The Odd Cat Lady

After the Belphegor Pocketwatch was successfully retrieved, our investigation had come to a dead end.  

On one hand, Pearlie’s theory about the seven deadly sins seemed to be an accurate one: the silver spoon for gluttony, the golden cuff for greed, the brooch for lust, the gun for wrath, the pen for envy, and sloth for the pocketwatch.  

But if that theory was true, then we were missing one.  

Out of all the trinkets, this one was the hardest to find, we only came into possession of it six months ago. This was partially due to the ambiguous description we had to go off of, but mostly because it was never in a single person’s hands for long before the owner expired.

Pearlie, again being incredibly helpful, was the one who figured out what the trinket was through an urban legend forum. The story went that a man in the early 1900’s committed suicide and his eldest son inherited his fortune. Shortly after though he also died, the fortune going to the next brother. The pattern repeated until all four sons were dead and the estate was sold off. The urban legend said that a particular watch belonging to the father was cursed.  

Having Pearlie on my side during this made finding these trinkets so much easier. It took only six months to track this one down, finding it at an auction of a certain Ms. Wanda Perch’s property. The pen was in a box of various other calligraphy items and we bought the whole thing for seventy five dollars.

We’d discovered its existence through an article about this Ms. Perch, and the curious story about her and this pen revealed itself through various social media posts and police reports. At this point, it wasn’t about solving a case for a client. I hate to admit it, but curiosity about these trinkets had begun to run my life. I wanted to know how these trinkets changed people, people who seemed so normal until they’d stumbled across a decorative spoon or stole a brooch.  

Nearly two years after I got my hands on the brooch, my assistant had finally picked up the trail of the latest trinket.

By this time, Pearlie had come to work for me part time. She’d made great leaps in recovering from her trauma, although each day presented a new challenge. I was willing to work through her on it though, and since she was so much younger than I was, I began to see her as a daughter figure. A daughter with cutting sarcasm and a cold exterior, but a daughter nonetheless. She believed in our quest, and she was willing to chase a fairytale with me.

A fairytale known as the Sathanas Gun.  

I think this happened about a year and a half after what happened to Anthony. I like going to storage auctions, it was a hobby I picked up from an ex. He was obsessed with going through people’s junk. Sometimes he found some really good stuff though, I was there when he stumbled across a baseball card worth a couple grand. I still find such treasure hunting to be a lot of fun.

This time I didn’t spend too much, only putting down seventy five dollars on one of the lockers near the end. All that was inside was a few cardboard boxes and a bike missing its back wheel. I was just digging through one of those boxes when I found it.  

Ten years ago, I was doing all right for myself. Having my father’s legacy behind me helped bring in clients, I had enough money to live comfortably and I enjoy my work.  

At the same time, twenty six year old Anthony Brekke was enjoying his life too. He was working his dream job as a firefighter. He’d just gotten married to the love of his life, Heidi Shaw, about three months prior. They’d just moved into their first house and were looking into adopting a dog.  

Their life seemed ideal until the fire that burnt down the home of an elderly widow named Martha Church. Martha was nearly eighty seven when the fire took place, the cause appearing to be a short in the wiring near the bedroom. She and four of her six cats did not make it out of the blaze, the old place went up like a matchstick.  

The year was 1987. This wasn’t a trinket I picked up myself, I was a child and more focused on climbing trees and playing with my friends than solving mysteries. All I’m about to tell you comes from the personal testimonies and news articles my father had in his notes.

By all accounts, the Jones seemed to be perfect. They set the bar for most idyllic family on the street. The mother Deborah stayed at home, the father Daryl worked at the bank. They’d just had their son Mark two years prior. Their eldest child was a sixteen year old daughter named Heather. Heather was an overachiever in every sense of the word. She had the best grades of her class, was the captain of the debate club, and was already entering pageant circuits. She’d gotten the silver the year previous in the Rose Little Princess Pageant.  

But I believe it was getting ‘only silver’ that broke the floodgates for something that had been building up for some time.