Harborwick...Unsolved - Episode 1
- Brittany Brinegar
- Jul 30, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 6, 2025
The Night the Lights Went Out
Murder, Mystery & Mom Season 2
My life used to be so boring. Now I practically lived in a crime scene on wheels... with an adorable dog who flunked out of therapy school. It's not her fault, though. Spiders are scary! Think there'll be any in this 100-year-old house?
The salt-laced wind of Harborwick hit us first—sharp and cold, with the tang of drying seaweed and something faintly metallic riding shotgun. The Clue Cruiser shuddered as we coasted down a narrow, winding lane, its tires crunching on gravel that sounded far too loud for a town this quiet.
Goldilocks poked her head between the front seats, her nose twitching like a weather vane tuned to mystery.
“Smells like lobster rolls and broken promises,” I muttered, tightening my scarf.
“And what do broken promises smell like?” Mama asked, a quirk of her eyebrow.
“This.”
Mattie shook her head, far too practical for my nonsense this late in the day. The thing about Mama: she always had a trick up her sleeve, a state secret she was keeping, a plan she couldn’t share. And when she was this quiet, probably all three.
Her eyes fixed on the road ahead, which was less a street and more a suggestion. Oak branches arched overhead in a tangle of brittle limbs, stripped nearly bare by late October’s chill. The occasional stubborn leaf clung to a twig like it still had something to prove.
Harborwick, Maine, might’ve been picturesque in daylight. Quaint. Postcard-perfect even, with its fishing shacks and weather-worn widow’s walks and houseboats with names like Sea’s the Day. But now, under a sky slipping from pewter to ash, it had all the warmth of a cautionary tale.
“Tell me again why we’re here,” I said.
“We’ve been over this.”
I waved the mic vaguely at the scenery that I could barely make out amongst the shadows. “Not for our podcast listeners. They need to be brought up to speed, Mama.”
“To assess the property.” Mattie’s gaze flicked to the mirror and the Airstream we towed behind the vintage pink Bronco, an unsolved mystery podcast on wheels. “And because I need to know what happened to my tenant.”
Which was reasonable. Except for the part where she’d failed to mention she owned a house in Maine. Or had a tenant who’d recently died under ‘suspicious circumstances.’ Or that said house was potentially haunted by secrets and/or lobster ghosts.
The road opened onto a quiet coastal bluff, Mattie’s mystery house standing front and center. A two-story colonial with cedar shingles turned silver by decades of sea spray. Dormer windows blinked down at us like sleepy eyes, and a slumped picket fence traced the edge of the yard in a half-hearted embrace.
“I was expecting something a little more…” I hesitated, not wanting to offend. “A little less…hmm. Well, it certainly nails the Halloween vibe.”
“It’s called modest New England charm.”
“It looks like Stephen King’s summer home.”
A single police light pulsed blue and red through the branches, throwing ghostly flashes across the side of the house. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered like party streamers from the porch rails. Across the street, a neighbor’s curtain twitched.
Goldilocks let out a low, uncertain woof.
“Mama, I thought you said the tenant died a few months ago. And not in your house.”
“Right.”
“Then why does this place look like an active crime scene?”
She parked at the curb and cut the engine. For a moment, we just sat there, letting the scene settle in around us like fog. The kind that doesn’t roll in—it creeps.
When Mattie pitched our next season of Murder, Mystery, and Mom, I jumped in headfirst at the word treasure. Now, I regret not asking more questions.
“Something tells me the rental market’s about to take a nosedive,” I whispered.
Mattie swung the door with the deliberate motion of someone preparing to take the local cops to school. “I’ll handle the authorities. You stay here.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll just…sit here quietly parked in front of an apparently active crime scene.”
Harborwick’s Halloween decorations added an extra layer of unease. A string of half-lit orange bulbs dangled from a half-dead tree like someone had given up halfway through decorating. Skeleton arms poked from flowerbeds, their plastic fingers caked with real dirt. Two pumpkin-headed scarecrows slumped against a porch rail down the block, looking less festive and more like murder witnesses.
I stepped out into the cold, hugging my coat tighter. Goldilocks leapt down beside me, ears perked, tail raised high like she’d been summoned for duty.
This wasn’t the welcome we expected.
But then again, neither was the house.
Goldilocks froze mid-sniff and let out a growl so low it vibrated through her collar.
I scanned the darkness, and my heart skipped a beat. Dogs, especially sensitive goldendoodles, possessed a sixth sense for the occult. And whenever she growled at ‘nothing’, I knew it was something. Usually spirit-like. Sometimes a scorpion. Both equally scary.
“Oh no. We’re not doing that again.” I put a pep in my step. “Mama, we’re coming with you.”
Ahead, a lone officer stood silhouetted in the house’s front doorway, his back to us. His headlamp bobbed as he packed something into a box on the floor—some kind of plastic bin full of equipment that definitely did not look like it belonged to a real estate agent, handyman, or coastal lawn gnome consultant.
Police tape flapped lazily in the wind, still crisscrossed in a bright X over the porch steps. A tripod floodlight had been staked into the yard, illuminating a patch of dirt and dead leaves like it was headlining a Broadway production of Clue: The Garden Edition.
“What’s all this?” I gestured wildly at the flashing lights and the active forensic tupperware situation. “A killer returning for more?”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” Mattie said. Her jaw tightened ever so slightly.
Goldilocks tugged against the leash, pawing toward the porch. She veered toward the yellow tape and gave it an investigative chomp.
“Goldie, no. That’s evidence. Or nylon. Either way, no.”
I instinctively reached into my messenger bag and pulled out my recorder. The little red light blinked to life.
“Day one in Harborwick, Maine,” I whispered, angling the mic toward the scene. “We expected a cold case. What we got was fresh crime tape, a spooky coastal wind, and a goldendoodle with questionable flavor palate.”
Mattie gave me a glance that was somehow both flat and withering. “Put that away.”
“I’m documenting.”
“You’re rambling.”
“It's called ‘narrative flair,’ Mama. You wouldn't understand.”
Her forehead creased as the wind whipped her white-blonde hair across her face. “I wouldn’t? And yet somehow I managed to keep a newspaper alive in this climate, without narrative flair.”
“Mama, if you were around at the time of the dinosaurs, they’d never have gone extinct.”
“I can’t decide if you’re complimenting or insulting me.”
My smirk spread to my ears. “And therein lies the genius.”
The officer turned at last, clipboard under his arm. Late forties, maybe early fifties. Crooked badge. Thin mustache. A look on his face that said I know you don’t belong here, and I’m too tired to care why.
“Evening,” he said. Not friendly. Not hostile. Just…weary.
Mattie stepped forward. “This is my house.”
That got his attention.
He descended the porch steps, stopping just short of the tape barrier. His eyes flicked from Mattie to me, then down to Goldilocks, who was now chewing on a pumpkin stem like it owed her money.
“Name?” he asked.
“Mattie McDonald.”
He thumbed through his clipboard. “You’re not local.”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
There was a beat of silence long enough for a gust of wind to kick up more leaves and for one of the skeleton arms down the block to wave at us in a creepy little ‘leave and don’t come back’ gesture.
Finally, he nodded—the cop, not the skeleton. “There was a break-in. Sometime overnight. Neighbor reported a smashed back window.”
Mattie’s spine straightened. “Was anything taken?”
“Still working on that. You’ll have to come down to the station tomorrow. We’ve secured the scene for now.” He gestured vaguely at the still-bobbing headlamp inside. “No need to go inside tonight. Especially not with the floorboards the way they are.”
“Floorboards?” I said. “Is that code for blood spatter?”
He looked at me like I’d just offered him a spoonful of cayenne pepper as coffee creamer. His face went from weary to downright hostile. I hit a nerve, but not quite the one I thought.
Mattie clamped a hand on my elbow before I could launch into follow-up questions. “We understand. We’ll return in the morning.”
He gave a slight nod and turned back toward the house, his boots crunching across the gravel path as the floodlight buzzed overhead.
I twisted to Mattie. “So let me get this straight: Our murder victim died months ago.”
“Not here.”
“But under suspicious circumstances, and now his former house, which he rented from you, is an active crime scene?”
Mattie didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t want to—because her attention was elsewhere. Locked on the second-story window.
I followed her gaze, half-expecting to see a shadow pass, a curtain flutter, a message written in ghostly fog.
But there was nothing. Just the cold glass staring blankly back.
Goldilocks let out one more growl.
“Time to find a hotel. Or a road back to Virginia. I’m fine either way.” I clapped my hands together. “Seems to me that this cold case is hot as burnt sienna, and our services as unsolved experts are not needed.”
“Isn’t burnt sienna a color?”
“In the earthy red family.”
The gate creaked open again—slowly, like it had a grudge. Mattie and I turned in unison.
A woman stood on the sidewalk, half in the shadow of a gnarled birch tree. She wore a faded cranberry windbreaker and held a reusable grocery bag close to her chest like it might spill secrets if she loosened her grip. Her gray hair was pulled into a braid so tight it looked like a warning.
“Miss Mattie,” she said. Not a question. Not even a greeting.
Mattie jerked back with startled recognition. “Mrs. Abberline.”
So. Not a stranger.
I slid a little closer, doing my best to look casual and not at all like someone itching to open a voice memo app.
The woman looked me over with a kind of quiet judgment that had probably been honed over decades of porch sitting and knowing when to whisper instead of wave.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” she said.
Mattie didn’t flinch. “It’s my house.”
Mrs. Abberline’s eyes narrowed. “It was your house. Then the professor lived there. And now…” Her gaze flicked to the porch, where a strand of police tape flapped like a warning flag. “Now it’s nobody’s. And there’s a reason for that.”
My brain did a full stop. “The professor?” She said it so detached, as if she hardly knew her neighbor, when we all knew Gladys Kravitz spent her days spying on the man’s every move. “You mean Rutherford Silas?”
She didn’t answer me. Just turned her attention back to Mattie. “Whatever he found…whatever he stirred up…it’s not done with this place. Some things are best left buried in Harborwick. Just like the treasure.”
Mattie’s brows lifted, and for the first time all day, I saw something flicker across her face that wasn’t confidence or calculation.
Recognition.
“Okay, what’s the story with this treasure? Don’t make me ask Siri.”
Mrs. Abberline leaned in ever so slightly, the kind of lean that made you feel like the world was about to tilt with it.
“You’ll see,” she said softly. “Harborwick remembers. And it always protects its secrets.”
She turned on her heel, her grocery bag rustling like dry leaves, and disappeared down the sidewalk.
I gripped Mama’s arm, like a little kid craving comfort and security. In all fairness, she was probably packing. “What was that? Who was that?”
Mattie stared at the second-story window. “Your aunt.”
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