Slender Man Ch. 04

A tape of District Attorney Gil Krasney announcing the plea deal was being shown on TV. It just happened that Cindy and I were watching it with Teresa in her hospital room.

"Damn, he's getting off light." Teresa said.

"Not for what he did to you." Cindy said. "He gets the full sentence for that, with no parole. But he gets eventual parole for the kidnappings, and he gets 'punk city' status." That meant Larry would be protected from the general prison population while doing time.

"And Nina Kelly is busted." I said. "She and her legal beagle are scrambling to get her some sort of deal, anything they can get. But she's well and truly busted."

"So how did you solve the case, Commander?" asked Teresa.

"That..." I said, "will be explained tomorrow at the victory party. Which you will be attending, Lord willin', the Creek don't rise, and you take it easy."

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

Saturday, March 18th. We had the back room of The Steakhouse reserved. Present for the exceptionally delicious dinner were me, Laura, Todd and Teresa, Chief Griswold, Molly, Myron and Mary, Chief Moynahan, Joanne and Seth Warner, Theo Washington and his lovely wife Nareese, Teddy Parker and Janice Holloway, Wes 'Coldiron' Masters, Della Harlow sans husband, Paulina Patterson, Jack Muscone and Tanya Perlman, Martin Nash, Lindy Linares, Roy McGhillie and Becca Larrington...

... and appearing as a couple at a function for the first time: Cindy Ross and Callie Carrington. Cindy looked as happy as I'd ever seen her as she introduced Callie to anyone that didn't know Callie already.

My mother and Chief Griswold's wife were keeping the kids and dogs at the Cabin. The Widow Athena Jones was once again a figment of our fertile imaginations.

As dinner concluded, and libations began being consumed more freely, the time came for spoon to meet glass:

*DING!* *DING!* *DING!* *DING!* *DING!* *DING!* *DING!*

"Even the mighty, mythical Slender Man has fallen to the Iron Crowbar." Cindy said loudly. "Let's hear how you did it, Commander!" There was applause and acclaim.

"Okay." I said. "This one was interesting, though the perps made it a bit easy for us---"

"Easy?!" Joanne Warner practically shouted.

"Oh, yes, of course." I said. "They might just as well have sent us a letter of their intentions. It was really obvious how they were laying a pattern."

"Okay," I said after a pause of silence pregnant with disbelief. "Let me tell it chronologically. We had the first sightings in farm fields, and also near River Valley subdivision, and at Police Headquarters. And that was interesting in light of events that have happened since. I remarked to Captain Ross that when I saw Slender Man in the window, I felt electricity go up my arms. Well, that may really have been the case if he had some kind of electrical device on him like the one he used to burn Cpt. Croyle." Everyone nodded.

"Then we had the first child missing, Henrietta Claymore." I said. "She was ambushed from behind. She was then found in farm fields not far from where the Slender Man sighting was out there. Henrietta was not at home, though... she was at the home of a friend, Heather Lance." I said. "Now this is important, and I should have seen it much sooner: how did Slender Man know she was there and not at her own home?" I got some quizzical looks at that.

"So next," I said, moving along, "we had Wesley Smith. Larry Lance knew Wesley's father, knew the parents had marital problems. So Wesley was the perfect next victim to establish the pattern Larry wanted established. Therefore, there was a Slender Man sighting at County High, and then Wesley was found nearby."

"What about the sighting at your Cabin, sir?" asked Teddy Parker.

"I'll get to that in a minute." I replied. "What I want to get at here is the establishment of the patterns. So after Wesley was found, we had the sighting at Point Hollow, one of my favorite places on the planet."

"That's sarcasm." said Cindy to everyone else.

"You better believe it." I said. "That place spooks me. Anyway, Rachel Kelly was kidnapped, and guess where she was taken? Point Hollow. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that Lance had an electrical device that could be used as a weapon, and Captain Croyle took the brunt of that in her bravery in attempting to rescue the child." There was applause for Teresa, which she endured stoically.

"At this time, I had a complete set of patterns to examine, though not the ones Larry Lance wanted me to see." I said. "What he wanted me to see was that with Henrietta being close to Heather, we'd not look at Heather again. He also kidnapped Rachel so we'd think she was not going to be a target again. The children kidnapped were all kids of parents who were divorced or divorcing. Then he appeared at the McGhillie Golf Course in the hopes we'd concentrate our efforts to catch him over there on the East side, when he intended to go west and across the State Line."

"What I did see was that of the persons that came into the picture of all this, Larry Lance was the only person who either did or could have known the Claymores, Gerald Smith, and the Kellys... and therefore known that like him, they were divorcing or divorced. He had the knowledge to build that electrical device, which is quite an interesting little gadget. He knew the parents of the kids that were kidnapped would have alibis, but he himself never really had one. Last but not least, Larry is fairly tall. He used stilts to make himself look eight feet tall, but he was tall enough."

"So Larry Lance had motive, means, and opportunity." I said. "What I totally missed was Nina Kelly's role in all this. It is abhorrent to me that she would allow the kidnapping of her own child, but that's what she did in the hopes of later taking her child away and preventing her ex-husband of having any custody of Rachel. I did not consider that, which was a failing on my part.

"Also, she and Larry knew each other, as she was the StatePowerCorp manager giving Larry contract work. I should've had people questioning the StatePowerCorp employees long before I did; if I had, I would've known she was having an affair with Larry, as everyone at StatePowerCorp pretty much knew it."

"But I missed that," I said, "and I give Captain Ross great credit for persuading me to use 'extracurricular' assets to monitor Heather Lance, which ultimately paid off. Any questions?"

"Can you once again spell out Larry's motive in this?" asked Martin Nash.

"To take his daughter Heather out of State, and away from her mother Jen Lance." I said. "He did not have custody of Heather and he hated that. He was not a bad dad, but the divorce from Jen was not amicable; she filed for the divorce, blindsiding him, and it tore up his life. He may have been dating Nina already, and she was equally as bitter about not having full custody of Rachel. Ergo, they hatched this plan. They hoped we'd be sitting at the golf course, waiting for Heather's return.

"At worst, they hoped, if we were watching his car, it was sitting there at his home... he'd sneaked out and made his way to Nina's house." I said. "And it almost worked... we were watching for his car, not Nina's. She went to pick Heather up, and they were going to take her as well as Kelly out of State."

"What about the Slender Man sightings in your window and at the Cabin?" asked Molly.

"Larry Lance swore up and down that he was not the one that did those sightings." I said. "He said Nina helped him set up some of the other sightings with mannequins, but he refused to admit that he was responsible for whatever looked into my window at Police HQ, and left the note at the Cabin. Nina is not talking nor cooperating in any way, so if it was her, she's not saying."

"Wow." I heard Molly whisper in the quiet of the room.

"He's coming for you, Commander." Teresa said severely. "Slender Man has you in his sights."

"Bring it on." I replied.

"Well, it just goes to show you," said Chief Griswold, his cheeks rosy and his speech beginning to slur, "that even Slender Man is no match for the Iron Crowbar!" There was much acclaim, and the party started back up...

Part 25 - Epilogue

'Fire Safety Day' at the Fire Range was a big hit with the elementary school children. They got to see Fire Trucks and Fire Engines up close. They got to see fires being put out with fire extinguishers. They were shocked when Your Iron Crowbar dipped his finger into the powder ejected by the fire extinguishers and tasted it... it's just baking soda and some inert preservatives, and not harmful. Still, Cindy told the kids that eating it was not good for them, and so not to try it at home. I then got a well-deserved verbal spankdown from the Green Crowbar for that 'demonstration' of Better Living Through Chemistry.

A large metal paint bucket was filled with some liquid, probably kerosene, and was set on fire. It was then demonstrated how to put out the fire with a blanket or heavy coat. When the Fire Chief asked if any of the kids wanted to try it, Davie Marsdon literally ran out to give it a shot. He did well, too, and got the fire put out on the first attempt. His classmates cheered very loudly.

Then came the pièce de résistance: they watched as a house was set on fire, and Firemen going inside and 'rescuing' several dummies, then the Fire Department putting out the house fire. Along the way, they were told about how to get out of a house that was on fire, feeling doors for heat, crawling on hands and knees, etc. Good stuff to know, I thought, as I remembered the fire at the Old Cabin.

I had wondered why I was invited to attend; indeed, all but ordered to attend. And that became apparent just before the house burning: I was called up to stand by the Fire Chief. The Towson Brothers were there, also. And little Mikey Towson was in the front row of students.

"Kids, as you know," said the Fire Chief, "your classmate Mike Towson is here because Commander Troy went and got him and brought him home to his dad! So the Fire Department would like to thank the Iron Crowbar with this gift. Mikey, would you come up and help us give the Iron Crowbar his gift?"

Mikey ran up to us from the stands, a huge smile on his young face. He took the long box from his dad, and handed it to me, saying "Thank you, Mr. Crowbar."

I opened the box. Inside was a black lacquered plaque to hang on the wall, which had an engraved strip of metal saying "To the Iron Crowbar from the TCFD" and the date I'd brought Mikey home.

The plaque was a display to hold up the second part of the gift. It was a red crowbar. I took it out of the box, seeing the gleaming metallic red paint glistening in the sunlight. The crowbar had been painted with the exact same paint that the TCFD's fire vehicles were painted with.

I held up the crowbar and shouted "Iiiiiiiiiiii LIKE it!" The Firemen all cheered. The kids cheered louder... much louder. Kids can really make noise, and they did so today.

The Fire Engine Red Crowbar would hang with the plaque above my whiteboards in my office, a reminder of taking advantage of a chance to take care of my people when I could do so...

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

The sun had set, and Cindy and I were going to our cars in the gated employees parking lot at Police Headquarters. When I got to my car, I got a shock.

"Cindy!" I called out. She came running over. "Look!" I said. Taped to the driver door of my Police SUV was a piece of paper. It said "Always follows. No eyes."

"One of the Slender Man eight pages." I said. I put on latex gloves and bagged the paper.

"I'll walk over to the Crime Lab with you, if you want to." Cindy said.

"Good idea. Let's do that."

As we walked across the parking lot to the Crime Lab Building, I happened to look towards the back fence, which meant I was looking west. The Fairgrounds were behind Police Headquarters. "Cindy," I said, "do you see a light over there?"

"Yeah... wow..." she said. The light was a flickering electric blue, brightening and ebbing. We hurried to the Crime Lab building, going in the back door. After turning over the paper in the evidence bag for analysis, we went out the front door, then began walking down the street, which ended at the Fairgrounds.

Walking onto the Fairgrounds, which were lit only by streetlights from the east side, I peered around. As I got to a certain spot, I felt a strong aura, like a blanket of energy surrounding me.

"This is where I was almost shot." I said, feeling sure.

"Yep." said Cindy. "There's the stub of the power hookup right behind you, which is where that temporary metal shed was."

I looked around, feeling the aura even more. Then I looked west, towards the River and the abutment where Mrs. Veasley's funeral had been.

"Holy shit!" I gasped. "Do you see that?" Standing on that concrete piling was Slender Man!

He was standing upright, in his suit and black tie, his head featureless and ghostly white, his arms and hands pressed to his sides. I felt the hair standing on my arms and the back of my neck.

"Yeah, I see it." Cindy said. "And I'm feeling something... never felt this before..." As I turned to look, Cindy collapsed to her knees to the ground.

"Cindy!" I cried out, kneeling down to check on her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah... yeah..." Cindy said, trying to recover. "I just felt... overwhelmed for a second there." She looked up. "Where did he go?"

I looked up. There was no one standing on the concrete deck. It was dark; there were no more eerie lights.

I took Cindy home to get checked out by Laura, but Cindy showed no further ill effects. She helped put Carole and Jim to bed. Meanwhile, Bowser was staying with me, as if he felt a need to protect and guard me. Even when Carole was put to bed, Bowser stayed with me, which was rare to the point of unheard-of.. I gave him a lot of love and skritchins, and felt better...

... but I still felt foreboding in my soul.

Finis.