Return to Point Hollow

This story is part of an ongoing series.

The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and

constructive

criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

***

Part 1 - The Crime Scene

"Hell of a way to break in the new stars on your shoulders, eh?" said Deputy Chief Cindy Ross as she came up to me. I was wearing a windbreaker jacket, same color blue as my Police pants ('trousers' to our British friends), and I had soft shoulderboards of the same color on the epaulettes with a thin line of gold thread at the shoulder end, and just above that an embroidered silver star. Cindy's windbreaker was adorned with a metal star at the shoulder ends of her epaulettes.

"Great day to be alive." I said, paraphrasing an old Army saying. "Great day to be an Officer in the Town & County Police Force. Out of curiosity, why are

you

here?"

"There was no coffee klatch, so I hitched a ride with Captain Thompson." said Cindy. "The Press is being kept out of here for now, but they're going to want some information, and soon."

'Here' was Point Hollow, the legendary and infamous farmhouse and grove estate in the very northwest corner of the County, and also the State; the property's north and west borders literally were the State Line. To the east was the bluff upon which the weather station now was. At the base of the bluff ran the River, which was was not as wide as it was flowing through Town.

The old mansion was considered by many to be haunted, and the copse of trees that ran south of the front yard were thick; it was dark underneath the canopy of their branches. It was said that the screams of the Dead could be heard at night, and I'd heard a few of those screams myself. This was also the place where I had defeated the Slender Man in personal combat, and where he'd held seven children hostage. (

Author's note: 'Return of the Slender Man'.

)

When I'd come into the Station at 6:00am, Wednesday, October 2nd, the call had come in that bodies had been found. I immediately drove up, and found that two Patrol cruisers were already there.

"They're in the copse of trees, sir." said Patrolman Hardy. "West of the Ritual Tree." The Ritual Tree was a huge, gnarly tree with a massive exposed root system, on the east side of the copse, very near the River. It was where a couple filmed themselves having sex in a previous case (

Author's note: 'Point Hollow'.

), and was believed to be the spot where demonic rituals had been performed in past decades.

"Sir," said Patrolman Drew, "we smelled an odor when we got here. I've called in a HAZMAT team and notified our Crime Lab people to come in with Tyvex suits."

"What was the odor like?" I asked.

"Foul. Really bad." said Drew. "Like a sewer and rotting decay, but even worse."

"Like brimstone?" I asked, thinking of the hellish aspects of Point Hollow.

"I don't know what that smells like, sir." Drew replied.

"Like rotten eggs?" I asked, as brimstone was just another name for sulfur.

"Worse than that, sir." said Drew. "A lot worse. What I smelled here was the worst smell I've ever come across."

"Okay." I said. "As soon as some people get here to secure the scene, you two are to go to the Hospital and get checked out. Do not pass 'GO', do not collect $200. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir." said Hardy and Drew.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now, as the sun peeked over the mountain finger and bathed us in its light, the HAZMAT team was preparing to go in and check for contaminants. Two techs from the State Crime Lab and one off my CSIs had also shown up, and they were wearing Tyvex suits and chemical masks. They were communicating through wi-fi earbuds and little microphones in their masks. Neat technology, I thought to myself.

They began investigating along a trail from the yard into the copse of trees, at the point where the Slender Man had emerged from the copse to face me on that horrific night all those months ago. The HAZMAT guys and a CSI tech went first, making their way towards the bodies, followed by the other CSI people.

As I watched, more vehicles began arriving. One of them was Commander Cindy Ross, with Captain Damien Thompson. Another was Captain Tanya Perlman's Police van, which was specially fitted to allow her to drive it with what looked like motorcycle handlebars instead of a steering wheel. It also carried her Tank as well as her normal wheelchair. And in the back of it was a computer console and four video screens in a 2x2 matrix, hardened like military equipment to withstand rough roads, which allowed her to see what camera operators recorded at the scenes.

After talking to Cindy, I called out "Perlman! Have they gotten to the bodies yet?"

Tanya said from inside her van: "They're just coming up to the bodies now, sir. HAZMAT took an air test, as well as something that looks like residual powder from some leaves on the trees just east of the bodies. They're concerned that something like anthrax spores may have been released."

"Yeah, right." I said sardonically to Cindy. "Anthrax is a bioweapon. It wouldn't kill people in just hours. And if it is anthrax... then we've all been exposed."

"Yep." Cindy said. "Don't we have some antidote at Police Headquarters, in the Infirmary?"

"Maybe." I said. "I'd rather have my favorite doctor at the Hospital handle that, though." Cindy nodded.

"Crime scene is marked." said my CSI, her voice coming over the wi-fi to Channel 5 encrypted Police radio. "The six deceased persons all have bluish lips and skin, and severely bloodshot eyes."

"Roger that." called in Tanya from her van. "We'll send in people to process the bodies. Tell the HAZMAT team not to walk around anywhere. I want to look for footprints in the area."

I called out "Tell them to send us video of their faces."

"They don't have video equipment, sir." Tanya said. "I'm sending in someone with a camera wrapped in protective plastic now." A second later I saw a CSI tech in a mask and Tyvex suit with a camera inside a plastic bag go into the copse of trees.

"These guys are good." Cindy said. "They're handling this situation very well. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm surprised. They're acting like it's just another day at just another crime scene."

"After that time we found those frozen mothballs," I said, "Teresa has been training the HAZMAT teams as well as our techs. It's paying off now." (

Author's note: 'Frozen Mothballs'.

) Then I added: "And damn right we're good." Cindy grinned at that.

I said "Captain Perlman, has anyone checked the house yet?"

"Yes sir." said Tanya. "While Drew and Hardy were finding the bodies, Goodwright and Burrell checked on the house. It was locked all the way around, and there were no footprints or anything suspicious around it. After finding the bodies, Goodwright was authorized to enter the house and search it, and he picked the lock. That search came up totally empty."

"Okay, thanks." I said. To Cindy, I said "I've always wondered if that house has any secret passages or tunnels. But none have ever been found."

"I doubt there are any tunnels, sir." Cindy said. "This area is low-lying. The house is on a knot that elevates it, but if you dig too deep, you'll get groundwater seeping in." I nodded in agreement.

Just then, Lt. Commander Teresa Croyle came up, along with Lieutenant Jerome Davis and Detective Sergeant Julia Rodriguez. "Good morning, sir, ma'am." said Davis.

"Good morning, guys." I said. "Commander Croyle, make sure the perimeter is secure. I don't want the Press trying to sneak in."

"Yes sir." said Teresa. "Lieutenant DeLong has anticipated you... and the Press. We've already caught Bettina's cameraman trying to get in near where the River leaves the property. DeLong escorted Turnbull back to the Press vans rather than arrest him, but they're all on notice now."

"Commander Troy!" called out Tanya Perlman. "I've got video of their faces." I rushed over to the van and looked in. Tanya had recorded the video feed, and was playing it back.

"Well, well, well." I said. "Even with that blue face, I can tell that is Guru Bob Stevens."

"It sure is." said Teresa Croyle, who was looking in also.

"Sir," said Julia Rodriguez when she looked in at the six dead faces, "I think those six are the ones we arrested the morning of September 24th. I remember it because it was the day of the Charter vote, and you were wearing civilian clothes when we interviewed the Guru."

"I think you're right, Detective Sergeant." I said. "Great observation and memory to go along with those new Sergeant stripes." Julia had just been elevated to Detective-3, a.k.a. Detective Sergeant.

"Guy didn't learn his lesson." said Teresa Croyle. "Cost him his life, this time."

"Yeah." I said. "Captain Perlman, Lieutenant Davis, we will treat this as a possible mass homicide until we learn differently."

"Roger that, sir." said Tanya. "Jerome, take charge of the crime scene. All MCD Detectives are on this, as one Team."

"Yes ma'am." said Davis. He and Rodriguez stalked off to put on Tyvex suits and go see the crime scene.

"Oh my God, would you look at that." I heard Cindy say. I followed her gaze down the road and worked hard not to burst out laughing.

Assistant District Attorney Savannah Fineman had just gotten out of her expensive Mercedes and was walking up the driveway towards us. Her long blonde hair was not quite as platinum blonde as Cindy's, but was lighter than honey-blonde. What was amusing was that she was wearing a fairly clingy white dress, and white stiletto pumps.

"I'll handle this." I said. I walked down the drive to meet Savannah. "Hello, Ms. Fineman. What brings you here?"

"D.A. Walters sent me." Savannah said. "She said something about multiple deaths?"

"Yes." I said. "But you are not dressed for the occasion. Those high heels will work fine in the office or a Courtroom, but not on this ragged Point Hollow terrain." Just then Dr. Christina Cho of the State Crime Lab came up.

"Sir," Christina said, "I have some tennis shoes and a Tyvex suit in our van."

"You are a blessing, Dr. Cho." I said with a smile. "Yes, please help ADA Fineman. Savannah, you know the Chief Chemist of all the State Crime Labs, Christina Cho?..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I had also put on a Tyvex suit over my uniform, and was escorting Savannah Fineman down the pink-flag-lined route. I said "If you're going to visit crime scenes, you might want to put a pair of tennis shoes or work shoes in the trunk of your car, along with some clothes you don't mind getting dirty."

"Yes, so I'm learning." said Savannah. "By the way, the new stars look good on you. Liking 'em?"

"It's all the same to me." I said. "But the Sheriff is loving his four stars." Savannah chuckled.

"Keep me in the loop on everything you do with this case, okay?" Savannah said. "Miriam thinks this could get big and ugly in a hurry."

"Either I or the lead Detective will send you reports." I said. "And like all good Police Officers, I'm only a phone call away." The joke did not go over well, as Savannah said nothing.

We came up to the scene behind Davis and Rodriguez. "Sir," said Julia, "it looks like they were sitting here when they died."

"I agree." I said.

"How do you know that?" asked Savannah.

Julia replied: "Four of them, including Guru Stevens, are lying on their backs, and two on their sides. People who lose consciousness while standing usually fall forward, unless pushed backwards. And to that point, there are no indentations in this soft soil that would suggest a person falling and hitting the ground."

"Sir, they're in and out of

rigor.

" said Jerome Davis. "And their clothes are wet, suggesting they were here when the dew fell last night."

I nodded. "So where is Martha the M.E.?"

Christina Cho said "She's going to meet the bodies at the State Crime Lab, sir. We have a clean room for hazardous situations like this, and she has a chemical mask that she uses when foul-smelling, decomposing bodies have to be autopsied."

"Sounds like a plan." I said. "Good work, all of you. Okay, let's follow the pink flags here, to see what else was going on."

I began walking east, towards the River. Jerome Davis came with me. The pink flag trail had stopped, but the footprints did not. I groaned. "Oh no." I said.

"What is it, sir?" Jerome asked.

"Someone trampled all over this area around the Ritual Tree." I said. "HAZMAT booties, if these impressions are any indicator. They have destroyed my crime scene. Now I can't tell if it was just our six dead people, or if there were others here last night..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When I came out of the copse of trees, I went towards the HAZMAT vans. "Who's in charge here?" I called out.

"Me." said a man about 30 years old, medium height, with black hair and a pockmarked face. "Sergeant Armus Paulus. Good to meet you, Commander."

"I wish I could say the same." I said. "What I need to know is if any of your team members left the pink-flagged areas."

"After we cleared the area around the bodies, we continued east, towards the River." said Sergeant Paulus. "It was away from the bodies, so we just checked for residual hazardous materials the wind might've carried."

"And you walked all over an area that might've been part of the crime scene last night." I said. "Now I can't tell which tracks are your team's, and which might've been made by others at the scene... others that might've lived and could tell us what happened to those six people."

"Oh." said Paulus, the air coming out of his sails.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it." I said. "We're going to have to do a lot more training so that this doesn't happen again. And Commander Croyle will be very thorough in her training."

"Yes sir, we know." said Paulus. "She had us drilling in full gear with the Crime Lab teams... in 95º heat."

"Yes. So what did you guys find?" I asked.

"They'll have to test some things in the lab," said Sergeant Paulus, "but there was some residue on leaves in the area. You were in the Army, weren't you sir?" I nodded and Paulus said "You know those colored smoke grenades, especially the red and green ones?"

"Yes." I replied. "CS gas grenades, as well."

"Yes sir, exactly." said Paulus. "The smoke grenades, they leave residue, and what we found looked like that. I can't say it was a smoke grenade, it could've been something in a fire in a grill, but it looks like there was smoke that left a heavy residue..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When I got back to Tanya's van, which I wanted to call 'Tanya's Truck', I noticed that Sheriff Griswold, Chief Moynahan, Public Health Officer Beth Paige and Assistant PHO Stella Waters were standing around the side door of it. I went over.

"Where's Commander Ross?" I asked Teresa Croyle quietly.

"She went down to the property line, sir." said Teresa. "Ostensibly to confer with Captain Thompson on Press relations. In reality... she was starting to feel bad, and not in a physical way. She gets really bad vibes around this place. In the meantime, sir, your place is over there with all those high-ranking Public Service Department people. Definitely out of my league." A red crowbar was waved in her general direction, but I took her advice and went over to the van.

"Hello, everyone." I said. "To what do we owe the pleasure of the Public Health Officers at this crime scene?"

Beth Paige said "When I heard our HAZMAT team had been deployed, I came up to see how they were doing... and

what

they were doing."

"What they were doing," I said, "was contaminating my crime scene, pun not intended. I've already talked to them about it, and we're going to have to have some cross-training."

"What happened, Mr. Crowbarrrr?" asked Chief Moynahan quickly, before Paige could react.

"They went beyond the pink flags that show where we'd examined the scene." I said. "And walked around an area where others may have been gathered."

"I'm sure they followed every protocol correctly." said APHO Stella Waters, who was short and gaining a bit of weight, and her voice shrill and defensive. I curbed my irritation as I explained further to the Chief, and also reported on the residues they'd found.

"Smoke grenades?" asked the Chief.

"Or something thrown into a fire that was burning in a grill or a can, or something like that." I said. "But we won't know until we get Martha's autopsy if that is what killed them. I'm inclined to think it was something more, like drugs ingested orally or injected into the bloodstream. But that's theorizing without data..."

Part 2 - Gathering Data

10:00am, Wednesday, October 2nd. I was sitting in my office starting the paperwork on the new case when there was a knock on the open door, followed by Sheriff Griswold coming in.

"Have a seat, Sheriff." I said. "Want some coffee?"

"No thank you." growled Griswold as he sat down in a hot chair. "I just had some while talking to Moynahan."

"Those stars getting heavy on your shirt collars, sir?" I asked with a grin.

"Har." said the Sheriff. "At least I look like most of the other Sheriffs in the State now. And we really should be calling you 'Chief Troy', as in 'Assistant Chief'."

"One star in the LAPD is 'Commander', sir." I said. "And like I told my Angels, I like the name 'Commander'. When I was young, I'd watch that 'Space:1999' TV series, and I always dreamed of being Commander of Moonbase Alpha. 'Commander' in the Town & County Police Force is a good close second to that."

"Har." the Sheriff barked, his mustaches twitching. "So that's the secret origins of that. Well, I'm good with it. So,

Commander

, what I came by to tell you was that I had a conversation with PHO Beth Paige. She apologized for her HAZMAT team damaging part of the crime scene. And she and I both appreciate you not taking her head, nor her HAZMAT team's heads for their errors."

"Is my reputation really that bad, sir?" I asked.

The Sheriff understood. He said: "There's an old Klingon saying that goes '

a man's reputation is like his shadow: sometimes it precedes him, and sometimes it follows him

'. Your reputation is like that, too... outstanding Detective, great leadership, good teacher, but also very direct if not outright confrontational at times. You strike loyalty in many, and fear in others. And that's not a bad thing at all... used properly."

He continued: "You handled the HAZMAT team situation pretty well today. And you handled Savannah Fineman showing up very well, also. I know that some of your fellow Officers are not happy at all that she showed up, but you made lemonade out of lemons with that."

"Yes sir." I said. "We're going to have to work with the DAs, no matter what Miriam Walters does. And she backed off on demoting Paulina, at least to this point. It is what it is."

"What do you think of ADAs, or DDAs, showing up at our crime scenes in general?" asked the Sheriff.

"I'm surprised they don't show up more often." I said. "And I don't have a problem with it, provided they mind their P's and Q's, and don't interfere with our CSIs. With six dead at one scene, this one is going to be a biggie, so I can understand Walters sending someone out. Why Savannah, though? That's a different question."

"Like you said, it's a big one." said the Sheriff. "I also came to tell you that I received a ton of compliments from Fineman and Paige and everyone, on how well the CSIs and Crime Lab teams did at the scene. It went very smoothly, very efficiently, and under difficult if not potentially dangerous conditions. I will add that the Uniformed Officers and their leadership also did a great job securing the scene and controlling everything."