The Mountain - III

III.

Greed pushed open the doors to the station and marched straight to the captain’s office, followed by Erika, Angela, and Victoria. Heads of the other officers turned but Greed paid them no attention. He had to be quick and decisive about this if it was going to work. The Captain Gary Vincent gave him an amazed look when they filed in but kept quiet until the door was closed.

                “What the hell is this about Greed? Where the hell have you been? And who the hell are these people?” Vincent said pointing his pen at the women staring down at him.

                “Captain, I…”

                Victoria stepped forward and cut him off pulling a leather card fold from her jacket pocket.

                “I’m Agent McMaster, and these are Agents Darrows. We’re with the FBI.”

                “The FBI?” Vincent asked eyebrow raised taking the ID from the woman. He looked them all up and down.

                “We’ve caught wind of the case here and are offering our services.”

                “A task force?” Vincent asked, skeptical.

                “Yes sir.” Erika said piping up. 

                “What do you think of this Greed? Thought you hated Feds.”
                 “I do. But we need a break in the case.”

                “Did you ever find your car? Heard Thorne called the pursuit off.”

                “Yes sir. The culprits got away though.”

                “Let them slip away. Greed sometimes I’m not sure you’re cut out for this anymore, especially after Evelyn and Lillian.”

                “A set back is one thing, not being fit is something wholly different. I’ve still got this Gary.”            

                “Captain Vincent, Greed.”

                Vincent returned the card to Victoria and rested his chin on his hands.

                “Wait outside please Agents, I have to discuss something with my detective.”

                “Yes sir, do we have leave to set up?”

                “Not yet, I’ll decide that shortly.”

                Victoria, Erika, and Angela withdrew from the room. Erika met Greed’s eyes but said nothing. Greed felt a chill explode in his bones. He had been lamenting speaking to the Captain again until he was sure the case was over. After the mess up with the car, his gun, and the woman, and the fact he had to work against the tide to stay afloat he needed a win. Having him walking into the office with three federal agents, female agents at that, didn’t look good. He knew how the captain felt about feds as well. The man was old school, fought tooth and claw for his jurisdictional prudence to be upheld and to have the FBI walk into his office and say they wanted to help wasn’t very salient. Greed knew he wouldn’t be able to crawl out of this no matter the outcome of the case. Bruising his own ego was bad enough, bruising the ego of the man who signed his paychecks and kept him in cases was another story.

                “What the fuck is going on Greed? You used to be a good detective, now this. To think I’ve stuck my neck out for you for so long. Giving you the best cases, because I saw something in you. I looked past what the other men saw at surface level, because I saw something deeper. Something that wasn’t skin deep, but now I’m second guessing myself. Is it because of your wife? Or was I wrong about you this whole time?”

                Greed didn’t know how to answer that. The death of his wife and child did have an effect on him. He attempted to throw himself deeper and deeper into his work to not think about them but there was a nagging in his skull whenever he a moments rest. He barely spent time at home, he tried not to even go to the graves. He wasn’t sure how much that was affecting him. Right now, with all that was being revealed by the women he met, he felt more and more he was a victim to circumstances.

                “You weren’t wrong sir. This case is just a different beast. We haven’t had something like this before. We should take all the help we can get.”

                “Take all the help we can get? Listen to yourself. You know those damn feds are going to claim credit when we catch the bastard. The papers will read FBI caught Killer, Chicago PD Helpless.”

                “That’s a little too farfetched.”

                “Farfetched? Damnit Greed, you and I used to be on the same page. Used to be wary of the fed, fought our battles alone. Men of resolve. That’s why I liked you despite what the other’s said. Now I’m not so sure.”

                Greed felt something was coming, something he couldn’t deny.

                “I’ll put in my resignation.”

                “What?” Vincent said taken aback.

                “After this case, I’ll leave. That way things can get back to how they were.”

                “Greed, now listen to me…”

                “No sir, I understand what must be done. Let me finish this case, my way, then I’ll resign.”

                Vincent’s face turned sour. Greed felt the chill pull at this stomach. He didn’t want to leave this job, it was all he had left but he knew that if Vincent didn’t fire him for this he’d get demoted or at worst left in his place but berated on a daily basis. The other men didn’t respect him out of courtesies or brotherhood, they respected him because he was the best, despite their misgivings. They had to respect him. After this case they wouldn’t have to anymore. Once the captain gave leave that Greed wasn’t top dog anymore, the vultures would come to tear him down. And then he wouldn’t just want to resign, you might just want to blow his own brains out. He’d rather live without the job, than live with the torment.

                “Fine.” Vincent said.

                Greed let the women back in and Vincent laid down the ground rules. They’d get full access to the case if only they wouldn’t take credit for capture. Victoria agreed and Greed led them to the action room where all the evidence was laid out.

                “Are you okay?” Erika asked as they closed the door. Victoria and Angela were quick to look over the data points, connections and other information. Greed sat down hard on the chair in the corner. He felt like the wind was sucked right from his lungs.

                “I’ll be fine.”

                “What did he say to you?”

                “Nothing. Can we just get on with this?” Greed said brushing her off. Erika frowned and backed off.

                “Is this all that you have?” Victoria said flipping through files.

                “Yes,” Greed huffed from across the room, “it’s all there. All the crime scene analysis, pictures, maps. It’s all there.”

                “No suspects?”

                “Aside from that surgeon you picked up, no. We can’t find any leads. There isn’t enough evidence, no linking clues. Nothing. All we had to go on was the handwriting and the surgical precision of the bodies.” Greed wasn’t in the mood to give a long diatribe. He wished they’d just take his information and run with it. He didn’t have the energy to help.

                “Let him be,” Erika said, “let’s just look through it.”

                Erika gazed over the map with the locations of the crime scenes, marked with red X’s. Almost immediately a pattern jumped out to her.

                “Look. The placement of the sites. If there is one here, and here” she placed her finger on a spot on the map and connected the markings with a pen, “look what if forms.” The different locations formed a symbol, reminiscent of the Order symbol. With a series of buildings falling inside the symbol.

                “When was the last body found?” Erika said turning to Greed.

                “Over a week ago.”

                “How long did your examiner’s find had the bodies been there before being found?”

                “Three days at most.”

                “How was each site found?”

                “Vagabond reports to tell you the truth. We have a program going if a hobo reports a crime they get a stipend to use how they will. With the crime crackdown it’s really helped to flush out stuff we’d otherwise not find. Bodies in abandoned buildings, drug pins, things like that. The only people who enter those places are the downtrodden. When they find something they report it.”

                “Interesting.” Victoria said, as if she were making a mental note.

                “We need to check these places. They seem the most logical.” Erika said pointing at the spots that finished the symbol.

                 “Why do you say that?” Greed said finally getting out of his chair. He was intrigued enough to look.

                Erika pulled out a book from her pack and flipped through the pages, when she landed on what she sought she turned it to Greed. With a finger she pointed at a symbol on the page.

                “A summoning?” Greed said reading the text under the symbol in question.

                “This is more our realm than yours, but essentially like how a set of wires need to be connected for a telephone call a series of markings need to be made with certain materials to initiate what we believe is being perpetrated by this butcher.”

                “He’s making a phone call?” Greed said hesitantly. He wanted this occult nonsense to be dumbed down but that seemed ridiculous.

                “There are many different summoning’s. This one is specifically for calling an item or person to a certain place. The larger the circle, the larger the object. In this case it’s a soul.”

                “A soul?”

                “This is all semantics, unnecessary really.” Victoria stepped in sensing that Greed wasn’t digesting what was being told him.

                “All we need to do is check these two places and if we find something then we’ll know we’re on the right track. If not then our worries that this is more than a serial murder can be put aside.”

                “At that point?” Greed asked.

                “We’ll abandon our ‘interference’ in the case.”

                Greed like the sound of that. He was all for abandoning this hokum to get back to what he still believed was a flesh and blood case. A madman butchering women for his whims. Nothing more.

                “Good, shall we split into two teams?” Greed said looking at the two points marked with pen.

                “Sounds reasonable to me.” Angela said moving forward to stand next to Greed.

                “Erika, you and I will check out this warehouse on the river, Angela and Detective, you can check this district here.” Victoria said with her commanding voice. Greed acquiesced without a word. The quicker he debunked their nonsense the quicker he could get back to normal. With them off the case Greed could sway the captain back to good and all this talk of resignation and finger wagging would go away.

Lana spent five more hours on the Louisiana cataloguing than she had expected. Three boxes were mislabeled and it set her whole routine out of whack. Normally, she would have been able to leave around 8 p.m. grab a bite to eat, return home to feed her cat, then head back to the library to continue work. She had no set schedule of when she had to be there or had to leave, simply a deadline for work to be completed. With the Louisiana job taking so long it threw her whole night into disarray. The worst part of the foul up being that it made her forget all about her requisition. Two days passed before she found the small scrap of paper again sandwiched between a stack of books and her work desk. Remembering the phone call, the apparent urgency and the fact she’d have to work in a different wing of storage made her heart jump.

                In an anxious panic she ran to the mailbox, which she seldom checked receiving little to no correspondence, to see if a slip had been sent to her for having neglected to send a report about the work she had failed to do. Thumbing through the stacks of a papers addressed to and left by her co-workers, she breathed a sigh of relief that no reprimand had been garnered against her. Apparently they too, the ones asking for the information, had forgotten about the request. That revelation only alleviated her anxiety for now but it stirred a curiosity. The same curiosity that was sparked at the initial phone call.

                With the paper in hand she read aloud the name once again:

                “Miskatonic.”

                “What?” A voice burst from behind a stack of papers. It caused Lana to jump.

                “Who’s there?” Lana asked hesitant.

                “Its me you air head.” Carol Henriks said popping her head out. Carol was another of Lana’s coworkers, she was nicer than Meredith but just as flighty when it came to the work at hand.

                “Sorry, just a little out of it I guess. My whole schedule was messed up after last night, spending extra hours cataloguing Louisiana, then missing dinner, and having to run home and back all within a quick turnaround then having to file away all the cataloguing.”

                Carol raised her eyebrows.

                “Okay…what did you just say though? Sounded like a name?”

                Lana was flushed. She over spoke when she was flustered and Carol dismissed her words like all the others did.

                “This.” Lana handed over the crumbled piece of paper.

                “Miskatonic University transfer? Who wants this?”

                “Head of Theology.”

                Carol scoffed.

                “Why can’t they send their own people down here to sift through their crap?”  

                “Well it is our job.” Lana said timidly.

                “I know that, its just a pain. If they want to find something so badly then can spend the time looking for it.”

                “Yeah I guess so.” Lana didn’t agree but played it off as she did.

                “Anyway, don’t you want to get out of here for a while? The log says you’ve been down here for almost fifteen hours straight.”

                “The logs wrong.” Lana said.

                “That’s good because I’d go insane if…”

                “It’s closer to thirty hours.”

                Carol sat stunned.

                “You know what? This Miskatonic thing can wait. You need to get out.”

                “But…” Lana said trying to pull away. She hated abandoning her work and she also hated being forced out to social things with the others. When they first started working together they all bonded except Lana. Initially they thought she was shy, being a Polish Jew, that maybe she felt a little out of sorts, so they decided to take her out under her wing. After the first five failed attempts to get her excited about night life they all gave up, except Carol. It seemed she made it her mission in life to give Lana an exciting life, no matter how much Lana protested.

                “No buts, the files will be here when we get back. Now come on.” Carol said pulling Lana by the arm. The scrap of paper fell from her hand and slid under the desk.

                “But Carol!”

                “What did I say? We’ll go have a few drinks, get a bite to eat and forget all about these books for a little while. Now come on.”

                The door to the storage rooms swung shut with a loud clang. Lana felt her heartbeat quicken. She wasn’t going to enjoy this at all. Carol didn’t seem to care about her captive’s protestations. She was going to have her way. Lana would have to deal with it until she could slip away.

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