Return To Point Hollow Ch. 01

"Credit for all that should go to Commander Croyle." I said. "In fact, Sheriff... I was going to talk to you about putting her in for the fourth box on her uniform shirt." The Sheriff knew what I meant: we sometimes called the metal-bordered ribbons on our shirts 'boxes'. Teresa had the red box of the Medal of Valor, silvery-white box of the Police Cross, and purple box of the Purple Order (six times over).

"I think it's getting time for her to collect the whole set." I said. "She's earned a Distinguished Service Medal many times over. We just need to give it to her."

"I personally agree." the Sheriff said. "But she just got a promotion, and a big one if you ask me. A DSM would be piling on, and we've got a lot of Officers and Deputies doing outstanding jobs that need to be looked at for Sergeant positions and the like. And we need to give out some other medals like candy." I nodded; the Sheriff's words were flawlessly logical.

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

It was my Police iPhone, and it was Martha the M.E. I told her I was going to put her on speaker so that the Sheriff could hear her report also.

Martha said "The time of death appears to be between 2:00am and 5:00am. All six of them had breathed in some smoke, and the tests to determine what exactly it was won't be back for a day or two. But I did as you asked, and searched for recent injection sites, and all of them had been injected in the backs of their necks with something. We're running tests to determine what it was. From everything I'm seeing, I think it was some kind of poison."

"Self-injected?" I asked.

"Unlikely." said Martha. "The location on the backs of their necks is possible but not likely, considering they could inject themselves in many other places. All-in-all, I'm thinking they were injected by someone else."

"And no needles or paraphernalia were found at the scene." I said.

"That is correct, to the best of my knowledge, Commander." said Martha. "I'm calling it 'suspicious' for now. We'll know more for certain when the tests come back."

"Okay, thanks." I said. After disconnecting, I looked up at the Sheriff and said "I'm going to jump the gun on Martha, and call this a murder investigation...

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

At 10:30am, the Sheriff and Police Chief joined me, Lt. Commander Croyle, Captain Perlman, all the MCD Detectives, and Lieutenants Jerome Davis and Mary Milton for the meeting in Classroom 'E'.

I relayed Martha the M.E.'s initial findings, and announced that we were treating this as a murder case. I then turned the meeting over to Captain Tanya Perlman.

"Who are our victims, Lt. Davis?" she asked. Davis nodded to Julia Rodriguez.

Julia said "Six victims, four white, one black, one of probably mixed race. First was Bob Stevens, 28 years old, University graduate with a degree in Psychology, specializing in Spiritual Psychology. Never arrested on any criminal charges except for a recent trespassing arrest at Point Hollow. Did have a number of civil suits against him over the past several years, but he'd never lost in Court, though there were some pending cases."

Julia: "Two were University students. Steven Wilson and Lisa Rowland. Wilson is... was... a Junior, Biology major, 2.75 GPA, from Greenville, which is southeast of Rocktown in the southeast part of the State. Lisa was a Sophomore, Education major, 3.0 GPA, from Alvaton, just south of Westphalia. No Police records except for recent warning tickets for trespassing at Point Hollow, nothing on their University records, and by that I mean nothing at all: no Greek memberships, no major clubs. They're just part of the vast majority of students going about their businesses."

Julia: "The others were Dennis Bryant, Anthony Brown, and Ashley Perez. She's the mixed-race one. Bryant is 22 and a struggling actor from the City. He has a string of jobs in the waitstaff industry, with many restaurants. He also has several speeding tickets, the last two which were full misdemeanor offenses. And, of course, the ubiquitous trespassing at Point Hollow warning."

Julia: "Brown is black, just turned 23, and he was an auto mechanic. He'd just opened his own shop in Midtown after doing very well working for an AAMCO. No priors. Perez was 20, working in the Wal-mart in Town, and taking night classes at the Town Technical Institute in 'Medical Services', which could be anything from X-ray Technician to keeping records."

"Keeping records?" Teddy Parker said skeptically.

"Yes." said Lt. Mary Milton. "That has become a huge and specialized field, what with all the Insurance and Federal Government regulatory issues they deal with nowadays. Hospital H.R. departments are hiring people who know what they're doing with the paperwork."

Julia: "Perez had a couple of juvie arrests when she was 15 and 16. One was drug possession, the other was possession of stolen property. Looks like she was in with the wrong crowd, but was getting her life straight as a young adult. Warning citation for being at Point Hollow the other day is the only problem she's had since."

Just then the door flew open, and in walked ADA Savannah Fineman, in the white dress and back to the white high heel pumps. "I came by to get an update." she said. "I wasn't told there was a meeting going on."

"Just a preliminary meeting to get a handle on what we're dealing with." I said. "We don't even have autopsy results yet. If you want to stay, that's fine; or I can email you what we find out as we find it out."

Savannah responded by taking a seat. "No autopsy results at all?" she asked, peering hard at me.

"Just that Martha thinks they were murdered." I said. "Captain Perlman, continue with the meeting, please." No one present was mistaken about the underlying 'hint' of my words.

"Yes sir." said Tanya, who nodded at Julia.

Julia said "So far, there's nothing to connect any of these six persons, except being together at their deaths. We'll need to canvas friends and family to find out more about them."

Chief Moynahan said "I will be handling telling their next of kin. After that, you'll need someone to interview them."

"I'll handle that myself, sir." said Tanya.

"Any early ideas, Don?" Savannah Fineman asked. I could sense the unhappiness by some with the first-person familiarity with which Savannah had addressed me, and by others with her butting in on our case. I chose the 'pull my punches' approach for the moment."

"Not yet." I said. "We have almost no data at all. I also expect these excellent Detectives and their leaders to get this solved before I even hear any more about it. Lieutenant Davis, you are the liaison with the Assistant District Attorney; be sure to keep her informed of what we find in a reasonably timely manner..."

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

After the meeting, Savannah tore out of there, heading for the Chief's office. I asked Tanya and Joanne Warner to come to my office for one moment.

Joanne was heavily pregnant, and it was showing. She was expecting to deliver the baby in the late November timeframe. As she settled into a hot chair next to Tanya in her wheelchair, I said "When will you begin maternity leave, Joanne?"

"I'll be at the November 1st ceremonies, sir." Joanne said. "And I'll be back for the February 1st ceremonies. In between, I'm on leave, except for the Policeman's Ball, which I really hope I can attend."

"Sounds good." I said. "Okay, I asked you in here to give you an assignment in front of your Captain. I want you to research the Point Hollow house, its history, its legend, and going back as far as you can. Ownership, spooky stories, whatever you can find. Call it a hunch, but I have an idea that that information might become important in all this."

"Your hunches are as good as our facts." Tanya said in a brilliant display of asskissing. A red crowbar was waved in her general direction.

"We'll see." I said. "Also, Joanne, until we know what we're dealing with, for the sake of your unborn child, stay here at Headquarters rather than join the Detectives in the field for this one."

"Yes sir." said Joanne. "Captain Perlman has already grounded me on that score------"

*BUZZZ!*

It was Helena, saying that the Chief wanted to see me in his office...

Part 3 - The Painting

When I went into the Chief's office, Savannah Fineman was in there, and it was obvious she was pissed off. The Chief had me sit down in the chair next to hers.

"Soooooo, Ms. Fineman," the Chief drawled, "what are your issues again?"

"First of all," Savannah pouted, "why didn't you tell me you were having that meeting, so I could be at it on time?"

I looked over at the Chief, then back to Savannah, and said "First of all, we call meetings spontaneously when something that comes up compels us to. Second, even for meetings planned and announced in advance, we don't just call the D.A.'s Office. Right now, this case is nowhere near ready to bring to you, and you'd just be wasting your time at a meeting like this morning's."

"It's for me and the District Attorney to decide if it's a waste of our time or not." said Savannah. "And that brings up my next complaint: why did you have your Lieutenant as my liaison instead of Captain Perlman or yourself?"

"Because Lt. Davis is in charge of the case," I replied, "and having him as your liaison will get you more and better information in a more timely manner than anyone else will."

Savannah then said "And why aren't you personally handling this case and having all that information yourself?" I just looked over at the Chief, who looked back at me.

"Ms. Fineman," I said, "do you understand how things work here?"

"Don't patronize me!" Savannah almost shouted. "Of course I know!"

I said "Then you know that the Detectives investigate these cases, and I'm supervising them and everything else within the Operations sector of this Police Force. Once again, having Lt. Davis as your point of contact is better for you than anyone else; if you call me, I'll just say 'hold the line' and call Lt. Davis for the update myself."

Savannah was not willing to let it go: "You still haven't answered my question: why aren't you handling this personally, Don?"

"I just gave you my answer." I said. "Why is it so damn important that I be the one on this?"

"Because six people were found dead!" Savannah said. "This is a huge case for that reason alone! People are going to get scared! They're going to want answers!"

"Ohhhhh." I said, my voice mocking. "So it might get political. And you and your boss are very attuned to the political side of things." I then bore down on Savannah, staring hard at her. "This ain't the Charter Commission, Ms. Fineman. And I don't give a damn about the politics nor the optics. This Police Department's mission is to solve this and all the crimes that come to us, in a manner that gets us arrests and convictions... not what plays to the cameras."

Savannah was not mollified. At all. "Look," she said, "the District Attorney wants to be in the loop on this one, and she's assigned this to me. I want to be in the meetings on this. I want to know what the TCPD finds out, and as soon as reasonably possible. I want you to work with us on this case, not against us."

"Right back atchooo, Ms. Fineman." said the Chief. "We are doing our jobbbs here. Let us do our jobs, and stop taking offense or pretending to be slighted if you're not in every meeting we haavvvve."

"I can see this is falling on deaf ears." said Savannah. "You're not in elected positions, but I wish you would show some respect for the District Attorney, who is."

"Just one more thing before I send the Commander on his way to do his job." said Chief Moynahan. "You were not in the military and may not be familiar with some things about it. But I was, and I'm very much a stickler for a certain amount of courtesy and propriety. I know you and Commander Troy worked closely together on the Charter, and you may be on a first-name basis. But in a meeting with him where his subordinates are present, do him the courtesy of addressing him by his title, Commander Troy, and we'll extend to you the same courtesy."

Savannah's head snapped back as if someone had physically tried to hit her. She then stood up. "Whatever." she said. As she turned to go, she said "Once again, please keep me in the loop on this." With that, she walked to the door and exited the office.

"Shall I start a countdown clock on how long it takes Miriam Walters to call you... or the Sheriff?" I asked.

"Heh heh heh heh." the Chief chuckled, though not with much amusement. "Once again, Mr. Crowbarrrr, you have hit the nail on the head when you brought up the politics of it. And she didn't even try to deny it-------"

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

It was my Police iPhone, and the Chief told me to answer it. "Troy." I said. I listened for a moment, then said "Okay, I'll be right out there." Hanging up, I said "That was Chris Purvis. Something strange was found in the house at Point Hollow..."

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

I drove up to Point Hollow in my Police SUV. Cindy rode shotgun. As we passed the security at the front gate and drove up the drive, I said "The cleaning crew came to Point Hollow today as they do every Wednesday, to clean the house. Sergeant Morton was going to tell them to skip this week, in case the CSIs wanted to go through the house more thoroughly than the sweep they did this morning."

I continued: "That's when Chris Purvis had the insight to ask the cleaning crew to just look around and see if anything was out of place. And when they went to the greatroom, one of the cleaners started screaming her head off."

We were pulling up as I finished. I could see that there were still people working on the crime scene in the copse of trees. I got out, and saw that Cindy was getting out slowly, and looking around strangely. "Is everything okay?" I asked, peering at her.

"Yes." Cindy said, then seeing me continue to look at her, she said "Well, just between you and me, Don... when I was here this morning, I was feeling overwhelmed. The last time I felt that was when you fought the Slender Man here, and when we saw the Slender Man at Ronald Reagan Park." (Author's note: 'Return of the Slender Man', Ch. 02-03; 'Moonlight Shadow', Ch. 03.) "So I went down to the front gate with Captain Thompson, and I felt better once I was away from here."

"Yes, I noticed you looked like you weren't feeling well." I said. "Feeling that way now?"

"A little bit." Cindy said. "But not as strongly as before."

"Okay, if you get to feeling bad again, let me know." I said. We made our way into the house.

The front door of the two-story dwelling is in the middle, facing south. To the right was the dining room, which had no furniture in it. To the left was the greatroom, which had a couple of antique chairs and a beautiful Oriental rug. Senior Detective Chris Purvis led us through the hallway to the door of the room,m and into it.

On the far side, against the west side wall of the house, was a huge fireplace with an ornate mantle, and huge stones set into the floor in front of it. The one dead in front of the fireplace had the dimensions of the Golden Rectangle (1.618 feet by 1.0 foot). Strange, I thought. Then I saw two circular stones on either side of the rectangle, about three feet from it. Something was telling me that that was even stranger... and important.

"So what's the strangeness?" I asked.

"That painting above the fireplace." said Purvis. I looked up. The mirror that had been there was the one that was shattered when Leonard 'Sergeant' Sharples took a shot at me (Author's note: 'Point Hollow', Ch. 04.), and of course was no longer there. Now there was a painting of a lovely young blonde woman, her hair piled high in a fashion of the late 19th century, and her electric blue dress was frilly and of that same era.

Purvis said: "That painting was not hanging there last week, according to Maritza, one of the cleaning crew. She said that since the mirror was taken down during the Sharples sting, nothing had been hanging there at all."

"Hmm, interesting." I said. "It's a beautiful painting." I studied it closely, and did not see the author's signature anywhere. It was an oil painting, and while I'm no art expert, it looked like it was very well done. I sniffed at it, but did not smell any oils; it was not a recently-painted work.

I tried to take the painting off the wall. To my shock, it would not come off; it was as if it was bolted to the wall. Several of us tried to wrestle it in every direction, but it wouldn't budge. I searched for secret panels to see if there was a space behind the wall where we could unbolt it, but it was 'no joy' on that.

"Why don't you pry it off the wall with your crowbar, sir." said one of the Uniformed Officers.

"No, let's not damage it." I said. I then took two photos with my Police iPhone: one with the regular camera, and the other with the 'selfie' camera on the front of the iPhone, which could detect infrared. Both photos looked normal.

"Hey, Commander Ross," I said, "we need to see if we can identify------ Cindy!" She was sitting on one of the old chairs, her ice blue eyes deeply introspective. She had not heard me. I got right in her face and said "Cindy, are you okay?" She blinked a couple of times, saw me, then pitched forward!

I caught her before she fell out of the chair and eased her back. "You feeling okay?" I asked.

"I'll call for an ambulance." said the Uniformed Officer.

"Wait." I said, pointing at him. "Let me get her outside. Come on, Cindy." I said. Still dazed, Cindy let me lead her out of the room and out of the house. Once we were in the front yard, almost to my SUV, she finally blinked and came out of it.

"Oh my... ohmigod." she gasped.

"What is it?" I asked.

"That... that girl in the painting." Cindy said. "I was seeing her... not the painting, but the woman, in that dress... standing right in front of me."

"Did she say anything?" I asked. "Did you sense good or evil from her?" The other Officers were watching both of us, probably thinking that their Police Leadership was as strange as this haunted property. They probably were right, too.

"She didn't say anything." Cindy said. "And I sensed that she was good, but was... the victim of Evil, that something happened to her here..."

And then it started. At first, it sounded like a voice calling, and then it rose into a loud shriek that wailed on for several seconds. It was a woman's voice."

"It came from the house!" Purvis said.

"No, from the grove of trees!" said the Uniformed Officer.

CSIs came running out of the copse of trees. "Who screamed?" one of them said. "Was that you, Commander Ross?"

"No!" Cindy said loudly. "We all heard it, too."

"Okay, guys," I said, "look around for a prankster with a megaphone. Launch drones if you have any out here."

To Cindy I said "Let's get you back to Headquarters."

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

I was in the Chief's office. Laura was examining Cindy in the Infirmary room.

"No idea what it was." I said. "We all heard the scream, but everyone heard it from a different direction or location." I showed the Chief the photo of the painting. "This painting wasn't there last week, according to the cleaning crew. I have no idea who she is, but she looks... familiar, somehow."

"Funny, I feel the same wayyyyy." said the Chief as he gazed at it. Then he said "That Point Hollow place was almost the death of you, and now it's the death of six people. Maybe I should ask Father Romano to do an exorcism before letting anyone else go there------"

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

"Yes.... what?!... hold on, Sergeant, say it again, and a lot more slowly... mmm hmm... mmm hmm... oh, wow... okay, thanks for the call."