by C. C. Wall
“Reed?” Sue said. “Where is everybody?”
“Sue!” he said. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m pretty much it. Dyer is filing some papers in the back and Reagan is in his office.”
“Is Lukas here?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said. “No one has heard from him.”
Sue could barely think over the noise of the crowd. She stood up on the front desk, put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. “Listen up!” she shouted. The crowd quieted down. “I know that most of you are here you have loved ones missing, or injured. The rest of you are here to complain. Trust me, I know. My son is in the hospital right now after what happened last night. But let me tell you all the facts about what is happening. Chances are, most of your missing loved ones will be back before today is over. You technically cannot report someone missing unless they have been so for forty-eight hours. Most of you know this already. So more likely than not, once people get hungry, or sober up, I’m sure they will return home. Once that has or hasn’t happened, you can come back and report them missing. We actually have some open cases right now that are just as important as finding everyone who is missing, but as you can see, we are severely understaffed. With all of this congestion in this lobby, it’s makes it almost impossible for us to do our jobs.”
“Like shooting us in the head!” said a voice in the back.
“And now about that,” Sue continued, “A horrible event transpired last night. I guarantee, to all of you, that we are investigating that event to the fullest capacity of the law. Please understand, I know the fear you all have. My son, was there. Michelle was his friend. She had dinner with us at my house, two days ago. We are all in this together. Please, go home, go be with your families. Some of the people that are missing, might just be home now waiting for supper. Let us do our job, please. I promise we will make a public statement about this event and the ramifications that will come with it within the next two days.”
The crowd was silent.
“I won’t let you down. We are a tight knit community. Let’s not attack one another here.” She wasn’t sure how that last line sunk in. “At least until we know more of what happened. Believe me, If I find out that something fishy went on in this station, I will lead the charge.” That seemed to strike a cord with them. “Go home. Go be with your families.”
Slowly, everyone started to disperse. Sue jumped down from the desk and once the last person left, Reed, who looked dumbfounded, started a slow clap, hoping to start a round of applause. He looked around and noticed he was the only other one there.
“Stop it, Reed,” Sue said.
“No way,” he said. “You are the best damn deputy I have ever seen! I thought I would blow my head off in another couple minutes. You handled that perfectly.”
Applause from both ends of the room started. Reagan was standing in his doorway applauding and behind her, Dyer was too.
“That was great,” Dyer said behind a huge smile.
“It really was,” Reagan said. “Now get your ass in here.”
Sue cracked a light grin.
“Now I can freaking relax a bit!” Reed said. He went and sat down for the first time in hours, at his desk. He leaned back in his chair. “Dyer, be a doll, and grab me a cup of coffee.”
Dyer laughed at him. “You got it champ.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Reed said. He put his feet up on his desk and when his heels hit, it splashed a liquid up in the air.
A drop of it hit Sue on the cheek. “What the hell?” She wiped it and saw that the liquid was red.
Reed saw the look of shock on Sue’s face and looked at his desk. There was a small pool of blood forming next to a pile of mail. Reed locked eyes with Sue in silence.
Reagan caught on now too. “Jesus…”
“Here’s your coffee princess!” Dyer laughed. When he noticed no one was amused, he stopped in his tracks. “What the hell happened now?”
Reed pulled out a manilla envelope that seems pretty fat. It was heavy. When he lifted it, blood poured out of the bottom.
“Oh my God,” Reed whispered.
“Open it,” Reagan said.
Reed opened it and dumped its contents onto his desk. With a plop and a thud. A served hand dropped in a small pool of blood.
They all jumped back. Dyer spilled the coffee all over himself. The only person who didn’t seemed surprised by this was Reagan.
“Of course,” Reagan said. “This day just keeps getting better.”
“What is happening to this town?” Sue asked.
“I’m guessing there is no return address on that, Reed?” Reagan said.
“You guessed correct.” Reed answered.
Dyer came in for a closer look. “And no postage. Someone had to have brought this in here while we were here.”
“But who?” Sue asked. “Pretty much the whole town was here.”
“I’ll check the tapes,” Dyer said. “We are bound to see who it was.” Dyer ran out of the room.
“That looks fresh,” Reagan said. “It might be a message.”
“What kind of message?” Reed asked.
Reagan walked over to the desk and grabbed a pencil out of Reed’s pencil cup.
“That’s my pencil,” Reed said quietly.
Reagan flipped it over and that’s when they saw it. The message that they were being sent.
Sue gasped.
Reed vomited into a small trash can next to his desk.
Reagan sucked on his mustache.
The hand had a letter carved into the palm.
The letter was ‘E’.
Dyer ran back into the room. “The tapes are gone. They freaking came in here and took the damn tapes.”
Sue said, “They had to have some knowledge of the layout in here to be able to do this so quickly.”
“Is that an ‘E’ on it?” Dyer said in disbelief.
“It sure is,” Reagan said. He looked at Reed. “This is your case now. Finders keepers.”
“What?” Reed said.
Dyer put his hand on Reed shoulder, “We got this man.”
“I want you to bag that hand, put it on ice, run prints on it. Then I’m gonna need you to track down every missing person that has been reported today whether they have been missing for three minutes or nine years. I don’t care. It looks like a woman’s hand so start there.”
“We’re on it,” Dyer said. “Come on, Reed.”
Reagan looked at Sue, “Now you, get your bony little ass in my office.”
Sue sat down across the desk from Reagan. There was a bourbon waiting for her. Reagan picked up his and swallowed the whole thing. He poured himself another.
“Now, let’s get to the bottom of this B.S. about you quitting,” he said.
“I just have to…” Sue said.
“No.” Reagan said. “No you don’t. Plus, I know you don’t want to. The way you handled that crowd, I know you still have a burning for this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It does,” Reagan said. “I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but I seem to be missing my homicide department. There are a ton of open cases, and some psycho just sent us a Goddamn hand. I can’t let you quit.”
“I already did,” she said.
“I know this has to do with Jonathan,” he said.
“Why would you say that?” she asked.
He took another drink. “Let’s just say, he seemed to know about this letter before I did. He also wants me to arrest you for assault. I guess you took a swing at him?”
“I did, sir,” she answered.
“Then let me put it like this, if you quit, I have to arrest you.” He took another drink, “Or you can stay on, and I will let you watch this surveillance tape from Henry’s Handy Store, and then you can make an arrest and close one of these damn cases.”
Sue’s eyes got huge, “The tape has the murder on it?”
“It does,” he said.
“And you know who killed Michael?” she asked.
“I do,” he said. He smiled the biggest smile he has had on his face the last week.
“Why didn’t you arrest anyone?” she asked.
He leaned across the desk, as far as his gut would let him. “Because I know you need this. You deserve it.”
He stood up and popped the tape into the VCR. He dimmed the lights, walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Sue’s face lit up with bluish gray hue. She got close to the screen. Her eyes were open wide. Her mouth dropped open.
13 - Here and There
“It is finally your turn.”
“What?” Lukas said as he turned to see who was talking.
“It’s your turn, I’ve been throwing and now I’m out.” Mr. H said.
“I don’t understand,” Lukas said.
“Skipping rocks?” Mr. H said trying to jog Lukas’s memory. “I thought that’s why we came here.”
“Where are we?” Lukas said.
“The lake,” Mr. H replied. “I thought you wanted to come down here and get away from everybody. Get away from all the madness that surrounded you.”
“I don’t remember saying that.” Lukas said. He was very confused.
“You didn’t have to,” Mr. H said.
Lukas looked at the beautiful lake. The sun shined down it and rippled with the water. The breeze felt good on his face. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose, smelling the crisp, clean air, that somehow smelled fresher than anything in Black Star Canyon. He smiled and looked out as far as he could. “This is nice.”
“I thought you would like it here,” Mr. H said.
“I don’t mean to nag about it, but where is here? It doesn’t really look familiar,” Lukas said.
“Here, is where we are,” Mr. H replied.
“And where is here?” Lukas asked bluntly.
“Well, there,” Mr. H pointed across the lake. “There is where you were. This is where you are.” Mr. H, pointed to the old wooden dock that they were sitting on. “It looks small doesn’t it?” Mr. H asked.
Lukas looked across the lake and agreed. “Yeah, it does look kind of small.”
“It sure does. And quiet.” Mr. H said. “It looks very quiet from here. Doesn’t look like there is any problems over there at all at the minute, now does it?”
Lukas chuckled. “Nope. It sure doesn’t.”
“Makes you think, though.” Mr. H said. “From where we are sitting everything looks peaceful and normal, but from where we were sitting, it looked like extreme chaos closing in from every direction.”
Lukas sat and thought for a moment. That was a profound thought. He placed his feet down in the water, slowly moving them back and forth. The cool water flowing up and down his skin felt soothing. The stillness was nice but the pause in the conversation became heavy. Lukas had to break it. “You have a point there.”
Mr. H took a deep breath. “Do you want to fish?”
Lukas smiled. “I would love to.” He looked over and Mr. H already had two poles out ready to go.
“Here you go,” Mr. H said.
“This is great. I haven’t been fishing in forever,” Lukas said. “You know, I live right here in the one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and I never get to enjoy it.”
“Well you are now Lukas. Just remember that,” Mr. H said as he baited his hook.
Lukas grabbed a worm out of the tin can between them and cast out his line. He wedged the end of the pole between two slats in the dock and laid back. He looked up at the sky and saw birds flying overhead. Heard them as they called back and forth to one another. He looked up at the clouds that were floating by slowly. He was trying to pick out shapes in them. One looked like a hippo. One looked like a dragon. One looked like a gun, but he didn’t like that so he waited until the breeze changed it to look like finger pointing and then smiled.
“This is the life,” Lukas said. He put his hands behind his head and took another deep breath and let it out with a smile.
“No it’s not,” Mr. H said. “This is death.”
Lukas sat up quickly and said, “What are you talking about?”
Mr. H chuckled and said, “This is death. You are over there, on the floor of your apartment. Dead.”
14 - A Fish Story
“I can’t be dead,” Lukas said. “There’s no way. There is too much left to do.”
“But that is what you wanted,” Mr. H said.
“No,” Lukas said. He shook his head. “That’s not what was supposed to happen.”
“But that is what did happen,” Mr. H said.
Lukas looked out onto the water. It was very peaceful. Everything had a calmness to it that was new to him. He also knew that it wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve this kind of peace, he thought. “I just wanted to end that moment.”
“You did do that,” Mr. H said. “Very well I might add.”
“But I was supposed to wake up.” Lukas was getting distraught. “Maybe not today, but someday soon.”
“Then maybe you took too many pills,” Mr. H said.
“No shit!” Lukas yelled. His voice echoed around them. “I was just supposed to suffer for what I did.”
“Again, you have succeeded,” Mr. H said.
Lukas shouted again in frustration, “Not if I’m dead!”
The two sat the on the dock with their feet hanging in the water. Mr. H took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He was trying to get Lukas to relax and enjoy himself. He could tell that Lukas was starting to calm down slowly. The breeze felt good on their skin and the sun shined brightly off the ripples in the water.
“The fish are not biting as much as I thought they would,” Mr. H said. “Then again, you were quite loud.”
Lukas nodded. “Sorry.”
“Do not be,” Mr. H said. “It is clear you are having issues with your new plight.”
Lukas wanted to scream, but he knew that everything Mr. H has said has been accurate. How mad could he possibly get at him.
“Look at that!” Mr. H said. “It seems that you have something on your line.”
Lukas looked at the pole that he set up in the slats on the dock and saw that the line was slowly moving out of the reel. He picked up the pole slowly as to not frighten the fish. He very carefully started to reel it in. The reel would click. Then click again. Then again. The pole began to bend. The force made the pole curl. Lukas started to reel it in faster and faster. He would give it some line, then reel it in more and more. The fish on the end of the line got weaker. It didn’t pull so hard. It finally gave up. Lukas was able to reel it in effortlessly.
Lukas was shocked to see that on the end of his line wasn’t a fish at all. Wet hands came up out of the water and grabbed onto his thighs. He tried to jump back but couldn’t. It was Jane Doe. Her fingers pressed harder into his legs. She was slowly rising out of the water until her head was just above the dock. The hook was still in her cheek. Her wet skin was grey and her blonde hair looked white as it laid slick on top of her head. Her pale eyes peered into Lukas.
“You can’t help me the way you have been trying,” she said. Her voice was ghostly. It was the loudest whisper that Lukas had ever heard.
“What?” Lukas said.
“That is why they had to take me away,” she said.
“What are you talking about? Who are they?” he asked.
She seemed to levitate out of the water. Her body followed up Lukas’s legs. Lukas couldn’t get away, but he laid back on the dock in defense. Her body slithered through the air. She moved up his torso a fraction of an inch above him. Her face was level with his. Drops of water rained down onto Lukas. The drops that landed in his mouth were saltier than anything he had ever tasted.
“You won’t be able to ever find out anything by trying to solve my murder,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” Lukas said. “Why won’t you just answer me.”
�
��The only way to find out what happened to me…” she paused. Her face was even closer to his now. Their lips slightly touched. Static electricity from the graze, startled Lukas.
“Tell me!” Lukas begged.
She was gone.
“Where did she go?” Lukas yelled. He looked all around while laying there.
“You got a fish on you,” Mr. H said.
Lukas looked down and saw a small trout on his line. He sat up, took the hook out of the fish and threw it back in the water. “You saw her right?”
“Yes,” Mr. H said. “I will not let anyone know how small it was, if you would like to exaggerate its size.”
Lukas shook his head. “Not the fish! Her! Jane!”
“Oh yes,” Mr. H said. “She seemed to have some important information for you.”
“But she didn’t get to finish,” Lukas said. “She didn’t get to tell me how to solve her murder.”
“What did she say?” Mr. H asked.
“She said that I won’t be able to solve her murder by investigating it,” Lukas said.
“Then she told you enough I think,” Mr. H said.
“I don’t think so,” Lukas said.
“It is easier to save someone from drowning by keeping them away from water as opposed to teaching them to swim,” Mr. H said. “Stay out of the water, Lukas.”
Lukas looked down and pulled his feet back onto the dock quickly. He looked intently at the water and then back at Mr. H. His mind was racing. He no longer cared for the peace and the tranquility of the place they inhabited. There was only one thing on his mind.
“I have to get back,” Lukas said. “Now!”
15 - The Cracking World
Sue couldn’t wait anymore. She was speeding through town, even faster than usual. She slammed on the breaks right when she flew between The Burger Shack and Boss Liquor. She spun the wheel around and on any other day, she would have been impressed by the fact that she flung the car around right next to the curb in a skid. On that day though, she had many other things on her mind.
She ran up the stairs and down the hall to Lukas’s door.
