Madera sheriffs scanner

What no invite? What’s the occasion?

I just purchased a Uniden BCD325P2 scanner, went through the steps and can’t find my local PD/FD channels. I also can’t find them on the broadcastify app. I see the ones for LAPD, Sheriff’s, LAFD, but nothing in the actual city I’m in. Am I doing something wrong? First time programming

Any idea what happened? Post showed up on Pittsburgh Scanner

A realtor, not mine, schedules a showing this morning of my 1100sq ft. house. We currently live in the house while we sell. We are 90% packed, all which is boxed and stored in a spare bedroom. We still have clothes in our dressers, toiletries in bathroom, and kitchen necessities in the kitchen drawers and cabinets. I also have my office and photo studio, though mostly packed, what I need to continue working is unpacked.
When we have showings, we leave 15 minutes beforehand and were told to return 30 minutes after the scheduled time. We live rurally and utilize our neighbor’s heavily bush lined driveway to sit, watch and wait. Today, the realtor who showed our house got there 15 minutes early, just as we had left. He pulled out a scanner of sorts and appeared to be scanning for something. Then he went inside and literally jumped around from room to room. His client, a female showed up on time, they went inside the house. They were inside the house for an hour.
What is there to do inside an 1100 sq ft. house for an hour?
We could see shadows and silhouettes through the windows. They spent 20 minutes in our bedroom and almost 30 minutes in my office/studio. The rest just walking through the living room, dining room kitchen and laundry room. Then left.
We came back and my dresser drawers and bathroom drawers had been left opened and gone through. My desk drawers had been left opened, cabinets on our bookshelf as well. Our packed boxes had been moved around a few opened. Refrigerator had been opened and food moved around too. They had even been on our bed! I can understand opening cabinet doors and drawers on built in to make sure it works, but my dresser, my desk, my bed, my refrigerator? Why did they have to touch my computer? Why did they have to look in my dressers? Why pick up the cameras in my studio? Why look into and move my packed and labeled boxes? Why touch my damn food?
Is this normal? Is this what I am to expect and have to deal with to sell my house? Do I mention it to my realtor?
5/16 Update: Yesterday, as most of you highly recommended, I called my realtor and the local Sheriffs dept. My realtor was furious and quite embarrassed. A report and complaint was filed today by my realtor. The sheriffs dept. was worthless and laughed at me telling me there was nothing they would do about it.
This morning when I awoke I had a voicemail urgently requesting my return call. I called him back and he informed me that we shouldn’t have to endure another showing like that. We had received a cash offer early this morning. We counter offered and they accepted. Contract signed.
crossing my fingers

Anyone know how I can get ahold of a public police scanner that tunes in to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office? Haven’t found an app, website, or radio signal :/

Looks like the sheriff's department and some county employees are involved in a land grab. The Granville county courthouse has paperwork that I have checked on, (unbeknownst to them) and it is bogus. The specific documents are connected to one of two notary publics that work at Clayton homes of oxford north Carolina. I might note that some of the targeted land lies less than 20 miles from the first gold mine in the united states. The land in question is located between us hwy158 and enon road. There is also drone harassment reports all around the county, and when they come across the scanner, law enforcement treats these calls, let's just say suspiciously. It is suspected that all this strange activity ties into the arrest and conviction of former sheriff Brindell B Wilkins. I have reached out to county commissioners but have yet to receive a reply. I am currently working with new Information technology specialist and will bring the information that I uncover to bear at the appropriate time and place. This has flown under the radar so far, but it won't continue. The county magistrates, Brummitt, and an EMT by the name of Patricia Flick are persons of interest, as well as the medical examiner, needless to say, none are available for comments.

When my company replaced its PMC fleet for Transits last year I was able to buy my van for a song. I am converting it into a camper. The inside has a quick bed frame for a full size bed and gear stuck in boxes underneath. Most of my time has been spent on mechanical and exterior work. Still need to put a solar shower up top, a trash/dirty gear bag on the back, some lights, and maybe larger tires. Then it will time to work on the interior.
Upgrades/Work so far:
40mm TEMA 4x4 Lift SUMO Springs 215/60R-16 TOYO CELSIUS II Grand Touring Tires VIAIR 400P Onboard Air Surco Van Ladder Vantech® J1547B - J1000 Series™ Rack Standard Cross Bars System TUFFIOM 13.4 Cubic Feet Rooftop Cargo Box ARB 814410 Awning 8.2FT x 8.2FT Light Installed Awning Nomadic Car Side Shower Room Yakima EXO Swing Base with Gear Locker (custom power and license mount) URVOLAX Dash Cam and Rear View 1296P System Vanku PX6 Android 10 Double Din Car Stereo Auxbeam 6 Gang Switch Panel BC60 Veepeak Mini Bluetooth OBD2 Scanner OBD II Car Diagnostic Scan Tool Sheriff 4mm Aluminum Skid Plate NOCO GCP1 15A AC Port Plug OMAC Magnetic Sunshades (added some snaps and dashboard mounts)
Pics: https://imgur.com/a/BcKjYHR

For starters, I know this is going to sound unbelievable. However, I have physical evidence on my side now.
TL;DR is posted at bottom of thread. Very long post for a years worth of experiences.
Context. A year ago, my family and I moved into our new home. My partners grandmother had recently passed and prior to this, she stated that she wanted our family to keep her home because it was beautiful and an upgrade from our previous home. My partner and I have two children and he has a grown son from a previous relationship living with us as well. This home was beautiful inside. Spacious, new, a beautiful ideal for raising our two young children in. However, I had a strange feeling from the first moment I stepped in that we shouldn't move into this home. Fifteen minutes after looking around and deciding if we really wanted to make this move, I got so dizzy I nearly passed out and then my son ended up puking. We had the house inspected for any hazardous materials and all was clear. So I chalked up the experience to nerves or unease from the families recent passing. I know this incident is unrelated to stalking but I now look back and wish I had listened to my gut feeling.
Only a couple days after moving in, I noticed that our neighbor was actually a sheriff deputy. Which should add a degree of comfort to where one is living, right? Well about a week after moving in, his wife comes by while my family is sick. Our dog had been outdoors at night because my husband has a mild allergy to the dandruff and as a hunting dog, he loves being outdoors. However he is a talker. Less than polite, sheriffs wife says we need to bring the dog inside because her kids can't sleep at night. She has a look on her face of contempt. I remain cordial and polite and I am quite used to judgement. I dress in a very dark/Gothic aesthetic and I live in the deep south. I say "sure, no problem-" In the middle of attempting to explain the situation, she storms off. She didn't care what I had to say and made that quite evident. So that night I bring my hound inside and this is when I begin to notice things. Early in the morning, around 4 a.m., I would catch her snooping around the yard line with a flash light. My partner also witnessed this but figured she was just looking for something she dropped. She was always on a part of our home were electrical outlets were accessed. The first thing I noticed were that the locks on some of the electrical boxes that were once unlocked were now locked. The stash where we had multiple keys at one point was in disarray and some of them were missing. One night I was drawing on my couch andy peripheral caught a blue light from the top of my head and I heard a faint tapping. I look up and realize that the previous security system wired into the house was making a ticking sound from a motion tracker. Just to make sure I was hearing this right, I went over to the breaker box, inside my house. Not only had it previously been open and unlocked, it was now shut and locked. I went for the key only to realize that this was one of the missing keys. To triple check this, I got an infrared light scanner on my phone. I soon realized the motion tracker wasn't just on, but it also had a camera. It was a bright beam of light in the dark on my infrared. I tried to tell my partner about it and it said it was likely an electrical problem. I had heard of security system hacking before and despite that it is harder to do so with a wired home security system, I know it is still possible. I covered the lens and left it at that. Photo will be in comments.
I saw a figure on my back porch not long after this but assumed my mind made this image up due to recent events. Yet my twin sister would sleep on my couch a few nights later and twice she woke up saying "guys I am so sorry, there is someone on your back porch". We never caught anyone and by this point my partner is starting to get tired of it.
A little while later, I was drawing on my couch at night. Clear as day, a horizontal scan line was cutting through the light of my table lamp. My gut instinct knew I was being watched despite not knowing entirely how. I am not sure why I did this, but at 2 a.m. in a belt I would state "You know I can see you, right?" Instantly this line cuts out and I had my first thought "I really hope I am going crazy". I told my partner. He was upset that he never noticed these things and prides himself in being quite perceptive. However due to the fact that I am an identical twin, I am genetically predispositiones for schizoaffective bipolar disorder and contrary to the potential possibility of this diagnosis, I do my best to always rationalize things in a scientific or reasonable manor. I was never diagnosed with this, but my twin sister was. Hence.
I began to hear footsteps in my attic. I saw these lights more. My phone was constantly receiving static and there was activity on my phone when I had been sleeping. It was accessing my contacts. Messages. Medical records. Websites regarding phone tracking and then I began to obsess. I accused my partner of stalking me at first. Things became so heated from my accusations that he broke down crying in defeat and deep down in my heart, I felt he was never cruel enough to go looking like that. I apologized profusely and we mended the relationship. That was until 10 minutes later when he received a text from a 731 number, not of our area code, proclaiming that some mystery person had slept with me during the time of our relationship. I have been faithfully with this man for 9 years and I realized then that someone was listening. Attempting to sabotage my life. Why? I asked this question a thousand times a day. Why me? I looked different. Sure. But I had not made any great enemies that I knew of. My partner was furious for a moment. Until he saw that this could be a set up, but he still refused the notion that we were being watched. We simply weren't that interesting- that part he was right about. Haha. We both always kept open access to one another's phones and frequently exchanged them for our business. I knew he was innocent and there was a degree of technological expertise at play that he did not possess.
I noticed our wifi was being mirrored and ussd codes on my phone would not respond. I would hear other voices on my phone or have terrible connection, see the neighbors looking through their windows at strange hours- a revelation I discovered from my new security cam stationed in the back of my home.
One that I obsessively watched for nights on end. One day, my catalytic converter was stolen off my car. The next day the neighbors are out planting flowers as I start my car and it roars. Sheriff's wife is wearing a hoodie and sunglasses on a hot and cloudy day on the front lawn. Back to the road. Nose buried in her phone. She just doesn't move at all. I found that strange. An electrician pulls up to the sheriff's house. He shakes his head "no" and the truck drives off. I proceed to take my loud ass car to my doctor's appointment. Forgot my wallet. Turn around and white truck is back and talking with sheriff who realizes I'm back. He walks away as if he wasn't talking to this guy. I believe they were tied to this because when attempting to report the incident to police, 9 times, my emails would not go through for the report. My wifi would drop almost each time. I moved my camera into the garage and activity presumes on my back porch again. It snowed and I caught footprints in the snow after bringing my family inside for the night. Partner still doesn't believe me and it hurts. I feel alone. I'm losing my sleep and sanity attempting to have SOMEONE see that I was not making this up. My security camera is in the garage and I'm cleaning up a work station to do a large painting. I noticed it moved and looked at me. I'm watching. I flip the camera off- a common tactic for me at any point I felt I was being watched. Suddenly I hear, clear as day, a woman laughing from it. I am so shocked that chills run down my spine. I run inside and pull up the footage to show my partner - but it is just. Noise. Aimless white noise, filtering through and feeding my insanity. Despite the countless experiences, wifi tracking, the foot prints and the cameras. There was always a reason more rational than believing me from seemingly everyone in my family. I went to therapy. They even said I could be experiencing paranoid delusions. I went through the effort of covering everything I felt was a camera in my home. Buying infrared scanners and looking into private detectives. I was feeling helpless. Insane. Defeated. I was ruining my beautiful family and home for some insane belief. So I quit caring if anyone believed me any longer. I quit caring about myself. I took up smoking. It's when I realized they were physically feeding my dog treats and toys. I physically saw a ball get thrown over the fence, laughing at myself for asking if it was real in the first place. I actually began talking to them frequently. Asking them if they had checked their assholes or if their dogs were getting as fat as mine from all the treats. Every time I went outside now, sheriff would also be outside. Even late at night.
So a few days before the solar eclipse an RV moves up over to a neighboring house. I would have paid no mind to this had I not caught the sheriff walking out of the RV that night, doing a 360 after seeing that I was outside, and walking back in. A detective finally calls me back abouty stolen Cat. Converter and oddly asks the question if I wanted my neighbors security footage. Personally wanted it. Or if it was something he could just look into? Anyways. So I decided to make one last effort before giving up. A finally store trip.
Yard lights. As I am planting them, sheriffs wife is inside her dark house and mockingly laughs with what made out to be "will you just fucking give up already?" I wasn't 100% sure that's what she said, but pretty sure. Yes. I responded. "NOPE. ✨" These were pulled out or kicked over in passing nights. A dash cam. I got the wide onn dual dash cam after my catalytic converter was stolen. So I installed it and for nights, settings would change. It would even be completely unplugged from the car when I left it plugged in. Sd card completely wiped. Night after night. So I went to the flea market with my kids. Some old bat inside makes fun of my clothes while my kids are with me, keeps trying to talk for longer than I'm comfortable with. I go out to my car and it ✨won't start✨. My partner comes to pick us up. I leave the car there cuz market owner is nice enough to let me while we figure out the issue. I come back later in his car to get my dash cam. Hook it up in his car. Get home. Run inside. I chat with him on some of the cute new decorations I found and then a random thought- since the SD card just filled up, I'll put the footage on my PC to clear up the space again. I run out to get this and not only is all the footage wiped again and sheriff is walking around the RV down the street, I see one movie file. And finally. There it is. This file revealed my camera had been picked up, only it was in an environment I did not recognize. It was so fast I almost wondered if this was inside another car. So I slow the file down frame to frame. A man's hand. A computer. A golden watch. A long sleeve shirt. My partner is not completely white. He is a mixed race. We do not wear watches. And the environment. It was a desk. A mouse. A keypad. When revealing this to my partner-Why the words out of his mouth indeed were: "that looks like the inside of a mobile home". I showed my entire family and finally they are putting pieces together. They are now scared. Only feeling what I felt for the past year but truthfully, I do not fault them for it. I feel so much relief knowing I am not insane. But now the question begs. . . What do we do?
I have family in the FBI. Should I send this over? Can they help me? I don't trust the police here now. Why would they be watching me?
Tl;Dr I nearly lost my sanity after countless incidents that backed my belief that I was being stalked. With physical video evidence now to support this is tied to my neighbor, a deputy sheriff, I am not sure what to do now.

< < Next Chapter>>
Eric
Eric sat on the hood of his truck and stared up into the night sky. There were times when he felt like he could see forever when he looked up into that inky darkness.
He seemed to recall reading some sort of science bullshit in one of the art room National Geographics back in high school about how he basically was looking out into forever when he stared up, but he wasn’t sure what he thought of any of that.
It didn’t help that the article had been cut in a few critical places because there were pictures of some tribeswoman with her tits out on the other side. Something told him that hadn’t been taken for any sort of artistic collage.
He looked down to the brown bag next to him. Connor over at the liquor store hadn’t said a damn thing when he came in and bought the bottle.
Besides. It was just a little nip. Something to help him through the night if he needed it. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but it was a full moon tonight.
Right now he was having a battle of wills with the bottle. Seeing how long it would take before he reached out and grabbed it. Took that sip.
“Not tonight, damn it,” he muttered, turning and staring up at the stars again.
It’s not that he felt the urge to drink. Not like his daddy or his granddaddy before him. It wasn’t a need for him like it was for them.
No. It was an escape. He knew from both of them that the demon was there. Lurking deep inside. Only there were also demons out there roaming the world tonight.
He figured he had a pretty damn good reason for drinking on the job tonight, for all that he hadn’t yet. Something that was a way better reason than those old assholes talking about how working at the factory was so damn hard. As though having a guaranteed job like that with a pension waiting for you on retirement was so fucking difficult.
Most of the guys his age who went to that factory probably weren’t going to see any of that. “Well damn both of you,” Eric said to the memory of his dad and granddad.
His radio sprang to life. He grunted, his attention drawn from the stars to more earthly concerns. There were nights when he could see forever, but tonight wasn’t one of those nights for one part of the sky. No. There was a big fat moon hovering up there. Like a big fat pearl hanging amongst all the tiny diamonds all around it.
The calls didn’t always come. Sometimes he could go weeks without hearing anything. But there was always something on a night when the moon hung nice and fat up there.
“We have a report of somebody speeding down Jefferson Boulevard,” Agnes said.
Eric snorted, breathing a sigh of relief. Somebody speeding down Jefferson Boulevard was hardly anything new. It was also something that hardly deserved the sheriff’s attention.
“I’m on it,” Jake said.
Eric sighed in relief and looked over to the bag. Not yet. Not fucking yet. He knew there’d be time enough for that later.
“I don’t know why I even bother,” he muttered.
He turned and stared up at the sky again. Almost dared that moon. Of course he knew better than to dare anything. They were out there. They were always out there.
This whole damn county was their hunting ground, and everyone in it their prey. Even if they were careful about not being too obvious. About not going for locals unless they had a good reason.
He’d dismissed the stories of the Beast back when he was a young man. The same as everyone else. Everybody he went to school with said it was bullshit adults made up because they wanted to keep teenagers from necking and getting pregnant.
He knew better now. He was the dumbass who insisted on running for sheriff and winning. Who learned things he rather would’ve stayed ignorant about. Things that would’ve kept him from running if he knew now what he knew then.
Things that would’ve had him running off to the city like people who went off to college to get fancy degrees. Though if these things were here then he figured they were probably off in the city, too. “Well this whole county can go fuck itself,” he muttered, figuring at least if he was in the city then they’d have a lot more targets to choose from.
Not that they ever targeted him. Not directly. Oh no. They had a nice friendly working relationship. At least they seemed to think they did. Not that they’d ever asked him his opinion on that arrangement. The old sheriff knew. The fat bastard. He’d just chuckled, shook his hand, and thanked Eric for being kind enough to take a load off his mind.
Eric didn’t have any idea what the fuck he was talking about at the time, but he’d learned. Oh he’d learned.
He looked out over the cornfields. Fireflies floated lazily out there. He also kept an eye out for another kind of glow. The telltale sign they were watching.
He knew exactly what he was looking for. He was terrified of finding it. He knew they wouldn’t do a damn thing to him, probably, but that didn’t mean he liked knowing they were out there. He didn’t see the yellow eyes. Not yet.
Sometimes he didn’t see them at all on the night of a full moon, but he knew they were out there. Watching. Making sure he did everything to their liking.
He reached out and touched the bottle in its bag. Just a little touch to reassure himself it was still there. The paper crinkled under his fingers as he thought about taking a drink. Just one drink. To calm his nerves. That’s all it would take, and then…
But no. He pulled his hand away again. He wasn’t going to give into temptation. He wasn’t going to be like those old bastards.
Not this early in the night, at least.
Well?” he finally said to nothing and everything. “Are you bastards out there? What the fuck are you waiting for?”
He listened to the silence. Though it wasn’t a total silence. No, he could hear the bugs chirping all around. Hear the sounds of life. The sounds of things that knew there wasn’t anything to worry about out there.
As long as he heard those sounds he knew he was okay, too. Though of course he knew he was always going to be okay.
They needed him. The bastards.
“Well you can all go fuck yourselves, too,” he muttered to nothing and everything all around him.
“Eric, you out there?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. It never meant anything good when Agnes asked for him by name. He didn’t want to slide off his hood. He was comfortable up here.
But he also knew he had to do it. She wouldn’t be calling him by name if it wasn’t for a good reason. So he slid off the hood and walked around, pulling open the driver’s side door but not popping into the cab.
He felt an itch between his shoulder blades. It reminded him of when he was a little kid going down into the basement in his old house.
He’d been terrified of that place. It was dank and musty. Not at all like the nice finished basements all the people living in Wolfsbane up on the north side of town had.
He’d been surprised the first time he went over to a friend’s house up there and he suggested going down into the basement to play games. He’d been terrified. Basements were dark places full of terror. Not where you went to play your friend’s Atari.
He always had the feeling there was something down there waiting for him at his house. Something lurking in one of the dark rooms off to the side. A place that had apparently been a root cellar once upon a time.
His mom explained it was all from a time before refrigerators. Apparently people had to store their food underground to preserve it back then.
That made sense. The house he grew up in had been built almost a century prior, after all, and it’d been a farmhouse once upon a time. Even if that’s not what it was by the time his parents moved in. He pushed away that itching feeling the same as he always did. The same as he’d learned to do when he was a kid.
He wasn’t going to cower because he knew they were out there, the same as he wasn’t going to cower because of imaginary monsters lurking in the basement.
“This is Eric,” he said, mindful that there were probably more than a few old blue hairs out there listening in and trying to pick out any interesting tidbits to gossip about. Especially on the night of a full moon. “What’s up, Agnes?”
“Just got a call from Carrie Anderson’s parents,” she said. “She had a date tonight with Brad Thomas.” Eric frowned. He didn’t know who Carrie Anderson was. Probably one of the many Andersons who lived in the county. But he did know who Brad Thomas was.
The boy was the quarterback for the football team. Sure it wasn’t like the team was all that good these days, but that didn’t matter. People didn’t care whether the team was good so much as they cared about reliving their glory days.
That sent a pang of regret running through him. Memories of better times. Back when he’d been blissfully ignorant. Back when he could safely assume a couple of kids coming home late were just busy making the next generation of football stars who’d burn bright in high school and go on to not much else after.
While also adding to the teen pregnancy statistics.
“Did they check all the usual spots?” he asked. “I don’t see how a couple of teenagers necking is our business.”
He prayed it wasn’t his business.
“It is when it’s 1AM and neither one of them has come in yet,” she said. “I figured you might want to have a look. Bad weather out there tonight.”
Eric winced. Bad weather out there tonight. He looked up. Barely a hint of clouds and no hint of rain.
Of course she was talking about the moon hanging in the sky. It was a code he’d made up, but he was starting to think he needed a new code since that one made no damn sense on a night like tonight. People listening in on their scanners might figure out they were talking in code.
“I’ll check it out,” he said, sighing.
He had a pretty good idea of exactly where to go. He didn’t know Brad Thomas, but he’d been best friends with Tom who had the unfortunate double name and a habit of busting the lip of anyone who pointed it out.
And he knew exactly where Tom liked to take his dates back in the day.
He figured that was the kind of thing Tom would let slip to his younger brother. All in the name of his younger brother having a good time with his dates, of course.
Tom wasn’t the kind of person to stop and consider whether it would be a good idea to give his brother a guide to adding to the local teen pregnancy rate. God knows Tom had done enough of his own attempts in that department over the years, for all that he miraculously never actually added to it. Eric sighed, wondering what the fuck he was getting into here. Then he popped into his truck and turned to have a final look around.
He’d parked at the edge of the field he liked to go to when he needed to do some thinking that might require the help of a bottle in a paper bag thanks to the full moon. It was nice and out of the way. That also meant if any of them were watching then there was a good chance nobody else would get hurt if they decided to break the truce.
As he looked around one final time he stopped.
He didn’t acknowledge it. That was never a good idea. He’d been bluff charged once, and nearly pissed his pants because it hadn’t looked like a bluff until the last minute. The thing had even taken one of the buttons off his shirt with those claws, which was a pretty clear message.
He didn’t acknowledge it tonight, but he saw it out there. Saw those two eyes staring at him out of the darkness. Two eyes that glowed yellow.
The thing were staring right at him, because of course it was staring right at him. They were always staring right at him. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He thought about the special gun with the special ammo in his center console. Thought about going for it. But that would only piss them off. Not to mention a pistol wouldn’t have great accuracy at that range, and they were fast. The button incident was proof enough of that.
If he managed to get off one shot, though…
Well. There was probably another one out there he wasn’t seeing. And the last thing he wanted was to get in a fight with more than one of the bastards. He didn’t even want to get in a fight with one of them.
Instead he held up his brown paper bag.
“Here’s to you, motherfuckers,” he said in a quiet voice. Though it’s not like it mattered. He knew they could hear him just fine. Yeah. They could always hear him just fine.
Still. He had a job to do. So he started the truck and made a beeline for the old barn.
As he got to the place he stopped to take a look at the surroundings. He didn’t think he was going to find anything out here, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Especially on the night of a full moon.
He turned his spotlight on and played it all around, taking a good long look. He didn’t see anything at first glance, but he knew better than to assume that meant there was nothing out there.
The place didn’t look all that remarkable. Just a run down barn out in the middle of nowhere. One of many rundown barns out in the middle of nowhere that spoke to a time when everybody lived and worked on the family farm.
Only he knew Tom always used to enjoy taking his lady friends out here.
He drove slowly to the other side of the barn, and his breath caught. Because he saw something there that made his heart freeze.
It was an old boat of a car. An Oldsmobile Delta 88. He recognized it all too well, because he’d been in the back of that car plenty of times back before Tom saved up enough money to get his van.
He hadn’t been in that back seat getting with Tom, for all that he was sure it had seen plenty of action.
No, Tom was always happy to drive them around and he’d always been happy to bum a ride out of this place for a night.
Though Matt Arnold, also in their friend group, might’ve been happy to be in the back seat with him.
Eric shook his head and wondered what old Matt was up to. The last he heard the guy went off to San Francisco, though if the news from out there was to be believed then that was the next best thing to a death sentence these days considering Matt’s romantic preferences.
Eric shook his head again and pushed those thoughts away. After all, there were other things around here that were a death sentence as well. A lot faster than that disease out there.
There was something wrong with the car. It looked like somebody had taken a can opener and gone to town on the rear quarter panel, but in five evenly spaced gouges.
The car was rusted out in places and had seen better days, but this damage was definitely new. The window was broken on the passenger side. And he could see red splattered against the inside and on the hood. Fuck.
“What the fuck are you assholes doing out here?” he muttered, staring at the car and not wanting to go any closer.
Not because he didn’t want to see what was in there. That was something he was used to by now. No, it was because if he didn’t look then it wasn’t real. He wouldn’t have to deal with it. Except someone had to deal with it, and that someone was him.
He was tempted to call it in first, but he wanted to have a look around before causing a fuss. Wanted to make sure this was exactly what he thought it was.
He did pause to reach into the center console and pull out the special pistol with the special ammo, though. Hopefully if they were watching they wouldn’t see him doing it, or they wouldn’t realize the significance.
Either way, if they’d killed locals then that meant something was different tonight. Maybe that change would extend to one of them trying to take out the long arm of the law. Maybe it was a rogue. He didn’t know enough about how they operated to know how that worked.
He did know he wanted something that might be able to take them out if they decided to get frisky, for all that there was also a defeated part of the back of his mind that whispered nothing he could do would matter.
No. The only job left to him was to tally up the butcher’s bill and inform the families.
He stepped forward, shining his flashlight through the windshield. He had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from losing everything he’d eaten earlier when he started his breakfast at dinnertime.
Susie down at the diner was always more than happy to accommodate him with a late breakfast of hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon. Even if it wasn’t a twenty-four hour breakfast kind of establishment. He managed to get his retching under control before losing that breakfast. Barely. Maybe he was used to this, but that didn’t make it any easier.
He shone his flashlight around as he wondered what the hell had happened here tonight.
He turned away from the girl. Presumably that was Carrie. Her parents weren’t ever going to see her coming home again. They weren’t even going to get to see her in the casket with the condition she was in.
There was still the question of Brad, though. He didn’t think he was going to find the kid. Not in one piece. Not considering the condition his girlfriend was in.
Or maybe that wasn’t his girlfriend. He seemed to recall hearing through the small town rumor mill that he was dating…
No. He wasn’t going to think about that right now. If that was the case then it might start to explain why the kid got killed. Stupid, crossing that family.
But neither of them deserved this. Maybe Brad was being an idiot in the grand tradition of horny teenage guys throughout the history of history, but nobody Deserve death because they were making stupid decisions thanks to all their blood pumping to the wrong brain.
He played his flashlight across the barn, not sure what to expect. He almost hoped he wouldn’t find anything, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case. It was never that easy.
He turned back to his truck. He knew the bottle was still in there. It would be so easy to take a drink. He didn’t, though. He needed to stay frosty for this one.
That was a phrase he’d picked up watching that stupid movie about those aliens back in high school, but if ever there was a situation where he needed to stay frosty, this was it. He just hoped he didn’t wind up like those poor bastards who didn’t end up staying frosty enough to survive to the end of the movie.
Life wasn’t a movie, but it sure as shit felt like he was in the middle of a horror flick right now. Maybe like that guy who didn’t stay off the moors. Or the one where the lady from E.T. found more than she bargained for at a nature retreat.
He turned his attention to the barn. Again he had that feeling. That itching between his shoulder blades. Only this time around that itching turned to something else.
It was the overwhelming feeling that if he went into that barn it would be the end of his life. That the truce didn’t matter. His body started to shake, but he clamped down on that shit.
He wasn’t going to run away, damn it. He wasn’t going to let them win.
So he took control and stepped inside, playing his flashlight all across the place. The headlights from the Delta 88 were still illuminating the barn, creating weird shadows that looked like something out of a nightmare.
It didn’t help that he found Brad Thomas. Again he felt the urge to lose his breakfast, and again he pushed down on that urge almost as quickly as it appeared.
He wasn’t going to let them win, damn it.
A few minutes later he stumbled back out. He looked around again, his eyes scanning the cornfield until…
Sure enough. There they were. A pair of glowing eyes. No. Two pairs of glowing eyes. Staring at him from the darkness. From well over the corn. Which wasn’t any great accomplishment this time of year, but at their full height they would still be well above the corn even when it was at its tallest.
And as summer moved into fall he knew they’d be able to walk through the corn unseen. People worried about running into monsters in the dark and scary forest. They never thought about running into them in a man-made forest laid out in neat rows.
That feeling of dread was overwhelming now. The sense there was something off about this. Something deeply wrong. Something that was different from any dealings he’d had with them in the past.
And then, just like that, the feeling was gone. The glowing eyes winked out, and they were gone, too. He shook his head to clear it, wondering what the fuck that was all about. Then he walked over to the truck and picked up his radio.
“Agnes?”
“Yeah, Eric?”
He thought about what he was about to say, and then realized there was no getting around it. No way to make this sound any better. No way to get around the people who might be listening in.
He’d heard some of the old guys in the office talking about the good old days when people couldn’t listen in on the police band with mass-produced scanners. He wished that was still the case today.
He sighed, wondering how he’d come to this point even as he could trace every misstep that’d seemed like the right thing to do at the time that led him to this moment.
“We’re going to need a whole crew out here tonight, Agnes. Start waking people up. It looks like we’ve got ourselves a situation.”
That would be enough for anyone who listened in regularly to know exactly what he was talking about, but there was nothing for it.
There was a situation. Maybe they’d assume it was a situation that involved another outsider. Or just a run-of-the-mill car accident.
But the old timers who’d lived here their whole lives? They’d know exactly what a situation meant, and as soon as it got out who’d been taken this time…
Well. Shit was going to hit the fan and get flung all over the place, and he was standing right underneath it while it was being flung around.
< < Next Chapter>>
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Sunday morning I was driving on the highway headed home when I saw a semi swerving all over the three lanes. Nobody else was on the road but still, I couldn’t pass him without almost getting run off. I call the Sheriffs who pulled him over, and (by listening to the scanner) it turned out he was diabetic. I did a thing that saved his life and the lives of others on the road. I’m not saying that for attention or glory.
My father refuses to believe me when I told him the story of what happened. He’s been telling people his own version of the story: I was behind a semi that got pulled over and made up a story wherein I inserted myself for attention and glory.
Why? What does he have to gain from this other than laughing in my face and saying that I’m an attention-seeker?

Tons of sheriffs and ambulances just passed rolled through the middle of town and they’re blocking intersections to Baptist and Forsyth per my police scanner but I missed what happened.

I am extremely interested in becoming a dispatcher in Marin County, California. I've applied for Marin County Sheriff's 911 dispatch position (law). I took the Criticall last month and felt great about most of the modules. However, I heard back that I failed "at least one of the modules" and I will retake the test in early May.
I had my heart set on working for the County, particularly doing Law dispatch. I live here, I love it here, and I know the area really well. But I think it's time to expand my effort to other call types and agencies, rather than putting all my eggs in one basket (one that has already taken four months). Are there other opportunities based in Marin? Is it realistic to hope for a job here?
I looked at CHP, since they have a location in Corte Madera. But their website says they aren't hiring dispatchers at that location. I am not sure where else to look.
Any feedback or advice is greatly appreciated.

My prediction for Pragg vs. Hikaru (SPOILERS):
Pragg is gonna completely and utterly donkey wipe Hikaru today, and our young stallion will gallop proudly into first as the leader of this pack.
Hikaru’s trouble with knights will come into play as Pragg hits him with none other than the Reti opening. Hikaru will go wide eyed for a second, contort his face like he’s trying to kiss his own eyes, then dismissively shrug and respond Nf6….as if Pragg is the stupidest son of a bitch on Earth. “Really Pragg? The Reti? Are you actually playing the Reti against me right now? Did you actually just play the Reti?”
And that’s when the Young Indian King hits him with it: 2. Nc3….The Double Reti.
Hikaru is already in some trouble here, in my opinion (1900+ on chess.com Daily’s). Engine analysis on very high depth shows a microscopic advantage for black, but given Hikaru’s blind spot for horseys it’s realistically a +.5-.7 for Pragg out of the gate.
Hikaru will be hit with visible conflict, as he grimaces and tilts his head back and forth like “oooh that’s shaky are you really doing that?”, but within seconds it quickly morphs into “no wait a minute….am I the one who is shaky?? Who am I even grimacing at anymore?”
So Hikaru just sits there, contorting his face weirdly like he’s auditioning for a Jim Carrey film, eyes bobbing around at all the invisible flies near his head. At this point he starts to resemble one of the druggies from A Scanner Darkly.
And then the camera cuts over to Pragg…..kid is a fucking statue. Negative percent emotion, borderline sociopath. In a different universe, he’s running his operation through Los Pollos Hermanos. The difference already is so stark, and dare I say downright bewildering.
Chess24 cuts away because of how uncomfortable the pure psychological torture has become. Tania goes “wow!” or something and tries to throw it over to something soul-deadening like a Caruana game.
But we all saw it: Pragg is psychologically breaking down a top 3 player in front of our eyes.
After what seems like an eternity, Hikaru finally plays the “best move”, 2. d5. And then IMMEDIATELY Pragg responds……

1. a4 (!!)

Hikaru’s jaw just drops. He takes off his glasses and starts rubbing his eyes. Hikaru doesn’t wear glasses. Pragg made that move so fast it was borderline illegal. Hikaru calls the arbiter over and they go over and check the high speed replay, but of course, Pragg timed it to within just milliseconds.
The stoic Indian stallion is already going for a rook lift. Hikaru gathers himself back up, and goes “ok you know what? I call your bluff and I challenge that pony”

1. d4.

Pragg calmly looks down at the board for a few seconds, stares at Hikaru, looks back down at the board, then stares holes right through Hikaru as he slowly and deliberately winks at him. This is the only thing approaching emotion that he will show for the entire tournament. Hikaru should feel honored.

1. Ra3 (!!!)

Hikaru laughs! “Are you actually just giving me a free knight right now? Did you really just give up a whole piece, AND get rid of my biggest weakness? Is this a joke? Chat tell me this is a joke.” (His internal monologue includes chat at this point).
And there Pragg is, just fucking meditating on quiet destruction, like a Buddhist monk who is also a serial killer. He knows exactly what Hikaru is thinking, and in his head he’s responding:
“Now wait a minute Big Chief….not so fast. Sure it’s a “free knight”, but keep in mind that the rook defends the knight. If you take my horse, you’re not only helping me develop another piece, but helping me to develop the one which is arguably the hardest to develop! AND I’m one move away from trapping your Queen. Tread lightly, big spender.”
Hikaru is sitting there mocking him in his head like “yea ok Pragg, I know what you think you see, but….that’s ridiculous. That’s just…are you kidding me? That’s not a real thing.” So he grabs the pawn, and then does an exaggerated shrug and looks around at all the invisible people like “you believe this guy?”
But wait a minute…he accidentally glances at the ceiling mid-shrug. And like Neo from the Matrix, a hundred lines are instantly beamed into his head. He sees the ghosts of endgames to come, and in most of them, sure he’s up a piece……but that damn a4 pawn. That damned dirty a4 pawn. Pragg gets a MEAN, nasty, despicable and disgusting passed pawn that is almost impossible to stop. “Are you serious right now? Chat did I just blunder a losing endgame.”
But it’s too late. He already touched the pawn. He has no choice now…he has to push the pawn to d3 to at least restrict white’s rook. He buries his head in his arms. He’s losing.
Pragg has not blinked. Does he ever blink? The only time The Young Savage has used has been purely for dramatic effect. And the dirtiest, filthiest, dankiest part is that this is ALL still his prep. Yep. So stinky. Ra3 was absolutely a horrible losing move. But Young King Rameshbabu has studied decades worth of Hikaru and understands that while he’s one of the best players in the world, he also has the tendency to overthink himself out of winning positions.
Pragg spent weeks on this with his team, deducing the perfect series of moves to hamster wheel Hikaru into to some super high-level, smart guy shit that was actually dumb as bricks.
This is no longer chess, this some 48 laws of power type bidness. No even better, this is Art of War right here. Straight mind wars, brain control. Pragg is not only an unparalleled chess master, but has studied all the great generals and war strageteers throughout history. On top of that, he’s read everything from Jung, Freud, Jordan Peterson, all the top psychologists throughout the ages. If Hikaru only cleaned his room, maybe things would’ve played out differently.
Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. But what matters is right now, and right now there’s a new sheriff in town. The rest of the field….they can sense it. And like clockwork, all of the other players in the playing hall, without even understanding why, they stop their games. They stand up. And while clapping in unison, they all go:
“I would like to introduce you to Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, the new King of India, and the next World Champion of Chess. Show him some respect 💐”
And then as quickly as it began, dead quiet fills the air and they all sit back down. And chess24 just pretends like nothing happened….they cut over to like, an interview with Caruana’s son complaining about their dog policy or something.

TL;DR - Sparma is the victim of a police witch hunt that he thinks is orchestrated by Deacon to cover up his own murders; he's getting revenge for Deacon ruining his life and causing his wife and daughter to leave him. Thing is, he's wrong, the killer is Sergeant Rogers.
​
Still with me? Rad.
COLORS! Color symbolism is my favorite and it is ALL over this movie.
Deacon is associated with shades of red and orange: the red patches on his hat, his rust-orange truck, the red barrette; even his diner has bright red neon and burnt umber paint on the walls. There are distinct red tags on all the evidence bags he touches (the small details being the most dangerous), and Sparma's true crime stash and private darkroom are also red. Red is a signal of warning, the red light saying stop. I think my favorite use of this is actually the car the girl drives in the opening, but we'll get to that. And, of course, the barrette.
Baxter is associated with blue, his suit most often, but his car as well, connecting him with the idea of police and the protection of the innocent public, who often also wear blue in background shots (the joggers both wear blue athletic clothes, the girl in the opening wears blue denim, many people present at the press conference.) Interestingly, the only time we actually see the killer, his car is also blue.
We have neutral yellows, beiges, browns, indicating irrelevance, emptiness, or unimportance: the sex offender interrogated by Baxter, most interior walls, and most importantly the gravel field, in which nothing is buried. Interestingly, the beige sheriff's department uniforms also apply here; the department itself is completely irrelevant to the investigation.
Green belongs to Sparma. His car, his clothes, all green, even his apartment is flooded with green light, particularly when Deacon is searching it for clues at night.
The thing is, green is everywhere, especially the opening sequence: the shrubs the victim runs through are bright green as she runs away from the killer, the empty diner is washed with green light, the press conference is full of bright green lanyards, when Deacon is in the diner, the neon is lit up green whenever it isn't bright red, even the chief's candy jars have noticeable green candies in them.
So let's talk about this opening scene, shall we?
Girl wearing blue (an innocent member of the public) is harassed by an unknown man in a blue car (a man obscured by an innocent outer appearance) and stops her car at a green-light washed diner when she sees the bright red neon of its storefront (she runs into danger, mistaking the warning for a sign of hope) and then runs from the killer, who has opened her car to show us the red (warning) racing stripe on the door, into a field of bright green shrubs where she has no cover (she is in the killer's world now), only to escape on another truck, lit only with white and yellow (she escapes into obscurity, literally and figuratively; we don't see what happens to her because the scene ends there, but it doesn't matter, she's escaped).
Green isn't Sparma's color. Green belongs to the real killer the real killer is the one directly associated with it first. Sparma just happens to be painted in a killer's color. This is consistent with the death themes in Deacon's bedroom, when he's being haunted by the ghosts of the victims, is also that same sick green.
Sparma says it himself, he's never killed anybody. He never did anything to really deserve the suspicion that wasn't circumstantial, that's the point: when Deacon shot the girl and her cause of death fraudulently listed as stabbing, the case became tainted. The 1985 newspaper clearly shows a fourth victim was found stabbed to death, and the police investigating it would be desperate to find someone to pin it on.
So Deacon decided to let the police get onto somebody who just.. happened to be around. He's a true crime buff, he has a police scanner, and if the killer's preferred hunting ground happens to also be in the service area of Sparma's appliance shop, he'd be adjacent to the other victims too, but hey, no real evidence. He'll be fine, right?
Except they're and newspapers were still the main access to daily news in the morning. He's the victim of a witch hunt, harassed by police, of course he turns out weird and creepy. He already began life as Jared Leto to start with, now everyone just knows he's a murderer because they say so? Whatever life he had before these murders, we'll never know, but it's obviously over. Our knowledge of his timeline begins with him confessing to a murder he didn't do.
And then in the movie, it starts happening again, only this time he's decided that if he has to do this song and dance, he's going to fucking lead, and he goes out of his way to be a total freakshow about it, ultimately ending with his own death as he psychologically breaks Baxter: he drives him out to a grey, pointless field of gravel, and makes him dig holes with the promise of finding a body in one of them. Baxter, stripped of his fine blue suit of innocence and ordinary humanity, beats Sparma to death with the shovel. Deacon cleans out Sparma's apartment, leaving it awash in plain, irrelevant-beige light, and buries him and his things under the aforementioned pointless grey gravel field. His death meant nothing. In the end, he meant nothing.
There are theories about how Deacon is the killer, and I don't think he is. He didn't kill anyone but Mary Roberts. He feels responsible for the other killings because it's his fault that any attention was paid to Sparma in the first place, and that focus created a smokescreen for the real killer, who is still out there and will strike again. Most of the evidence Deacon finds, especially what he gets in his illegal search of the apartment, can be explained by a bad divorce as much as a murder:

• There are at least two tapes labeled with feminine names: home videos of a wife and daughter(s).
• There's a knife with a broken tip: Goodwill flatware purchased after losing his home
• True Crime stuff about the case under his floorboards: weird, but not criminal, and since he was obviously expecting Deacon to search his place, it was probably planted there in the first place.
  Assuming he is divorced, Sparma becomes a complete foil to Deacon: Deacon loses his family and has a damaged heart after relentlessly pursuing a suspect he knew was innocent. Sparma loses his family and has a broken mind after being relentlessly pursued.
  

Albert is getting revenge on the police, Deacon in particular, for ruining his life. This is why KSO Stan Peters commits suicide after his interrogation: because he's the only person who was around for the 1985 murders without being in on the conspiracy. Assuming he was in the same area at that time, he would be aware of Albert's downfall, if not personally, then through the local news, and how he lost his home and family and possibly what's become of him. Stan's already carrying the scarlet letter of a sex offense for nothing, having to go through whatever Albert went through made a bullet look like the kinder option. That line mentioning his suicide isn't just a throwaway closure for a throwaway character so we rule him out as the killer, it's foreshadowing Albert's death.
The real killer has been using Sparma as a cloaking device, and we know, because his car turns up at the police station. We know it's the right car because it's the same license plate, which we clearly see in the opening. So, we know the killer works there, and we would know that anyway, because there's green everywhere in the police station: the fields on the badges, the lanyards on the press associates, and although the lighting doesn't flatter it, Rogers wears an olive green necktie. The traces of the killer's presence are all over the place because this is where he really spends most of his time.
Early on in the film at the press conference, we overhear Rogers, who has been promoted to Sergeant since Deke was last working, making a phone call about removing something from a file. Shortly afterward, he makes a jokes about bad guys returning to the scene of the crime. Not long later, Jimmy needs a fingerprint analysis, but the lab technician is missing the center prints from the file. Later still, Jimmy mentions that Rogers neglected to file the vehicle theft report. Rogers is also the one to mention Sparma signing a confession when he was ten miles away from the killing, despite knowing all the details of the crime.
So, my theory is this: Sparma has realized that someone in the police department is the killer, and he thinks that Deacon's the guy. Sparma is a true crime buff and owns a police scanner, he knows that the killer hides behind him, and he knows where at least one body is. That's important, because he doesn't fuck around with it-- if he really knows where a body is, he wants its location known. That's a very foolish thing to do if you're a serial killer who doesn't want to go to prison, but it's a brilliant thing to do if you know that your value as a shield against consequences for the killer vastly outweighs the evidence against you.
Albert was pulling a long-game version of Suicide by Cop. He spends the whole movie harassing Deacon, being obviously aware that he's being surveilled and going out of his way to re-create the conditions of the murder (the prostitute, the roast beef dinner) to provoke him. He may be wrong about the exact reasons, but he knows there's no way Deacon can actually do anything to him legally without implicating himself, because he knows damn well who he didn't stab. Even if he killed every one of the other girls, he'd be able to say he didn't stab that one, and it's only one court-ordered exhumation from the truth. Little things get you caught.
He drives Jimmy crazy digging pointless holes in a gray desert and gets the shovel for his trouble. Deacon bags up everything in Sparma's apartment, which is now a mellow tan color of pointlessness, returns, and buries it all and the body in the holes. Jimmy and Deke hug, wearing light and dark gray respectively, because none of it matters now. Jimmy returns to his home, where we have both the green of killing (the grass and greenery around the house), the blue of innocence (the pool) meeting where Jimmy sits in conflict (in a scene that also introduces bright, feminine pink) with what he's done. Either he's a murderer, or he's an avenging angel, and he's caught between them like the horizon between sky and grass.
And then Deke sends him a red barrette, allowing him to move on, and warning him to never address it again. Deacon goes home to his ghosts, because there are no angels. The end.
Except for the car. Deacon should have destroyed it, right? A fire, drown it in the ocean, take it to a junkyard. No, no he gave it away, and somebody took it. This is not a coincidence.
The last time we see it, green car has been left out behind a house, most likely the kid who got the keys from Deacon. He will be the next Albert Sparma when the cops inevitably get reports of that particular car and find no other evidence linking this kid to those crimes. The killer still works at the police department, and Sparma was the best smokescreen he could have asked for. He'll want to extend the life of this one for as long as possible.
We end the movie with another young, passionate newcomer in a lovely blue suit, determined to bring this killer to justice. He won't find the killer, because the killer works in his office, in a green necktie, but he will find the car, and when he does, the killings will continue. The past, becomes the future, becomes the past.

"911, what's the location of your emergency?"
"I'm- I'm hurt!"
"Where are you hurt? Where are you calling from, Sir?
There was nothing on the other end of the line as I pulled up the information boxes on my computer.
"Sir? How did you get hurt?"
"It's b-black! Dark. Darkness everywhere! I can't see where I am. Oh God it hurts! I can't move! Please send an ambulance!
I could hear the pain and confusion in the male caller’s voice. The mixture was something I heard often as a dispatcher. It usually occurred when a victim was in shock.
"Help is on its way. What is your address so the EMT's can find you?"
"No, no, no. No address. I'm outside somewhere," he grunted in pain. "Somewhere in the woods. I see stars. I hear cicadas. I don't know. I don't remember how I got here! Oh God it hurts!"
My mind raced on what to ask him next. The county I worked for had a lot of dark forest to hide you, so he wasn't really narrowing it down for a search area. So I snapped my fingers at my partner working in the dispatch office with me. I told her to ping his cellphone location off the nearest cell phone towers, and I scribbled the number down for her.
Hopefully that would give us the approximate area of his location. But pinging the towers would take some time. I had to keep him talking and lucid.
"Do you see any roads near you? If you do, can you make out any road signs. My guys are on the way, but they need an exact location to find you faster."
This was a partial lie. I hadn't even dispatched the call to deputies or medical personnel yet, due to the lack of information I had. All I had was a man with unidentified pain lost in the woods. And this wouldn't be the first time somebody got high out of their mind and wandered off into the woods, and then called the Sheriff's department for help.
"It's cold. It's freezing," the man's voice started up again as I watched my partner's computer screen as she pinged his cell phone. I could hear his teeth chattering and this reinforced the theory he was high off his ass. It was 85 degrees outside at the midnight hour. I knew PCP made its user feel unnecessarily hot, but what kind of drug made you feel cold?
"It's pinging off the Bleakwood tower," my partner Sheri said, pointing to her monitor.
Bleakwood was the farthest north you could get in the county. It was the least populated with rolling hills and creek beds. Also, pinging a cell phone off a tower wasn't an exact science. It only meant the caller's cell phone was 20 miles within the diameter of the tower. That would take a lot of time to search through if somebody was seriously injured.
Sheri, always the G, was already queuing up on the radio and relaying the information I had entered along with her info out loud to deputies and medical responders. Our deputies would search the area while EMT's staged up somewhere close in case this call turned out to be something bad.
"Sir, what's your name?" I said. I had to keep him focused.
"It hurts. Please hurry!"
"Yes sir, we are. Sir, can I get your name?" He had to calm down. He was in shock.
"Bea," he whispered, almost confused.
"B? like the letter?" I repeated.
"No, she was my wife. I'm- I'm," I could hear him grunting the sound of friction against the receiver. "I can't remember! It hurts so bad. Where the hell are they?!"
I took a deep breath. This was going to be a gamble. My job as a dispatcher was to keep the caller calm and get as much information as I could before first responders arrived. People called me all day on the worst day of their lives wanting me to save them. They didn't understand my legal and ethical constraints. I kinda had to take my own hippocratic oath to help me navigate my job. You know the one, "do no harm," even while everything was going to hell around you.
I measured what I was about to say. Was what I was about to tell the desperate man going to help him or send him over the edge?
"Sir, I'm going to be honest with you. Can you hear me?"
"Y-yes."
"My deputies are going to have a hard time finding you if you can't give them a better location to come to. If you can, and only if you can, I need you to look around and see if you can find anything to help us see or hear you."
"Uh-yah. Uh-okay. Ah God! I can't move! My feet are pinned, I think."
"Can you see what's pinning them? Or what's holding them down?
"Barely. I can see better now. It's-" I could hear grunting and more shuffling, "it's metal. Parts of it are warm. I smell gasoline!"
"Advise deputies to be on the lookout for tire marks or debris showing a vehicle may have gone off the road," I relayed to my partner.
After transmitting the information, Sheri nodded silently to the responses she was getting on her headset.
"10-4 Unit 12, I'll let the caller know," Sheri said and turned to me. "Let your guy know the deputies have their lights on and side takedowns on lighting up the whole forest. He needs to call it out if he can see them come by. He won't be able miss them if he is near the road."
It was a good idea, and I was glad I had a senior deputy on my shift that had been on many rodeos already. I figured it was Davis's idea.
I heard my caller begin to give a wet hacking cough for 30 seconds. Did he have internal bleeding? Time was of the essence. Screw it! I didn't care if they woke up the whole county blaring sirens up and down the roads past midnight!
"Tell them to activate their sirens too. If he can't see them, he sure as hell will hear them."
"Unit 12 and 8 and still enroute to the Bleakwood area. But they are running code. Approximately 10 minutes before Caller should be hearing them."
Right, 10 minutes. Big county with little manpower, and my caller seemed to be laboring for breath now. I had to keep him from going into shock again.
"Sir, do you have a flashlight app on your phone?"
"App? What? Application?"
"Yes, can you use your phone screen to look around?"
There was silence on the other end, except for his heavy breathing. He seemed confused by my line of questions. I tried again.
"Do you have any information on your phone that can help me figure out who you are? You may be close to your house. If I get your name and date of birth I can look up where you live."
"Oh! Okay," he said. "But when I flipped the phone open the screen is black. It must be cracked. It barely gives off a dull light. I don't even know how much battery is left."
Damn. A flip phone. But I guess a newer phone might probably wouldn't even survived a vehicle crash, if that's what this was.
"Can you check your pockets for a wallet or I.D?"
"Yes. Yes. I-I'm pinned almost to my waist. I'm hanging. I can barely get- ahhh! I can feel something! I can barely get into my left pocket! There is something sticky all over me! Ah fuck!"
"If it hurts too bad just stay still, Sir!" I said, worried the sticky substance was his own blood or gasoline.
"I got it," the Man said through heavy breathing. "My wallet. I can barely make out the picture. Oh God, its covered with blood!"
"Sir, don't worry. Just be still and-"
"The moon is full! Thank God! Just let me-" I heard grunting and shuffling. "Yes, it look like it says my name is….Alans, Dante! Dante Alans! I can't see anything else due to the blood."
I turned to my partner and said to her, "Caller's name is Dante Alans. See if we have anybody living in the Bleakwood area with that name."
For some reason Sheri's face went as white as a sheet of paper when she stared at me. Little did I know what that name meant at the time. Sheri was my junior on shift with only 3 years of work experience, but she had been born and raised in the area. She could locate a house from a barn door description. She also knew all the people and family drama because they were pretty much all extended cousin's cousin's cousin's.
"Gil, Dante's place is by Hook's Cut-off. The 505 loop. There is no way! It has to be a prank-" Sheri tried to explain before being cut off by my caller.
"I can hear them! Sirens! I hear them!"
I quickly keyed up and asked, "412, what's your 20?"
"Unit 8 to Dispatch, Unit 12 and I are coming up on the southbound 505 loop. Put us in the area of Bleakwood, searching. Has there been any new information from our caller?"
"Sir, tell me if you see any of my deputies' lights, and be sure to let me know if the sirens are getting louder or start to fade away. We are going to zero in on your location, okay?" I said to Dante.
"I-i see something. I see light!"
"You do!" I said hopefully, and jumped on the radio to tell both squad cars to slow up and hit the woodline with their high beams.
"Yes yes, it's red, flicking red! It's flashing all over! Where am I even? What the fu-"
"Unit 12, call out on the megaphone for our caller. He says he sees your red and blues," I advised.
"Oh God it's everywhere.."
" Received Dispatch," said the gruff cop om the other end of the radio. " Tell your caller to standby and keep an ear out for us. We'll be coming up shortly."
"There's blood coming from the sky!" screamed the caller. " It's raining on me! What is that? Who- who is there?"
"Excuse me, Sir, what is going on now? Are you bleeding? Tell me what you see."
"What have you done this time, Dante?" came a female voice over the phone, surprising me. The female voice continued talking and said, “ now come and see, my dear. Come and see.”
The line went dead.
I sat in my chair, dumbfounded for a while. I called the number back only to get the disconnected line message, and the deputies were getting nervous on the radio. I couldn't blame them because I was nervous too, knowing every second could mean saving his life. I prayed he would called back.
Finally he called back after 2 agonizingly long minutes.
"911, what's the location of your emergency?"
"I'm- I'm hurt!" He said again.
"Deputies are still in the area Mr.Alans. Can I-
"B-black! Pitch black! All the damned darkness is just watching me right out of reach! Its just inches from my face waiting for me like a lion!" the familiar voice of Dante spoke with a tremble of madness in his voice.
"I can't see where I am. Oh God it hurts! I think I'm hanging upside down! I can't get up! Please send an ambulance!" He continued.
"Yes, I understand." I said. "Help is on the way. I need to talk to the female that is with you. Can you get her to go out to the road and flag down the deputies looking for you?"
There was nothing but panicked breathing on the other end of the phone for a few seconds before I heard him say, " A woman?" Then Dante gasped in excitement, or maybe terror.
"Oh Bea, my love," he said with hurt in his voice." What happened to her? Where is she?" he asked, although he hadnt directed the questions at me, or to anyone.
“D-dante, there was a female with you the last time you called. Was that a radio playing in the background or was there somebody there with you?” I spoke slowly, trying to make sure he followed.
“Somebody… with me?” he wondered to himself. “Bea? My beautiful wife. I'm sorry. Oh God I'm sorry!” Dante said, becoming more and more frantic. “I killed you, didn't I?”
“Dante!” I responded in absolute shock. “Who did you kill? You have to slow down and speak to me. I can't help you if you don't communicate with me. I ne-”
A terrible radio feedback noise screeched it's way across my phone's headset like a howling banshee. I instinctively tore the headset off to prevent my eardrum from exploding. That's when I realized the high pitched noise wasn't just coming from my headset, but was emitting loudly from every radio in the dispatch room. The resounding screech was blood curdling.
Sheri held her hands over her ears and looked at me through squinting eyes. She was still white as a ghost and holding her ears with her elbows raised up high.
The screech blared steady for about 10 more seconds and Sheri was already rocking back and forth, murmuring to herself. The pain from the noise was building in my head also. What were we supposed to do? The sound was building to an awful cresendo.
“Oh God, It sounds like a woman screaming!” Sheri said, with tears coming to her eyes. “its just like Reverend James says. Its the gnashing of teeth. Gil. I wish I could shut her up!”
“Woman? Who are you talking about!” I yelled at Sheri over the audibly torment.
Finally the high pitch noise stopped and our ears were bless with sweet reprieve. The relative silence itself was defening in the cramped dispatch room as my ear rang in my head.
“What the fresh hell are you talking about?” I continued when Sheri took her hands off her ears. “First it's this mystery caller stressing the shit outta me, and now I got my shift partner going 10-96!”
“Gil!” Sheri snapped, “Dante and his wife died a year ago at that spot! Dante and Bea Alans died at Hook's Cuttoff!”
I paused for a moment. I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Sheri. I could tell she was telling me the truth. Well, at least her version of it.
“So it's a prank. It wouldn't be the first time 911 got a prank call. What's the big deal?”
“I recognize the voice, Gil! Bea and Dante went to First Baptist with me for years. Once you told me his name it all clicked. And that screams sounded just like her!”
I had to take a deep breath and decide the best way on how to proceed. Sheri was still slightly shaking. She seemed like she was on the edge of full blown panic. I continued in my best calming voice.
“What screaming did you hear, Sheri?” I let loose the question like the softest of softball pitches. Sheri still did not take it well, regardless. Her eyes widened in astonishment.
“The damned woman that was just screaming to high heaven!” Sheri yelled at me. “The damn women that almost blew out our eardrums! It was Bea, Dantes wife, Bea Alan's!”
“Okay! Okay!” I said, patting the air between us in a “calm down” gesture. I paused shortly, choosing my words carefully. I could see Sheri was going to erupt with emotion again.
“Is that really what you heard?” I said quietly to her.
“Yes,” tears began streaming from her eyes. “ I don't get it either. I was there when they buried the two of them, and those were their voices I heard today! I swear!”
The phone rang out again in front of me and I knew the caller was Dante. I put the call on speaker phone for Sheri.
“911, what's the location of your emergency?” I said with my practiced emotional blandness.
“Im- I’m hurt,” said the dreaded familiar voice, filled with the same familiar amount of pain. I looked in terror at Sheri and her eyes widened in n fear.
“Dante, Sir, is this you?” I asked.
“Who? W-what?”came the mumbled responses on the other end of the phone before Dante found his clarity. “Aw yeah. We have talked before, right?”
“Yes, I still have deputies coming for you, right now. Just hold tight, okay?”
“Oh-okay, just please hurry. It's just that it hurts,” Dante’s voice broke into a sob,” It hurts so damn much.”
If this was a prank, whoever was impersonating the dead man on the phone, was a fantastic voice actor, because I felt my eyes begin to water slightly with sympathy towards him. I was about to give him some more words of encouragement when I heard it again, the sound of the female voice.
“Come and see, babe. Come and see?” cooed the intimate and honey laced voice from somewhere in the background of Dante’s call. All hell broke loose as both Dante and my partner freaked out at the sound of his supposed long dead wife beaconing to him.
Sheri, who had been listening in on the conversation intently, quickly stood up and tossed her headset onto the keyboard in front of her. At the same time I could hear Dante having his own freakout on the other end of the phone. Sheri tried to flee past me towards the exit door.
I wasn't gonna let her go AWOL on me?
“Sheri, stop! What the hell?” I said, as I caught her by her arm. She let me stop her with little resistance, as if she was ashamed of her actions. She began wiping her tears out of her eyes
I had to make a command decision, wither to address my partner or Dante. I put Dante on hold and gave Sheri my full attention.
“You can't leave me all by myself with this shit storm, girl” I know I'm new to the department since my transfer , but me and you have been ride or die since day one!”
“I can't,” Sheri replied quickly as tears began to roll down her face freely. “Bea and Dante were my friends. I knew Bea since highschool. I went to their wedding as well as their funeral.”
“So it's a sick prank,” I said. “Once the ping comes back telling us where the call is coming from, we will get our deputies to arrest the assholes who are tying up emergency services lines.” I said.
“B-but’ Sheri replied,” It sounds just like them.”
There was a beat of silence between me and my partner in the dispatch room. Only the sound of Dante on the other end of the phone screaming in pain as a female repeatedly called to him could be heard through the mic.
“It's bullshit” I said with finality. “You believe it’s really them? I asked. "You believe Casper is calling us from the grave? Okay, where did they die then? I'll send the deputies to find them? I'll prove to you that it's just a prankster that's got in your head. Let me send our guys to the place they died."
Sheri thought for the moment. It looked like the memories hurt her. Then she looked straight at me and answered
“Hook’s Ridge on Hwy 82,” she said. “Right past the sign on the road we're you take the sharp right on the bridge.”
Sheri stopped for a bit, sighed, and went back to plop down in her work chair, defeated. The muffled screams of Dante calling for help continued between us.
“Tell Deputy Davis. He will know. He worked the scene when it happened,” Sheri continued. “
"Around this time last year, right before you came on at the department, we had a head-on collision between an SUV and a pickup truck right at the curve on Hook’s Ridge." Sheri’s face became serious.“Gory stuff. Family of 4 in the SUV. 2 dead on scene. The others, just children, pinned within. We called jaws of life to pry out the dying kids. Davis had to help guide on a helicopter to land in the Hwy. The injured were life flighted by chopper to the nearest hospital. This was all for nothing, because everybody on scene died."
"The man in the pickup looked like he might make it, but he died 2 days later at the hospital. It was, (what's the term you use?), a shit storm."
I sat quiet for a bit then asked, “What about Dante and Bea?”
“We,” Sheri swallowed hard and made fists in her lap. “We didn't know there was a 3rd vehicle involved in the collision. Dante and his wife were traveling in their Impala and must have been somewhere around the 2 vehicles that collided head on with each other."
"Dante swerved out of the way of the two cars smashing into each other. and went straight off the bridge, causing him to fly through the treeline. God, it was almost perfect. Dante's vehicle barely even snapped a twig or made any discernible path of carnage as it spiraled through the air. The Impala flew almost 50 feet downhill and crashed upside down through the ceiling of an old rusted shack at down by the creek bed.”
“Thats horrible,” I said. “Did they die on impact?”
Sheri gritted her teeth and and started nervously tapping her foot before answering, “Unfortunately no," she continued. "We didn't even discover their vehicle until 33 hours later. The only reason emergency services were alerted was the fire. Fire Marshal believes Dante tried to start a small fire from where he was trapped in his car. He must have hoped the smoke would alert emergency services. He took the chance even though he was surrounded by leaking gasoline. The fire quickly raged out of control and burned him alive before rescue could show up.”
Sheri stopped to wipe a tear away before adding, “I just hope Bea was already gone. That's what the Coroner said at least. What an idiot man!” she said out loud.
“He was desperate. He most likely was a few hours from dying himself. Due to exposure to the elements or bleeding out,” I said to Sheri. “We don't know what sort of headspace he was in.”
“Well I guess we can just ask him now,” Sheri said as she pointed an accusatory finger at the blinking phone between us.
“Sheri, come on, cut the shit,” I said. “I listened to your story and I get that it was traumatic, but that's not Dante's damned ghost on the phone right now!”
“Well then let's see, Gil. I'll take you up on your offer. Send Davis off the road to the shack at the bottom of Hook’s Ridge where Dante and Bea crashed. Let's see what we see.”
I thought for a while before I decided to change the plan just a bit, just to keep confirmation bias from clouding the outcome of the experiment. I dispatched the younger deputy by calling him on his personal cell phone and not putting the traffic across the open radio.
“Dante, a deputy is on his way right now. I need you to try to concentrate and describe to me what you see or hear, okay?”
Dante had long ago stopped screaming and was now only whimpered, and he only answered weakly with a, “Oh-okay.”
There were tense moments of silence as Sheri and I listened to Dante over speaker phone. Then he spoke up.
“I hear someone!”
“Okay Dante, call out to them!”
I switched channels onu radio to let Deputy Gomez know to keep an ear out. Gomez acknowledged and told me he had eyes on the rusted shed.
“HELP! PLEASE HELP! CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Dante screamed.
“Approaching shed,” Gomez said matter-of-factly on his end of the radio.
Me and Sheri looked at each other. There was no way Gomez couldn't hear Dante if he was that close to the shed. This had to be a prank.
“I see his light! It's coming through the cracks of the walls! He is on the other side of some sort of door!” Dante said hopefully.
“Dante, can you-”
“I can't get to the door! Damnit to hell, I'm pinned! I can't! I can't!” Dante interrupted.
“Dante, don't upset your injuries any further. My deputies will come to you,” I said.
“Please hurry. It's getting hot,” Dante said.
“Dispatch, I'm about to make entry into the shed,” Gomez advised.
“10-4, Unit 8,” I replied, sending a jolt of nervous adrenaline through my body.
I always thought it was so strange how the body's fight or flight response still kicked in even though I was miles from any danger.
“Oh thank God! I'm down here. Deputy, help unpin me,” Dante said over the speaker phone.
I sighed in relief and felt a little foolish. I let out a small laugh and me and Sheri exchange nervous smiles. It seemed it was just a normal call with eerie similarities to the late Dante Alans.
This would make a great war story to tell the rookies one day. I was picturing it in my head. Me and Sheri could tell the new hires about the night that a ghost had a living doppelganger.
“Unit 8, do you need me to send EMS your way?” I asked Gomez.
There was a pause on the other end of the radio before Gomez came back with his answer.
“Negative Dispatch. The shed is empty. I think somebody is playing a game with us,”
Now it was my turn to pause. Anger flooded through me as Dante continued to babble on the speaker phone, still trying to make a fool out of us.
“Dante!” I interrupted his rambling,” The gig is up! No one is in the shed. You had your sick laughs. You fooled us good, but you're also breaking the law! Get off the phone and don't call 911 again unless it's a real emergency!”
“Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about?” Dante asked. I had to admit he was a great actor, because the fear and bewilderment came through perfectly. “ The cop is 4 feet away from me! Short Mexican guy, with a mustache.”
“Deputy! Officer! Hey! What the fu-,” Dante paused. “What does that name tag say? G-gomez, shine your flashlight on me! I'm trapped in this car! Do you see me?"
No! I wasn't going to fall for this. The caller could have a police scanner and could know Gomez was Unit 8, or-
“Unit 8, the caller is describing you. Can you check the shed for cameras?” said to Gomez.
“It's getting hot. So hot. Please tell him to just bend over and help unwedge me. I'm upside down in this freaking seat! I can see now because of his flashlight. The driver's seat has me pinned against the steering wheel. Look! I'm upside down!"
“8 to Dispatch, the shed is completely empty. If there is a hidden camera it has to be microscopic,” Gomez radio chatter squawked in reply to me.
“I'm not a damn camera! This dumb pig is kneeling down right in front of me! He's looking right through me. He has a Marine Corps eagle, globe, and anchor pin right next to his S.O. pins on his collar. He smells like Old Spice! I can almost reach him!”
“Unit 8,” I keyed up, determined not to be fooled anymore.
“8, go ahead.”
“The shed doesn't have a roof, correct? Can you scan the trees around the opening in the ceiling for cameras?”
“No, I'm down here on the ground! Stop messing with me. It's getting really hot. I think I smell gasoline. Please stop playing with me! Help!” Dante responded.
I realized Dante was responding to me by hearing my radio traffic come across Gomez’s personal radio. I had been instinctually muting and unmuting Dante everytime I talked to my deputies, so Dante couldn't predict their movement. I was sure there was a camera in there picking up audio and visual.
“Hey, you! Officer! Deputy! Can you please help! Are you in charge? Your partner is ignoring me!” Dante spoke with renewed vigor.
“Unit 8, are you still alone in the shed?” I asked.
“Negative Dispatch, Unit 12 just made it down to my 20,” Gomez replied. Now I knew Deputy Davis had snuck down to the shed without letting his dispatchers know. I couldn't really blame him for being curious. Hell, I wanted a look around too.
“Wait-I-I know this cop,” Dante said to me over the line.
“12 to Dispatch,” answered the deeper voice of Deputy Davis,“ me and 8 are getting a strong and overwhelming smell of gasoline. The scent just flooded in out of nowhere. I'm afraid one of us tipped over a fuel canister or something while walking down here in the dark. We are gonna see if we can locate the origin of the smell before we go 10-8.”
“Oh God, oh no! Where are they going? Come back! Why are they leaving?” Dante began to frantically scream.
I tried to ignore Dante and his amazing acting skills. He really did sound like he was frightened and in pain, but I was done with being tricked by this cruel joke. I would just let my deputies check the area and go 10-8 back to normal patrol none the wiser of Dantes whining on the other line.
I figured it was one of the friends or relatives of the poor actual deceased Dante and Bea Alan's. This prank caller probably felt like they were “punishing” the Sheriff's Department for not saving the real Dante and his wife on that terrible night.
“It's starting to burn, Gil! Please tell them to turn around.” Dante screamed. “It burns! It burns! I can see flames! Gil, help!
Sheri began to sob quietly into her hands and hearing her only made me angrier. How dare this prank caller put my partner through such emotional turmoil. I couldn't wait for the deputies to get done with their search so I could hang up on the asshole.
“Ahh! Shit the fire! The vehicle is on fire!” Dante's words turned into incomprehensible screams of agony. I was about to lower the volume on the speaker between me and Sheri but froze when I heard the all too familiar voice.
“Come and see,” a female voice soothed through the short pauses in Dante's screams.
“You heard that?” Sheri said. She had snuck up to lean over my shoulder, and made me jump a bit in surprise. “She still sounds just like Bea! How is that possible?”
“Yah,” I replied with an exasperated sigh, “it's just another prank caller, Sheri. You gotta hand it to them. They did their homework.”
“Don't come closer! Ahh” Dante continued his horrid screams. “She's right out of reach of the fire! No! It will burn you too! Stay back! Ahh Fu-”
“Unit 8, Unit 12!” Sheri almost yelled into her headset as she keyed into my radio traffic.
“Go ahead, Sheri,” Davis answered, nonchalantly.
“Yes, -um,” she looked at me guilty. I just held out my palm in a “It's all yours” gesture.
“We are receiving calls of a fire coming from inside the shed you and Gomez just left, so please 10-19 to check if it's all code 4.”
“That's a big 10-4,” Davis said with barely hidden exasperation.
“Come and see. Come and see, my love,”
“Bea I can't come with you!” Dante spoke between his screams of burning pain. “I remember now! I know what you want me to see! I didn't mean to hurt you and those people! Please God forgive me!”
“Come and see,” the woman's voice continued soothingly
“The fire! Oh the fire it's all around me! I'm already in Hell, Bea! Tell them that!” Dante said one last time before letting out the most gut wrenching sob I had ever heard.
“12 to Dispatch,” Davis keyed up,” the smell of gasoline is still very strong in this area but we were still UTL on any gasoline cans or flame hazards. Once we clear the shed you can put me and Unit 8 back 10-8 on patrol,”
“Unit 8 to Dispatch, do I have any calls holding- holy shit!” Gomez screamed into his radio.
Everything hit the fan at once. Being a good dispatcher is like having to complete a puzzles with just two or three pieces while the rest are missing. So I got used to taking just nuggets of information and trying to deduce, like Sherlock, what the hell was going on.
Far as I figured Gomez had reentered the shed first while talking on his radio. Gomez saw (which he later denied) a flipped over Impala, surrounded by flames, and a frail bald headed woman standing outside of it.
Dante stopped talking to the woman and immediately jumped on the fact that the deputies could see him now.
“Officer! Please help! Get her away from the flames! Get her away!” Dante screamed, his voice beaconing over the phone.
The next voice I heard was the usually unshakable Deputy Davis, trying not to sound terrified.
“Oh God, Dispatch, I need Fire and EMS to my location! I-I. Oh God!" Davis screamed. I could hear Deputy Gomez and Dante yelling in the background of David's radio.
I couldn't believe Dante was there! He was physically there in that shed! It wasn't a camera or a prank call! I could hear him and my deputies yelling back and forth with each other.
Then, silence.
Dante’s call went dead. And Sheri and I were left for 30 seconds of dead air. Those 30 seconds felt like an eternity as we sat frozen in our chairs.
“Unit 12, Unit 8, status check?” Sheri finally asked, breaking the quiet. “12, 8, status check!”
Another 30 seconds of silence and I was calling everyone, all the way up to the National Guard, for backup. But finally, Davis replied to us.
“Um, you can 22 my last traffic. We don't need anybody out here,” Davis said meekly.
There was another span of silence and me and Sheri just looked at each other dumbfounded. We both heard Deputy Gomez speaking frantically in the background of Davis’s radio traffic. Something was happening or had just happened in the shed, and they weren't telling us.
“Unit 8, is everything code 4?” Sheri asked, nervously.
More silence assaulted us. Then Deputy Gomez finally replied in a stilted voice, “ Yes, uh code 4. You can cancel fire and EMS. I was mistaken-”
We heard Davis t Speaking to Gomez in the background, “Listen Jim, you're not crazy-”
Gomez keyed up with, “You can put both Units back in 10-8 immediately!”
“10-4, both units back in service,” Sheri replied with a quizzical look on her face.
That was the last transmission we heard in reference to our ghost for the last 3 hours of the shift. The two deputies left the Bleakwood area and returned back to regular patrol.
Sheri and I had sucked it up and went back to acting like everything was normal as citizens around the county continued to call 911 for loud music, elderly requested ambulances, and deputies called out license plates on traffic stops. We just hoped one of the deputies would come by and talk to us after shift.
Finally, at the end of shift I found myself outside where the deputies and dispatchers liked to smoke and shoot the breeze between shifts. Sheri was puffing on her cig like a chimney and I was tapping my foot nervously. We both knew we could be waiting on vain, because both deputies lived in the county and were allowed to take their patrol vehicles home after shift.
The morning sun had just begun its ascent over the town square when Deputy Davis came creeping up in his patrol car. The mood coming from the old deputy was that of an undertaker driving a hearse. He popped out of his driver's seat and gave us both grim eye contact, before gently closing his door and taking calm and measured steps to walk up to us.That's when I realized Davis was terrified, and was trying to put up his macho cop front before he started speaking to us.
When he did talk it was in a hushed and serious tone. He recounted the events of the night from his perspective. He told us how he snuck away to follow the younger Deputy Gomez into the woods when the mysterious yet familiar calls kept coming in.
Davis said when he first arrived and walked into the shed Gomez was just alone. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was just a rusty shack with the roof caved in. The only thing strange about it was 10 degrees colder inside, and the overwhelming smell of gasoline.
After they checked the area for gasoline is when things really kicked off. Davis said he was right behind Gomez as Gomez reentered the shed the second time around, but this time the shed wasn't empty.
Davis collaborated on what Gomez originally said he saw, saying he observed a flipped over vehicle surrounded by flames. Davis didn't see the woman but heard her speaking. He told us how surreal it felt that he was hit with with a wave of cold as the flames illuminated the night. The juxtapositions of cold air and roaring flames scrambled his brain for a moment
Deputy Gomez told Davis he jumped forward into the shed to pull the woman away from the flames. Gomez also said he heard a male voice urging him for help. Before Gomez could lay a finger on the frail bald woman, in a wink, they were all gone. All disappeared into the night air.
The cold flames, the voices, the woman, all out of existence like a switch was flipped. Deputy Gomez stood there reaching for nothing, and Davis could only blink the sunspots out of his eyes as the darkness of night shrouded them once again.
Davis said he had to calm Gomez down from having a panic attack on the spot. They got the hell away from the place as quickly as possible. But Davis wanted to make it known that it wasn't a prank. Dante and Bea Alans were still out there in those woods.

Another call, another investigator from the city mumbling down my ear. This time some old birds from the coast, looking to enjoy a cold summer on The Rockies. They left through Pineridge June 14th, and were due back home June 19th, 1985. Been about a week since that date has come and gone, no word from them or the cabin renters up the peaks. Details were lost to me, since all we had was a petulant nagger preaching their absence and a family in Santa Monica wanting their grandparents home before Christmas. Holly and Chester Ray. I had put it on my radar, thanked the dispatcher for the report, and organized it somewhere in my mind with the rest. I knew their file would make its pit-stop at my desk soon. I would revisit it then. For now the talk of town would be Terry Davis, a fisherman from Missouri succeeded solely by a pole left behind on a frozen lake. No results in the city oriented search, leaving just a prayer that he may turn up. His memory slowly had begun to fade into silent obscurity. Pineridge had never been so active in the missing and presumed dead until the last two years. Its claim to fame for practically it’s lifetime was nothing more than a drive through to better places. A one direction road looping up and around the famous spine of America. Just one of the many small forgotten towns nestled in the palms of Colorado. I thought it lucky that almost all of the missing tourists were accounted for deeper past Pineridge, more than likely hikers biting off more than they could chew. Taking an unfortunate tumble on a forgotten trail, and buried under the persistently falling snow. The missing folk native to Pineridge, had gone practically unnoticed by anybody but family. But I suspected they had met the same fate as the tourists. As pretty as the mountains were, they had no patience for heedlessness. The woods belong to nobody but god.
Scarfing at a faded tupperware of pasta salad, a manila folder was casted towards me without so much of a greeting from the sender. I thanked just as wordlessly, nodding my head with my mouth full of twisty noodles. I pulled the folder towards me, and became immediately aware what this was about. A purple tab protruded from the pinched together pages, telling me well enough. Pineridge consisted of one sheriff's office, with one holding cell and a total of three deputies. The state hardly made notice of us under the jurisdiction of our mayor, who preferred the isolation of the mountains. Purposefully kept our department as small and as bootless as possible. As grateful as I was that all detainees would be swiftly transferred out, these missing persons cases had started being a real pain in my ass. They’d bother to send me the case, publish the missing persons report, have a look, and determine it futile. At the start I had faith in our ability to find them, but after four cold cases too many, I fear it’s made me cynical. I had never once had a special agent from the bureau come up that road to talk to me face to face. Unempathetic bastards. I still reviewed every single case from front to back and lost sleep over the possibility of finding them. The tab color, a Missing Persons. A purple association for the spot in my cabinet it would eventually find a home in.
Finishing my bite off with a firm swallow, I put down the sloppy clump of what remained of my lunch. Back to work. When opening the folder I was immediately greeted by two smiling faces, pinned up to the corner by a silver paperclip. Their broad smiles pulled loose, aged skin taut against their skulls. They looked like they couldn’t have been far from retirement. Matching silver hair feathering past the ears, posed in front of a blurry churning beach. The brightness was washed out by the printing, and a yellowed stain circled around the male Ray’s head. I could only assume the image was a few years old based on its state, likely from one of those old leather photo albums mom kept in her mess closet. To be sure, I flipped the corner over with my thumb. The date was etched in a dying blue pen along the back. 1979, lucky guess. Directly underneath the photo was a transcript copy of their car insurance, printed on a long strip of yellow paper. Pulling down on the slip for a closer read, it drew with it a secondary report, held by a thin metal staple. I pulled out both, the report covered the repossession of the car from the lodgers after they were discovered missing. A '77 Oldsmobile Cutlass, dark green, almost swallowed by snow. Upon closer inspection, the car revealed no signs of tampering. Inside there was a half empty frozen water bottle, a handful of loose pink bubblegum sticks, and a bottle of Levothyroxine for Holly Ray. Setting that aside, I thumbed back over the other available files, landing my sights on the witness report. A lodger from Misty Mountain Hideaway reported seeing them last leaving their cabin at around six in the morning. They had stopped by the witnesses' abode as they passed, shared a pleasant word about the morning and their intention to hike the Moose Track. From the time they left that morning to now, nobody had seen a thing. According to the rest of the reports, this case was pretty familiar to me. Everything seemed intentional. They left their luggage in the cabin, secured the front door, and only took what was essential for a short hike. Holly Jane Ray; 5ft 3”, 150lbs, silver hair and blue eyes. Chester Lee Ray; 5ft 9”, 235lbs, silver hair and brown eyes. Swallowed by The Rockies. I couldn’t keep back a sigh of resignation, something I feel just falls out of me nowadays. I spent the next dragging minutes recording impertinent information I learned, cutting it down into an impressively short paragraph. Belle at the library would have to condense it into a lovely contribution for the local paper. If you could even call it a paper. More of a quick printed one page flier chalked full of mundane news around town. New imports at Peg’s General, a special coming to Russ’s bar. And this time, another ‘report if sighted’. To make sure the folks of Pineridge kept a good look out for some old wandering souls. By the time I was headed out to bring it to her, the Rays’ missing poster had been faxed, printed, and posted. It was a fresh cut of paper, plastered painstakingly over the faces of two others. The old pages had started to peel away. Whoever had posted it used the Rays’ as a layer to stabilize them. I didn’t want to linger at the bulletin for too long. Makes me too damn sad.
-
The library was just slightly too far to make it reasonably by foot. At this point in summer, Pineridge was mostly grass with a few patches of stubborn snow scattered around. With the sky mostly clear of clouds, the sun was completely free to blind anybody walking unsuspectedly into it. Not me, not this time. Before opening the door out of the sheriff's office, I preemptively pushed my sunglasses up my nose, the report folded over in my palm. I opened the door to my cruiser with the rust on her hinges fighting back, hopping into the front seat. I swapped the paper in my hand for a cigarette, fresh from the pack of Kings laying in the bed of my passenger seat. Absent-mindedly I nursed on it with the window narrowly cracked, rolling down the drive-in onto loose gravel. The radio was already up a few notches behind blaring, sputtering in with the turn of my keys, set to the local station. We really weren’t in the era of Billie Holiday anymore, but I was in no room to complain. The up and coming was starting to grow on me. I was just pleased to catch the station when radio host Gun Riley wasn’t yammering whatever lackluster topics came into his mind. Made me remember that this time tomorrow, he’d be recounting the case sitting just a few inches from me. Perhaps I’d tune in just to listen to the details again. How they drove down this road through our little town in that Oldsmobile, with aspirations to hike every minor trail in the Midwest. I caught myself praying for them under the high evening sun. Not just for them but for the system somehow to kick itself into high gear and fucking do something about it.
Report successfully dropped for the paper and no word from the scanner, the rest of my night was up for filling. I expected by two mornings away, Mayor Mooney would call the council for a town meeting. At least I hoped so. He only took action when pressured by the masses. Until then, I’d be forced to endure the mundane boredom typical of a small-town sheriff's lack of duties. Five cigarettes deep into the evening and two minutes on the call instead of the clock, The Welcome-Inn was calling my name. I parked the cruiser and headed in with one last cigarette smoldering to a butt in my mouth. I was surprised to see the bar empty, less so to hear Russell exclaim the second he laid eyes on my khaki.
“Wellll If it ain't my favorite knight n’brown armor” He cackled from behind the servery window, steam rising up into sweat across his brow.
“It’s tan.” I gave him a tight lip smile, spinning my keys at my belt. He waved his hand dismissively at me with further exclamation. His bar is the heart of the town, a frequent spot for all the bored and thirsty. Everybody knew Russ, and Russ knew everybody. Without the energy of the man, the place itself was nothing special to behold. It had been in Russ’s family before he was even a twinkle in his mothers eye. The old, creaking wooden stools and heat stained tables attested to that.
“Whatever- Same thing, whatchu want?…” Russ’s head disappeared behind the window but I knew he could still hear me.
“You know what I want, Russ.” I set my sights on the jukebox machine in the corner, my daily haunt. I had quarters stashed away somewhere in my pockets.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know—greasy ol’ Ruben," he chuckled. His tone was almost always humorous like this, making it pretty hard to take the guy seriously, especially when it was tough to distinguish between his humor and his insults. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he’s always got something against you. But like I said, everybody knows Russ.
I found two quarters while rummaging around in my pocket, with my car key stuck between my teeth. I knew exactly the record to reel up. American Pie, Don Mclean. Eventually I would get tired of hearing it every day, but today was not that day. Usually I’d feel no shame bobbing my shoulders to a good song, snapping my fingers and keeping a rhythmic step back to the bartop. But today it just didn’t spring on me. Shoving my key away I could already smell my reuben brewing. That thing could put a man in a good mood with one bite. Hell, the scent of it already was.
Russell’s waitresses had been reduced to two for the night, both loitering at the bar's edge. Ximena was the one I spoke with most often. Usually when I needed a good liquid vice. A long-framed woman, younger than me, yet possessing the fortitude of a mother.
“Karl!” she smiled when I sat, coming around the front to start situating me a cold glass, “Hola hermoso!-- same as usual?”
“You know it.” I returned the same smile back to her, anticipating my whiskey on the rocks.
“Hi Karl” The lesser familiar face chimed in. She wasn’t necessarily new, but nowhere near a native to the area. I knew her name anyway from how often Russell would call for her back to run food.
“Workin’ hard Billie?” I asked inanely, to which she responded with a smirk and a shaking head.
“Nah she ain't workin’ at all. You got time to lean you got time to clean, Bill.” Russ poked in before the poor girl could even properly answer.
“Oh shut yer mouth Russ. There ain’t not a damn thing to clean.” She rolls her eyes and reaches for a pack of marlboros in her apron, “I’m goin’ on break.”“And there she go leanin’,” Russ peeked through his window to watch her go, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth disapprovingly. Billie didn't dignify his taunt with a response, headed out the back to enjoy her cigarette for what I assumed would be as long as she pleased. Ximena darted a quick look at the front of her brain, leaving me with a bit more than a sip in my glass.
“Never worked harder, Karl,” she said sarcastically, rolling her r’s around her mouth loosely.
“Could say the same for me.”
“I doubt.” She cackled with a sassy shoulder shrug, turning her back to me into the servery window. My sandwich, streaming with steam and bubbling cheese, made the short flight from the hot-plate to me. Seems even the locals knew I didn’t do diddly squat half the time. That was about all they had to say regarding my twenty years of duty for the rest of the night.
“Eat up.” Russ quipped, miraculously chewing a cigarette between his teeth over the sizzling grill.
“No invitation needed,” I scooped up the sandwich between my hands and shamelessly let the grease seep down my palms. Best part of my nights was a good reuben, “American Pie”, and a short glass of Jim Beam.
-
Cheap conversation fizzled down to silence. My cheeks puffed full of reuben, I was pulled from my momentary culinary bliss by a familiar buzz. Mimicked that of a fly too close to your ear while brimming on an evening nap. Still chewing off the last bit, I reached for my pager as quick as my greasy fingers would allow me. I was still getting used to these things. I half expected it to be one of my deputies signaling being off the clock for the night, but I aint right in the mind if I don’t check. Holding it outwards against the table, the face pointed up towards the light, I could see four yellowed out numbers. 10-65. Missing Person. I felt my nerve endings fray and jolt me out of my chair faster than I could swallow.
“Thanks Russ, I'll see you tomorrow.” I tossed him a few crumpled bills across the bar from my pockets.
“Alright, see yah then,” he flicked a finger out his window to see me off without so much as a glance. As unaware as I liked him to be.
My cruiser sat at rest just a few feet from the front door, but the walk to it felt like a damn marathon. Without any additional information, I needed to get on the receiver and fast. I wouldn’t let any questions get to my head. Getting in the front seat of the cruiser, I wrestled to get my key out of my back pocket. Starting her up as soon as I had a good hold.
“-ger, goddamnit, where th’fuck are you!” a crackling voice came bellowing from the radio head, immediately drowned out by my stereo blaring ‘The Pineridge Pulse with Gun Riley’. I flicked the sound down to zero and held the receiver to my lips, eying the red light glinted over the faded number ‘1’.
“Deputy Nelson, what’s the scene?” I kept as much authority in my voice as I could muster. Being in the lot of the Welcome-Inn was doing me no good, so I preemptively started down the road.
“Jesus-- where have y’bee— Y’said you were—on call.” His voice cut in and out between static but I could make out his bellyaching just fine. Throwing “god be damned” and “jesus” around like they ain’t batting our corner.
“Don’t sass me Nelson, what’s the scene.” I repeated, the urgency in his voice called out my own.
I’d hear the click of him pulling away the receiver, “I’m at th’pass, there’s a biddy out here not listenin’ to a goddamn word m’sayin’. I need backup. She’s pissin’ me off.”
“10-65?”
“I don’t know Jeager, just come help me.” The radio head snapped, settling to churning static before going mute. I knew he wasn’t going to give me anymore than that, grateful I was already headed north towards the pass. Bob Nelson had been a pin in my asscheek since Mooney relented in transferring more deputies to the county. I could have sworn he wasn’t in the academy at all. Only value he had was a sharp eye for trouble and his thumb up Mooney’s ass. Had a habit of throwing fists instead of citations, that kid. Gets higher than a kite on feeling ‘badass’ instead of just doing his job. I rode the gravel in silence, anticipating something that was possibly waiting for me.
Around the bend I could see the emanating flickers of red and blue from Bob’s cruiser. Pulling around, my headlights illuminated the figure of Nelson with his shoulder’s hunched in. He was speaking, or rather condescending, to a smaller framed figure with her crooked back facing the cruisers. I could see the outline of her sleep gown brushing just at the ankles, swaying with her body as she stood on the cusp of the woods. Her white hair wormed down her shoulders in stringy clumps of what would closely resemble wet yarn. The clunk of my cruiser door shutting distracted Bob from his poor attempt at damage control. He stepped back and plastered his hands firm at the hip, face pulled taut into a scowl in wait of my approach. From my belt, I reached for my notepad. Along with it, the black ink pen I’d kiss the feet of satan for. Pulling my pen open with my teeth, I caught the glint of something adjusting its own position in Bob’s cruiser. Full eye contact with the tinted window made it clear who was inside. The blonde bobblehead Elizabeth Creed, Bob’s item. Though, I feared she’d have my balls if she knew I thought her head was so far up Bob’s ass she didn’t know colon from lung. I gave her a tip of my hat, planning to address him having her tag along while on the job, again, later.
“She won’t listen, Jaeger.” Bob spat as I got closer, cicadas sizzling over his hateful disposition. I didn’t say a word back to him yet, not until I could get a better look at the civilian. I knew who she was soon as her face came clear. There were only a few women older than sixty still alive and kicking in Pineridge, and one missing.
It was not any missing person at all. The Breyer family were dear friends of mine since before I got drafted. They lived up on the border between Pineridge and empty forest for miles. She was very far from home. I didn’t have to be a close friend of the family to deduct this. Her feet were cinder blocks of dried mud, and her loose paper skin was tore open, leaking small pearls of blood. Todd Breyer has been my kin from another womb since we were boys barely out of diapers. He had retired from real estate to take care of his mother. The glassy eyed, husk of a woman swaying in the wind before me.
“,,,Take Lizzie home, Nelson.”
“What?” Bob said with a scoff behind his curled lips
“Take Lizzie home, and take on patrol on Darter until your shift ends. I’ll take over here.” I didn’t bother to raise my eye to him, and replaced the empty spot on my belt with my book and pen*.*
Bob fell quiet for all of two seconds, rotating on his heels with a sour sigh and making the short stroll back to his cruiser. Must have not been worth the fight for him for once. His cruiser pulling away dimmed the stale yellow light around us. But the lack of flashing warning lights was a pleasant change of scenery.
“Mo?” I kept my voice sweet when addressing her, “What are yah doing out here?”
She didn’t respond.
“...Awfully far from your house…If you come to my car with me, I can take you back.”
It seemed like she was deaf to me. Her gaze fixed out straight ahead into nothing but dark leaves fluttering like wings. I had no clue she had deteriorated to this extent. Todd was always a man to downplay his problems. Even when he was a kid and had his eye rot out to the point of removal, he seldom fussed about it. I really didn’t blame him, the last thing he wanted was to lose his mama to a looney bin. Looking at her sagging countenance, I couldn't help but reminisce about when it was more gentle. She was a single mother, born to be one. I had more memories of her and the smoky aroma of her living room than I did of my own mother. I’d come over to play baseball with Todd in their corner backyard for hours, while she brewed sweet tea on the backstep. She made sure the lot of us were well fed with excellent table manners and had a talent for keeping things tidy. She had run herself thin by the time she was thirty, but her mind hadn’t started to fragment until after Todd had moved out to Texas. During that time, I lost touch with him, but our connection rekindled upon his return as if no distance had ever separated us. He had told me she wasn’t doing well over a solemn beer. Though had kept it vague to me, and I did not pry. I was willing to make the long drive up the mountain for her.
“...Come on Mo…It’s getting late.” I tried appeasing her further, placing my hand gently on her shoulder. I was surprised to feel she was as cold as a corpse, her bones pressing back against my palm like spines. Everything drew still, even the hissing cicadas muted their song. The only thing pricking my raised skin was the gentle wind howling through the bosom of the hills. She didn’t say a word, looking at me with the same disposition a deer does in headlights. I could barely recognize her. Despite knowing it was her, doubt gnawed at my gut. I attributed it to her age making her more sunken into her bones then I had remembered. The image of the woman I knew as a child, but not quite the same. I reasoned with myself, hunkering down the unease and curling a smile at my lips.
“Come on…” I coaxed, gently tugging at her shoulder. Her feet shuffled against the dirt, trailing slightly on her hip but obediently following my tug with little resistance. She didn’t take her eyes off of me. Even as we made our way back to the cruiser, those two dark pools of dread remained squarely focused on me. They were so inhumanly wide I could have sworn her eyelids were pulled open by tight strings. Gathering loose wrinkles around her cheeks like bunches of fabric. I couldn’t look at her. At every sideways glance a rock would fall in my stomach. She wouldn’t stop staring at me. I could see her blurry face fully turned to me out of the corner of my eye. Her face was like white stone, pale and cold. Etched into it, a chiseled unwavering expression of absolutely nothing. I felt relief when she didn’t fight getting into my back seat, her bony hands laying a grip on my shoulder as I helped her in. Finally, I was allowed a singular moment alone whilst I walked around the backend of my cruiser. The need to chew a clump of tobacco salivated my mouth, though I would have to wait for the comfort of home for that. When I got back into the front seat, it was like all the imposing threat lingering in the woods was condensed into my cabin. The air was dry, leaving my mouth a sandy oasis by just a breath. The cropped hair at the back of my neck frayed out, as if Mo’s eyes were snaking under my follicles. She was still staring at me, I could see that by the quick glance I stole to my rearview. Under the pale light of the moon she was deathly. I bit my tongue down between my teeth and silently threw the cruiser in reverse. I felt a sudden surge of guilt around my cruel sense of fear. She was just an old woman. Strung out by life, leaving her a shell of something I used to know. There was nothing truly to fear in her brittle bones and widened eyes. Regardless, under my uniform, cold creeps still stabbed at my skin.
I kept the radio silent through the drive up the pass to the Breyer house. At a certain point, I had nearly forgotten she was back there. Only to be harshly reminded by her ghostly white face looming in my mirror. I kept myself as occupied as I could by the shadowed road, watching the sharp pines and the rolling hills in the distance pass me. I followed the winding mountain path until it came up to a tarmac driveway, inching in with caution in the late night. Todd had afforded one of the most impressive homes in Clear Creek county, most definitely attributed to his previous employment. A large wood framed abode with a double garage and a backyard of forest. I had never been inside, he always came down the pass to meet me instead. I opted to leave his mother behind in my cruiser, meandered up his front step and delivered a firm knock to the door. I knew he could have been asleep, reaching over and instead pressing their impressively loud doorbell. I could hear it chiming inside, and after a small hesitative moment, the light upstairs flicked on. I felt pressure release from my lungs, reassured by knowing Todd was on his way down to collect his mother. He left me standing out in the still night for no more than a few minutes. Despite this, I couldn't shake off the sinking sensation of being watched. Yet when I turned to look back at my cruiser, I saw nothing but windows blacked out by the reflection of my headlights, accompanied by the quiet purr of my idling motor. The front door screen whined as it was pushed open, grabbing my attention to the man steadily opening it.
“Karl?” Todd asked with sleep in his throat, his heavy build taking up the doorframe. His face typically plastered with a jolly smile, seemed older now that it frowned.
“Sorry for waking you…I got your mom in the car,” I pointed back with my thumb over my shoulder, “She uh…She was out wandering the pass by herself.”
He appeared confused, his hand rubbing over the fleshy lids where an eyeball once resided. His remaining eye scanned my face for any sign of amusement, but finding none, shifted its gaze over my shoulder.
“Ma?” He asked incredulously, though it was obvious he was not asking me. I turned, immediately startled to my bones. She stood in front of the cruiser, every feature resembling human washed out by the dark, foreboding shadows. The headlights behind her backlit through her dress, outlining a silhouette of her afflicted frame. Todd fell just as silent as me, but was much quicker to recover. He pressed past me with a disappointed sigh, initially scolding her for wandering off, but swiftly softened. He’d take her limp hands into his, wobbling on his hips to start gingerly leading her inside.
“Sorry. ‘Bout this Karl I--…Let me take her inside. You can come on in.” He dipped his head down, oozing with shame.
“Alright…Sure thing.”
I followed him in, keeping the front door propped open. The short foyer led into a living room situated before a line of floor-to-ceiling windows. The moon illuminated the room in a sour blue light, outlining the various floral embroidered couches sat in the dark. I watched as Todd maneuvered his mother to sit, her muscles trembling in his hands as he did so. It seemed she was back to being just a little old lady in that living room, her gaze now fixed on something out of sight. He coaxed her softly to stay put, and she made no effort to acknowledge his existence. I felt increasingly awkward as he sheepishly approached, pulling up the loose pajama pants he slept in.
“Thank you. For bringing her by.” He gave me a look of pity, “Not that you’d leave her out there.”
That made me chuckle, “It’s no problem, Todd. Maybe in return you can brew me up some brisket?” I aimed to ease his embarrassment, hoping to pry some amusement out of him. He did not laugh but forced a curled smile behind his beard.
“Maybe.” He shrugs, “How bout we just. Don’t mention this to anyone. And I'll get better locks.”
“Deal.” I nodded, offering a firm pat on his shoulder, “I should go but…you take her to the doctors. She got some scraps around. And keep your eye on her.”
“Well I only got one of em’. Better make use of it.” He’d finally break into his familiar wheeze, but much quieter then typical. I had heard this joke about a thousand times in my life. One after the other falling out of him like sweet tea poured from a pitcher on a hot summer day. It still, however, always made me laugh.
“You’d better.” I’d take his hand into a firm shake, “ I’ll see you soon. You have a goodnight.”
He nodded, his smile fading from his cheeks,
and his jaw parting to speak.
“There’s a deer in the woods.” A shrill voice, slaughtered by age, stole away the inching words on Todd’s tongue. His mother sat unassuming in the comforts of her chair, staring out the wall of windows. But I knew it had come from her. An observation so obvious, but stabilizing her place in reality. Todd didn’t bat an eye. He gripped my hand in return and tentatively shook it. I found myself questioning if she had even spoken at all.
“Goodnight Sheriff.”