then again, I don’t care what happens after I’ve gone. I don’t care that everything will come to light, and the church will turn on us, and our friends will know the truth.
I don’t care because I stopped caring the day I married into this evil and went along with my husband’s plans.
I’m not entirely to blame. After all, I did become the buyer and seller of our little worker bees. As far as I was concerned, we needed labour and labour ain’t cheap…unless you buy it young.
I could’ve continued with what we were doing. This isn’t the kind of letter where I confess to my crimes and beg for forgiveness.
There is nothing to forgive. We lived our life the way we wanted.
I don’t care Willem raped those little girls. I don’t care he mutilated those little boys. Everyone needs discipline in their lives. Even if those lives were short.
I know I have a one-way ticket to the devil, and I’m not going fill this page with lies.
But I am going to admit a secret that Willem never knew. The secret that’s the reason why I’m pulling the trigger.
Della Donna Mclary.
My baby girl.
She wasn’t supposed to be born. I tried to kill her. I tried to starve her out. But the church says thou shall not abort, so I let her come into our dark world.
And for a time, I didn’t feel any different.
I didn’t see her in the girls screaming as Willem molested them. I didn’t see her in the kids starving in the barn.
She wasn’t like them.
But then one day, I did see her like them. I saw her eyes flicker as Willem booted that boy from the kitchen. I saw her scream when Willem shot the kid for letting the sheep out.
And I knew she’d either end up in her father’s bed, or worse, become like us.
Just because I’m not apologising for what we did, doesn’t mean I didn’t know it was against the Lord’s teachings.
And for once, I wanted to do right by God rather than just sing pretty hymns in church.
I was going to do the world a favour.
I was going to kill her before she became me.
For weeks, I tried to do it.
Holding her under in the bath until she blew bubbles.