SIX

Hughes County Sheriff Station
Pierre, South Dakota
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
10:47 AM

Sheriff Michael Escobar was a large man with a large gut, one that spilled over his belt and down the front of the khaki pants he wore. His skin was tan and permeated with acne scars, a mustache and beard covering the bottom part of his face in a way Dean was sure was against regulation, whereas the rest of him looked as though the sheriff was the Michelin Man's lumpier older brother.

As Sam and Dean entered the guy's office, taking a seat without being offered one, Dean had immediately taken to eyeing Escobar and his workspace, noticing automatically that the room seemed too small to contain such a rotund man. As the sheriff squeezed his way between the wall and the desk that separated them, sitting in a chair that squealed in protest under his weight, Dean couldn't help but wonder how someone so bulky had managed to become sheriff, especially given the fact that, if he needed to, it looked as though he wouldn't be able to fit behind the wheel of a cop car.

It had taken the brothers no time at all to gain entrance into Escobar's office, the door swinging open to them as soon as Dean had knocked, the sheriff looking flustered at being disturbed, as well as annoyed at having to talk to them. The moment they had introduced themselves, the irritated expression had been chocked up to one of sheer aggravation, the man rolling his eyes and cutting Dean off half-way through filling him in on what they were doing there and who they had come to discuss. Turning around and hobbling his way back inside, the sheriff had left Dean to shut the door behind him as the boorish officer placed himself back behind the cheap cedar that doubled as his work terminal, an old laptop computer taking up some of the desk whereas the rest of it was covered with file folders on multiple cases.

Dean was used to rude and disheveled cops. In all the hunts he had had, only a handful of times had any of the police he worked with actually been competent and helpful, the rest of them seeming either cocky or disorganized as a whole. Though Dean was sure his exasperation with officers of the law stemmed from his father's hatred of them, Dad always claiming that everyone on the other side of the caution tape at crime scenes was only doing more to mess up the evidence than to help clear up the confusion behind a case, he still understood why the man would be so ambivalent when it came to working with them, always choosing to go around the red tape rather than through.

Before Sam had come along, before what had happened with Jessica and the fire, Dean had been following Dad's example when it came to discovering information, always using late-night hours and lock picks to dig through the details. Now that his brother was here, finding out what they needed to know seemed simpler—though however much of that was due in part to Sam's ability to lie like a dog and use his puppy-eyed glare on whoever was trying to put the brakes on their investigation, Dean was uncertain. Still, even with Sam's ridiculous costumes and persistence that they look the part rather than singularly flash fake IDs to get them past the velvet ropes, it seemed as though their ticket to intel appeared to take less time, with no waiting for dark to come or offices to close in order to get the ball rolling. Instead, they went straight to the source, whatever acting classes Sam had taken at Stanford—"I had to sell it, didn't I? It's method acting," Sam had once said after a fake fight between them inside of a bar in an attempt to gain information from an off-duty cop, giving Dean the idea that his brother had taken more than his fair share of pansy classes while away, the other one being an art lesson that had been put to particularly good use at a gallery in New York—paying off and slipping them through the system with ease.

"So, you're here to talk about the serial killer case," Escobar said suddenly, snapping Dean out of his thoughts and causing him to turn his attention to the oversized sheriff.

"Serial killer?" Dean frowned, glancing at his brother for a second. "What makes y—"

"A bit obvious, isn't it?" Escobar interrupted, his gruff voice sounding as though he had smoked seventy cigarettes in the past hour, as well as a million more in his entire lifetime. "One guy's tongue goes missing, then another guy's eyeballs. Sounds to me like we've got some nut job out there that's collecting parts. Even leaves us a calling card."

"Calling ca—" Sam began, his mouth snapping shut at the sheriff's glare.

"You boys don't read the local newspaper, do you? If you did, you'd know everything I'm telling you. And if you did, you wouldn't be here. Ain't no animal attack in that house, boys. There's no need for no park rangers to be out here asking questions," Escobar said, rolling his eyes for the second time since allowing the brothers into his office. "Unless you two are tryna tell me that you know of some animal that leaves sulfur behind."

Eyes widening, Dean's gaze immediately locked on Sam's, a knowing expression apparently crossing both of their faces and causing Escobar to raise his thick, gray-tinted brows at them. All of a sudden, Dean was more interested in this case than he had been the moment Sam had told him about it, having wanted to pass it off as soon as it had been said that Ellen had been the one to find it. Now that sulfur had been discovered, that piqued Dean's interest, causing him to become hungry for information, which seemed to be a sensation that Sam shared as he switched his stare from where his eyes met Dean's and back onto the sheriff's.

"Sulfur?" Sam asked. "Where did you find sulfur?"

"Different places for each victim," Escobar shrugged. "First time it was the air conditioning vent in the bathroom, the second time it was the kitchen windowsill. We took all of it over to the local chemistry lab for samples and testing. Won't hear back from them for a couple of days, they're so backed up. Still, no wild bears or nothing that would interest you."

"Well, what about anything else?" Sam asked, biting his lip. "No one saw or heard anything? Nothing else weird was found? No strange objects?"

Pursing his lips in discomfort at Sam's persistent questions, the sheriff shifted his weight against the squealing chair, his eyes locked on the wall behind the brothers as he debated what should be said or left confidential. "No. Well, there was a girl at the local pizza place that heard everything over the phone, but we already interviewed her. All she heard was a scream and the receiver drop. It went dead a second later. Nothing else weird, though."

Knitting his brows in thought, Sam tapped his fingers against his knees as he searched his brain for questions, Dean taking the silence as an opportunity to continue looking around Escobar's office. For the most part, the space was bare, no personal photos covering the desk, nor any on the walls. Aside from the plaque above a short bookcase distinguishing the man as an officer who had been behind the badge for fifteen years, there wasn't much of anything that told anyone whose office this was, the few books on the shelf being nothing more than law manuals and a binder reading 2005-2006 Reports.

Rolling his shoulders back as Sam got ready to stand, obviously running out of questions, Dean followed his brother's lead as he thanked Escobar and headed out past the lobby and toward the parking lot, a small drizzle greeting them as they climbed into the truck that was now spotted with raindrops.

"So, demons," Dean said as quiet filled the cab. "You think it's The Demon?"

Shaking his head slowly at first, then faster, Sam sighed. "No, I don't think so."

Opening his mouth to speak, then snapping it shut, Dean bit his lip, allowing a stillness to fill the vehicle as both brothers sat in thought. For some reason, Dean had a feeling Sam was right in thinking whatever evil was in town wasn't their evil, but rather something that was equally destructive killing people for kicks. With most demons, there wasn't a master plan or ulterior motive, just random chaos, just like that one that had been taking down planes in Pennsylvania. However, like with all supernatural creatures, there was a method to their madness, a pattern that became obvious once it was spotted. Unfortunately, with this demon, whatever it was doing still appeared to be random, the thing sneaking into two different places and taking two different body parts. On top of that, there was still the unanswered question of what the arrowhead Sam had found meant, and why it had disappeared on its own, the officers investigating the place seeming to have missed it from where it had been hiding in the bathroom the first time, another one, or maybe the same one, probably lying in wait somewhere else at the second victim's house, hoping not to be discovered.

Reaching forward to stick the keys into the ignition, Dean started the engine and listened to the truck's whining sputter as it started, letting the sound take him elsewhere. Now that they were hot on something's trail, Dean wished more than ever that the Impala was up and running, working a job without being behind the wheel of his baby feeling wrong. Though the stolen Ranger was better than the soccer mom vehicle Bobby had last given them, it still didn't compare to the sleekness of the Impala and the way she handled, the car like another weapon in the arsenal that helped them put monsters permanently down for the count.

Pulling out of the stall he had been parked in, Dean edged the truck toward the highway that would take them east, something in his gut telling him it was the right way to go. Looking over at his brother as a couple of cars passed in front of them, stopping them from heading out of the parking lot, Dean could see that Sam was already a step ahead of what he was going to ask, the address to the Everglade house prominently displayed on the screen of his brother's cell phone, Sam holding it at an angle to allow Dean to see it more clearly. Memorizing the location of the place, Dean nodded before Sam stowed his mobile back inside his sweatshirt pocket, the rain picking up as Dean pointed them toward Bridgeford Drive, a road he remember seeing on their way into town.

Of all the things that Dean enjoyed about having his brother back on the hunt with him, it was the intuitive nature between them that Dean liked best. Without having to ask or say much of anything, Sam seemed to already know what his older brother wanted, as well as Dean seeming to understand the same for Sam. Having been trained by their father, and having grown up knowing nothing more than to watch out for each other and be partners in everything they ever did, neither of them ever having any friends to interrupt their brotherly flow, it seemed as though knowing what the other wanted or needed was almost second nature. Though Dad was now gone, and though that instinct between them seemed to be working against him lately, Dean was glad that they still held strong to it, despite the fact that Sam seemed to be using it to his advantage whenever he wanted to know if something was wrong with his older brother and the way that he was dealing with their father's death.

Turning onto the rural highway that would take them down to Pat Everglade's place, Dean let the road noise fill the car as Sam stared out the window, the thought of turning the radio on seeming to be one that was forgotten lately, all the thoughts stirred up by the songs Dean had heard a thousand times being those that were unwelcome. In truth, Dean wasn't dealing with his father's passing all that well, the intrusive whispers of Dad's last words echoing in his head every now and again whenever Dean let his mind go astray. With all his might, Dean tried to keep from dwelling on them, to keep from letting them change his perception of his little brother, but whenever he caught himself staring, they flooded him like a dam that had sprung a leak, eventually flooding him sometime in the night and interrupting his dreams—much like Jessica had flooded Sam's dreams in the months following her death.

Though Dean knew that losses took time to heal, especially those as large as the one he had experienced, and that there were stages of grief—Sam filling him in on that on a day Dean had felt particularly like kicking his brother's ass, the younger Winchester deciding to become a temporary psychologist and use terms like "symptomatology" and "somatic distress" as a way to explain Dean's mindset—he also knew that he had his way of dealing with things whereas Sam had his. No matter how in sync their hunting style, they were still two different people, and even though Sam wanted Dean to discuss what he was feeling, and maybe even cry, he couldn't, and it wasn't for the reason Dean knew his brother was assuming—that he was putting on a brave face and ignoring what had happened. Sam couldn't know what their father had told his eldest son, and that was all there was to it.

Letting out a deep breath as the house he recognized from the morning news appeared down the lane, Dean chanced a glance at Sam as his brother took a moment to put his staring out at the passing blurs of brown and gray on pause to pull out his phone, some kind of idea obviously suddenly striking him as he scrolled his way through what Dean could see to be his contact list. Stopping on a name Dean couldn't read, the tiny font making it hard, Sam bit his lip before turning off the small screen, the phone going back where it had come from the moment Dean approached the red A-frame sitting out in the middle of nothing, the nearest neighbor two miles down the road and barely a speck in the distance.

Pulling the truck into the gravel driveway, Dean looked out at the front yard of the place before getting out of the vehicle, rain hitting him in sprinkles as he took in the collection of garden gnomes sitting underneath a window leading inside. Heading for the front door, and seeing that it was taped shut, Dean pulled out the switchblade placed in the breast pocket of his leather coat, immediately springing the knife to life and slitting the warning label that informed them that entering the house was a criminal offense that can and will be persecuted by law. Standing in the entry way, Sam shouldered in behind his older brother and shut the door behind them, both of their eyes wandering the living room in search of a place to start.

Settling on one half of the foyer while Sam took the other, Dean split apart from his brother as the two set to work, both of them hoping that their investigation of Pat Everglade's home would be more fruitful than their search Bryan Jackson's apartment.