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 12 - Consulting the Consultant's Cousin

Theo had rushed back into the room, and his service weapon was now aimed at Charles Westbrook. "Put your hands on your head! Now!" he ordered.

"I am unarmed. I mean you no harm, Detective Washington." said Westbrook as he raised his hands.

"Put your hands

on

your head." I said, though calmly. Westbrook did so. "Now step this way, towards us. Slowly." I said. Westbrook walked forward. After he was off the pentagram, I came forward and frisked him for weapons, finding none. "I'm going to handcuff you for our protection." I said.

"Certainly." said Westbrook, and I cuffed his hands behind his back. "Though there is no protection from the Higher Power."

"Let's go sit down in the front lobby." I said. Theo and I escorted Westbrook to the front lobby and made him sit down in a chair. I sat down in the one to the side, part facing him.

"Okay, Dr. Westbrook." I said. "Your State-issued ID lists this building as your home address. What's your real home address?"

"Why, right here." said Westbrook. "This is my earthly home."

"Where do you sleep?" I asked. "There are no beds here, no sofas."

"Really, Commander." said Westbrook. "Are you that interested in my sleeping habits?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." I said. "I'm also interested in what kind of business you're doing here. Explain that to me, Doctor."

"I guess you could say this is my church, whose sanctity you have violated." said Westbrook."

"Not at all." I said, holding up a piece of paper. "This warrant allows us to search the entire 'World Outreach Church' property, upon which this building sits. So I'll ask one more time... what is this place?"

"As I said, it's my church." said Westbrook. "A haven for the faithful, the supplicants of the Mighty One."

"Do you know a Pastor Raymond Westboro?" I asked.

"He was my cousin." said Westbrook. "My first cousin. I believe he died in your presence, Commander, though by his own hand. I'm not sure whether or not to thank you or swear vengeance upon you for his death."

"You should absolutely be thanking me." I said. "So let's quit playing games. Do you know a man named Lawrence Evans?"

"He was a member of the World Outreach Church." said Westbrook. "What of it?"

"Do you know a man named Bob Stevens?" I asked.

Westbrook sighed. "Aww. You were doing so well, Commander, and now you've strayed off the path. So I'm going to have to ask for a lawyer to be present before I answer any further questions. Why don't you take me to your Town & County Police Headquarters, and with that lawyer present I can accommodate your requests for information."

I was not fooled one bit. "Oh, I can't extradite you without the Court's permission." I said. "So we'll just have to take you to City Police Headquarters."

A moment later, City Police Officers came to the building. Theo and I exhibited badges. "Sir," said the CPD Officer, "we're here to search this property."

"Of course." I said. "And you can take this man to City Jail. He's a person of interest in the multiple deaths that occurred in the Town & County the other day. I'll come up tonight or tomorrow to interrogate him further..."

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

As Theo and I drove back home, he said "I don't understand, sir. Why aren't we getting papers to bring him back home? Or at least interrogating him at City Police Headquarters?"

I said "Did you hear Westbrook actually all but ask us to take him back to TCPD HQ?" Theo nodded, and I said "Now why does he

want

to come back into our jurisdiction? Especially with the crimes having taken place there? Something's up with that, so I'm doing it in the most correctly legal way possible. We'll file for extradition the proper way." Theo nodded.

"And there's another reason, which I need you to keep on the down-low." I said. "I want to see who comes and visits him. I want to see who his lawyer is going to be, if anyone else visits him. I seriously doubt I will get satisfactory answers to that if he's at Police Headquarters or County Jail, but we may get something if he's over there in the City."

Theo began chuckling. "I see what you mean about him all but asking to come over here." he said. "But I don't know if I will ever be able to think so far ahead about leaving him in the City, and for those reasons."

I chuckled myself, then said "I admit, it's a risk. Westbrook is very much a major part of this story. But the flip side is that no one would put him at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime, and we won't be able to hold Westbrook even if we do manage to extradite him. A good lawyer would make sure of that... and I suspect he's going to have the very best..."

Part 13 - Nellie Blye Westbrook

"You left him in the City?" Chief Sean Moynahan gasped when I told him what had transpired in the City. We were in his office. "Mr. Crowbar, I very rarely question your actions, but you are going to have to ex-plaaaaaain that one."

"Yes sir." I said. I told him what I'd told Theo. "I wouldn't be surprised if I hear from Jack Muscone while we're snacking on some beef nachos and beer at the Cop Bar."

"I don't think that's going to be happeninnnng tonight, Mr. Crowbar." said the Chief. "Everyone is still trying to collect data. And I bee-lieeeeeeve they've found some things, so you're excused to go get a report from Captain Perrrrlmannn."

I got the hint and moved out smartly. Captain Perlman was in her office. I knocked on the door, then went inside. Tanya had me sit down on the loveseat sofa in front of her desk.

"We got a few data items, sir." she said. "First, one of the survivors, Arthur Young. He's an accountant, and he looks like one, too with the 'Daniel Allgood' black hair and thick black-framed glasses he's wearing. We found out that he did the books for the World Outreach Church, but he left two years ago, right at tax-filing time. We don't know why yet, and he wouldn't answer our questions, citing non-disclosure agreements."

"Sounds like we need to get a subpoena to break through that." I said. "What else?"

"Ashley Perez." said Tanya. "Turns out she was arrested by the Campus Police about six weeks ago, at the start of the University semester. We didn't find out until now because she gave the cops a fake name and ID, one 'Jennifer Jones'. They arrested her for suspicion of stalking."

Tanya: "A girl named Mary Gabriel, an 18-year-old Freshman, filed the complaint. She said Ashley was trying to get her to go to meetings of the 'Church of the Release', but Mary is a pretty devout Baptist and goes to the Baptist Center. Then Mary saw Ashley following her a couple of times, and made a complaint. The Campus Police set up a sting, and caught Ashely following Mary. Ashley denied it, but now we know she gave them a fake ID."

Tanya: "We called Mary Gabriel upon finding out this information, and then Julia went to visit her at her dorm on Campus. Mary says she thinks she's still being followed, but thought maybe it was Campus Police or she was just being paranoid. Julia showed her some of the photos we have of the survivors of the Point Hollow event, and she recognized one of them: Gary King. She was sure he was watching her, sitting on benches as she walked by. Julia told Mary to walk with others if she can, to change up her normal routes and not go the same way twice in a row, and to call us if she sees King again, or if she thinks she's being watched."

"Wow." I said. "I'd say that

we

should maintain some surveillance on her, but she might see it and think we were perps. So what do we know about Mary Gabriel?"

"Freshman, from the Pottsville area." said Tanya. "Parents are middle class. Mary has a National Merit Scholarship, and a Baptist Church-sponsored scholarship, as well. No declared major. People at the Baptist Center like her. She's also a member of the group 'Abstinence Until Marriage', or AUM. That's a self-proclaimed religious group advocating remaining chaste until marriage. They have complained about the teachings of the Sex Professor on Campus."

"My wife, eh?" I said. "Okay, then. What else?"

"Remember Sophie Westbrook, from the Blassingame case?" Tanya asked. (

Author's note: 'Unresolved', Ch. 01-02.

) I nodded, and Tanya continued: "She's a descendent of the House of Westbrook that seems to be involved in this case, but another bloodline. Joanne called her, and Sophie had no knowledge of any of that, nor of Point Hollow."

"So if Joanne was available to call her," I said, "she must've come back from the

Town & County Examiner

. Did she find anything?"

"Ah, you got ahead of me again, sir." said Tanya with her cherubic grin and a twinkle in her eye. "Yes she did, but I'm going to let her tell you the story directly."

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

"Have a seat." I said as Sr. Detective Joanne Warner pretty much wobbled into my office. "Looks like you're going to have a big baby, and soon."

"Yes sir," said Joanne brightly. "I'll be glad when he's here... and yes, I just gave it away, it's going to be a boy."

"Good!" I said. "How's Leo taking it?" I asked, referring to her dog, who was the firstborn son of Bowser.

"He knows something is going on, but he seems okay." Joanne said. "Seth plays with him a lot. I think Leo is Seth's dog more than mine nowadays."

I smiled. "Yeah, I pay for Bowser's food, but I have no illusions about who owns him: Carole." I said. "So, what do you have for me?"

"The

Examiner

has preserved copies of all of their front pages going back to 1867." Joanne said. "A lot of it is on microfiche and is being put in to digital data servers for preservation, as well. Alison McFarland was a great help, but she made me promise to give the

Examiner

an exclusive, or at least a scoop, in exchange." I nodded.

"There

was

a Nellie Blye Westboro." Joanne said. "We have a birth record for her, in 1864, but no death record. She was a student at Agnes Wesleyan College, which was the University's sister school... literally. Agnes Wesleyan is where the women went when the University was all male."

Joanne: "In 1882, Nellie was reported missing. The University Campus Police still have it on their books as an open case. The

Examiner

reported that there were huge manhunts for her, and all over the region. They also reported that she told those who saw her last that she was going home to the Westbrook Plantation for the summer, which is Point Hollow today."

Joanne: "A week later, there was another front page report that Nellie was still missing, but the search was being called off. Nellie's father Lysander Westbrook put up $10,000 reward for information leading to her return, alive or dead. That was a massive amount of money at the time, but it was never paid out, and nothing was heard of Nellie again... well, almost."

Joanne: "It was very shortly after her disappearance that the stories began of Point Hollow being haunted. Crops began failing, the orchards stopped producing good fruit, and people began hearing a woman's screams in the Hollow at night."

Joanne: "And there's more: there was a dirt east-west road that went through there from the State west of us, and followed the southern border of the property then turned south at the creek that becomes the River. That road suddenly began flooding a lot, so they stopped using it and began using the road that we use today to get to Hammondsville, which is obviously paved now. People traveling that road at the time reported the screams. The Sheriff of that time would raise a posse and go up to investigate, but nothing was ever found, no bodies, no signs of activity, nothing."

"Not too much different from our Sheriff and his Posse today." I said. "That's very good information, Joanne."

"Does it help with the case, sir?" asked Joanne.

"It might." I said. "It just well might. It certainly adds some context to what we are dealing with. Anyhoo, you go ahead and go home, pet the dog, eat for two, and get some rest..."

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

I was just about to go home when Lt. Myron Milton knocked on my (open) door. I had him come in and shut the door behind him.

"Mary and I cracked the code to the website." Myron said.

"Outstanding!" I said. "What did you get?"

"First let me tell you how we cracked it." said Myron. "The website does look for a jump drive, and for a text file within the drive. There are three different words this website looks for, and I'm guessing it controls how much content the user has access to. The problem with this kind of security is that the web site must send embedded language of what it's looking for, and then what it gets back. And that's easy enough to find."

Myron: "The words 'one', 'two', and 'three' are the keywords, and they apparently are levels of access. Guru Stevens was level 2. Thomas Hall and Arthur Young were level 3. I'm guessing Hall wrote this software, and Arthur Young must be handling the books for this sect. Everyone else had level 1."

"So what are we looking at, here?" I asked. Myron handed me the laptop he'd brought in, that had a jump drive in it.

"This is an otherwise clean computer." said Myron. "Plug your internet cable into it, and see."

I did so, and Myron guided me to opening the web page. The jump drive's light lit up for a second, the a web page showed up. It looked like some sort of wargame image of a hellish post-apocalyptic battlefield. Then a box for name and password showed up.

"Put in 'HallT' for the name, and 'password' for the password." said Myron.

"Geesh, this guy would never pass muster in

your

I.T. Department." I said.

"You got that right, sir." Myron replied as I typed in the name and password. The background remained the same, but a menu popped up on the left side.

"I've already put all this information in the evidence servers, sir." said Myron. "There is a forum where all the level one's post, another one apparently accessible to level twos, but nothing exclusive to level threes. At least not that I've found yet."

"Okay, this is great stuff." I said. "I'll see you in the morning, to get this laptop back and look at the site some more."

"You can hold on to that one, sir." said Myron. "I'm doing forensic analysis on it downstairs."

I thanked Myron and dismissed him for the night. I looked at the website a little bit, seeing past dates and times... but nothing about any future meets. I decided to call it a night. I put the laptop in my safe, then headed home...

Part 14 - Interference

Saturday, October 5th. I was sitting on the back deck of The Cabin in the gloaming dawn, drinking a cup of coffee and listening to the sounds of my Town & County waking up. The Bulldogs had an away game today, thank Goodness. The Police radio was crackling from time to time, but with nothing interesting.

I heard the back door open, and somewhat to my surprise Carole padded out, still in her pajamas. Bowser and Buddy had followed for a moment, but seeing me and knowing that their charge was now safely in my 'custody', they took off around the side of the house to do their business.

"Morning, Daddy!" Carole said happily as she hopped up onto the metal mesh loveseat beside me.

"Good morning, Fussbudget." I said. "Why are you up so early?"

"I just woke up, Daddy, so here I am!" Carole said "Why are

you

up so early?"

I chuckled. "I always get up early. And I have to go in to work today. What are you going to do today?"

"Play with Tasha and Marie, I guess." said Carole. "Daddy, did you find out who the girl in that painting was?"

"Yes." I said. "Her name is Nellie. She was a college student in 1882. That is a long, long time ago."

"Did she die?" Carole asked. The question would've stunned me if this had not been Carole I was talking to.

"She died at some time, since she was born that long ago." I said. "But we couldn't find a record of her death, so we don't know for sure when she died."

"Oh. Okay." said Carole.

"Carole," I said, "I want you to be honest with me. Are you having dreams about this?"

"I don't know, Daddy." Carole replied. "I don't remember my dreams most of the time. But I don't think so."

"Okay." I said. "But if you do have any dreams that bother you, tell me and your mom right away, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy." Carole said. She hopped down off the seat. "I'll let Bowser and Buddy back in." She did so, and followed them inside, leaving me to ponder about a lot more than just this case...

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

9:00am, Saturday, October 5th. I got a call from Detective Robin Ventura of the City Police. After initial greetings, she said "Stuff happened last night, sir."

"Withhold my surprise." I said. "Gimme the details."

"Brother Terence Ballard and his 'friend' Jolene were bailed out by the World Outreach Church." Robin said. "Ballard's longtime lawyer came and visited them, and then went to Night Court and got them out."

Ventura: "The dogs found stashes of marijuana and cocaine, though not really in amounts where we can charge him or anyone else with distribution. We also found several handguns, and we're having Ballistics check to see if any have been used in crimes in the past. I do know that Ballard said he had the ones in his desk and podium of the church for protection, that he'd been in gangs as a teenager, and feared someone might come after him even though he'd broken off from them. We have all of them confiscated."

"Cool beans." I said. "What about Westbrook?"

"He was visited by his lawyer late last night." said Robin. "Chip Blake, of Gresham & Mason, P.C. Then Blake went to Night Court and got Dr. Westbrook released on his own recognizance. No ankle monitoring, nothing."

"I halfway expected that." I said. "Okay, then----"

"There's more, Commander." Robin said. "Before they were released, Ballard, Jolene, and Westbrook were all questioned by the FBI. Two of their Agents just came in and demanded to talk to them, and our guys didn't know any better so they let them."

"That's okay." I said. "What did they discuss, and who were they?"

"They gave their names as Special Agents David Rovers and Peter Page." said Robin. "And all they talked about... was

you

, Commander. They wanted to know why you had arrested them, what you had asked them about, how you got the warrant by which you arrested them, and so on. Every question they asked was about

you.

"

"That's

not

okay, but it's not surprising." I said. "Thanks for the call, Robin. I owe you one."

After disconnecting, Cindy came to my office door, and I waved her inside. "Jack Muscone and Tanya came in together." she said. "Tanya went to her office, and Jack is on the way." No sooner were the words out of her mouth that Jack Muscone appeared in the doorway

"Let's talk." Jack said.

"Come on inside." I said. "You too, Commander Ross." He and Cindy sat down, and I poured three mugs full of steaming hot coffee and passed two to them, and keeping mine in my Airborne School mug to myself.

"We finally got a hit on the Rovers BAU team." Muscone said. "David Rovers and Peter Page showed up at City Police HQ, and interviewed the people you arrested yesterday, Dr. Charles Westbrook, Brother Terence Ballard, and that one-time prostitute Jolene."