“Costumes don’t do it for me,” Alison said, beside me in the stainless steel elevator.
“Ah, but you clean up so well.” I grinned.
“Bite me,” Alison snapped. I quickly wiped the grin from my face as the floor dinged and the doors started to open. I stepped out into pure white florescent light.
If you need to get somewhere that’s off limits to the general public, you can typically use bureaucracy to your advantage. Looking official and knowing what you’re doing tends to make people stay out of your way for fear of being caught in the web of red-tape.
Together we stepped up to the nurses’ station. The frayed woman in front of us lowered her stack of folders and papers with a look of surprise. We managed to pull off the illusion. Government. Black suits, white shirts and black sunglasses. Now we just had to keep the illusion rolling. Stepping forward in unison, I stared through the woman.
“Last night a Mathew Cole was brought in,” I stated coldly. “We’re here to speak with him now.” I kept my voice low and harsh to remove any accent. I could feel Alison holding her breath. Small towns are easy to fool if you knew how.
“Uh, are you?” She stopped mid-thought. “Ahem, let me check.” The poor nurse didn’t have time to deal with government agents, and our impression was meant to conform to every stereotype about them. We did our best to avoid giving her a reason to doubt our authority. Searching for the patients’ charts, she pulled out one file. “Yeah, uh, you can see him, so you’re all set.” She finished replacing the file while we played unmoving statues, watching over her with a cold intensity. “He’s…”
“We know where he is,” Alison answered just as sharply as I had. Without another word, we turned together and walked down the hall. The hard heels of our shoes clacked on the tile floor, and made me feel like we were drawing too much attention. Walking around the bend in the hall, I relaxed a little. Success. I heard Alison let out a heavy breath. I hated pulling this sort of con, but it did have its uses.
“These things are killing me,” Alison hissed under her breath. I looked at the small black dress pumps and shook my head.
“You look great though.” I gave a half-smile, looking at her outfit. Certainly agency standards.
“Thanks.” She fussed with her jacket to retrieve her phone and check the time. “You win, it worked.”
“Told you it would.” I stopped by a large window to look at the pale sun-lit parking lot. Alison sat down on the heater just below the window, and rubbed her bandaged leg.
“I still can’t believe it worked.” She looked back down the well-lit hallway. The very design seemed to eliminate any shadows. “I want to know what is going on with this stupid case.” A nurse passed us while Alison straightened her shoe and stood on it with a slight wince of pain.
“You and me both.” I brushed off my suit jacket and straightened my dark tie.
“I tell you, last night was the first time one of our cases had me scared.” Alison took a halting breath.
“Before we deal with that again, I want him to tell me what is going on.” I turned and gestured for her to lead the way. Spotting another nurse, Alison moved to my right and turned up her nose. “Which room was it again?” I watched the door numbers in passing.
“Uh, two-thirty-one.” Reading the door numbers beside her, she switched to search the other side of the hall. After sending Cole to the hospital, Alison and I had spent the morning reviewing evidence and records to find some connection between our attackers and the area. I bought an early breakfast before our jaunt to the nearest department store for our suits. Something was decidedly off about this case, but we had yet to find anything substantial.
“Here.” Stepping across the hall, I started to turn the knob when I remembered what I wanted to tell Alison. “Okay, we’re going to pull the skeptic-agent routine on him.”
“You mean you want him to convince us he’s just the hoaxer perpetuating the myth, not stalking.” Alison slipped a wireless headset into place over her left ear. It doubled as a hidden camera.
“Right, let him tell us everything. He doesn’t know the doctors regard it as an animal attack.” I turned the door knob. “And alien autopsy it to boot.”
“You mean keep your face off camera?”
“Yup.”
“One thing. I want him to squirm. I’ve put up with peeping perverts before, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I want this one to be punished.” A sadistic grin crept across my face with the thought.
“You want his confession? You’ve got it.” In a few seconds we planned out how we were going to attain all of the information. As I opened the door, a calm façade washed over us and we entered the room silently. I understood her desire for vengeance on the peeping-tom. Her previous landlord had planted several webcams in her apartment. When she found out, she had wasted an entire weekend moving the cameras to spy on him and dropping hallucinogens in his food. I was hunting for cult members when the guy called me to deal with Alison. It was my mistake to get rid of the things.
Alison closed the door while I moved to the bedside. Mathew Cole lay in bed, with his head propped up on a stack of pillows to watch the TV high on the wall to our right. His sandy blonde crew cut and lanky physique made me think of Sam. Alison moved over to the long narrow window and closed the blinds. Impressions are everything if you need to extract information from an unwilling subject. When Cole woke up, we needed him to be afraid, not calling for his lawyer. Alison pulled the emergency call button from his hand and powered up the camera to start recording. I clicked on the bedside light and his eyes flashed open.
“Who are you?” His brow creased with suspicion.
“Hello, Mister Cole.” I spoke coldly.
“It’s already been a long day, Mister Cole,” Alison stated. She was forced to endure a great many humilities and painful moments in her life because of creeps like Cole. Now she had the chance to deal with one personally. It was excellent therapy. Jess would have enjoyed it.
“We need your full attention.”
“And you’re really going to want to hear to what we have to say.”
“Who are you?”
“Mister Cole, can you tell me what happened to you last night?”
“What? Why? What happened?” Cole looked at Alison in the corner of the room.
“Answer the question, please.” I used a firm tone that resonated with authority and made it sound far less like a polite question.
“I was attacked.” Cole hesitated, thinking about the right thing to say. “…by an animal.” He tried to sit up to see me by the foot of his bed. Where he was, he could barely see Alison in the corner.
“You’re lying.” Alison glared at the man, and shifted position. “You were hit by a car, just that simple.”
“What? No.” Cole tried to think through his answers. “I was out walking when an animal attacked me. I couldn’t see it but I think it was a bear. I think it was a bear.” He sounded pleased with his answer.
“Walking?” I snorted. “Ha. You mean you were on your way to spy on Kimberly Ferguson,” I stated coldly, as I paced at the foot of his bed. I was already tired of the man and his lying.
“What? No way!”
“Give us some credit, Cole.” I laughed, I should have been a Fed. At least I’d have health benefits. “We know you’ve been stalking the girl.”
“I’m not stalking anyone!”
“You were using the local legend as a cover for your sick hobby.”
“What? No!” Cole repeated louder than before. “I’m not stalking anyone!” Cole shouted back.
“Cole, you were wearing the cutouts when you were found.”
“Well…uh…”
“That’s right, Cole, and we know you’ve been to the Ferguson house. You left your gum under the eaves above the bathroom window.”
“And we have your prints on the damaged truck.” Alison happily got into the act. She smiled, watching the way the guy squirmed.
“Uh…no.”
“That’s right, Cole. We have you on destruction of private property, theft and stalking an underage girl,” I summarized, in a rude fashion that silenced the man. “You see, we figure you were heading over to the Ferguson house to spy on the girl again. To hide the fact that it’s you, you’ve hidden in this local Bigfoot myth. You spy on the girl, then throw some furniture around, smash some things and they blame it on the myth. Clever. But this time, Mister Ferguson fired at you and you had to run away. You would have been fine. Just too bad you were clipped by the car, right?” I remained cold. We had him. Now to break him.
“That’s not…I didn’t…”
“The question is…What did you do with poor Mister Boggs?” I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms and glared at him.
“What?”
“You see, I figure he grew tired of you cutting across his property. He figured out what you were doing and tried to stop you, but you couldn’t let him. You killed him. Your unmistakable footprints were all over his kitchen.” If our attackers were his buddies, he would give them up. If not, then at least we were a step in the right direction.
“I didn’t do nothing! That’s not what happened!” Cole raised his voice again, with fear in his eyes. “It was Kim’s idea!”
“Oh? Enlighten us,” I challenged the man. “Mind you, we know you’ve been stalking Kimberly, and vandalized her brother’s truck.”
“Just wait a minute! I wasn’t stalking anybody. Kim and I were seeing each other. She’s the one who came up with the idea.”
“Right, and you vandalized her brother’s truck because she told you to?”
“I may have slashed his tires, but I didn’t do nothing else to his precious truck.”
“Yeah, well, genius, you know you left your prints on the truck and the rocks you threw.” I scowled at myself for the overzealous comment. You couldn’t really get fingerprints on rocks, I only hoped he didn’t know that.
“I didn’t throw any rocks, and all that stuff was already thrown about when I got there. He rolled his truck the other night.” I snorted, challenging Cole again. “He did! I only slashed his tires after what he called Kim.”
“What happened last night? What did you do with Mister Boggs?”
“Nothing! I mean, I put on the shoes and headed for Kim’s by cutting across Boggs’ place as I usually do but I didn’t go anywhere near the house. He yelled at me and told me he’d shoot me if I cut across his property again.”
“And you came back and did what?”
“I didn’t get back. I was walking along the road when I heard a couple of loud shots.” I exchanged glances with Alison knowing that it must have been old man Boggs. “I figured the old nut was shooting at me, so I took off like a flash.”
“And you ran into a car?” Alison snapped, adding to his tale. Cole blinked in fear. It’s amazing what appearances can do if one plays to preconceptions.
“I ran into this… thing. At first I didn’t see it, but when I ran into it…” He swallowed hard. “I guess it didn’t like me, ‘cause last thing I remember is a large hand heading at my face.”
“What, like a bear?” I laughed at the thought, despite the various images and facts running through my mind that supported the idea.
“No, like a giant hand.” Cole laid back to stare at the ceiling.
“You’ve been using this story to cover for spying on and stalking a teenage girl. Why should we believe you didn’t have something to do with Boggs disappearance?” I pushed off the wall and approached the end of the bed again.
“I wasn’t stalking!” The man covered his eyes as he began to sulk, hiding from our accusing glares. “It was Kim’s idea. Her parents wouldn’t let her date, and people were talking about the demon-thing.”
“You’re lying. You snuck over to watch the girl, didn’t you?” Alison drew his attention back.
“If you don’t believe me, ask her. She’s wearing my class ring on her necklace, and I didn’t do anything to Boggs.” Cole slammed his hands on the bed. Alison switched off the camera.
Alison smiled as we left the man in his room without the TV or a call button to tide him over. I closed the door tight, and headed for the nearest stairwell. We stopped next to a large window across from the stairwell before relaxing. She pulled out the receiver and played back the voyeur’s confession.
“That turned out different than I expected.” Alison tucked away the receiver.
“Yeah, but that’s one answer. I don’t think he gave us any more information than we already knew or suspected.”
“If the girl suggested he use the disturbances as a cover, that means someone else was already there doing this thing.”
“True, but there’s no guarantee that he still isn’t lying through his teeth either.” I finally took off my sunglasses as I looked out at the parking lot below.
“He confessed to the vandalism and harassment.” She had a point. If the man confessed to those crimes, then there was a decreased chance that he would lie about the other portions of his story.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t help with the guys that jumped us last night. Even after turning over the confession, the Fergusons will be looking to have the cops do something, but they’ll be lucky if they do anything.” I reflected on my bitter encounter with the police procedures after my brother’s death. The police were ignorant, and suggested an accident before even attempting an investigation.
“My point is, he is more than likely telling the truth, and Boggs was thinking he was chasing Cole off, but he actually ticked off those creeps.” Alison slipped the headset into her breast pocket.
“He could be, or he could be in league with them, and we are caught in the middle of a scam.” I cleaned the lenses of my sunglasses.
“You think he would let his friends beat him so bad as to put him in the hospital? Just for a scam to get his name in the local papers?” Alison sat down on the window sill.
“This from someone who has first-hand knowledge of how far someone is willing to go to do what’s best?” I slipped my sunglasses back into place.
“Cheap-shot, but I get what you mean.” She reached out and straightened my tie. “So what do you think this is about?” She let her hands slid off of my jacket.
“We need to check on the records and reports from the surrounding area, not just the Fergusons.” I tapped her knee. “I’m betting money or drugs are going to be in play somewhere in this mess.”
“Here’s a simple question, what do we do with this confession? Give it to the Fergusons or cops or…?”
“Simple, indeed. We make a copy. Then we personally walk into the Sheriff’s station and hand over the video.”
“And report the missing old man?”
“Yep.”
“It has an air of simplicity about it. I like it.” She stood up. “Now, what do you think we can do about that those creeps?” She let the sun shine on her face for several moments before putting her sunglasses back on to cover her eyes. I noticed a security guard further down the hall, and decided it was time for an exit. Alison turned to see the rent-a-cop slowly walking down the hall looking in each room he passed.
“Five-oh.” I opened the stairwell door for us to step out of sight.
“First, let’s make a copy and deal with the cops.” My voice echoed in the dark concrete stairwell as we headed down the stairs. I opened the heavy red steel fire door out to the parking lot bathed in sunshine.
“And we check back on the neighbors and see if they have any accounts to share? What will we do if we run into our fan club again?” Alison stepped into the shade to fix her sunglasses.
“The bikers?” Alison nodded. “Then we’ll have to give them some firm reminders that we’re not easy prey. We’d need to see if we can find Boggs. If he was dragged off by someone…” I walked out into the sunshine alongside her.
“Then it’s kidnapping, and it’s squarely our territory.” Alison dug out her keys. “I’m all for helping and such but we don’t know how many of these creeps are out there or what their capabilities are.”
“Keys.” I stretched my hand over the roof of the pathetic old rover. Catching the keys, I opened the driver’s door. “We’ll figure some way to keep everything in check.”
“And then we deal with the sniper.”
“Then we deal with sniper.” I agreed.