Author: Bob

Five long minutes passed as I waited for the cops to arrive. Usually, if I was sitting in my van for a while, I would have reviewed notes or otherwise tried to be productive. Not this time. Instead, I sat in the darkness of my van under gloomy November skies, my arms wrapped around me. The wind blew past, and I jumped at every leaf or piece of trash that moved.

Three sheriff SUVs rolled up at about the same time. One parked directly in line with my front door. The second parked a couple of car lengths up the street from there. The third pulled in behind me.

I got out of my van as they showed up, careful to keep my hands in plain sight the whole time.

Two of the deputies wore the regular uniforms, but the third guy, the one parked behind me, was in a suit. The one in the suit asked, “Are you Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked over to me while the others walked toward my building. I hadn’t seen him before at the sheriff’s office. He was just a little taller than me, but a lot more muscular. His dark hair was neatly trimmed, so he definitely looked like a cop. It was odd that the wind didn’t move his hair; maybe he had something in it. “Have you seen anyone?” he asked.

I shook my head in the negative. “No, I saw that the lock was broken and ran to my van to call you guys. I haven’t seen anything else.”

He nodded an acknowledgment and held his hand up in a sort of blocking motion. “Okay, you just wait here while we take a look.”

By “we” he seemed to mean the uniformed deputies. One checked out the door while the other walked around the exterior, presumably looking for signs of crime. Once the outside checker made a complete circuit, both drew their sidearms and slowly entered.

Having strangers enter my home rattled my sense of safety and my place in the world. Trying to fix the issue by having more strangers go inside, even if I called them, really cemented the issue. Sure, the new batch were deputies, and they looked a little familiar, but I didn’t really know them. Acid filled my guts and I felt like I could puke at any moment.

I also knew that not everyone approved of my hobby and all the accoutrements involved. Many of the books on my shelves covered strange occult topics as well as gore, mental illness, and some of history’s more disturbing killings. Add that to the odd artwork and various trinkets I had collected over the years, I could only assume the deputies were building a mighty worrisome mental image of me.

In a few tense minutes, they came back out and joined the suited guy and me. The taller one, I thought I had seen him at the station before, said, “The house is clear. Other than the front door lock, there wasn’t any sign of damage.”

“Thanks, Barry,” said the suited guy.

The deputies headed back toward their SUVs. The suited guy turned back to me and handed me a business card. “I’m Sergeant Bill Beringer. Do you have any idea who might want to break into your house?”

“Maybe,” I said. “There’s a guy named Johnny Franks. We worked for Mary Seiferts who owns an apartment building over on Field Street. He was breaking locks when he forgot his key. The one lock I saw was broken like the one on my door. Anyway, I found him behind her building when he was very drunk. Worried that he would freeze to death, I called nine-one-one to get him some help. When they picked him up, it turned out he may have been involved in crimes elsewhere.”

Unlike Sergeant Hargrave, Sergeant Beringer didn’t write anything in a notebook. Instead, he stared intently like he was memorizing every aspect of the scene. He could probably play back the memory later, looking over the detail of every blade of grass. At least, that’s how it felt.

“Do you think Franks might blame you for his arrest and could have been trying to get revenge?”

That had definitely been my thought. As I sat in my van waiting for law enforcement to show up, that was about the only thing going through my mind. “It’s a possibility, I guess. I just thought the broken lock looked familiar. For all I know, maybe everybody breaks locks like that these days.”

“Have you seen Franks since that night?”

I thought for a moment just to be sure. “Not that I can think of.”

“I see,” Beringer responded in a tone that told me nothing about how he took my statements. “It’s my understanding that you are helping Sergeant Hargrave on another case involving a drug lab and arson. Is there anything about this entry into your home that might be connected to that investigation?”

That was a new take. I had spent so much time obsessing over the danger of Johnny Franks that I hadn’t given any thought to any other threats. “I suppose so, but I don’t know of anything specific,” I said. “Honestly, I’m new to the idea of guessing what a criminal thinks about. I’m really out of my element with that stuff.”

He stood, as though waiting for something else from me. With nothing else coming, he turned and motioned toward the deputies. The shorter one headed toward us.

Beringer pointed toward my front door and said to me, “Let’s go inside. You can look the place over and tell us if anything is missing or damaged.”

As we walked in, Beringer instructed, “If you see something out of place or questionable, don’t touch it. Just point it out and we’ll record it and see if we can get any evidence.”

Up until then, I hadn’t noticed that the uniformed deputies wore cameras. The microphone for their radio, I thought that’s what it was, hung from their shoulder, stopping before it reached the badge. Just below that, a small digital camera hung, taking in everything. That made me feel both safer and more paranoid.

The deputy that followed us also carried a small, black plastic toolbox. I assumed it was for evidence gathering. I had seen things like that in movies.

I expected a disaster, with everything in the house thrown around and smashed. Instead, it was like nothing had happened at all. That was almost creepier. Still, just inside the door, I took a deep breath. The place smelled like home, and that helped. It’s funny how you don’t notice what your home smells like all the time, until you come home after too long away. I hadn’t been gone that long, but waiting in the van felt like forever.

Being methodical, I looked over every artifact and art piece. It wasn’t until I got to the books that something jumped out as wrong. Three of the books, about zombie-style rituals from Polynesia, were not lined up straight.

Lining up my books was a personality quirk of mine. I was kind of a nut about it. I read once that it kept the lateral pressures against the sides of the books even, thus prolonging their lives. Since then, I had been obsessed.

“Over here,” I said. “These three books aren’t lined up with the others the way I usually do it. It looks like someone pulled them out and didn’t put them back correctly.”

Beringer bent forward, hands clasped behind his back, to look at the books, peering at them from every angle without making physical contact. Once he seemed satisfied, he stood straight and motioned to the deputy.

The deputy sat his case on the floor near the books, opened it up, and started his work. He started by taking photos from several angles with a camera from the box. Then, it looked like he gathered finger prints, like they do in the movies, using a little brush and some powder.

While he did his work, I moved on, across the rest of my books. I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, and bedroom. Nothing stood out as wrong. Having read on the Internet about what people do to toothbrushes, I decided that I would replace mine to be on the safe side. I was going to have to go buy a new lock anyway, so I would already be shopping.

How I hadn’t noticed before was a mystery. I had been so focused on the little details that I hadn’t noticed the big one.

My computer was missing from the desk.

“Sergeant,” I called.

Beringer looked up at me and then followed my line of sight to my desk. “What is it?” he asked.

“My laptop computer is missing,” I said.

The sergeant walked to the desk and closely observed every part of it. He leaned and crouched, viewing the desk from every angle, all without touching it. Once satisfied, he rose straight up and called to the deputy.

The deputy had just finished where he was and was gathering his tools and a couple of bags containing my misaligned books. He came over to the desk.

Beringer turned to me and said, “Please describe the computer and anything else that was on the desk, to the best of your ability.”

If he hadn’t asked, I probably could have described everything in complete detail. As soon as I got the question, my mind went fuzzy. I could see a mental picture of the desk the way it was when I left it, but all the details were blurred out. I had to concentrate.

“I can’t remember all the details,” I said. “Those papers were there and it looks like they may have moved; I’m usually neater than that.” An idea popped into my head. “The laptop was just a normal laptop, but I have the model and serial number stored online.” Though he was my financial advisor, Rick also gave good tech advice, and he told me to store stuff online, including the serial numbers of all my stuff.

The deputy brushed dust all over the top and edges of my desk, looking for the elusive fingerprints. You would think that today’s crooks would be aware enough to not touch anything with the uncovered pads of their fingers. We’ve been taught that in movies and TV since childhood. Being late November, nobody would question someone wearing gloves.

“I can access the records with my phone,” I said. Slowly and deliberately, with no sudden moves, damn I was paranoid, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. After logging in, I swiped a couple of times to find the required app. The third item on the list was my laptop.

Holding up my cell phone screen so Beringer could see, I said, “There it is.”

He leaned forward and looked, again as though he was memorizing everything. Then he smiled slightly. “Could you please text that to the number on the card I gave you? Thank you.”

A wave of embarrassment swept over me as I realized that he probably couldn’t see the tiny print on the screen and definitely wasn’t going to remember all that data. Oops.

I pulled his card out of my pocket and composed the text while he turned his attention back to the deputy and the desk.

They finished getting everything they could from the outside of the desk. Using gloved hands, they opened the drawers one by one and asked me if anything looked out of place. Normally, the drawers only held office supplies and nothing of value. It all looked fine.

The crime scene investigation wrapped up and the sergeant and deputy gathered their things to leave. The thought of being alone in my recently violated home sent a tingle through my intestines. I wasn’t quite ready for them to leave yet.

“Sergeant?” I asked. “Do you think it will be safe here? I mean, are they likely to come back?”

Beringer looked at me as though he was summing up everything he could think of related to me and my place in the universe. “It’s hard to say. If they just wanted to break in and steal stuff or frighten you, they’re probably done. We will check the fingerprints as soon as we get back to the office, and if it is Franks or one of his associates, we will have them picked up soon enough. To be on the safe side, our regular patrols will include this area for a while, just to keep an eye on things.” He started to turn but stopped, “You will want to get your lock fixed as soon as you can.”

That was the very thing next on my list. “Any recommendations for a lock?”

He pursed his lips together and looked toward the floor, presumably in thought. When he looked back to me he said, “Quality has a price. Whatever you get, make sure it is good quality, maybe a high end brand and high end model. Maybe get the best you can get for now and then talk to a security expert to get optimal advice for your situation.”

He turned and left, taking his deputy with him.

I followed as far as my front door and then watched as they huddled for a couple of minutes before leaving in their individual vehicles.

Normally, being at home felt cozy and comfortable. That had changed. Now, the walls seemed imaginary, like any fiend could walk through whenever it wanted to. The urge to get out welled up in me. I fought the desire to run away, to run as fast as I could.

Taking some deep, calming breaths, I got myself together. The front door lock was broken. I needed to go buy a new lock. That would leave my place open. I came up with a solution.

Closing and latching the front door, I got some pennies and wedged them into the cracks between the door and the door frame. I heard somewhere that this would keep the door from opening. It was probably just an urban legend or something, but it was all I had and it gave me some sense of comfort, whether justified or not.

With the front door fastened, I exited through the back door, with its lock intact. I was very careful to exit quietly, looking around me for any sign of trouble. Trying to not look suspicious, I walked around the house toward my van. It’s hard to not look like you are up to no good when you are cautiously peering around the corner of your house before round that corner.

Buttoning up my home securely made me feel somewhat better. I think it was the sense of control. With my new-found confidence and sense of purpose, I headed for the store to buy a sturdy lock and a sanitary toothbrush.

Fortunately, the phone rang and I was once again headed down to the sheriff’s office. That would keep me occupied for at least a little time. I looked forward to being questioned just to get something like social interaction. That was weird. Then I put the thought out of my mind.

In the parking lot of the sheriff’s office, a couple of men stood with a bunch of dogs on leashes. There must have been six hounds, at least I guessed they were hounds from what little I knew about dogs. A van stood open ready for loading or unloading.

I parked my own van as far away as I could, not wanting to interfere with whatever they were doing. About the time I got a few paces from the front entrance of the office, all the dogs turned to me and barked like Sammy had at the amulet.

Being in a rush to meet Sergeant Hargrave, I forgot that I still had the amulet with me. Subconsciously, I had wrapped the chain around my hand and drove over like that. I looked at the amulet and then back at the dogs.

They were definitely staring at the amulet.

I moved my hand away from my body, with the arm straight out.

The eyes of the ferocious beasts followed.

One of the men yelled, “What the hell is that?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” I yelled back.

I lowered my hand back to my jacket pocket and hid the amulet inside.

The barking subsided, but the dogs still stared at me. They stood braced, scared, and with hackles raised.

I waved to the men with my other hand. “Sorry.” Getting indoors suddenly took priority.

The deputy on duty was the one Hargrave called John back on Stan’s farm. He strained to see outside as though he could hear all the barking going on. He stopped when he saw me and pushed a button. The door buzzed and John said, “You can go on back.”

Hargrave came out of his office as I entered. “What’s got the dogs riled?” he asked.

Deputy John shrugged his shoulders in answer.

I couldn’t do that. So far, I had a good track record of honesty with the sergeant, and I wanted to stay on his good side. “Sorry,” I said, “They were barking at me.”

Hargrave looked at me with a raised eyebrow suggesting the situation required more detail.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and held up the amulet. “Well, they were barking at this. It seems to drive dogs crazy and I was researching why and forgot that I had it with me when I came over.”

It was hard to read the sergeant’s expression. It seemed to go from “what the heck are you talking about?” to “this is going to be something else weird,” to “whatever, let’s just do this thing.” At least, that was my best guess. I’ve found that I haven’t always read people very well.

Once we were seated in Hargrave’s office, he held out his hand. “Can I see that necklace of yours?”

I hadn’t thought of it as a necklace, so I paused for a moment while I figured out what he wanted. Of course it was a necklace; it was a bauble of some sort on a chain big enough to go over the head and hang around the neck.

I handed it to him.

He scrutinized all sides of the thing, probably memorizing every detail in case it came up somewhere else.

I decided to be helpful. “The wire seems to be twisted gold and the rock is coral.”

“I thought coral was illegal,” he said. It wasn’t quite an accusation, but it felt a little accusatory. Maybe that was just my interpretation.

“It is,” I said. “At least, it’s illegal in most places to harvest natural coral because they’re endangered any more. I think there may be people growing some in tanks, but I don’t know if that’s for jewelry. There’s still a lot of old jewelry around, including this one.”

He nodded an acceptance of my answer as he finished examining the amulet. “What’s the writing say?”

“I don’t know yet,” I answered. “It doesn’t look like Greek or any related alphabet. I took a picture and sent it out to some people on the Internet. Maybe one of them can tell us something.”

He handed the amulet back to me. “Yeah, the Internet,” he said. “I’ve been looking over your website.”

Oh crap. There was nothing wrong with what he said or how he said it, but the mention of my website caused my heart to sink into my colon and I did not need that kind of pressure there. Over the years, many people had negative things to say about my website. Some religious extremists decried it as devil worship. Parents hated that it put foolish or evil ideas into the heads of their innocent little children. Some thought it was a tool for fraud. Some even claimed that I downplayed the real danger of zombies for some reason. There were any number of things Hargrave could have found to disapprove of on my site.

“I noticed that your journal of investigations hasn’t mentioned anything about the open grave we found out at Stan Loffland’s place. I appreciate that, since it’s an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Okay, that sounded positive. He was not upset about anything. However, it sounded like maybe he was subtly instructing me not to do something. I had every intention of complying with his instructions. “Yeah, it’s a criminal thing and not a zombie thing, so I didn’t think of saying anything about it.” Hopefully, that would appease him.

“Glad to hear it,” he said. He smiled. It was a friendly enough smile, but I still found it a touch predator-like. I assumed that was because I still saw myself as prey.

He picked up his notebook from his desk and reclined back in his chair. “There was another reason I wanted to talk to you. I’ve got a few informal questions.”

Gulp. “Sure, anything I can do to help.”

He took a deep breath, preparing to say a lot. “The state archaeologist examined the open grave. Their report says there were signs that the coffin held a body but that it had been removed. The dogs you saw out front are headed out to the farm to see if they can pick up any trail associated with the grave and its, uh, contents.”

I shook my head. The criminals making drugs on a farm were bad enough. Now they’ve shot at an old man, burned down his family home, and stolen the body of one of his ancestors.

“Anyway,” Hargrave continued, “we don’t deal with grave robbing very much around here. If the grave robbers had just stolen jewelry or gold teeth, like you suggested, then I would completely understand them. But taking the whole body means they might be doing things I don’t understand. That’s where you come in.”

“Me? Uh, I’m happy to help, but I don’t know what I can do?”

He held up his right hand, palm toward me, presumably to calm me? “It’s just a few questions,” he said. “We don’t have any occult experts and I would have to do a lot of paperwork to hire an expert. It would cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. But, you, at least, are an amature expert, and I know it would mean a lot to Loffland if we could wrap up this case. Would you mind answering some questions about the occult uses of an old corpse?”

The sergeant made a lot of sense. It would take a lot of work to get someone with a PhD to swing out to Abish County. At the same time, Hargrave could test how much of an expert I really am. My paranoia at work again told me that the sergeant hadn’t made up his mind about me and whether I was a good guy or bad guy. It also occurred to me that this may be a way to see if I was involved in the grave robbery.

“Well, let’s see,” I started. I really had read a lot of research on this stuff; it was just taking a moment to think of it on the spot. “There are some small religions that will use a corpse, though usually just the skull, as a conduit to communicate to other worlds during rituals. In many of those cases, the deceased must be a relative or ancestor.”

Hargrave scribbled in his notebook as I talked. It was possible he was taking this seriously and really was planning to use my expertise.

“There have been cases of people attempting to raise the dead in order to have a mindless slave,” I said. “It never works. The closest thing that did work was the creation of a type of zombie where the person started out alive and the drugs given to them turned them into a mindless brute. The poor victims didn’t survive long. Those aren’t the kind of drugs the local guys can make; these drugs require exotic tropical plants.”

He kept writing, glancing up occasionally.

“After that,” I continued, “most of it breaks down into weird, small groups instead of religions. They may think they are reviving an ancient ritual when they really don’t know enough about anything ancient to really understand it.”

Hargrave stopped writing and looked up. “Would these be the same kinds of groups that attract people who make and use meth?”

I guessed he was making a connection. Maybe he really did want my insight. “Could be,” I said. “I haven’t had a lot of experience directly interacting with the meth crowd, but from what little I’ve heard, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

He made a couple more scribbles, the sound of the pen against the paper loud enough for me to hear from my seat on the opposite side of the desk.

“About these rituals, what would that involve? What would it look like?”

It was my turn to take a deep breath for a big explanation. “Well, the people who do this often get their inspiration from T.V. or movies. Whatever ritual they do will probably be done at night. If it’s indoors, they will have a bunch of candles, and if outdoors they will have torches or a bonfire. After that, it will depend on what they are trying to do with the body or its parts. That could be anything from eating it to trying to make something out of it. The long bones make handles for big knives. Some still want to drink out of a skull because they think it sounds cool. I don’t know; it could be anything.”

He finished his writing; I had given him quite a bit. When he was done, his eyes scanned over the page and then directed to the ceiling while he processed it all. After a moment, he seemed to come up with a question. “Would any of these rituals involve, uh, you know, anything, uh, sexual in nature?”

His awkwardness with the question softened my view of him a little. It was funny to see him struggle with that. I nodded in response. “Yep,” I said, “The kind of people who would be okay digging up an old body could be open to anything.”

He made another note.

Setting the notebook down, Hargrave stood up. Something about how he did it told me I should do the same and that we were done.

“Thanks for coming down and helping with the investigation. It’s greatly appreciated, and I hope it won’t show up on your website, at least until our investigation is done.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake.

I shook his hand. “I’m always glad to help.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said as he guided me out the door and toward the front exit. “Oh, and if you find out why that necklace of yours makes the dogs bark, I’d like to know.”

“Sure thing,” I said before waving to him and stepping out through the security door.

I stopped at the external door and looked out the window for any sign of the dogs. They and the associated van were gone.

The trip home was uneventful. I didn’t even stop by the convenience store for a beverage.

The interaction with Hargrave seemed genuine, but I still got the impression that he didn’t trust me completely. In his line of work, trust probably didn’t happen as deeply as it did for other people. Maybe that was what I picked up. Who knows.

I parked in my spot and walked to the front door of my place and stopped.

Living in small-town Iowa meant you didn’t need an extensive security system. A simple lock on your front door was adequate to stop the curious and the momentarily tempted. The very determined criminal was rare and usually needed a personal reason to break in.

The cylinder part of my front door lock hung loosely from the rest of the lock mechanism as though someone had forced it out to break the lock.

I stared for a moment at the lock.

My ego would like to think my mind was racing over all the possibilities and options for response. In reality, no thoughts came to my mind. Panic took over and I stood, frozen, staring at the mangled lock.

Despite feeling like years, in a few seconds my senses returned and I ran quickly back to my van, climbed in and locked the doors.

It was time for a very panicked call to nine-one-one.

I checked on Stan the next day. He was doing well, having purchased an air mattress and sleeping bag for himself and a very nice dog bed for Sammy. Still convinced he wouldn’t be there long, he declined my repeated offer of furniture. That was okay. Mrs. Sweigart got his rental agreement to him and, while they chatted, she apparently directed him to Rick Novak, my financial advisor.

With Stan and Sammy all settled, I focused on the amulet. It didn’t seem to have any odor, at least as far as I could tell. Somewhere I read that a dog’s sense of smell was like thirty or forty times more sensitive than a human’s, so maybe Sammy could smell something I couldn’t.

The gold was just twisted wire forming a cage to hold the coral piece and a loop at the top for the chain. I was just guessing that it was gold. The color looked like gold and it showed no signs of corrosion. Tests existed to see if a metal is gold, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the amulet and I didn’t know how to do those tests.

The texture of the coral felt interesting, sort of organic. That made sense, I guess, with corals being tiny living creatures. I knew enough to understand that the coral rock, like used with jewelry, started off as tiny little aquatic animals. I thought I heard that their skeletons or shells turned into rock over millions of years and that was what I held in my hand.

The roughly round shape of the amulet looked like it grew that way on its own. The color was consistently dark pink with a hint of orange. On the face, someone had polished a flat, round area and carved symbols into it. The symbols formed a circle of their own along the inner boundary of the polished area. The letters were probably Greek or similar. That was the problem with not finishing your formal education, you ended up without much education.

I got the amulet back in college. Some guy in the dorm room across the hall gave it to me. I think his name was Bill or something. I was walking to my room when he called out to me through the open door to his room.

“Hey,” he said,”You’re Tim, right? I got something for you.” He tossed me the amulet and its chain. “My roommate said you’re into weird stuff. That belonged to my girlfriend. She said it was to ward off the evil eye. She just broke up with me and went back to Jersey where her old boyfriend lives.”

I muttered some thanks and went on to my room. He was right, I was known to be into weird stuff back then. Okay, always. Still, up until that moment, I didn’t know other people thought of me that way.

The important point, though, was that there was no previous owner to interrogate about the amulet. All the info available was what Bill, or whoever, told me back then. Fortunately, there was the Internet.

For the next two days, I followed links and read what showed up. Science articles, blog posts, histories, anything that may shed light on the amulet. I learned about how corals are these microscopic predators with tentacles that shoot poison barbs into their prey. Once the prey was stunned or killed, the tentacles pulled the victim into the belly to be digested. Anything indigestible got ejected back into front of the tentacles, presumably to lure in the next meal. I was sure I was going to have nightmares about walking along, minding my own business, when a barb would fill me full of toxin before dragging my limp, but still conscious body back to be slowly dissolved.

It seemed that many cultures used coral for protective amulets or good luck charms. The Romans made their kids wear coral to protect from sickness, lightning, and the evil eye. That supported what Bill said, or his girlfriend said, or… was there even a girlfriend?

Sometimes, I found myself a little paranoid. Generally, I didn’t believe in conspiracy theories. I didn’t think you could get that many people to go along with the big plots without adding in everybody’s individual incompetence. The old saying went: tell one person and you are confiding a secret, but tell two people and you are telling the world. Still, sometimes, the most brief glimmer of suspicion popped into my head.

Though it was true, there was no evidence that Bill had a girlfriend, I could not think of any reason why anyone would maliciously give me an amulet. I wasn’t a threat to anyone. I hadn’t caused any trouble anywhere. Heck, I had hardly done anything at all with my life, especially since my parents died.

I stopped. That was a dark place. Not the death of my parents; I dealt with that years ago. Realizing that I hadn’t done anything in the years since, that was a problem. Part of me knew that I was not living a healthy life. The recent interactions with Stan and Mrs. Sweigart made it clear that I didn’t have people in my life. I just spent a couple of days in research, completely isolated in my place, and no one checked on me.

There was no time for that kind of thinking. Instead, there was an amulet to figure out. That was what was critical.

If coral amulet warded off evil, why would Sammy react so negatively to this one?

It was unlikely that Sammy was evil; you just don’t get that in dogs. Most of the time, you don’t get that in dogs.

I decided to focus on the writing. According to the Internet, the writing wasn’t Greek or any of the related, Meditaranean scripts. That told me it was one of three things: an unknown script related to the Greek alphabet, the alphabet used by some cult group, or just cosmetic gibberish.

The people who study alphabets seemed to have a good grip on the writing systems of the Greeks and their neighbors, so an unknown relative was unlikely. Likewise, gibberish probably wouldn’t induce barking in tired, old dogs. That left one option.

I decided it was time to involve someone else. Dr. Willy ran a podcast and had published several paranormal books. People filled his social media with anything related to the occult or related. Maybe someone there would have a clue.

Using my phone, I took a closeup photo of the writing and posted it on Dr. Willy’s feed. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long to get a response. I would just have to avoid getting too anxious while waiting.

Until then, I needed to take a nap, and probably dream about tentacles and poison barbs.

Mary Sweigart’s car sat in front of the apartment building. I parked ahead of her car, and Stan parked his pickup ahead of me. I got out but didn’t see Mrs. Sweigart anywhere and assumed she was inside.

Stan made his way around the truck to let Sammy out. A minute later, the two joined me.

I pointed to the building. “Well, this is the place.”

Stan smiled, but it seemed forced. The past few days had been rough on him, or so I figured.

Mrs. Sweigart came out of the apartment building and walked toward us. “Hello,” she said in a chipper voice, as though trying to make a sale. She didn’t really understand that Stan was already as sold on the place as he was going to get.

We walked toward her to save her the trip. As her eyes dropped down to Sammy, a brief flash of worry crossed her face. In only a moment, her smile returned and she extended her hand to Stan. “You must be Mr. Loffland, my new tenant.”

The old farmer shook her hand as politely as he could. “Yes, ma’am, if it’s not any trouble.” He tried to smile harder, and it showed.

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said. “Come on, I’ll show you where everything is.” She paused while thinking about something. Turning back, she asked, “The apartment is on the second floor; is that alright?”

Stan seemed confused by the question before realizing what she meant. Was the old man able to get up and down the stairs? “Oh, that will be fine. I shouldn’t have any trouble.”

As we passed into the common area, Edna, the tenant I met on my previous visit, popped out of her door. “Is this the new fella?”

Mrs. Sweigart stopped and seemed flustered.

Fortunately, Mr. Loffland handled things. “Yes, ma’am. I’m Stan Loffland, but you can call me Stan if you like. And this here is Sammy.”

Edna smiled politely. “It’s very nice to meet both of you. I’m Edna Mallory. I live here.”

Stan tried smiling. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Mallory. Edna is a pretty name. My late missus was named Edna.”

Edna leaned toward Mrs. Sweigart and made an exaggerated whisper, “Hear that, Mary? He’s available.”

“Edna!” Mrs. Sweigart put her hand over her mouth and stared at Edna with wide eyes.

Stan’s eyes went a bit wide too, but he made a point of looking directly at the walls, ceiling, or any other place. The effort must have turned his cheeks bright red.

Edna turned toward Stan to finish. “Mary has had the hardest time since her Harold passed. I keep telling her she needs to find someone else.”

Stan’s facial redness flared further and his back went rigid.

That’s when Edna redirected her focus to me. “It’s nice to see you too, Mr. Hunt. I talked to the doctor like you said and they agreed that it was probably a mouse and I was going to be okay.”

I nodded my acknowledgement. “That’s good to hear, Edna.”

The eighty-something-year-old grinned as wide her face allowed. Then, rolling back into her apartment, she said, “You folks have a nice day, now.” The door closed and she was gone.

My elderly companions stood frozen to the spot. You used to read tales of witches who could say magic words and leave people paralyzed. I wondered if I just witnessed an example of that power. If so, I needed to learn it.

“So,” I said in an attempt to break the spell, “shall we go up to the apartment?”

They both sputtered a little and mumbled agreement. Mrs. Sweigart led the way.

The apartment consisted of a main room, a small kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Windows in the main room faced the street and the bedroom windows showed the fields out back. The kitchen came with a refrigerator and an electric stove. Beyond that, the place was bare except for carpet.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any furnished apartments,” Mrs. Sweigart said.

Stan nodded a little while looking around. “Oh, this will be fine. I can get some things to hold me over. I’m not sure how long I’ll need the place. Once I can get hold of my kids, I’ll be able to make better plans.”

Mrs. Sweigart held out the keys. “Here you go. I have to find where I put the rental contracts, but I’ll drop those off when I can. Timmy seems like a nice guy and he vouches for you, and the deputy seemed to think you were okay, so I’ll trust you.”

“I appreciate that,” said Stan as he took the keys. “I won’t be any trouble. And if there’s anything around her you need fixed or something, I’d be happy to take a look at it.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” She almost turned to leave but hesitated. “The deputy, he said that some drug people burned your house down. Do you think they may come here looking for you?”

Stan’s eyebrows rose and he looked into space in an attempt to find an answer. I don’t think he had given that any thought.

I decided to intervene. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Sweigart. Those guys like out of the way places, like old farms, to set up their drug labs. Now that they think they’ve run him off, they don’t have any reason to bother Stan or Sammy. That part should be all over now.”

In truth, I was talking out my backside. It sounded reasonable, but I didn’t know anything about it. The jerks were prone to irrational behavior, like shooting at an old man and burning his house down. They may not be happy that he survived and they may be worried that he could be a witness if they ever went to trial. There was nothing we could do about that at the moment, but my babble seemed to relax everybody in the room. Hey, I could fake being relaxed.

With that settled, Mrs. Sweigart said her goodbyes and was on her way, leaving just the old man, his dog, and myself in the apartment.

“I have some extra furniture,” I said. “When my parents passed away, I sold the house and put everything in storage. You’re welcome to it.”

“We had a china hutch in the dining room.” Stan’s words were strained and he stared at the floor. “They said it came over from Germany when everyone immigrated. It had been in the family at least that long, and nobody can remember how long the family had it back in Baden.”

He slumped a little more and I could tell something emotional was going on. I wasn’t good with my own emotions, let alone other people’s, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

He rubbed his nose with a curled forefinger. “I grew up in that house just like my dad did. His mother grew up there. We been in that house a long time.”

Now I could see a tear running down his cheek.

“I raised my own two kids there,” he continued. “All the things they made in school were in that house. The pictures. Those pictures are all I had left of my Edna. All of that is gone now.”

He stood, like a solid piece of stone slowly shaking apart in an earthquake. He was a tough guy who led a tough life, but now his world was coming apart and could never be put back again. Be barely made any sounds, but tears streamed over his cracked skin before dripping to the floor.

Sammy moved closer and leaned heavily against Stan’s legs.

We stood like that for nearly ten minutes.

Stan grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket and used it to remove the signs of sadness, cleared his throat a little, and straightened his posture. Back in control of his emotions, he reached down to pet Sammy and reassure the dog that everything was going to be okay.

Then he turned to me, obviously a little embarrassed, but ready to move forward.

“I appreciate your help. I’ll take you up on the furniture, but maybe tomorrow. I got everything I need to sleep tonight and don’t really need anything else.”

I thought about asking about his emotional state, but decided the most polite thing was to pretend the previous ten minutes never happened. Instead, I would focus on the future. “I’m happy to help any way I can. You just let me know on the furniture. Who knows, we may get hold of your kids, David and Lori wasn’t it, and you won’t be here long enough to worry about furniture.”

With that, I made my own goodbyes and made my way back to my van.

On the drive home, I wondered about Mrs. Sweigart’s worry. Would the drug thugs go after Stan? It was the same worry I had about Johnny Franks. There can’t be that much crime in Abish county; could Johnny be connected to those drug guys?

A sudden exhaustion flooded my body as I got home. I had held up the weight of Stan’s emotions for too long and needed to set them aside. It was too early for bed, so I went to my desk and collapsed into the chair.

After sitting a moment, my eyes rolled over to the desk drawer: the drawer that held the amulet Sammy hated so much.

I pulled the drawer open and gathered up the amulet and its frame. What was it about the amulet that stirred the old dog to action? It was time for some research.

The call came at about mid-morning. Hargrave asked if I could bring Sammy and meet the sergeant and Stan at Stan’s farm. Twenty minutes later, the dog and I pulled up in front of the barn.

Only about a quarter of the house still stood. What had been the back corner of the old four-square rose up, charred, with burnt rubble around its base. Much of the ruins had collapsed into the basement. The gray of the smoked outer walls was just a little darker than that of the clouds.

A couple of trucks from the sheriff’s department sat in the drive. Stan stood with some deputies near his own truck, having a conversation with them. I recognized one of the deputies as the one behind the reception desk on the day I first met Stan. The old farmer looked like he did the other day, except for the bandage on his right hand.

I slid out of the driver’s seat; cold air flooded past the collar of my coat and down my back, giving me a chill. Crossing to the passenger side of the van, I let Sammy out. The poor old fellow half climbed and half fell to the muddy ground. Once out, he sniffed. The scents gave him energy.

Before I knew what he was doing, Sammy ran in the direction of Stan. The liveliness of the dog surprised me.

Stan saw him and, growing his own wings, rushed over to meet his old friend.

Everyone stopped to watch the man and his dog reunited, with Sammy leaping up and Stan kneeling down. I wouldn’t have guessed that either was capable of that.

Hargrave approached me, his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for coming out,” he said.

“Glad to do it.” I nodded toward Stan and Sammy. “What’s the status?”

“We reached Mary Sweigart. She wasn’t sure about having a dog in the building, but finally decided it would be okay. We’ll be headed that way when we leave. Stan will take his own truck. It looks like the bad guys got to it and stole anything not locked down.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know who these bad guys were, but I really wanted something unpleasant to happen to them, and I usually didn’t think that way.

“One more thing,” he continued. “Would you mind going along? It might be nice if you could make the introductions since it was your idea.”

“Sure,” I said, “I would be happy to.” Something in the back of my mind thought it was odd for law enforcement to be getting a strange civilian involved with stuff, but I wasn’t sure what. It didn’t matter. I liked Stan and Sammy, and would probably like Mrs. Sweigart if I got to know her. Was it odd that I didn’t have any friends of my own? Not worth thinking about.

By this time, Stan, with Sammy alongside, came up to me to shake my hand. “I can’t thank you enough, Timmy.”

I shook his hand, trying to be mindful of the bandages.

“You took in Sammy, and the deputy here says you’re the one who suggested me a place to stay. All that for some old man you only just met. That’s a real saint there,” He kept shaking my hand.

“I’m glad I could help,” I said, trying to wind down the shake and extract my hand. “I’ve been in a bad spot myself before and it was others who helped, so I kind of understand.”

He stood there grinning.

I started to feel really uncomfortable, so I decided to change the subject. “Have you had a chance to call your insurance company yet?”

“No,” he said, “I’ll have to give them a call Monday. I should be a little more settled by then. I don’t see no point in rebuilding unless my son or daughter want to. The fields are still rented out and the buildings are past using for anything. Farming has just changed too much.”

I could see his point. With industrial agriculture over the past decades, the old family farms had slowly died out. It was like with the corn cribs. When combines became a thing, there was no need to store corn still on the cob. The kernels could dry in the big metal bins and the old cribs could collapse to form nests for meth rats.

Glancing over the farm, it was easy to see that the buildings would be hard to salvage. Age, weather, and disrepair had pushed them past the point of no return. The house had been the last reason to be on this farmstead, and now junkies had done what time couldn’t.

What was that? Something looked wrong.

I moved away from Stan and the sergeant and a little closer to the feedlot Stan walked me through on my last visit.

Yes, that was definitely wrong.

“Sergeant? Have your people checked on that?” I pointed toward the old graveyard.

Hargrave moved next to me and tried to follow my pointing finger. “What do you see?”

“In the graveyard,” I said. “I see something black.”

“Black? What kind of something?” I noticed that he motioned for the other deputies to come over.

I strained to see better but couldn’t. “I don’t know what it is, but I have a bad feeling about what it may be.”

As a group, we made our way toward the burial ground. The deputies kept a lookout on our surroundings as we went, their hands near their guns the whole time. This was unnerving all of us. The quiet of rural Iowa didn’t help at all.

Even the light wind stopped, leaving no noise at all. The almost constant whisper of the moving air through weeds and fence wires disappeared, leaving a nothingness. Being November, even the birds were gone.

As we approached the graveyard, my worry proved valid. The black thing I had seen was a pile of rich, dark topsoil. The same material that provided life-giving sustenance through farming meant something else in this antiquated graveyard, something terribly wrong.

We stopped at the fence that marked the boundary between consecrated and banal ground. From there, we could see that one of the graves stood empty. The marker stone, still in its place denoted the start of the hole in the ground. Chunks of rotted wood protruded from the mounded earth on each side, letting us know that whoever had despoiled the grave had reached the coffin within.

We all stood perfectly still, not even breathing.

Thoughts rushed through my head. Who would do this? Why would they do this? Were there any signs of cult activity? Was the body still there? If not, where was it?

Hargrave tapped me on the arm to get my attention. “Any ideas?”

Okay, it was time to get serious. If nothing else, I was sure the sergeant hadn’t made up his mind about me and was perfectly willing to believe I was involved somehow. Being professional and helpful was my best bet.

“Just speculating,” I said, “but we have bad guys who make drugs and burn down farm houses. They may have dug up a grave just to look for gold. You know, jewelry, teeth, that sort of thing.”

Hargrave nodded his approval. “That would make sense. We will have to check it out.” He motioned to one of the deputies, the one I recognized from the desk. “John, take a look. Try not to step on any recognizable footprints or any other evidence. See if they got to the body.”

John pressed his lips together and swallowed while staring at the grave. I got the impression he was not happy about his new assignment. Taking a deep breath, he stepped closer to the fence and then over it.

Scanning the ground before him, he carefully made his way to the disturbed earth. Once noticed, there was an obvious path where the grass had been stomped down. The path led from the corner of the graveyard closest to the old corn crib right up to the violated grave.

Deputy John carefully approached the black soil, and leaned to get a better look into the hole.

Hargrave called out, “Did they get to the body?”

John righted himself and responded, “What body? I can see parts of the coffin, but there’s no sign of a body there.”

“Damn it,” Hargrave muttered. “Alright,” he called to John, “Come on back, but be careful.”

While John came back, the sergeant gathered the rest of us back together. “So here’s the plan,” he started. He pointed to me, “You and Stan go on back to town and get Stan settled in his new place. I’ll check in with you later.” Then he turned to the two deputies. “The two of you stand guard out here until I can get someone to relieve you. This is now a crime scene, but it’s a little beyond our usual area. I’ll put a call into DCI and the state archaeologist.”

Stan looked puzzled. “Archaeologist?”

“Yep,” said Hargrave, “when dealing with any human remains more than a hundred years old, the state archaeologist has to be involved. It’s good too. They may not know much about our crime scene techniques, but they know all about the old stuff. Their expertise will see things we wouldn’t.”

John and the other deputy didn’t seem happy with the situation. “Better go get the thermos,” said the one that wasn’t John, and John started a jog back toward the trucks.

Stan, Sammy, and I also headed back toward the vehicles. I thought I heard Hargrave tell the remaining deputy to stay on his toes because “these guys” were violent. I assumed he meant the bad guys and I agreed with his assessment. They had already shot at an old farmer and burned his house down around him.

A few minutes later, and I was headed back to Mrs. Sweigart’s apartment building, with Stan and Sammy’s pickup following behind. At least that wouldn’t be too dangerous.

Leaving the farm should have put me at ease, but it didn’t. I could deal with meth heads digging up a corpse to steal gold teeth or something. What bugged me was why they would take the entire body.

Maybe the remains were still there but the deputy couldn’t see them. More than a century of interment would rot most of a body. If the vandals crushed or scattered the rest, it would not look like a body. If the state archaeologist found the rest of the remains, it would make me very happy.

If the body really was gone, though…