Hollingsworth

by Tom Bont

  “Lightning?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah,” Angela replied with a slow shake of her head.

  “And I lived?”

  “Yeah.”

  He sat a little straighter and grinned that shy, country boy grin of his. “Heck, I must be a total badass.”

  The paramedic tossed a pair of scrubs onto his lap. “I guess we can start calling you Danny Danger, huh?”

  “Oh, hell, no,” Angela argued. “Don’t even go there.”

  Convinced Danny wasn’t going to die on her watch, the paramedic went to check on the other two survivors.

  “I remember taking its head off,” he muttered. “Then nothing. Say, how’d you get me out of there?”

  “Arnold Cooper. The man who was on the stretcher inside.” Angela pointed her head across the way.

  “How’d you convince him to drag a werewolf to safety?”

  Angela handed him his pistol and badge.

  His voice rose in pitch. “You threatened a civilian at gunpoint?”

  “No. I deputized a civilian with extreme prejudice.”

  Danny pursed his lips and nodded to Arnold, who returned it with a nervous smile.

  “You think he’s gonna say anything?” Danny asked.

  “Don’t think so. Once we got his sister out—his twin sister, by the way—and you’d changed back, he calmed down. I guess after being forced into some mad experiment by—whatever the hell it was—seeing a werewolf was probably mundane.”

  Danny grimaced at the remains of the barn. “Any evidence left at all?”

  Angela shook her head.

  “So, we don’t know if there are any other labs around.”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  He leaned back on his elbows and tilted his head to the side. “Angela Hollingsworth and her trusty sidekick, Danny Danger.” He stared off into the distance with a wide smile. “I think there’s a comic book deal here.”

  Episode 4: Doorman

  T wo One Eight Elmwood Drive. Spelled out.

  Must be hard on the mailman.

  A dozen rose bushes along the front of the single-story, red brick house were headed towards hibernation for the winter. A mowing constituted the limits of its weekly maintenance for the rest of the yard. “A little fixing up, it’d be pretty,” Angela told Danny. “Not that I’m interested in moving to the outskirts of Marshall, Texas. Too Hicksville for my tastes, I don’t care how big it thinks it is.”

  “If you say so,” he murmured. He’d drawn his mouth into a straight line, chewing on his lip.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He paused before he whispered, “Death.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” she sassed. “Dead body. Remember?”

  “Yeah, but…the death is wrong.”

  “Well, I don’t know too many that are right.” When he didn’t answer, she crossed her arms and studied him. Beads of sweat coated his forehead. “What makes you think that?” she demanded. “We haven’t even seen it yet.” When he still refused to answer, she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the street. More privacy. “What’s got you so spooked, Danny?”

  “There something wrong about this whole house.” He painted the entire structure with twitching eyes as if he expected something to jump out at him.

  She scanned it too and cocked her head to the side. “No spiders that I can see.”

  He jerked a quick glimpse at her and let loose a staccato chuckle. “Yeah, right?”

  “Here comes our escort.” A man in his late thirties with curly blonde hair, brown eyes, and an FBI windbreaker swaggered towards them. “If you want to stay out here, let me know now,” she told Danny.

  He glanced at the FBI agent. “No. I’m okay.” He rolled his eyes to the side to gaze back at the house. “It’s just giving me the willies. That’s all.”

  The local FBI agent shook hands with them. “You must be Angela Hollingsworth,” he drawled. “I’m Justin Bates.” He squinted at her as if trying to recall where he’d seen her before.

  “Yes, I am, and it’s nice to meet you. This is Officer Danny McIver.”

  “Police Officer?” Justin asked. “Where you from?”

  “Redstick. Up north a ways.”

  Angela interjected. “He’s a subject matter expert we tap from time to time.”

  Justin appraised Danny for another moment before he nodded. “Well, we’ve got a good one for y’all today. Locked room mystery.”

  “Why is the FBI interested in a man found dead in his own house?” Danny asked. “This seems like a local matter to me.”

  “He was caught up in a sweep and interviewed about the disappearance of two teenagers a few months back. You may have heard of them. Felicia and Ja’son Jefferson? Their names came up in one of your case files.”

  Angela snapped her head up. “The animal who kidnapped those kids is dead in that house?”

  “We don’t know.” Justin allowed with a long shrug. “But I’m beginning to have doubts about his alibi.”

  “Who found him?” Danny inquired.

  “Local police. Welfare check. Didn’t show up at work last night. Hadn’t missed a day in like eight years or something.”

  Angela put a stick of gum in her mouth. “And the house was locked down tight?”

  “Yeah. All windows are either locked or painted shut. Doors chained or dead bolted.”

  “So, who’s the stiff?”

  “Conrad Sabine. Caucasian male. Age 42. Divorced. Lives here alone. Found nailed to his easy chair with a single arrow through the heart. The trajectory of the arrow shows it came from the fireplace. The problem is there’s not enough room to stand there and shoot a shotgun, much less a bow and arrow. That’s why we called you guys. Is this a Task Force W case?”

  “Won’t know until we look it over.” She did a double take. “You know what Task Force W is?”

  “Just that you’re called in on the cases that typically defy logic.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’ve heard your investigation methods are unconventional.”

  “You could say that,” she drolled in a voice as dry as the Texas grasslands in August.

  “How do you get assigned?” he asked. “Were you a quota assignment?”

  Angela stared hard at him for a moment and wrestled with the temptation to ask if that would be the Mythical Woman Quota because their Redneck Asshole Quota seemed to be all filled. Fighting the urge to snarl a snide comment, she leveled her gaze instead. “I shot my old boss.”

  He laughed, but when neither she nor Danny joined him, he nervously smacked his dry lips, blinked a couple of times, and pulled his head back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…I meant—”

  She spun towards the house. “Walk us through the scene, please,” she ground out through a clenched jaw.

  Justin took a couple of jogging steps to catch up and held the door for her and Danny after they put their booties, hairnets, and gloves on. The open concept living room sat off the carport. The first thing she spotted was a leather recliner with an arrow sticking out the back of it. Dried blood had tinted the arrowhead dark brown, and a blackish dripline streaked from the hole to the floor. She crept around the other side. Conrad, obviously, lounged there as if he’d fallen asleep—other than the arrow buried in his chest. The shaft lacked one of its fletching flights. A book lay on the floor next to him. There was no television. Only a stereo with classical music CDs piled on it. A comfortable-looking couch and another recliner, both full of books. From the spines, Conrad preferred crime and mystery procedurals, mostly conspiracy-based. The sofa and recliner must have doubled as an overflow because even more books entirely filled the wall-mounted bookshelves. There were three other ways into the room: a hallway, a back door, and the dining room. And down the chimney, if you were Santa Claus.

  Angela leaned over and focused up the length of the arrow shaft, judging its trajectory back towards the fireplace. “Has the backyard been canvassed?”

  “Yes. Results negative.”<
br />
  “I assume the doorknob here—” she pointed to the back door “—has been cleared?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stepped out onto the back patio and surveyed the overgrown yard before examining the bricks on the back of the fireplace, about where she figured the arrow would have come from. “Danny, what do you see there?”

  Danny leaned in and inspected the section of the bricks she was pointing at. “Looks like a feather in the mortar.”

  “Agent Bates,” Angela called out, “I’d like this section of the brickwork removed and sent to the lab. I want the feather in the mortar here compared to the feathers on the arrow.”

  He glanced back and forth between the feather and Angela. “You think they’re the same?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s let the evidence tell us.”

  Justin raised his eyebrows and tilted his head towards Danny.

  “If she thinks it’s important, I’d bet a silver buffalo nickel she’s right,” Danny told him.

  Justin laughed and shook his head. “Waste of time if you ask me, but I’ll get your bricks for you.”

  Danny watched him walk off. “I guess he failed the task force’s entrance exam.”

  “Yeah, but not because he’s a chauvinist. I deal with that shit every day. He failed because he made an assumption before all the evidence was in.”

  “Agent Hollingsworth?” A young, female police officer in uniform stepped through the doorway. “We got the background on Mr. Sabine. He’s clean as a whistle. No priors. Solid citizen by all accounts.”

  Justin grabbed Angela’s attention over the young cop’s shoulder. “Agent Hollingsworth, could you come in here, please?”

  Angela followed Justin into the house to find half a dozen other agents with crossed arms observing her.

  “Agent Hollingsworth—” Justin indicated an older agent standing to the side “—this is Field Supervisor Harvey Anderson.”

  Harvey indicated the body but kept his gaze on her. “Agent, have you ever seen Mr. Sabine before today?”

  “Not that I recall, no. Why?” She glanced around at everyone and immediately knew what it would be like to tiptoe through Redstick in the middle of the night during a full moon. These men had hungry eyes.

  What the hell’s going on?

  Danny edged up next to her and straightened his back. “Angela, don’t say anything.” The cop she first met in Redstick materialized next to her. He took a single step forward, placing himself in front of her, and faced down an entire room of armed men. “Is she a suspect?”

  “This doesn’t concern you, Officer,” Agent Anderson growled.

  “The hell it doesn’t! You asked for us personally.” He flared his nostrils and took a deep sniff. “But I understand your hesitation. You don’t want to outright accuse her of anything, so you’re hoping she’ll ass up and say the wrong thing. Does she need her attorney?”

  Three of the men uncrossed their arms and exchanged dour expressions with each other.

  Agent Anderson shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “We aren’t accusing her of anything.”

  “Yeah?” Danny growled. “Well, I’m calling bullshit.”

  Angela stepped around and rested the back of her hand on Danny’s chest, gently forcing him back. “What do you want to know, gentlemen?”

  Anderson blinked and pointed a lazy finger at Justin. He handed her an evidence bag with a picture sealed up inside. “We found this in that book next to the chair. He’d been using it as a bookmark. Maybe.”

  Angela took the bag and scrutinized the picture. “We didn’t know who that was until you showed up. This is you, right?” He pointed to the picture.

  It was her—and Heather—eating lunch a few weeks ago. A masculine hand had written on the back, The Forsaken Dweller has prepared her with a gift.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Who’s the other woman?”

  “My friend, Dr. Heather Wiley.”

  “What’s the gift it’s referring to?”

  She paused for a moment. “I’m not sure.” She continued to stare at the picture.

  “Do you know who this Forsaken Dweller is?” Anderson inquired.

  “Psycho,” Danny answered. “Leads some cult we’ve been tracking.” When no one challenged him, he stated clearly, “Any other questions, contact our boss, Kent Gladen.”

  As they left the house, Anderson called, “Agent—” He tilted his head at the evidence bag still in her hand.

  Angela pulled out her phone and took pictures of the picture.

  Danny usually had a comment for every crack in the road and every worn-out piece of architecture they passed while they drove from one scene to the next. But during the drive back to Fort Worth, he didn’t utter a word.

  “Okay, Danny, what gives?”

  He rested his arm across the top of the steering wheel. “Tell me about the gift.”

  She stared out her window. “What gift?”

  “Angela, I may look and sound like a dumb country boy, but I’m not a dumb country boy. I pulled the report on Lilith and Clint.”

  “What?” Angela swallowed a lump not too dissimilar than an ice-cold ball bearing. It slid down her throat and pulled her stomach to her feet.

  “A succubus that leaves its victims looking older. A succubus that’s lived at least 100 years. That we know of. The reports from the SWAT team members all agreed Lilith was a teenage-aged girl. A teenager is not someone I would expect an FBI agent with Clint’s record to pursue romantically.”

  “Fuck,” she mouthed.

  “I found your entrance photo ID to the Academy. There’s not much difference there. That’s why people probably haven’t picked up on it. But, Angela, I’m lupus. Age smells. And you smell younger than when I met you in Redstick.”

  “Fuck,” she mouthed again. She wanted to be angry. She hungered for it.

  How dare he!

  She’d worked hard to control her emotions through life, but ever since Lilith, she’d been a malfunctioning hormone factory. The littlest thing triggered the wrong reaction. She pulled out a stick of gum and stuck it in her mouth.

  Yes, he would dare. He’s a fuckin’ awesome cop.

  “I need to know what happened in that room, or I’m carrying my hairy ass back to Redstick, and you can fight this Forsaken Dweller yourself because you told me if we can’t trust each other we’re no good for each other, and the bastard’s gonna win anyway.” He took a deep breath.

  Tears welled up in her eyes—damned teenage hormones—and once she started talking and sobbing, she couldn’t stop. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been holding back. She told him the whole story. “…and you know what hurts the most, Danny? Clint is lying in some bed, waiting to die, while I’m living on his dime. I haven’t visited him once because I can’t face him. I know it’s not my fault, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  They drove in silence for a few moments. He gently bit his lower lip. “Would you give it back if you could?”

  She didn’t expect that question. In fact, she had never once asked herself that question since it had happened. She wasn’t sure if she avoided it on purpose, or if it had never crossed her mind. She surprised herself when she whispered, “I don’t know.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Danny. I haven’t told anyone. Not even Heather. How could I?”

  “I understand,” he consoled her quietly. “And I accept your apology. But don’t lie to me again, please. I don’t think I could stand it.” He was quiet for a few more moments before pointing to a field along the side of the road. “Hey, would you look at that! I haven’t seen a tractor that old since they closed down the mill and Uncle Bill took to farming.”

  “Hairy ass?” she half-choked around a phlegmy laugh.

  “Part of the werewolf package.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and added with emphasis, “Partner.”

  Heather stared intently down the long shaft of stainless steel. She peered s
lightly to her left, deliberately pulled her arms to the right, and pulled them back to the left a little faster. The putter tapped the golf ball and sent it rolling across the green. It bounced against the wooden corner, flew over the ramp, and disappeared under the windmill wing. A few moments later, the *plunk* *plunk* *plunk* of the ball dropping into the metal cup told Angela her friend was now eight strokes ahead. As if the happy dance she was doing on the Astroturf didn’t.

  Angela shook her head and laughed loud enough to attract the kids’ attention at the next hole. “When do you find the time to practice?”

  “Only when I’m out with you,” Heather bragged with a big smile. “Doctor reflexes, I guess.”

  Angela cut her laugh off as a man with a cell phone took pictures of the area. One of them included Heather and her. She was about to go over there when a kid bumped her arm. She spun around. Two more kids, all standing on a stone wall, posed for a picture.

  “That’s all,” the man yelled. “Let’s go!” He cast a wary face at Angela and protectively put his arms around the kids as he ushered them out.

  “What was that about,” Heather asked.

  “What?”

  “I thought you were fixin’ to draw down on Family Man over there.”

  “I don’t like people taking pictures of me without my permission.”

  Heather pursed her lips and put one fist on her hips. “Since when have we ever been shy, sister?”

  Angela pulled her friend to the side and let the next group play through. “Since I found this on a dead, child-kidnapping suspect 200 miles from here.” She pulled out her phone and brought up the picture of them eating.

  Heather stared at it. “What? Who?” Her face turned pale. “What the hell?”

  “Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. Like I said, the guy’s dead, but I don’t know if he had an accomplice or not.”

  Heather watched Family Man leave through the gate with his kids and wife. “What was his name?”

  “Conrad Sabine. You ever heard of him?”

  “No.” Heather stared back at the picture for a few moments and handed it back.