by Laura Greene
"Jane, how are you?" comes the no-nonsense voice of Agent Ross of the FBI.
"Not too good, Ross. Wish you were still stationed here, I could really use your help."
"I will be staying in Wild Cove for a few days for the wedding in a couple of weeks, as long as Jack hasn't ended up in jail again and it's had to be canceled."
"No, Jack's behaving himself. We are looking forward to seeing you at the wedding, Ross. But…"
"Is this to do with Pastor Callaghan being a wanted man?" Agent Ross never beats around the bush.
"Yes. I believe he may be mixed up in the disappearance of two men over the last few weeks. I think he's fled the town. I still can't believe he might be involved.”
There is a pause for a moment as though Agent Ross is thinking things over. For once, he is trying to be tactful. "I know you and the pastor are close, Jane. But you and I are cut from the same cloth. We are in law enforcement to do what's right. It's our duty to protect people. Sometimes, that means making the toughest decisions of our lives. If the pastor is involved, it's your duty to find out and bring him to justice. I know it's hard, but I have complete faith in you."
Jane wants to laugh. Usually it is the pastor who tells her that he has faith in her, but hearing it from Agent Ross still means a lot. “Thank you... Ross, when you were investigating the people trafficking ring in the county, did you ever come across anything about a group known as 'The Elders'?”
"Ah, yes," comes Agent Ross's reply. "On two occasions they were mentioned. But it seemed more like a piece of local folklore than anything else: strange hooded figures in the woods surrounding Wild Cove; it was like something out of an M. R James ghost story. What I can tell you is that one of our informants was helping us with our investigation, but as soon as we asked him any questions about The Elders, he pulled back on giving us any help. It would be beyond protocol for me to tell you who that informant was, but let's just say that he used to be a colleague of yours."
"I hear you loud and clear, Ross. Thank you so much."
The conversation comes to an end, and Agent Ross' insinuation that Sheriff Williams has something to do with The Elders backs up what Marcus Whateley wrote in his diary. He did mention that Sheriff Williams, the very man Jane replaced after he tried to kill her to cover up his own son's murders, is somehow mixed up in the strange goings-on around the Whateley farm.
That settles it. Jane is going to have to travel to Denton Prison and have a face-to-face chat with her old boss.
Denton is a small town, but it has the unenviable task of playing host to most of the dangerous criminals in the county. Denton Prison is a sprawling complex on the east side of the town; a large granite building with several offshoots, surrounded by a 30 foot high fence and barbed wire. Jane has visited here once before to interview a suspect, but this is on another level. She was hoping to never have to face Williams again.
After going through the various searches and checks in place that are standard for most prisons, Jane is brought into a small interview room, alongside a burly tattooed prison guard for her own safety. Jane can handle herself, but backup is always appreciated. The room is dingy, the walls a dusty brown color, and it looks like the large table, which is bolted to the ground in front of her, requires as much a good clean as the grubby floor.
It’s not long before a tall man in a black suit enters the room. He introduces himself as Sheriff Williams' lawyer. "If at any point I feel your questioning of my client is inappropriate or, given your personal relationship to him, an attempt to accuse him of further wrongdoings, I will terminate this interview immediately. Do you understand?" the lawyer says with his usual arrogance.
"I can't force him to answer my questions, for now. But that may change if he's charged." Jane smiles at the lawyer, staring him down, showing that she is every bit his equal.
Deep down inside, Jane's heart is racing. As the door opens into the dingy little room, the tall figure of Williams walks in, his wrists chained, his ankles likewise bound only to provide enough room for him to walk unevenly. He sits down in the seat in front of Jane, before the prison guard unlocks his chains to allow him to sit more comfortably during the questioning. Clasping his hands together, Williams is still as imposing as Jane remembers. He has clearly put on a little weight since being in prison, and though he now has jowls in his face which weren't previously there, his eyes contain the same disheartening menace that Jane saw the night he tried to kill her at her farmhouse back at Wild Cove.
"Well, well, well," Williams says, smiling, a glint of sweat on his brow. "It's good to see you… Sheriff." He says the word with sarcasm as though he does not recognize Jane as the true Sheriff of Wild Cove.
"Let's cut to the chase, Williams." Jane is in no mood to mess around. Pastor Callaghan ran off, and he is being implicated in the disappearance of two men. She has to get to the bottom of it, and Williams is her only lead.
"I admire the direct approach, but you still don't carry that uniform well."
"Williams, I believe your lawyer informed you that we are in need of some assistance," says Jane, ignoring the prisoner's insults.
Sheriff Williams nods reluctantly.
"Two men have disappeared, possibly murdered, and another has vanished, and if you have any loyalty left to the safety of Wild Cove and its residents, you'll tell us everything you know about The Elders."
Williams moves uncomfortably in his seat. "Agent Ross asked me the same thing... you can't protect me from them. So, why would I give up information to you and not the FBI when they were offering me witness protection and getting out of this dump?"
"Williams, I believe you were a good sheriff once." Jane reaches down and pulls something out of her pocket. It’s a gold star; on its crest are the words ‘Sheriff Williams’. She places it in front of Williams and his eyes light up, half in despair, half in pride.
There is an almost palpable silence in the room. Williams does not take his eyes off of the star on the table.
"Go on, it's yours. You earned it, protecting the people of Wild Cove." Jane leans in and pushes the star towards Williams. "You were a sheriff once; I'm giving you the opportunity to be one once again, one last time. If you tell me what I need to know, in my eyes, there will always be a part of you that remains Sheriff of Wild Cove."
Williams touches the golden star in front of him. He caresses it in his fingers. "They didn't let me keep my star after the trial... all I ever wanted to do was help people…" he says quietly. “It's so complicated to keep your head above water... you don't have any kids yet, do you, Jane?"
"Not yet. Hopefully one day."
"Let me tell you, you'll do anything to protect them." Williams is clearly referring to his son Timothy, whom he was willing to kill for to keep him out of jail.
Jane senses an opportunity to push further. "Help your townsfolk one last time. They need you."
Williams stands up. "That's enough, I want to leave." He is walking towards the door, the prison guard holding it open for him. But before he disappears through it, he turns back towards Jane sitting in the interview room, watching her wearing the uniform he once wore so proudly. "The graveyard, Jane. Look at the names." With that, Williams leaves, but not before he hears Jane utter one more sentence that means more to him than Jane could ever know.
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
Chapter 5
It’s the following day, and Jane is off duty. She was supposed to spend it with Jack, trying to make amends and build bridges with Jack's parents, who are in town for the next couple of weeks leading up to the wedding. Through gritted teeth Jane was prepared to be as polite as she could be; more than they deserved given their previous rudeness. But before that could happen, Jane had a genuine excuse to cancel the planned lunch.
While Jack was disappointed about losing the opportunity to smooth things over, that disappointment vanished when Jane said to him, "I've got a lead to help us figure out what's happened to Pastor Callaghan."
&nb
sp; That was all Jack had to hear. The pastor had become a dear friend to him as well, and so Jack is as perplexed and as worried as Jane is about why Callaghan would be involved in the disappearance of two men. Jane is following the suggestion that Williams gave her. There is something about the gravestones in the graveyard next to Oak Lane that will offer a clue about The Elders. What that is, she doesn't know.
Taking Jack's red Corvette, another rusted restoration project from his auto shop, Jack drives both of them to the cemetery. Driving along the same route towards the graveyard that Jane took with Harley the night they found Chuck Moore's truck, Jack pulls up at the cemetery gates just a few moments from Oak Lane. In the fall sun, the graveyard has taken on a different atmosphere. Walking through the gates Jane looks at the sea of gravestones, each of them telling a story about the town's history. Each one a person laid to rest in the hometown of Wild Cove.
"Sheriff!" comes a shout from behind a large stone tomb. It’s Mr. Robertson, the caretaker of the graveyard. Walking over to Jack and Jane, he enters into useless stories about kids hanging around the graveyard and how they shouldn't be there and that the sheriff needs to do something about it.
Jane nods in agreement, waiting for an opportunity to speak. "Mr. Robertson, I'm off duty at the moment, but this is part of my investigation. Have you noticed anything strange about the names on the gravestones in all the years you've worked around here?"
"Strange? What do you mean, strange?"
"I was told to look at the names of the gravestones, and that I'd find something useful on them. Are you aware of what that might be; are there any gravestones that stand out from the others?"
Mr. Robertson's eyes gleam with unusual life. He is delighted that someone is actually interested in the graveyard and its many headstones. "There is something no one has been able to explain to me about the cemetery. Some of the gravestones here have the same symbol next to the date of death."
Jane's ears prick up at that. "Strange symbol? Can you show me?"
Mr. Robertson stumbles between the gravestones enthusiastically for a while until he arrives at one such grave. Pointing at the worn stone, Mr. Robertson says, "This right here. It's like a letter E with a circle around it. You wouldn't normally notice if you weren't looking for it. It's too small."
Mr. Robertson is right. On the gravestone is a letter E about half an inch in width, surrounded by a faint engraved circle. "I only noticed them a few years ago. And the only reason I did was because I was doing some restoration stuff, cleaning out the grooves and such, getting rid of moss on some of the graves. I saw that strange symbol and let me tell you it is a puzzle. I noticed them on some others, too."
"How many?" asks Jack, taking a picture of the gravestone with her phone.
"I found another two or three, but as you can see," Mr. Robertson is pointing, waving his arm across the vast cemetery, “there are thousands of graves here going back to the very beginning of the town's history.”
Soon, Mr. Robertson turns back to his favorite topic of kids climbing into the graveyard and playing around where they shouldn't be, until, eventually, Jane is persuasive enough that he accepts she will look into it, and maybe even install a security camera somewhere to keep an eye on the grounds. In return, Mr. Robertson is happy to leave Jane and Jack to find the other gravestones dotted around the place.
It’s a long process. It’s taking hours, in fact. The E symbol is so small that it is easy to miss it on a gravestone at first glance. Jack and Jane divide the entire cemetery down the middle, and then one by one, systematically, each search a side for any gravestone containing the same symbol.
Many hours pass and the sun begins to set, and Jane is finally confident that they have looked at every gravestone in the graveyard. "Well, I found another five on my side of the graveyard; what about you?" asks Jane.
Jack replies, "I found six. Does that mean I win something good?" Jack flashes a cheeky glance at Jane.
"Not until our wedding night," Jane laughs.
"What do you think this E symbol means?"
For a moment, Jane looks across the graveyard as the last few rays of sun dip over the horizon, casting long shadows. "Elder…"
"Look at all the dates on the gravestones… They're all from the same era – around 200 years ago," observes Jack.
"Whoever this group is, they go back to the very beginning of Wild Cove."
"The names do make sense. The surnames… I think we know some of their descendants, unless the names are coincidences.”
“I don't believe in coincidences anymore,” says Jane, wistfully. “Certainly not in Wild Cove.”
“Do you think that means the descendants are members of this group... The Elders?"
Jane nods. "It makes sense. That's why Williams sent us here. All we have to do now is figure out who the descendants are. That will lead us to The Elders, whatever that means…"
It has been a long day and so Jane and Jack return to the farmhouse and cuddle up on her couch, reflecting on their findings and future together. They fall asleep hoping for a better tomorrow, but when the sun rises over the horizon in the morning, only danger beckons them into its bitter embrace.
Chapter 6
After a troubled sleep, Jane has a plan to identify The Elders. Deep down, she is terrified Callaghan himself is one, and that his fleeing is purely to protect the group by keeping incriminating evidence out of Jane's reach. That is a bitter betrayal if true. Jane has to get to the bottom of this; to find out what has happened to Chuck Moore and Marcus Whateley, and who the hooded figures in the woods really are.
“Do you understand?” says Jane, still whispering to Harley in her office.
“I do, but shouldn't we get more of the...” Harley's thought is cut off.
“No, Harley. I can't take the chance. This is down to you, me, and Jack. We need to find evidence of what's going on out there. You keep an eye on these names, see if they head out to the forest at any point, but keep your distance. Jack and I will watch over the Whateley place.”
And with that the plans are set in motion, but as Robert Burns once observed, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
It is now just a few days until Jane and Jack's wedding, but instead of looking over any last minute changes to their wedding day – such as finding a new pastor to carry out the ceremony – both bride and groom are at the Whateley farm. They have been there for two nights, and nothing has happened. But Jack, studying the diary of Marcus Whateley, notices a pattern in the entries. There are consistent gaps of either two or three nights between each instance of Marcus encountering the strange figures on his farm.
This is night three, and Jack is thinking that if anything is ever going to happen, it will be tonight. The stakeouts have taken their toll on Jane and her fiancée. Staying in the house or in a parked car would have attracted too much suspicion. If the figures in the forest are watching, Jane theorizes that they will avoid detection if they know the town sheriff is ready to document their existence once and for all.
This means that Jane and Jack have had to hide themselves well. Much to Jack's chagrin, accompanied by several groans whenever a branch sticks in his side in the evenings, Jane has found them a spot inside a large bush just inside the tree-line where they will be hidden from view. The fall air at night is particularly chilling, and with no activity the past two nights, Jane has decided they will take a few nights away from their stakeout if nothing happens.
But something does happen.
“Do you see that?” Jack whispers, sitting on a thermal blanket inside the large bush.
“Yeah, got it... my word...” Jane watches in horror as three figures move across the Whateley farm and towards the tree-line. Jane plugs her earpiece into her radio and quietly radios Deputy Harley. “Harley, we've just seen three Elders moving into the forest. Any movement on our suspects, over?”
Harley responds: “No, Sheriff. All quiet, but then I can't follow all twelve at once. Do you wa
nt me to head to your position for backup?”
“No,” says Jane. “I'm going to take a closer look and see if I can follow them. Maybe I can learn more. You should head to Oak Lane in case there's any movement there. Stay safe. Over.”
Jane tries to argue with Jack about following her, but as she has learned in her time in Wild Cove, Jack will always be by her side. Removing her revolver from its holster Jane moves out, following the tree-line. Jack follows closely. By the time they near where the three figures entered the woods, Jane is shocked by what she sees in the dim moonlight.
“Look,” she whispers. “There's a worn track into the forest. Looks like they've been using this way for some time.”