Rite of Passage

by John Passarella

  “Insurance adjusters, right?” she said. “What company?”

  “We’re independent contractors,” Sam said. “Part of a regulatory oversight initiative to ensure against fraud by either party involved in any substantial claims.”

  “We just need to get a clear picture about what happened here,” Dean said. “We won’t take much of your time.”

  “When I came home for lunch all three were on the roof,” she said. “Mr. Sedenko, the owner, told me they were nearly finished.”

  “Storm damage warranted the repair?”

  “Well, that was the final straw,” she said. “The roof was overdue for repair. I ran out of excuses.”

  “Was there anything unprofessional in their work ethic?” Sam asked. “Horsing around? Drinking alcohol?”

  “Oh, no. Well, not that I ever saw,” she said. “They were fast and efficient. Believe me, I did my homework, checked the company out. They’re licensed, bonded and insured. Been in business for years. I even checked references, around town. No complaints.”

  “So, out of the blue, these three experienced roofers get clumsy and fall off your roof,” Dean said, thinking aloud.

  “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “No, he’s not,” Sam said conciliatorily, flashing Dean a warning look. “It seems like a freak coincidence at the moment. Did you see them fall?”

  “Only the last one,” she said. “Before that, I was inside. A loose shingle flew by my kitchen window. Then I heard something crash. I assumed they were tossing debris into that trash container. Looking back, maybe the first one slipped on that shingle.”

  She led them from her doorway, under a small portico along the narrow sidewalk that tracked around the front of the house, to where part of a downspout had been ripped from the wall.

  “After a second crash, I decided to go out and check. That’s when… that’s when I saw Mr. Sedenko falling off the roof. I think he tried to catch himself on the gutter. But he flipped over backward and hit the pavement face first. I heard his neck.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was horrible. I saw the other bodies near his. I knew they were dead, but… but I had to do something, had to call someone. I called out for help, but he seemed oblivious, so I rushed back—”

  “Who?” Sam interrupted. “Who seemed oblivious?”

  “Oh, there was a man in a suit,” she said, “walking down the street. I saw him at the curb, near my mailbox. I yelled, told him to call 911, but he had no idea what had happened. So I ran back to the house, and that’s when I banged into my own door.”

  “This guy,” Dean said, “can you describe him?”

  “I don’t remember what he looked like. But he was big, I mean broad and tall. Maybe a couple of inches taller than you.” She indicated Sam, who nodded for her to continue. “He wore a black suit and one of those rounded hats with a brim—a bowler hat.”

  “Was that all?”

  “He had a cane. He looked very… formal.”

  “And you never saw this guy before?” Dean asked.

  “No,” she said. “And something was off about him.”

  “How so?”

  “Not all there, you know?” she said. “Or hard of hearing, maybe completely deaf. He certainly acted like he didn’t understand me. I mean, I was clearly panicked, but he had this amused grin on his face, like I was the one responding inappropriately to this … this horrible accident.”

  “We’d like to check the roof,” Dean said. “Is there a window with access or…?”

  “I have an extension ladder in the garage.”

  “Perfect.”

  Ten minutes later, Dean had completed his inspection of the roof. Other than the missing shingle, he found nothing unusual. Ms. Sloney explained that the police had confiscated the roofers’ generator and tools to look for evidence of foul play.

  Back in the Monte Carlo, Sam said. “How does one loose shingle kill three roofers?”

  “My money’s on John Steed,” Dean said.

  “Who?”

  “The Avengers: sixties television series. Emma Peel? That catsuit!” Dean said. “That was Steed’s look.”

  “A catsuit?”

  “No,” Dean said, irritated and not sure if Sam was pulling his leg. “Diana Rigg wore the catsuit. Steed wore a suit with a bowler hat and carried a cane—actually, an umbrella, but it had a cane vibe.”

  Catching Sam’s continued blank expression, he added, “The show aired on syndication, probably still on extended cable channels. And the bad movie version with Uma Thurman and the Brit guy… Trust me, okay? It’s a John Steed look.”

  “So, bowler guy, down by the curb,” Sam said, moving on, “walks by her mailbox.”

  “Walking,” Dean said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he also walked by chainsaw guy.”

  “No witnesses,” Sam said. “Let’s talk to the Cessna pilot and go from there.”

  Seven

  Tora walked along another suburban street feeling like an artist in search of a bigger canvas. With the business day soon over, fathers or mothers would return from work, children would complete school assignments while waiting for dinner. Family dynamics would come into play, offering opportunities for Tora to increase resentments and elevate petty bickering to physical violence. But he had something bigger in mind.

  Pausing before a home with signs of neglect, he extended his awareness and discovered an agoraphobic hoarder. An old woman with brittle bones, she squeezed through rooms piled floor to ceiling with stacks of yellowed newspapers and moldy books. He waited until she jostled a leaning tower of newsprint before giving the mound a little shove of encouragement. It crashed down, tripping her, and he heard the crunch of her hip bone breaking as she sprawled on the dust-covered floor. She wailed in pain and struggled to right herself. Instead, her tugging on the mounds of paper created a domino effect. Hundreds of pounds of paper pummeled her where she lay, pinning and eventually suffocating her.

  The house a little further down the street presented no challenge. A middle-aged man on disability for a bad back lounged on a lumpy sofa as he watched ESPN highlights, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingers. In seconds, the man nodded off and the cigarette fell into shag carpeting littered with fast food wrappers. The ratty sofa was highly flammable and cooked its occupant in minutes.

  As the, surprisingly, functioning smoke alarms in the house commenced a screeching chorus, Tora saw a burly, bearded man with curly black hair exiting a house halfway down the block on the other side of the street. The man wore blue coveralls with the name Frank stitched on a patch over the left breast pocket, and carried a dinged red toolbox. Frank opened the rear doors of a white commercial van with “Kiriakoulis Plumbing No Job Too Small” painted in two lines on the side panels. The plumber slid the toolbox into the back of the van and stepped back to close the rear doors.

  “Frank!” Tora called.

  Frank turned around, a jovial expression on his face that instantly transformed to mild confusion. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I need a ride.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, mister, my insurance won’t allow pass—”

  In one swift motion, Tora flipped his cane up into a horizontal position, catching the midpoint in his left hand before ramming the ironbound pointed tip forward, spitting Frank like a roasted pig. He angled the point upward, shattering ribs and piercing the heart. He lifted the big man off his feet and with a hearty heave, shoved the body into the back of the van. With the heart muscle destroyed, blood loss was minimal. He reached into Frank’s pockets and fished out the keys to the van. With a few quick motions, he wiped the blood and gore from his cane. Then he slammed the rear doors and hopped into the driver’s seat.

  Nobody witnessed the brief flurry of violence.

  A few minutes later he followed the local streets that led him back to Kressen Boulevard. A fire truck and an ambulance passed him headed in the opposite direction. He slowed the van and veered toward the shoulder, giving the emergency ve
hicles a wide berth. Once they were beyond him, he accelerated again and followed the signs to the Laurel Hill Mall.

  Before they could talk to anyone at the Haddon Airfield about the death of the three skydivers, Dean and Sam had to avoid two crews of reporters and camera operators. One crew filmed the airfield itself, most likely background footage for voiceover, while the other reporter interviewed a maintenance worker who pointed out three separate locations, no doubt indicating where the bodies had come down.

  Keeping their backs to the news cameras, the Winchesters made a beeline for the Skydive Launchers hangar. They located the owner of the company, Angie Booth who, though shell-shocked by the triple tragedy, agreed to answer their questions, especially after they presented themselves as insurance adjusters and not members of the press.

  “They were all experienced jumpers,” she said. Hand trembling nervously, she brushed a dark strand of hair away from her face. “They had made dozens of jumps here. They brought their own gear, packed their own chutes. All three chutes failed, their reserves failed. The AADs should have opened the reserve chutes, even if they were unconscious. I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

  “Did they pack their parachutes today?” Dean asked.

  “Yes,” Angie said, sweeping her hand around to encompass a broad open area in the hangar. “They packed their main chutes here, along with everyone else who jumped today.”

  A row of lockers lined the near side of the hangar. Offices ran along the back. Three red and white airplanes faced the entrance. Angie had informed Sam and Dean that she’d cancelled all scheduled jumps for the foreseeable future, pending a full investigation.

  Dean tried and failed to suppress a shudder when he looked at the airplanes. Thinking about flying in one of those small planes was enough to make him queasy. The idea of intentionally hurling himself out the side door of one of them at thirteen thousand feet would probably give him nightmares. A belly-flop at terminal velocity onto the unyielding tarmac? No thanks! He’d keep his feet firmly planted on the ground.

  “What about the reserve chutes, who packed those?” Sam asked.

  “We pack the reserves here, every few months so they don’t get stiff,” she said. “We have a certified rigger. He’s in Antigua this week on a family vacation. He’s due back Monday.”

  “Did the reserves deploy?” Sam pressed.

  “Only one out of the three, apparently,” she said. “I was in my office when it happened. All three men died within thirty seconds of when their chutes should have opened, maybe ten to fifteen seconds apart.”

  “Did anyone see the whole thing?” Dean asked.

  “You should talk to the pilot.”

  “Is he here?”

  “She,” a woman said from behind them.

  The attractive woman was in her late twenties and wore a brown leather bomber jacket, black top, distressed denim jeans, and scuffed brown leather boots. Naturally tan, she wore little makeup and her dark brown eyes were red rimmed, as if she had been crying.

  “Luna was their pilot,” Angie explained. “Luna, these gentleman are insurance adjusters investigating the accident.”

  “Luna Checchini,” the pilot said, offering her hand to shake Sam’s and then Dean’s before continuing. “I took those guys up a half dozen times. Maybe more. Since they got out of college. They always jumped together. They’d hit on me on the ground, kind of like it was expected of former frat boys, but once we were airborne, they were totally focused on the jump, the thrill of it.”

  “Any drinking or controlled substances involved?” Dean inquired.

  “No, they weren’t like that,” Luna said. “They got a natural high from the jump itself. I doubt they’d ever mix that with… recreational substances.”

  “Luna, did you see what happened?” Sam asked her. “After they jumped?”

  “Mac—Bob McGlaughlin—jumped last. Just as he pushed off, the plane hit a bit of turbulence and he fell awkwardly. It happened in a split second. I came around as quick as I could. From what I could tell, he never attempted to open his chute. The AAD should’ve fired, but never did. He hit the ground first.”

  “What about”—Sam referred to his notes—“Art Polan and Dave Jackson?”

  “Art’s chute came out tangled,” she said softly. “I knew it was his because it was red and green. Christmas colors. Dave’s was red, yellow and black. From what I could see, Art tried to fix his chute, but gave up and released it. Right after that he should’ve pulled the reserve handle. Either he didn’t pull it or it malfunctioned. Regardless, his AAD should’ve fired, releasing the reserve. That never happened.”

  “And Art?” Dean prompted.

  “His main canopy opened too fast and began to tear,” Luna continued. “He released it and pulled the reserve. For a few seconds, I thought he, at least, was fine. The reserve opened. But…”

  “What happened?”

  “His harness seemed to… to slip off him. It pulled away completely.”

  Sam frowned. “Those harnesses are sturdy, right?”

  “Very,” Angie interjected. “They have to be.”

  “The police recovered some of the material,” Luna told them. “One of the forensic guys said the seams came apart and the material crumbled, like it was rotted or something.”

  “The kind of thing you’d notice when gearing up,” Dean said.

  “And how do you explain three AADs all malfunctioning?” Angie said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  By the time the Winchesters exited the Skydive Launchers hangar, one news van had already left the scene, but the other reporter had finished her interview with the maintenance worker and was headed their way. Fortunately, she and her cameraman were engaged in an animated conversation and failed to notice as Dean and Sam turned toward the parking lot.

  Dean was driving out of the lot when Bobby called.

  Sam answered and Dean only caught his side of the brief exchange.

  “Hey, Bobby, what’s up?

  “The mall? Hold on.” Sam pulled a map out of the glove compartment. Roy had left it for them on the kitchen counter, next to the spare set of house keys.

  “Browning Avenue and Route 38—found it. We’re less than a mile away.

  “Okay.”

  “What?” Dean asked as soon as Sam ended the call.

  “It might be unrelated,” Sam prefaced, “but there’s a guy waving a handgun around, threatening to shoot people at the mall.”

  “Wearing a bowler hat?”

  Eight

  The Laurel Hill Mall was a sprawling shopping complex extending over several blocks, with the main mall and its upscale anchor stores in the middle and smaller shopping centers and franchises scattered around it like retail ripples. The largest of the satellites was the Hillcrest Shopping Plaza on the opposite side of Route 38. Shoppers could leave their cars parked in either the mall or plaza parking lots and traverse a covered pedestrian walkway from one side to the other.

  Route 38 was a major east-west traffic artery through the heart of the commercial district and convenient for drivers coming from or returning to Philadelphia. Browning Road bisected Route 38 and Dean raced through the lower volume of northbound traffic to the mall’s west entrance, darting between cars and interpreting yellow lights as hints to floor the accelerator.

  Early into the evening rush hour, the mall parking lot was filling rapidly with after-work shoppers. Many people were paid on Thursdays and felt the need to unburden their bank accounts before the day rolled over. Rather than seeking the closest parking space, Dean swung into the first available slot on the north face of the L-shaped mall. According to Bobby, they would find the gunman in the turn of the L.

  As they jumped out of the Monte Carlo, Dean reached under his suit jacket for the automatic tucked in the back of his waistband. Sam caught his elbow and pointed. In the middle of the north face of the mall, an empty police cruiser was parked in a loading zone with its lightbar flashing. That meant
at least one cop had already answered the call.

  “Remember, we’re insurance adjusters,” Sam warned. “Not FBI agents. We can’t go in guns blazing.”

  Dean didn’t like it, but couldn’t argue. In addition to that first responder, more uniforms would likely swarm the mall in minutes and the Winchesters couldn’t flash phony FBI credentials this time to excuse gunplay. They had to act as concerned citizens—and as anonymously as possible. Anything to stay off Leviathan radar until they were prepared to take the fight back to the Big Mouths.

  As he and Sam entered the mall through the southwest corner doors between Jamaican Nights Restaurant and Urban Apparel, Dean heard a gunshot, followed by panicked screams. People scattered away from the shooter, who stood in front of a display counter at Sparkles Jewelry, waving his gun—a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson—from the crowd to the scared saleswoman behind the counter. No bowler or cane in sight, and the guy looked too short to be the man Ms. Sloney had seen.

  A mall security guard in a brown and gold-striped uniform sat slumped against the wall beside the jewelry store, unconscious. At first Dean thought the gunman had shot him, then he saw another body, obstructed by a colorful mini-train, the kind with wheels that drove toddlers in circles in open areas of the mall. Only the victim’s leg extended beyond the red caboose of the train, but that was enough to reveal a charcoal gray uniform with gold piping. The leg twitched.

  “Sam, he shot a cop,” Dean said. “Behind the train.”

  From the same vicinity, a woman screamed, “Help! He’s dying!”

  People with wide eyes, clutching shopping bags, streamed past the Winchesters, heading for the nearest exit. Others hid behind support columns or display racks in nearby stores, afraid to move into view and risk the gunman firing at them.

  “I’ll take the gunman,” Sam said. “Go around. Check on the cop.”

  Sam took a stealthy approach to close the distance to the shooter, while Dean crossed to the far side of the hallway and hurried toward the center of the mall. He looked like another frightened shopper, but with a poor sense of direction, moving away from the exit. As the gunman swiveled his arm back to the saleswoman, Dean moved forward, taking cover behind the locomotive of the train. Ducking, he ran along the arc of the train cars, hidden from view.