Charlene Potter lowered herself into her office chair with an audible sigh, as Roy Gibbs took the seat on the other side of the desk, looking, she thought, nearly as drained as she felt.
"Well, that wasn't anything like the scene we usually see, but it's still the part of this job that I hate the most," she said, referring to their trip to inform Frank Soames ex-wife and son of his death.
"Yeah, it's a pretty sad thing when a fifteen year old kid can't even be truly sorry that his dad is dead," Gibbs observed. "Damn, I hope my girls never think that little of me!"
"That'll never happen, Roy. You don't treat your kids the way Frank treated Kevin. Or Lisa, for that matter," she responded.
"Yeah, I remember. Frank even got on Lewis' nerves," he said, referencing Potter's predecessor. "That took some doing, since he barely gave a rats ass about anything."
At that moment, Potter felt her phone vibrate, just before the ringer kicked in, and pulled it out of its case. Checking the display, she saw an unfamiliar number, with a DC prefix, but decided to take the call anyway. She pressed the button and said, "This is Chief Potter, how can I help you?"
Gibbs looked on in confusion as she suddenly sat bolt-upright in her chair, and began giving short, terse responses to whatever was being said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"No, ma'am."
"Of course we will."
"Yes, I'll be expecting them."
"When she finally ended the call, Gibbs jokingly inquired, " Who the hell was that, Char? The President?"
"Yes, it was, as a matter of fact," Potter replied, and it took several seconds for Gibbs to realize that she was completely serious.
When this fact finally penetrated his brain, the only thing he could think of to say was, "Why?"
"Apparently, she's dispatching a team to 'assist' us with our current situation," she responded, forming air quotes with her fingers as she spoke. "It seems that either Mr. Devashar or one of his guests must have some serious connections."
Gibbs sat quietly for a time, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, until Potter finally said, "Talk to me, Roy. What's on your mind?"
He looked up and said, "I have a cousin who works at the Capitol, and she was telling Donna and me about a weird rumor that's been going around since the President got kidnapped by that whacko industrialist. Apparently, some people have been whispering that there was more to that than they let on, and that she's put together some sort of a team to take care of, well... paranormal type stuff, I guess you'd say."
"And that comes into play in this case how ...?" Potter prompted him.
"Remember those marks on the front door of Devashar's house? They were practically identical to the ones on the windshield of Soames truck. Plus, Crandall told me that he looked through the windows there at the old Horton place, and it looks like someone had been inside fairly recently. He said that there were burnt-out candles on the table, and footprints in the dust."
Potter quirked an eyebrow at that. "So you're thinking of some sort of cult activity, maybe?" she inquired.
"Possibly, or maybe we've got some nut running around who thinks he's a werewolf, or some sort of demon, or something," Gibbs speculated.
"Or maybe we have a bigger problem," she muttered.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Char?"
Looking Gibbs in the eye, she said, "Roy, you're one of the few people on the force who know enough about my childhood to know why it makes me more open to ...'alternative logic', shall we say. I'm not going to automatically dismiss any possibility, no matter how odd it might sound."
"And ...?" Gibbs queried.
"When you went to call Donna when we stopped for lunch, I called my dad, and he told me that the same damn thing happened about forty years ago. Bunch of dead livestock, five people murdered, and then the prime suspect up and vanished, and they found his grandfather dead. Care to guess where?"
He paused to think for a moment, then said, "The old Horton place?"
"And the man gets a gold star!" Potter responded. "Dad said that my Uncle Bert was on the force back then, and he went out there with Harvey Willis, who was Chief back then, to question Greg Horton about some things that were being said about him. But , when they got there, Greg was nowhere to be found, and old Eli Horton was dead on the basement floor."
"So are you saying that this guy killed his own grandfather?" Gibbs asked.
"No, apparently he died from a stroke, but everybody figured that he found out what Greg was doing, and couldn't handle the shock," Potter informed him. "I was barely four then, but I do remember old Pastor Horton, he was one of the nicest old guys you'd ever want to meet. If we met him on the street, he'd always stop to chat with my folks, and sometimes he'd give my sister and me each a quarter. It made our day when that happened, because you could get a decent amount of candy for a quarter back then, or a good-sized bottle of soda."
"So are you saying that you think that this Horton guy came back after all this time, and decided to pick up where he left off? How old would this kook be now, anyway, Char?"
"Late fifties, maybe early sixties. And all I'm saying is that I'm not eliminating any idea right now," she informed him. "But right now, we should probably head over to Mr. Devashar's place. Apparently, our new 'colleagues' are staying there, so we should probably go put out the welcome mat."
Nodding a reluctant agreement, Gibbs rose from his chair and followed Chief Potter out of her office, wishing silently to himself that he could think of a logical explanation for the current situation, but secretly fearing that such an explanation didn't exist.