Jenny, Diana, and Faith left the bedroom and started for the stairs, meeting Andy and Crane at the head of the staircase. As they descended, Jenny glanced at Crane and asked, "So, how were your accommodations?"
"More than adequate, I assure you, Miss Jenny," he replied. "The property owner has taken great care to ensure the comfort of his guests. As of now, all that remains is to ascertain why my bed seems to require a remote-control device."
"Dude, it's a Sleep-Number bed!" Andy informed him. "You can make the mattress harder, or softer, whichever is more comfortable for you. Haven't you seen one before?"
"Unfortunately, no. It seems that I have been sadly uninformed in regards to this marvel of technology."
"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that," Faith said. "Your remotes are in the top drawer of your nightstand."
They reached the foot of the stairs, with Alex and Jake following behind them. As they rounded the corner, they saw a tall black woman, clad in black slacks and a tan sweater, accompanied by a uniformed police officer.
"That's Chief Potter and Sergeant Gibbs," Andy informed the newcomers. "I wonder if they found out something."
"Well, I guess we're gonna find out," Faith responded, as they all moved to join the others in the living room.
As they approached, the two police officers looked their way, observing the new arrivals, then Chief Potter stepped over to meet them, saying, "Good afternoon, folks. I'm Chief Charlene Potter, and this is Sergeant Roy Gibbs. I received a call from DC telling us to expect you folks. Who's in charge here?"
By unspoken agreement, the rest of the group allowed Diana to handle the situation, and she extended her hand to the chief, saying, "I'm Agent Diana Thomas, with Homeland Security, this is my partner, Ichabod Crane, and the rest of our team; Jenny Mills, Alex Norwood, and Jake Wells."
Potter shook Diana's hand, and inquired, "If I might ask, why is the President interested enough in a local murder, and some vandalism, to send a group of Federal agents out here?"
"Why don't we all grab a seat while you hash this out?" Jon suggested, and they walked the rest of the way into the living room, putting the conversation on hold until everyone was seated.
Once they were all settled, Diana turned to look at Potter, and clarified, "To answer your question, the original call was made by Ms. Scanlon's brother to Ms. Mills, who is a family friend. But since we all work together, I reported the situation to the President, and she made the decision to dispatch our entire team, to provide your people with any assistance you might need."
"So it doesn't have anything to do with the rumors that are going around that the President has put together her own team of..., well, 'paranormal investigators', for lack of a better term?" Gibbs asked bluntly.
The question seemed to take them all off guard for a few seconds, causing all of the team members to quickly glance at each other.
Observing this, Chief Potter leaned forward in her chair and said, "And when there's not an immediate answer forthcoming to that type of question, that usually means that it's struck a nerve. So I'm going to take that as a yes."
Before anyone can respond, she continued, saying, "Don't worry, I'm not sitting here thinking that you're a bunch of crackpots or anything like that, because I know better. I remember seeing your partner here mentioned in some articles out of New York State a couple of years ago, dealing with some weird shit they had going on up there. Plus, I know firsthand that people don't take this stuff as seriously as they should, since I grew up with it."
"Would you care to elaborate on that, Constable?" Crane queried.
"It's Chief, Mr. Crane," she replied. "And my maternal grandparents came here from Haiti when my mom was just a baby, but they didn't leave all of the customs behind. My grandmother was an ardent practitioner of Voodoo, and I saw her do some things that I wouldn't even attempt to explain. So I'm more open to the more unlikely possibilities than most people in my profession."
"Not to mention the candles and stuff in the old Horton place, and that weird mumbo-jumbo on your door, and the truck window," Gibbs added.
"That 'mumbo-jumbo', as you refer to it, was actually ancient Sumerian, Sergeant," Crane said.
"And the candles were mine," Jinxx admitted, somewhat hesitantly.
As everyone else listened, Jinxx and the others recounted the story of their evening in the old Horton house, describing what they had seen and heard, as well as acknowledging the unsettling feeling of being watched they had all felt as they left.
"You said that you had the camera going the whole time, right?" Alex asked Joe. "Did this thing actually show up on camera?"
Giving her a rather startled look, Joe said, "Hell, I don't know! With everything that's been going on, I forgot to even look at it!"
"Perhaps we should rectify that situation now, Master Flanders," Crane suggested, and Joe went to retrieve the camera from his room, while Jon shut down the files he'd been working on in the computer.
When Joe returned, he hooked up the camera to upload the images to the computer, then the group began viewing the footage. They watched as Jinxx and the others set up the seance, then began asking questions, and their reactions to the messages that were spelled out by the planchette.
They watched intently as the candles seemingly extinguished themselves, and everyone heard the harsh, guttural voice say "Play with me!" As they watched Yanni switch on his flashlight, Jenny suddenly sat upright and exclaimed, "Stop! Go back just a couple of seconds, and slow it down, if you can."
Joe complied with the request, and as they inspected the film again, everyone saw what had caught Jenny's eye. As the light flickered on, a roughly human-sized shadow moved from behind Jesse with unnatural speed, in the direction of what Jinxx informed them was the kitchen.
"Damn! That sucker is fast!" CC exclaimed.
"And apparently has a pretty sick sense of humor, too," Andy muttered.
"Unfortunately, it's not in sight long enough to get a really good view, so we won't be able to identify it with pictures," Jake Wells observed.
At that moment, Chief Potter's phone rang, and she excused herself to take the call. After finishing, she then made a call of her own, before rejoining the group. As she did, she announced "I just got some information that may be useful. Or then again, it could just make things more confusing."
Everyone turned their attention to her, and she said, "That call was from Doc Bigelow, the medical examiner. He just gave me the autopsy results, and the cause of death was severe abdominal trauma, and apparently the adrenal glands had been removed. He told me he got curious, and checked that dead cow, too. Same thing."
"Who was the victim, Chief?" Diana inquired.
"Yeah, I can tell you that now, the family's been notified. He was a local troublemaker named Frank Soames. Had a record almost as long as that guitar over there," she replied. "B and E, a bunch of vehicular offenses, window peeping, drunk and disorderly, plus about half-a-dozen domestic violence arrests. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but you're not gonna find too many people that'll miss him all that much."
"Might I presume that you have something else to add?" Crane asked. "I saw that you placed another call as soon as you ended the first, so I'm guessing that you were attempting to confirm something before presenting it to the rest of us."
"It'd be nice if we could train all of our people to be as observant as this guy, wouldn't it, Char?" Gibbs said.
"Sure would," she responded. "And you're right, Mr . Crane. I was calling my Uncle Bert, who was on the force until he retired in '03. I found out earlier today that there was a string of similar crimes back in the late '70's, and the prime suspect lived in that old house until he basically vanished off the face of the earth. I asked Bert if he recalled anything specific about the crimes he worked on, and damned if he didn't tell me that they were all missing body parts. Anybody care to guess which ones?"
"Off the top of my head, I'll go with... adrenal glands," Jake Pitts said.
"And we have a winner!" Potter said dryly. "Does that narrow things down any for y'all?"
"I fear that it doesn't immediately bring anything to mind, but it does allow us to narrow our research parameters." Crane replied. "That could be quite helpful by allowing us to save time."
"Glad to help. But there is one thing I'd like to be clear about," Potter said, turning to Diana. "If there is something paranormal, or whatever, going on, I'm more than happy to let y'all take charge. My people will give you any help you might need, but I'll be the first to admit that they don't have the know-how to deal with that sort of thing."
"But, if it turns out that we're dealing with your standard, garden-variety psycho, well-educated though he may be, I want him! He's got six murders to answer for here."
"I have no problem with that," Diana informed her. "I have enough on my schedule right now without adding that kind of paperwork to it. If that turns out to be the case, he's all yours."
"But I'm guessing that you don't expect that to happen, do you?" Gibbs inquired .
"No, I don't, unfortunately,"
"Oh, joy! This is not what I expected when I started this job," he muttered. "Breaking up fights, yeah. Getting cussed out, for sure. Maybe even getting shot at . Spirits, or demons, or what the hell ever, not so much."
"I understand completely, Sergeant," Diana said. "Less than a year ago, if you'd told me I'd be doing this, I would've recommended you for a psych evaluation. But now I know it's real, and this threat is just as dangerous as any terrorist or drug lord you can come up with. So I'm just gonna do what I was doing all along. My job. It's just become a bit more ... interesting."
He acknowledged this with a nod, and then he and Potter departed, promising to keep in touch. After they left, everyone sat quietly for a few minutes, attempting to process the information that they had been given.
"So , what are we supposed to do now?" Jesse inquired. "We still don't know where, or what, this fucker is, so where does that leave us."
"That's an excellent question," Diana replied. "And that's what we need to decide next."
"Why don't we do that over dinner?" Faith said. "Jinxx, it's our turn tonight, so why don't we get started. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can start getting this figured out."
With that said, she and Jinxx headed for the kitchen, as the others remained lost in their own thoughts, trying to process the sudden introduction of the unknown into their lives.