Point Hollow Ch. 01

There were exclamations and some clapping as everyone looked over at 'Coldiron' Masters. I said "Chief, do you have anything?"

"Yes, I do." said Chief Moynahan. He came up to the raised platform and I sat down. "First, congratulations to Martin. Jack Muscone's team just got a lot better at our expense."

The Chief went on: "I want to reiterate what Commander Troy said about keeping this quiet for the rest of the week. I also want to say that I have had the privilege of working with Lt. Masters for many years, and I even followed him up here after the Iron Crowbar hired him away from me. You'll find that he is an excellent leader that takes care of his people, and he's not a half bad Detective..."

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

"Sorry, 'Coldiron'," I said, "but no matter how hard you try, you just do not look good enough to be a 'Crowbar Angel'." I said.

We were in my office after the Classroom 'J' announcements. Teresa and Cindy were also in the room.

"He can be the 'Crowbar Demon'." Teresa said with a straight face.

"I've got more than enough of those already." I said.

"I just have one question, sir." said Masters. "Do I get to keep the office?" Cindy burst out laughing like her sister Molly often did, and Teresa even chuckled, as did I.

"I'm sorry to say that you'll be moving into Tanya Perlman's office." I said. "I would've left you where you were, but Commander Harlow wants to put some cubicle walls in and give Myron, Mary and Sonali more private space, and I have to agree that it's a good idea."

"Is this considered a promotion for Wes?" asked Teresa. All eyes went to me.

"Technically, it's a lateral move." I said. "Actually, 'Coldiron' was doing a Captain's job as leader of the Uniformed Officers. The problem is that the position was created just to put Captain Charles into it, and now that we have Precincts, that position is like a Battalion Sergeant Major... it can be important, but it can also be virtually obsolete. The Council wants to phase it out, so it makes sense to move you to the MCD slot."

Cindy said "And Chief Moynahan is not the only one that thinks you'll do a great job, Wes. Molly was really singing your praises, and she'll be very excited when I tell her the news... unless you want to tell her yourself."

"Sir," asked Teresa, "can you tell us who is going to fill the other big slots?"

"Sunday night, Ms. Croyle." I said. "Sunday night." I was referring to the Orange Order dinner, which Teresa would be attending.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Detective Teddy Parker looked in. "Sir, everyone," he said, "we just got a call that six University students have disappeared..."

Part 4 - Sex, Hollows, and Videotape

"Who called it in?" I asked as the Crime Lab and Police contingent scoured the grounds in front of the house at Point Hollow.

"Professor Mickelson." said Detective Parker. "He holds the Gregor Mendel Chair of Genetics in the University's Biology Department. Two of the students were his, two others were Biology majors, and two were majoring in Radiochemistry, whatever that is."

"That's chemistry dealing with radioactive substances." I said. "So what happened?"

Parker said "The story is that they came out here Friday to collect samples over twelve hour intervals over the weekend, and they were camping out, as well. There are some samples in the blue cooler over there. They were on ice, but that ice has almost completely melted. They set up these tents that you see in front of us. The red cooler there has three cases of beers, about a third of the cans consumed and the rest unopened."

Parker went on, reading from notes: "On Monday, the six had not returned to Campus, and none of their friends had gotten texts or calls from them since Friday afternoon. A couple of guys went to Professor Mickelson and asked if he'd heard from them, and the Professor said he had not, but that they weren't expected to be in his classroom until Tuesday morning."

"Tuesday morning arrived, and the six did not show up. And so the Professor and the two students who'd contacted him Monday went to the Campus Police. They referred them to us, and here we are."

"Okay." I said. I called Cindy and Wes Masters over. "I am egregiously stepping all over you two, and personally appointing Detective Parker here to be in charge of this case."

"Get used to that, Coldiron." Cindy said. A red crowbar was waved in her general direction. A blue crowbar was waved back in retaliatory response.

"Detective Parker," I said, "the questions that come to my mind that I want your answers upon very soon are these: Did these six arrive in vehicles or were they dropped off? Did they leave by those vehicles? Where on this property did they walk? Are there footprints or other traces of them on the trails around here?"

"Yes sir." said Parker.

"Okay, I'll go talk to J.R. and Christina over there." I said. "You guys carry on." I fully expected Cindy and Coldiron Masters to begin working with Parker to make sure my questions were answered, so I left them to it.

"Hi, Christina." I said. "Anything of interest?"

"To me, sir, not much." said Christina. "To you, sir, probably a lot that the rest of us won't see."

"You underestimate yourself." I said as I looked around. "You're a good crime scene investigator, as well as an excellent technician. And I say that because I know you might be considering following Lt. Perlman to the State Crime Lab, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. But if you want to stay with us, there will still be plenty of work and plenty of fun for us."

"Thank you, sir." Christina said. "The only thing of interest is in the middle tent. One person had a blanket with a sheet inside instead of a sleeping bag, and there are some bloodstains on it. But I think it's menstrual blood, and a couple were having sex while she was on her period."

"See, you are a sharp CSI." I replied. "No other blood? Any other signs of assault, sexual or otherwise?"

"No sir." said Christina as J.R. Barnes came up.

"Sir," said Barnes, "we have some tire tracks coming into the drive from the road, but they only came about halfway to the house, then appear to turn around and go back to the road. There are no tracks overlaying them, or fresher tracks."

"Suggesting they were dropped off." I said. "How is cellphone coverage out here?" Barnes pointed to a cell tower on top of the ridgeline to the south of the property.

"Pretty good, sir." said Barnes. "I'm getting good coverage on my phone, as well."

"Good." I said. I walked away from them and looked around the property. Crime Lab people were going through the house. To everyone's surprise, they said the electricity was on and lights inside worked, and there was running water, though it was weak.

"Masters," I said, "I need to know who's paying the bills for that electricity and water."

"No one, sir." said Masters, who had brought out an iPad tablet with WiFi connectivity, making Cindy look envious. I knew a requisition would appear on my desk shortly, but I put that into its compartment and concentrated on the present.

Masters continued: "There is a solar panel on top of the roof, and it still feeds electricity to the house. And there's an artesian well that feeds water from the hillside to the east, which is piped in to a tank in the house basement. There's a pump to assist the water pressure into the house, but it's not working beyond the pressure of the artesian well."

"Wow, self-sufficiency." I said. "Who owns this property?"

"That's in dispute, sir." said Cindy. "Jenna told me about it when I was looking at tax liens to buy. The County tried to put a lien on the property and then sell that lien, but the estate's lawyer filed a lawsuit five years ago to stop it. The estate lawyer said there's a fight among the heirs of Old Man Bonniker, who was the last owner. He also supposedly gained title through a tax lien, so there's further dispute.

Cindy went on: "BigPharmaCorp also filed a claim to it, saying it was part of the parcels of land they bought for their factory. Their claim is suspect, and it's suspected they just want the water and mineral rights."

"So, Crowbar 2," I asked, "do you want to be the legal beagle on this, or give it to The Abacus or the Mouseketeers?"

"I think I'll take it myself." said Cindy.

Just then, we were called to the tents. "Sir, I've got something!" yelled Christina Cho. We went over. Christina was holding a small videocamera.

"We've taken prints already." said Christina. "The digital memory is about 2/3ds full."

"Can you download it?" I asked.

"Yes sir." she said. She went to a Crime Lab vehicle to get her laptop.

"Okay, has anyone searched down there in the Hollow?" I asked.

Sergeant Rudistan came up. "Some of our guys are in there now, sir. Morton is carrying a videocamera, and they're trying not to walk on the main trail leading into the forest."

"Hoo boy, I better get down there, then." I said. I headed down the trail that ran alongside the River until I got to the rim of the depression. The trail began curving downward along the bowl so that the grade was not too steep. Despite their efforts, the officers had left distinct impressions on the ground, and had significantly damaged what might've been there before they went down the path.

I got on my radio and ordered all officers in the area of the Hollow to stop in place. I began carefully watching the ground as I moved slowly along, looking for any clues, any traces of movements.

The sun was greatly filtered as I got down into the Hollow. The temperature was noticeably cooler... and I felt a coldness beyond that. I was reminded of the coldness I had felt the night I'd been shot and was lying on the ground outside Ward Harvester... a coldness that had reached for my soul. It was the same here and now...

I came up to Morton and Hicks. "Okay guys, you didn't do too much damage."

"Sir," said Morton, "I videotaped the trail before we walked alongside it, if you want to review it."

"Okay." I said. "Find anything, so far?"

"There's something blue over there, near that big oak tree with the tangle of roots." said Hicks, pointing forward about forty meters. I led the way as we inched towards it, crouching down as I looked for traces of movement, at some points doing the 'duck walk'. The officers and Cindy were watching me.

When we got to the tree, I observed that the blue object was a pair of woman's panties. Christina Cho came forward and bagged the evidence, the whole process being videoed by Morton.

"Sir," said Cindy. "There's a videocamera to your right, just under that plant with the big leaves." I looked over and saw it: it was indeed a videocamera, about a foot off the ground on a small tripod."

"Looks like it ran out of power." I said. "Cho, bag this too, and transfer its digital contents to your servers the same as you're doing for the other video recorder you found." Cho checked the video recorder for fingerprints, finding some, and then bagged it. Very professionally done, too, I thought. I am going to fight Tanya to keep this woman, I promised myself silently.

As she worked, I got out my cellphone. "Hmmm, no coverage." I said. "Does anyone else have cellphone reception?" Everyone got out their various cellphones or other devices and tried them.

None of them had any reception down here. At all.

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

I got an email from Christina Cho about an hour after we got back from Point Hollow. She said the videos were in the servers, but under seal, and she recommended discretion in viewing them. I opened them, and I could see why. After reviewing them and doing some quick work, I called in Cindy, Teresa, and Detective Teddy Parker.

"Okay," I said, turning off the lights of my office. "Let's watch some TV." I pressed the remote, and the first video started. It looked like it was being filmed from one of the tents, and showed the campfire. It also showed a young man undressing a woman as the other students cheered them on.

The young man was tall, slender, very fit and muscular, and handsome. He had dark brown hair. The girl was not particularly attractive, a bit voluptuous, had a plain face, and light brown or dirty blonde hair that was somewhat stringy.

"Is Teddy old enough to be watching this?" asked Cindy as the young man was easing the girl back onto a blanket.

"We should ask if Commander Troy is old enough." said Teresa, needling me. "But seriously, this looks like something his wife should be studying."

"I don't disagree." I said. We watched as the young man ate the woman's pussy. She was moaning, and we heard the occasional "yeah, eat that pussy out!" from a woman, then encouragement from a man. I was also trying to watch behind them, to see if the camera had caught anyone intruding on the students.

"The young man's name is Jason Stone, nicknamed 'Jake'." I said. "I spoke with our young friends Ryan and Sean, as well as Rita, and 'Big Jake' here is a member of that secret sex fraternity on Campus." Everyone could see why... as Jake mounted the young woman in the video, his huge cock was easily visible, hard and erect.

"I would also ask you to note the timestamp... last Friday night, about 10:30." I said as we watched. The young woman moaned as the young stud penetrated her and slowly sank his incredible size into her. As Jake pumped his hard, muscular ass up and down, plowing his meat in and out of the moaning girl, we could hear the others on the tape saying things like "Oh, yeah!", "Give it to her, Stone!", "Fuck her, Jake!".

I said "The girl's name is Natalie Jenkins. She's one of Professor Mickelson's students, studying genetics."

"Yeah, we can see that." Teresa said. "Especially big Jake's genetics." I chuckled. Teresa was really developing a sharp, sarcastic sense of humor... and that came from hanging around with my nephew Todd.

"This may sound cynical," said Cindy, "but I'll bet they're not a couple... at least not beyond these few minutes, anyway."

"You're right, Crowbar 2." I said. "And that's for the next tape."

This session went on for several minutes, with Big Jake fucking Natalie steadily until he came. He pulled out and jacked himself to climax, a long, think rope of jism spraying up her chest, hitting her chin. Several more spurts of his seed followed.

And then, just as he finished, we all heard a loud scream on the tape... a woman's scream. The people on the tape reacted.

"What the hell was that?" asked Jake. He scrambled off of Natalie. The camera started panning around.

"Okay, that guy with red-brown hair and the beard," I said, freezing the video, "is Jeff Slake. Had to use facial recognition to get that. He's one of the chemistry students."

"So who screamed?" asked Teresa. "Was that one of the students?"

I played the tape again. "Good God." whispered Cindy."

"What?" I asked.

"That... scream..." Cindy said, looking shocked. "That wasn't... normal... And by that, I mean it wasn't just a person screaming. It sounded like it was... from beyond the grave..." I don't know if it was her words or the scream itself that had a chill running down my spine. And I noticed that none of the rest of us in the room had any disagreement with her assessment...

Part 5 - Into The Hollow

"Okay," I said a bit shakily, as I loaded the next tape, "let's look at the other tape. The timestamp and date aren't set right, so we can't use that as a reference. The shadows of the moon that you can see filtering through suggest a time of about 4:00am, if it's Saturday morning, which had clear skies. Sunday morning was cloudier, so I ruled that out."

The tape showed the handsome stud Jake Stone against the oak tree with the root system where we'd found the blue panties. He was putting a blanket down between a couple of roots. And then the woman came into the picture.

She was relatively tall and her body was shapely. Her breasts were naturally large, her hips wide, her thighs slender and her calves shapely. Her raven black hair cascaded past her shoulders in gentle curls. Her face was very pretty, somewhere between the woman Ivy and my ex-wife Melina.

"Her name is Annemarie Reynolds." I said. Biology major, but with either a minor or second major in Cinematic Arts."

"She could definitely be in movies." Cindy said, openly fascinated with the beautiful young woman. I have to admit, I thought Annemarie was hot, too...

The film showed Annemarie lying down on the blanket, and Big Jake taking off her panties then moving between her legs to eat her pussy. For some minutes we watched as Annemarie held her long shapely legs up and back as her young stud feasted on her hairless womanhood, his tongue swirling over her swollen labes and clit, then delving deeply into her wet slit. It was getting pretty intense in my office...

"Someone is operating the camera." Teddy Parker said, finally getting over his stunned look at what he was watching. Indeed, the camera was moving around as Big Jake mounted Annemarie, and they deeply kissed, their tongues twining openly for the camera as it zoomed in. Then the camera drew back, and we could all see the young man's huge penis sliding into the beautiful woman's tight, sopping wet quim.

For some moments we watched the scene of intense intercourse. Jake was nuzzling Annemarie's neck, her calves draped over his powerful thighs as he pumped her hard and deep. The camera angle was from over their bodies. They were really into it, I could tell, and from their intimacy as they mated, I could tell this was more than just a couple of porn stars rutting for the camera. And then another thought hit me:

"Looks like they were trying to recreate the scene from the movie Antichrist." I said. "But no hands appear out of the ground. Now here the camera operator sets the camera down so that it looks up between their legs, and the camera no longer moves." The scene clearly showed the enormous cock plunging in and out of the stretched pussy as she somehow accommodated his size, and her legs wrapped around him as her moans of pleasure could be heard.

As we watched the hot copulation, Teddy asked "So are we going to hear any screams?... besides hers?"

I smiled. "No, but watch." As we watched, Jake groaned and began coming inside Annemarie's pussy. As he withdrew, semen was leaking from her well-filled quim. It was one hot creampie, and I was a bit surprised that the most avid watcher was Cindy.

Just then, horizontal static lines began going across the screen, as if the tape was off-track. A staticky buzzing noise began getting louder and more constant, then the garbled screen went blank and silent.

"Okay, that's it." I said. "Teddy, your job is to find out who all six people are and get some background information on them. Then see if you can put together any sort of timeline of their trip to Point Hollow, when they should've been picked up, and so on...

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

"So," I said, "that's pretty much it."

I was standing in the yard of the house at Point Hollow. It was 2:30pm. With me were FBI Special Agent in Charge Clark Webster, in charge of the Missing Persons Bureau in the City, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Muscone. I had called them in just as soon as my Detectives and I had finished at the crime scene earlier this morning.

Cindy was here with me; Parker and Theo Washington were on the University campus, looking into the six missing persons. The tents and belongings had been removed and taken into evidence, so there were few traces of anything left as Webster's FBI team looked around. I had provided all notes and digital photographs, as well as copies of the video tapes to the FBI team.

"So I'm handing this off to you," I said, "because the back fence there is the State Line, and if anyone abducted these people, I very much suspect they would've carried them off in that direction."