Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Tracking Evil, A Podcast: Part 6
Prologue:
The figure in a dark blue uniform sat in his car, as rain beat down against the windshield. The parking lot was full of vehicles but empty of people, the rain heavy enough to obscure the dark shape sat in the driver's seat from anyone who might care to glance in that direction.
He worried at his thumb nail with his teeth, left hand raised to his mouth as he gnawed nervously at the nail plate. As a particularly strong gust of wind rocked his car the man leaned forward and to the side, opening up the glove compartment. He pawed the assorted junk that always seems to accumulate in places like this aside with his right hand, his left thumb now fully in his mouth as he sucked on it in an unconscious throwback to a nervous childhood habit. Finally, the figure straightened back up, a small scrap of paper held between two trembling fingers.
The tremor in his hands didn't make his next task any easier as he carefully punched in the series of digits scrawled on the paper into his cell phone. He held it to his ear, clearing his throat nervously as the soft purring ringtone only seemed to increase his jitteriness.
The abrupt cessation of the ringtone was enough to make him hop in place on the driver's seat, the sudden silence no more comforting to the caller.
"He-hello?" he breathed nervously into the phone, unconsciously pitching his voice into a whisper despite being alone.
There was no reply, the man quickly glancing at the front of his phone to ensure the call hadn't been disconnected. It hadn't.
"Um, Hello...Hello?" He tried again. Again, only silence followed.
The caller had never identified himself as a particularly hardy person, especially mentally. As a child his mother's most frequent description of him had been 'sensitive', his father's less flattering appraisal had been 'damn nervous'. That sensitivity his mother had noticed in him might have been a delicateness but he also had a touch more perceptiveness than most. It was this characteristic that told him that there was a presence on the other end of the line listening.
"Uh, you asked. I mean you told me to call if I had news." he spoke quickly, anxious to finish his task, "Well there was a visitor today at the prison, a deputy sheriff, Deputy McGuigan. She was asking about you, took some stuff you'd left behind with her when she left."
The man paused then, waiting on a response.
"My regards to your wife." a low cold voice oozed from the phone and into his brain. The caller almost replied in turn before he remembered exactly who he was speaking to. Instead, he ended the call without replying, slumping into the seat, drained from the experience.
The weather washed over the car, allowing him an excuse to prolong his return to his shift at the prison. As he attempted to collect himself before returning to face his colleagues, he recalled the day he'd met the voice on the phone outside of the prison walls. Others had ridiculed the tall thin silent prisoner, guards and inmates alike but the caller had known from the first moment he'd seen him that the prisoner known as Ghost was not just dangerous, he was evil too. When the newly freed prisoner had shown up outside his house, chatting amiably with the caller's wife, a cold dread had squeezed the prison guard's lungs. To get rid of him, to get him away from his wife he'd quickly agreed to the small favour requested of him.
Now that favour had been done relief mixed with shame swept through the guard.
As the weather washed over the car, he covered his face with his hands and wept.
Episode 1: " Overland
Through the rye
Gun in hand
Bird in sky
Calling out to the world below
A-hunting we will go"
Arlene and Erica were playing to their strengths.
The Deputy Sheriff was enlisting aid for the hunt. Erica had mixed feelings about this. She fully understood the need for assistance but the loss of one of her comrades was still a painful reminder that when all was said and done, it was she who had begun this hunt, this investigation. As the instigator, some of the blame for Amos's death fell on her shoulders. She'd distracted both him and Duncan with sex, which had led, in part, to Arlene being ambushed. The distraction of the ambush had given Butterman the opportunity to find out more about his pursuers, and the sex scene he had no doubt witnessed had given him all the encouragement he needed to murder Amos.
Erica still found her sleep disturbed on a nightly basis by these thoughts.
While Arlene sought reinforcements, Erica looked to improve their odds in tracking down the killer by employing her journalistic investigative skills. She contacted the same law firm that handled Butterman's aunt's affairs. Speaking to the lawyer that Arlene had been in contact with, Erica was able to trace wildlife enthusiasts that his aunt had contact with over the years. A fruitful series of phone calls to these people had finally put her in touch with a rabidly keen local ornithologist who had been the beneficiary of the aunt's field notes. These notes recorded all of her travels and sightings over her lifetime of local wildlife, especially birds.
Some well-placed flattery later and the notes from the period where Butterman would have been holidaying with his aunt were FedEx' ed to Erica.
Erica then spent the remaining day and a half until Arlene re-joined her, pouring over the handwritten notes, attempting to decipher the flowing script and glean any information hidden inside.
Lunchtime found Erica sat by herself at a large booth in a local bar. The table was taken over by food and papers. A bowl of chicken wings to her left, that she reached for occasionally as she worked. The right side of the tables surface dominated by a map of the Ozarks region. She would read a passage from the field notes, compare something she'd seen in them on the internet, then finally a notation in red marker was made on the map itself. Watching her, the barman shook his head in puzzlement as the attractive brunette slaved away at her task, oblivious to the looks she was receiving from the bar's patrons.
Arlene had to clear her throat twice before Erica looked up blearily from her work. The older redhead grimaced at Erica's pale face a bloodshot eyes but she held off commenting on them. Behind her, a number of strangers congregated, so Arlene half turned to usher them into seats at the booth, waiting until everyone was crowded around the table before she began to make any introduction.
"Gentlemen, Lady...This is Erica." Arlene began speaking as the last person squeezed themselves into the booth. "She is the reason we're all here, the brains behind this entire event."
Erica gawped at Arlene when she heard this introduction. She hardly considered herself the brains, not after receiving so much help from experts like Arlene herself and others like Tiny. Nonetheless she recovered her composure and gave a hesitant smile at the four newcomers.
Arlene continued, now working her way around the table from Erica's right hand side.
"This is Trent." a black man in his early twenties nodded silently to Erica, "He is one of Duncan's nephews and he learned his trade following in his uncle's footsteps." Erica took this to mean that the well-built young man, with his serious eyes, had been or still was in the Army.
"Beside him is Lincoln, Duncan vouched for him, he has had some fugitive experience."
"Hey." the older black man sitting to Trent's right said, giving Erica a small wave from his hand. "Yeah, spent a few years tracking bail jumpers in Texas, before that I did some security work. By the way, Duncan said to say hi."
"Where is Duncan?" Erica asked, her face turning from Lincoln to Arlene and back again.
Lincoln smiled broadly at the question which did a lot to soften his hard flat features. The neatly trimmed goatee and freshly shaved head gave Lincoln a hard look that probably served him well in his profession. Arlene supplied the answer to Erica's question, explaining how Duncan had been showing off on a kids BMX bike and had managed to tear a ligament in his knee, ruling him out of the hunt.
"Beside me." Arlene said, going back to her role of emcee, "Is JP, who you can probably guess was born in the wrong century and has spent way too much time living outdoors."
The old man beside her cackled with good humour and stuck out a hand towards Erica, the first to do so. Erica took his hand, shaking it warmly as he continued to hoot with suppressed laughter. She automatically found herself liking him, his long white beard was raggedly trimmed as was the fringe of white hair that escaped the dirty grey baseball cap tilted back on his head. He reminded Erica of a character from the Dukes of Hazard TV show, Uncle Jesse.
JP wiped away tears of mirth, his blue eyes sparkling with humour. He gave Erica's hand a final light squeeze before releasing it and leaning back in his seat. "Don't you mind Sheriff Scarlet here." he said brightly to Erica, "She's still smartin' from havin' ta let me drive is all."
