Juno was a hero. She'd always been a hero. She wasn't like other people who said they would do heroic things if they were given the chance. She was the one person who would tackle a robber, run into a burning building, or do whatever else needed to be done. Even when she was young, she knew she would always do whatever it took to help whoever she could.
Juno became a police officer. Local hero. Major badass. Biggest heart in town. She was everything she wanted to be and more. She was a hero, and she proved it every day.
At a booth in her usual bar, on a usual night when she was sent home early, Juno nursed a bitter, cold beer. Her father had taught her how to drink and, unintentionally, why she shouldn't drink. What her mother taught her was to talk to herself, though Juno typed out her own conversations on her tablet. She didn't need to draw attention to herself. Being a cop could bring poor enough attention to her; being a psycho cop would be bullshit.
Cases were piling up at the station. Murders, disappearances. Burn victims with zero evidence of anything hot enough to do that sort of damage. Most of the vic's had been at a barn party on the edge of town; nothing unusual, for October. Parties, costumed or otherwise, were not limited to Halloween. The local teens and young-at-heart adults used any excuse to have weird fun.
Nothing in the barn was burnt other than the vic's. 2 dead (fried medium well). 1 in critical condition at another hospital, having to be moved from the local one due to insufficient equipment. 5 others were treated at the scene for minor burns. Others were just freaked out.
Hay bales, portable stage, music equipment, etc found in good condition. None of the wood was scorched. The air was cold. Nothing seemed to make sense.
Vic's and witnesses tested negative for hallucinogens, and negative for anything that could turn their insides combustible. The doctors did every test they could.
Witnesses said they heard shouting from behind the barn, where the lights didn't reach (so, the make-out spot), and the vic's with minor wounds found corpses smoking. Not smoldering. Not on fire. In what seemed like an instant, 2 people were crispy.
Until the critical condition vic could talk, there wouldn't be any more information. No one saw anything, except for the dead people.
Typical, Juno thought. It was always either the crazies or the speechless.
Juno leaned back, and heard her own words in the smoky air. Behind her usual cracked booth, a man was reviewing the exact same case. Juno peeked around, and found the mirror behind the bar. Two men were sitting behind her, each wearing a suit and talking over a small pile of papers.
"So, get this." The larger of the two seemed to say. From Juno's perspective, trying not to stare too hard across the bar, it was hard to see anything concrete. "The coroner reported that the two bodies were burnt the same all the way through."
"Like a perfectly smoked ham?" The other said. Juno cringed. That was not information anyone would have made public.
"Yeah, Dean." The larger one shook his head. "Anyway, that's not how a body burns. Not at those heats. The skin would have melted off before the core got that hot."
"Well, I'm going to forget about ordering hot wings."
"You were going to do that?" The larger asked, incredulous. Juno could imagine it. Hot wings were not the same as burnt corpses, so she saw no correlation. She started to pack up, readying herself to confront whoever they were.
"Yeah. So? What are we thinkin?" The two men continued.
"Well...I think we need more information."
"Where are we going to get that? We took everything, Sammy."
Juno stood and made a big show of placing her hands on their table. The two men looked at her, and she looked them in the eyes. The large one, on her right, didn't look especially surprised. On the left, green eyes glared at her.
Juno cleared her throat. "Exactly what did you take? Who are you, and why do you know the details on this case?"
Juno wasn't wearing anything that said cop. She was wearing jeans and a light hooded sweatshirt. If she needed her badge, it was in her gym bag, on the table she'd just packed up.
"Dean," the larger one warned. "This is Officer Juno Miles. She's on this case." He cleared his own throat and sat up, reaching inside his coat pocket. Juno didn't lose her defensive edge when he revealed a badge. "FBI. I am Agent Sam Hill. This is my partner, Agent Dean Jacob. Your office gave us the case files."
"I didn't see you at the station." Juno continued to be suspicious. FBI? They had no reason to be in her town, investigating her case. "I was at work all day."
Sam said nothing, and looked at his partner. Sam shrugged.
Dean took a long drink of his beer. "You were on the phone. Seemed important. The Sheriff gave us what we needed."
"He didn't tell me anything about FBI. Are you expecting to take over the case?" Juno tried not to sound hostile, as difficult as that was.
"We're going to help you." Dean declared, as though it was obvious. "This is your town, and we're just passing through. Thought we'd help out a good town."
Juno softened, appreciating the sentiment. Anyone that offered help to her town was good in her books. If they meant it. "How do you plan to investigate, agents?"
They looked at each other, then down at their paperwork. Sam shrugged again. "So, we're at the same point you're at. We have the available information. Our next step is to speak to the owner of the barn, and the land."
"Barn is a Garrison thing, and the land has always legally belonged to the town. Garrison rents part of it as an addition to his farm. How does that help?"
"Where is Garrison, and has anyone spoken to him?" Sam's interest was piqued.
Juno sat down, next to Dean, and leaned over the table to tell her tale. "The Garrison family have tended that farm since this town was formed. The parents, our famous gay couple, and their one adopted daughter, recently tried to sell their business, and no one knows why. My fellow officers tell me not to dig into it too much, that it couldn't be relevant because murder brings down land values, but I have searched for that family day and night. They're gone."
"Gone?" Dean asked from beside her. She nodded at him.
"A week before the party, a neighbor found a note on their door. It said that the farm and everything the Garrison family had built was up for grabs. Of course, being town property, they couldn't actually just give it away. The neighbor was pissed, but there's nothing to be done about that."
Juno paused, furrowing her brow. All three of them looked as confused as a pack of pups. Juno continued, her voice low, "We have no contact number for the Garrison's. Any of them. So this couple disappearing with their kid? That was the last of the Garrison family in the area. No signs of struggle. Nothing valuable missing, just clothes and toothbrushes. Some photos. The car."
"So they took off in the middle of the night, and no one has heard from them?" Dean guessed.
"Exactly. Dead end. Probably. I'm not convinced."
Sam took a shot in the dark, "You think the Garrison's have something to do with what happened at the barn?"
"Not exactly." Juno told them carefully, glancing around at the bar. Smoke hung in the air, glasses clinked, and one lonely screen showed baseball that no one gave a damn about. The local game was rugby.
The bartender paused cleaning a glass to signal "Do you need anything?" to which Juno shook her head.
To the agents, she frowned. "I don't think I should be talking about this here, but you may as well know my theory. This is far from the first time someone in the Garrison family has disappeared. They were very private about how they ran their farm, too. I'm thinking cult, or maybe some criminal organization. The couple must have decided to be the first in the family's history to say no to it all. Maybe they refused to do a blood sacrifice, and someone else took the initiative after they left."
The two agents stared at her, but they didn't seem to think she was crazy. That only made it worse.
"I'm joking!" Juno said quickly. "Damn, you FBI folk believe anything!"
In truth, Juno hadn't been lying. She thought she was crazy for believing the theory, and thought anyone else would be crazy for listening to her. What was worse, what scared her, was that the FBI believed her. Cults? Blood rituals? Those were not things that small farming towns needed in their tour guides.
If the FBI wanted to pursue some crazy lead about cults, they could go right ahead. Juno had given them what they needed to start down that path, if they felt it was necessary. Juno would not be the one to quarantine a ritual site.
Sam looked at his partner. "I think we're done here. Let's go get some rest and continue in the morning."
Dean ignored him. "Was their farm that splendid?" He said the word uneasily, as though he wasn't used to the taste of it. He took a drink from his beer. "Biggest corn in town sorta thing? Always ready to harvest a week early? What?"
"Perfection." Juno grinned. Her childhood, aside from being tragic, was made up of memories of Garrison Farm Corn. Everyone in town celebrated their harvest. "Their corn was the sweetest, and there was always so much of it. No one could figure out how they got twice as much corn from those fields as they should have been able to. And when other crops were having a hard time bursting through the ground? Garrison never had that trouble."
Then, Dean looked at his partner. "How many disappearances? How many years between each one?"
Juno made a face, confused at how any of that mattered. "I don't know. I didn't get into specifics, I just knew that there were disappearances. Before this year, there was always a Garrison left over. Always someone to take over."
"I see." Sam and Dean both had understanding expressions.
"Do you two know something that I don't?"
Dean drank his beer. Sam started sorting papers. "No. Thank you for the information. We'll look into the Garrison family. Actually, if you could get us those files-"
"I'm off work." She announced, standing up. She was ready to leave, but something held her back as she saw crime scene photos on the table. Sam quickly scooped them up. Juno looked towards her gym bag. "Nevermind. I'll take you to the station and get you what we have. Whatever helps."
Juno tried not to think about whether or not those had been Sam and Dean's first beers as Dean drove the three of them to the police station. She tried not to notice the blood on the cooler behind the driver's seat. She especially tried not to think about how unofficial their Impala looked for FBI agents.
Nothing seemed illegal, though, and they were going to pursue her crazy theories. As long as there was no swerving, Juno let Dean drive. He was better off than she was. She knew she'd had three beers, and her body had a grudge against alcohol tolerance. Her insides were bubbling, and her eyes seemed to follow the blurring lines of street lamps along the dark road.
"How long have you been a cop?" Sam asked as they stopped at the station.
"Cop?" Juno smiled. "You're kidding. Maybe you want to call me po-po, too?"
"What? You know what I mean."
"I do. And I refuse to answer. I've been passionate about crime-fighting since I was a kid. A young kid. Like, tutus and mom cutting up my spaghetti young.
A leaving officer held the door for Juno and the two agents. There was little activity in the station so late at night, but everyone was doing something. Juno led the agents to her desk and sat down. The two found their own chairs and sat across from her.
"And you two? How's life in the FBI? Busy?" Juno typed out the name Garrison in the local police database. There was a long list of files, thanks to the disappearances and the amount of family members there had been over the years.
Dean stared around at the desks. Each one had small, personal effects, but most of the station was lacking in any décor other than official reminders and medals. Retired officers had their photos lined along a wall, next to the only plant in the office (a fern). The air was stale, as always.
Sam answered, "FBI is always, uhh, busy."
"Are you sure?" Juno turned her screen so they could all look at the information. "You're looking into a small town murder. This is the stuff shitty horror movies are made of. It's not something feds look into."
"Now it is." Sam leaned forwards to peer at the screen. "Dean, I think you were right. The dates of the disappearances..."
Juno looked between them. "You two have not uttered a word since we left the bar. Exactly how was he right?"
"We've worked together for a long time." Sam replied, then cleared his throat.
Dean stole the mouse to navigate the files. His eyes scrolled with the pages. "Yeah, I was right. We might be done here."
"Excuse me?" Juno scoffed. "Murder. Unsolved. Still freaking me out."
"We've encountered similar cases before." Dean explained. "It all ends the same. When that farm land goes to crap, cover it in parking lots. Or flood it and have a nice swamp. You're not going to get the same kind of corn from there. Ever again."
Juno shivered. "Blood ritual?"
Sam pushed the mouse out of Dean's reach. "No." Sam glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. "The Garrison's were making deals with demons. Every ten-to-fifteen years a Garrison went missing, right? A demon deal almost always has a ten-year limit before the soul is forcibly taken."
Dean took over. "The Garrison's oldest brother went missing a year ago, right? So the couple that left with their kid must have refused a deal. The demons must have been pissed off. Actually, we know they were. We killed them. We just wanted to know if there was further cause for concern. A curse or something."
Juno stared at the agents, her eyes wide. "Get the fuck out of my town, agents."
