I Am Chosen

The Man Cave

Kacey and Hollis sat at a corner table, waiting for their lunch. They hadn't discussed the case on the ride from Shady Acres, resorting instead to arguing about where to eat. They had eventually settled on the Red Hook.

A four-year-old boy went running past them to the back door, then turned around and went to the table behind Hollis, standing and watching the diners seated there.

While the old man sipped his black coffee, Kacey checked email on her phone. She then pulled up Facebook, where her friend Gloria from L.A. had posted a video of her child's one-year birthday.

"Idiot boxes used to be confined to the living room," Hollis said. "Now you can take 'em anywhere. Did you ever think that maybe not everyone in the diner wants to listen to your little video there?" Hollis asked. "Not to mention the fact, detective, that if someone wants you dead, you're a lot easier to kill while your head's buried in that thing."

Kacey lowered the phone. The video was over anyway. "First off, I sat in a corner near the rear exit, facing the front door so I can see everyone walk in. I had the phone up, like this," she demonstrated, lifting the phone to just below eye level. "So I can keep an eye on the door and the phone at the same time. Secondly, I'm really, really sorry if my phone distracted these fine patrons from the annoying little curtain climber who's been running around unsupervised, staring at people while they're trying to eat."

As if to punctuate this, the four-year-old child in question scampered over to their table, looking back and forth between Hollis and Kacey, chewing on his fingers. Kacey leaned over. "Hey, it's time to play a game called 'go find Mommy!'" The child frowned, looked at both of them and trotted off.

The waitress came and dropped off their sandwiches. Kacey laid her phone on the table. Hollis tucked his napkin into his collar to make a bib, took a bite of his grilled cheese, swallowed and said "You haven't said word one about what you plan to do next. So what, you got the case all figured out and you're just waiting for everyone to catch up?"

While pouring a gloppy mound of ketchup onto her fries, Kacey said "No, Barnaby Jones, I don't have it all figured out. Not yet."

"So... what are next steps? Enlighten me."

"We didn't find any footprints in the dirt... last night's rain probably took care of that, but the lab'll do soil analysis and who knows? Maybe they'll find a hair or clothing fiber. Beyond that, I'll search for any similar cases of body snatchings. And then I'm going to use this new thing called social media... see if anyone's been chatting about digging up Crowe or defiling his grave."

But what if Crowe wasn't dug up? What if it was just as it had appeared, that he had somehow made it out of that grave on his own?

Then I'll get myself fitted for a straitjacket.

Hollis hadn't mentioned anything about the appearance of Declan Crowe exhuming himself. She wondered why-maybe he was questioning his sanity too.

"Running searches and browsing social media won't get the job done. What will get the job done is real detective work."

Just as Kacey took a massive bite of her burger, the kid came back, standing there, staring at her. Again.

Kacey leaned over and opened wide, revealing her chewed-up mouthful. The kid giggled and ran off.

"What all did Declan's assistant, Rhonda, say when you followed up with her?" Hollis asked.

"She didn't return my calls. A few days later I got the camera footage from the coffee shop, then that whole thing with Declan went down... after I shot him the internal investigation started."