"No sweat, thanks for the lift." She dragged her knapsack off the front seat and set it down between her legs, then slammed the door shut. Enos pulled off with a wave, shaking his head sadly. Annie watched him drive off. She hoped he wasn't a typical example of the folks in Crystal Lake. First crazy Old Ralph, then paranoid Enos. Sometimes, people in small towns were wary of outsiders. Maybe the folks in Crystal Lake were like that or maybe they just had something personal against the Christy family. In a small town, it didn't take much. News traveled fast. Everybody knew everyone else. It was hard to keep things quiet. It didn't take much for people or places to get a reputation. An unfortunate incident like a drowning could develop into a story of a place that had been 'jinxed,' as Enos had put it, but it had happened. When was it he had said? 1957? Years ago! Assuming it had already happened, yet he had also said something about a couple of kids being murdered in 1958.

Steve Christy hadn't said anything about that when he hired her, not that she should really blame him, even if it had been true. It had been a long time ago, but people had been funny about some things. People who were otherwise perfectly sensible could be superstitious about things like that.

That's why if you were trying to sell the house, you didn't tell perspective buyers someone had been murdered in it. Enos had also mentioned something about fires, assuming that was true as well, there was probably a perfectly logical explanation for it. Vandalism, for example. Kids fooling around at night in a place that was supposedly haunted. Something like that was always good for a thrill or maybe some of the locals had taken a hand to make sure that the Christy family didn't get their operation off the ground again. Who knew?

Still, perhaps that was something she should ask Steve about. He seemed like a reasonable guy: straight foreword and sincere. If any of those things had really happened, there was probably a perfectly good reason why he hadn't told her. It might be difficult to get people to work there if they thought the place was jinxed. But if there was a change they could expect some trouble from the locals, Annie wanted to know about it.