Chapter 3
The man walked into the building and scanned the list of businesses, stopping on the one he was looking for. He saw the woman's office was on the third floor and strolled toward the elevator and pressed the button to bring it down. As he waited, he kept an eye on the people coming and going from the building. None paid any attention to him as they pasted by, not giving him a second glance. The door slipped open and he waited for the few to exit and stepped on with several other strangers. He watched as floors two and three were pushed and waited while to doors shut and their ride upward began.
He stepped off on the third floor and paused long enough to find the door with her name on it. He opened the door and entered a small waiting area that had another door across the room that he assumed led to her office. He took a step toward the door, only to have it open and a middle aged, nice dressed woman stepped out.
"Hello, may I help you?" she asked looking the man over closely. He was dressed in a suit, but had an uncomfortable look about him like he did like being in the suit. She saw a haunted look in his eyes and wondered if he came to her as a patient. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No ma'am, name's Agent Turner, FBI." he said pulling out a badge and showing her. "Are you Zoe Chambers?"
She looked at the badge and compared the picture to his face pursing her lips wondering why the FBI wanted to talk to her before continuing.
"Yes I am. How may I help you Agent Turner?"
"I'm looking into a cold case and was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."
"If I can, what is this about?"
"You were a case worker at the East Ridge Orphanage back in '84 is that correct?"
"Please come in to my office where we can have a seat and talk." she offered opening her office door.
Agent Turner followed her into a comfortable looking office and took a seat in an oversized chair instead of the couch. He didn't see Zoe smile to herself and sat across from him in an identical chair.
"Yes, I worked as a social worker at the orphanage during that time. It was my first job after graduating college."
"Do you remember a case around that time; there were two brothers that were brought in, Sam and Dean Winchester. Their father had disappeared and they became wards of the state." he asked.
Zoe's brow creased as she thought back to that time in her life and her eyes brighten when it came back.
"As a matter of fact I do remember those two, but I can't talk about their cases, patient confidentiality you understand. I can give you some general information but not about our sessions." she told him. "Why the interest after so many years?"
"Some new evidence has surfaced and I was assigned to follow up on it. Can you at least tell me what happened to the boys?"
"Well, the youngest one was adopted right after he turned a year old." she said. "The older one, that's a sad story. I can still see his sweet face and feel like I let him down." she said sadly shaking her head as she thought back to that time so many years ago.
"What happened?" he asked his face a stone mask but his insides churning with raw emotions.
"He was placed in a foster home...No one knew...Luckily I went by to check on him when he missed two meetings with me. There were two boys at the home and one died."
The agent paled slightly and gripped his pad tightly in his hand trying to control the surge of rage, grief and disbelief that rushed through his body. He couldn't believe Dean was dead, he couldn't be.
"Poor Dean, he tried to save the younger boy, but his injures were too severe. I rushed Dean to the hospital for medical attention and the man and wife were arrested. They found out the wife was being abused and was too afraid to leave him. She tried to help the boys as much as she could. It took several weeks before Dean was even able to leave the hospital."
He let out the breath he was holding and swallowed hard trying to find his voice to ask a question. His head pounded with each beat of his heart and he squinted his eyes shut for a moment before continuing. He tried his best to control the headache that was starting to pound harder the more he heard.
"What happened to him after that?" he finally got out trying to cover his relief and his pain.
"There were two other foster homes, he disappeared from the last one and was reported missing by the locals. He was never seen again, no one knows what happened to him." she said sadly. "There was some speculation that the foster father killed him and disposed of the body, but my hope was that he ran away. The system failed him. I have no doubt about that. I just hope he's out there living a happy life."
"Do you remember the name of the last foster family?" he asked scribbling in his small notebook.
"No, I'm sorry I don't, but I do remember there were several articles in the newspaper about it. Seems there was a fire and the foster father died. The police found some very incriminating evidence in the house against him showing abuse to the kids that they fostered."
"Do you know what city that was?" he asked not liking the sound of what she was telling him.
"It was a small town just outside Lawrence...Let me see...I think it was...Berryton maybe, but I'm not certain. I'm sorry that was a long time ago and I've seen so many, but none have stayed with me like he has."
"Thank you for your help with this matter." he said getting up and holding out his hand and pushing the headache back so he could leave.
"Wish I could tell you more, I hope I've helped." she said shaking his hand.
"If I have any more questions I'll be in touch."
"Let me show you out." she said getting up to show him out.
spn
"Let's head to the police station and then the morgue." Dean said as he slipped the tie around his neck. "Man! I hate these monkey suits."
"If we're gonna be FBI, gotta look the part." Sam said slipping on his suit coat.
"Bite me." he grumbled putting his coat on and heading out the door. "You coming?"
"Right behind you." Sam answered following his brother out the motel door and to the Impala.
The Impala roared to life under his loving hand and he pulled out into traffic and headed for the police station that was across town. He pulled into the Clear Lake Police Department parking lot and parked in a visitor spot. They got out of the car straightening their coats and headed for the front entrance.
"We'd like to speak with the officer in charge of the latest murders you've had." Dean told the officer at the front desk as they flashed their FBI badges.
"That would be Detective Burgess." he said picking up his phone and buzzing the detective.
A few minutes later a middle aged, plain clothes detective stepped through a door and walked toward them.
"I'm Detective Burgess, how may I help you?" he asked.
"Agents Young and Nash, FBI." Dean told him as they flashed their badges again. "We're here to look into the murders you've been having 'round here."
"If you'll come this way." he said looking the two over closely. "Kind of young to be FBI aren't you?"
"That's mighty kind of ya, have you got any leads on who's killin' these victims?"
"No, they were all male, mid twenties to thirty, single, all strong, fit men and yet none showed any signs of defensive injures. There were no drugs or alcohol on the tox screen. We don't understand why they didn't defend themselves."
"Can we get a copy of those reports?" Sam asked as he made notes.
"Are there any connections between the victims?"
"None that we could find. They lived in different areas around the town, no job, friends or personal overlap that we could find." he said picking up his phone. "Dave, will you make copies of the four murder victims for the FBI? Yeah thanks."
"We'll wanna see the bodies too."
"The morgue is in the basement of the hospital, three blocks south of here." he told them. "The files'll be ready in a few minutes."
"Thank you, if anything else comes up will you let us know." Dean thanked him holding out a card.
"We don't get many homicides around here and now we've had four in less than a month. I'm happy for the help." he told them accepting the card. "If you wanna wait at the front I'll have the files brought out."
"Sure, we'll be in touch."
spn
"Anything stand out?" Dean asked as he drove toward the hospital while Sam looked at the police reports.
"Not at first glance. Like the detective said, they were healthy, strong, men, all had decent jobs, no financial problems, not much to go on that I can tell." he replied. "I'll map out the last places they were each seen and where the bodies were found once we get back to the motel."
"Maybe the autopsies will show something." Dean said seeing the sign for the hospital up ahead and signaling to turn.
"Do we call Bobby after we get the autopsy reports and review them with him?"
"Naw, we'll see what else we can find first. Ya know the cops are useless if this is our kind of case."
"Yeah, but we wanna keep the locals happy, remember what Bobby taught us."
"I know, ya can get more from the locals if ya scratch their backs, there's a back entrance c'mon." he replied getting out and heading toward the side door.
spn
"This was the first one found." the tech said opening a drawer and pulling out the covered body.
"Thanks." Dean said stepping up and pulling down the sheet only to step back for a moment from the smell and grisly remains.
They stared at the mutilated body lying on the table. It was a white, male, mid twenties that had his chest and stomach ripped open. The injury was jagged, raw and pale under to fluorescent light. It didn't look like something a person could of done. Sam took out his cell and snapped several pictures.
"What did the coroner think did this?" Dean asked bending down a little closer to examine the wound. He could just make out what looked like claw marks on the sides of the ripped skin.
"Some type of animal attack, I think."
"Were the organs missing?"
"Yes, pretty much cleaned them out of all vital organs. Don't know any animal that would do that and not eat part of the body too."
"Can we get copies of all four reports?"
"Sure."
"And the other bodies?"
"Drawers two, five and six." he told them heading back into the office for the files.
spn
Sam covered the body and pushed it back out of the way so he could pull another one out. They examined each body seeing the same wound pattern and barely noticeable claw marks. Sam snapped more pictures of each victim, especially the edges where Dean found the claw marks. Dean checked each victim's hands and arms but didn't see anything that looked like defensive wounds where they would of fought off an attacker. He frowned wondering if they were knocked out, but after examining the head of one of the victims, he didn't see any injury. Maybe they were paralyzed in some way, he thought running over baddies in his head trying to weed out what might do this.
"Any ideas?" Sam mumbled quietly.
"Wrong time for werewolf, vamp wouldn't take all the organs, shape shifter would have no reason to take all the organs, ghouls would drain and eat more of them, wendigo wouldn't leave anything behind, nor be in the city. Maybe some pagan god? I'm not sure."
"Black dog?"
"No, they don't eat their prey."
"Here you go agents." the assistant said handing Sam a copy of the reports.
"Thank you for the help." Dean said pushing the last body back into the drawer and closing it.
"Any time. Hope you find out who's doing this before another one finds its way in here."
"We're gonna try."
spn
"Let's pick up some lunch and head back to the motel." Dean told Sam. "We'll go through what we have and see if it points us toward anything."
"Ok, but stop where they at least have something besides fried food this time?"
"You're such a wuss." Dean insisted.
"Bite me. You could do with some healthy food yourself. You're starting to get a little flabby there butterball." Sam teased patting his lean stomach.
"Am not!" Dean growled as he nonchalantly felt his stomach and side for fat and trying not to be obvious about it.
Sam snickered when he saw Dean checking his stomach and opened another file to read the coroner's report. He learned quickly that he could goat Dean into thinking things were true if delivered with a sincere and honest voice. Would he ever learn, Sam thought smirking to himself. Maybe he could swap a couple pair of his pants out and make him think he was getting fat, he thought filing that away for later. That would be one hell of a prank that he wouldn't see coming and would put him in the lead in the prank war.
A/N: Thanks for taking the time to read my story. Your reviews are appreciated. It helps me know if I'm on the right track with the story. Think about leaving one if you haven't. NC
