Midnight Mysteries

By Don Halstead

Follow the tales of mystery from Maine to Virginia and back again. Discover the hidden secret of a Boston family that owns a summer home in a small coastal Maine village. Join the investigation of an old bank robbery by a Maine criminology student. Next, travel to Virginia where a special investigative unit is tracking down a serial killer. Finally, return to coastal Maine to learn about a Nazi attack on one of the state’s lighthouses during World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662453243

Book preview

The House on Thornbush Lane

My name is Kent Tomlinson. I live with my mom, dad, and two sisters, Samantha and Carol, in the village of Everest along the coast of Maine. Everest is a small berg of around eight hundred folks. It lies between Machias and Eastport, the most eastern town in the United States.

Everest is an extremely quiet little place. Most people either fish for a living or run a ferry from Maine to nearby New Brunswick or Nova Scotia in Canada. Since Everest is so small, we generally have to go to Machias to make a major purchase. Our doctor and dentist are also in Machias.

Everest does have a general store with a couple of gas pumps. It also has a café where people congregate at night and on weekends. The café does serve liquor since we don’t have a bar in town. The town has two churches. It has a Lutheran Church since many of the residents have Scandinavian roots. There is also a Pentecostal Church. Since my great-great-grandparents came from Sweden, we go to the Lutheran Church.

We have a small elementary school in Everest, with about 150 or so students. Obviously, we don’t have a high school, so I have to travel to Machias to go to school. I am a senior at Machias Memorial High School. I really love my school and truly appreciate the wonderful friends I have made there.

For the most part, everything seems rather normal or should I say bland here in Everest. The summers are a bit more exciting since we do get a few tourists from Massachusetts and other states. There is a small boarding house/bed and breakfast that has rooms for rent. Most tourists stay there when they visit, although some bring their extravagant-looking RVs and stay in them. There is an RV park a couple miles out of town.

As I said things are relatively quiet here, except that there is a house on Thornbush Lane which people once talked a lot about. It is a beautiful house and once was a very mysterious house. This house and its occupants are what my story is all about.

For years the house on Thornbush Lane had been owned by the Carter family, the last being Thomas Carter and his wife, Emily.

Thomas Carter’s grandfather had run the general store, and his grandmother had been an elementary school teacher. They were very active in the community and did a considerable amount of charitable work. They were well-respected members of the community. Often on a Sunday afternoon after church, the Carters would open the doors of their house to the community for soup and sandwiches. When Mr. Carter’s grandparents died, the Lutheran Church was filled to capacity for their funerals.

Mr. Carter’s father had been a physician with a practice in town and in Machias. His mother had been a nurse. Like his grandparents, Thomas Carter’s father and mother were very active in the community and did a lot of volunteer work. They were loved by their neighbors and greatly missed when they died.

Thomas is a trained accountant, and he worked for years at an accounting firm in Ellsworth. Mr. Carter would generally spend the week in Ellsworth and come home for the weekends. I was told that during the week, he rented a small apartment in Ellsworth. Emily was a piano instructor and gave lessons to children and adults in Everest. The Carters had two children, Janet and Thomas Jr.

About three years ago, the Carters decided to sell their home on Thornbush Lane. Mr. Carter had been offered a job at a much larger accounting firm in Portland. He accepted the offer and decided to move. Folks in the community were sad to see the Carters leave Everest but fully understood Mr. Carter’s decision to move and take a better-paying job.

The house on Thornbush Lane was not on the market for very long. Within three months, it was sold to a family in Boston. The new owner was a lawyer in Boston working for a very prestigious law firm. Folks in town scratched their heads wondering why on earth this Boston lawyer would buy a house in Everest, Maine.

The new owner’s name is Thad Rockwood. He and his wife Rebecca have two children, Stacy and Tommy. They also have a golden retriever. The Rockwood family never came to Everest to look at the house. Everything had been handled over the phone and the internet. I was told the realtor involved had done a lot of work on the sale but had received a very handsome commission in return.

Two months after the final sale, a moving van arrived at the house on Thornbush Lane. Once again, the Rockwood family was not present. However, a middle-aged lady by the name of Clara supervised the move in. I was told that she was the Rockwood family’s housekeeper/house manager. Folks who watched the move in said she was in total control, like a military commander. From what people could tell, the furniture going into the house had an old Victorian look to it.

The furniture delivery had taken place