Bones in the Attic

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

 A Short Mystery by

F. Haywood Glenn

It was the end of a short week and a short day. There were often days like this through the holiday season. Both Ken and I were expecting to spend a long weekend away from the tedious waiting of surveillance and the complications of emotional clients. However, such a break would not be realized this weekend. It was after four in the afternoon when the phone rang.

“This is Lydia James. Who is calling, please?”

“Lydia, this is Sidney Jones.”

Sidney?  My brain began to spin. I knew the name but couldn’t quite remember from where. 

“Go Panthers!” He said. “We went to high school together.”

“Oh my God! Sidney Jones. It’s been a while. How are you?”

“I am well. I got married a few years ago, and things are great.”

“People don’t usually call me when things are great. What’s going on with you?”

Sidney let out an aspirated sigh. “My wife and I just moved into an old Victorian house on Oakwood Road. We were cleaning out the attic when we found a suitcase full of old bones.”

“Oh my, not the ideal housewarming.”

“Exactly. We called the police, of course, but I got the feeling that those bones were not really important to the officers who showed up.”

“You’re probably right. You should hear from the coroner in a few days to confirm whether the bones are human. Then, the bones will be examined by the county 

Forensic Pathologist to determine when the body died.” 

“My wife is convinced that a murder occurred in that house, which has her a little spooked.”

 

“Tell me more about what you actually found.”

“Jennifer and I had been searching for a house outside of the city for at least a year before we found this house. Once we saw this house, we agreed that it was perfect for us. It is a medium-sized Victorian-style home with two floors and an attic. The house was old and needed more than just a paint job. It was a fixer-upper, but because it reminded me of the house my grandparents once owned in the city, I fell in love with the home. For weeks, we scrubbed, painted, and bagged the rubbish left by the previous owners. It was during this process that Jennifer found an old suitcase in the attic. I suggested that we toss it out with the rest of the rubbish, but my wife insisted that we see what was inside, so we opened it.”

There was a long sigh before he continued. “The attic was very dusty, and the suitcase was very old.”

“How old do you think?” I asked.

“Old. Maybe as old as the turn of the century. It was a rather large case, and the fabric began to tear away as it was unzipped. I was cautious opening the case, only to find that it contained a smaller case inside. The smaller case was closed with buckles, but they were rusted shut. I had to pry them open. Jennifer and I just stared in shocked silence. It looked as if a body had been folded up inside this small case.”

“Did you touch the bones?”

“Absolutely not. We called the police right away. A couple of days later. Two patrol officers came to the house and took the bones with them. After a week passed with no word, I decided to give you a call. So, what should we do now?”

“There is nothing you can do at this point. If this turns out to be a real case, it will likely be classified as a cold case. That means, unless the deceased is a prominent person, the case is unlikely to receive much attention.” 

Lydia’s mind was already on the case. “I will look into the history surrounding the house and its previous occupants. I’ll let you know what I find.”

It didn’t take much effort to learn about the house. Public records indicate that the house was built in 1920 by the prominent architect Thomas Walters. It was later sold to psychiatrist Dr. William Ronan five years later. Dr. Ronan and his wife Rita bore two children. Their son Clarence was the eldest, born in 1928, and by all accounts, he was mentally challenged. The daughter, the youngest sibling, was born in 1930 with epilepsy and died after falling down the stairs in the house. Rita Ronan died of pneumonia that same year.

Dr. Ronan was the director of a Pennsylvania State Mental Hospital. Shortly after the Stockmarket crash of 1929, there were several suspicious deaths at the hospital, and Dr. Ronan was fired shortly afterwards. 

Ken was eager to explore this information. However, although this information was compelling, I knew that it did nothing to bring us closer to learning the origin of those bones.

A couple of days later, Lydia got a visit from Jennifer Jones. “Good morning,” Jennifer said. She extended her hand. “I’m Jennifer Jones.”

“Oh yes! You’re Sidney’s wife,” Lydia said. “I am happy to meet you. Please come in and have a seat.”

Jennifer seemed a little nervous. She quickly scanned the office and appeared not to want to look Lydia in the eye. She sat stiffly with her hands balled into fists in her lap. Lydia couldn’t help noticing a slight tremble. “Is there something wrong?” Mrs. Jones.

“No,” she said as she reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of tattered old letters, tied together with a faded yellow ribbon. “I found these behind the bricks in our living room fireplace.” Jennifer delivered this information with no emotion, almost robotic. 

“Did you read these?” Lydia asked as she flipped through the stack.

“No. Sidney said to bring them to you.”

“Thank you. My partner and I will got through these and see what we find.” 

Ken quietly entered my office and stood against the wall, apparently interested in whatever Jennifer had come to tell us. A few awkward seconds passed as Lydia watched Jennifer, who was obviously uneasy. “I guess this entire thing has got you a little rattled?”

Jennifer seemed startled at the question. She raised her head and met Lydia’s eyes. “Not sure I would call what I am feeling being rattled. I am definitely uncomfortable, maybe even afraid. Ever since we found those bones, the house seems weird to me, like it has a personality that doesn’t want us there.” Lydia listened without comment, and Jennifer went on talking for several minutes. “Sometimes I hear scratching in the walls. Sidney says that it’s probably just mice, but I think that it’s something bigger than mice. I feel that something awful happened in that house. It has dark energy. Do you know what I mean? It just doesn’t feel like home yet. I’m not sure that I can be comfortable in that house until this mystery is solved.”

Lydia placed a hand over Jennifer’s trembling hand. “I promise to do what I can about the bones; I’m sorry, but I can’t promise anything about the energy of the house, but we will do our best to solve this mystery.” I looked back at Ken, who nodded his head in agreement with me. 

Jennifer nodded her head as well, but still, there was no smile on her face as she stood to leave our office. 

After Jennifer left, I divided the stack of letters, and Ken and I went through them looking for clues. We decided to meet after lunch to compare our findings from the letters.

It appeared that these were love letters from an unknown woman who never addressed her love interest by name. She wrote, ‘Sweetheart, Love of my life, My future,’ and other endearments, but never a name. The letters were signed B.

When Ken and I compared notes, it was obvious that this woman was involved with someone who had lived in that house and could be the key to this entire mystery. A search of public records, including newspaper articles, revealed that a woman named Beatrice Peat had worked in that house as a housekeeper in the 1930s. She disappeared without a trace in January 1944. Her family reported her missing to the police, and the investigation came to an abrupt end when the police were informed that Beatrice had run away with her lover, who was unnamed in the report.

After his firing, Dr. Ronan started a private psychiatry practice, but he could not outlive the scandal of the suspicious deaths at the state hospital. He became a recluse, rarely being seen in public. 

At fourteen years old, Clarence Ronan had become uncontrollable. After he had been expelled from several schools, his father hired the best tutor he could afford. This situation was short-lived because Clarence was known to throw violent tantrums, causing the tutor to become afraid of young Clarence. Eventually, Dr. Ronan had no choice but to institutionalize his son. Clarence was admitted to the state hospital in the spring of 1944. Within months of committing his son, Dr. Ronan took his own life.

A couple of days passed, and we determined that we had gleaned all we could from those letters and public records. We needed to explore the house. I called Sidney and Jennifer to inform them of everything we had found up to that point, and that the next step was to take this investigation to the house. They agreed, and we set a date and time to have complete access to the house.

We decided on early Saturday morning, so as not to interfere with their work schedules. It was an amazing house. The architect was historical. The doors were made of thick oak and carved in the Victorian style with a stained glass transom window above the door. Behind the door was a grand foyer. The floors were hardwood. 

Sidney and Jennifer gave us free rein, and we started our investigation in the attic. It was certainly dusty, as we were told, but essentially empty. Ken noticed a place on the wall where the wallpaper appeared to be lifted along the seam. “This paper looks as if it had been peeled away and then replaced. With his knife, he gently lifted the paper from the wall. To our surprise, the wallpaper covered a small wooden door that had been nailed shut. Inside, we found a bundle of clothes that had been stuffed into a pillowcase. They were so old and faded that we could not see the original color. It was just a bundle of moth-eaten rags. “These are the clothes of the deceased,” Ken said.

“Probably. It looks like they may be women’s clothes.”

“Maybe. It’s hard to tell.”

Satisfied that the attic would not offer any more clues, we moved on to the bedrooms on the second floor. The middle room was apparently the daughter’s room. Everything was pink and pale green. A canopy bed with moth-eaten lace curtains. This room had been kept as a shrine to the deceased child. “I wonder why the Joneses didn’t clean out this room,” I said.

Satisfied that there was nothing more in this room, we moved on to the back room. This must have been the son’s room. Unlike the daughter’s room, this room had been stripped bare. Nothing was left behind, and there was nothing to see here. 

We then went down into the cellar. It was dark and damp, with only a single light bulb to light the way. Apparently, the space was used for storage, and I at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. Something under the window caught my eye. “Look at the wall under the window,” I said to Ken.

We both moved closer with our flashlights. Apparently, there was once a coal shoot under this window. The space had been bricked over, but something had removed some of that brick. We found loose bricks on the floor along with droppings that Ken determined were from Raccoons. It looked as though Raccoons had constructed a den in the coal shoot space. “Well, this explains Jennifer’s fear of scratching inside the wall,” I said. 

On the main floor, there was a room that was probably once a den or office. 

The Joneses were in the process of restoring an old roll-top secretary's desk. It was full of small drawers, most of which were pulled out and turned upside down on the floor for refinishing. “My grandfather used to have one of these old desks,” Ken said. “There are a lot of secret drawers and cubby holes in this desk.”

He pulled the desk from the wall and began to inspect the back panel. There were two brass keys tapped to that panel. One key was engraved with the letter B. The other had a series of numbers. We had no way of knowing what the letter or numbers represented or what these would unlock.

We met the Joneses on the ground floor before leaving. “Jennifer, we found the source of the scratching that you have heard in the walls. A raccoon den was discovered in the old coal shoot. I’m afraid you will have to invest in an exterminator to remove the den and a contractor to reseal that wall.” 

“But, you still don’t know about the bones.”

“We are still investigating, but I can tell you that the report from the 

Forensic Pathologist determined that the deceased was a young woman and that the bones indicated severe trauma, consisting of several fractures, including a broken neck, which is probably what killed her. We have not confirmed the identity of the deceased yet.”

“We also found these keys,” Ken said as he showed the keys to the Joneses. They both denied knowing anything about the keys. “We’re going to see if we can find out what these keys unlock.”

We left the Joneses feeling discouraged and helpless. “I’m very sorry that I cannot tell you that the mystery is solved, but I can assure you that the investigation continues.”

Back in the office, I searched the internet for replicas of both brass keys. The keys were popular and easily located. One of those keys was to a locker at a now-defunct golf club. The other was for a safe deposit box at First Pennsylvania Bank. A review of Dr. William Ronans’s estate records indicated that after his death, his sister had taken possession of all of his belongings. Contacting anyone from the Ronan family would be a long shot, as these events are almost ninety years old.

It took a couple of days, but Ken found a great-granddaughter, Laura Ronan, living in New Jersey. She seemed shocked to know that anyone was interested in a grandfather that she had never met and knew very little about. However, she said that there were old files her deceased aunt left in her garage. Once I explained our interest in those files, she permitted us to look at them. It was a long drive to North Jersey, but we were both anxious to see what we could glean from the files. 

Ken and I spent half a day in that garage wading through dusty, moldy boxes. Some of the files were so old that the paper was fragile, thin, and yellow. It was mostly financial files from the practice Dr. Ronan ran. After four hours and cup after cup of weak coffee, we were about to call it a day and head back to Pennsylvania when I saw a leather journal in the back of one of the boxes.

I scanned the pages, finding nothing important to speak of until the last page. The entry was dated Friday, December 19, 1944. Printed in a very neat and precise hand was written, ‘I just couldn’t let them arrest my son for murder.’ It did not say who was murdered, where, or when. Though we both thought we knew, we also knew that this was speculation, not evidence.

After another hour of digging through damp, musty boxes, we found two more journals. I asked Laura if we could take the journals with us and promised to return them as soon as possible. She didn’t want them back, and Ken and I left there feeling that the answers, the evidence, would be between the pages of these journals.

This investigation was turning out to be a lot deeper than we expected. We had put in many hours, with still more hours ahead of us. “Lydia, I think we need a break from this investigation.” 

  

I didn’t answer right away. Ken was probably right, but we had other cases and other clients. The same day Jennifer came to our office, we accepted a new case from the director of a local nursing home who suspected that one of their employees was stealing from the patients. We needed to get back to the office. By the time I made up my mind, we were in front of Ken’s apartment building.

“Take the rest of the afternoon off, Ken. We will tackle those journals the first thing in the morning.” Ken looked as if he had just won the lottery.

“Thank you, Lydia. I need some time off. I will see you in the morning.”

I headed back to the office to review the files left by Mr. Anderson from Regal Senior Living Home. Unfortunately, I was as tired as Ken, and I didn’t stay in the office long. An early night suited us both.

Carl and I spent a quiet evening alone. During dinner, Carl told me a little about the case he was working on, and I told him what I had uncovered so far regarding the bones found in the Joneses attic. Our conversation was cordial, but Carl was a little fidgety for a time. I could tell that something was bothering him. I caught him just staring down at his plate. I hoped that he would tell me what was bothering him, but after a few moments of this, I couldn’t take the silence. “Is something wrong?” I finally asked.

“No,” he answered. “Yes, maybe. There isn’t anything wrong or unexpected. It’s just that you get so involved in your cases that there isn’t much time for our relationship. We were supposed to meet with a wedding coordinator two days ago.”

I was stunned. I had completely forgotten. “Oh my God, Carl. I am so sorry. You are absolutely right. I do get too involved. I apologize. I promise to reschedule as soon as possible.”

“It’s alright. I admit that I was a little angry at first, but I do realize just how busy you are these days.”

Carl was right. I could think of little else, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the office to go through those journals. Apparently, Ken was just as anxious. He was in the office early the next morning, scanning through the journals when I arrived.

It took most of the morning, as the entire story was not contained in one journal. Dr. Ronan documented his son Clarence's descent into schizophrenia over the course of several years. From what little I knew of this disease, it was unusual for the symptoms to become evident at such an early age. Clarence was institutionalized when he was just sixteen years old.

His hallucinations became more vivid and more frequent. At some point, young Clarence came to believe that the housekeeper, Beatrice Peat, was the angel of death. He thought that she was an evil spirit, and he was at first  afraid of her. She was deathly afraid of Clarence and tried to avoid him at all costs.  Eventually, Beatrice resigned and prepared to leave the Ronan house. However, before she could leave the house, she encountered Clarence at the top of the steps. According to the journal, the first blow knocked her down the steps. Dr. Ronan wrote, ‘I heard the commotion in the corridor and rushed to see what was happening. By the time I got there, I saw my son standing over the young woman, bludgeoning her again and again with his baseball bat. I screamed for him to stop, but it was too late. I stood there, stunned into silence as I watched the blood soak into the rug. My son stood there covered in blood and smiling.

Being so long without a wife, soon after I hired Beatrice as housekeeper our relationship had become something closer than housekeeper and employer, and now she was dead.

What could I do? If I called the authorities, they would surely arrest Clarence and charge him with first-degree murder. I sent my son to the bath. I sang to him to calm him as I scrubbed away the blood. Once he was clean and tranquil, I took him to his bedroom and went to clean up the blood at the bottom of the steps. 

The site was horrific. I stood staring down at the blood-soaked rug and the fragile young woman whose body had been savagely beaten. It was hard to believe that the boy I loved had done such a horrible thing. I sobbed as I threw her clothes on the fire and took Beatrice’s body up to the attic. I undressed her before I placed her in her own suitcase. I had to break her bones to fit her into the case. I put that case into a larger case, hoping that no one would ever look into the case.

 Then I called the state hospital and arranged to have my son committed.’

The doctor went on to say how living with the memory of Beatrice Peat’s murder and the committing of his son was just too much for him to bear. He ended the journal by saying, ‘I am sorry, but I choose not to continue in this life.’ He died from an overdose of the sedatives prescribed to calm his son.

It was late Friday afternoon, and I wanted to contact the Joneses to put their mind at ease, and I wanted to leave this case behind and spend some time with my fiancé. Ken suggested that we visit the Joneses, and I agreed. It was a short visit, and the four of us breathed a sigh of relief. It was over.