Reunion Fever Ch. 04

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, racism, 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.

There may or may not be discussion of political issues in my stories. If you are a Snowflake that feels you need to be protected from any mention of politics, then click the Back button now, and never attempt to read any of my stories ever again. You've been warned.

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Part 10 - The Crime Scene

10:55pm, Saturday, October 2nd. As Police formed a cordon around us, Laura rushed up to us and knelt down by Craig Reynolds. She glanced at the knife wound, then looked at his face.

"He has a heartbeat, but he's not breathing." she said. "Don, start CPR with me." She tilted his head back and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while I performed chest compressions, more to get his lungs working than his heart. A few seconds later, Craig coughed and spit up some water, then began breathing again.

"Hold him still." Laura said as she began closely examining his knife wound. "Okay, no gushing blood, that's good---"

"CRAIG!" a voice rang out. It was Jenny Reynolds. Leanne Wisocky restrained her, assisted by Deputy Tyrone Biggs. "Let me go!" Jenny yelled out. "Craig!"

"Hey... Hey!" I said as I got into Jenny's face. "He's alive, and my wife is a very good doctor. Let them do their jobs, okay? Calm down!" Jenny stopped fighting, and began crying. "Craig..." My mother arrived and assisted an Officer in getting Jenny moved back.

"Sergeant Stegall," I said to Sergeant Stegall, "lock the place down. No one enters or leaves. And get every bit of video footage the hotel has for the entire evening, from six o'clock until now."

"We'll need a warrant for that." said Captain Leanne Wisocky.

"No you don't." I said. "Attempted murder is textbook 'exigent circumstances'. If they give you any crap about it, come get me."

Sheriff Donny Hall had come up, and he said "I'll come with you, Stegall. They won't say 'no' to me, if they know what's good for 'em." They stalked off, and Leanne directed other Officers and Deputies to ensure the lockdown was effectively put in place. She also had an Officer escort Niko to one side, to get his full statement.

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

The paramedics arrived quickly. One of them said to Laura "We've got him. Stand back, please." Laura redirected his suppositions.

"I'm a doctor. Dr. Laura Fredricson." she replied. "I need you to listen carefully to me. I'm not going to remove the knife from him, since he doesn't appear to be bleeding out. But you need to move him onto the stretcher very carefully, and not jar him around."

They said they understood. Laura assisted the paramedics in getting Craig Reynolds transferred onto the plastic board, then they lifted him up and set the board and him on the gurney. One paramedic also put an oxygen mask on his face. Laura said "Don, I'll ride in the ambulance with them."

I said "Captain, can you have someone follow, with Jenny?"

"I'll take her." said old Sheriff Greenwood. He escorted the distraught Jenny Reynolds out and to his vehicle.

Once they were evacuated and I heard the wails of sirens as they left the hotel property, I ordered that the pool area be cleared except for LEOs processing the scene. Everyone was escorted back into the main banquet hall, and everyone there was asked to go back to their seats where they ate dinner.

"Well, you're obviously in charge, here." Leanne Wisocky said acerbically as she came up to me. "What's next?"

"How many videocameras do you have?" I asked, not apologizing for taking charge.

"Three." Leanne said. "And we have a bunch of Police cellphones that we can use to record things in a legally defensible way."

"Outstanding." I said. "Let's get every LEO on the scene that's not doing something like processing the crime scene, and have them come in here. We'll form as many lines as you have cameras, and have people make recorded statements. Get their names, where they live, a phone number to contact them, and ask if they saw anything at the time, but also if they saw anything earlier in the evening that bothered them."

Me: "Most of them will not have seen anything, and you can let them leave as long as you have a number where you can reach them. Don't tell them this, but a cellphone with a known number can be traced and located, so I'm not worried about them getting away. But anyone who might have seen or heard something... have them stay, and don't let them drink any more alcohol."

Leanne said "The bar here and in the barroom shut down at midnight, but I had them stop serving alcohol when the alarm went out. And I'm definitely going to have everyone asked if they saw Roddy Baker earlier in the evening."

"Fine." I replied, then I looked around. "I see Lisa Baker sitting up there, but I don't see her four classmates that were sticking like glue to her. Ask everyone if they saw Lisa during the evening... and Lori Lovlin and Niko Nimzovich."

"So fucking her hasn't made you soft on her?" Leanne asked with a bit of a grin.

"I'm sorry to say that that until we can account for her, she is a suspect, as is Niko." I said.

"But... he rescued Craig." Leanne said.

"Which doesn't mean he didn't attack him first." I said. "By the way, go ahead and take Lisa Baker into custody, and by that I mean give her a tour of AGPD Headquarters. If she complains, tell her I want to talk to her myself, and if you need to arrest her to make sure that she's available for my interview, so be it."

Leanne went off to take Lisa into custody as Sheriff Donny Hall came up to me, with Deputy Biggs and my mother Phyllis in tow. "Don," he said, "I've just verified your own whereabouts during the time of the attack. So I can now do this. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me."

I did, and was administered the Oath of Office of a Fillmore County Deputy Sheriff. Sheriff Hall handed me a gold badge with a leather clip backing. He had me sign a couple of forms, as well.

"Congratulations." Sheriff Hall said. "You are now a Fillmore County Deputy Sheriff, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities pertaining thereto, with an annual salary of one dollar per year, and full medical benefits and indemnity protection while on active duty."

"Just what he always wanted." Tyrone Biggs said with a wicked grin as I took the badge and the one dollar bill, and clipped the badge onto the handkerchief pocket of my jacket on my chest.

"And it's a family thing, now." Sheriff Hall said. My mother held up her own Deputy badge as Sheriff Hall said "I swore her in a long time ago, so she could help us on cases. You two are godsends to law and order in Fillmore County..."

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

12:00 midnight, becoming Sunday, October 3rd. Everyone at the Reunion and the hotel staff had been interviewed. Most people had not seen anything, and most of the attendees that were not in Roddy Baker's class didn't know who he was, and would not have known if they were seeing him. Once they gave their statements and a way to be contacted, they were allowed (and required) to leave.

Some people had seen Roddy talking to Craig earlier in the evening, and six men, mostly in the older Reunion classes, said they'd heard bits and pieces of their conversation. What they said dovetailed with what I had overheard them saying. I was glad for that, since it meant I could keep my potty mouth shut about (illegally) listening in on their conversation. Two of those that admitted to hearing the conversation were Steve Spruance and Jeremy Johnson, who said they'd been talking nearby and that Roddy was agitated and was talking fairly loudly.

The CSI techs reported to Captain Wisocky that they had found two TASER filament wires. We went out to the pool, where I really looked around for the first time. I said to Leanne and Deputy Tyrone Biggs, who was pretty much assigned and attached to me: "Okay, the pool is gated and the fence is eight feet high, so unless a real ninja climbed over it, I'm going to go with the idea that someone came from inside the hotel."

Me: "There's the entrance from the corridor, which has a camera on it. There's the entrance from the banquet room where we were having the Reunion dinner, and it's covered from the outside by a camera, which sees both that door and the door from the corridor."

Sergeant Stegall had come outside, and said "Those are the only two public access doors to the pool. There's also that door down the side of the hotel near the end. I'm told it's a service entrance for employees to bring food out if there's something going on out here. It leads to a corridor to the kitchens, and that corridor also services the the banquet hall from behind, which is how your dinner got to the buffet line."

"Standard hotel layout." I said. "And I do see another videocamera that covers the walkway to that entrance."

"That's what I came out to tell you, Chief." said Stegall, to Leanne. "We've got the video footage for the day, as well as the digital data on check-ins and every time a keycard opened any hotel door. Seems new hotels like this one build security into everything."

"Post-September-11 Federal legal requirement." I said. "Just like restrictions on vehicle gas tanks, so that you can't go more than about 400 miles on one tank, and restrictor plates on cars so they shouldn't be able to go more than 105 miles per hour, and tracking of GPS systems in the People's cars---"

"Yeah, yeah, we get the idea." Leanne Wisocky. "I'm not complaining, though. It might help us catch Roddy Baker."

"You think he did this?" I asked directly, peering hard at Leanne.

She shrugged her shoulders and said "He's my prime suspect, and I really want to talk to him. Not only about tonight, but about what happened at Pennington's Farm last night."

Sergeant Stegall said "The shift manager huffed and puffed about having a warrant for the video, and wasn't taking 'exigent circumstances' as an excuse. The Sheriff called the overall Hotel Manager on the phone, and the Hotel Manager told the shift manager to cooperate. He, the Hotel Manager, came on in a few minutes later, and he has been working with us fairly well."

"Good." I said. "Okay, I need to go ask my mother something about the check-ins to the Dinner tonight." I excused myself and went inside. My mother had been helping with the interviews, and had just finished up. I sat down at the table in the chair next to her.

"Hello, son." she said. "Nobody saw a thing, at least that's what they're telling me. Your process for interviewing them was very efficient, though. Everyone is very impressed."

"That's good." I said. "Listen, Mom, you and Sheriff Greenwood were giving out nametags all night. Do you remember who came in with Lisa Baker?"

"No one, son." my mother replied. "She was alone when she signed in. I have to admit I was terribly distracted by that black eye she had, so I didn't see who might have been right behind her. But... come to think of it, my eyes followed her as she went into the banquet hall, and there were some others that went in right behind her. They already had their nametags, so they must've checked in earlier. Why? Are they important?"

"They could be. They could well be." I said. "Okay, thanks, Mom. And by the way... I don't recall being told you're a Deputy Sheriff in these here parts."

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" my mom said innocently. "It must've slipped my mind."

Yeah, right, I thought to myself. Nothing slips your mind, Mom. Never has, and God willing, never will...

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

The first order of business, of course, was to look at the video footage. We gathered at the table I'd had dinner at. No one complained when my mother and old Sheriff Greenwood joined us. Sergeant Stegall had brought in a computer monitor, and set it up with his laptop. We all watched.

"First," said Sergeant Stegall, "this video shows Niko Nimzovich going out into the outside area and walking around in that little garden area as he talked on the phone. Then we see Craig Reynolds come out the door from the ballroom, and Niko is looking the other way, head down on his cellphone. Some twenty seconds later, Niko turns towards the pool and runs out of camera range, but notice that he put his cellphone down in that potted plant as he went over."

"Next, we have video from two cameras. One overlooks the pool from a position about the level of the second floor of the hotel. The other is a bit lower, and overlooks the path down the side to the service entrance. There is Craig Reynolds, coming to the side of the pool. He looks around, then looks over the pool and towards the far-side fence, but no one is there."

I said "He's acting as if he heard a noise out there, and was looking and listening for it. So what's next?"

"This." said Stegall, playing the tape overlooking the pool. It began getting staticky, then vertical lines went across it, obstructing the view completely. It was as if a powerful bug-killer had been turned on. Everyone groaned, especially when the static cleared up and showed me and Laura working on Craig while a Police Officer helped Niko out of the pool.

I said "I told you, Captain Wisocky. The Slender Man is real."

"What's that?" asked someone behind me.

I replied "The urban legend of the Slender Man. In the legend and especially in the video game created in his honor, cameras that try to film him get that static, and then go out."

Leanne said "You seem to know a lot about the legend of the Slender Man, Deputy Troy." Yes, that was the mother of all understatements from Leanne, but she didn't realize it, nor why.

"The Slender Man notwithstanding," said Sergeant Stegall, "it's clear someone jammed the cameras. I know the technology exists that can do that to cameras like the ones installed here at the hotel, but it's high-level stuff that is rarely if ever seen outside the highest levels of the Federal Government."

Leanne Wisocky said skeptically: "So you're saying this was a Government operation? To assassinate Craig Reynolds?" Sergeant Stegall shrugged.

I said "Not necessarily a Government operation, but somebody using some no-shit technology to cover their tracks."

Stegall said "We ran an algorithm to try and clean up that static, and we did get something. This is an image of someone coming down the path from the service door." He showed a fuzzy image of someone in all black, with a black 'Death' hoodie over his head, running up the walkway.

"Just like the person the witnesses described at Pennington's Farm last night... Friday night." said Detective Ben Watson.

"Yezzz." I said. "I think we can safely say the two cases are connected."

Leanne said "Stegall, what did you get on Roddy Baker?"

Stegall played some video footage from earlier in the evening. "Roddy came in, came up to Craig Reynolds and Commander Troy, then went into the lobby with Craig. They talked for some minutes. Roddy seemed agitated, but not angry nor upset nor threatening. Roddy went to the bar, got a drink, then just hung around the back of the ballroom."

Stegall played another video. "This is what you asked to see, Commander Troy. Lisa Baker came up to your mother at the check-in table. Your mother looks stunned, probably seeing Lisa's black eye."

"I'm right here, Sergeant Stegall." said my mother. "You don't have to narrate for me." Most of us chuckled at that.

"Sorry, ma'am." Stegall said. "Anyway, Lisa Baker came in alone, but was joined by four others as she came on into the ballroom. I could never quite get a good capture of their faces for you, Commander."

"That's okay." I said. "Leanne, I might need to get with your sketch artist, and have him sketch those four from my description of them."

Leanne said "Our sketch artist is the Fillmore County High School art teacher. And I can hook you up with him, but not tonight. Sane people in this county sleep through the night, Mister Crowbar." The other LEOs chuckled. I nodded, though disappointed at the lack of urgency.

Stegall said "What I wanted to point out is that if we look at synced-up videos, you can see that early on Roddy saw Lisa come in, and he immediately left. And not just the room, but the entire hotel. Parking lot video shows him getting into his Ford F-150 King Ranch and driving away."

"Did he ever come back?" Leanne asked.

"No ma'am... at least he didn't appear on camera again." Stegall said.

"Is he at home?" Leanne asked.

"No ma'am, we sent a patrol over there, but the house is empty." Stegall said.

"All right." Leanne said. "Put out an APB for Roddy Baker. And get a warrant for his arrest as a person of interest in the attempted murder of Craig Reynolds." Then she added, almost as an afterthought: "And find Lori Lovlin, too."

"She's on the recorded videos." said Stegall. He brought up a video. "This little hallway, that's not much more than an alcove, goes to the the restrooms. The men's room entrance is on the near end, and the women's room is at the far end. Ms. Lovlin went into the women's room right about the time of the attack, and came out a few minutes later."

Stegall said "And there's Jenny Reynolds going in, and Lori Lovlin comes flying out a few seconds later."

I said "What about Lisa Baker?"

Stegall said "She went in a good couple of minutes before Ms. Lovlin and Mrs. Reynolds. I haven't found the tape where she came out, though. There was a rush of people out of the restrooms when it got around that Mr. Reynolds had been attacked. I'll see if I can spot her in the crowd..."

Part 11 - Herding The Cats (Interviews)

There were a number of Police interviews of people during the investigation. I'll present the most relevant ones here.

The bar & grill restaurant was fully closed at midnight, and the hotel manager allowed us to use it for interviews. One of the AGPD videocameras recorded everything as Sergeant Stegall and Detective Watson conducted the interrogations, with me and Deputy Biggs watching from the side.

First was Niko Nimzovich. He had been interviewed immediately after the attack, and said he didn't see anything, that his back was turned to the pool, that he turned when he heard what sounded like a gasp, then a splash, and he saw a man floating in the pool, face down, and not moving. He ran and jumped into the pool, and got the man to the edge just as others came to help.

He was still in his wet clothes and was shivering when he was brought into the room. I got his keycard and gave it to Deputy Biggs, and asked him to get Niko a complete change of clothes. A few minutes later he brought back some sweats, underwear, and slip-on sneakers, as well as a plastic bag for the wet clothes.

"Okay, change clothes." I said as I turned the camera to the side. Niko did so, and did not turn around to change his underwear. I'd seen his cock; I'd watched it pistoning in and out of my wife's body the night before. Stegall and Watson looked away. Biggs didn't seem to care. Maybe there was a reason he was named 'Biggs', I mused to myself.

"Thanks for the clothes." Niko said as he sat back down and I turned the camera back around.

"My pleasure." I said. "Okay, I'm going to read you your rights, for your protection and ours." I read him the rights from the card, then Stegall said "Let's run through what happened." We went back over what Niko had done in rescuing Craig Reynolds.