The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

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Just before Langley and Fipps left the interrogation room Langley extended his right hand to the reporter. Fipps looked confusedly at his open palm. "What?" he asked perplexed. "Give me your keys!" Langley ordered him. "What do you mean give you my keys?" Fipps demanded. "I don't want you slipping off, that is without me." Langley said in a conspiratorial tone. "I wouldn't do that!" Fipps insisted. "Just like you said you wouldn't do anything to interfere with this case?" Langley asked angrily. "No I will not do it–you have no right!" Fipps declared half heartily. "Very well let's see if Mabry will be interested in your obstruction of justice? That's how he'll see it...what you did Fipps, obstruction of justice!" Langley said very deliberately. "Oh shit some of you cops are just as dirty as the criminals!" Fipps said snidely. "Ain't that the truth?" Langley agreed with a laugh.

Then they heard the sound of someone tapping at the door. "Whose in there?" asked Chief Orville Townsend. Fipps quickly removed some keys from his right pant's pocket. Langley took them and pocketed the ring without so much as giving them a look. "It's just us Chief....me and Fipps." Langley called out. "Tell them to get their asses out there in that lot!" Mabry snarled from his position in the hall. "Did you fellas hear that?" Townsend now asked them.

The two of them crowded up to the door and Langley opened it almost secretively. Townsend stood there before the door with a curious look on his face. He smiled uncomfortably at the detective and the reporter wondering why they had hidden themselves away in here.

"You boys ought to get a room." the chief said teasingly. "Very funny." Fipps said with some discomfort. "I was just asking him something Langley said. "Yes he was" Fipps agreed with the vague statement.

Mabry who had re-entered the office called out in a loud and serious voice. "Langley I want to speak with you!" "Yes sir." Langley answered with some apprehension. Taking this as an opportunity to flee Fipps rushed off down the hall and exited the building. Chief Townsend followed behind him intent to check on how the work in the grocery store parking lot was progressing.

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Langley went into the office and saw Mabry seated before the police radio. "Sheriff Harper come in please, over?" He was saying and then he repeated the message several more times as he had been doing since he had returned there. Frustrated with not receiving a response he at last set the microphone stand down. "Damn!" he cursed at last turning from the radio to face the large detective.

"What were you two doing in there?" he asked him. "I've been keeping an eye on him Mr. Mabry...I...ah I don't trust him sir." he said clumsily. "I was asking him about how he got wind of this and came down here." he added. "Well has he done anything that I should be aware of?" Mabry asked suspiciously. "Ah no sir...ah not that I can tell." Langley replied. "How did he get wind of this case?" Mabry then asked.

"He said he was at the topless club when the waitress was murdered, that's all just dumb luck I guess. He said he managed to figure it all out from there." Langley lied. Realizing that a reporter had been on the crime scene according to the uniform Sergeant that had been present at the club Mabry accepted this.

At that moment Detectives Farr and Spellman entered from the room across the hall where they had completed their personal preparations for any coming battle with the gruesome villains they were after.

The waitress Shelby Jean Dawson continued to lie on the couch in the room beneath her blanket and sleep. But it was an eerie rest she was obtaining. She lay so still not a single muscle seemed to move except her pulsing chest, which expanded and contracted like some machine not the least bit human. And after briefly watching her while they checked the equipment and weapons both detectives looked away as if she was a corpse.