Hollingsworth

by Tom Bont

  Although she was going for a center mass shot, through luck, the grace of God, or errant FBI training, the bullet found its mark in the center of the creature’s forehead. The werewolf fell to the floor, and Angela took a deep breath. She kept her weapon trained on it as it transformed into her boss, Evan Welch.

  You don’t like headshots, do you?

  Deputy Assistant Director Stan Stevenson read from a stack of papers. “The conclusions of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General are as follows:

  Article One: Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth, acting on instinct and in the best interest of the American people, took it upon herself to question the official findings of the cause of death of Daryl Ambrose.

  Article Two: Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth discovered a link between Supervisory Special Agent Evan Welch and Daryl Ambrose in Redstick, Texas.

  Article Three: When Supervisory Special Agent Evan Welch discovered Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth had found the relationship between the two men, he portrayed the link as if he was responsible for a vigilante-style murder.

  Article Four: It is assumed Supervisory Special Agent Evan Welch had unlawful and nefarious purposes planned for Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth. This is evident from the recordings made by Special Agent Hollingsworth, the condition of the surveillance cameras in Archives, and the state of Supervisory Special Agent Evan Welch’s body; to wit, he was naked. This attack was staged to cover up his involvement, and any other as yet unknown facts.

  Article Five: Special Agent Hollingsworth acted properly in self-defense against Supervisory Special Agent Evan Welch.

  Therefore, it is the decision of this board, Special Agent Hollingsworth, you be returned to active status and promoted in grade to Senior Special Agent, effective retroactively six weeks back from today to the night of the incident in question.

  “And may I say,” Deputy Assistant Director Stevenson continued, “Senior Special Agent, the American people and the Federal Bureau of Investigation owe you a great debt of gratitude for weeding out this cancer in our midst.”

  Angela continued to stand before the three-member board while their decision sank in. Not only did she stay out of prison, she kept her job. She never mentioned the werewolf, of course, and with the video cameras disabled, there would have been no one to believe her if she had. Indeed, she’d pushed the whole werewolf thought to the back of her mind, refusing to dwell on it until she’d had the time to evaluate in detail. That helped in the beginning; her shooting review psychologist insisted he wasn’t getting the whole story, though. Over the weeks, the details turned fuzzy even for her.

  Wait, Senior Special… did he say promotion?

  It made no sense. Promotions were highly coveted and extremely competitive. Hush money?

  She broke out of her reverie only when her lawyer leaned in close. “Angela, forget about the—”

  “Sir, I have one question,” she said.

  Stevenson looked up from his papers. “Yes?”

  “The research I was performing in Archives, the coroner reports. Was any of it ever recovered?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. The investigating agents have been reprimanded for failing to properly tag all evidence. Unfortunately, no one knows where it’s been placed.” His smile was as sweet as Sunday ice cream. “I’m sure it will turn up eventually. And, as you know, Ambrose’s body was cremated by mistake, a bureaucratic oversight, I’m told.”

  Angela paused for a few moments while her lawyer shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Good!” Stevenson said. “Now, what are we to do with you? Although you have been cleared, we here on the board are not so naïve as to believe you’ll be able to find a comfortable working environment. You did, after all, shoot a fellow agent. Based on your experiences in this matter, and the initiative you’ve shown, I’ve decided to assign you to Task Force W.”

  An administrative assistant appeared at her side with a fingerprint-secured thumb drive. If plugged into a computer by a finger not containing the keyed print, a memory chip holding the decryption key would be destroyed.

  “Task Force W, sir? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Everything you need to know is on that thumb drive.”

  She put the drive in her pocket. “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent. This hearing is adjourned. Congratulations, Senior Special Agent Hollingsworth.”

  Angela stood on the sidewalk across the street from the Lucky Star Diner for close to fifteen minutes before she decided to go in. No one showed any signs of recognizing her, so she chose a table near the front window and ordered a chicken Caesar salad. Chief Wilcox came in and sat down at her table as she finished eating. The waitress met him there with a cup of coffee.

  “Good afternoon, Senior Special Agent Hollingsworth. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “You know my new rank.” She pushed her empty salad bowl to the side of the table and took a sip of her tea. “You’re well-informed for someone so far from civilization.”

  He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and placed a toothpick in the side of his mouth. “We like to keep up with current events. We even have this new-fangled thing called an internet that helps us with that.”

  “Hmm. I didn’t think vigilantes cared about what happened in real law enforcement circles.”

  Jim chuckled. “Vigilantes?”

  She put her tea down on the table. “Tell me, Chief, how many people know what he was?”

  “What do you mean? He was an FBI agent.”

  “Don’t insult me. I’ve learned over the years to trust my instincts over unconnected facts. Yeah, he was an FBI agent, but he also grew fur and howled at the moon, right?”

  All conversation in the diner ceased, and everyone looked over at her table. The chief’s eyes had turned to pale blue—exactly like Evan’s on the night she’d shot him in the head. She dropped her hand to her pistol.

  “Don’t,” the chief said. “You aren’t fast enough.”

  She froze as a chill settled on her forehead, and the hair on the nape of her neck stood up. “You’re a werewolf…?” Everyone else’s eyes had changed, too.

  He removed the toothpick. His voice dropped to a guttural slur, and he bared his fangs. “Yes. And we’re only slaves to the moon once a month, Senior Special Agent. But to answer the question on your mind, yes, we killed Ambrose. We don’t consider ourselves vigilantes, though. We just have a strong sense of the natural order of things. We—” he waved his hand around to indicate everyone “—keep our territory clean. And I think deep down you know what we did was right.”

  Angela swallowed a large lump. She’d pushed the werewolf angle to the back of her mind in her effort to remain out of prison because the mind can play tricks when adrenaline if flooding its containing body. But seeing the chief’s eyes drove it home; Evan had been a werewolf. And everyone around her was, too.

  “Maybe, but did you have to, you know, eat him?”

  “We only chewed. We didn’t swallow.”

  “Thin difference, Chief.”

  She took her time as she reached into her purse, well within his line of sight, and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He didn’t make any threatening moves; indeed, he continued to sit with his legs crossed, never flinching, nor tensing.

  “You aren’t upset? About me killing Evan?”

  “Of course, we are! But he made a mistake. He should’ve turned you. Made you an ally, so to speak.”

  She hung her purse on her shoulder, moved to get up, but changed her mind. “Why didn’t Ambrose disappear like everyone else?”

  “Evan said you would’ve turned this town upside down looking for him. And we couldn’t make you disappear—”

  “—because the FBI would have scraped Redstick off the map looking for me.”

  “Probably.” He put the toothpick back in. “You don’t seem that scared, you know, considering.”

  She took a deep breath a
nd blew it out slowly. “I’ve got a junkie for a brother, Chief. I used to chase child kidnappers, child killers, and child rapists. I’ve seen quite a bit of evil in the world. You may be scary, but I don’t think you’re evil. Hope I don’t find out otherwise.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You played me. And Officer McIver did his part. He had me convinced he was competent, getting those pictures like he did.”

  “He is competent. Don’t let that Barney Fife exterior fool you.” The chief’s fangs had receded. “And he didn’t know anything about how Ambrose died until after the fact.” He shook his head. “Senior Special Agent. Angela. Please don’t fear us. We’re on the same side. We have our own community, and we would like to keep it that way.”

  Angela took another sip of her tea.

  Chief Wilcox continued. “There’s no place else for us. We owe you. You could have dragged us into the investigation, but you didn’t. Thank you.”

  Angela nodded thoughtfully at the idea of being owed a favor from a town of werewolves. She placed the $20 bill on the table and walked out to her car. As she started it, everyone on Main Street stepped out of their doorways. And as she drove out of town, every set of eyes she made contact with had turned pale blue.

  Episode 2: Task Force W

  “S he put a curse on him, a hex,” the young woman cried.

  “Who did, Mrs. Hernandez?” Angela asked. Curses. Hexes. Not the usual fare for an FBI agent. But Task Force W didn’t investigate the typical FBI cases. She glanced at Clint, her new partner, to gauge his reaction. Tall, dark, and mission-oriented, he’d been in Task Force W three years. He appeared to be taking the statement at face value.

  “Lilith Blank,” Mrs. Hernandez answered. “She’s a witch, I tell you. Lives up in Denton.”

  Angela looked back at her. “What makes you think she cursed him?”

  “Because Walter loved me!” She had surprise on her face as if the question didn’t require answering. “Three years. That’s how long he waited for my father to give his blessing. A man won’t wait that long unless he loves a woman.” She perched on the edge of her chair with her hands on her knees, twisting a tear-dampened handkerchief.

  Angela took that moment to scrutinize Mrs. Hernandez’s living room. It wasn’t fancy. It was lived in. Comfortable. Wedding pictures on the walls showed Christi and Walter to still be newlyweds. A few others showed a cute, happy couple. Not the kind where the police catch the husband dead in another woman’s bed.

  Clint put his pencil to his notebook. Old school. “How long were you two married?”

  “Six months.” Christi dabbed her eyes. “We were already talking about children.”

  “That soon?” Angela asked. “Which of you talked more about it?”

  “He did. He has a large family. Had.” Tear dabbing again.

  “How did you feel about it?” Clint pressed.

  “I wanted a family, too, but I wanted to wait a bit,” she confessed.

  “And how did he feel about that?”

  “He understood. He was willing to wait.” Clint scribbled a few notes in his little book.

  “But he met Lilith, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Angela crossed her hands and rested them on her knees. “How did they meet?”

  “Walter stopped to help her change a tire. He was like that. Always helping people.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  Angela knew she’d let her surprise show but quickly buried it by shifting around in her seat.

  The man moved fast. Or Lilith did.

  “How long after that did they start seeing each other?”

  “I think that night.” Christi sniffed and wiped her nose. “He came home, and I could tell there was something different. Said he had a good day. Helped some woman change a flat tire, but when he talked about her, his eyes lit up.” She blew her nose and cast an apologetic look at them. “During dinner, he didn’t talk much. Stared off into space. Daydreaming. As soon as we finished the dishes, he called her to check to see if she made it home okay. I was surprised he had her phone number! Then he left, saying, ‘She’s worried about the tire. Seemed to shake on the drive home. I’m going to check on it.’”

  Angela jerked her head back in shock. “He drove all the way from Arlington to Denton to check on a tire?”

  Clint shut her down with a stern look.

  Just the facts, Hollingsworth!

  Again, she’d acted unprofessionally and let emotions out during the interview. The FBI tolerated it when chasing child-killers, but she didn’t chase those any longer.

  “Yes! He didn’t come home that night either. He swore to me that he slept on her couch, but he didn’t. A woman knows. Don’t we Agent Hollingsworth?”

  Sometimes. Had the shirt. “What makes you think she put a curse on him?”

  “He became obsessed with her. Every night for the next week, he was up there. He would come in the next morning, take a shower, and go to work. He wouldn’t even wash her filth off before he came home. Then one night before he left, he said he wanted a divorce. The police came the next morning and *sniff* and *sniff* and told me that he’d died.” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she bawled in heavy sobs. Angela slid over and put her arms around the distraught woman.

  Clint’s next question died in his throat when Angela tossed him a dirty look.

  After a few moments and a final sniff, Mrs. Hernandez whispered, “A man waits three years for a woman, marries her, wants to start having kids, and within a week of meeting someone else, says he wants a divorce. Agent Hollingsworth, how do you describe that other than a hex?”

  Two weeks ago, Angela would have laughed the first time someone asked her to take hexes seriously. However, since her run-in with a town full of werewolves and her subsequent assignment to Task Force W, she figured a Magic 8-Ball would be more accurate.

  Angela stared out the windshield at the pouring rain, trying to ensure none of the crazies on the road opted to take her and Clint with them should Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection pluck them from the tree of life. “Do curses or hexes or whatever really exist?”

  “Absolutely,” Clint forcefully stated. “I’ve only seen one though.”

  A large, passing truck splashed a thick wall of spray, forcing her to slow down and shift over to the right side of her lane.

  “Excited?” he asked.

  “About what, this being a W case?” A sly grin danced across her lips. She hadn’t given it much thought. But now? Nostalgic, like skulking up her childhood home’s hallway with her twin brother on Christmas morning. Their parents wouldn’t let them into the living room until hot chocolate filled their cups and Elvis Presley crooned carols from the stereo. “Maybe a little. Do you think Lilith really put one on Walter?”

  He glanced over at her and pursed his lips. “They’re rare from what I understand.”

  Angela couldn’t help but let her excitement show.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her with a chuckle. “You’ve earned your chops. A werewolf? That’s the big kahuna. Everyone hopes for one like that. Relax.”

  Werewolf? Singular? Oh, crap, that’s right! He doesn’t know it’s the whole damned town!

  She kept her eyes on the road and took a deep breath. “I look back to Redstick and, well, it just seems too much on the surface. Then I run through the facts in my head, and I begin to believe again.”

  “That’s Task Force Weird for you.”

  “Weird?”

  Clint chuckled. “What did you think the W stood for?”

  “Wickersham,” she answered. “The man who headed the first federal investigation team. At first, I thought it was for Werewolf.” Contrary to popular mythology, Ichabod Crane didn’t finish off the headless horseman. Wickersham did.

  “Correct. But we find Weird better describes it.” Clint twisted sideways in the seat. “Did you know there were actually two other men who worked with him. Eric Robinso
n and Christian Dietz.”

  She bounced a confused look at him.

  He dropped another hint. “W. R. D. Last names?”

  Realization struck her like a lightning bolt. WRD. WeiRD! “No, way!”

  “Anyway, they don’t assign anyone here unless they’ve encountered something, um, weird. Finding a werewolf in Redstick surely fits the bill.”

  “What did you run across?”

  “I found a serial killer’s skeleton.”

  “That doesn’t sound too weird.”

  In a voice as dry as West Texas, he said, “Inside a dinosaur skeleton ribcage fossil.”

  “Oh.”

  Angela pulled up in front of Lilith Blank’s house. It didn’t flash witchy. Of course, Angela wasn’t sure what kind of house a witch would live in. If Lilith even was a witch. She made a mental note to research witches as soon as she cleared her caseload. And curses.

  The rain had stopped as they drove into Denton, so the St. Augustine creepers covering the sides of the sidewalk dampened their shoes by the time they stepped onto the stoop. Clint stood four paces behind Angela and to her right as she rang the doorbell. After a few moments, a woman answered the door. Blonde hair, blue eyes, mid-30s. Thigh-hugging yoga pants told Angela this woman worked out and worked out hard.

  “Can I help you?” the lady asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m FBI Senior Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth, and this is Senior Special Agent Clint Lane.” They both showed their badges. “Are you Lilith Blank?”

  “Yes, I am. What’s this about?” Lilith straightened her back and blinked rapidly. Nervous. Expected though. The FBI doesn’t knock on your door selling girl scout cookies.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?” Agents always suggested talking inside a suspect’s house. People feel more comfortable in their own home. Comfort leads to overconfidence. Overconfidence leads to lying.

  The more lies, the more opportunity Angela could trip her up. Angela’s Interrogation Tome, Page 4.

  Angela sensed hesitation from her, but when she peeked at Clint over Angela’s shoulder, she gushed, “Absolutely!” and stepped to the side.