Charlene started laughing. “I can just imagine RW in flannel!”
This sent the women into a fit of laughter that only subsided when Eleanor's phone started ringing.
It was David Mizurski, the owner, editor, and chief reporter of the Havensford Herald, the town's only local newspaper. Eleanor contributed a once monthly column on outdoor activities. It was strange hearing from David outside of office hours.
“Hello David,” she said, a terrible foreboding having settled in her stomach like a boulder.
“Hi El,” he said, his voice cracking even on the short syllables he was using. “Terrible. Terrible.” He croaked. “It's a calamity. Disaster. Call it what you will, but it's horrible.”
He stopped and Eleanor dreaded asking.
“It's Troy,” the old man finally said. It sounded as if he might be crying. “Troy Troger,” he said, as if he had to convince himself. “They found him in Dalepark, at the edge of Squantz Pond State Park. Just as you would enter the forest trails from the southern end.” His voice faltered.
“I know where it is,” Eleanor offered.
“Good.” Came the soft reply. There was a long pause as David blew his nose. “Can you come?”
“Why, David?”
“Someone has to write about this. He can't be remembered like this.” The old friend of her father sounded both sad and enraged at the same time. “I can't El,” he said. “But someone has to bear witness. You've done it before. With great,” he paused as if searching for the words, “understanding. And compassion. Please, El. I can't. I can't be here. This is breaking my old heart.” And with that, he hung up the phone.
Eleanor looked at the phone with a mixture of sadness and resentment. She didn't want to go. She knew what to expect. The sheriff was dead. That much was clear. But she didn't need to see, did she?
She hated David Mizurski at that moment. The coward! This was his town, too. The Herald was his newspaper. Why did she have to do this? Because she had reported on and followed cases of senseless and violent deaths before? Did that mean that she was supposed to be used to it? Immune even? It wasn't fair.
The others could tell by her reaction that it had been dire news.
“It's the sheriff,” she managed. “They found his body.”
CHAPTER 47
Eleanor insisted that the girls be dropped off at Rosewater's home and not accompany them to the scene of the murder.
Jöanth, however, felt that the smart choice would be to stick together as a group. The best tactical decision would be for the girls to accompany them. To him, it didn't make sense to split up, especially when it seemed that the svartálvur was interested in the girls. This could well be a ploy to split them up and get at the girls more easily.
Eleanor wasn't happy with the choice. She wanted to protect the girls from the possible horrors at the crime scene. She had seen death before. The senseless murder of innocents was something that haunted her dreams and she didn't wish that upon anyone, let alone her younger friends. Eleanor felt responsible towards them. She never said it out loud, but their parents had failed these two girls. Charlene's biological father had abandoned her and her mother at a young age, forcing her mother to work double shifts to pay the bills and keep Charlene in school. As a baby and toddler, Charl's mom had been mostly absent. And then she remarried and the problems only intensified with the no-good son-of-a-bitch happy-slappy stepfather.
And then there was Rosewater Prouza. Daughter of famous model, Fawn, and business mogul Peter. You would think RW had everything you could dream of. Rosewater came from money, possessed her mother's runway model good looks and pizazz and was confident in everything she did. In addition, Rosewater also had a natural affinity for sports, academics, and culture, and was one of the most popular girls in school. She was just one of those lucky kids blessed with everything.
RW's trust fund would kick in in a couple of years when she turned 21, and rumor had it she would never want for money. Her father had invested well. The fact that he flew in to work every Monday morning on his private helicopter, and was chauffeured back every week lay testament to his success. He was a prudent businessman, and where others had lost fortunes during Covid, he had made his fortune even more vast.
And yet, Eleanor knew Rosewater was profoundly lonely. Her one true friend didn't go to school with her and was at least a two-hour journey away. The Bell was strictly for business use, so there was no way to quickly fly over to her friend over the weekend. At home it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, either. Throwing money at a child and thinking that would make them happy didn't work. All a child needed to grow up a balanced individual was a parent's love, and a parent that was always there for them.
In Rosewater's case, neither of her parents played an active role in her life. Her dad was always absent due to work, and her mom was always busy with social commitments.
Neither girl had someone looking out for them and just being there. And that was why Eleanor wanted to protect them. She didn't want them anywhere near the crime scene. Someone had to make the sensible decisions around here. If Fawn Prouza had been asked, she probably would have said, “It's fine. As long as you have fun.”
Jöanth understood Eleanor's misgivings. He could read the emotions she was going through as Eleanor drove them towards the southern end of Dalepark in her Honda.
Dalepark was, as the name suggested, a public park situated in a little valley-like dip between suburbia on one flanking hill, and the Squantz Pond State Park on the other. This posed a problem for law enforcement, as onlookers had an unobstructed view from the housing development, across the glade to the hill where all the police activity was taking place. Dalepark itself didn't cover a big area, it was roughly the size of two high school football pitches. It consisted of landscaped gardens with colorful arrangements of day lilies, black-eyed Susans, Shasta daisies, coneflowers and poppies. They all added bursts of color during the day, and combined with rolling grassland, it was perfect for picnics and kids' impromptu football or soccer matches.
The local sheriff's department had cordoned off the entrance to the public space from the car park. Several deputies were keeping the gathering crowd at a distance. Strobing blue lights reflected off morbid faces, giving everyone a ghoulish appearance.
Eleanor was grateful that the murder scene wasn't lit up like a stage performance. It was still very much dark on the opposite hill across from Dalepark where the action was taking place. There was a lot of movement as every member of the crime scene team bobbed around with a flashlight. Once in a while, someone would briefly light up an area to the front of where the woods started. The flashlight would move up to the canopy of a tree slowly, as if intentionally taking their time with the great reveal, only to have the flashlight quickly veer off in another direction a second later, leaving afterimages of something dangling from a tree.
There was a brief discussion whether the girls should stay in the car or whether they should join the crowd by the police barricade. The girls won the argument and everyone got out, Jöanth included. None of the people gathered, noticed the passenger door of the Honda open and close of its own accord. Everyone was too focused on the grim spectacle across from them, trying their best to catch a better glimpse of what might be happening at the entrance to the nature trails.
David Mizurski was waiting for Eleanor. She spotted him easily enough, as he was the only non-uniformed person looking away from the scene of the crime. He saw her as well, lifted his arm in a half wave and then let it drop as if the action exerted too much energy. The older man looked drained. At sixty-three, David was usually a sprightly man. He had a tendency to wear buttoned shirts, always tucked into casual chinos with a leather belt and running shoes. His trademarked getup was topped off with a love of tweed jackets, and he perpetually wore his glasses on the tip of his nose. He looked the part of an aging reporter who still had a firm grip on the pulse of his town. Tonight though, he looked withered. As if he had lost weight suddenly.<
br />
When Eleanor reached him, the man nearly fell into her arms. He held onto her tightly for a few seconds without saying a word. Eleanor didn't break the contact and waited on the old man's cue. He finally released her, looked at her two younger companions with interest and a brief look of worry, but didn't comment, and took her hand. She noticed that his hands were shaking.
“I cleared it with deputy Elkson over there. He'll let you through.” He gave her hand one final squeeze. “Thank you,” his mouth whispered and then he shuffled off, head bowed, looking like a man twenty years his senior, leaving Eleanor and the girls in the parking lot.
Eleanor turned her attention to the two girls. “Stick with me until we reach the police cordon. Then you wait there until we return. Don't stray.”
Rosewater thought of something sassy to say, but then resisted the temptation. The mood was palpably morbid. This wasn't the place to be witty, so she kept her peace and merely nodded her head, along with Charlene.
They followed Eleanor to the front of the yellow tape, waited for Eleanor to finish her brief conversation with Deputy Elkson and then watched as she ducked under the yellow tape and made her way into Dalepark.
Suddenly, both Rosewater and Charlene were glad they didn't have to follow her. It seemed as if Eleanor was descending into the murky netherworld of Hades. It looked like a valley of darkness, caught between two towering waves of flickering and bouncing lights, their reflections causing shadows to pounce and jump. During the daytime, this would be the perfect setting for family picnics, with children and dogs running around carefree, followed by laughter and happiness.
Now, however, it was the opposite. It was a depressing hollow, filled with nothing but darkness and spectral shadows.
Charlene, unable to see Jöanth cloaked, saw her friend descend into that dark ocean by herself. She knew Jöanth was right beside her, but to her eyes, Eleanor seemed utterly alone and adrift down there. Seeing Eleanor bravely walk into and through that darkness gave Charlene hope. Even though the world might be surrounded by a universe of cold, dark space, there were still good people out there who shone like beacons in a stormy night.
This last week had been crazy, but thanks to Eleanor, Charlene felt confident she could face anything. Eleanor was her rock, and Charl felt extremely grateful to have such a friend in her life. As Eleanor started her slow ascent of the opposite hill towards whatever horror awaited her there, Charlene got the feeling that they would get through all of this. That everything would be okay.
Eleanor wanted nothing more than to hold Jöanth's hand as she walked through the valley of the shadow. She needed that human touch, that reassurance that he was there with her, to get her through. She could see him walking next to her, but it wasn't the same. Her entire being longed to reach out and touch him. She needed that physical connection to give her strength for what she was about to face.
She supposed it was because she had been on her own for so long. The last serious relationship she had, had ended when she had come across the body of Markus Engbright. That had been the first domino that sent her on a downward spiral into depression and loneliness. Little Markus Engbright. She had been all alone during most of the ICK saga. Sure, she had Dan Almeida to call upon, but she had no one with her 24/7. She didn't want to go through such an ordeal all on her own again.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” she whispered.
“Amen,” Jöanth said sincerely. “You might need to prepare yourself mentally for what you're about to see.”
“You've seen the sheriff?”
“Yes,” Jöanth whispered. “It's terrible. Just like your friend David said it would be.”
She wasn't sure if he spoke in hushed tones out of reverence to the dead or because of the sheer horror of the scene she was about to face or out of fear of who might hear him.
“Can people hear you in your cloaked from?” she whispered in return.
“No. Unless I want the person I am addressing to hear me. I guess your Sight can be extended to the Hearing as well,” he tried making light of the situation and she was grateful for it. “Ready?” he asked after they came to a standstill at the foot of the hill, both looking upwards.
The crime scene would be just above the rise. Now and then they saw the macabre dance of a misdirected torchlight. The scene was still mercifully obstructed.
“I guess,” Eleanor sighed and started the short trek uphill.
It took them less than two minutes to crest the rise. Deputy Connors was waiting there for her. He had been Troy Troger's right hand man in better times and would probably take over the role of Sheriff.
“Miss Kraye?” he asked, hand extended. “I'm Deputy Connors. We met briefly at the station the other night.”
Eleanor nodded in recognition. “I wish it could have been under better circumstances,” she offered by way of condolences. “The sheriff seemed a good man.”
Connors nodded. “He will be missed.”
An awkward silence followed, Eleanor trying her best not to look towards the hub of activity at the base of a large Eastern Black Oak. People weaved in and out of her sight but she could make out a body swinging gently in the early summer breeze. The overcast sky and light breeze didn't indicate a storm, which Eleanor was grateful for. The strobing police lights and jerking flashlights were enough of a light show. Added thunder and rain would be overkill. Even Stephen Delaigne, her full-time employer wouldn't be vulgar enough to write such a dramatic scene for one of his books.
It was terrible enough.
“You've been to crime scenes before?” Connors asked.
“Yes, sir,” Eleanor answered. “I had my NYPD crime scene induction through the 78th Precinct three years ago. I also studied forensics and pathology, majoring in forensics. I'll make sure not to get too close and contaminate the scene.”
Deputy Connors nodded. “Uhm, Miss Kraye,” he said nervously. “Most of us have not seen anything like this, much less done to someone we know. I'd appreciate it if you can keep your eyes open. You might pick up something that the rest of us amateurs might miss. We're still waiting on the Staties. They'll probably bring the Feds in, too, but till then, this is my shit show.”
Eleanor nodded. The deputy obviously knew of her past and her work with the NYPD. “I'll do my best,” she offered.
“Thank you,” he said and led the way forward.
Eleanor immediately saw that the scene was disorganized with way too many people wandering aimlessly about. These guys were obviously out of their depth. Because it was their leader swinging from a tree also didn't help. He was elevated above all of them, in the perfect position to give guidance and issue orders, but his blue lips were silent. His grossly distended blue tongue hung almost to his chin, unable to ever form sounds again.
The loss of circulation was severe. The noose around the sheriff's neck was so tight that swollen, purple marble skin bulged obscenely over it.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst of it.
Their leader had also been stripped of rank and uniform. He hung naked, pitifully exposed in death for all to see.
Troy had also been gutted. There was a huge gash and a gaping, empty hole where his stomach used to be. A small mound of organs lay below his swinging feet. Only later, during the autopsy, would it reveal that his stomach, both small and large intestines, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, spleen and kidneys were removed from the abdomen.
The liver and kidneys were never found. Troy's heart also remained missing.
Eleanor tried her best to keep her dinner from ending up on the grass. The forensics team wouldn't need another pile of human waste to catalog.
She looked at Troy's hanging body and tried imagining it as a broken shell and nothing more. This wasn't the man who had dedicated his life to upholding the peace in this town. That man was gone. This obscene thing swinging ever so gently in the breeze was a pinata. A broken, empty thing to be discarded.
&nb
sp; “I am sorry you have to see this Eleanor,” Jöanth whispered in her ear, startling her.
She nodded and was once again comforted by his presence. Troy had been a good man and the town was going to miss him. Although she still harbored a disliking of David Mizurski, she understood the importance of being here and bearing witness. Someone had to write about the injustice of it. The senselessness. The loss. She had a way with words and it would be her job to immortalize the memory of this man.
She felt the weight of that on her shoulders, but she didn't see it as a burden. It was her chance to fight back. To be the voice of reason and decency and to sing the praises of the departed. She was the scribe who had to immortalize the hero. Not for the hero's sake, but for those left behind. To give them hope and hopefully some semblance of peace.
Eleanor knew this would be her most difficult piece yet. All the other victims had been burned into her memory in their final poses, and as terrible as they had been with ripped, torn or cut skin and muscle and sinew, with their blood needlessly spilled, they had been nameless. People she had never met before. She only got to know them after their deaths. With Troy, it would be different. She hadn't known him well, nor long, but she had met him. They had shared a coffee. Discussed the murder of a fellow human being. He had been kind and compassionate, and yet, these things had not distracted him from his job. Troy Troger had been thorough and efficient. He had been a capable protector of Havensford.
Looking at his swinging form brought forth a wave of anger. Instead of bile, Eleanor felt a rage well up from deep inside her. This wasn't fair. The murder of an innocent was never fair, but this somehow felt like more of an injustice. Perhaps, in this case, it was because she knew both the victim and the perpetrator. She knew Troy. He had been a good man. She knew the killer, who was something evil. It didn't seem right. It wasn't fair. Good should always triumph, right?
Stirring Embers: An urban fantasy action adventure (The Light and the Void Book 1) Page 35