The Beast of 1977 (Book 1)

Chapter 25

Without looking back, Linus shut the door to the empty, grey bricked interrogation room before sitting himself down behind the small desk that was placed directly in the middle of the cement floor. Besides the bathrooms, it was the only place in the entire police station where an officer could grab a piece of momentary privacy.

On the desk sat a tan telephone that was layered from top to bottom with multicolored transfer buttons. The man loosened his blue spotted tie for more neck room.Linus sat and stared blankly at the phone on the table in the interrogation room as though it were a bomb ready to go off at any second. His stiff right hand wanted more than anything to pick up the receiver, but the circuitry in his brain wasn't exactly prepared to register such a strenuous task yet.

He looked up at the blurry window ahead of him in the door to see large silhouettes pass by in the hallway. Back and forth his eyes zoomed, from the door to the phone, until at last his hand managed to disobey the ongoing orders that his brain had been receiving.

Slowly, he punched the number nine and seven more numbers after that one. As if he could sense a slap coming right at his face, Linus clinched his body in anticipation for an answer.

"Hello?" A young, female's voice eagerly spoke.

"Hey there, kiddo, how are you?" Linus cleared his dry throat, just grateful to hear the girl's playful voice.

"I'm find, dad." The girl giddily replied. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad, I just called to see how everything was going with you ladies."

"It's going pretty good, I guess." She sighed.

"You guess?"

"Well...I guess I'd better get it out in the open before mom tells you. I got a D in algebra."

Linus gladly exhaled before asking, "What are you doing getting a D, Tabitha? You're a smart girl. And just what are you doing home from school today anyways?"

"I know, dad, it's just...algebra is so damn hard, and our teacher is such a witch. The teachers are having their conferences, by the way."

"Does your mother know that you're using that king of language, young lady?"

"Sorry. So darn hard," Tabitha groaned.

Smiling, Linus said, "You just have to keep working at it. You may not realize it now, but that witch of a teacher could be the best thing to ever happen to you."

"I suppose so. So, uh...we all heard about what happened up there in Cuyahoga. How you caught that kidnapper and all."

"I didn't catch anyone; something else beat us to the punch."

"Yeah, well at least it's all over now."

"For now, or until the next perv comes crawling out of the sewer." Linus sighed before taking a long breath. "How's your sister doing?"

Tabitha hesitated at first before replying, "She's okay. She still won't eat much. Mom says she eats like grandma used to when she was still alive."

"Like a bird?" Linus' smile shrank.

"Something like that."

"Listen, uh, is your mom around by any chance?"

"Yeah, she's in the kitchen. Do you want me to go and get her?"

"Would you please, honey?" Linus held his breath and tightened his fists. In the background he could hear Tabitha's mother speaking. He could tell just by her distant tenor that he was the last person she wanted to talk to.

"Hello?" The woman answered in a melancholy nature as though she were being inconvenienced. Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

"Hi there," Linus perked up. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, Linus. How are you?" She defensively replied.

"Not bad, not bad. I just called to see how everything was."

"Everything is going just fine." The woman sarcastically said.

"Tabi tells me that Liz is still...still not eating."

The woman sighed, "Well, after what she went through, eating is probably the last thing on her mind. I'm glad that you were able to catch your kidnapper, though. Were you able to find whatever it was that killed him?"

"No, not yet," Linus rolled his eyes. "But I didn't call to talk about that."

"What did you call about then, Linus?"

"Actually, I was wondering if it...if I could come down this weekend and see you guys."

There was an inflated pause over the phone at that instant. Linus held his breath and shut his eyes.

"Linus...I don't think that would be a very good idea; at least not yet."

Sitting back in his seat, Linus asked, "And why not, Alice? I haven't seen the girls since Thanksgiving, for Christ's sake."

"Linus, you just got off of a case that you've been working on since last September."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You know full well how you get too involved in your cases. You bring them home with you. I don't think it would be wise to bring this particular one all the way down to Xenia."

Linus dropped his head to the table and rubbed his blushing face in anguish. "I only wish you could have seen the girl we found in that madman's basement, Alice. The look on that child's face," Linus gulped. "She looked just like—

"Stoppit, Linus! Just stoppit!" Alice furiously screamed into the phone. "Do you see what I mean? I don't want to know what happened down in some murderer's basement, and I surely don't want our daughters to know! Elizabeth is a vegetable, and you want to come all the way here with that hanging over your head?"

"I need to see them!" Linus suddenly roared into the phone.

There sat another stretch of silence before Alice calmly uttered in a condescending tone, "And you wonder why we left."

Linus pulled the phone away from his ear and began to massage his pulsating temples as though they were ready to explode.

"Linus, just give yourself some time. Give us all some time; perhaps around spring, when all of this has finally died down. When Liz is better, then...then maybe you can come."

Without replying, Linus slammed the receiver down before shoving the phone away. He held his aching head in his hands while sitting at the desk and brooding over his daughters' faces, as well as the smug manner in which his wife carried on during their conversation. He wanted to tear right through the phone. Not once did the thought of saying goodbye even enter his brain.

Right then, the phone rang. The red button on the bottom repeatedly flashed. Linus reluctantly picked up the line and soberly answered, "This is Bruin."

"Hey, buddy, the old man wants to see us." Fitzpatrick adamantly announced.

"Okay," Linus sighed, "I'm on my way." The detective hung up the phone, straitened his tie and marched towards the door.

The second he stepped out into the busy hallway, he found himself instantaneously bombarded by the vibrant sights and sounds of ringing telephones, arguing hookers and every day, garden variety thugs being carried in from off the cold streets for whatever crimes that had committed. He secured his gun belt around his shoulder and began down a long, grubby hallway that led to an equally dingy stairwell.

"Hey!" Fitzpatrick called out while rounding the corner with a manila folder in hand.

Slightly alarmed, Linus looked back with a morose glaze on his face and asked, "How did you know I was in interrogation?"

"It's not hard to put two and two together." Alan said before both he and Linus started up the stairs. "How is everyone?"

"Same as usual," Linus shrugged.

"You sure," Alan glanced at the man.

"Yeah," Linus kept his eyes to the passing wall.

As they reached the third floor, both men just happened to stop right in the middle of the hallway beside a water fountain.

"Same as usual," Alan asked with a hard stare into Linus' eyes.

Linus dropped his head as to not allow his partner to see his misty eyes; he then looked back up and asked, "You and Peggy got any plans this weekend"

Alan glared at Linus with a glum appearance on his chunky face, looking as if the words that he wanted to say were still trapped inside his head. With a straight face, Alan bellyached, "I missed 'The Battle of the Network Stars' last night, dammit."

Linus chuckled before sarcastically asking, "Oh darn, you mean to tell me that you missed 'Rerun' leaping his big self over a hurdle?"

"Make fun if you want, but it's the only thing on TV that Peggy and I actually enjoy together, if you can believe that."

"Hey, you guys, the captain is waiting." Officer Donaldson feverishly motioned from her desk.

Linus and Alan carried on to the captain's office. The second Linus opened the door, the powerful aroma of cigarette smoke almost immediately struck him across the face.

"C'mon in, you two," the gruff, country speaking captain ordered as he put out his cigarette in the glass ashtray that sat on the edge of his cluttered desk.

He was an older white man in his early sixties. His nearly bald head was littered with liver spots while his thin build suggested that life on the force had taken its toll on his body. His rugged facial feathers were straight out of a Marlboro magazine ad, complete with a thick mustache and ice cold blue eyes.

"Well, if it isn't Starsky and Hutch, in the flesh." The captain coughed while gesturing for the detectives to take a seat in the two chairs in front of his desk.

"Damn TV show." Alan griped, taking his seat."

"Thought you'd quit that, especially since you're carrying a cold." Linus said as he sat down next to Alan.

"The cigarette has nothing to do with this cold I have." The captain hacked again. "When you have a wife that teaches second graders, she's bound to bring home some of their germs sooner or later. Congratulations, by the way."

"Everyone keeps congratulating me, but I wasn't the one who ended it all." Linus modestly turned away.

"Perhaps not, but quite frankly, it's all over now. But, speaking of the one who ended it all, I was just listening to this tape right before you two stepped in." The captain said before pressing the play button on Cummins' tape recorder.

Everyone gathered listened to the beast's roars and snarls all over again. Linus sulked in his seat like a five year old, still not believing that it was only a day removed from first hearing it.

"Poor schmuck," the captain offhandedly mumbled while pushing the off button. "He barely got a word out before getting the ax."

"Yeah, poor baby," Alan arrogantly sucked his teeth.

"Now, so far I've been getting a lot of feedback about this thing being a wolf, or something of that nature. But what everyone around this place seems to forget is that I was born and raised out in the hills of Montana, and in all my years I've never heard a wolf sound anything like that. And believe me, I

know exactly what a wolf sounds like. Hearing a wolf out there is as common as hearing a car horn here in the city. This damn thing sounds like it's from the mouth of hell itself." The captain explained.

"Well, sir," Alan shrugged, "we have reason to believe that we may be dealing with something else, perhaps a bear, maybe."

"Knock, knock." Brice gaily chimed as he opened the captain's door ever so slightly.

"Come on in, Patrick." The captain said.

"Sorry to barge in like this." The young man humbly panted as if he had been running while holding two green folders underneath his right armpit. "I was told that you three would be here, so I just thought I'd go ahead and bring my data as well."

"Whaddya got?" The captain asked while leaning back in his creaky wooden chair.

Nervously rummaging through one of the folders, the young forensic examiner said, "Well, three things. First off, I ran the animal's recording through the voice analyzer. Believe it or not, this is not a wolf, or even a bear for that matter. The machine keeps telling me that the sound is unrecognizable." Brice gasped.

"Calm down, son." The captain motioned. "Just slow down and breathe for a second."

"Wait a minute." Linus stepped in. "You mean to stand there and say that our so called state-of-the art equipment couldn't tell you what this thing is?"

"Hold on, Linus, there's more." Brice continued to grab air.

"There always is." Alan sighed.

"I also ran an analysis on the fur follicles we found. It's all wolf hair, every single strand. But on top of that, and you're not gonna believe this. The saliva I found in the church...it's human saliva."

The entire room at that moment grew eerily quiet. The captain, Linus and Alan all looked up at Brice with sour expressions on their warm faces; not a single hint of emotion could be seen. They possessed the appearance of someone who could sense that the world as they knew it would end the very next day.

Brice stood by the door, waiting to see or hear what was going to take place next.

"Close the door, son." The captain calmly ordered.

With a completely pale face, Brice did as commanded before standing straight and still in front of his superior.

The captain then eyeballed the nervous young man while slipping his frail fingers into the other before asking in a composed and dignified demeanor, "Son...just what do you suppose we do with that bit of information? Do you think it's wise that we just allow you, or anyone else for that matter, to leak that out to the public? This is a police station, not The National Enquirer."

All Linus could do was sit and watch Brice, who was still stuck in statue mode, stare at the captain as if he were a medieval warlord of sorts.

"Now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to strike everything you just mentioned about that saliva off the plate, right now. Do you understand me?"

"Captain," Brice uneasily smiled as though a searing hot spotlight were glaring down upon him, "you're not just gonna ignore this, are you?"

The captain looked dead into the man's eyes and simply asked, "What do you think?"

Linus, Alan and Brice all looked back at the captain with the most innocent and confused poses on their faces as though they were locked in a moment of absolute clarity.

"Let's just say that you got the animal's saliva mixed up with some of the victims."

Seemingly too wound up to be contained, Brice opened his mouth and said, "But, captain, that's impossible. You see—

"Shh." The captain nodded. "We're gonna say just that. Okay?"

"Yes, sir," Brice hesitantly recoiled. "We'll say that."

"As a matter of fact, let's all say that. Let's pretend this is 'Sesame Street' and we'll say it together. There was no saliva sample to speak of. Alan?" He pointed with his head.

As if he had a choice in the matter, Fitzpatrick simply uttered, "There was no saliva sample."

"Linus," the captain dead-eyed the man. "No saliva sample, sir."

"Brice?"

"No sample, Captain." The young man blushed while grudgingly stuffing his all-important data back into its folder.

"Good. Now, what about this wolf hair?"

"Well, it's one hundred percent wolf fur alright. No doubt about it."

"But your analyzer, or whatever it is, said that it wasn't a wolf. How do you explain that?"

"Captain, I didn't make the thing, I just operate it." Brice haplessly shrugged.

"Not unless we're talking about the quote, unquote, Jaws of all wolves. Something that's super big and running free and loose out there somewhere." Linus elucidated.

"Yeah, you didn't see the size of those holes that it left behind, Captain." Alan added. "It seemed pretty damn big to us. God help anyone if something like that is out there on the loose."

"Captain, I measured this thing's strides in the snow. It has a...foot size of at least sixteen. Just on all fours, it measured up to six and a half feet long. Assuming this thing is capable of standing, like a bipedal, I'd say it was possibly close to seven feet tall." Brice said.

The captain once again leaned back in his seat and glanced over at the gloomy sky outside his frosted window.

"Summit County police aren't equipped to handle such a thing." The captain sulked while spinning back around. "And quite frankly, neither are we. We've got entirely too much to handle here in the big city to be chasing after some overgrown...whatever. But I was thinking, right before you fellas came in here. All of this sounds damn familiar. Do you guys remember that incident back in November, with those Haitians or Jamaican's, or whatever the hell they were?"

"Yeah," Linus spoke up, "Brice mentioned that yesterday. Something just broke into that house and tore those guys apart. Who covered that one?"

"Wilson." The captain answered. "Both he and his wife finally took that vacation to Hawaii. I guess they watched that Brady Bunch episode with Vincent Price one too many times."

Linus, Alan and Brice all sniggered while shaking their heads.

"I do remember Wilson saying something about some hair being left behind." Brice pondered. "I sure wish I were there to pick some up."

"So that means either we have two of these things running around, or the same animal is hitting different cities." Alan examined.

"Here's how it's gonna go." The captain said, placing his hands on his desk and leaning forward with a serious presence behind his mustache. "Cummins is dead. That now leaves us with something that is possibly even more dangerous. So, it killed three drug dealers and a sicko car salesman. Big fucking deal. As far as I'm concerned, we're all better off. But two nights ago, it managed to break into a house and kill four little girls and their parents. Inside their own damn home," the captain strongly clarified. "We here at the Cypress P.D. don't hunt animals. We're police officers, not animal control. But, if this one thing can take out four large men on its own, then we've got one helluva problem on our hands, gentlemen. Personally, I don't wanna wait another three months for it to strike again."

"Well, what do we do, hire an old time search posse?" Alan snickered to himself.

"That's exactly what we do, Fitz, for now at least." The captain remarked. "I want you to put a task force together by the end of the day. No more than four men. Hook up with Cuyahoga Falls and the highway patrol. We all seemed to work pretty well with each other these past few months; I don't see why the love affair should end now. Let's see if we can put some of those country boys to work; I'm sure they'll enjoy the change of pace."

"Yes, sir," Alan said, promptly wiping the cheesy grin from off his face and exiting the office.

"Brice, I want you to retrieve Wilson's file and see if you can dig up something more on this thing. As I was telling Bruin and Fitz before you dropped by, I've never heard a wolf sound like this thing before."

"I'm on it, Captain." Brice, with a dower expression on his face, replied as he too bolted out the door.

The moment the door slammed shut, Linus sat back and relaxed into the wooden chair that he was attached to. For a few brief moments there melted a quaint silence between he and the captain that actually felt comfortable.

"So, it took you six months, but you finally did it." The captain smirked at Linus.

A forced grin graced Linus' face at that second. He was visibly weary of all the attention that was being tossed at him from every direction.

"Finally," he apprehensively muttered. "I'm just glad that it's over."

The captain sat and stared unceasingly at Linus in humble adoration before saying, "I know how bad you wanted to kill him, Linus."

Linus slumped his limp body into his seat as though his bones were melting into jelly. The anger that had been foaming up inside of him for the past few months was all but wasted energy, by then, there wasn't an outlet of any kind to expunge it all.

"How's Elizabeth doing?"

Linus pressed his lips together before saying, "The same."

"Are you going to go see her?"

Linus ducked his head and said, "Alice doesn't think it would be a good idea just yet."

"For crying out loud, your twelve year old daughter was raped, and she thinks that it wouldn't be a good idea for her own father to come and see her?" The captain grumbled.

"I know, Roy." Linus breathed as he lifted his head back up. "I still can't get that Cohen girl out of my damn head. I still haven't finished all my paperwork. I feel like I'm trapped inside a Karen Carpenter song, for God's sake."

"Take the rest of the day off then, you've earned that much."

"And do what, go back home and be alone? Do you know what daytime TV can do to a person?" Linus grimaced. "I need to stay active."

The captain shoved aside a collection of papers before pulling out a paper clipped bundle from underneath the stack.

"I didn't bring this up when the others were in here but, what about this Mercer fella? What's his story?"

"Not quite sure yet," Linus sat up. "When Alan and I went over to his fiancé's house yesterday evening, the guy was wrapped in a blanket like a mummy. Judging by his face, it looked as if Cummins had worked him over pretty badly."

"Just how in the hell did he end up escaping not only Cummins, but the animal also?"

"He can't seem to remember."

"Bullshit." The captain obstinately pointed. "He remembers something. You don't go through all of that and come out with a blank memory. You're not gonna sit there and tell me that he just up and walked all the way home. Cuyahoga Falls is forty-five minutes away. Did you ever find out who he was talking to at that diner?"

"Judging by the shifty way he was behaving in front of his fiancée, I'd say our man was meeting up with someone. I didn't want to bring up the subject; I figured that he'd been through enough as it was. But, there was one thing, among many, that seemed out of place."

"What's that?"

"Either my eyes are going bad, or he looked taller than he was described to us by the waitress. That woman said that Mercer stood about six foot or so. I looked this guy up and down. Either he was standing on something, or else he just suddenly got one helluva growth spurt overnight."

"When does he plan on showing up for a statement?"

"He never gave an approximate time. I'll give 'em till this evening."

"And I wanna be here when he does show up. He can't play the Manchurian Candidate role forever." The captain adamantly responded while studying Isaac's record that was lying on his desk in front of him. "Born January 12th, 1957. Father's name, Charles. Mother, Lucy Mae...deceased."

"His father was an interesting trip to say the least."

"How's that," the captain asked, still reading over his paper.

"Before Alan and I left his house yesterday, he practically ordered us not to forget the fact that his son wasn't crazy."

"Hello?" The captain suddenly buzzed to life.

"What's up?" Linus shot up from out of his chair.

"I don't flipping believe it. This joker was the sole survivor of that mutilation back in November."

Linus' eyes perked up also. "Is that right?"

"You bet."

"Judging by the shifty way he was behaving yesterday, I'd bet bottom dollar he was dealing along with the other fellas. Perhaps he was meeting up with a contact over in Cuyahoga."

"Says here he's got a clean record," the captain mentioned. "Never been arrested or any of the sort."

"So what the hell was he doing at that house that night? And better yet, how did he manage not to be swallowed up by our animal friend? Talk about the luck of the Irish."

"We've got to bring this joker in, Linus, before the sun sets on this city." The captain smirked. "Either he's the luckiest son of a bitch alive, or we may have another suspect that we've overlooked all this time."

"I'm on it." Linus intently replied as he leaned forward, far enough to where he could smell the captain's smoke riddle breath. "I was thinking about going over to Saint Titus later...to see the Cohen girl."

"Do you think that's wise?" The captain doubtfully queried with worry in his eyes.

With a plain face, Linus said, "No."

From there, the man turned and walked out of the captain's office. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he caught sight of Brice standing over an attractive female officer's desk in the rear of the busy room.

Linus criss-crossed desk after desk until he reached the man who appeared more upset than flirtatious towards the young woman who was steadily typing away.

"Pat, can I get your ear for a second?"

Brice, with his folders gripped tightly in his hands, stepped away from the officer's desk and followed Linus who was heading into the hallway.

"What now?" Brice asked in a frustrated manner.

"Listen, before you throw a bitch-fit at the whole station, just understand what you're coming at the captain with. You may think that you've stumbled upon the Loch-Ness Monster, but in the captain's eyes, it's all smoke and mirrors."

"Smoke and mirrors," Brice strongly contended. "Linus, the data is never wrong! It's all right here!"

"Put that away." Linus tried to calm the man down. "Not yet, okay? Not yet. You may think that everyone here is out to get rid of you, but it's just not that way. You still got a lot to learn."

Brice looked away as though he were about two seconds from jumping out the nearest window and away from the whole situation altogether.

"I need for you to answer me something."

"What's that?" Brice looked back.

"The fur samples," Linus carefully said. "Did you notice anything...peculiar about them when you performed your analysis?"

Brice glared at the detective with a weird contort on his pudgy face and asked, "Peculiar in what other way than what I discovered already?"

Linus bobbed his head from side to side as though he were trying to convince the man that what he was searching for was right in front of his face already.

"I don't know...perhaps some fire?" Linus gulped.

"Fire," Brice squirmed. "Detective, what is this all about?"

"Look, all I need to know is...did anything happen when you analyzed the fur?"

"Nothing that shouldn't have happened, I suppose." Brice simply shrugged.

Linus cut his eyes away from the man's cynical face as fast as he could; too bashful to admit what he experienced just a few short hours earlier inside his apartment.

"Forget it, I need sleep, lots and lots of sleep." Linus exhaled, patting Brice on the back before heading down the stairs that led to the second floor and into the melee that was the police station.