The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Know what? The truth? Max, there is the truth, and there’s how things are.”

  Nodding, he left the room. Brian wasn’t as big an idiot as Max thought. He wasn’t as big an asshole, either. Carrying the weight of knowledge was maddening for most. Max handled it because he’d known for years. He’d had time to adjust. Brian knew, but he managed to convince himself that he didn’t. Max wondered if it was possible to do that without going insane. He’d watch Brian for a few more years and see how it worked out for him.

  Chapter Five

  Despite the dire nature of the assignment Brian had given him, Max still expected he would need to work on his other cases. He had two dozen active investigations working, but only a few that required immediate attention. He’d see to the others in order of priority, depending on how long it took to make sense of his “secret” assignment. Hopefully Brian would refrain from giving him more work until this one was done.

  Hopefully…

  Max tucked his laptop and the file into his briefcase and went to the mall. He wanted to surprise Sadie by showing up at her work. She seemed surprised, but distracted. The store wasn’t too busy, but late morning was the only time the employees had to straighten things up before the rush of teenagers poured in. It was also close enough to the holiday season to keep a steady stream of customers coming and going.

  He left Sadie to her work and went to a sidewalk style bistro at the end of the mall. Sidewalk “style” because it was actually inside the mall: the tables and chairs were gathered around a wooden stand in the center of a large open area in front of a department store. Max got a big cup of iced tea and connected his laptop to the mall’s free Wi-Fi.

  “You’re hanging out in the mall on State time, Razor.” Max looked up to see his friend Frank, one of the few people who got away with using his nickname.

  “Glad you could come.”

  “I get Mondays and Tuesdays off,” Frank answered. “I’m going to get something to eat. I’ll be right back.”

  Frank returned with a basket of chips, salsa, and a cup of soda, Max sat the file down on the table in front of him. He’d been reading through it since calling Frank to join him, and had just finished.

  “Should you be showing me this?” Frank stuffed a salsa-coated chip in his mouth and crunched away. “This is illegal, right?”

  “This is a lot of things, including illegal. But I’ve got a green light to be loose with the details, so I don’t have to mention you helped me.”

  “Good. Because it goes a bit beyond my training as a book store manager.”

  Frank and Max had been best friends since college. Frank was an English major, and Max was a social work student. Their paths crossed because of a core class, as well as their shared minor in philosophy. While Max had gone on to apply his degree to social work, Frank had little choice but to work his way up the ladder at a local book, music, and video store. He was in the process of looking for a suitable law school, but life kept getting in the way.

  “Can I look at this?” He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin and tapped the file.

  “Go ahead, but it’s useless.”

  Frank opened the file and flipped through the pages. All the contents were there except the packet of photographs. Max held on to those. After a few seconds, Frank gave Max a confused look.

  “You’ve read this?”

  Max nodded.

  “Why don’t you give me the highlights?”

  Max began after taking a drink. “Anonymous reporter, which usually means its bullshit…but one of the workers involved has disappeared, and her replacement has started to look like an involuntary blood donor.”

  Frank’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “Why are you involved with this? Haven’t you had enough of this veepee shit?”

  ‘Veepee’ was their incredibly unclever code word for vampires.

  Max repeated what Brian had told him, up to and including the bit about making this look like a regular hotline. He needed to do this, but he didn’t want to do it alone. He wanted Frank’s help. Frank agreed to help, but for a price to be named later. He didn’t want money, but he’d want something. He just didn’t know what yet.

  “What do you think so far?” asked Frank.

  “Someone, obviously a neighbor, called in a hotline on a little girl in the Hagshead Trailer park.”

  “Which trailer park is that?”

  “One north of town, on Peace Church Road past the waste treatment plant.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve never been out there. It’s bad.”

  “Worse than the one on old sixty-six?”

  “Comparable. Anyway, anonymous reporter calls about a kid. No name, just an address. Trailer D-nineteen.”

  Frank opened the file and flipped through the pages. “I didn’t see any mention of a kid other than the initial hotline report. So, is there a kid?”

  “Not according to the photos.”

  “Photos?”

  Max opened the yellow and blue envelope and tossed the photos in front of Frank one at a time.

  “That’s the trailer park from the street.”

  Frank held the photos to the light.

  “Oh, classy!” The photo consisted of a large ditch facing out from a row of filthy trailers. The largest in the middle was an off-white doublewide with a rotting wooden porch. It had the words OFFICE painted on the side, but looked uninhabited. A large metal sign divided the gravel entrance to the park in half, and had the words Hagshead carved into the age-beaten surface. Some of the holes were likely made by bullets.

  “If that didn’t do it for you, here’s another.” Max dropped another photo. This one was inside the park. Trailers of varying colors and conditions—from bad to worse to unlivable—stretched to the edges of the picture. The gravel lot was littered with tire destroying potholes. Rusting cars and beat up trucks lined the edges of the drive. The photo had been taken on an overcast day, giving the whole place a depressing quality. Max could tell by the look in Frank’s eyes as he looked over the two photos that it had the same emotional effect on him.

  “I don’t think any kids should be living in a place like this.”

  “I’ve seen worse.” Max said, pulling out another picture. “You’ll love this one.”

  Frank dropped the other two photos to the table when the third one landed in front of him. He didn’t even touch it.

  “Oh my God! Is that the same park?”

  “It is indeed.”

  The photo showed a pair of trailers at the end of the park right before the beginning of a thick patch of woods. They were surrounded by a linked gate, wherein a pair of black-and-tan blurs lay sleeping in the yard. Max assumed those were dogs…pit bulls more than likely. But that wasn’t what got his attention, or Frank’s. That reaction was reserved for the Nazi Swastika hanging in the window of the foremost trailer. Closer inspection of the photo revealed a few Confederate battle flags of varying sizes, as well as twin lightning bolts and Nordic runes carved into wooden posts and painted on vehicles within the fence.

  Frank shook his head. “That has to be the white-trashiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah, it comes close.”

  “How do these people let them live there?”

  “How are they going to stop them?”

  “Did you know about this?”

  “I’ve had a couple of hotlines in that park before, years ago. But there wasn’t any of that.”

  “Still, someone should do something.”

  “I’m sure the cops are watching it,” Max replied, pulling the next photo. “Skinheads like to sell meth, so advertising your white supremacist affiliation is kind of like begging to be monitored by the sheriff’s department.” He tossed the next picture in front of Frank, but he kept looking at the last one.

  “Does this have anything to do with your kid?”

  “I don’t know. Janice might have just taken the picture to show the living environment. I still don’t get
what any of this has to do with veepees, though.”

  Frank put the other picture face down and picked up the next one. “Inside a trailer?”

  “That is the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Winnans, the occupants of trailer D-nineteen.”

  “It’s actually kind of nice.” He was right. The floor was clean and the furniture was in decent shape. There weren’t any clothes or old food lying about, and there was a distinct absence of vermin. It didn’t look luxurious by any means, but it indicated the Winnans had enough pride to not live in filth.

  “So she took a picture of the house?”

  “A few, actually.” Max dropped two more pictures, one of the kitchen, the other of the bedroom. Both were clean and well kept.

  “Did she have to get a subpoena?”

  “Not if she had their permission.” Max pointed to the file. “There’s a release in there, signed by Larry Winnans.”

  “Are there more?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well…” Frank took the photo of the living room. “The trailer has an open floor for the dining room, kitchen and den, and the front door is in the den. The back door is back here…” He pointed to a glow at the end of the hallway.

  “I thought so too,” Max said with a grin. “That’s why I wanted a second pair of eyes.” He picked up the photo. “The master bedroom is here, at the end of the hall. The lights are on, but you can’t see them. There is sunlight coming in from behind the photographer, in the hallway.”

  “So the back door is in the hall leading to the parent’s room.”

  “Right. So where does this lead?” Max tapped the photo in Frank’s hand, where a second hall broke off from the living room opposite the kitchen.

  “Another bedroom?”

  “If there is a kid, probably.”

  “Is there a kid?”

  “Not that anyone can tell.” Max placed the last photo on the stack. It showed another trailer across the lot. This one had the letters C-17 on the side. The windows were lined with flowers.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m guessing a neighbor.”

  Frank picked up the photo. The trailer was old, but nicer than the others. The porch was in good repair, and the flowers looked fresh. A small tomato plant grew in a round cage under one of the windows.

  “Why would Janice—?”

  “Take a picture of that trailer? I don’t know. I know why I would take a picture of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it looks like whoever lives there is the kind of person who cares about her neighbors. And if that is the case, she’s probably our anonymous caller.”

  “Why take the picture? Why not just go up to the door?”

  “She probably did, and didn’t get an answer. So she took the photo to help her find it again…not that she really needed to, since it’s probably the only one in the whole place that doesn’t look like crap. But lucky for us she did.”

  “Why would she call anonymously?”

  “People do it because they think we’ll tell who it was. Sometimes a neighbor or family member doesn’t want to start shit. Most of the time it’s bullshit, or the caller is just mad at the people he’s reporting.”

  “So, there’s no kid mentioned in Janice or Michelle’s documentation?”

  “No.” Max took the file and thumbed through to the initial report.

  Frank leaned back in his chair, dipped a chip in his salsa, and then stuffed it in his mouth. He’d just finished crunching when Max started to read from the initial hotline narrative.

  “Caller reports she sees kids in the park for days and they go missing.” He looked up at Frank. “I’m reading this verbatim. The hotline people write the information as it comes.”

  His eyes went back to the file. “Caller reports a new child in trailer park, doesn’t know name. Child lives in nineteen-D with nice parents but wants to report before child disappears. Has called police, they don’t do anything. Wants Social Services to investigate. Does not want to give name, not afraid just does not want to be involved. Little girl has long brown hair, short and thin, very pretty, might be named Penny or Perry.”

  “Perry?”

  Max shrugged. “I guess it’s a girl’s name if you spell it with an I.” He went back to the report. “Parents names are Larry and Janet. Mailbox says Franklin but isn’t correct, Franklins moved. Girl goes to private school with other children in park, not in public school.”

  “Private school? Like Thomas Jefferson School on Newman Road?”

  “I doubt they could afford Thomas Jefferson.”

  “Is there a private school in the park?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know where it would be.”

  “Then how does she know?”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s it?” Max nodded. “How is that a report? Do you guys have to take every report that comes in?”

  “No, but for some reason they thought this one was worth looking in to.” He drank the last of his tea and crunched the ice.

  “So we have an anonymous report of a kid that may not exist.” Frank reached for the file. Max handed it to him. “And in fact…” He flipped to the last page of documentation. “Janet Winnans reports she has no children. She and her husband live alone.” He was reading directly from the last entry of Michelle’s documentation. “I examined the home, found no evidence of a child living there.” He looked up at Max. “There really isn’t any reason to believe there was a child at the Winnans’ trailer. Do you think the reporter gave the wrong trailer?”

  “No, and for several reasons. First of all, the reporter gave the parents by name.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. She might have seen the child near the Winnans’ and assumed it was theirs. Or they might have been babysitting for a neighbor.”

  “Yeah, I thought of that. But that begs a question.” He tapped one of the photographs.

  Frank nodded and asked, “Why would Janice take photos of a house if there weren’t any children living there?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yeah.” He dropped the file and started gathering the pictures. “Then where are the pictures of the kid? Don’t you have to take pictures of the kid?”

  “Probably gone the same way as any and all references to the child,” Max explained. “When the file was transferred to Michelle, Brian emailed copies of the documentation from Janice’s computer to hers. She also would have gotten the file.”

  “You think Michelle changed the recording to eliminate any references to a child, and discarded the photographs?” Frank’s eyes widened. “This isn’t a child abuse case, Razor…this is a kidnapping. We need to call the cops.”

  “Oh yeah, with what? We have no proof there is a child. The parents don’t even admit they have one.”

  “So they’re in on it?”

  It wouldn’t be the first time Max had encountered parents selling their children. Usually they just rented them out in exchange for drugs. He’d once met a twelve-year-old girl who’d been traded for meth and prescription painkillers over three hundred times.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? How is it a maybe? They either had a kid or they didn’t…and if they did, they either admit it or they lie. How is this a maybe?”

  “Because one worker is missing, and the other one…” Max pressed two fingers to his neck. “And you know how those things usually go.”

  “So you think the veepees are stealing kids and convincing parents to forget them? Is that even possible?”

  That was a fair question. Vampires, even very powerful ones, could only charm a person so far. They can’t make people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Letting a stranger into their house to make a phone call is one thing. Getting parents to give up their children and forget about them is quite another. It probably works better on some parents than others. Max wanted to find out what kind of parents the Winnans happened to be.

  Frank asked another question. “One thing
that sticks in my head…why do we still have the file? Why would they leave the file? Even without mentioning the kid, it’s going to look suspicious. After all, we figured it out. Why leave any photos? Why not pitch them all?”

  “Because the lack of a file is even more suspicious. I mean they know there is a case, there’s a report on record with the state. If it looks like no work was done, when we know work was done because of expense reports and daily sign out logs for the state car, that will just start the whole investigation over again, and then there is one more person snooping around who needs to be taken care of.”

  “So? The veepees can just take care of them the same way.”

  “Every time they have to charm or kill a social worker, they risk drawing attention. Eventually they’d have to charm the whole fucking office…it would be a waste of time.”

  Frank nodded. “So they just have a worker alter the record to look like there isn’t a kid there. But vampires—” he messed up and just said it. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice. “—eat kids all the time. They don’t go to these elaborate methods. They just feed on the kids and send them back home with their memories wiped.”

  Children’s minds were easier to manipulate. That was why vampires favored them as victims. They could feed on a child for years without ever being exposed. When the child grew to the point of resistance, they moved on to another. It was rare for them to actually kill a child, rarer still to kidnap one.

  “You have another problem. This is all circumstantial to the point of being stupid. Not only do you lack evidence of a kid, you can’t even prove there is evidence of a kid.”

  “There’s a kid, Frank.”

  “I believe you, but that isn’t the point. The point is you can’t start investigating something until you can prove there’s something to investigate. There aren’t any photos of a kid or a kid’s room, so why did the worker take photos?” Frank shrugged rhetorically. “Maybe she took the photos to show there wasn’t a kid in the house. If a neighbor is saying you have a kid, the only way to prove you don’t is to let people look around your place for evidence of kids. Janice might have taken photographs to prove it.”