The Ghost of a Chance (Krewe of Hunters #38.7)

Chapter 6

Had people been using the sewer tunnels for body dumps? Was it a secret passed down for years through criminal enterprises?

Jackson stood looking at the fourth corpse they’d discovered since he’d followed his instincts to search for the flash of white he’d seen when Captain Clancy had shown him the way to the bank.

He wished he had more medical experience. The body was clearly that of a man, and Jackson thought he had been of medium height and build in life, maybe five-ten and a hundred and eighty pounds.

His clothing had mostly disintegrated in the tunnels’ fetid conditions.

His face had disintegrated, too

He lay on a strange shelf that nature had created underground. And while the space didn’t appear to have been dug out, it still had the look of something that might be found in the catacombs in Rome.

He felt the captain come up behind him.

“I had no idea,” David said softly.

Jackson shook his head. “We’re going to need a forensics team down here, and it’s beginning to look like a slew of medical examiners, too.”

“Another body,” David murmured.

“I’m praying there’s still a chance of finding Cassie alive,” Jackson said.

“There’s still more down here that the sewer workers don’t get to. Come on, I’ll take you down another corridor. At least, I assume it still exists. I mean…I knew this all existed because of the past. But I realize I’m a ghost. I understand that I’m dead, though I’m not sure…well, I’ve seen others leave. Sorry. I mean, the point is, not even ghosts like to hang around in the sewers. There’s a sports bar a couple of blocks down from the bank, and I take pleasure in watching all the games they show.”

Jackson managed to smile. “Good to hear you’re enjoying your afterlife—and not hanging out in the sewers,” he told him.

His phone rang. Angela.

He answered it quickly.

“Hey, anything?”

“Yep, a bigger tangle than ever before. I mean, the obvious would be that Kenneth is a true criminal—a killer, robber—devoid of anything resembling empathy. A psychiatrist would need to judge the man. But he claims Billy Mendelson was destroyed by what happened to him and finds solace in making sure everyone around him suffers just as much. Kenneth claims we’re all ignoring the obvious, and says Billy is the one who masterminded everything that went on at the bank. He also said that Billy is the only one who can tell us where to find the girl.”

“You believed him?” Jackson asked doubtfully.

“I don’t want to, that’s for sure,” Angela said. “Anyway, I tried. I tried and tried. I’m on my way down there. At this point, I’ll be more useful searching for the girl than trying to get one of them to break.”

“They are both still being held? And neither has asked for an attorney?”

“Not yet. And they’re holding off on the arraignment, trying to determine just who they’re charging with what.”

“You don’t think—?”

“Jackson, I’m so frustrated. I feel like I need to be moving in a different direction.”

“Of course. If we don’t find the young woman soon, I’ll take a stab at the two of them. Come on down. It’s, uh, great down here.”

It was getting better. Several members of their forensics teams had arrived and were working in the areas where they had found the bodies.

Still…

“Come on. Follow me. I’ll lead you astray,” David promised.

Jackson groaned. “Great. I’m searching a sewer littered with the dead with a ghost who has a weird sense of humor.”

David laughed at that. “Sometimes,” he said softly, “you need to go with the humor, you know? I remember the war, seeing friends…”

The ghost’s words drifted into silence.

“I’m so sorry,” Jackson said softly. “I’ve served, so—”

“So, you know,” David said. “On the positive side, we won the war in the end. Decades and decades later, people began to realize that we’re all human. But then, you’re…Indigenous, right?”

Jackson laughed. “Yep. Kind of a mutt. Dad’s family is Native American. Cheyenne. Thus, the surname: Crow. Anyway—”

“Ah,” David interrupted. “And the criminals you take down have to eat crow.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Hey, I like it. But in the world, the struggle for us to accept and care for one another no matter our heritage, leanings, whatever, will always be ongoing,” David said. “But I like to believe in humanity. Think there are far more decent human beings than…well, okay, so even though we’re looking through ancient tunnels connected to a sewer for bodies and a kidnapped girl, I still believe in the decency of most human beings.”

“Great. So, let’s find that girl alive.”

* * * *

“Is it possible?” Angela asked Jackson, shaking her head. “We know Kenneth Martin is a criminal, a horrible person, one who has committed crimes in the past and shouldn’t be believed. But what if he happens to be right? Can it be true? I spent time with Billy in that bank. I watched the two of them. But…”

She paused, shaking her head.

“But?” Jackson pushed softly.

“When they first came in, Kenneth was down on the floor. Billy was waving the gun around—pointing it right at one of the kids. And when a security guard moved, he swore he’d shoot, and both the guards turned everything over. Billy is the one who demanded that the bank customers put their cell phones in a bag they passed around. And it wasn’t until it was all underway that he pointed out Kenneth.”

“And Kenneth…”

“Was on the floor with everyone else,” Angela said.

“That’s not a bad plan for a bank robbery—having a hidden asset in case things start to go wrong,” Jackson reminded her.

She saw Jackson smile suddenly. They were deep into one of the side offshoots of the strange piece of the tunnel that had brought them to the bank.

She turned to see that their ghost friend had come upon them.

“Hello!” he said softly to her.

“Hi, David. Thank you so much. You’re still helping us, I see.”

“I wish I was more useful,” he told her.

“David, you might have saved over two dozen lives yesterday. I call that amazing help,” Angela assured him. “I don’t know what you heard. . .”

“Well, here’s the thing. There’s the known criminal, and there’s a young man who suffered unimaginable pain and trauma. It’s not impossible.”

“But it is improbable,” Angela said, shaking her head. “Neither is talking, so…”

“Hey!” Jackson said. “Bruce was going into holding. David, maybe he can give you a lift, and you can, you know, quietly hang around both and see if they talk to themselves or there’s anything you can determine.”

David grinned at that. “I can try to give them a few chills,” he said, then shrugged, looking perplexed. “It’s amazing…being dead and being here. It’s so incredible to find not just one but several people who see and hear me. And who knows? I think I mentioned this to Jackson, but I keep thinking this whole thing could be why I’m still here. So I can give you more of a happy ending. I guess in your line of work…well, you know—on finding this young woman, anyway.”

“Let’s go find Bruce,” Jackson said.

“I’ll keep heading down this way,” Angela told him.

“And I’ll be right back,” Jackson promised.

Jackson departed with the ghost, and Angela took a moment to look around her. She’d never expected such a maze of underground tunnels—albeit part of the system that was now the area’s sewers—in this area where northern Virginia met up with Washington, DC.

She imagined that years and years ago when David Clancy was a child, there had probably been a natural formation of caverns or the like, though they were far from the mountains. She tried to remember her geography. DC was on land ceded by Virginia and Maryland. The Anacostia and the smaller Rock Creek fed the Potomac River, and the capital sat in the flood plain of the rivers, surrounded by high ridges and terraces.

Maybe the tunnels made sense, though she wondered if they flooded during the rainy season.

In days gone by, did criminals count on the flooding to hide any vestiges of their crimes?

Such as the bodies of the deceased.

She gave herself a mental shake. She was looking for a girl who might still be alive—no, who was alive. She had to be. Cassie.

“Cassie.”

She said the name aloud and then decided that speaking out loud and calling as she moved through the tunnels might not be a bad thing.

She began to move, and as she did, she noted another of the dark crevices to her right. She shone her phone’s light on it and saw that it had a narrow slit.

Narrow but enough for a body to slip through if one went at it horizontally.

“Cassie?”

She moved to the narrow opening and realized she could slip through it—and so could someone even larger than her if they managed the right angle.

But could they have forced someone else through it?

People could be very obedient when someone had a gun pointed at them.

Unfortunately, she’d need to do it almost entirely in the dark because she couldn’t keep her hands on her phone while attempting the maneuver.

Phone pocketed, she worried that her small work bag, Glock, and holster might hold her back.

But she wasn’t letting them go. And it was only a matter of maneuvering all her body parts the right way.

She gripped the lower portion of the ragged earth and stone and very carefully worked to lift her body into the right position to wiggle through it. For a moment, she feared she was slipping. Then she discovered she was lying flat—or almost—in the crack in the wall. With just a little maneuvering, she found herself on the other side.

She heard whimpering then, not quite a cry but a sound someone might make if…

If they had cried and shouted themselves out.

“Cassie! Cassie, are you in here?”

There was silence for a second.

Maybe she was afraid of who might be coming for her.

“Cassie, my name is Angela Hawkins Crow. I’m a special agent with the FBI. I swear to you, I’m here to help.”

“Please, no. Don’t kill me! I haven’t done anything, I swear, I…”

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll get you to a hospital, and we’ll find your family. Cassie, it’s going to be okay.”

Angela heard a cry again and trained her light down the new tunnel where she stood. At first, she didn’t see anything.

Then, where the wall narrowed, and the ceiling seemed about ready to fall, she saw a figure huddled in a corner. She hurried to cover the distance, kneeling beside the young woman.

She was filthy, of course, covered in the dirt and grit of the caves. Her hair was a long tangle around her face.

And she was bound. Her wrists were tightly tied together, as were her ankles.

Angela was glad she hadn’t discarded her work bag. She always carried a small pair of scissors—something she had learned throughout the years.

The ropes were rough, and it took her several tries to saw through them, but she eventually freed the young woman from the ties.

“You’re Cassie, right?” Angela asked her softly.

“You didn’t come to…to…”

“Cassie, we’ve been looking for you,” Angela said.

“To make sure I was dead?” the young woman whispered.

“No, no. To get you out of here,” Angela assured her.

She heard a muffled shout from the other side of the strange, horizontal opening.

“Angela!”

“No, no, no!” the girl cried.

“It’s okay, it’s really okay. That’s Jackson Crow. He’s going to get us out of here. They’ll break up that part of the wall so we don’t have to slither through it again,” Angela assured her. “It’s okay, Cassie. It’s really okay. I swear we’re here to help you.”

She left Cassie for a minute to hurry to the hole, shouting back to Jackson.

“How the hell did you get in there?” he asked her.

“A lot of twisting and turning,” she called back. “Jackson, we need some equipment. Cassie is here, but she’s not in great shape. I don’t think it would be right to try to wedge her back through. Can we get some equipment—?”

“On it. Two minutes,” Jackson told her.

And he was right. He returned by the time she’d reached Cassie’s side to keep her reassured.

The forensic teams were in the tunnels, and they came with equipment, though she really hadn’t expected anything heavy…like whatever Jackson was wielding to knock down the wall around her horizontal hole.

Cassie sat shaking as Angela gently held her.

The wall burst open with a scattering of dirt, concrete, and stone.

Cassie screamed, but Angela tightened her hold on the girl and assured her everything would be okay.

Jackson stepped into the clearing he had created as Angela urged Cassie to stand.

She did but instantly swayed.

If she’d been here for days, she had to be seriously dehydrated.

She started to fall, but Jackson hurried forward and caught her, lifting her into his arms. Cassie’s face bore a look of panic.

Angela took her hand and assured her they were going to the hospital, saying she would be all right.

“But the monster will find me, he will come for me!” Cassie cried.

Angela stared at her, frowning.

Jackson was quick to tell her, “No, no, Cassie. We’re not going to let any monsters get to you, I promise. There will be officers and agents with you at the hospital, and I promise you, we will not let any monsters get to you.”

The girl just kept sobbing, but Jackson was getting good at navigating the tunnels and sewer. Angela moved fast to keep up with him.

Soon, they saw daylight up ahead and an ambulance waiting.

“I’m going with her,” Angela told Jackson.

“We’re both going,” he said. “We’ll get scrubs there. They aren’t going to want us in a hospital, and I don’t blame them. We can tag team showers.”

Jackson had a way with people. The paramedics had no problem with them entering the ambulance; they were already tense over the situation and determined to stop anyone involved in whatever was going on.

As a young paramedic started a saline IV for Cassie, Angela gently asked her what she meant. “Was the monster a man you’re calling a monster?”

“No. A real monster,” Cassie told her.

“Can you tell me what it looked like?” Angela asked.

“Blue…blue fur, strange face, maybe like a gorilla, but it spoke English and had a knife, a gun, and…and another monster. Both blue, both furry, with those faces…I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to insult gorillas—gorillas aren’t monsters; they’re just animals. But these…they were real monsters. They caught me in the dark as I was headed to the subway, and…one put a gun to my head. The other held a knife to my throat, so I just did what they told me. I did everything they told me!”

“They made you slide through the wall?”

“One went first—to show me. To wait for me. To tie me up so I couldn’t move.”

They arrived at the hospital. Doctors moved quickly to assess the damage that hunger and dehydration might have done to the girl.

Jackson and Angela took turns standing in the hall. One of them stood watching over the girl while the doctor in charge arranged for showers and scrubs they could wear until other agents and local police officers could relieve them.

Monster.

No. Monster s .

Cassie was terrified that they might be coming after her again.

The doctor had explained to them that Cassie was lucky to be alive. They had found her just hours before dehydration might have taken her life. She was receiving treatment and sedated so she could calm down enough to heal and not panic and rip at the IV sending fluid back into her body at a proper rate.

She might be more rational by morning. That would be the time to talk to the girl.

Axel Tiger took over for them, along with Will Chan.

While Jackson believed that whoever had done this in costume wouldn’t head into the hospital with a blue fur suit and a gorilla mask, there was always the danger that someone might make an appearance pretending to be hospital staff.

Therefore, they’d be watching over Cassie.

And they needed to let her family know what had happened.

Angela would assume that task.

“And,” Jackson said, “I’m going to take another run at our good friend Billy Mendelson. We need to know if he’s truly a victim coerced into doing what he did, threatened with not just his life but also that of a friend. Or is he a victim so traumatized that he turned into a monster?”

“Well, here’s one thing,” Angela told him.

“What’s that?”

“No matter how good a costume, he couldn’t possibly be two monsters,” she said dryly. “We need to find out if it was Billy and Kenneth, or if it was Billy or Kenneth with an accomplice on the outside.”