Gray Strangers

Chapter 5

Allen's p.o.v: the following morning I got up at 6:00 am as usual I left a note for el perusal and headed towards the door grabbing my keys from the bowl I quietly leave the house and get into the car and pull out of the driveway and head towards the station to gear up for today's investigation I could feel it in my bone's that at the end of this investigation someone was going to end up hurt I drove down south 15th street for half a mile then took a left and pulled up at the crime scene instead of checking in at work right away this was the most disturbing case id ever worked on t say the least, a high school student killed his younger brother and buried his remains in the woods behind their home, of course when the mother and father came home their eldest son had tried to lie his way out of it but it seemed his father was no fool and they reported the gruesome discovery to the police. The boy was found badly beaten and laid to rest inside an old bassinet box. His identity was unknown. later that afternoon I got a call from the station saying that Several people came forward with information relating to the case, but the police were not able to verify anyone's testimony. One woman, Mary, claimed that her abusive mother bought the boy. Under their roof, he was subjected to physical and s****l abuse. What made the police take interest in Mary's story was her knowledge of details that had not been released to the public. She claimed that shortly before the boy was beaten to death, he ate baked beans, which corroborated the autopsy. She also claimed that he was bathed before his death, which matched the coroner's finding of water-pruned fingers. Though mary's testimony seemed to match the evidence, her substantial history of mental illness made her an unreliable witness. Another lead came from a psychic who accurately described a foster home near where the boy had been found, without ever having seen it. Mother's Grace, an employee at the examiner's office, followed the psychic's directions to the foster house. Inside, he discovered a bassinet matching the description of the bassinet box the boy was found in. He also found blankets similar to the one that was wrapped around the boy's body. Because there was no real incriminating evidence against the foster parents, Mother's findings were dismissed as well. this case was going nowhere at this point the brother was going to walk Scott free if we couldn't find any incriminating evidence against him, the case of the Boy in the Box has gone cold. I started picking up the mess what else could I do there was nothing left for me here the case had died and I had failed if I had to be completely honest with myself I wasn't as good at this sort of stuff like my father or uncle had been i finish cleaning up and head home for the day  called my team to let them know that id be heading home that I had just finished up at the crime scene " hey..*sigh* I'm headed home now Logan let the rest of the team know ok I already finished cleaning up at the crime scene so there's no need to go there oh  and one more thing logan tell Noah that he needs to submit a full report to me on the runaway girl named savannah, will do sir ill have him take care of the report right away and as for you please take it easy I don't need you overworking yourself". yeah yeah i don't need you to tell me that I'll see you tomorrow ok lord only knows that paper work on my desk isn't going to finish its self." with that I hung up the phone and continued down I-4 for two miles and turned on paradise dive then continued  straight for  a mile and  then pulled up at the gate of 301 Roscoe BLVD, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida 32082 and i opened the center console and grabbed the remote and opened the gate and pulled through i put the car in park and took the key out of the ignition and opened the door and got out of the car closing the door behind me . just as I was about to head up to the porch el came outside " hey Allen your home! I'm so happy oh, by the way, I was wondering if we could eat something other then your keto food's not that I don't like when you cook maybe we could go out to eat or order in call a pizza place or something and watch some movies, if it helps hopper and I used to watch old westerns together if your into that sort of thing" so what your saying is you stayed up this entire time to ask if we could one go out to eat or two order in?, mmm all I could do was roll my eye's and groan I didn't really feel like eating out and she wanted a change of pace so the only other option was to order in.* "ok but this isn't going to be an every night thing understand?" I understand maybe it can be an every  Friday night thing "I mean that's if you wanted to do it every Friday " come on let's just head inside and ill order the food  so you want pizza?" yeah if you don't mind that would be great" we walk up the porch and open the door and head inside I headed towards the house phone and dialed the pizza hut phone number  (321) 264-6300 I ordered us  Cheesy Bites Pizza, meat lover's pizza and a supreme pizza I waited by the door for the delivery guy to show up. it was around 7:28 pm when the delivery man showed up and the front gate I buzzed him in " here's the pizza sir that will be 128.83" " ok thank you, have a nice day" umm...yeah sure you to "I close the door on him without another word I walk into the living room and sit down on the couch next to el and I set the pizza boxes on the coffee table . "ok dig in have as much as you want but not my fault when you get an upset stomach"

el's p.o.v:  "thank you so much  for doing this Allen I know its only pizza and a movie to you, but to me, this means so much more hopper and I used to do this all the time before his passing this is kind of like keeping the tradition alive so again thank you this means the world to me."  he just stopped what he was doing and stared at me I couldn't really see any emotion in his eye's it was almost like he was void of any emotions at all I felt sorry for him almost pitted him, he finally spoke. " el please don't get sentimental with me I don't know how to handle other people's feelings its better you keep that stuff to yourself rather than go and trying to thank me and telling me about a part of your past." all I could do was nod it was a lot to take in but I wasn't going to let that ruin our time together " so which movie do you want to watch first, I've got Man of the West,Dead Man, Bad Company , The Old Corral, and Raiders of old California so which one do you want to watch in my opinion ." well I guess will have to watch all of them since I can't decide tomorrow's my day off anyway so we can stay up past our normal bedtime."  ok well im glad I get up and put the movie in the dvd player and started the movie and we sat through a 1h 39min of man of the west it was about a former outlaw whose past returns to haunt him when he is forced by his old gang to participate in a train robbery. we sat through all through five movies it took us a 1h and 97mins to finish all of them I was about to ask Allen if he wanted to find another movie to watch something else but when I looked over he was asleep I get up off the couch and grab one of the blankets off the other couch and put the blanket  over him and I turned the tv off and than moved over to the other couch and lay down and pulled the blanket over myself and drifted off to sleep.