by Tom Clarke
“Jim do we really need to hear this shit?” Keith asked.
I reached into the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out a small bottle of whisky.
I handed it to Keith and said, “After what we saw the other day and what just happened with Desie I’m thinking yeah we do.”
Keith shook his head, muttered an expletive and started pouring the whisky into his coffee cup.
“What do you mean, what happened with Desie? Other than the world class beat down you handed her” Darrel asked as he motioned for Keith to pass him the whisky bottle.
“Okay, dig it” I said, “I’ve not told this to Rick or any of the other fellas so let’s keep this shit in house for right now….okay?” Both Keith and Darrel agreed as the bottle made its way back to me.
I poured a long pour into my coffee cup, took a swig, and said, “So, I don’t think that was Desie tonight. I mean it was her, but she wasn’t running her own show.”
“What?” both Keith and Darrel asked at pretty much the same time.
“So when she would not get into the car with me I could see, I don’t know, like rage running through her eyes, then she started grinding her teeth and rocking back and forth. Freaked me out! That’s why I hopped out of the car, then her voice started changing like the pitch went up, and then down, it almost had a metallic sound to it.”
“Wait” Keith said, “did that start when you got out of the car? Jim that’s when we lost the wire and started getting all that white noise and static and I couldn’t reach you on your cell.”
“What happened then?” Darrel asked.
“She said that King and Lone Wolf Ripper were inside Rocket’s. Then started almost chanting ‘come inside’, saying that they wanted to do some business with me. Fellas when she was chanting I felt myself take a step or two forward towards the door!”
I shot back the remaining whisky in my cup and said, “Brothers that’s when I saw that shadow figure standing in the doorway, same shit we saw in the basement Keith.”
Keith put his head in his hands, “Come on Jim, don’t tell me that shit!”
I continued, “So anyway she started yelling at me in some language I’ve never heard before, then she bum-rushed me.”
“When I did that throw, brother you know me, I should have sent that creepy bitch flying like a kite, instead it was like trying to throw a 300-pound man, not a 130-pound skank!” Both Keith and Darrel just looked at me like their brains were trying to process what I had just said.
“Okay, look” Keith said, “this is turning into some weird ass, bad, B grade scary movie shit! We got a couple of deals with her, I say we just knock her back, send her to prison and forget this shit ever happened.”
I turned and looked at Darrel who was now stroking his beard as though it was some sort of a comfort reflex.
“Jesus Christ, there’s more isn’t there?” Keith said.
“Yeah there is” I said. “She, Desie, said that he marked her, and then said something to me in a language I didn’t understand before she ran off.”
“Which, by the way, there is no way she should have been able to do as hard as I bounced her off the pavement. The fact that we did not have to call her an ambulance is God damn miracle!”
“That’s it, you guys have a nice night” Keith said. “I’m going home, I can’t stand any more of this ghost story nonsense.”
“Keith, wait bro, where are you going?” I asked.
“Jim, this shit has me freaked out! I choose not to hear any more tonight, you two enjoy.” And with that Keith walked out of my office and left the building. “He didn’t take that very well” Darrel said as he finished his drink.
I just shook my head, “Yeah, the other night Keith and I were in the basement of a house on Hollow Crest, that’s where we took the graffiti pictures. Anyway, we saw something in that basement and it scared the shit out of Keith. Didn’t do wonders for me either I’m not afraid to say.”
“I believe it” Darrel said as he poured himself another drink.
“No man, you don’t get it” I said as I took the bottle back from Darrel and poured the remaining whisky into my cup. “I mean it really rattled him…bad. And now this shit tonight with Desie, I think that the only thing holding him together right now is spit, safety wire, and some of this cheap whisky.”
“Jim, what did Desie say to you in the parking lot, before she ran off?” Darrel asked.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t pronounce it if I had to, it might be on my recorder though” I replied as I set my cup down and pulled the transmitter out of my desk.
I grabbed the covert transmitter I had been wearing during my contact with Desie and removed the small SIM card that holds the digital recording.
I plugged the card into an adapter and then the adapter into the computer at my desk and started playing the recording.
The start of the recording was all the usual stuff, my preamble, and then my travel time to the meet with Desie in the parking lot of Rocket’s.
I fast forwarded the recording to the point when I got out of my car to talk to Desie. “This is where the receiver cuts out” I said to Darrel.
As we listened to the recording we could hear my voice clear, but Desie’s voice was different, it had an almost metallic sound to it. “Wait” Darrel said, “play that part again where she is telling you to come inside, listen to that.”
“What the hell?” I said as I replayed that portion of the recording. I could hear Desie almost chanting “come inside” but as Darrel and I listened we could both hear what sounded like two, maybe three other voices, faint in the background saying the same thing, ‘come inside.’ I paused the recording, looked at Darrel and said “That’s the point when I realized I was taking a few steps towards the front of Rocket’s.”
I hit the play button again and we heard Desie say to me, “On ceka na vas.” “Stop there Jim” Darrel said, “play that again.” “On ceka na vas” the recording played. “I’m not 100% but I’m pretty sure that she is saying he’s waiting for you.”
I looked at Darrel, my heart was pounding in my chest and every hair on my body was standing up with goose bumps. “What the fuck does that mean!” I said, making no attempt to hide my agitation.
“I don’t know Jim” Darrel replied, “come on, keep playing.”
“God Damnit!” I muttered as I hit the play button again. We started hearing a weird guttural noise coming from the recording and then what sounded like people screaming in pain.
“Jesus Christ what the fuck was that!” I yelled as I jumped up from my chair. As the screaming on the recording stopped Darrel, who had backed away from my desk, tripped over his own feet, and fell into a seated position in the couch in my office.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, did you hear that!” he yelled.
“Dude, I did not hear that shit on scene, what the hell was that!” I said standing there.
Darrel and I both stood there, staring at my office computer beyond bewildered by what we had just heard. Both of us were breathing like race horses that just finished a run, my fists were clinched and as I started to relax a little I noticed that I had stepped back into a fighting stance as if I was going to square off with the computer.
The recording continued to play, but it was just of me getting back into my car and leaving the scene. I reached over and turned the recording off, then I looked at Darrel.
Darrel was standing there, clenching his teeth, he looked at me and said, “Bro you do whatever you want to do, but if it was me I would not put that into evidence! If a defense attorney ever got ahold of that they will accuse you of doctoring recordings and you will be banished from testifying in court ever again.”
“That’s what you got Darrel, don’t book it as evidence….you are going to have to do a lot better than that!” I said.
“Okay Jimmy, we are both sensible, rational, experienced law enforcement officers” Darrel replied.
“SO THE FUCK WHAT!” I replied.
&n
bsp; “So, we just experienced something that is not so sensible and rational” Darrel said in an obvious attempt to calm himself down. “I think that the best thing we can do right now is to leave, not say a damn thing to anyone….especially Keith and go get a drink.”
“Yeah….yeah you’re right” I said, my eyes still fixed on my computer. “Let me get my keys.”
With that Darrel and I left the building and went straight to one of our safe bars.
We did not discuss the recording for about an hour and a couple of whisky doubles. I turned to Darrel and said, “I need to know what that circle and the inscriptions inside it mean. King and the rest of these assholes be damned! I need to know what the hell is going on, for me.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling that you were going to say that” Darrel replied. “Email the pictures from your phone, I will send them to my cousin at the university and we will go see her tomorrow.”
I forwarded the pictures from my phone to Darrel, who in turn emailed them to his cousin. We did not say another word to each other for the rest of our stay at the bar.
I finished my drink, looked at Darrel and said, “I will call you tomorrow in the AM. Hey, thanks brother.” Darrel nodded, raised his glass and I walked out the door.
When I got home I found my wife was already in bed asleep. I took the opportunity to pour myself one last glass, sit down in my recliner and try to make some sense, any sense of what had happened to me that day.
I kicked the footrest up, took a good long sip of the whisky, set the cup on the floor and closed my eyes. The next thing that I knew my wife Shelly was shaking me awake, telling me that I had slept the entire night in the recliner and that Shilo our dog knocked over my whisky glass then proceeded to lick it up with the help of our other dog Max.
As I was getting out of the chair I looked over and saw two sad looking dogs, that if I didn’t know any better, were hung over.
I slowly started crawling out of my chair, working the kinks out of my back as I went.
Once I got to the standing position my wife handed me a cup of coffee, “Must have been some operation you guys had last night” she said.
I took a sip of the hot coffee, looked at her, and shook my head. “You know you kind of scared me a little last night” Shelly said.
“How so?” I asked trying not to burn my tongue on the hot coffee.
“Jim, I don’t know what you were dreaming about last night but you were screaming for someone to stop. I came out and you were standing there, in front of your chair, with your pistol in your hand. You don’t remember?”
I just looked at my wife, “No. I’m sorry.”
4. Cowley
As I got up and moving my wife flung the curtains open in the dining room, the sun was coming up, it was going to be a nice day. She came over, gave me a kiss, said, “I forgive you. Please, give some more thought to retiring today.” And with that she headed out to work.
I went about my morning ritual of coffee and feeding the dogs. As I walked by the table where I always put my gun, badge, and phone when I come home I noticed that the little blue light on my phone was flashing telling me that I had a message. I grabbed the phone and sat down at my dining room table with my coffee and watched Max and Shilo eat their food.
I went ahead and looked at the first message, it was a text from Rick that told me to go ahead and take the day off, seems everyone else called in sick or took the day off with comp time. The next message I had was another text, this one was from Darrel which read, [call me as soon as you get up….ninja.]
I sat there smiling for a few seconds, thinking about how much I liked the sound of that, Jimmy the Ninja! Just then about 120 pounds of German Shepard came over and rammed his head into my lap letting me know it was time for him and his partner to go out back.
I let my dogs out into our backyard to run around for a while. As I sat there finishing my coffee watching the sun come all the way up, watching Max and Shilo trying in vain to catch the birds in the yard, one thing kept rolling through my mind, ‘he’s waiting for you.’ It was like a song that you just can’t block out and every time I replayed that phrase in my head I got a slight metallic taste in the back of my throat, almost like blood.
It was about 9am when I called Darrel, “Yo ninja, you ready to roll?” I asked.
“Yes sir” Darrel replied, “I will pick you up at your office if that’s cool?” “Sounds good” I replied, “see you in about 10.”
Darrel and I disconnected the call and I set out to meet him in the parking lot of the task-force office.
When I arrived at my office Darrel was already there, I motioned for him to follow me around back so I could park in the secure lot. As I pulled into the lot I noticed that Rick and Becky’s cars were there, no one else was around. I cracked a small smile as I thought to myself federal Friday. I pulled into the gate, parked and then jumped in with Darrel. We then headed to the university.
“So, I sent those pictures to my cousin last night” Darrel said. “She looked at them and then apparently took them to a professor she knows who teaches religious studies there. She said that he got all kinds of fired up wanting to know where we took them, when we took them, on and on.”
“First of all, I took them” I said, “so if they’re worth any money you only get like 12%, and that’s just because I like you.”
Darrel laughed, “25% or I’m going back to the office right now!”
“Okay” I answered back, “you know what, you are such a good friend I’m going to go 30%, anyone else I would jump out of this moving vehicle, but for you, 30%.” We both started laughing, it was a good way to start the day.
“Anyway” Darrel said, “he apparently wants to meet with us as soon as we get there so we will go to his office and meet my cousin Karen and this professor.” At that point I didn’t care, nor was I thinking about meeting people, who I did not know, and introducing myself as a Police Officer. This was usually a set-in stone do-not-do rule for undercover officers, but the way things were going I just did not care at that point, besides it’s Darrel’s cousin and some professor.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the building where the professor worked I saw a young woman standing next to an older Toyota truck, “That’s my cousin Karen there” Darrel said.
Darrel parked next to Karen’s truck and we both got out. “Hey cousin” Karen said to Darrel as she gave him a quick hug.
“Karen this is Jim, Jim my cousin Karen.”
“Hello Jim” Karen said, “I have heard good things about you from Darrel.”
“That’s just because your cousin owes me money” I said.
“So, the professor is inside, he’s very interested in meeting you guys and talking about the pictures you sent over.”
“Okay, sounds good. Say Karen, does he, the professor, know what we do for a living?” Darrel asked.
Karen smiled, “No, I left that part out. Besides with that hair, beard, and tattoos he probably wouldn’t believe you.”
I looked at Darrel and shrugged. We did look a little on the rough side, people crossed the street to stay away from us. “There is one thing I should tell you” Karen said as she led us into the building. “Professor Cowley is his name, he’s a little old school and a little, well, unorthodox. He can be a bit overbearing sometimes, so Darrel do not punch him in the face! Okay.”
Darrel grinned, “No promises.”
We followed Karen down a long hallway that dead-ended at Professor Cowley’s office. Karen knocked on the door and stern voice from inside invited us. Karen cracked the door and said “Professor it’s Karen, I have the gentlemen who took those pictures to see you.”
A rather brusque voice answered back, “Yes, bring them in Karen.”
As Karen, Darrel, and I walked into the office Professor Cowley, after taking a long and very judgmental look at Darrel and I, directed us to sit in the two chairs directly in front of his desk.
“Gentlemen, thank you for coming to see me
, I’m Professor Sven Cowley.”
As I shifted in the very uncomfortable, and rather old wooden chair, Darrel stood and leaned forward, “Professor, it’s nice to meet you my name is Darrel Wilcoks and this is my friend Jim Richards.”
Cowley shook both of our hands and then as Darrel and I were sitting back down Cowley barked, “Now I want to know which one of you it was that put this carving on the wall, speak up!”
“Okay, I think that there may be a misunderstanding here Professor” I said, somewhat caught off guard by the abruptness of the accusation. “You see I found the carving and took the pictures and.”
“You expect me to believe that! Who do you think you are bring this…this evil into my community!” Cowley shot back at me before I could finish my sentence.
I sat forward in my chair, instantly pissed off by the implication that Darrel and I were responsible for this situation, “You wait just a damn minute Cowley!”
