Phasmatta -ch 12-

“Nobody said anything while I was in there,” Vern offered as he and Ryan walked back to the car. “Whatever the sergeant sent to Murphy was electronic and… and that was it. He himself just sat there for a while in his office and didn’t do much.

“Didn’t call anyone, didn’t respond to the email, didn’t do anything. Just sat there, staring at the email.

“And that email was just ‘someone’s asking about Mullins’ and that was it. There wasn’t anything mroe than that. Whatever’s going on, they’re all in on it. They didn’t need to ask about me, didn’t need to discuss what to say, they all knew it and that was it.

“No one whispered in the backrooms or offices. Though they definitely knew. People were close enough to hear your question.”

Huh.

A unified non-response.

They’re all aware of Mullins murder.

All of them.

And they’re all in it together. All of them are working to keep the truth from coming up but… we don’t know why.

Is the serial killer related to the chief of police? Maybe… Murphy himself?

The chief of police?

A captain?

The mayor or governor?

Whoever it is, they’ve got the entirety of the Noxfield pd lined up and ready to protect them.

Someone commands respect and care.

Or fear?

“When I was an active detective, no one carried that much weight,” continued Mullins, as if he heard Ryan’s thoughts spoken aloud. “Before you ask, that is. The only person who had a lot of pull when I was in the department was the chief.

“Well, and me. I had a lot of sway with most people. I did the job right and made sure to not cross any boundaries or lines. Did the job right, didn’t piss off brass or the bootlickers, just made sure it always came out correct for the public.

“Chief took a lot of the cases out of my hands the moment he felt like I was going to push something awkward forward for him or the mayor.

“I didn’t fight it which gave me enough good boy points to push harder on cases that needed help. I traded for that and I won’t hide about what I did. Needed the power to get good things done.”

Man.

He reminds me of how it looked like when I peeked into the sergeant at the desk. Feels really similar.

“Yeah, I—” Ryan’s words trailed off as a woman approached him as he got near his own car. She looked to be in he early forties or early fifties. Pale brown hair, soft eyes, and a soft feeling to her.

She seemed like someone who needed to be looked after. A woman who’d spent her life needing others to help her.

The way she hunched her shoulders, carried herself, and even how she met his eyes, all felt like a woman who depended on others not being aggressive to her.

“Oh hell,” Vern whispered. “It’s Mirella. Just as pretty as the day I met her. I was planning on marrying her. I had the ring in a box and was ready to go. Just needed the right timing.

“She was always a little soft outside of an ambulance. Her spine only existed when she was helping people.”

Well, that sucks.

Also explains more of his attachment to the mortal world.

“I… you’re… you’re that… you’re looking into Vern’s death?” asked the woman, looking at him practically through her hair. “He was murdered, wasn’t he. He was murdered. I know it. There’s no way he just died of a heart attack.

“He’d just had a physical check-up the month before he-he died. He was in perfect health. He was as healthy as he could be for his age!”

Ryan only blinked while listening to this woman.

She’d dropped a ten-ton weight of grief and baggage in fewer sentences than it’d take to introduce one’s self. The woman was clearly still wound up tight over Vern’s death, just as Tilly had been.

Just as everyone seemed to have been.

Vern had acted as if he were just an ordinary every day detective. Filled with the same problems that everyone had in the same ways.

Ryan was starting to suspect that the man had been far more and had more pull than he’d ever realized. That maybe the man just had something about how he handled himself during his life that set him apart from others.

“I think he was murdered, yes,” Ryan agreed, not really sure how to handle this woman. Instead of responding further, he opened himself up to the Soul’s Mirror.

What came back to him was a soul burning brightly with it’s service to people.

Her job as an EMT, of saving people, was her everything. That to her, she existed to save people and put them back together or prepare them for the future.

There were strands of darkness through her, Ryan imagined no one was pure, but they were all around not saving people. Around perhaps making the wrong choice in how to stabilize a patient to transport them to the hospital.

Countless patients who died and were burried along the way but never forgotten by this woman.

Those she couldn’t save.

“Of course he was,” Mirella said with a firm nod of her head. Ryan noted that as she did it, her hands clutched her purse tighter. Her coat was thick and covered up most of her form as well, but her hands were free.

There were no rings on her hands.

Apparently after Vern died, her life had ended in a way as well.

Death never ends with just the one that stopped breathing.

Often death takes far more than one person.

Ryan had personal experience with that.

Survivors guilt, the depression, and the recovery, had nearly killed him as well.

“Do you think… that you’re making progress on the who?” Mirella asked, looking nervous. As if she didn’t want to hope that Ryan actually had a direction to move in. “No one will talk to me about it. They all shut me out. If I bring it up, they ice me out for weeks.

“They won’t talk about it. Won’t tell me anything. He was murdered.”

“Right,” Ryan said, not really wanting to respond to that exactly. It’d sounded as if she were the edge of a breakdown. He could practically hear the notes of desperation in her voice.

Because he’d heard such similar tones in his own words. His own feelings.

All of it when discussing how he felt to his contracted therapist visits while he was in recovery.

“He was murdered,” Ryan added after he found Mirella staring at him. Clearly hoping for more information about Vern. “He was murdered and by a serial killer. He was tracking them and starting to make progress.

“I figure he was getting close to figuring out a suspect and… the serial killer got to him first.

“If he was murdered, and he didn’t die of natural causes, then it’s something they can’t hide. Something that they have to admit is happening.

“A serial killer on the loose and with a body-count that includes cops.”

“And that’s why they’re hiding it,” Vern mused aloud, though he sounded not entirely sure.

Not that Ryan could blame him the doubt.

They were guessing at motives and no one wanted to talk.

But it made sense.

“On top of that, Vern’s body is missing and the Coroner’s report is clearly fraudulent,” Ryan continued. “Old man Crowley wouldn’t talk to me after I started asking about Vern. He’s out and out ignoring me.”

Mirella slowly nodded her head as he spoke. Clearly picking up everything he was putting down while also examining it. It didn’t even seem as if she were doubting it at all.

“That makes sense,” Mirella murmured in a voice as soft as a whisper. “Crowley and the old chief were close as brothers. They easily could have conspired together to keep it all quiet.

“But-but I… you’re on my side, right? You’re here to prove that Vern was murdered?”

Ryan watched as an ugly strand of darkness writhed about Mirella’s ghost. She felt extreme guilt over Vern. As if she’d failed in a way that couldn’t be explained.

A new strand of ugly was growing as well. As if it’d only been born after speaking with Ryan.

More guilt.

More regret.

Though unfocused as of yet.

“Yes. I’m going to find whoever murdered Vern,” Ryan agreed.

“I have his case notes,” Mirella confessed and shook her head. “They tried to find them, tried to get them, but I had them. He kept everything on an external hard-drive. So he could take it with him and write in the field on a laptop, but keep his notes separate.

“He-he used to say that it wasn’t technically a company device so he didn’t have to hand anything over. That sounded like nonsense to me but I didn’t want to argue with him.

“But I have it! I have the hard-drive. It’s with me and I kept it and… and I have it.”

The case notes!

That’s exactly what I need.

“Perfect,” Ryan said and nodded his head. “Is it at your home? I can follow you there in my car.”

“Yes. It’s at home. I kept it in a ziploc bag. I don’t really know-know how those things work. I was afraid it might go bad or something,” she admitted with a strange confused smile and a shrug.

Not that Ryan could blame her.

To a lot of people, computers were a box of mysteries and anything about them, including hard-drives, were just as mysterious.

“I mean, I knew that justification wouldn’t actually work,” Vern confessed with a chuckle. “I was using a company provided laptop to write the notes. I just… it was easier to make up an excuse like that than to admit it didn’t quite matter where I put my notes.

“But I guess maybe it did matter in the end. Seems like I left us the clues we needed.”

Good.

Because I suck at being a detective.

I lack power to get anything done as a civilian.

But for the dead, I’m amazing.

“Well,” Ryan said with a soft sigh. “Let’s go get that drive.”

***

Once more, Ryan had driven out to a house in the middle of nowhere.

Another rural location no different than Daisy, Crowley, or Vern’s home. Another four-square house that looked older than himself by a long shot.

It had a fresh coat of paint on it though and had clearly been maintained and kept up. There were flower beds around all the windows and planters that looked as if they were taken inside during the winter.

A woman living a life alone yet still making a house a home. She was what likely would’ve been an ideal house-wife in a different time.

One that would never happened because Vern had been murdered.

The attached garage Mirella had pulled into closed and Ryan turned his car off. He’d pulled into the driveway behind her.

Getting out of the vehicle he moved over to the front door and paused.

Looking out to the side, into the area beyond the home, he could see a number of spirits. Wandering the grounds and looking as if they were lost.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a number of ghosts wandering about in Noxfield.

Wasn’t even the fifth at this point.

For some reason, Noxfield seemed to be a location full of lingering regrets. In one form or another, Noxfield seemed more like a place that was teetering toward collapse, rather than rebirth.

Frowning at the congregation of spirits, Ryan shook his head. He didn’t see a reason to leave them here if he didn’t have to.

They’d only bother Mirella and given that he liked Vern, it was the least he could do for the detective.

Heading back to his car, Ryan grabbed the religious icons out of the trunk and stuck them in his pocket. He also stuck his holy-water-gun into a pocket. The censer and some general cleanser went into a coat pocket.

“What’re you doing?” Carl asked, appearing atop the car. His feet dangling down by the rear driver’s side window.

“She’s got a bunch of hauntings wandering around. I can do some basic stuff with this and she won’t even notice,” Ryan answered. “This whole damn state is haunted.”

Carl nodded his head at that and just watched Ryan as he adjusted his items.

Closing the trunk, Ryan went back up to the front door to find Mirella opening it for him.

“Come in, come in,” she said and pulled the door open. “I put the coffee machine on. It should be ready in a few minutes. In the mean time, you can look at the drive and see what you think.

“I do have a computer if you want to try to hook it to it. It had a cord that came with the drive though. I think that’s how Vern connected to his laptop so I kept it with the hard-drive itself.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” Ryan answered and looked around the entry way. If there were ghosts inside of the house that’d be where he needed to start.

He could probably handle it while she dealt with the coffee when the time came.

“It’s this way,” she said and gestured back into the home. Then she led him through her house and into what seemed to be the living room.

Off to the corner was a desk at a computer and plunked down beside the keyboard was an external hard-drive in a plastic bag. A cord was inside the bag as well.

The bag looked like it’d been rolled around the hard-drive and stuck away somewhere the sun didn’t shine.

There wasn’t any dirt on it, nor was it discolored.

“I kept it with-with the other things I kept as mementos from him,” Mirella admitted and shook her head. Then she looked at him, her lower lip stuck between her teeth. Watching him as if he were about to do a magic trick. “I tried plugging it in once. Just once. It needed a password though.”

“Ah, yeah, forgot about that,” Vern whispered almost to himself as he stood in front of a bookshelf. “I didn’t trust people. Not at all. The only person who ever got a key to my house was Mirella in the end. Not even Tilly but… that was strained.

“Kinda glad she did have a key though. If she didn’t, probably would’ve lost the hard-drive. Our only damn clue would be in a stupid card board box at best, in the trash at worst.”

Key?

Key.

Ryan sat there, staring at the hard-drive as his brain processed what he’d just heard.

Forcing his hands to movement, he lightly opened the ziploc bag and began to fish out the hard-drive, even as he chewed over everything he’s seen and heard.

Tilly said he trusted no one.

Vern admitted he trusted no one.

Even Mirella seems to think he doesn’t trust anyone.

But… how did she get the hard-drive?

It would’ve been in his home after he vanished, but Tilly said it was reported by a detective that he was missing.

Not Mirella.

After Vern disappeared, they wouldn’t have let anyone into his home. It’d have been marked off as a crime scene until they ruled out homicide or kidnapping.

Her story doesn’t match.

Oh shit.

“Mm… password,” Ryan mumbled. His brain was mostly off as he spoke. His mind was rushing ahead now. “Did he have anything in his wallet? Anything on him that might’ve given us a clue to it?”

“No,” Mirella whined with a shake of her head. From the other room there was a long steady beep of what was likely the coffee maker. “He didn’t write down passwords or anything like that. I’ll be right back. Do you like cream and sugar in your coffee?”

“Yes, thank you,” answered Ryan robotically.

Right now, his mind was hung up on the idea that Mirella knew more than she was letting on.

Having his files, being one of the only people to have a key to his home, and someone he would have marginally let his guard down around, she was a prime suspect.

“Password?” Ryan whispered and quickly plugged in the hard-drive to the computer and thumbed the space-bar, waking it up.

“Tilly girl,” Vern mumbled, sounding embarrassed.

Ryan said nothing, clicked into the computer window, dug up the drive, then tried to access it.

A window popped up, asking him to put in the password.

To which Ryan typed in Tilly girl, thumbed the space-bar, and found himself looking at the interior of a folder structure of the hard drive

The most recently edited file was titled as ‘lab report’.

Ryan clicked into it, saw it was a report that listed out a screen on a blood sample.

It was a lab sample that’d been run by a Coroner in Huntington, rather than Noxfield. There was a massive spike in the tox-screen that had the heading of ‘Benzodiazepine’, then following that, ‘Midazolam’, and then ‘1-hydroxymidazolam’.

Huh?

Ryan had no idea what that was, but he suddenly realized why Vern had died. Why the Coroner was ducking out on his calls about Vern, why his body was missing, and maybe why there was a cover-up.

Vern had figured out his EMT girlfriend was either helping a serial killer, perhaps the Coroner himself, or was the serial killer directly with the Coroner assisting her.

Because that fancy name, Midazolam, was something an EMT probably had in their magical medical box. Something that didn’t come over the counter and something the Coroner of Noxfield politely ignored, dismissed, or hid.

Which was why the coroner’s report was from a neighboring city, rather than Noxfield.

A glance at the date told Ryan that the lab report likely came over only minutes before it was entered into the hard-drive. That maybe Vern got the report, read it, realized the connection, and got ended by Mirella or the Coroner.

Perhaps the Huntington Coroner reached out to ask why the Noxfield one hadn’t done the work himself.

It all would play into why the Noxfield Coroner was suddenly dodging all questions about Vern from everyone.

Lastly, Mirella had the hard-drive.

Something that realistically would’ve been collected by the Noxfield PD after they swept the house.

Her having the hard-drive when she shouldn’t, a key to his house that sounded like was very rare for Vern, and one of the few people he might have let his guard down around, told Ryan that everything was in full support of Mirella or the Coroner being the serial killer.

Whichever way it went between the two, one was assisting the other do the killing or hiding the bodies.

It didn’t matter who did what, because it amounted to the same thing.

“Ryan!” warned Vern on his right.

Mirella was right next to him with a coffee cup in one hand. Her right hand had something behind her thigh.

Before he could process it, she’d stabbed him in the shoulder with something.

Something sharp.

It was a hypodermic needle.

Shit!

Not waiting, Ryan stood up, slammed a fist across Mirella’s face, and then bolted.

He ran for the front door and blew it open. Nearly shattering it clean off it’s hinges in the doing of it.

Even as he took a step out of the door though, he already felt strange.

His arm was tingling and he realized that whatever she’d stuck him with, was going to kill him quickly, or knock him out.

In the best case scenario, he needed to hide.

Escape wasn’t going to be possible if she gave him something potent. She was an EMT at one point after all. She’d likely have heavy duty sedatives or pain killers.

Either of which would put him in a catatonic or comatose state.

Pivoting back into her home, he slunk up the stairs quietly.

Quickly.

He did it without making a sound.

Not waiting around for whatever might happen, he moved into a room after reachign the top of the stairs.

Below, on the ground floor, he heard Mirella shout something. Something angry, but Ryan couldn’t quite make it out.

In fact, things were sounding really strange now that he thought on it.

Whatever she’d given him was working quickly.

Very quickly.

Shit, shit, shit.

Okay, uh, we’ll… just… under the bed.

Damn D-grade horror movie hero.

Putting action to the thoughts, Ryan slid under a bed that looked as if it’d been made months and months ago, and then untouched. Their was even a bed-skirt around it that’d do a wonderful job of keeping him out of view.

As he shuffled under the bed, his phone made a chirping noise in his pocket.

God damnit.

That’d be just as stupid as could be.

Being revealed by the phone!

Reaching into his pocket, Ryan felt like his arm wasn’t responding. He could barely think, in fact, and the world was spinning wildly in multiple directions.

Grasping the power button he pushed it and held it down as he struggled to pull it out of his pocket.

It came out with a light thump and he glanced at the screen.

He could see the red ‘power off’ button, even as his gaze swam and warbled all around himself.

A slow breath as he flopped his hand at his phone was all he could manage. Ryan felt like he was heading for oblivion and this was too much for him.

His hand flopped against the screen, but before he could figure out if he’d hit the power button, he lost his hold on consciousness.