The Basement

by Tom Clarke

The Commander and Rick looked at each other, the Commander nodded and Rick said, “Jim I want you to listen to this, it is a voice mail we recovered from Danny’s department cell phone.”

  Rick produced a small recorder and hit play, “Danny it’s Syl, I have a flat tire, can you come and help, I’m parked in front of 1414 Hollow Crest, call me when you can…love you.”

  I sat there for a few seconds trying to make sense of what I had just heard. It was a voice mail from Danny’s wife Sylvia, “Sir, neither I nor Darrel saw Sylvia or her car up at that house” I said with a obvious cringe in my voice.

  “She wasn’t there Jim” Rick said. “We think that the LW’s set a trap for Danny, all indications were that they intended to assassinate him in that basement.”

  Still struggling to understand how this thing could have unfolded, “How did they get Sylvia to make that call?” I asked.

  “We don’t know” the Commander answered. “We have a couple of detectives talking to her, but she is not taking this well, she’s basically catatonic.”

  “Why would those shitheads want Danny dead?” I asked.

  Commander Amada sat down, pulled out a notepad and said, “About a week and half ago Danny stopped one of their members for DWI. He arrested the driver and impounded the van he was driving. Danny had put a hold on the van pending a search warrant, he thought that there was evidence of some residential burglaries in the van, that’s about the only thing we can come up with.”

  “Is that LW still in custody?” I asked, the anger in my voice becoming harder and harder to conceal.

  “No” the Commander replied. “He bonded out almost immediately; the van is still sitting in impound though. Danny got the warrant but he never got a chance to serve it. A couple of the major crimes guys are going to serve the warrant today.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths. “Sir, I know that Homicide Division is obviously is going to take point on anything that may come of this, but Danny was my friend. We came up together, hell I was trying to get him to come to narcotics but he just couldn’t get past the idea of growing his hair out. Anyway, if you don’t mind can one of them call me and let me know what they turn up?”

  “Of course Jim” the Commander said with a smile. “I would have liked to have seen that, Dan Swanson with long hair.”

  Rick then spoke up saying, “Jim, there is something else that we want to get your thoughts on.” Rick handed me a sheet of paper with about several names written on it. “Do you recognize any of those names?” he asked.

  I looked at the paper, still trying to focus through the news about Danny. At first they all just appeared to be a blur, but then one by one names started jumping out at me. “Yeah, I do” I said, “some of these are folks we have done deals with. Others I recognize from intel reports as being involved in the meth trade, and a couple are LW hang-arounds.”

  I handed the paper back to Rick with an inquisitive look on my face. “Jim there are 27 names on that list, every single one of them has committed suicide in the last three-weeks.”

  I sat back in my chair with a look of disbelief, “All of them in the last three-weeks?” I asked.

  “That’s right” Commander Amada said, “with about 10 in the last week alone.”

  I leaned back and put my hands on top of my head, and then it hit me like a freight train….Desie. She had never been involved in the meth game and then all of the sudden after King starts making moves she starts slinging meth.

  I could feel my eyes starting to dart around the room as the totality of the last few days started to come crashing home. It feeds on fear; what if this thing and its buddy wanted to spice up their feeding times by sourcing out tainted meth?

  “Oh shit” I muttered, which immediately got the attention of Rick and the Commander. “Rick, the meth….what if King and his merry band of shitheads are sourcing out contaminated meth.” Rick and Commander Amada looked at me, then looked at each other, “Go on Jim” Rick said.

  “Okay” I said, “Desie was never in the meth scene, she was strictly pills and weed right. Then King patches up with the LW’s and all of the sudden Desie is moving meth for them. Now we know that some of the names on that list were getting their shit from Desie, we also know that some of them were getting it straight from King. What if they have laced their meth with some something or other that’s making these tweekers off themselves?”

  Rick shook his head and let slide a series of expletives under his breath, “Jim if that’s what’s going on it may account for Desie freaking out on you during the last undercover deal.”

  “What do you mean?” Commander Amada asked.

  “Jim was buying some meth from a source and she went a little sideways, tried to beat him up” Rick replied. “Friday morning Keith sent that meth to the crime lab, Jim why don’t you call over there and see if they can put a rush on that, see if anything extra is in there.”

  Before I could answer the Commander said, “Boy’s why don’t you let me make that call, I know the boss over there pretty well.”

  “Sounds good sir” Rick replied.

  Just then Commander Amada’s phone started ringing. “Amada” the Commander said as he answered the call. “Yeah I’m still over here with the drug guys….are you serious!” Commander Amada clenched his teeth and exhaled heavily. “Yeah send it over, I’ll ask them if they know her, okay thanks I will come over as soon as I’m done here.”

  Rick and I both looked at the Commander who said, “That was Lt. Kim, they just got called out on a homicide, female found stuffed in a dumpster behind Rocket’s, they think she may be a stripper. They are going to snap a cell phone picture and send it to me, asked if you guys could take a look, see if you know her.”

  Commander Amada’s phone beeped and he opened the message, he then showed me the picture of the dead female still inside the dumpster.

  “Ahh Christ” I said as I looked at Rick, “It’s Desie.”

  Commander Amada then showed the picture to Rick, “Yeah, that’s Desie….shit!” Rick said. Commander Amada then called Lt. Kim back and told him that both Rick and I had positively identified the body.

  “Commander” Rick said, “when the Coroner gets there to move the body have your guys check her pockets for our buy money will you.”

  The Commander and I both just looked at Rick with a sense of puzzlement, what would our buy money from the other day matter? Rick looked back at us and said, “If she does not have our buy money, and we know she is getting sourced by King, then if down the road we can put that buy money in King’s possession then we know that she met with him before she was killed.”

  I raised an eyebrow, nodded and looked at the Commander who was also nodding in agreement.

  Rick looked at me and said “You don’t have to look so shocked, I’m kind of surprised that you didn’t think of that.”

  “Me too” I said back. “Rick here’s the kicker to your thought process” I said. “He called me last night.”

  “Who called you?” Commander Amada asked.

  “King called me sir, left a message, said he got my number from Desie and that we should get together.”

  Rick sat back in his chair nodding his head, he looked at the Commander who was also nodding in agreement. I could see where their heads were at, undercover contact in furtherance of a homicide investigation. “Sir” I said, “before we go planning any operations, aren’t I supposed to be going on three-days of admin leave?”

  The Commander looked up at me, then at Rick, “Jim, do you feel okay?”

  “Yes sir” I replied.

  “Rick stop me if you don’t agree” the Commander said, “but if we have some folks that are dumping tainted dope into our drug community that’s causing people to kill themselves, along with a possible suspect in this homicide, I think the Chief will make an exception on the three-days.”

  “I think that your right sir” Rick said. “We have an opportunity to make something happen and we should take it. Only as long as J
im is okay with it. Jim, are you sure that your good with this?” Rick asked.

  “Yeah boss, I’m good with it” I replied with conviction.

  “Okay” the Commander said, “I will meet with the Chief this afternoon but I don’t see any issues.”

  “Rick, it’s your shop but if you’re good with it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and send Jim home for the rest of the day.”

  “Sounds good to me” Rick said. “Jim go home, I will call you this evening and let you know what the deal is.”

  “Okay, talk to you later” I said, “Commander, good to see you again, and thank you!” With that I left the office still somewhat sticking to my original timeline and getting out of there before any of the other fellas showed up for work.

  My drive home seemed to take forever, I just could not stop myself from going over and over in my mind everything that had come to pass the last several days. And now this with Danny committing suicide nonsense, I just could not accept it. I was not that surprised that Desie had been chopped up, demons or not she would have ended up on a metal slab sooner or later the way she was going.

  The more I thought about it I did start to feel guilty about not telling Rick the entire story, but then what would I have said; hey boss the real reason that we are having so many problems right now is that there are two demons running loose in our town, one of them possessing a DEA Agent. Yeah, I would have gotten a few more than three days off with that line. No, it was better that we kept Rick out of it and dealt with the spooky side of this shit ourselves.

  When I got home I called Shelly at her work and told her about Danny. She didn’t know him like I did, but we had gotten together with Danny and Sylvia a couple of times over the years, she and Sylvia always got along good. She agreed to take some time off and come home a little early so we could go over and check in on Sylvia, spend some time with her.

  After I got off the phone with Shelly I sat down in my chair and looked at my dogs, Max and Shilo, that’s when it really hit me, I would never see my friend Danny again.

  I suddenly felt….hollow. I just could not understand how people like Danny ended up dead and people like King just kept on living their lives, fucking it up for the rest of us, it was just not fair. As I sat there, my eyes welling up with that thought of Danny gone, I did the only thing that I could think to do. I wiped my eyes, poured myself a drink, and did my best to remember the good times that I had with my friend.

  Later that afternoon Keith called, said that he wanted to check in and see how I was doing. I brought him up to speed on the conversation I had with Rick and the Commander that morning, and then told him that as soon as I heard back regarding my duty status I would call him and we would start making some plans to meet King. I also mentioned to Keith that Shelly and I were going to go and see Sylvia later that evening and that he was welcome to come along. Keith said that he would like that and that he would meet us at our house at 5pm, he also said that he would get in touch with Darrel and bring him up to speed.

  After talking to Keith, I got a call from Rick, he told me that Commander Amada had spoken with the Chief and I was good to go for coming back tomorrow.

  Rick then told me that when they pulled Desie’s body out of that dumpster behind Rocket’s they searched her and did not find any of our buy money, he also said that Jeff, the bouncer at Rocket’s, was the one who had called in the report of the body in the dumpster. Rick said that Jeff and the rest of the staff that were there at Rocket’s were being very unhelpful, almost to the point of hindering the investigation.

  I asked about the search warrant on the van that Danny had impounded, Rick said that they had not searched it yet, but when he had something additional he would call me back. I then asked Rick if he, or anyone else at the office had seen or heard anything out of Stevie today.

  Rick said that he had not, but that if he saw him he would tell him that I was looking for him. I thanked him and we disconnected.

  As I sat there in my living room I remembered what Professor Cowley had said about this demon and its followers sacrificing people by chopping their heads off that were no longer of any use to them. Had Desie outlived her usefulness I wondered, or had she just become a liability to them after I crack slapped her onto the pavement?

  He also said that the circle carving acted like a battery, a power source for them, and it was their link to our world. The fact that they had a run at Danny had to have something to do with the van he impounded. They saw him as a threat, someone who opposed them, so they lured him to that house, drug him into that basement and were breaking him down, feeding on him, getting ready to finish him off when Darrel and I showed up.

  While I was sitting there, thinking about all of the day’s events, my department cell phone started buzzing, it showed an incoming call from a blocked number. Knowing that blocked numbers usually were calls being made from the Police Department I answered, “Jim, this is Lt. Kim with homicide, Commander Amada wanted me to give you a call reference the search warrant on this van.”

  “Yeah Lieutenant thanks for the call, what did you guys find?” I said with a serious sense of anticipation.

  There was a slight pause and then Lt. Kim said, “Well, we managed to step into it big time with this. We found the suspected stolen items that Danny had listed on his search warrant, but there is more.”

  “Okay” I said, “what else did you guys find?”

  “We discovered a hidden compartment under the floor in the back of the van, pretty sad job of putting one in too I might add.”

  “Yeah these guys are not exactly master criminals” I said.

  “Jim” Lt. Kim said, “in the compartment we discovered what looks to be about a pound of methamphetamine and, well, three severed human heads.”

  “What!” I said, “human heads, seriously, are you messing with me Kim? Because if you are I’ve got to tell you today’s not the day!”

  “I wish I was Jim, they appear to be coated with a white powder and wrapped in plastic.”

  “Jesus” I said. “Listen, with that meth, don’t mess with it, don’t field-test it, don’t do anything. I will call our boss and have one of our guys come over and get it and send it to the crime lab.”

  “One step ahead of you Jim, I talked to Rick a few minutes ago, Dave is on his way over” the Lieutenant replied.

  Wow! Now that’s an interesting turn of events I thought to myself. “Cool, thanks man” I said to Lt. Kim. “Well, enjoy the heads I guess, call me if you need anything from our end.”

  Kim snorted out a slight laugh, “Will do Jim, hey before I forget, good work the other day at Hollow Crest, and I’m sorry about Danny.”

  “Thanks man” with that we disconnected the call.

  Three severed heads and a pound of their meth, no wonder they were pissed at Danny. The more of this nonsense that we could collect and tie directly to those knuckle-draggers the LW’s the easier it would be to get a judge to give us permission to go and knock some doors off their hinges.

  Thinking about hitting their houses started to make me wish I was back on the tactical team. As I sat there smiling, thinking about throwing flash-bangs and breaking down doors, another thought started to creep into my head.

  These things were feeding, that was the cause of all the suicides. Now we have not only suicides, but some homicides as well, homicides that were done in a ritualistic manner and in close proximity to these two demons so they could reap the benefits of these poor souls last minutes on this earth.

  What was it the Professor said before he split town, destroy the circle and destroy their link to this world. If the circle is like a power base for them I am willing to bet that they are committing these killings there as well.

  I grabbed my phone and called Darrel to bring him up to speed, “Hey bro, you got a minute I got some news” I asked when he answered my call.

  “Yeah Jim, and when you’re done I got some news of my own.”

  I briefed Darrel on all the da
y’s events and the fact that we were going to try and do an undercover meet with King the next day.

  “It’s about time we started making some moves against these jokers” Darrel said.

  “You know it!” I replied “I’ll let you know tomorrow what time we are going to have the briefing, now what do you got?”

  “Okay” Darrel said, “I had a visit today from an agent with FBI regarding our friend Stevie.”

  “Oh shit, come on dude, what’s the bureau got to do with this?” I asked.

  “Well it seems that Stevie was on an overseas assignment, he would not tell me where, and was running some unsanctioned informants, paying them a lot of money. According to the FBI guy these informants were involved in the theft and sale of religious artifacts.”

  “Why am I not liking the direction this conversation is going” I said.

  Darrel continued, “I guess they managed to grab one of these guys and he told them that they had obtained, what the FBI agent described as, a large stone tablet with circular carvings on it.”