“Come on, girls, let’s get the car.” Vickie Casaday grabbed her handbag and keys.
“You better call for an emergency truck, like an ambulance or something. The man can’t walk on his own, from the way he looked to us,” Alexa said.
“Let’s find the victim first. Then we’ll decide on what we need, ladies.” Mulligan got into his car and headed for Stamford Lake. Mrs. Casaday put Peanut in the family room, locked up the house, and the three of them jumped into their Honda SUV.
In five minutes they arrived at the lake and parked in the nearby lot designated for neighbors who used the play facility. The entire area was silent and dark, even more eerie than their first visit. The fog grew more dense by the moment. Officer Mulligan pulled out a huge flashlight to light their way as they examined the park around them.
“I first yelled to him back there,” Alexa pointed. “When he called to us, we followed his voice to--”
Both sisters paused at the spot where they found him. Yes, they remembered exactly where it was. “We moved off to the left. Over here. He was lying . . .”
Alexa stopped talking and looked around her.
“Remember, Rachael? We went a few steps off to the left, and . . .”
She looked. Rachael looked.
“Where is he?” Alexa said.
“What the--” Rachael said, dumbfounded.
Officer Mulligan stood next to the girls. “Okay, just keep calm and try it again. We’ll retrace your steps. Let me grab some additional lighting, maybe a few flares. It’s awfully hard to see anything in this darned fog.”
“Yeah. Maybe we didn’t go far enough the first time,” Alexa said.
Mulligan set up the lights and flares from his trunk. By this time a few porch lights dotted the surrounding area, from various homes facing the parking lot. The girls stepped through the pines more carefully and they combed the wooded area again. And again. No one was lying in the brush, and they found no scarf left behind either.
“Rachael, where is this guy?”
“How should I know? We saw him here just an hour ago. No way he could get up and walk away on his own. Not the way he looked and talked.”
“Did you happen to get the man’s name or address?” Officer Mulligan asked.
“No,” Alexa mumbled. “We thought he’d be here, so why--”
“How about his features? Can you tell me what he looked like? Tall, short, fat, skinny, light or dark complexion?”
“We couldn’t tell, he was lying on the ground,” said Rachael. “He was old, with grey and white hair and dark eyes, I think. The man wore this heavy black coat, and he had two nasty bleeding marks on his neck. It was dark, so--”
“Marks on his neck,” the officer repeated as he made notes and shook his head, that eye twitching again. “Anything else?”
After years working as a cop, does your body start to do funny things? Rachael asked herself as she observed the eye movement.
“Nothing that I remember,” said Alexa. Come on, Rache, let’s keep looking.”
After another few minutes of this exercise Mulligan took them aside. “Look, girls, I’m not saying your story isn’t true, but you gotta admit, we’re not finding anyone injured here in the woods. It doesn’t look like we have a crime. I’m going to ask you this next question because I know it’s getting close to Halloween, and I’ve got to know. Kids make stuff up, to be cool and create extra work for us guys who patrol your neighborhood and keep it safe. I’m hoping this isn’t one of those times, girls, so give it to me straight. Did you really see an injured gentleman tonight, or not?”
Rachael and Alexa looked at each other.
“We found a man hurt, with little stab wounds in his neck. He needed help. That’s all we can tell you,” said Alexa.
“That’s your story?”
Both girls nodded.
“You’re sticking to it?”
“It’s the truth, so we must,” Alexa replied.
Officer Mulligan sighed. “Okay. If that’s the way it was, that’s how I’ll put it in the report. But if this is a prank, please don’t pull anything like this again. These stories can get you kids in big trouble with the authorities. Got it?”
“Okay,” Alexa said.
“We’re telling you--”
Alexa cut Rachael off. For one thing, Officer Mulligan’s eye twitched again and, even in the dark, they could see his face redden--no doubt from anger. “Come on, Rache. If nobody will believe us, let’s just go home and forget it.”
“You just can’t--”
“I said forget it!” Alexa pulled at Rachael’s arm. “Get in the car. Nobody’s listening.”
“All right, all right. Don’t touch me.”
Officer Mulligan had a few words with Mrs. Casaday next, and then pulled away from the so-called crime scene.
Mrs. Casaday drove the girls home. She was silent, which the girls took to mean they were in trouble. At least their dog Peanut was glad to see them when they stepped back inside. It seemed like no matter how long they were away, Peanut always treated the family as if they had been gone a month.
“Mom?” Alexa said.
“Girls, I don’t want to discuss this any more tonight, because I might say something I’ll regret later. I do know one thing. It’s good your father wasn’t home. You’d be in even bigger trouble.”
“You don’t understand. We did find--”
“Please, just go get your showers. We’ll have a snack, the warm-ups from our pot roast dinner. It’s no doubt dried up by now, so it will probably taste terrible. After that you’d better get to bed. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one evening.”
“What will you tell Dad?” Rachael asked.
“I don’t know, Rachael. He will NOT be pleased by all this.”
“Please don’t tell him. Let me explain to--”
“Not another word, missy. That goes for you too, Alexa. Just get moving. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
After dinner, the girls met in Rachael’s room to brood as they sat on her bed. Both wore pajamas, conceding to their mother’s wishes to be ready for sleeping..
“You try to do the right thing and help somebody out and it just gets you in trouble. How can we fix this?” Alexa asked.
“Simple. We have to figure out what happened at the lake tonight. We both know that there was an injured man lying there, and then he disappeared. Where did he go? How did he slip away?”
“We have to go back and solve it for ourselves.”
“Oh no, we’re not. You won’t catch me at the lake in the dark again. Even though nothing scares me--”
“Not at night. We’ll go back there tomorrow during the day,” Alexa said as her eyes wandered about the room.
“Yeah, in daylight we can look for clues, and make it a real investigation.” Then Rachael noticed various small objects stirring and spinning. “Will you stop playing around with my stuff? I see my things moving. What is it with you?”
“Just nervous, I guess. It helps me relax.” Alexa returned to the problem at hand. “Rachael, that still doesn’t explain where the injured