by John J. Rust
“What a surprise,” said Sherlock. “A bogus address.”
“For a guy with a bogus name, I bet,” added Rastun.
“And with a burn phone and credit card that’s no longer active.”
Geek groaned. “Great. We just wasted a bunch of time coming up here.”
“It was a lead,” said Sherlock. “We had to follow it up.”
“Well, now let’s check out our next leads.” Rastun removed a piece of paper with a list of addresses from his pants pocket. He felt confident it would bring them closer to their objective.
After all, if you were keeping a sea monster worth millions, you had to feed it.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Rastun, Geek and Sherlock went to several supermarkets in Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth. Sherlock flashed his badge and asked if anyone had bought large amounts of meat or fish on a regular basis. Every employee and manager they asked said no. Sherlock also showed a photo of Leo Fallon and gave descriptions of the tough guys who threatened Gabe Monroe and showed up at Jonnard’s. No one recognized them.
They drove to the next county over, Southampton, a small county made up of towns whose populations didn’t come close to a thousand. It didn’t take long to check out the handful of supermarkets within its borders. No one there knew of anyone buying large quantities of meat or fish. They also couldn’t recall seeing Leo Fallon or the tough guys.
Next, it was onto Greensville County, which turned out to be even smaller than Southampton County. Only three towns showed on the map, Emporia, Jarratt and Skippers. They started in Emporia, since it was the biggest city.
If a population of 6,000 could be considered big.
Their first stop was the Wal-Mart Supercenter, where again they had no luck finding anyone who saw Leo Fallon or the tough guys. Next they went to the Food Lion, a chain supermarket with stores throughout the Mid-Atlantic States. The store manager took them to the meat department. The person in charge of it, a pudgy man with gray hair and a thick mustache, greeted them.
“Ed Hutchinson.” He shook their hands. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
“We’re investigating an animal smuggling ring that may be operating in this area,” Sherlock told him. “Has anyone come in over the last year buying large amounts of meat and fish on a regular basis?”
Hutchinson screwed up his face. “Not that I can recall.”
Rastun stifled a groan. They were striking out more than Phillies slugger Ryan Howard.
Sherlock showed him the photo. “Have you ever seen this man in the store? His name is Leo Fallon.”
“The face isn’t familiar, but you said his name’s Leo?”
“Yes.”
“One of the girls here dated a fella named Leo. Hanna. Hanna Phillips. She should be working one of the checkout lanes right now.”
Sherlock thanked him. The trio headed to the front of the store. Geek spotted a short, slim girl with long black hair and a nametag reading HANNA working the counter of aisle six. Rastun doubted she could have been older than 20.
“Hanna Phillips?” asked Sherlock.
“Yes?” She glanced at him while passing a can of soup over the scanner.
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Arthur Dunmore. May we have a word with you, please?”
Now Hanna turned her full attention to them. “M-Me? Why do you want to talk with me?”
Several other people in line also looked their way. Rastun figured it wasn’t every day a real-life U.S. Marshal came into the Food Lion in little Emporia, Virginia. He also lowered his head, hoping no one recognized him from the news.
“It’s about a man named Leo Fallon,” explained Sherlock. “Did you know him?”
“Leo?” Another, bigger flash of surprise spread across her face. “Is he in trouble or something?”
“Why don’t we talk about this somewhere else?”
Hanna called for another clerk to take over for her. She led them to a small break room that had a coffee maker, two small refrigerators and a few plastic couches and chairs that had seen better days. They all sat down.
“Is Leo okay?” asked Hanna.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Sherlock suggested. “How do you know Leo Fallon?”
“I met him last year. I just started working here and I walked past him in the soda aisle. He was kinda cute. We started talkin’ and he asked me out, but we only went on a few dates.”
“Were there problems between you two?”
“Kinda. I mean, get this. On our second date, he was telling me he was looking for this sea monster his bosses were hiding. This was, like, before anyone ever even heard of the Point Pleasant Monster.”
“And you believed him?” asked Rastun.
“Well, not at first. But then he told me about this thing called the Mockting…no, Mucktun Monster?”
“Montauk Monster,” Rastun corrected her.
“Yeah, that’s it. Leo said it escaped from this secret lab in New York. He even showed me a picture of it on his phone. I mean, it really was a monster.”
Rastun nodded. Ehrenberg had told him about the so-called Montauk Monster one night during dinner. He believed the creature to be a dead dog or raccoon and credited its monstrous appearance to a combination of decomposition and submergence in salt water.
“After seeing that picture, I figured Leo knew what he was talking about,” Hannah continued. “He told me his company was keeping another monster, even bigger than that Montauk Monster. He found one of the guys involved in it and tracked his license plate to a rental car company in Norfolk. He told me if they had the monster he saw, they had to feed it. He thought maybe they were getting food for it from a supermarket.”
“And you said this led to problems between you two?” asked Sherlock.
Hanna nodded. “He wanted me to keep an eye out for anyone who got lots of meat.”
“And did you ever see any customers do that?”
“Nope, and that’s what I told Leo, all the fucking time. I swear, he called, like, every day and asked me that. At first I thought it was cool, you know. Like something from a spy movie. But after a while it got annoying. He even asked me about it when we were making out. Can you fucking believe that? After that I dumped him.”
Hanna paused, her eyes darting to all three of them. “Um, is Leo okay?”
Sherlock lowered his eyes. Geek shifted slightly in his seat. So did Rastun. He then sat up straighter. He was the officer in the room. This was his responsibility.
“Hanna. I’m sorry to tell you this, but Leo’s dead.”
“What?” Her hands went to her chest. “Really?”
Rastun nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Hanna stared at the floor, mouth agape. “Oh my God. How did it happen?” Her eyes widened. “Was it something to do with this sea monster stuff? Was Leo telling the truth?”
“We’re still trying to determine that,” said Sherlock. “But thank you for your time, Hanna. You were very helpful.”
“Sure. No prob.” Hanna seemed to stare past Sherlock. Probably still trying to digest the fact a former boyfriend had died, Rastun thought.
The three ex-Rangers left the break room and headed back to the Escalade. They checked their list of supermarkets. The only one left in Emporia was an independently owned one called Greensville Food Market.
They drove there and met the owner, who introduced them to the head of the meat department, a skinny man with glasses named Dick Ortega.
“Has anyone been here over the last year buying large amounts of meat on a regular basis?” asked Sherlock.
“Yeah. A guy named Al. He comes in every week or so.”
“What does Al look like?”
“The guy’s built. Real stocky. Short hair.”
“What color?” asked Sherlock
“He’s got black hair,” Ortega replied.
“Is he Caucasian?”
“Nope. Hispanic.”
That sounded like the tough guy that threatened Gabe Monroe.
“Did he say why he needed all that meat?” Sherlock asked Ortega.
“Yeah. He works at this private animal sanctuary.”
“When does he come in?”
“Thursdays, usually. That’s our quality control day, when we get rid of stuff near the expiration date. Al gets it at a discount price. No sense letting all that food go to waste.”
Rastun groaned to himself. Today was Tuesday. They didn’t have time to stake out the place and wait for Al.
“Do you ever talk to Al when he’s here?” asked Sherlock.
“A bit. He’s not much into small talk.”
“Did he ever mention where this animal sanctuary is located?”
Ortega shook his head. “Nope. He just said it’s a ways from here.”
That’s nice and vague, Rastun thought. Al could be talking about someplace five miles away or 50.
They thanked Ortega and started to walk away.
“Hey!” Ortega blurted, his gaze on Rastun. “You know, you look like that FUBI guy they had on TV. The one who was in the Rangers.”
Rastun cracked a small smile and shrugged. “I’ve been getting that a lot today.”
He strode away from the meat counter before Ortega could say anything else.
“Some disguise you came up with.” Rastun looked to Sherlock and pointed to his Redskins ball cap.
“Sorry, sir. It was the best I could do on short notice.”
They checked their shortened list of suspect mansions. Three were located in Greensville County, none more than ten miles from Emporia.
The next part of their investigation required a place where they could work in private, have access to Wi-Fi and change their clothes. They picked a Holiday Inn Express just down the road. Rastun didn’t think they’d be staying the night, but it would serve well as a temporary base of operations.
The trio stopped at a sub shop near the hotel. Rastun wolfed down a 12-inch roast beef and cheese hoagie, along with two bags of chips. He hadn’t eaten since early this morning and was famished. So were Geek and Sherlock, judging by how quickly they ate.
After checking into their room, they sat at the table, turned on their laptops and went to the Greensville County government website to access property records. Geek checked the mansion to the east, Sherlock the one to the northwest and Rastun the one to the south.
His finger hovered over the touch pad as he read the document. The mansion in question was located at 50 Trotting Horse Way. Double-checking the satellite map, Rastun couldn’t see another house near it for at least four miles. An isolated location in a county with a population under 13,000. Who would ever suspect someone had a sea monster hidden here?
He read on. The mansion had been built in 1854 as part of a plantation owned by one Thomas Ardner. Ardner, he noticed, died in 1863, maybe in the service of the Confederate Army. The mansion’s ownership passed to Ardner’s wife, Ellie, who sold it four years after the Civil War.
The property was owned by the Tannehill family until 1898 when it was bought by an Edward Holmes. That family retained ownership for the next several decades, transforming it from a plantation to a horse farm. The business closed in 1978, and the last Holmes on the list, Willa, lived in the mansion until her death in 1987. Ownership of the abandoned mansion and grounds transferred to something called the Briggs/McDaniel/Schaal Trust.
Rastun’s eyes fell to the next few lines. It turned out the mansion had changed hands three years ago to . . .
He stared at the screen, unblinking. His entire body went numb.
“Cap’n?”
Rastun barely heard Geek. He just kept staring at the screen.
“Cap’n,” Geek said louder.
Rastun slowly turned to him.
“You okay?”
“I found out who owns the mansion on Trotting Horse Way.”
“Who?”
Rastun had to force the words out of his mouth. “Karen Thatcher.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
It turned out Karen didn’t currently own the mansion. She had sold it to an outfit called Old South Restoration. He felt a dark, invisible hand clench around his gut when he noticed the date of sale.
Three days after the attack on Gabe Monroe.
“Coincidence?” he muttered the word without much confidence.
“Do you really believe that, sir?” asked Sherlock.
Rastun shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. What about the suntan lotion? Why would Karen put it on herself and let the monster come after her?”
Sherlock stared at the floor in thought. “Would you say Miss Thatcher is someone not averse to taking risks?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it might make sense for her to use that suntan lotion on herself. Whoever’s running this op has to have a lot of money. I’ve seen people take crazy risks for money.”
“Why doesn’t she spike someone else’s suntan lotion?”
“It’s a good way to deflect suspicion. She makes herself look like a victim instead of the mole.”
Rastun thought Sherlock might be reaching. But he’d always trusted the marshal’s instincts.
No one is right one hundred percent of the time.
“Um, how about I check out this Old South Restoration?” Geek looked to Rastun.
He turned his head slightly to the former sergeant and nodded.
Geek tapped on his laptop. “Says here they specialize in refurbishing old homes and mansions and turning them into museums or bed and breakfasts.”
Rastun and Sherlock leaned over to look at the screen. The home page showed two mansions side-by-side, one dilapidated, the other fully restored. The top of the screen had links for contacts and services. When Geek clicked on contacts, he got a general company email and a phone number. Sherlock called the number, then said, “Four rings, then voicemail.”
“You think anyone would call back if you left a message?” asked Geek.
“I doubt it. This site has no physical address listed, no endorsements, no credentials, no photo gallery showing previous work like you’d expect from a business. It feels like someone just threw this together to give the company some sense of legitimacy.”
Rastun looked back at the mansion’s property records. He stared at Karen’s name. It didn’t make sense. Why would she own an abandoned mansion in Virginia?
He then remembered her saying she had some distant relatives in this state. Could they have been in charge of that trust? Could they have given the mansion to her?
It could be a completely different Karen Thatcher.
Rastun knew he was grasping at straws. The evidence kept mounting that Karen had to be the mole.
How the hell is this possible? She saved my life. Twice!
Maybe she had done that to gain his trust. Maybe that was also the reason she slept with him.
Another thought struck him. What if the people behind this had kidnapped Karen’s daughter? What if they used Emily to force her to do their bidding?
Rastun thought about all the times Karen talked about Emily, trying to recall any signs of worry or fear. None came to mind. He doubted any woman would be able to completely hide those emotions when it came to their daughter.
Blindsided by a woman…again! How could this have happened after Marie? Was he a damn fool? Was he so easily taken in by a pretty face and some hot nights in the sack?
And he had actually felt…
“Cap’n.”
Geek’s voice snapped him back to the present. He turned to find the former sergeant and Sherlock staring at him.
“We need to come up with a plan to recon that mansion.”
Rastun took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
He buried his feelings about Karen. Or at least, he tried to. Thoughts of her drifted around the periphery of his mind as they checked out satellite maps of the mansion. More than once he scolded himself.
You’re not a lovesick teenager. You’re an Army Ranger. Now act like it!
>
All his focus was locked on the screen. Trotting Horse Way went on for a little over a mile, ending at the mansion grounds. Trees lined the road and surrounded the property. Rastun’s biggest concern was the grounds themselves. They had to cross between 70 to 100 yards of open space to reach the mansion’s front door.
A perfect kill zone.
The same could be said for the rear of the property, and the flanks. None of them could make out any cover leading up to the mansion. No bushes, no ditches, nothing. Of course, civilian satellites didn’t have the same sort of resolution as military ones. This one also didn’t give them real-time intel on the target. He had no idea how many bad guys they faced, their security set-up or where they kept the monster.
The only way to find that out was to actually go there.
First, they needed some supplies.
The three drove to a local outdoors supply store. They picked up camouflage field caps, nightscopes, camo face paint and sports bottles. It would put a nice dent on all their credit cards, but Rastun knew they would need that gear.
The sun nearly touched the horizon by the time they returned to their hotel room. They took out their fatigues and boots from their luggage and changed. Rastun knew it would have saved time to change first, then head to the store. The problem was three men dressed in full camouflage walking around an outdoors retail store on a weekday evening might raise concern in some people.
They filled their sports bottles with water and checked their sidearms. Rastun holstered his Glock when Geek came up to him.
“You good, Cap’n?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?” A doubtful look crossed Geek’s face.
Rastun felt a stab of irritation. What Geek was really asking was, “This whole thing with Karen isn’t going to affect your judgment?”
“My head’s in the game, Sergeant.”
Several seconds passed before Geek said, “Yes, sir.”
They waited until dark before setting out. It didn’t take long for the small cityscape of Emporia to give way to forests. When they got within a quarter-mile of Trotting Horse Way, Geek pulled off the road. He maneuvered the SUV between two knots of trees. Rastun and Geek smeared black camouflage paint on their faces and donned night vision goggles. The night air felt warm and muggy. Rastun took a couple of pulls from his sports bottle. Geek and Sherlock did likewise.