cage.
Dead? Insane?
Margaret Conway knew something was wrong, but never in her life would she have conceived a seriousness as grave as presented en route to the hotel.
“It was an awful shock,” Margaret later recollected. “I knew nothing of the Hazzard Institute. I was unprepared for such a terrible announcement.”
All she could do was sit and cry. She was in such a state she could not even ask any more questions. It was likely that was just as well. After the shocking announcement, Sam Hazzard buried his face in his work. He looked up only fleetingly, once offering his handkerchief.
JACK EATON was six years old when he started first grade at the Fragaria School in 1932. He was the only one in his class. He remained the sole member of his class until he graduated. Fragaria was a tiny school with only seven or eight pupils during those Depression era years. And though there were few, all knew that the boogeyman in southern Kitsap County was not a man, after all. It was a woman who lived down a long, dirt road in the place called Starvation Heights. More than sixty years later, Jack Eaton could still picture the woman he only knew by a reputation forged of childhood rumors. He never spoke to the fasting specialist.
“I never even got close enough to call her anything. I was scared to death of her. We had heard wild tales about her. I remember her real well. She had the most beautiful white hair of anybody in the whole world. She wore it shoulder length. I can see her now.
“We used to walk down the road to go down to old Charlie Nelson’s store—I was seven, eight years old—we’d go by the Hazzard place, and if my mom wasn’t with us, we’d run like the devil to get by it. We were scared to death that old woman was going to come out and get us. If she’d be walking up the road, we just got off it and let her go by. Then we went on. I stayed away from that lady.
“We heard there were stories that she had dead people in her house and that whole place was buried with dead people that she killed. Maybe it was, I don’t know. There was all kinds of stuff going on down there. It scared the hell out of me.”
Jack Eaton has still never set foot on the property once owned by Linda and Sam Hazzard. Though he still lives barely a mile away and has been everywhere in Olalla, he could not imagine a time when he would visit the place.
Eight
T he steamer aimed at Seattle volleyed over a choppiness which Margaret Conway conceded was only a partial source of the monstrous sickness that had bored through her knotted stomach. The tottering motion of the seawater and the heartache over Claire’s sudden death had melded in a way that made her lean slightly forward, grab ahold of the rail, and prepare for the possibility that she would spew a trail of vomit into the grey-blue of Puget Sound. She waited and watched. Seals coughed out barks from jammed rookeries along uneven basalt shorelines spattered white with colonies of barnacles. An eagle dived from the sky and grabbed a bit of flashing, the silver of a salmon, from below the surface of the cold water. Despite all that, nothing was lovely. Everything was dour. Memories brought tears.
Sam Hazzard seemed oblivious to Margaret’s anguished state. He was as handsome as he was unconcerned, a self-absorbed man who made no effort to console the heartbroken Australian. Instead, Sam fidgeted with a small, perfectly squared in its edges, stack of papers and a book he had brought on board to fill the hours. He commented on his reading every so often and promised Miss Conway they would arrive in Seattle shortly, then off to Olalla.
Margaret Conway had never felt so alone in all her life.
In Seattle, Sam led the shattered and dazed woman to the offices of his wife. Margaret had never been to America before, but she paid little attention to her new surroundings. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Claire. Sam told her to wait there while
Dead? Insane?
Margaret Conway knew something was wrong, but never in her life would she have conceived a seriousness as grave as presented en route to the hotel.
“It was an awful shock,” Margaret later recollected. “I knew nothing of the Hazzard Institute. I was unprepared for such a terrible announcement.”
All she could do was sit and cry. She was in such a state she could not even ask any more questions. It was likely that was just as well. After the shocking announcement, Sam Hazzard buried his face in his work. He looked up only fleetingly, once offering his handkerchief.
JACK EATON was six years old when he started first grade at the Fragaria School in 1932. He was the only one in his class. He remained the sole member of his class until he graduated. Fragaria was a tiny school with only seven or eight pupils during those Depression era years. And though there were few, all knew that the boogeyman in southern Kitsap County was not a man, after all. It was a woman who lived down a long, dirt road in the place called Starvation Heights. More than sixty years later, Jack Eaton could still picture the woman he only knew by a reputation forged of childhood rumors. He never spoke to the fasting specialist.
“I never even got close enough to call her anything. I was scared to death of her. We had heard wild tales about her. I remember her real well. She had the most beautiful white hair of anybody in the whole world. She wore it shoulder length. I can see her now.
“We used to walk down the road to go down to old Charlie Nelson’s store—I was seven, eight years old—we’d go by the Hazzard place, and if my mom wasn’t with us, we’d run like the devil to get by it. We were scared to death that old woman was going to come out and get us. If she’d be walking up the road, we just got off it and let her go by. Then we went on. I stayed away from that lady.
“We heard there were stories that she had dead people in her house and that whole place was buried with dead people that she killed. Maybe it was, I don’t know. There was all kinds of stuff going on down there. It scared the hell out of me.”
Jack Eaton has still never set foot on the property once owned by Linda and Sam Hazzard. Though he still lives barely a mile away and has been everywhere in Olalla, he could not imagine a time when he would visit the place.
Eight
T he steamer aimed at Seattle volleyed over a choppiness which Margaret Conway conceded was only a partial source of the monstrous sickness that had bored through her knotted stomach. The tottering motion of the seawater and the heartache over Claire’s sudden death had melded in a way that made her lean slightly forward, grab ahold of the rail, and prepare for the possibility that she would spew a trail of vomit into the grey-blue of Puget Sound. She waited and watched. Seals coughed out barks from jammed rookeries along uneven basalt shorelines spattered white with colonies of barnacles. An eagle dived from the sky and grabbed a bit of flashing, the silver of a salmon, from below the surface of the cold water. Despite all that, nothing was lovely. Everything was dour. Memories brought tears.
Sam Hazzard seemed oblivious to Margaret’s anguished state. He was as handsome as he was unconcerned, a self-absorbed man who made no effort to console the heartbroken Australian. Instead, Sam fidgeted with a small, perfectly squared in its edges, stack of papers and a book he had brought on board to fill the hours. He commented on his reading every so often and promised Miss Conway they would arrive in Seattle shortly, then off to Olalla.
Margaret Conway had never felt so alone in all her life.
In Seattle, Sam led the shattered and dazed woman to the offices of his wife. Margaret had never been to America before, but she paid little attention to her new surroundings. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Claire. Sam told her to wait there while
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