Murder! Too Close To Home

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

March 10, 1997

Betty was explaining to me that they had found a hand on the front steps of the courthouse.

I was fuddling with consciousness as I tried to wrap my head around what she was telling me. She then told me we needed to get dressed so we could meet the task force at the Sheriff's department.

Great.

We were both quiet on the trip, each of us trying to make sense of the late night phone call's revelation. Arriving at the Sheriff's office, we found the place swarming with various vehicles, most adorned with a star on the door.

Entering the building we were immediately thrown into a swarm of activity with people running everywhere. Allen Vanguard caught Betty's attention and she grabbed my sleeve to lead me into the conference room he had indicated. Seeing we were the last to arrive, I grabbed a couple cups of coffee and sat down next to Betty and Frank.

Frank had bags under his eyes, as did most of the people in the room. The hum of conversation around us sounded like a beehive ready to attack.

Allen closed the door and got everyone's attention with a shrill whistle using his thumb and second finger in a circle shoved under his tongue.

"Everybody settle down, we need some focus here," he said in a loud voice. Heading toward his seat, he flopped down with a loud grunt, laying his notebook on the table but leaning back in the chair without glancing at it.

"As you probably know, a passerby found a severed human hand on the courthouse steps about an hour ago. Finger prints have been taken and we should know if the potential victim is in the system in a few minutes."

As if on cue, a deputy entered the room in a hurry, heading directly toward Allen. The sounds of sirens started up in the background as the deputy turned to leave. From the sound of it, most of the Sheriff's department appeared to be leaving.

Allen looked over the information before giving us a name and address. Telling us to meet there in a few minutes, he immediately rose from the table and left the room. Betty mentioned that the address was only a mile away as we got up to leave. Frank opted to ride with us for the short trip.

As we drove we discussed the victim, Harold Longstreet was a name none of us were familiar with. Wolf Run was also unknown to me, but Betty and Frank had both patrolled it over the course of their duties.

Arriving at the scene, I was flabbergasted to realize that this was the house I had stood in front of earlier in the evening, stood in front of in my dream. As Betty and Frank were getting out of the Jeep, Betty noticed that I had made no attempt to get out. I had an uncomprehending look on my face.

"Gabe," Betty said with concern, "is everything ok?"

Coming out of my trance, I quickly got out of the car, mumbling that I would tell her later.

***

Two deputies first on the scene had tried to rouse someone using the standard knock and announce. When they received no response, they rounded the house, checking windows and doors as they went. Finding the back door open, they drew weapons and entered slowly, clearing one room before entering another. Arriving in the living room, they had found what they were afraid that they would find.

Mr. Longstreet was lying in a pool of his own blood.

***

The deputies got busy securing the scene as the road outside filled with strobes of red and blue. By the time we had arrived, it was so congested at the scene that we had to park a hundred yards from the house and walk the rest of the way. Already cordoned off with crime scene tape, we were immediately let in while most of the deputies were held back in the yard.

Inside we found Allen huddling with Sheriff McHenry while the rest of the task force was gloving up to start the investigation. Glancing around, I observed a relatively clean room with well-worn furniture and few lights. Neat stacks of magazines and newspapers filled most of the nooks around the room, making it look more like he was a collector rather than a hoarder. I grabbed a pair of gloves myself and eased over to the body for a preliminary look, taking care where I stepped.

The body was lying on its back about six feet inside the door, the knife still sticking from the bloody chest wound. The right hand was loosely wrapped around the knife, as if he had tried to pull it out before he had expired.

The left arm was laying straight out from the body, ending abruptly in a bloody stump, a gory meat cleaver lying nearby. Bent metal-rimmed glasses lay on the floor three feet above his prone body.

Lying in the pool of blood surrounding the arm was a card with the word 'GHOST' beaming up at us. Blood had soaked into the edges of the paper, creating a macabre veined look to it that sent an involuntary chill up my spine.

Betty was beside me while Frank took up position on the other side of the body, crouching down to get a better look. Mr. Longstreet was wearing pajamas under a threadbare robe that appeared to have been dark blue at one time. There were no apparent footprints left by the murderer. He would have had to be extremely careful to have avoided blood on his shoes in this room.

"Knife and cleaver appear to be standard kitchen hardware," Frank stated from his crouched position. "I'll go check to see if I can confirm that," he said as he bounced up like his legs were made of springs. He then headed to the kitchen to compare the knives there with the murder weapons.

Betty tugged at my sleeve and pointed toward the door, "the front door hasn't been compromised, and the lock and handle are intact. Has anyone checked the back door for signs of a break-in?"

"Back door was closed but unlocked when we got here," Tucker Vance piped in as he entered the room from the bedroom. "No sign of a break-in there, and the front door was locked." A flashback of the mysterious perp coming from the back of the house gave me a chill as I was reminded once again of the vision.

"You think he knew his attacker?" Betty questioned with a surprised look on her face.

I looked down at the late Mr. Longstreet, wondering just how many acquaintances our apparent hermit had, and how many of those would be visiting in the middle of the night. Another thought entered my head, so I threw it out for discussion.

"Maybe it wasn't someone he knew, maybe it was someone he thought he could trust," I offered, having no idea what or who that would be.

"Who could get the old man to open his door and invite in this late at night?" No one commented on the thought, but their looks told me they were thinking about it.

I moved to the outside of the room looking for any additional clues. I noticed some display cabinets that I hadn't detected earlier, a closer look revealing that these held maybe a hundred or more pocket watches of every conceivable size and design, all of them looked to be antique. I could guess that their value would be easily in the thousands or more. Frank appeared beside me and a "wow" escaped his lips as his eyes landed on the accumulated time pieces.

"I do believe robbery is out as a motive," I stated flatly, not having seriously considered that as a motivation for the perp until now anyway.

Moving on, I noticed that some of the periodicals stacked ubiquitously in the house were quite old, but as I made my way further around the room it became quite apparent that none of them were recent editions. I hadn't seen any that were newer than five years old, further evidence that old Harold didn't get out much and probably didn't do a lot of entertaining.

Moving to the kitchen and looking into the trash bin revealed it to be full of containers used by the local charity that brought meals to shut-ins; this guy hadn't had much of any contact with the public for quite awhile.

Having another thought, I made a note to check on the people working at the charity that regularly delivered meals to Harold. It was a long shot, but they would be somebody that he trusted and would let in his house at night.

Walking back into the living room, my eyes wandered to the window where I was greeted by a sight that caused me to blink my eyes in disbelief...an American flag.

An old front porch, draped with an American flag.