Frozen Mothballs Ch. 01

"Okay, I.C." said T-Square. "You been a cockblocker right here in my own club today, but if you're right that someone is out to cap me, then I'll have to be... forgiving."

"I do apologize if I interrupted you tapping into that." I said. "Not my intention to cockblock a man getting a great piece of ass." T-Square's men laughed, some heartily. Theo looked a little shocked at my potty mouth language; Jermaine was taking it in stride and showing nothing. Damn, for a rookie Detective, he was catching on fast! I thought.

"She's not all she thinks she is." said T-Square agreeably. "So what, and who?"

"Not sure who." I said. "Someone's trying to make themselves look like white supremacists, but they're not very good actors. And they wanted to use poison gas, maybe kill people in your club, or poison your food or drink. I can't tell much more than that or the FBI will get pissed at me. They're trying to catch the buggers. I just came by to tell you to be careful."

"Mighty white of you, I.C." said T-Square. "Do let me know if you get any leads on who is being so stupid. You don't really think it's Jasmine, do you?"

"I dunno, I'm not ruling anyone out." I said. "And I don't know what collaborations you two have going, musical or otherwise... other than you fucking her brains out a few minutes ago. Good work, too; she looked pretty satisfied."

"Well I -do- have my own crowbar, you know... puts yours to shame, too." said T-Square. His Regiment dutifully laughed. I grinned myself.

"I'll be on my way." I said. "Do be careful, T-Square. And let me know of anything you find out." With that, we left the club.

"Sir," said Theo as we got outside, "do you really think Jasmine Nix is the one that had those mothballs brought in?"

"Probably not." I said. "But if I can put the seed of thought into T-Square's head, get him paranoid... we might just get to sell some popcorn to a great show..."

Part 6 - Frozen In Time

At 12:30pm, Wednesday, February 15th, I went and got Cindy.

"I'll treat to you to lunch." I said. "Then we'll log in as SBI Reservists and go check out this sanitarium and this camp place on the other side of the State."

"Sounds like a plan." said Cindy. "Especially you buying lunch."

I took Cindy to the Cattleman's Club for lunch, where she got a huge steak salad and I got the lunch ribeye. I told her about my visit to T-Square's club, meeting Jasmine Nix, and the discussion with T-Square about the threats to him.

"So you think he was the target?" Cindy asked.

"Or his clubs." I said. "Remember how all the prostitutes were disappearing from the Tenderloin District? I think they knew something like this was possibly about to happen, and they got the hell out."

"Prostitutes know a lot." said Cindy. "Teresa and I both tell Coldiron that, but he's so straightlaced he doesn't want to fool with them. But they'd be great C.I.s., like...."

She stopped. I did not let her off the hook.

"Like Callie?" I said, finishing her thought for her. "Very true... but the CIA got her on their payroll before we could."

"What?!" Cindy said.

"Oh yes." I said. "I thought you might know at least some of it. Callie's with the Company. She's too famous to be an agent overseas, but she sees and hears things, and reports back. Janet Riordan was her handler, and may still be for all I know."

"Wow." Cindy said. "No, she didn't tell me that, and of course she shouldn't have. Laura didn't tell you she was a high level CIA agent until you told her you knew."

"That's true." I said, smiling. Our food came and we ate in contemplative silence. Once done, I said "Okay, let's go search an abandoned camp and abandoned mental institution."

"Happy happy, joy joy." said Cindy.

"Maybe we'll see Slender Man." I said. "He likes to haunt these places."

"I thought he was popping up at Point Hollow whenever you showed up at night." Cindy said...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We drove in my Police SUV to the site of the Millwakee Camp. I'd called and asked Robin Ventura of the City Police, and also an SBI Reservist, as well as SBI Agent Norm Chow to join us and help watch our backs.

"Chow is a decent Agent." I told Cindy on the way. "He was a Green Beret, and I don't think he's a fan of the corruption. Tom Conlan suggested I call him and let him be in the loop on this."

"Sounds like a plan." said Cindy.

We drove up to the site, which was not far off State Highway 141, the road we'd been taking north. I noted that State 141 was recently paved in asphalt, freshly painted, and in very good condition. That suggested either an expectation for new housing developments in the area... or that there would be heavy usage for other purposes.

"Burn your blue lights in your cars." I told the others. "Makes it look like official Police business out here... which it is, of course, but keeps people from asking too many questions." Agent Chow turned on the LED blue lights in the grill and along the edges of the back windows.

"What are we looking for, Inspector?" Chow asked.

"Signs of habitation, recent habitation." I said. "Signs of a crime scene, where someone might've been held against their will."

We split up. Cindy and I headed to the cabins while Norm and Robin went to the offices and teaching buildings.

The place looked like any live-in church camp or boys/girls camp. The doors to the first cabin we got to were not locked. Inside were eight metal bed frames, four on each side. Small cabinets were by each bed, some with drawers half opened. There was a common bathroom in the back, with two lavatories, two toilets, and an open shower area. Plenty of spider webs showed who the most recent occupants of the room were.

Other cabins were pretty much the same. Some had bunk beds instead of singletons, and the space saved was used to have a common living area with television hookups. But we found no habitation in any of them, until we got to the cabins in the very back part of the campground.

"Locked." I said as I tried the door. Examining it, the deadbolt was old, but newer than the doorknobs and hinges. Cindy was already going around, looking into windows.

"All the windows are locked. Nothing inside that I can see." she said. "Bathroom looks cleaned up, though."

"Okay, I'm going to force entry." I said, getting out the red crowbar. The lock of the window next to the front door did not survive my attempt to jimmy it open, and we were quickly inside.

"Yes, some sign of habitation." I said. The beds had mattresses, old but not more than a few months old. The bathroom was indeed cleaned of cobwebs, and the water to the sinks was running when I tested it. But the showers, while clean, had not been used in some time, based upon the light dust accumulation.

I also noticed there were fewer beds, full-sized, ceiling-to-floor wall lockers by each bed. The front area also included a kitchenette. "I think this cabin was for the paid staff." Cindy agreed.

As we came outside, I said "The next two cabins are smaller. They may have been for staff, as well." The first one we went up to was locked, and the windows were draped. I jimmied open the front window, looked inside, then went in, followed by the Green Crowbar.

"Definitely inhabited more recently." Cindy said. Indeed, this room looked more like a small cabin for someone to live in. There was a kitchen area to the left. There were two bedrooms in the back, and a bathroom between them, which was entered from the front room. There was running water in the kitchen and bathroom when I tested, and when Cindy tested a plug-in with her iPhone charger, she found that the cabin had electricity.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Landline in the front office is 'hot'." said SBI Agent Chow. "Someone could easily connect a phone to it and use it."

"We have one instructor cabin that's move-in ready." I said. "And one of the staff cabins is, as well. Everything else is abandoned. Did anyone find any clothes, bedsheets? Anything?"

"No sir." said Robin Ventura. "But the maintenance shed is at the other back corner of the property. The doors were closed and the hinges oiled. Nothing's inside, but there are tire impressions, and a fresh oil spot on the ground. Someone likely parked a car there, and fairly recently."

"Mmm hmmmm..." I said as I looked around. "Great place to hide out for a while. Rig some electricity to that one cabin, park the car in the garage, and live the high life for as long as the beer holds out. Need to make an untraceable call on a land line? Hook up to the office phone wires."

"Think the serial killer was here?" asked Cindy.

"Too early to tell." I said. "Let's go to the sanitarium."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'd told Cindy what I wanted her to do as we drove over some back roads to get to the sanitarium. The outer gate was locked when we arrived. It did not stay locked long, as the rusted lock gave way easily in the face of abuse at the hands of my crowbar. We all drove inside, near to where the main building's front entrance was.

"Okay, Cindy, Norm," I said as we got out of our vehicles. "I'd like for the two of you to stay here. If anyone at all comes up, if any drones fly over, anything at all, let us know immediately. It might be the local Sheriff or someone friendly, but it could equally be someone hostile."

"Roger that, sir." said Chow, his face impassive. Cindy just nodded.

"Robin and I will take a look around." I said. "We're not staying here long. If we call on the radio, come running."

"What if we hear you scream?" Cindy asked, meaning it humorously.

"Will it be us?" I asked. "Or the Spirits that haunt this place?" That made Robin's eyes get wide, and even Norm reacted a bit. Cindy just went 'inward'.

"Not getting any vibes." my platinum blonde partner said. "All the same, be careful in there."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"I'm surprised how empty this place is." Robin said as we walked fairly quickly through the two floors of the two wings of the hospital building. "Usually stuff gets abandoned."

"No, the State took everything, sent it to the Asylum." I said. "No footprints anywhere, either. Not even any kids having a look around."

The central area had a front lobby, a nurses station behind that, and a few examining rooms and offices on the back side in a semi-circle. "There has to be a basement of some kind." I said.

"This is a door to nowhere." Robin said, holding open a door. Behind it was a concrete wall.

"Hmm." I said, chipping at the wall with my crowbar. The concrete blocks were old, and I was able to bore a hole through. "Yep, stairs going down. This was sealed off some time ago, though."

"Want to break through and go down?" Robin asked. I was looking around, trying to determine what the floor plan might be.

"If I were going to have another entrance to this basement, where would it be?" I asked.

"The stairs at the ends of the wings stopped on this ground floor, nothing going further down." Robin said as I opened every door in the central area I could find.

"Gonna have to think about this one." I said. "I don't want to tear down that wall and go down there only to find one space for maintenance of the central heating unit. And if there are no other passages to down there, I'm thinking there's not much down there to see. So I think I'll hold off for now."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As we drove home, Cindy was saying "Agent Chow has an interesting history. He obviously couldn't tell me what Special Forces missions he went on, but he was with a small team of 'irregulars', from what I understood. Then he applied for Quantico and the FBI, but it was a bad time with a lot of applicants, and he wasn't accepted. The SBI called him, and he says it's corrupt as hell, but he thinks you and the Governor are going to clean things up, so he's staying around to see what happens."

"Yeah, I think he's a good guy." I said. "I've been thinking the FBI will snatch him up... wonder what their problem with him is?"

"He said he had a three year patch of his life, late middle school, early high school, where he hung out with the wrong kids. Didn't join the gang, but was considered 'okay' by them in his neighborhood."

"Sheesh... why the hell aren't they grabbing him up, then?" I asked. "That kind of experience and possible contacts?" I just shook my head.

"He may have rejected doing that." Cindy said. "I didn't get much from him on that, though admittedly I didn't try." I put all that into its compartment of the mind.

"Okay, what did you think of those places?" I asked.

"I think you were hoping to find a crime scene." said Cindy. "You thought the Black Velvet Killer was holing up in one of those places, or possibly using one of them to do his raping and killing. But apparently it's 'no joy' on that."

"True." I said. "But the Millwakee Camp was more than a bit interesting, don't you think?"

"I was thinking of telling Callie that either of those places would be great locations to make some porn videos." Cindy said, and I think she may have been joking. "Other than that, so what?"

"Indeed..." I said. "So what?" That got Cindy peering at me.

To be continued.

Bonus coverage: so what about the Millwakee Camp has Your Iron Crowbar's interest? What might've been going on there?