Authors: Sezin Koehler
2:45 PM LAPD Hollywood Headquarters
C
harles Wallace Crane’s ex-wife comes to in Deputy Chief Ortiz’s office. “What happened?” Natalie says, rubbing her clammy hand over her face.
“You fainted, ma’am.” Ortiz hands her a glass of water.
“How long I been out?” She yawns.
“A couple hours. Should we take you to the hospital?”
“Oh no. Oh dear. I’ve got to be going.” Mrs. Crane sits up and starts putting her purse together, and rubs her temples.
Ortiz holds up his hand.
Hold on a second
.
“Just a few more things we need to discuss before you go, if that’s okay.”
Mrs. Crane looks puzzled. “I thought we were done. And I’m really not feeling well.”
Ortiz gives a sigh.
Not quite
. “As I was saying, the FBI’s financial forensics team has discovered that your ex-husband had been squirreling away assets in off-shore accounts.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want his money. Not now! Not ever.” Natalie’s heart resumes racing.
“That’s fine, but when we release our findings, as we are bound by law to do in cases of mass murder, you’re likely to be hit with a civil suit against his estate.”
“But I’m not even his wife anymore!” Natalie breathes heavily and those red spots re-appear high on her cheeks.
“Please stay calm, Mrs. Crane. People will want a scapegoat. There are an estimated sixty-thousand-plus parents, guardians, siblings, who’ve lost someone here because of your ex-husband. Someone will have to pay in the eyes of the public.” Ortiz’s gravelly voice is as gentle as he can make it.
“So find the money! Give it all to them!” Natalie can’t stop the hysterical edge to her ever-louder voice.
“Unfortunately,
we
are unable to do that.
We
have no jurisdiction in off-shore accounts, that’s why they exist.”
Mrs. Crane’s breath is labored. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. Again.
“Please. Calm down. I might have a solution we can keep on the down low.” Ortiz can’t believe he’s about to do this.
“I’m listening,” she says, her voice vibrating.
“Hire a private investigator, a good one. Get him to trace the money. Alert the authorities in those places. The LAPD is bound by national law, but a PI sure isn’t. Once he finds the cash, the FBI can work with those governments to freeze the assets and hand them over in a trust. Special Agent Quatro, who you met earlier, she’ll be on special assignment with this.” Ortiz hands Natalie Crane a business card. She takes it, her hands shaking.
“Orson Magner,” she reads.
“He’s the best PI in Los Angeles County. We sure appreciate your help.”
“Anything. Of course I’m happy to help.” She looks at the letter filled with her ex-husband’s last words to her. “Do you need to keep that?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I was going to burn it.” She stands and slings her Prada over her shoulder. “I’ll call you every day with updates.”
Ortiz and Quatro shake her hand goodbye, seeing the weight of guilt on this woman’s shoulders. Quatro gives her two years—or enough time to find the money—before patrol will find her dead in her home. She predicts a lethal cocktail of sleeping pills and whiskey. And Quatro’s not wrong.
2:55 PM Spruce-Musa Hospital
D
etectives Red Feather and Günn walk into the room of the woman provisionally IDed by other survivors as Una O’Doole, the possible generator of the alleged vulval ooze that killed Charles Wallace Crane. The freckled redhead huddles on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, rocking back and forth. Red Feather and Günn exchange a concerned glance.
The woman looks up. “Is my mommy here yet?” Her voice is that of a child, though her appearance indicates a twenty-something.
This is another
Oh shit
moment.
“Your mommy?” Red Feather asks.
She nods, her eyes wide, a lost kid. “I don’t know why she left me here alone. I’m never apposed to be alone. Except with—” She breaks and tucks her head into herself.
“Amnesia?” Günn whispers. “Fuck.”
“Regression.” Red Feather replies. “Double fuck.”
Una cries quietly into her lap.
“Let’s do our best. Come on.” Red Feather pulls up a chair and Günn sets up the camera.
“Can you tell me your name, miss?” Red Feather’s voice is soft and soothing.
“I won’t say anything without my mommy!” Una insists, hitting the bed.
Red Feather takes out his badge and hands it to Una, who marvels at the sparkly. “I’m with the police. My name is Detective Red Feather and this is Detective Günn. We need your help to find your mom. Can you help us?”
Una considers it, weighing options as only a child can. “Okay, then. But only because you’re a policeman and policemen are the only strangers we’re allowed to talk to.”
“Very good. Can you tell us your name?”
“My name is Una O’Doole. I can spell it too.” Pride gleams on her face.
“How old are you, Una?”
“I’m eight. It was my birthday last month. I got so many presents!”
“What did you get, Una?”
“Ummmmm,” Una giggles. “I don’t remember!” She giggles again.
Red Feather watches as Una chews on the skin around her thumbnail and spits out a piece she’s bit off. “Oops! Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it. So, where do you live, Una?”
“In Burbank. Near the mall. But I’m not allowed to go there without adult supercision.”
“Una, do you know your phone number?”
Her face scrunches up. “I can’t remember!” Una opens her mouth as if to say something else, but clangs it shut. Ouch.
“What is it, Una? I’m police remember, I’m here to help you.” Red Feather points at his badge that rests on the bed between Una and his chair.
“He said he’d kill me if I told,” Una whispers, tears streaming down her face. She buries her face in her lap again.
“If you tell me I will personally make sure that he can’t come near you.”
“You promise?” Una’s eyes become slits. Trust don’t come easy.
“I promise,” Red Feather confirms.
“Swear?” Una has issues, even as an eight-year-old.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Red Feather runs his hand over his heart.
“Stick a needle in your eye.” Una nods, satisfied. “It was Father McManus. He hurt me. Bad! And I don’t want him to hurt me anymore!” Una sobs. “Mommy, I want my mommy! Where’s my mommy!”
Günn stands behind the camera, frozen. She knows she should comfort the girl—Una would likely feel more comfortable with a woman—but Günn can’t move. Her out-of-character exchange with Cherie Beauxden aside, she hates touching strangers, and likes kids even less. All that mucus and tears and emotion. This one’s no exception, even though physically she’s a grown woman.
Red Feather shifts closer to the girl but doesn’t touch. “Una, we’ll find your mom right away. Can you tell me where Father McManus is?”
“He’s at the church. Our Lady of Saving Grace. He told me if I ever told what he did I couldn’t go to heaven.” Una’s eyes implore Red Feather, “Can I still go to heaven?”
“Of course you will, Una, and especially because you will help us make sure he never does this to anyone again.”
Una still rocks back and forth. “Please don’t tell him I told. Oh, I should never have told! I should never have told! I should NEVER HAVE TOLD!” Each statement increases in volume until she is shouting at the top of her lungs. From between her legs a pink mass slithers out and makes its way toward the detective, ooze that expands exponentially in pulsing waves.
Una screams when she sees it.
Red Feather is glued in place, watching the blob grow, working its way toward him.
Oh my God, this is the thing that killed Crane
, Red Feather thinks.
It’s alive!
Red Feather backs away from the pink sludge, waist high, hungry menacing toward him. Una continues to scream.
Günn grabs a fire extinguisher and opens the stream, even though she knows she’s hallucinating.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
Nurse Jonelle rushes in and adds to the screaming. “What in the hell IS that!” The blob changes direction and lunges toward Jonelle with its last gasp. The foam covers the pink mass, now the size of a Great Dane, coating it. The thing makes a terrible sound, a scream underwater. It dissipates, leaving behind only traces of the foam and a slimy trail leading back to Una.
Una’s voice is going hoarse. She has not stopped shouting. Nurse Jonelle administers a sedative. The girl quiets and her eyes relax. “I want my mommy,” she says and passes out.
“Mary, mother of God.” Günn says.
No, no, no. I didn’t just see that. I didn’t just see that.
“Amen, sister,” Nurse Jonelle pants. “I saw that with the eyes that the Good Lord gave me and I’m starting to think I’m plumb crazy.”
Günn begins shaking her head.
No. No. No. No.
Red Feather fills the nurse in on what Una told them before the appearance of the blob. Nurse Jonelle leaves to call Psych for a doc’s consult.
“Well, say hello to Charles Wallace Crane’s killer,” Red Feather declares, heart pounding as he looks at the now-sleeping redhead.
“This isn’t happening.” Günn’s eyes are wide and unfocused. She blinks and gets a better grip.
No. No. No.
“Okay. The blob aside,” Red Feather says pushing his frazzled hair back into place while trying to get a handle, “let’s guess she’s 22, this happened when she was 8, what you think are the chances that pervert is still a priest raping children?” Pedophiles. Red Feather feels a different kind of sick come over him. The angry kind.
Günn’s eyes come into focus with the task at hand, shaking off the disbelief. “I’ll call the station. Get someone to check out Father McManus. You call chief and fill him in. I don’t have the words to describe any of this without sounding like a fucking loon,” Günn says.
“Oh and I do?”
What is her problem?
Günn ignores him. “I’ll call forensics myself. I want to know what that shit is.” She leaves the room, finding it hard to breathe as her heart skips beats and panic knocks at her brain’s door, her denial from earlier in the day returning in full force and taking over. The Cherie Beauxden respite dissipates in full.
Red Feather sighs and dials Assistant Chief Ortiz.
“Sir, we appear to have IDed the woman who killed Charles Wallace Crane.” Red Feather recounts the events, ever grateful for the technology that allowed the insanity to be caught on tape.
Una O’Doole, aka Wake
S
omething’s not right with you. Staring in the mirror, you don’t look like yourself. Who’s this old person? She’s pretty, but can’t be you. You’re eight, you just had your birthday. But why can’t you remember your presents? You always remember your presents. Not like your stupid cousin Paulie who forgets five minutes after he opens them all. Idiot. Maybe that’s what happens when you have too much money, like your Aunt Greta and Uncle Brad. They have a pool, they have a hot tub, they even have a movie theater in their basement! You love watching movies there, but Paulie won’t ever let you watch the movies you want. No Disney, no princesses. Only war movies and movies where women take their clothes off. You don’t like those at all. You leave the room and whisper to mom and dad, but they don’t listen. They never listen to you. Ever.
A tear dribbles down your cheek. Why don’t they ever listen? You never lie. It tastes bad, like sour milk. Lying makes your stomach hurt. Even though He told you to lie about what he does to you. You still told the truth and nobody believed you. Just like He said. And so He kept doing it.
Now, you’re twelve. You just got your period. It’s been years and years He’s been hurting you. It’s confusing because you hate it when He hurts you, but he’s been doing it for so long sometimes it feels good. How can it feel good? It’s disgusting! It’s a sin! Even though He forgives you afterward. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I absolve you, Una, of these sins of the flesh. All forgiven in the eyes of the Lord, He says. You come home and cut yourself with daddy’s razor. On the thighs where nobody will see but him. And He doesn’t care, so long as He can put His thing, His fingers, His cross, the candles, wherever He wants, faster until He makes that sound that’s like throwing up.
Your mother tells Him you got your period, you’re a woman now. He looks at you differently. He doesn’t call you for The Special Time anymore. It’s what you’ve wanted for years, for Him to leave you alone, but it hurts your feelings. You see Him with the new girl in the parish. She looks just like you when He first started. You spy. He’s doing it to her now. You rush in the room, screaming. You are so angry with Him! He took things from you, He’s taking them from her! He’s the monster! It’s Him! Him!
From between your legs a pink blob comes out. It grows, it grows, feeding on your rage. You feel it’s connected with you. It is you. Your power. You’re taking it back from Him. The little girl screams and runs from the room. He looks scared as the ooze grows so fast. It jumps on his face, muffling his screams. It devours him, leaving only a trail of slime. The pink stuff goes small and comes back to you, reattaching between your legs.
Now it’s your parents’ turn. Nobody who betrays you will ever live to tell the tale. Never again.
3:15 PM LAPD Hollywood Headquarters
A
ssistant Chief Gabriel Ortiz hangs up the phone on what was easily the most bizarre conversation he’s ever had in his life, aside from a couple choice ones courtesy of today. Quatro looks up from a stack of email printouts—the entire opus of the Bad Vibe Kids’ email correspondence—and raises an eyebrow.
“That sounded interesting,” Quatro says.
Ortiz rubs his brow. “You remember those accounts from survivors about how some kind of pink ooze ‘ate’ Charles Wallace Crane?”
Quatro nods, a strand of her curly hair falling into her face. She tucks it back behind her ear. “Vulval, so the survivors said.”
Ortiz’s discomfort grows legs and walks.
“Red Feather and Günn just interviewed the woman to whom said ooze apparently belongs.” Ortiz waits for her reaction. Disappointed again.
“Were they hurt?” Quatro is a stone cold fox.
“You don’t find anything strange about all this?” Ortiz is frustrated.
“Of course. But the empirical evidence isn’t lying so we have to adjust our own realities, no?”
Ortiz can’t argue. “Touché.”
“So,” Quatro repeats, “were they hurt?”
“No, but almost. The girl’s got some kind of regressive amnesia, thinks she’s eight years old. Told them her priest was molesting her, got agitated and out the blob came. Went after Red Feather. They neutralized it, but damn if that isn’t the damndest thing…” Ortiz has no idea how he’ll be able to build a case around this.
“What about the priest?”
“Desk cops are making some calls.”
Quatro looks back to the emails and her interrogation prep. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Why do you say that?”
She says nothing and buries herself back into the documents.
Chief Ortiz receives a call from dispatch: Father McManus, alleged pedophile, disappeared fourteen years ago, never to be heard of again. Also disappeared were Una O’Doole’s mother and father: She’s been living with her aunt and uncle since she was thirteen.