Rite of Passage Read online

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “Said he never wanted to hear my voice again.”

  “Off his meds?” Dean suggested.

  “Forget losing the arm,” Bobby said. “That call? That’s when he quit. And meant it.”

  “You were a part of that life,” Sam said, understanding.

  “Up till then,” Bobby said. “Didn’t believe him. Thought it was a matter of time. Peek behind the curtain once, damn hard to forget what’s pulling the levers.”

  Dean took a gulp of beer. “Well, good for him,” he said irritably. “He got the gold watch and a ticket out of crazy town. What about us? This job? Planning the plan?”

  They settled down at the table in the breakfast nook area, as far from the master bedroom as the downstairs floor plan allowed. After some debate, they decided that Bobby would contact the police in his Fed guise, while Sam and Dean—to keep a low profile—would pose as insurance claim adjusters to talk to witnesses.

  “Bobby, you’ll need an angle,” Sam said. “Terrorism?”

  “Homeland security?” Dean suggested with a shrug.

  “Something small scale,” Bobby decided. “An interstate burglary ring. Gives it federal jurisdiction.”

  “An interstate burglary ring causing traffic accidents?” Dean asked

  “No, ya idjit,” Bobby said. “Distractions. Violent distractions.”

  “To keep the police occupied,” Sam said, “before pulling off their heists.”

  “O-kay.” Dean looked unconvinced.

  “I’ll make it work,” Bobby said, frowning. “Somehow.”

  “I’ll put in a good word,” Roy said. He had managed to move silently into the middle of the great room with a packed suitcase. “Know the police chief. Shook my hand at Lucas’s funeral.”

  Sam wanted to say, “I thought you were out?” But the offer seemed like returning a favor, and Sam thought of the long call Bobby had described.

  “Roy, no need to—”

  “It’s a phone call,” Roy said. “No big deal, right?”

  “Sure,” Bobby said. “But you’re leaving.”

  “Time for a call,” Roy said. “Make myself something to eat.” He took a steak out of the refrigerator and set it on a plate on the counter to come to room temperature. “Sorry. Didn’t shop for four.”

  “No problem,” Sam said. “We already ate.”

  “A couple hours ago,” Dean muttered and sipped his beer.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Bobby said. “Got an identity to assume.” With that, he left to swap his trucker hat, vest, flannel shirt, and jeans for his Fed suit and necktie.

  Sam opened his laptop. “D’you mind if I hop on your Wi-Fi connection?” he asked Roy.

  “Not at all,” Roy said evenly. “If I had one.”

  “What? No computer?”

  “Oh, I got a PC,” Roy said. “Seven years old, eight, maybe. Ain’t good for much. Got dial-up internet when I need it, which is rare.”

  “Dial-up,” Sam repeated, aghast.

  “Old school,” Dean commented, clearly amused at Sam’s reaction.

  “Part of retirement,” Roy said. “Don’t mind waiting until six o’clock to get my news. Worst case, there’s a police scanner in the basement somewhere. Haven’t used that since …” His voice choked with emotion. “Not for a long time.”

  Sam spun the laptop around.

  “What’s wrong?” Dean asked.

  “There’s a modem jack on the motherboard,” Sam said, “but I don’t have an RJ12 connector.”

  “Sure I have a spare in a drawer with my login information,” Roy said.

  As he walked over to a small hutch and shuffled through the contents of the top drawer, Sam glanced at Dean and gave a small head shake.

  “What?” Dean said. “Like a foreclosed house or a shack in the woods would have Wi-Fi.” He tilted his bottle and frowned, climbing out of his seat. “I need another beer. You?”

  “I’m good,” Sam said, without bothering to check his bottle or look up at his brother.

  As soon as Dean had abandoned his seat, Lucifer dropped into it. He looked around at the dark wooden walls of the sparsely furnished house and nodded appreciatively. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Cozy little tinderbox you found here. What say we light this hidey-hole up for all the comforts of home?”

  Sam tried to ignore him.

  “I’m the one who sees your potential, Sam,” Lucifer continued. “C’mon! Let’s add firebug to the Looney Tunes resume.”

  “Found one!” Roy declared, holding up a tangled gray cable.

  Lucifer grinned. “A good house fire really warms the cockles.”

  Under the table, Sam pressed his thumbnail hard into the scar on his left hand.

  “You okay?” Roy asked. He stood beside Sam, hand extended with the cable.

  “Fine,” Sam said. “I’m fine.” A quick glance across the table revealed Lucifer’s absence. “Phone jack?”

  “One over in that corner, by the baseboard,” Roy said, pointing. “But let me call the police chief first.”

  Of course, Sam thought. With dial-up, you could make a call or go online, but not both at the same time. He considered offering the retired hunter his burner cell, but worried he might take it as an insult. Besides, with caller ID, it was probably better the call to the police chief came from the landline.

  Six

  “An interstate burglary ring?” Chief Donato asked as he and Bobby walked down the hall of the Laurel Hill Police Headquarters from the administrative wing to the patrol section. The place was large enough that it had an abandoned quality with so few personnel sitting at desks in offices or bullpen areas or rushing down the hall. “What’s your level of confidence, Agent Willis?”

  “Early stages,” Bobby said while attempting to project the assured demeanor of a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The suit and tie certainly kept him on point—dress for the role. “Seeing patterns similar to what I found during an investigation in Montana.” Bobby hoped a northeastern United States chief of police would have little to no interest in crimes affecting Big Sky Country.

  “What sort of patterns?”

  The chief had a military bearing and the buzz-cut to match, but his hair had considerably more salt than pepper, and his midsection had expanded enough that Donato’s doctor would mention diet and exercise at his next annual physical. Bobby guessed the man’s role was strictly administrative, riding a desk, not a police cruiser.

  Bobby considered the possibility that the police chief was a Leviathan in disguise, then dismissed the idea. The Big Mouths could be responsible for Laurel Hill’s run of rotten luck, but he doubted they would have any interest in a midsized town in southern New Jersey. Still, these days, caution could never be overrated.

  “Accident clusters,” Bobby said. “First blush, appear unrelated. But they escalate. More damage, more casualties. Require more police and emergency personnel.”

  Chief Donato nodded, the suggestion resonating with him based upon recent events, as Bobby had hoped it would. “Draining resources.” He paused in the doorway to the patrol officer section of the building.

  “While you’re scrambling to deal with one emergency after another,” Bobby continued, “they hit your banks, jewelry stores, high-profile targets.”

  “We’ve had quite a busy day already,” Chief Donato said. “Accidents that defy logic. But I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea they were deliberate … attacks.”

  “Sounds like the group I’m investigating. Tricky bastards. You don’t make the connection until it’s too late.”

  “Nothing’s been hit yet,” Donato said. “Other than a few shoplifting cases at the Laurel Hill Mall, there’ve been no robberies or break-ins.”

  “They wait for the big score,” Bobby said with conviction, making the case for why no burglary ring activity had occurred yet. A stalling tactic while he, Sam and Dean investigated the true cause of the destruction. �
�When your department is under the most strain, they’ll hit multiple high-value targets at once.”

  “Sounds like quite an operation.”

  “Unfortunately,” Bobby said grimly, “they’re just warming up.”

  “And we already have our hands full,” Donato said, frowning. Then he seemed to reach a decision. “You’re a friend of Roy’s …”

  “We go way back.”

  “Any friend of Roy’s I’m inclined to take at face value,” Donato said. “But I hope you’ll set jurisdictional pissing contests aside here. Keep me apprised of anything you turn up. We’ve lost some good people. Hell if I know why.”

  “No damn reason,” Bobby said sympathetically. “Collateral damage.”

  “Right now, yours is the best theory I’ve heard,” Donato said. “For no other reason than that I’d love to pin these senseless deaths on somebody. Lock them in a windowless hole for a hundred years.”

  “You and me both.”

  Bobby surveyed the open patrol officer section of the police headquarters. There were two dozen desks, but only a handful of uniforms sat at them, handling paperwork or working at computer screens.

  Donato led Bobby to a short row of offices and stopped in front of one with an open door. Inside, a middle-aged man wearing a uniform with sergeant’s stripes sat behind a desk hunting-and-pecking furiously on a computer keyboard.

  “I want to introduce you to Sergeant James McClary, Agent Willis,” Donato said, raising his voice to catch the man’s attention. McClary immediately looked up from his keyboard, alert. “McClary supervised Lucas Dempsey, Roy’s son. He’ll bring you up to speed on today’s incidents. Act as liaison in case you need any support from me.”

  “Appreciate the cooperation, Chief,” Bobby said, shaking the man’s offered hand.

  Once Donato left to return to the administrative wing, McClary gestured Bobby to a seat in front of his desk. “So … Agent Willis, was it? How can I help?”

  “More or less what the chief said,” Bobby replied. “Details on today’s incidents. Whatever seems … unusual. And a list of any witnesses. Anyone who might have seen something—”

  “Unusual,” McClary said, nodding. “What’s the FBI’s interest in accidents?”

  Bobby repeated the burglary ring cover story. Then, to sidestep further questions about his motives for investigating local accidents, he quickly changed the subject. “Lucas Dempsey reported to you.”

  “Great kid,” McClary said, nodding. “Junior patrol officer. Hell of a cop. Had a lot of potential.”

  “Meant a lot to his father,” Bobby said. “Roy couldn’t have been prouder of his boy.”

  McClary looked thoughtful and somber.

  “About today,” Bobby said, changing tack again. “What kind of incidents are we talking about?”

  McClary exhaled forcefully. “Three fatal accidents on one block within an hour, near as we can tell. Mother falls down the steps and breaks her neck. Anesthesiologist slips on a wet tile floor and cracks his head open. And a retired woman dies in a house fire.”

  “Cause of the fire?”

  “Fire marshal ruled it accidental,” McClary said. “Lint trap fire, believe it or not.”

  Bobby shook his head in a show of disbelief.

  “That’s not the weirdest part of the day,” McClary said. “About an hour later …”

  While Sam tested his patience on a dial-up internet connection, browsing various local news websites, and Roy Dempsey pan-fried a juicy steak for his solo dinner, Dean switched on the bulky twenty-seven-inch TV at low volume and caught an early newscast the old-fashioned way. The news anchor introduced footage of a house fire. In Dean’s experience, television newscasts loved showing film of big fires.

  “Cable?” he called to Roy.

  “Basic,” Roy said, flipping his steak over to cook the other side. “And they made me rent some damn digital converter for that.”

  “So, you’ve got, what, twelve channels?”

  “Count your blessings,” Roy said as he removed a pair of baked potatoes from the oven. “I only got four channels with the rooftop antenna.”

  “That steak sure smells good,” Dean said, dropping a last ditch hint.

  “Just the one,” Roy reminded him.

  Frowning suddenly, Dean asked, “How’s your supply of borax?”

  “For what?” Roy asked, confused. “Steak sauce?”

  “Never mind,” Dean said. “We’ve got several gallon jugs in the trunk.”

  As the only effective weapon they had found against the Leviathan—though it only burnt but didn’t kill them—Dean liked to know he had some of the cleaning agent on hand at all times.

  Roy turned to Sam. “Your brother soft in the head?”

  Sam smiled without looking up from the laptop.

  On the TV, a reporter was interviewing a young woman at an airfield, a red and white Cessna framed in the shot. Still images of three faces popped up on the screen. Dean called to his brother. “Sam, three skydivers just died. All parachute malfunctions, all from the same plane.”

  “Got it,” Sam confirmed. “Just waiting for the page to load.”

  “Three skydivers,” Roy mused as he cut into his steak. “What are the odds? Never mind.” He held both hands up on either side of his head. “Forgot I don’t want to know.”

  Dean walked over to Sam and read the on-screen information he had found over his shoulder. So far, the news site had only posted basic information: the names of the pilot and victims, the time of the incident. Not that the Winchesters would need more to discover the truth beneath the facts. Sam had also saved a few other pages, detailing three fatal accidents earlier in the day.

  “No witnesses for those,” Sam said, disappointed. “We could check each scene for clues. On the plus side, there’s the pilot and the roofing accident homeowner.”

  “It’s a start.”

  Dean looked up as Roy left his counter seat, carrying a hunk of steak between thumb and forefinger. Okay, Dean hadn’t begged for scraps, but …

  “Where are you taking that?” he asked as Roy turned down the short hallway that led past the staircase to the backdoor.

  “The cat,” Roy said.

  Dean glanced around the downstairs. Had he missed a pet?

  “You have a cat?”

  “Not exactly,” Roy said enigmatically.

  Taking a few steps down the hallway, Dean leaned sideways to peer around Roy. A black cat was sitting on the back lawn a couple of yards from the door. There was something odd about the way light reflected in its eyes. Roy tossed the wedge of meat at its front paws. For a few moments, the cat simply regarded the retired hunter. Then it dipped its head, snared the meat in its teeth, and bolted across the backyard. Roy barked a laugh and closed the door.

  “Stray,” he explained to Dean. “Could be feral, never domesticated. Doesn’t trust a soul.”

  “It lets you feed it.”

  “Kindred spirits. I lost an arm in battle, he lost an eye.”

  Roy rinsed his plate, glass and flatware and put them in the dishwasher. As he dried his hands, he said, “Assume you’re heading out.”

  Dean looked at Sam, who nodded.

  “Time you get back, most likely I’ll be gone,” Roy said. “Spare keys on the hook. Don’t trash the place.”

  “Anything else?” Dean asked.

  “Should be back Saturday,” Roy said. “Friday night, maybe you could put something out back.”

  “For the cat?”

  “You forget, no big deal. He can fend for himself.”

  “Has he got a name?”

  “Nothing he’d answer to,” Roy said, shrugging. “He’s a damn cat. But, sometimes, I call him Shadow.”

  “Because he follows you around?”

  “No,” Roy replied. “’Cause he usually waits beyond the range of the backdoor light. In the shadows.”

  Wearing their Fed suits but carrying fake insurance adjuster IDs instead of FBI laminates, the
Winchesters headed to Bedford Drive to talk to Michelle Sloney, owner of the home where the three roofers fell to their deaths. They found the address, but Sam parked the Monte Carlo several houses away and they backtracked on foot. While not an eyesore, the boosted car was obviously not a rental and contradicted the professional image they hoped to convey to witnesses.

  As they walked up the driveway, Dean glanced up at the roof, not sure what he hoped to find, but trusting his eyes to notice anything irregular. Nothing jumped out at him. Yellow police tape roped off an area around a roll-off Dumpster squatting in the driveway. Dean noticed and pointed out dark bloodstains on the edge of the trash bin facing the roof.

  During his online digging, Sam had discovered the homeowner was a branch manager at a downtown bank and the bank’s website directory listed her telephone extension. She’d agreed to put her assistant manager in charge of the bank and meet them at her home so they could examine the site of the accident.

  Sam rang the bell.

  A few seconds later, a middle-aged woman opened the door and flashed a polite smile at them.

  “Mrs. Sloney,” Sam said. “Tom Smith. We spoke on the phone …”

  Sam’s voice faded with each word. Dean understood why. The woman looked like she’d gone several rounds with a welterweight—or an abusive husband. She had a nasty black eye, with bruises down her right cheek, and her right hand was bandaged.

  “Ms. Sloney,” she said evenly. “I’m divorced.”

  “From the reports,” Sam said, “I had no idea you were injured in the accidents.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, gesturing at her eye. “Clumsiness. I was rushing to call 911 and ran into the door and my hand… Pure clumsiness.”

  “Right,” Sam said, with a quick glance at Dean. “As I explained, my partner, John Smith—it’s a common name— and I are investigating some accidents in the area.”