The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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Once Clarke Arrington contacted the Billing's Police Department about what he had discovered at his business the person on duty at the small force immediately called the chief Enos Howell. Needless to say the chief was excited by such news and thus contacted all the personnel who made up his meager constabulary.

The force consisted of only five officers including himself and once they were all assembled on the scene at the car lot he ordered that they all spread out in the well-lit expanse and look for anything, which might shed some figurative light on the matter. Besides the blood near the auto carrier they soon discovered the damaged fence.

It was torn open from inside the property and Howell rightly concluded that the culprits must have done this. What he found most confusing however was that none of the vehicles back here had been moved recently. It was quite obvious however that in order for the fence to have been so terribly damaged someone would have to have used some type of machine, i.e. a truck or one of the cars there to have done such a thing. Yet all the cars and trucks, which occupied the spaces in the rear lot, were according to Arrington, lined up as they had always been and all the keys to these vehicles remained in the office where they were always secured. This was a very confusing revelation.

It was also quite apparent that some individuals had scrambled down the slope of land there just beyond the fence and had entered the cornfield beyond the dealership. The prints were somewhat vague making it difficult at best to follow them through the dense cornfield. But once they failed to discover any trace of the night watchman Crumpler, Howell was almost certain that he had been the owner of one set of the prints.

Officer Johnny Kitchens followed the faint trail of the prints into the cornfield and went as far as the trees that stood just before the municipal golf course. But when he reached the trees he could not determine where the prints went from there even by going slightly into the woods. He had his flashlight with him, but soon he decided it was not powerful enough to follow any tracks 

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in such dense undergrowth. That and the fact that he didn't particularly cotton to going into the dark woods made him conclude that they should wait until daylight before they ventured any further. So he returned to the lot and informed the chief that he had lost the trail at the woods. And so afterward they all stood about postulating on where the victim who had lost the blood that was there had gone.

It had to be close about because there was no trail of blood from where the attack took place. They could only deduce that the victim had somehow gained his feet and covering his wound moved off without leaving any blood trail. But that seemed impossible. They could see the damage done by Crumpler's blasting about with his cannon of a gun and considering that he had done this it was logical to assume that the blood which had been discovered came from someone he had possibly struck with one of his shots. But the lack of a blood trail only served to further confuse them.

This case thus far had left Enos Howell dumbfounded. Had the person fled they should have soon found blood somewhere. He was convinced that the victim could not staunch the flow of blood for long. But then again this person could have suffered the wound by some other source other than a gun. But nothing indicated otherwise and there was ample evidence that Crumpler had gotten off a lot of shots.

Odds were that he hit one of them. If the latter was true then he almost certainly hit one of the perpetrators and was not himself the victim unless of course the prowlers had a gun themselves. But if they had hit Crumpler he certainly wouldn't have taken off on his own. Also if the prowlers had shot the guard they certainly wouldn't want him with them especially if he was wounded. It was all becoming so confusing that Howell was tempted to lose interest in the matter.