51: The Series

51: The Beginning Chapter 14 Part 2

Lindsay had been behind Little Bob, so by the time she arrived at the department, he was already inside, pouring a cup of coffee. He was mumbling something to himself and shaking his head. She had seen him do this a few times before, but those had all been calls involving children who had not been adequately supervised. Lindsay walked back to where he was.

“Bob, are you going to be all right after this?” she asked.

Little Bob answered, “Yes. As crazy as that was, no one died, and no one was hurt, so it will all be OK.”

“What time does your watch say?” she asked.

“What the…? What happened to my watch?” Little Bob asked.

“Check your phone too. Mine is dead, and hopefully, it is just a dead battery,” Lindsay told him.

Little Bob pulled his phone out and checked it. “Mine too,” he said, looking at the phone he had just taken from his shirt pocket.

“I am going to go to my office and plug my phone in, and I will be in there doing some research on a couple of things if you need me,” Lindsay told him.

As Lindsay walked to her office, she stopped at Cat’s desk.

“Cat, will you do me a favor and find the biggest county map you can for me? I think we need to start charting these unusual calls. You want to help me with it?” Lindsay asked her.

“Of course, I would love to help,” Cat answered. “I will see what I can find as far as the map. I think I saw one in the storage room in the back. I’ll see if I can find it. Don’t worry. I will turn the phone up so I can get it if it rings.”

She hurried off toward the back of the building to search for the map. Lindsay could hear Cat moving things and a few crashes as she continued to her office. She also heard Cat using a few words that were not very ladylike as she dug through the storage room. After a couple of minutes, she heard Cat yell out, “Found it!” Cat slammed the storeroom door and ran back to the front of the building on her ever-present six-inch heels.

“I knew I had seen it in there. I also found the staple gun and staples. Where do you want it?” Cat asked.

Lindsay looked around her office for a moment. Her eyes settled on a large empty space on the opposite wall.

“Let’s put it up over there. It’s empty, and it will cover up some of the horrible red paint,” Lindsay told her as she walked over to help Cat.

The two unrolled the map, which was about six feet by six feet. Cat put the map up on the wall while Lindsay held it. After they were done, they stepped back to ensure it was straight.

“I think it looks pretty good if I do say so myself,” Cat said, sounding very satisfied.

“It does look good. Now comes the fun part: filling that thing full of pins. When do you want to start going through the files? I did a little marking on a map earlier in the day but didn’t go in-depth like we need to. For each event, we need to list the date, time, location, and type of event,” Lindsay told Cat.

“How far back do you want to go?” Cat asked.

“Let’s start with the most recent and work our way backward. If we do that, it will be easier to find when these events began to happen. I worked for this department for over five years before I was fired, and I never had a call or even heard of calls anything like what has been happening recently,” Lindsay told her. “Do you want to transfer the phones in here before we get started?”

“I will do that now and grab thumbtacks and index cards. Do you want to color code things?” Cat asked.

“I was just thinking about that. Bring back everything you have that might work for color coding, and we will decide what will work the best,” Lindsay answered.

Cat walked out to her desk, quickly set the phone to ring in Lindsay’s office, and began gathering supplies to get started on the map. Lindsay walked over to her desk and looked at the stack of files and the map she had marked earlier in the day. She could tell that the frequency of the events was increasing. The big question was why. As she was looking at the map, Cat came back in and began to put everything down on Lindsay’s desk. They started with the call Lindsay and Little Bob were just on and worked their way back until they finished the files on Lindsay’s desk. When they finished, they stepped back to look at the map.

“That is a lot of weirdness, for just the past few days, you were out of the office,” Cat said.

“Yes, it is,” Lindsay answered. “Now comes the fun part. You get to pull the files a week at a time, starting with the most recent, and we get to go through all of those. All weirdness gets put on the map.”

“That isn’t bad. I will grab some now. Do you want me to put those away for you?” Cat asked, nodding to the files they just finished.

“No, I think, for now, I want to keep out all the files that contain strange calls. These bother me for some reason. I feel like I need to find an explanation for each one. I do thank you for the offer and your help with this,” Lindsay said.

“Are you kidding? This is great! It is like a big sci-fi mystery movie. It doesn’t matter how much education you have or what you have studied. It will never prepare you for this kind of thing. I was preparing to become a forensic pathologist when I came to work here. I decided to put all of that on hold and enjoy this job. Helping with all of these cases, even if it is just doing this, is more fun than I could have ever hoped for working here,” Cat said excitedly.

Lindsay laughed. “Then, you may get to have a lot more fun before this is over.”

“Let me go get some more files then. We will need to get caught up on this as soon as we can,” Cat said with a big smile.

Cat hurried out of Lindsay's office and was gone a few moments before she returned carrying a large stack of files.

“I grabbed all of the files through the beginning of last month. The most recent ones are on top of the stack,” Cat said.

Lindsay and Cat continued working their way through stack after stack of files. They went back until about one month before Lindsay took over the department. The problem was the first report of anything truly unusual was the event that happened at the Sycamore River that had injured Amber Clark. Now, the big question was, what could have happened to cause these things to start happening? Lindsay began trying to remember anything she had seen or heard that could explain why this was happening. Suddenly, she remembered a conversation she had with Wren. He had said that an incident had occurred on the base. What kind of incident could cause this?

“Something happened on the base,” Lindsay said softly, almost to herself.

“What?” Cat asked, looking at her, confused.

“I don’t know anything more than the military knows why these things keep happening,” Lindsay answered.

“Did Agent Gold tell you that?” Cat asked.

Lindsay answered, “Yes. Agent Gold told me a while back that there had been an incident on the base and that this department might get some strange calls, but this is ridiculous. I don’t even know if we can keep up with this thing if we keep getting more and more calls like these.”

Lindsay turned away from the map and looked at the stack of files that remained on her desk, each containing a strange call. There were dozens of them in the short time she had been sheriff. She needed to find a place to put them where they would be safe.

“Cat, is there any chance we have a small, empty file cabinet with a lock around here somewhere?” Lindsay asked.

“I will see what I can find. I know we have empty file cabinets, and we have file cabinet keys. I’m just not sure that any of them go together. I will start looking now and see if I can find one. Big Bob will be here soon, so he can move it for you and put it where you want it,” Cat answered.

“Thank you, Cat, for all of your help today,” Lindsay said to her.

“You’re welcome. I’ll help you with these reports whenever you want me to. I want you to know that I will probably still be up at two o’clock in the morning researching events similar to what we have had,” Cat answered.

“You and me both,” Lindsay laughed.

Cat quickly went to find a file cabinet with a key. While she was gone, Lindsay began her report for the call she and Little Bob had at Ms. Martin’s house. She put the information for Ms. Martin, Little Bob, and herself into the report form. Lindsay then sat staring at the computer screen, trying to find the words to describe what happened. Lindsay knew that, most likely, no one else would ever read the report, so she decided to do what she always did: tell the truth. No one would believe it, but she wrote exactly what happened, including that whatever was responsible for it had followed her command to stop. She sat for a moment, reading what she had just written, and thought how much it acted as if it were a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Lindsay heard the door chime and looked up. Big Bob had just walked through the door and was immediately met by Cat running up to him. She could not hear what was being said, but she had a feeling Cat had found the file cabinet. She watched Big Bob follow Cat around the corner, down the hall, and disappear into a closet. That was quickly followed by a bang and a crash that made her cringe. She only hoped they had not broken anything important in the crash. She watched them close the closet door, walk back up the hallway, and around the corner. Big Bob had a large industrial file cabinet on his shoulder, carrying it as if it were as light as a feather.

“Where would you like me to put this, sheriff?” he asked as he reached her office door.

“I hate to ask this, but will it fit back here behind my desk in this corner?” she said.

“Not a problem. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll make it fit.” Big Bob answered.

“What happened to a small file cabinet?” Lindsay asked Cat.

“Sorry, but this is the only one the keys fit. Here are the keys to it, by the way. Anyway, if these calls keep coming in at this rate, you may need that one and more,” Cat answered.

Big Bob had set the file cabinet down for a moment as Lindsay moved away from her desk and pushed her chair in to make room. After Lindsay had moved, Big Bob continued to move the cabinet into place. He just put a large hand on each side of the cabinet, picked it up off the floor, and set it into place in the corner. After watching that, Lindsay made a mental note never again to make Big Bob mad. The door chime interrupted her thought. She saw Andy walk into the department.

“Andy, come here for a moment,” Lindsay called out.

“Cat, you be nice to him,” Lindsay told her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cat said, smiling.

“Sheriff,” Andy said as he stepped into Lindsay’s office. “Is everything OK?” he asked in a worried tone.

“Everything is just fine, Andy. I just wanted to make sure that you are doing OK taking calls on your own now,” she said to Andy.

“I think so. I’ve had some things happen, but it isn’t about the people. It is about some of the things that I am asked to investigate. Why? Have you had complaints about me?” he asked.

“There has never been a complaint about you and probably never will be. What things are you talking about?” Lindsay asked.

“I had one call about lights in a field, other than the one that Big Bob and I went on together. Then I had one that was a guy claiming that a chupacabra had chased his cattle. I didn’t think that much about them. I thought maybe they were jokes,” Andy explained.

“Make sure that you put down every detail of any call like that in your reports. I don’t care how small it is or how strange it sounds. They are not jokes. Take a look at that map over there on the wall. Every one of those pins is a strange call that has no good explanation. Take pictures, record sounds, and collect every bit of evidence you can find. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Lindsay asked Andy.

“Yes, sheriff, I understand,” Andy said as he and Big Bob walked toward the map on the wall.

Big Bob asked, “Lindsay, have there really been that many weird calls in this county?”

“Yes, there have been. Cat and I have spent half the day marking those incidents. If any deputy in this department has a weird call, he needs to do a report and make sure that all the information is included. We need to find a pattern and, more importantly, a way to stop this stuff from happening,” Lindsay said.

“Have you told Little Bob all of this?” Big Bob asked.

“He knows, and the two of us had our own experience today that I have no idea how to explain. I can describe it, but I can’t explain it,” Lindsay told him as she glanced at the clock. “It’s time for Cat and me to go home, and I need to lock my office tonight so everyone out.”

Cat watched Big Bob leave first, followed by Andy. As Andy passed Cat, she smiled at him, and he actually looked at her and smiled back. Lindsay almost wanted to stand up and cheer. She was so happy that Andy had been able even to look at Cat, and being able to smile at her was terrific. Cat followed Andy out of Lindsay’s office. Lindsay set the files in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet and locked it before she left and locked the door.

Lindsay was looking forward to going home after the day she had. She had also made up her mind that she was not going to say anything to Wren about it. Lindsay might tell him, but not yet. She wanted to try to learn more first.