Psalm 29:1-11.
A Psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

Chapter 8.

 

Kate approached the tall, decrepit apartment building where the homicide victim, Ethan Jackson, was reported to live. The address was 206. Since that probably meant his apartment was on the second floor, Kate walked around the exterior until she saw a fire escape leading up one level. Leaping into the air like a grasshopper in the fields, her hands gripped the cold, wrought iron rung and she hoisted herself up onto the ladder. She slowly climbed to the landing and approached the window.

Kate hoped no one had seen an Amish woman shimmying up the ladder.

Since the victim wouldn’t be coming home, Kate expected the apartment to be vacant. She attempted to open the window; it slid upward with ease. Weird. In this type of neighborhood, she was sure the windows should always be locked. She slipped inside, and when she turned around, she noticed a half-full gallon of milk sitting beside a spilled puddle of the liquid on the kitchen counter. Weird again. It was almost like someone left in a hurry.

Deciding she had no choice but to ignore the peculiarity of the situation, Kate chose to focus on the goal at hand. She entered the living room and noticed a laptop sitting atop a wooden computer desk. She plopped into the comfortable chair and relived city life for a brief moment. She opened the laptop and tried to log on. Access denied.

Frustration seeped in as she tried to refocus. She pressed a few buttons in unison and a prompt bleeped onto the bios screen. She tapped away at the keys until another window opened, asking her to confirm that she wanted to continue. She pressed yes. Suddenly, the screen flashed before a green text littered the screen: Access granted. She was in.

Sifting through the man’s files, Kate came across an assortment of photographs, music files, pirated movies, and everything else one would expect to find on the computer of a middle-aged hitman. She opened up his web browser and clicked the mailbox icon from his homepage. She looked more closely and noticed the email user’s account name: EvilSnake143. Odd. Kate did not pay a second thought to the matter and began searching through his emails. One after another, she read through spam mail, news from his favorite websites, and some conversations with a girlfriend.

After a few more sweeps of the computer, Kate realized it held nothing of importance. It made sense to her that no information of his extortions existed on his hard drive, as it was highly unlikely that hitmen conducted their business online. Through her dealings with those types of men in the past, she knew they were a highly suspicious group. They left nothing to chance.

When Kate turned her attention to the bedroom, she noticed several things seemed out of place. The drawers of several dressers were left half opened, and the closet was also left open, with clothes strewn all across the floor. It was starting to make her think that maybe she wasn’t the only one who had snooped around the victim’s apartment.

Kate knew the police had been there, of course, but they would not have been so careless with the scene. Milk left sitting on the counter, tussled drawers and clothing, and most likely coming in through the window: what type of cop would do those things? None that she had ever worked with.

Continuing her inspection, Kate walked into the kitchen for the first time. She had noticed the milk earlier, but failed to examine the area closely at the time. The milk was still cold when she placed her finger against the container. To her trained eyes, it looked like someone had made themselves at home, ransacking the apartment, looking for information, and even pouring a nice, refreshing glass of whole milk before they were somehow interrupted.

Kate approached the closet doorway, and peeked in to see a room littered with the ultimate biker’s bedroom. Leather jackets were draped over a large sofa, with posters of rock and roll favorites scrawled out along the walls. As she looked around, she heard the sound of metals scraping against each other in the direction of the front door. Click - the door swung open and she pulled her head back inside the bedroom.

Kate hid behind the door, hoping the intruder wouldn’t come looking where she was. Suddenly, Kate heard the chatter of a police radio as it cackled to life. “This is dispatch, please go 55.”

An all too familiar voice answered. “10-4, on location now.” The man continued walking through the apartment, when his footsteps grew closer to Kate’s location. One by one, each step grew louder, so she crept backward toward a wooden door. It was an odd-looking door; it was thin, and its face resembled window blinds, with countless slits in the wood, allowing someone to look out from inside the room, but looking in, you could see nothing but the solid, oak door. Kate grasped the doorknob in her hand and without looking, withdrew into the narrow room. Pitch darkness surrounded her.

Confused, Kate realized the room had no windows, so the light from the sun could not reach the inside. The smell of the room tickled at her nose; it was odd and peculiar, something she had never smelled before. Her curiosity ceased when she heard the steps outside the blinded door. A flashlight shone in through the slots in the door, partially illuminating the room. Kate involuntarily reached over silently and locked the door from the inside. She then backed up and waited.

The doorknob jiggled, making the most terrifying noise she had heard in months. It caused her to step backward clumsily. Her back cracked against what felt like a solid block of stone. When she had steadied herself, the doorknob shook even more violently and the door began to creak.

As the fear of discovery rose inside her, a strange sound started behind her. At first it sounded like water spraying from a nozzle, and then it sounded like hissing. Her eyes sharpened and her mind froze. She turned around, and as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the form of a large, tan snake with a triangular shaped head distinct from the neck.

The cage was locked from the top, but the snake watched her closely; the flashlight outlined the predator as he stalked his prey from inside his glass box. The doorknob stopped jittering as fear gripped her lungs. Not even a breath was allowed to escape as she knew the cop was listening closely. “Anyone in there? Oh, there it is.”

Suddenly, the doorknob sprang back to life and the door began to open. Kate slid between the wall and tank and hid behind the large enclosure. She was out of sight for now, but she was literally inches away from her newly acquainted friend. The snake hissed at her before turning his attention to the cop.

“Oh no!” Ryan exclaimed.

From Kate’s hiding place she could see the outline of Ryan’s face as he grabbed his radio and pressed it to his face. “Dispatch, it’s a 10-26. Just a snake. Negative on the information retrieval; heading back to 10-20.”

“10-4,” the radio replied.

“And what’s happening with the girlfriend?” Ryan barked, his voice now receding. “She was supposed to come and collect the snake. Get onto her, will you?” His voice trailed away.

What was Ryan doing there? And what information was he trying to retrieve? Kate thought carefully, wondering if he was after evidence of the victim’s crime history as well. Without warning, the hissing of the snake startled her from her thoughts, causing her to slightly jump. She hit something with her shoulder, causing the shelf above her to clatter loudly to life. Suddenly, something crashed onto the tank, shattering the lock and releasing the top of the tank. The top slowly opened, as Ryan opened the door again and trained the flashlight on the snake.

“Oh, boy,” Ryan said, slowly stepping backward. With the flashlight still highlighting the snake’s scaly presence, the snake slowly slithered toward Kate, still contained inside its now-topless cage. Ryan stepped forward while it crawled around the bottom of the tank, trying to close the hinged cage top. As his fingers nearly touched the lock, Kate watched when the snake quickly turned back, scaring the cop into a temporary surrender.

Kate lightly tapped on the glass. She made sure to keep it quiet to avoid Ryan’s suspicion, but she knew the slimy predator heard the noise. It slowly wrapped its body in a way to allow it to strike. As it watched her intently, the snake got closer. Kate’s eyes followed upward as the snake continued its ascent. Suddenly, the cover came crashing down, and Ryan secured the lock. “Snakes, why’d it have to be snakes?” he muttered as he exited the room.

Kate slouched to a sitting position behind the tank. What a relief. She waited until she was sure that Ryan had left. As she stood up, and tried to stretch her aching, cramped limbs, something long and slimy fell over her shoulders. Kate jumped to her feet, bumping her head on the shelf above, knocking an assortment of fake snakes and pet toys onto the top of the snake’s tank and all over the floor.

I just experienced enough fear to last a lifetime, Kate thought in dismay.

Kate walked back out into the living room, and then saw that a yellow sticky note was stuck to her shoe. She pulled it from her shoe and read it. The scrawled writing read: Lucy’s Diner.

“Lucy’s Diner. I wonder if that place holds any clues, but I doubt it,” Kate said softly. As she made her way to the window, she noticed a calendar hanging from the wall near the window. It had a large, red X circled on a particular date. Intrigued, she looked closer. It read: Moved in. It struck her as strange, since the circled date was only a few months back, and this man’s apartment and room indicated that the victim had likely lived there for years. “Who moved in?” she asked herself.

Kate opened the window again and slipped one leg out, when the victim’s phone started to ring. It sounded like a house phone, so she pulled herself back inside and walked into the living room. The phone buzzed and lights flashed, and within a few seconds, an old-fashioned answering machine beeped to life. “Please leave your message.” There was silence, and then the sound of a disconnect. Then the machine kept speaking. “Saved message,” it said. That was followed by a shaky voice filled with fear. “Hey man, it’s me. Where have you been? Ever since you told me what you were planning, I haven’t heard from you or seen you at all. You have me worried. Please, call me back. Maybe we can meet at that diner again. I just need to know you’re okay.”

Lucy’s Diner. Maybe it would be of some value after all. Kate grabbed the sticky note. She slid down the ladder and climbed down into the street, her Amish dress flapping around her.