Many people say high school is “the best years of your life”. With days full of fun, friends, and memories, most say these are days you will “never forget” -- and this is very true for you.
While most people have senior year memories of autumn Homecomings, bonfires, and fall leaves, you have memories of sirens, police investigations, and media vans with reporters on campus. Even student dorm room gun searches peppered the fall of your senior year. Why?
Because your year started with the murder of the headmaster you’ve had since ninth grade. In the weeks directly following, behaviors changed in everyone. Only in small groups did students walk from evening study hall in the library to their dorms; after-hours intramural competitions were canceled until further notice. To the adults, evening sign-in was more important than ever before. Murmurs of suspect possibilities echoed in dark dorm rooms late at night and in hushed voices over lunches. Many theories swam through the air: Nicole Hager, the dean of students; Charlie Tierney, the assistant head; even various students, both former and current, who had a “beef” with the school…
To make matters worse, Peter Fayroian’s murder mirrors in exact place and detail the 1934 killing of Elliot Speer, another former headmaster. In fact, because Speer’s case is one you studied closely in your junior year Crime Literature class last year, you and your classmates from Crime Literature feels you are reliving Speer’s mystery in real-time.
Now, two months later, life is slowly returning to normal. The police have determined that, like Speer, this was a targeted act, so fears of an unleashed, at-random killer have waned. The pattern of classes brings back the routine of the days, and sports begin. Slowly, new gossip takes the place of old, and people are already forgetting about the murder of Peter Fayroian, just like they did so quickly with that of Elliott Speer. You recall thinking it is odd how life just goes on...
You are about two miles into your run, you estimate. You dropped the group a while back to relieve yourself in the woods, and now they are nowhere to be seen. Sophia has the Strava with the GPS, but you don’t need it to know you are lost; you know you are too far from the route, for nothing is recognizable. You call your friends’ names, but there’s no response. The trees, the fallen logs, the paths all look the same. Optimistic it will come to you, you keep running, hopeful you will find familiar terrain to guide you back to campus. Trying to catch your breath, you feel your legs work harder with every step. Your feet start to drag as dark enters the woods.
Suddenly, your foot is grabbed and you find yourself face first in the soil. Your toe is caught behind a root, and your head has hit a nearby log. You sit up, feel your nose and head for blood, then start searching your body for scratches and bruises. As your start examining your legs -- especially your toe -- you see a brown piece of wood sticking out of the ground at your feet. Your curse it, determining this must have been what tripped you. You grab it to hurl it into the woods, but you can’t; it won’t budge. Diggin with your fingers, you see it is the corner of a sort of box. A box...? In the middle of the woods...?
You start digging around the edge. A few inches into the soil, something sharp pierces your finger, and blood slowly oozes. Examining the injury, a long splinter pokes out of your skin. You pluck it out, and resume digging. Soon, you feel another corner; you look, and see more wood. With the lid unearthed, you see it is not big -- the size of a cigar box, maybe. You keep clearing dirt off the tarnished and worn wooden box.
By now you have forgotten your run, your friends, the fact that you are lost. You pull the small box out of the ground; it is not too heavy. You open it slowly, your head turned sideways, your eyes squinting, and leaning away from it, as if something may leap from it. Nothing does. With the lid open, you see an envelope: a letter. It doesn’t seem as if it has been here for long, yet the words are blurred from weathering…
When you kill a man, your life comes to an end, even if you are not a suspect. Since the incident, I have never lived the way I did. I became a new person when I shot that gun. I no longer have opinions, feelings, emotions… My actions took over, and they still dominate me.
Whoever finds this note, you have now solved the second murder of this school’s history. Yet do not tell a soul you have figured out who killed Mr. Fayroian, or there will be trouble.
See, my job is based upon the murder of Elliot Speer. People come to me for questions, clues… This murder is the heart of my work. Yet students and teachers were starting to forget that incident of so many years ago. Nobody asked me to visit classes and speak about the murder anymore, nobody came to me with realizations or clues they might have found to help me solve the case...not one soul talked to me about it anymore. Something needed to happen. I needed to keep my job alive, to keep Northfield Mount Hermon interesting in order for my position to be needed and valued.
So I did it. I murdered Peter Fayroian.
It was spur of the moment. I didn’t do much planning. All I knew is I wanted to mirror the murder of Speer. If the murderer didn’t get caught in that scenario, I was assured that I wouldn’t be caught in this one, either.
It was the night before the academic year of 2017- 2018. The thermostat said the outside was warm, yet the air against my skin felt different. Living on the faculty loop made for easy access to Ford Cottage; I only had to pass three houses if I walked the back way. I neared Ford Cottage. From the grassy side yard, I saw Speer in the window of his study. Even though I knew he could not peer into the dark of night from inside that study, I felt exposed. I had to act quickly, and this was the perfect opportunity.
I took my position. I removed the handful of pebbles I had collected on my walk and threw them at his window. His head jerked up. He set his book on the side table and stood.
I had perfect aim. I pulled the trigger.
I started to run home. Soon I heard sirens, but I kept running until the sirens faded. I reached my front door and locked it behind me. I fell to my knees. I threw up. I started shaking, my shoulders heaving with silent sobbing. It took me two days to recover -- orientation was spent looking out my window as students repeatedly walked by in search groups for the gun. Days went by, the chaos started calming little by little.
Today, my job is interesting again. With a whole new case to solve (little does Northfield Mount Hermon know, it is already solved), I am valuable again. I am writing this letter because even though mystery is the most important aspect of this case, I need to tell someone. My job requires me to share every piece of information I know, it is what I’m used to, therefore holding this secret is eating me alive. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to tell, so I am making it random. Whoever you are, whether it is 2017 or many years from now, please simply bring this letter to me. If I have deceased, burn it.
Mark my words. This school relies on the unknown.
You are baffled. You have no words. Do you follow Weis’ directions and not tell a soul? You decide to bring the letter to Peter Weis. You fold up the letter, close the box, and fill in the hole created in the ground. You remember you are lost. Between the information you now know and the realization that you don’t know how to get back to campus, fear hits your body and runs through your limbs. You start walking and after a few minutes see a sap line. You follow that line like your Resident Leaders told you until you reach campus again. The original lightbox began to feel heavy. You think the new weight may just be the responsibility on your shoulders. You make your way to the library. Second guessing yourself, you wonder if you should just bury the box again and pretend you never found it. You walk through the heavy library doors with the old box and letter in your hand. Your fright skyrockets as you try to tell it to calm down. As you knock on the door, Weis’ eyes lock onto the box. Avoiding eye contact, his eyes shift to the letter in your hand. He looks up, worried, then speaks.
“So… I see you’ve found my letter.”
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