by Mark Tufo
“I, uh…” he stammered, glancing down to the man on the floor. “I don’t think I’d put much faith in whatever came out of his mouth.”
Zimmer and Eckerson both crossed their arms over their chests at the same time and gave him a cross look. “At this point, I have nothing else to go on. Obviously there’s some kind of history here for a man to just go on the attack.”
“And in the presence of how many law enforcement officers?” Jeff added.
Sheryn stepped between the officers and Mr. Miller. “Perhaps you could tell us why this man may feel you had wronged him?”
“I have no idea!” Miller exclaimed. “He did some odd jobs for me in the past and he was paid for them.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, “If he feels I wronged him somehow, that’s his problem.”
Denise placed a hand on Casper’s shoulder and squeezed slightly. “Care to add anything enlightening?”
Casper refused to meet her gaze and held his head low, continuously shaking it. “I told him to just drop it…”
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Casper said a bit louder, finally lifting his face to meet the crowd. “I didn’t say nothing.”
Roger finally caught his breath and glared up at Justin. “That son of a bitch cheated us,” he coughed out. “And he knows he did.”
Justin looked down at the man and nodded. “How so?”
“We sold him…” he glared at Miller who’s features had gone slack, his eyes reflecting fear and Roger couldn’t fight the smile. He knew he finally had the rich man where he wanted him. “We sold him some stuff. And he cheated us.”
“You accepted my offer. The deal is done.” Miller thrust his chin out defiantly.
“Cuz you convinced us that we’d be screwed if we didn’t!” Roger yelled from the floor. “That stuff was worth a small fortune and you give us a lousy two grand.”
“What are you talking about?” Sheryn asked as she stepped closer, closing the distance and taking a much more offensive posture with Miller.
He stepped back a bit further and put his hands up defensively again, “Nothing illegal, I assure you. Simply some old family heirlooms that he wanted to be rid of and that I collect. That’s all.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Roger barked from the floor, bringing another round of coughs.
Miller’s attention was immediately turned to the man on the floor and he blanched once more. “Well…that’s what you told me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
Justin reached down and grabbed Roger by the arm, helping him to his feet. “We’re going to talk.” He pulled the man roughly to a side office. Roger shot Miller a snide smile over his shoulder as the door shut.
“I wouldn’t believe anything that came from his mouth,” Jerrod Miller warned.
“Then why don’t you come back in here and tell us your side.” Sheryn motioned him back to the interrogation room.
“I want him arrested for assault.” Miller pointed to the room Roger had disappeared into.
“Technically, it’s battery,” Eckerson said as Miller went back into the room he had originally come from. He sat down on the edge of Jon’s desk and looked at the mess on the floor. “Yeah, Foo’s going to be really happy when he finds out about this.”
Denise smiled at him and patted his shoulder. “But you looked so cool sliding across his desk like that. Made me hot.”
Jeff turned to her slowly and smiled. “Made ya hot, did it?” He wagged his eyebrows at her.
“Not really, but I thought it might make you feel better as you’re cleaning up after yourself.”
Jeff grunted a laugh and bent over to pick up the mess. Denise pinched his bottom as she passed by and went back to her desk to finish up with Casper. Eckerson jumped a little but chuckled as he picked up Jon’s belongings.
“What’s going to happen to Roger?” Casper asked quietly.
“If Mr. Miller is serious about pressing charges, then he’ll be charged and processed. He’ll probably stay the night here. But depending on what he says to Justin in there, he may not have to post bond. It will all be up to the judge.”
Casper looked like he was about to cry. “This stress is tearing me up inside.”
Denise leaned in and patted his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s just finish this statement, okay?”
27
Jon sat in the fold out chair under the awning of the RV with Ginger by his side in a matching chair. She had a Navajo blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she continued to scroll through the data that her team had collected on their trip to Texas displayed on her laptop. While Jon would be the first to admit that he had no clue what most of the numbers, charts and graphs meant, he was quickly learning that she and the others were more than serious in their study of the paranormal and that the data they had collected excited her greatly.
“So you’re telling me that this graph says that whatever you’re reading at the crime scenes is leaving trace evidence of ‘ghost stuff’ that’s higher than anything else you’ve ever read before?” he asked, clarifying what she had excitedly explained previously.
“In layman’s terms? Yes. Definitely.” Ginger pulled up another screen that displayed an average of their other investigations. “If you look at this graph, this is an average of all of our other investigations combined. The yellow peaks are the highest readings we’ve had, the blue is the low and the green is the average.” She typed some keys and the lines practically laid flat while a red line appeared near the top. “This red line is what we’ve been reading here.”
Jon let a low whistle go as he turned the laptop to where he could see it better. “That’s pretty wild.”
“Yeah.” Ginger nodded, smiling at him. “Wild to a factor of a hundred.” She pulled the laptop back momentarily and typed a few more keys pulling up more charts that Jon couldn’t make heads or tails of. “And the really scary part is, the other places that we measured from were active haunts. The ghost, or spirit or…whatever you want to call it was still active while we took our measurements. But here? We were taking our measurements hours after the activity occurred and the poltergeist was gone.”
“Polter…?” Jon gave her a questioning shrug.
“Poltergeist,” Ginger repeated. “Just another type of ghost. There are literally hundreds of names for them. Each culture has different types of spirits and different names for each one. Some are friendly and harmless, some are helpful, some are just curious, some are spiteful, others are mean, some are hurtful, others are in pain and spread sorrow…” She turned and he swore he saw real fear in her eyes. “But others are vengeful. They’re the worst. They stay on this plane with one purpose only.”
“Revenge.”
“Yeah.” She stifled a shudder.
“And you think maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here?”
She closed the lid to the laptop and set it aside. Snuggling closer to Jon, she ran her hands through his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. “I honestly don’t know, but if I had to guess, I would think so.”
Jon nodded as he laid his cheek against the top of her head. “How do we deal with something like this, Ginger? Up until a few minutes ago, I don’t think I really bought into the whole ghost story thing.” His eyes stared across to the flickering lights of the Dollar General Store. “I mean, it was sort of fun to bust the balls of the other guys when they brought it up, but…”
She chuckled, but shook her head. “It’s really hard to say. If we knew more about the ghost in question, I might could answer that.”
Jon sat up slightly. “We do,” he said abruptly. “I mean, I do.”
She sat up straight and stared at him in the faint yellow light. “What do you mean? How could you?”
“I…well, I mean, we…there was a waitress that…” he sighed. “There’s a book. It has the history of the county and there’s a story in that book about a sheriff that was killed.” Ginger’s eyes widened as he tried t
o explain. “We’re almost positive that if it’s a ghost, then it’s got to be him.”
“Okay,” she answered carefully. “Tell me more.”
“Just recently, the graveyard where he was buried was defiled…all the graves were dug up and…”
“What?!” she exclaimed, sitting upright suddenly, the Navajo blanket falling to the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Jon shook his head. “I didn’t know it was important.”
Ginger grabbed him by the arm and threw open the door to the RV, dragging him inside. She pushed him into the seat of the dinette and banged on the bedroom door before throwing it open. “Up and attem, lovebirds! We got work to…OH MY GOD!”
Jon was up and out of the seat in an instant but Ginger was back out of the bedroom and pushing him back to the front of the RV. “What’s wrong?” He craned his neck to look beyond her.
“Nothing,” she muttered to him, then turned her head slightly. “Put some clothes on for the love of God and get out here. We have work to do.”
Calvin stepped out of the door with a comforter wrapped around his middle. “Ginger, what in the name of…oh. Excuse me. I didn’t know we had company.” He extended his hand to Deputy Foo.
“Jon,” Foo said, extending his hand.
“Calvin. Calvin Whynot.”
“Clothes. Please,” Ginger said, arm extended, finger pointing. “What’s been seen cannot be unseen.”
Quinn stood in the doorway with a sly grin. “Give us a sec.”
“You’ve had too much secs,” Ginger said with a silly smile. “We have work to do. Pronto.”
“Yes, master,” Quinn teased.
“What is this all about?” Jon asked, thoroughly confused.
“You are about to tie all the pieces together for us.” Ginger ran a finger along the side of his face and tapped his nose.
“I am?” Jon was even more confused.
“Oh, yes you are.” She kissed the end of his nose.
Jon flushed slightly and Ginger smiled at him again. “I like how you turn red so easily.”
“Uh, yeah. Well, trust me. I wish I didn’t.”
Ginger wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him deeply on the mouth, taking his breath away and leaving him struggling for something to hold on to keep his balance. When she pulled back she hovered above his face and a slow smile spread across her face. “Oh, my god, you kiss good.”
“Wow,” Jon breathed, “my toes are curled.”
Ginger giggled and pecked a kiss on his nose. “If a kiss can curl your toes, imagine what else I could do if I—”
Calvin opened the door to the bedroom and stepped out. “Okay, we’re dressed,” he announced, interrupting Ginger’s proposal. “I’m not saying I’m dressed appropriately for company, but at least we’re decent.”
“As decent as I can be,” Quinn added.
Ginger sighed and slid in next to Jon, forcing him to slide over next to the window. “Fine. We’ll continue our conversation later.” She turned toward Calvin and motioned for the two of them to sit down and join them. “Deputy Foo has some information that will piece together this little investigation for us.”
Calvin sat down and his curiosity was instantly piqued. “Go on.”
Ginger turned to Jon. “Tell them what you were telling me.”
Jon cleared his throat. “Well, we were talking about your investigation and the data you collected? And I asked Ginger how to fight this thing. She said maybe if we knew who the spirit or polter…”
“Poltergeist.” Ginger wrapped an arm over his shoulder.
“Yeah. Poltergeist. If we could know the identity of him. Some sort of history. Well, we have that. There’s a book that details how he died, everything.”
“Tell them about the grave.” Ginger poked him.
“Oh yeah. And we know where he’s buried. And it was recently defiled by a grave robber. So if these killings are really being done by a ghost, I need to know how to stop him.”
Calvin sat back hard, his jaw suddenly slack, his head slowly shaking side to side. “Oh, this isn’t good.”
“What? Why” Jon asked. “I thought if we had all that information then you could tell me how to stop him?”
Calvin continued to shake his head. “No, you don’t understand. If the grave was defiled by a grave robber, there may not be a way to stop him.”
*****
Casper Wineguard sat in his cell and sighed. “What the hell did you say to them, Roger?” His eyes stared off into the gloomy distance.
Roger Culley paced his cell, a sour expression painted across his face. “I told them the fucking truth! Fat lot of good that did me.” He stopped pacing and stared through the bars to the cell across the walkway where Casper sat on his bunk. “Why didn’t you back me up?”
Casper shook his head. “I begged you to drop it.” He finally lay back on the bunk and covered his face with his arm. “I begged you, Rog.”
“Hey, fuck you, man!” Rog called out. “Who looked out for you all this time, huh? ME! That’s who.” Spittle shot out from his mouth as he shouted across the narrow hallway. “Who brung your sorry ass to the fucking cops when you stabbed some asshole? ME! Who had the plan to get us what was owed us when old man Miller put the screws to us? Me again. And who could have kept us out of the fucking pokey by backing me up when it was needed? You, ya sorry prick. But instead of manning up, you sat there like a little bitch and cried.”
Casper rolled over and turned his back to him.
“Don’t you fucking ignore me! I’m talking to you!”
“Pipe down in there or I’ll turn a hose on you,” the jailor warned.
“Blow it out yer ass!” Roger yelled back.
The jailor stepped out from behind his monitoring station and walked the short distance to Roger’s cell. With a sly grin he tapped the bars of Roger’s cell door. “Wanna spend the night in the drunk tank? No mattress, nice and icy, no toilet, no sink. Just a nice drain in the floor for you to puke and piss in.”
Roger glared at the smaller man and finally turned and sat down on his bunk. “Fine.”
“That’s what I thought.” The jailor turned and went back to his monitoring station.
“You still bitched out on me, Cas. We could be sleeping in our own beds tonight if you’d told them the truth. But no. You just bit your tongue.” Roger lay back on his own metal cot, the thin mattress providing little softness. “That fat fuck Miller…I doubt his rich ass was even charged.” He closed his eyes.
Casper didn’t turn back to face Roger, but he did lift his head slightly. “I’m sorry, Roger.”
“Sorry don’t cut the mustard. We’re stuck here ‘til the judge says otherwise. Fucking grave robbing, selling stolen property…there’s no telling what else they’ll dream up.”
“Assault and battery,” Casper added.
“Yeah,” Roger chuckled. “But that one was worth it.” He laughed louder. “Did you see his face when they processed us? He had a shiner and his fucking nose looked crooked.”
Casper chuckled then caught himself. “Yeah. It did look pretty good on him.”
“Hell yeah it did. I ain’t happy about the other shit, but I’d do a nickel just for that.”
Casper finally rolled on his back and stared at the gloomy ceiling. “I don’t think I can, Rog.”
Roger sighed as he, too, stared at the ceiling. “No worries, buddy. If it comes down to it, I’ll tell them you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Casper finally turned and stared toward Roger’s darkened cell. “Why would you do that?”
Roger sat silent for a moment then finally admitted, “Because they’d eat you alive in there, Cas.” His voice so soft that Casper had to strain to hear it. “No matter how pissed I might be at you, you don’t deserve that.” Casper felt his eyes welling up and fought the urge to choke up. “If anybody’s gonna beat your scrawny ass, it’s gonna be me.”
Cas snorted a laugh. “G
ee, Rog, that’s almost sweet of ya.”
“Yeah, well, don’t spread it around.”
*****
Stan walked Jerrod out of the sheriff’s office and to his Lincoln. He kept staring at the man’s face, still finding it hard to believe that he had been physically beaten at the police station while under their supposed ‘protection’ and by a known criminal as well. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive? You look like you’re in a lot of pain,” he asked, sincerely concerned for his old friend.
“I’m fine,” Miller snapped. With a sigh he turned and shook his head. “Honestly, Ingram, my pride is hurt more than anything.” He hung his head and averted his eyes.
“So what’s with the charges?”
Again, Jerrod shook his head. “Bullshit. Based on the word of a couple of meth heads that have broken into my house before. The judge will clear it up.”
“Look, Jerrod, I don’t mind coming out in the middle of the night and making your bail. I’m sure you’d have done the same for me if the circumstances were reversed…but this sounds fishy.” Stan shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
Jerrod finally lifted his face and met his gaze. “It’s not like it seems, I assure you.”
“I should hope not.” Stan’s features crossed with worry. “Those two fellows that they arrested looked…well, pretty rough.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Jerrod unlocked the Navigator. “In fact, I thought they were already handled.”
Stan shot him an unsavory eye. “What does that mean, Jerrod?” He stepped between him and the open door of the Lincoln. “That sounded rather ominous.”
Jerrod lowered his eyes again and shook his head, his mouth pulled into a tight smile. “Not like you think, Stan. Those two clowns tried to rob me. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure it was them. They were camped out behind my house and my security specialist was supposed to run them off. I was pretty sure they were dealt with.”
Stan stepped back slowly, still unsure if Miller was being completely honest with him. “Then what’s with the charges?”
