Bottom Feeder

by Matt Cole

  The first words uttered during the meal came at its conclusion. Willard turned to Arlene and put forth, “We’re thinking of planning a Christmas party here. You wouldn’t want to help us with that would you?”

  Arlene dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and rose slowly. So did the other three: Deena, Maggie, and Willard.

  “I don’t have the time,” Arlene verbalized. “I have lots to do and it wouldn’t be fair to you all, but thank you. I must be going.”

  “Going? So soon?” Maggie threw out in real surprise.

  “Busy,” replied Arlene coldly. “Thank you for dinner. I have to get back to work.”

  “It is after eight o’clock at night; surely you aren’t working now,” Willard exclaimed.

  “A real estate agent has to work with her clients, if they wish to view a house at eight at night or five in the morning, you do what you must,” Arlene answered mysteriously.

  “I could go with you,” Deena offered.

  “No, it will be boring,” Arlene countered. “I’ll be fine. Everyone needs to stop worrying about me.”

  “We worry because we care,” said Maggie.

  “Thank you again for the dinner and your thoughts,” Arlene responded, heading for the door.

  “That’s it?”

  Arlene stopped and faced Deena. She said nothing.

  Deena stared blankly for a moment, shocked by Arlene’s odd behavior. “You come over for the first time in weeks, stay a little over an hour and rush out the door without so much as giving us, your friends, the time of day? What is the matter with you, Arlene? Why won’t you talk to us anymore?”

  “Why are you taking everything so personally?” Arlene shot back. “It is no wonder you chased Joseph Hopping away with that kind of attitude. Good night.”

  And she was gone. Deena felt tears welling up in her eyes as she pulled away from Maggie’s hand and raced up the stairs to the guest room.

  Chapter 22

  Deena Hopping wanted to comfort Arlene, but she did not know what to say, so Deena said nothing. Arlene and she were the type to hug each other.

  Deena dried her eyes.

  It was enough.

  They walked to the driveway where Arlene quickly pretended to be in a hurry and left.

  Curious about Arlene’s basement and her strange behavior of late, Deena wandered around the back of her house to take a look at the basement.

  What she found after sloshing through a soggy backyard to the basement…was much worse than a madman living in the basement killing women…

  It was something much worse.

  And it was just the beginning…

  “My God,” Deena muttered.

  Deena stared at the hole.

  Something had dug a tunnel beneath the back door, as groundhogs and other burrowing animals are apt to do. But if an animal had made this, then it was at least the size of a large goat.

  Deena knelt down in the water, her knees sliding in the slush, and stared at the yawning cavity. There were no piles of dirt, as if something had burrowed up to the surface, and there weren’t any claw marks or scratches in the slushy ground to indicate that the hole had been dug from above ground. There was just a dark, round hole, easily four to five feet in diameter. The walls of the fissure glistened with an amber slime.

  Still kneeling, Deena reached out and touched the side of the hole. The odd slime clung to her fingers. Grimacing, Deena held her hand up and let the rain wash the milky substance off. Deena raised her fingers to her nose and was reminded of something very familiar.

  It smelled like…

  The basement.

  Deena’s nose wrinkled in disgust. She looked at the hole and remembered the eerie feeling and horrible smell of her house.

  Deena was frightened and felt her knees tremble. She was feeling sick to her stomach.

  * * * *

  This will be an easy one, Arlene Balleza thought, parking her car up the street from the property. A simple capture. Arlene was glad she did not have to kill her prizes that she brought the master, only catch them and bring them to him.

  If she had to have to kill, she would; after all, it was the master’s wish and she had to obey.

  Different from the others that she’d brought her master. These were humans.

  Out of the ordinary.

  One for which the master had waited years.

  One the master will definitely savor.

  What was that old saying? Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Something like that. Well, it couldn’t get much colder than this winter has been with temperatures continuing to drop below freezing.

  But now the time was right.

  Arlene had mustered up the courage to do what needed to be done.

  The couple were loners; no family meant no one would miss them.

  She had put a powerful sleeping pill into the coffee at the house that she would show the couple today. Arlene would then drag them into the garage where she had rented a van to drive them to the Master.

  The snow was beginning to fall again as she walked along the sidewalk. Tiny flakes that swirled and danced quietly changed the landscape, distorting the view, muting the sounds of the day.

  Arlene followed along the sidewalk easily, through the maze that was new construction on nearby homes that the weather had halted the construction of.

  Quickly. The anxiety inside her grew stronger.

  Moving through the front yard and up to the front door, Arlene spied the couple parking across the street and exiting their vehicle. Right on time.

  It was all she could do but smile; nevertheless she had to warn herself not to savor the capture until it has happened, until Michael and Jane Abraham had been taken off her list. Only then would Arlene be able to relish her success, as her Master would certainly be most pleased with her.

  Closer to the house, the couple walked. Arlene turned her head toward them and smiled again.

  Her heart was beating a little more quickly now. She was sweating inside the house as she opened the door to allow the Abrahams inside.

  “Coffee?” Arlene asked.

  “With sugar please,” Michael answered quickly.

  “And for you, dear?” Arlene questioned Jane.

  “Oh, I don’t drink coffee, thank you.”

  Arlene felt nervous. Her plan would not work.

  She handed Michael a cup of coffee and anxiously waited for him to drop to the floor. It takes only minutes.

  “Michael!” Jane screamed, falling to her knees beside her husband who was a pile on the floor. “He’s barely breathing,” Jane adds.

  “Hurry, we must drag him to the garage. There is a van inside and we can put him in there and drive him to the hospital,” Arlene suggests.

  Jane does as she is instructed. Only once the two women load Michael in the van, Arlene removes the tire iron and strikes Jane over the head three or four times until finally the woman is a bloody mess atop her husband.

  Arlene shoves Jane the rest of the way into the van and closes the door after throwing the tire iron at the side of Jane and her husband Michael.

  Arlene is winded. She opens the garage door and slowly and quietly drives out of the driveway, makes a slow turn onto the street and disappears into traffic.

  Two live—albeit barely—humans to feed the master.

  Mission accomplished.

  * * * *

  “I don’t need to—nor will I ever run my investigations using nutcases, whack jobs, and/or psychos!” Sheriff Lindsey Hill was in a foul mood as she stalked down the hallway to her office.

  It did not help that her lead investigator on the department’s biggest case ever was suggesting that one: the case was not closed, and two: he was proposing the irrational.

  “I believe the correct term is ‘psychic’, and I’m not sure that anyone would call Mike Leopold a psychic,” Dauphin County Detective Gary Chapel, at the sheriff’s side, said.

  “Trust me, I’ve heard Mike Leopold called many things in
my years here and psychic is the most flattering,” the sheriff shot back. “Why are you letting him goad you into believing his wild story in the first place?”

  “Listen, people are still disappearing,” Chapel insisted. “Mike Leopold saw something that made him burn his house down with his family still inside when he was only a child. There has to be something we’re missing.”

  “An arrest of Mike Leopold for arson and the murder of his family,” Sheriff Hill responded. “Leave it alone. If you think for one second that I am to believe that there is a monster living in the basement at 1420 South Douty Street, you’re crazier than Leopold.”

  “No—I mean—maybe Frank Marsden had a partner or something. All I’m saying is don’t close the book on the case yet; give me a chance to prove there is more to this,” Chapel pleaded.

  “What’s this really about, Gary?” Sheriff Hill asked. “You helped break this case, solved eight potential murders and delivered the bad guy into custody alive, no less. What more does your career need? What’s your angle?”

  “No angle, Sheriff. I just think I may have missed something and perhaps there could be more victims out there—more missing person cases to solve.”

  Christ, this was turning into a headache.

  “Tell me you don’t believe there really is a monster—all googly eyed, green with antennae sprouting out its head—hiding somewhere in Strafford,” Sheriff Hill demanded.

  “Monsters come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, Sheriff. They can hide right under our noses too,” Chapel began. “Just look at Ted Bundy, BTK, and our own Frank Marsden for proof of that.”

  “You have two days—forty-eight hours to dig, Chapel,” Hill replied. “No more. Then we put the last nail in the coffin—so to speak. We then move on with our lives and our other cases, agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “But I am warning you—the ice you are treading on is—” Sheriff Hill started to say.

  “—razor thin—got it!” Chapel finished. “Sheriff, it was you who taught me that a good cop—especially a detective—should never discount any statement. I just want to see what Mike Leopold knows.”

  A glint formed in the sheriff’s eye. “You think Mike Leopold was or is Frank Marsden’s accomplice, don’t you?”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “All right, keep me posted. I’ll let you know if we get anymore out of Marsden through interrogations in the meanwhile.”

  They were at her office door and stomach acid was burning a hole in Chapel’s gut. His thoughts were on the basement at South Douty Street and of Deena Hopping. He had been immediately taken by her. Somewhere deep inside he wanted to discover the entire truth behind this bizarre series of events. He had to.

  On behalf of himself.

  For the people of Strafford.

  And in support of Deena Hopping whom he was slowly becoming attracted to.

  Part Two: The Tunnels

  Chapter 23

  Two months later…

  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was the geographic hub and principal urban center of the Harrisburg, Lebanon, Strafford, and Carlisle, which included Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon and Perry Counties. Deena Hopping had never actually lived in Harrisburg but she knew it offered modern downtown condominiums and townhouses to historic homes in quiet neighborhoods on the beautiful Susquehanna River; after all it was Pennsylvania’s Capital City. That’s what you learn when your best friend is a real estate agent like Arlene Balleza.

  The Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse at 228 Walnut Street in is a twelve-story court, low-rise facility located in the central business district of the city. The building, built in 1966, was named for former President Ronald Reagan and is owned by the General Services Administration. If the courthouse looked like a structure from abroad it was a result of its international architectural style with curtain style façade system and glass façade material.

  The United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a district level federal court with jurisdiction over approximately one half of Pennsylvania, was housed within the building. It was here that Deena Hopping entered.

  Due to security concerns, there is at present a proposal to move federal offices and the United States Courthouse into a new modern building. Nearly four years ago it was announced that the General Services Administration that the current structure located in downtown, would be demolished and be replaced with a new federal courthouse building. They had only recently chosen the site at Sixth and Reily streets in midtown Harrisburg. Because of its proximity to vehicular traffic on all sides, some security analysts had listed the Harrisburg building as one of the least secure federal office buildings in the nation. Supporters of the site at Sixth and Reily, where there is now a parking lot, have said development there will support and expand the revitalization in Harrisburg’s midtown without requiring demolition of historic or otherwise important structures.

  Deena would always commit to memory the first anguished moments of the first court appearance of Frank Marsden. Seeing him in a suit, freshly groomed, seated before a throng of people in the courtroom, Deena was afraid to look across at him, for fear that if one moment their eyes met, she may be sucked into his macabre nightmarish world. Who would ever have thought her life would have taken such a wretched turn so quickly?

  It was not until the clerk of the court had called the room to attention and the judge entered that the chills began to run down her spine.

  Deena closed her eyes very tight and clenched her fists, torn somewhere between anger and relief, then muttering inwardly a few mouths of thankful prayers, Deena allowed herself a sigh.

  It was only after the judge took his place and started his session that Deena looked at Frank Marsden and realized that the person she was looking at she had never really seen before. It wasn’t the Frank Marsden whom she was led to believe was a real estate owner and sane person who was renting out his house to her. Now, the total impression he gave at that time was conventional. To see him one might have thought Frank Marsden was a bank teller or an insurance salesman or some other benign occupation.

  As the testimony began and the horrid accounts of what the prosecution said Frank Marsden did to those seven women and one man in the basement of the house located at 1420 South Douty Street, the person that Deena Hopping thought Frank Marsden had been became truly unrecognizable.

  It was Frank Marsden, of course, but the figure seated at the defendant’s table now bore scarcely any resemblance to that somewhat enigmatic and unremarkable figure Deena had first met only months prior.

  On the contrary, the Pennsylvania visitors were not there to sample the cultural amenities that the current nor the proposed midtown location would provide. When Judge Nelson Shadwick and his entourage arrived at the courthouse well past mid-morning, they went straight to Room 335. Judge Edwina C. Doescher, the usual occupant, had abandoned the sunny, cheerful chamber and accommodatingly moved into smaller quarters next door so the Federal crew could be more comfortable.

  While only about half as large as his usual courtroom, Room 335 was much cheerier. It should have put everyone in a happy mood. From the beginning, through, Judge Shadwick was out of sorts. Breezing into the building in a dark, striped suit, he was met, not with the anonymity he expected, but chaos. TV lights almost blinded him and still-photographer’s strobes winked in his face and lit up the courtroom.

  It seemed to put Judge Shadwick in a bad mood for the entire day. He without doubt came down hard on the media. Calling an ad hoc news conference, he laid down the law from his seat on the bench.

  “There will be no photos of any prospective jurors or those who may finally be chosen,” Shadwick barked. “You will not be permitted to follow them down the street or talk to them. We want an atmosphere of calmness and dignity. I will not let you—the media—interfere with this trial. Disobedience,” Shadwick warned, “will result in immediate banishment from this and all courtrooms in this building. I w
ill keep you out as long your presence here will be totally wasted.”

  To make his point, he called up a panel of prospective jurors corresponding exactly to the number of available seats: sixty-eight. Since there was, therefore, no room for the press to sit, they would have to go. When a reporter from the Delaware Coast Press asked if he would allow a pool representative to remain, Judge Shadwick turned a deaf ear. And when another reporter from Philadelphia protested, Shadwick angrily told him to go “file a suit.”

  Deena had to allow herself to smile at the last comment. The media had made everyone’s lives in and around Strafford a living nightmare with their nonstop presence and persistent questioning of all the residents in town.

  At long last the proceedings got started much to the happiness to all inside the courtroom. Deena, like everyone else, was sizzling. Even though the air conditioner was going full blast and the room was cool enough to serve as a meat locker, steam was rising off just about everyone’s brow. Shadwick was still fuming at the press, which was mad enough to throw all in attendance out of the courtroom.

  Frank Marsden’s attorney, a well respected defense lawyer from Virginia, named Kurt Sanson, was boiling because he did not like the look of the southern Pennsylvania panel, and Judge Shadwick had ignored his request to take the whole trial and its show on the road. On top of that, no one on the panel looked too excited about the prospect of spending half the upcoming year in Harrisburg when they could be in Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia.

  Deena noticed that the only person in the courtroom who remained unruffled despite the turbulence surrounding the trial and media circus was the prosecutor, Saundra Thornsberry.

  The proceeding began in earnest, finally. The first potential jurors were being called up for possible service before the court and the attorneys. It turned out to be a short-lived appearance for the jury pool. Within minutes most were dismissed by Sanson, using the first of his peremptory challenges. Since this was a new proceeding, both he and Thornsberry started over again with their allotments. Sanson was now down to eighteen. Looking puzzled but relieved, he seemed to Deena to be chewing his gum at sixty bites a minute.