Cesspool

by Phil M. Williams

  Jessica appeared looking beautiful with her wavy blond hair and light-blue blouse. She said, “It was strange, but I thought it was innocent. I think he just wanted to help her. I was friends with Brittany. I would have known if something bad was going on. She loved James and not like a boyfriend, but like a father or a big brother. He helped her get her GED and asked me to help her get a job at the diner.”

  Richard narrated while images of Dot’s Diner filled the screen. The shiny metal exterior, interior, and finally the Stricklands’ favorite booth. “Brittany Summers worked at this diner, the very same diner that Officer Dale Strickland and Chief Wade Strickland would frequent.”

  Chief Strickland appeared in a blue suit with his big shiny forehead and mustache. His chin hung like a chicken wattle. The chief said, “I knew he was gonna be a problem the first time I met him. It was just a simple code violation, and he acted like we were persecutin’ him.” Pictures of the cabin flashed on the screen. “He was tryin’ to live full-time in a cabin with an outhouse. You gotta have a septic for that. That’s when it all started—his vendetta.”

  They showed a dramatization of a Ford F-150 driving erratically, followed by a police car with rotating red and blue lights. They cut to a clean-shaven man with dark hair, light eyes, and a fat face, identified as Officer Matt Emory. He wore a large suit jacket that wasn’t large enough to contain his gut.

  “What happened on the night before Valentine’s Day of 2016?” Richard asked.

  “James Fisher was driving erratically, so I pulled him over,” Officer Emory replied.

  “Did you know who you were pulling over?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Bullshit,” James said to his laptop.

  “What happened when you pulled him over?” Richard asked.

  “I looked in the truck, and a young girl was with him. She was dressed in a fancy black dress, and he was in a suit. It was Saturday night. A lot of couples went out for Valentine’s Day on that night instead of Sunday. I thought it was odd. She looked like a little girl, and he was … too old for her. I asked if she was okay. She looked like she was upset.”

  “Do you think she wanted to be there?”

  “No, sir.” The officer shook his head. “I could smell alcohol on Mr. Fisher’s breath, so I gave him a breathalyzer.”

  “What was the result?”

  “It was a .082. He was over the legal limit, so I took him to the station.”

  “What was he like at the station?”

  “Unstable. He kept yelling for a doctor, saying that he was dying and needed medication. So we kept him overnight, hoping he would sober up.”

  “Did you let him out in the morning?” Richard asked.

  “I didn’t. Another officer did.”

  “Were there any charges?”

  “The charges were dropped. I guess the chief felt that it was so close to the limit. He was giving the guy a huge break. I think he figured that Fisher had learned his lesson spending the night in a holding cell. We’re not interested in ruining the lives of our citizens. We’re interested in keeping them safe.”

  Chief Strickland appeared. “That was a mistake. That was my mistake. We should have followed through. I felt bad for the guy at the time. If I knew what I know now, I would have handled that differently. I suppose hindsight’s twenty-twenty.”

  Richard spoke over a photograph of Harold with his big smile and big fish. “A few days later, Harold Strickland, beloved brother to the chief, texted the firehouse where he worked that he’d be out because of illness.” Richard Schlesinger appeared. “Was it like Harold to miss work?”

  They cut to a pudgy man in a light gray suit with a thinning head of salt-and-pepper hair. Underneath his image was the caption Fire Chief Bill Moran.

  Bill said, “No, it wasn’t, but the text looked genuine, and I figured anyone’s bound to get sick eventually.”

  “So you didn’t do anything?”

  Bill frowned and shook his head. “No, I didn’t, and I wish I had. I was trying to get a million things done before my vacation. The wife and I go to Key West in the winter for a week. You just don’t think of these things ever happening to your friends.”

  “When we return,” Richard said, “Fire Chief Bill Moran receives a distressing text message.”

  After the commercials, they returned with a dramatization of a plane landing. Richard Schlesinger said, “Fire Chief Moran landed at Harrisburg International Airport, fresh from his Key West vacation on February 24, 2016.” They cut to a dramatization of a man checking his phone in an airport. “He was immediately concerned by another text message he received from Harold Strickland.”

  The fire chief appeared. “It said Harold was still sick and would be out another week. I got concerned then, because, even if the text was legitimate, maybe he needs medical attention. So I called Chief Strickland and let him know my concerns. Wade said he would check it out.”

  They cut to Chief Wade Strickland. “I was concerned about the text message, but my brother’s a grown man. Harold sent me a message sayin’ that he was up in Lycomin’ County, huntin’ with a friend that he mentioned by name. I did think it was unlike him to shirk his duties, so I was concerned. I called him, but it went to voice mail. I traced the phone, and it was near a huntin’ camp in Lycomin’, so everything checked out as far as I was concerned. Then I spoke with Kurt.”

  Richard narrated as images of the Community College of Central Pennsylvania scrolled across the screen. “When we return, James Fisher takes a special interest in his former student, Kurt Strickland.”

  After the commercials, a dramatization was shown of a compact car on the side of a road, and a man taking pictures with a long-range lens.

  Richard said, “James Fisher was caught following Kurt and photographing him with sophisticated equipment.”

  Kurt Strickland appeared. “I was in my truck, and I saw him with this camera. I got out and asked him what he was doin’, and he told me that he was lookin’ for meth.”

  “But you don’t think he was there for meth?” Richard asked.

  “No, sir. I was seein’ friends, and that neighborhood is a nice neighborhood. I don’t know where you would go for meth, but it wouldn’t be there. Plus, it messes you up. Have you ever seen Faces of Meth? He didn’t look like that.”

  “Why do you think he was there?”

  “I think he was watchin’ me. I think he was plannin’ to kill me. If I didn’t have that conversation with my dad, maybe he would have.”

  They cut to Chief Strickland. “I called Kurt, just to see how he was doin’. I was always so busy with work that Kurt sometimes got lost in the shuffle. I guess I was feelin’ guilty.” The chief looked down for a moment. “I asked him how his classes were goin’. That’s when he told me about James Fisher spyin’ on him. I didn’t even know my son had him as a professor. That’s when I called Dale.” Tears welled in the chief’s eyes. The camera pulled in tight on the chief’s face, holding for a moment.

  Richard spoke over photos of Dale in his dress blues. “Officer Dale Strickland never answered his father’s call.”

  A red-eyed Chief Strickland appeared. “I had a bad feelin’. I dispatched damn near the entire department to James Fisher’s cabin, myself included.” They cut to a dramatization of police cars chasing a Ford F-150 down a gravel road. “When we got to his road, we saw his truck. He must’ve been goin’ about a hundred.”

  “Was he alone?” Richard asked.

  “He had a small young woman with him,” the chief replied.

  “Was it Brittany Summers?”

  “I believe so, but the first officer on the scene was the only one to see her, and her back was turned, so he couldn’t make a positive ID. But I believe 100 percent that it was her.”

  “What happened when you pulled up to the cabin?”

  “They barricaded themselves inside. The cabin was like a fortress. He had an alarm, motion sensors, bars on all the windows, and the doors were
reinforced. It took the guys a couple minutes to break through the front door.”

  Richard narrated as images of the cabin flashed on the screen. “James Fisher and presumably Brittany Summers are locked inside the one-room cabin, surrounded. What happens next, stunned Chief Strickland. When we return, the pair make a dangerous and dramatic escape.”

  The show returns with the camera on Chief Strickland. He said, “When we got inside, they were gone, vanished into thin air. It’s a small cabin, only one room. There’s no place to go. Then we found the hatch. It was hidden under a mat.” They cut to footage of the hatch and the cellar. “We thought we had ’em dead to rights in the cellar, but it was empty.” They cut to footage of the escape tunnel. “That’s when we found the tunnel. It was a black drainpipe about two feet in diameter. It was tight.”

  Richard spoke over photos of the hatch at the end of the tunnel. “The escape tunnel led here, only eighty feet from the cabin.” Footage of the trail flashed on the screen. “They escaped down this hiking path, but the police were hot on their trail.”

  Chief Strickland appeared. “We chased ’em down the trail, but we never saw ’em.”

  “But Sarge did,” Richard said.

  The chief nodded, his mouth turned down. “We let our canine loose, and Sarge caught up to him.”

  Richard narrated over a dramatization of a German shepherd running through the woods. “What happened next sounds like it was taken from a Hollywood script.”

  They cut to Chief Strickland. “When we got to the scene, Sarge was dying, stabbed in the back of the neck, and there was what looked like white cotton everywhere.” A dramatization played of a dog biting a puffy jacket and tearing the stuffing out of it. “The cotton was actually goose down. We think James Fisher tied his jacket around his leg and let Sarge bite down on it. When that happened …” The chief shook his head. “Fisher plunged a blade into the back of the dog’s neck. I heard Sarge yelp. It was the one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.”

  “Did this kill Sarge instantly?”

  “No, sir.” The camera zoomed in on the chief’s face. His eyes were wet. “We had to put him out of his misery.”

  Richard spoke over footage of the trail fork and the small gravel parking lot. “James Fisher and possibly Brittany Summers came to this lot at the end of the trail.”

  The camera cut to Chief Strickland. “They must’ve had a car ready to go, because, when we got there, they were gone. Kurt said James Fisher was in a white compact car when he saw him, so we put out an all-points bulletin for a white compact with a man and a woman in the car. State police pulled over hundreds of cars, but we never found ’em.”

  Richard narrated over images of the chief’s stone house. “They escaped, but it wasn’t over. This quaint stone house was owned by Chief Strickland as a hunting camp and weekend getaway.”

  They cut to the chief. “That same day I found out my house had been broken into. I had a good security system, burglar bars, and a very secure safe hidden in the attic and bolted to the floor.”

  They showed footage of the stone house.

  “Do you think it was James Fisher who broke in?” Richard asked.

  The chief appeared on-screen. “Definitely, and I’ll tell you another thing. There is no way an inexperienced thief could’ve done what he did. It was a professional job.”

  “What was taken from the home?”

  “A few thousand dollars in cash, and my wife’s jewelry. Her jewelry had been handed down in her family for centuries. It was worth a fortune, but it was worth much more to us in sentiment.”

  Richard spoke over pictures of Dale Strickland and his black SUV. “On the same day of the dramatic escape, Officer Dale Strickland went missing along with his GMC Yukon. When we return, the police begin to uncover the crucial pieces that would lead them to their worst nightmare.”

  Upon returning, they showed a dramatization of a police officer picking up a phone in a Ziploc bag in the woods.

  Richard narrated over the video. “Police tracked down Harold’s cell phone in Lycoming County, but they didn’t find Harold. The phone was planted there to give legitimacy to the texts previously sent from Harold’s phone. Who was doing this and why?”

  Chief Strickland appeared. “It had to be James Fisher, and I think Brittany Summers helped him. I think he was buyin’ more time for himself. He didn’t want us to think Harold was missin’.”

  Richard’s voiceover corresponded with photos of a black SUV on blocks, its interior shredded. “Two weeks later police found Dale’s GMC Yukon, stripped and abandoned in Pottsville, about half an hour from James Fisher’s cabin. There was no sign of Dale. A few days after that, the police were alerted by airport authorities in Harrisburg that they had found Harold’s red Ford Ranger in their long-term parking lot.” They cut to security footage of James walking out of the lot, his head covered with a knit cap. “Police believe this grainy image to be James Fisher. He’s wearing a chemical suit under his jacket, which would be perfect for keeping his DNA out of a crime scene.”

  Chief Strickland appeared. “He was careful but not careful enough. We found hair follicles that matched James Fisher’s DNA in both vehicles.”

  “Bullshit,” James said to his laptop.

  The chief continued, “When we found the trucks and the DNA, we knew it brought us closer to findin’ Harold and Dale, but I also knew it meant that we were closer to findin’ out that they were gone.” The chief shook his head, his eyes puffy. “As a father and a brother, I prayed and tried to have hope, but as a police officer I knew what the odds were.”

  Richard narrated over pictures of Brittany. “At this time Brittany Summers resurfaced in Virginia, with an alibi for her whereabouts on the day of the escape.”

  They cut to Richard Schlesinger holding a sheet of paper in front of him.

  “Ms. Summers refused to be interviewed,” Richard said to the chief. “She did make a statement through her attorney. She said, ‘I have no knowledge of the events that transpired on February 24, 2016. James Fisher is a kind and decent man. He is not a criminal.’”

  The chief appeared, chuckling. “That alibi she’s got is paper-thin. I know she was involved. That Yolanda woman is an old friend of James Fisher.”

  Richard spoke over a school photo of Yolanda. “School nurse, Yolanda Mendez worked with James in Virginia at Woodbridge Middle School. Mrs. Mendez vouched for Brittany’s whereabouts on February 24.”

  The camera cut to Dr. Dicks. “Mrs. Mendez is an excellent nurse. I never understood why she was friends with someone like James Fisher.”

  Richard narrated over images of James and Brittany. “A few weeks later, with James Fisher in the wind and Brittany with a solid alibi, James strikes again. When we return, the story takes a dramatic and surprising twist.”

  The show returned with Richard narrating over a dramatization of stacks of letters being dumped into blue post office boxes. “A letter was mailed to every single resident of North Schuylkill Township that created a firestorm of controversy. It was signed Charles Lee Ray aka ‘Chucky.’ This is a nod to the horror movie franchise, Child’s Play, that featured a homicidal doll.” Richard appeared holding up a letter to the chief. “Do you believe this letter to be the work of James Fisher?”

  “Yes, I do,” the chief replied.

  “This letter claims that you, Dale, and Kurt took money from local criminal organizations in exchange for safety from police prosecution.”

  They cut to the chief. His neck was red, his nostrils flared. “That’s trash. All lies.”

  “What about the allegations of convicting an innocent man, Frank Wiggins, of serial rape and murder?”

  The chief shook his head, his jaw set tight. “I said, they were lies.”

  Richard held up another sheet of paper. “I have a statement from attorney Daniel Nelson who says there were at least seven murders that fit the exact same MO that Frank Wiggins was convicted of, after he was put away. Do you think it’s
possible Frank Wiggins is innocent?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Do you think the letter from Charles Lee Ray harmed your reputation?” Richard hung air quotes with his hands when he said, Charles Lee Ray.

  “Of course it did.” The chief’s face was red. “It’s sick that you can slander a man like that, after all the sacrifices I’ve made for my community, my country.”

  They displayed images of Harold’s trailer. Richard said, “After the letters, you went back to Harold’s home.”

  They cut to the inside of Harold’s trailer. The chief said, “I felt like I was missin’ somethin’, that there was a clue that I had overlooked. I went back to Harold’s house and looked through every nook and cranny.” The camera cut to the chief. “When I got to the bathroom, it smelled like raw sewage. I flushed the toilet, and it backed up. His cesspool was clogged. I thought it was odd because I knew he had had a contractor drain it the year before. I went outside. I wasn’t sure exactly where the cesspool was, but I had an idea, because he used to have a stake to mark it.”

  They portrayed a dramatization of a police officer walking on leaves. “I was walkin’ and one area felt soft, and my first thought was that someone had been diggin’. You gotta compact the ground after you dig or it’ll sink. I grabbed a rake from Harold’s shed to move some of the leaves. It was obvious that someone had been diggin’ there recently.” They showed helicopter views of Harold’s backyard, with police vehicles and construction equipment digging up the cesspool. “So we opened up the cesspool.” The camera cut back to the chief. He looked down, rubbing his temples.

  “What did you find?” Richard asked.

  The chief looked up, scowling. “We found Dale and Harold.”

  Richard narrated over video of the bodies being hoisted from the cesspool. “When we return, the North Schuylkill Police Department continues to mount a case against James Fisher.”

  They returned with the camera on Chief Strickland. He said, “We found hair follicles that matched James Fisher’s DNA on Dale’s body. At that point, we knew we had the evidence. We just needed to find James Fisher.”