Mary Holmes goes Missing

It was very windy and warm for the season. Mary had been officially missing for three months. She went to the grocery store one morning and never returned. This had family and the small village of Oak Ridge upset all summer and now that fall was here most had begun to think of her in the past tense. Everyone was moving on with their lives as people do. This included her three young adult children. Her oldest Janice was packing to return to college in the east. The middle child Todd was a senior at St. Mary’s College and her youngest Elise was preparing to graduate from Amherst Technological School in the area. Elise was still putting up new flyers weekly asking people to look out for her mom and going to the police station every other day trying to find out if there were any new clues.

Mary’s husband Roger had passed two years prior, and his relatives were still promoting the reward of $50K for any new information and $100K if the tip led to an arrest. The local police station was flooded with calls however most were crack pots trying to see how they could get the money. Sgt. Breyer a life-long resident of Oak Ridge who was the detective assigned to her case kept her file on his desk. He could never figure out how a woman who was as popular as Mary could go to the grocery store and never return to her car and never been seen again for almost four months. People just do not vanish into thin air.

The day of her disappearance was as average a day as ever in her life. She got up put on the kettle to heat water for tea. She yelled upstairs to make sure all of her darling children were up and had begun to prepare for their day. She noticed they were extremely low on milk and eggs and decided to go to the grocery store to get some. Her SUV was low on gas. She had allowed Elise her youngest to drive it to run errands and of course Elise did not refill it before returning home. Mary always had breakfast ready by 9 am. When it was not all of her darlings began to be concerned and started calling around the neighborhood. Her best friend and neighbor Ann told them she had waved at her shortly before 8 am as she backed out of the driveway. When Mary was not back by 10 am her oldest daughter Janice began to worry. She stopped by the local gas station to inquire if anyone had seen her mom and the clerk said yes. “Your mom was here about 8:15 am to fill up.” Janice then proceeded to the grocery store to see if she was there. She saw her mom's car in the parking lot and went inside to find her. “I know mom can get distracted when she shops however, she has been gone for over two hours,” she mentioned to Sam, one of the stock boys. As she went through the store isle by isle looking for her asking everyone she saw if they had seen her mom, she began to become more anxious and frustrated. Then she returned home and cancelled all of her appointments for the day and went to the police station to file a missing person’s report. She was told at the station until her mom was missing at least 24 hours there was nothing they could do. Then she spotted Al an old friend of her dad’s and told him she thought her mom was missing. Janice said, “her car is in the grocery store parking lot,” Al went there first to begin his search. The Village of Oak Ridge was small you could drive around town in 30 minutes or so.

Janice returned home her brother Todd and sister Elise were gone. She remembered that Todd was going boating with friends and would be out of the area for most of the day. Elise was going to the track then out with friends. She called both of them sounding the alarm that their mom had not been seen since she left the house about 8 am and her car was in the grocery store parking lot. Both Todd and Elise dropped what they were doing immediately and returned home. Frustrated and scared Janice began to cry hysterically. Elise began to pace pulling her bright red hair and exclaiming “Where can she be?” Todd said he would begin his own search around the city for her with his friends. A few hours had passed it was now dark their mom never stayed out until dark because she could not see well at night. All three went to the police station and demanded that someone do something immediately. Sgt. Breyer was on duty and talked with them. “Now tell me everything that has happened from the time you got up until now.” They all told him what they remembered of their morning before their mom left their home.

Volunteers were called to help search for her the morning of the next day. It was not hard to round up a search party. Mary had lived in Oak Bluff continuously since she married her husband Roger over 20 years ago. She had been active at the local schools when her children were young and helped out at her church on a weekly basis. Most who met her loved her. She was cheery, smart and very nurturing. Plus, she was one of the few women who knitted beautiful sweaters, gloves and hats. Most of the people in the village purchased their winter accessories from her. She also gave her knitted items as gifts and donated them for charity auctions. She was the idea mom, friend and community worker. It was hard not to love Mary.

The village was semi-circled by lush forest it was not unusual for people to get lost, and the sheriff have to round up a search party to find them. This happened at least once a year. However, usually the person would show up before the day was over and all would be well. This usually happened to the very elderly, small children and strangers just driving through. Not well functioning mature adults. Some people still held out hope for Mary and wanted her to be found. Two weeks after she had gone missing most people suspected the worse. She had been abducted and if found it would be her remains not the Mary they knew and loved.

Well, it has been six months and no sign of Mary. Two of her children have returned to school and the one who attends a nearby college seems lost. Elise cannot focus on her studies. Every time she drives her mom’s car, she sees her in the back seat. At least one night a week she has nightmares that show her mom being drugged off by a man in the dream she can only see his arms. Her nerves are a wreck. Her pretty red hair is now very frizzy and dull looking. She has lost a lot of weight and does not socialize much. Her friends are worried about her. Just last week the pastor of their church stopped by just to check on her. They spoke for about 10 minutes, and she made a lot of excuses and found a way to get him to leave without giving him any answers.

Shortly after her pastor left her phone rings and it showed Unknown on the front. She never receives telephone calls from people she does not know or anyone whose name does not show on the front of the phone. When she answers a woman who sounds like her mom says “Baby, come get me.” What? Who are you? This is your mom come get me I am at the old Hill mansion. Elise immediately calls Sgt. Breyer and tells him what has happened. He instructs her to come down to the station so he can see her phone and have the techs look it over. Sgt. Breyer says Elise the techs say the phone call is coming from the old, abandoned Hill mansion. Damn, that place has been vacant since before you were born. When old Mrs. Hill died none of her relatives wanted to live in Oak Ridge anymore. I went over there myself the place is still boarded up. Tomorrow I am having the manager of the estate meet me there so we can get into the house.

Now Elise calls her brother and sister and tells them what has happened. Both are shocked and promise to come home and stay with her for a while until Sgt. Breyer can figure out what is going on. Todd and Janice return home within a day to be with Elise. Sgt. Breyer has contacted the manager of the estate a man named Mr. Wells and he has agreed to meet with him the next day to go over and open up the estate so the police can do a search. The police have asked the Holmes children to keep quiet about what has happened because he does not want the town to panic.

The next day early in the morning Sgt. Breyer along with two deputies meet Mr. Wells at the old Hill estate. The front door and side doors are opened. Surprisingly the lights and all the utilities are still on. Mr. Wells tells the police that the utilities were never turned off when the estate was closed. Mrs. Hills relatives send money monthly to pay the bills as well as pay for a man to cut the grass and do other lawn work. Sgt. Breyer and the deputies search the place and make several shocking discoveries. The place is extremely clean, no dust, furniture polished, fixtures sparkling, the place smells fresh and there is a hospital bed in the lower floor bedroom. The refrigerator as a small amount of fresh food in it and you can tell someone has been using the kitchen appliances. Now surprisingly they hear a voice coming from upstairs. They go to investigate and find Mary Holmes coming out of the upstairs bath. She is pale, she has lost a lot of weight however healthy. She stops when she sees them and just stares.

As they approach Mary disappears in front of their eyes. Then a booming male voice shouts at them to leave and then the house shakes for about five seconds. Startled everyone runs from the mansion. The doors slam behind them and the boards that had been removed replace themselves as if they had not been touched. Sgt. Breyer, the deputies and Mr. Wells are shocked. Okay says Sgt. Breyer everyone not a word about this to the public. There is an explanation for this and until we find it, we do not want the public to panic. We do not need people going to the Hill mansion snooping around.

Once back at the station Sgt. Breyer has a talk with the deputies stressing how important it is for them to not disclose what they thought they had seen. “You know with technology you can make a lot of things appear to be real that are not.” Then he gave each deputy an assignment and began a deep dive into the hill family and the estate. He called the local historical society director Ms. Hines and requested she bring over all she has on the Hill family and the estate from the earliest record keeping of the history of Oak Ridge.

To be continued