Chapter 4
"A Cold Case from the Past"
After we discovered a bone belonging to a set of human remains, we had to wait until the FBI office from Orlando descended on River Country to collect the bone for analysis. Fortunately, they had a mobile lab on wheels that allowed the bone to be tested right then and there.
"Like, who would want to stuff a dude in a water tower?" Shaggy wondered. "I thought the only water was…out there!"
He pointed towards the area where the swimming would have normally been had the park not closed down.
"Hmm," I wondered, looking up to the tower and adjusting my glasses in thought. "Someone must have been up there for a while, but I don't know how long."
I then turned to a pair of police officers talking to one another and thought if they had something I could use to take a closer look inside the tower.
"Excuse me, do one of you have a flashlight I can use?" I asked them, much to their surprise. "I need to take a look at the water tower more closely."
Although it was against their better judgment, the officers gave me a flashlight to use and they also provided me with a ladder to climb with. Once I got the ladder, I put on some latex gloves and climbed up the ladder, sneaking the flashlight through the hole that Shaggy burned through.
"Velma, what do you see up there?" I heard Daphne ask.
"Hang on a second!" I called back to her and I then saw what appeared to be another bone, but it was much larger and it had fingerbones on the end. "Oh my God!"
I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I found the bones of a human arm inside the tower and let me tell you, I was so startled that I almost fell off the ladder, but I didn't. Hastily, I came down the ladder and screamed for an FBI technician to come over.
"There's an arm up there!" I cried as he climbed up the ladder.
"Are you certain?" the technician asked.
"Sure I'm sure!" I cried as Fred came over and I briefed him and Daphne on what happened. "There's a human arm up there!"
"An ARM?!" Daphne yelled, jumping back in shock. "Creepy and gross"
But how and why would someone place a dead person up in the tower? It just didn't make sense to me. After a few moments, the arm bones were removed and placed in a plastic bag to be analyzed.
…
It took about an hour for the arm to be analyzed along with the other bone fragment that came out of the tower when Shaggy burned the hole in the bottom. Eventually, the lab technician came out of the van.
"Well?" Beau asked.
"It's human remains, all right," sighed the technician, removing his face mask. "Someone must have been stuffed in that water tower for God knows how long."
"Do you know how long?"
"In any case, maybe 15-20 years, tops."
I took a deep gulp at the prospect that someone had been dead in that tower for 15 to 20 years. What didn't make sense to me was how or why someone would do such a thing?
"I've got a hunch that we might have a cold case on our hands," Beau said to us. "Someone was murdered here 20 years ago."
"What makes you say that, Beau?" Daphne asked.
"It makes sense because River Country has been closed for 20 years, so whoever was murdered here, was stuffed in the tower right around the time the park closed."
Just then, I noticed what appeared to be a boy around the age of 12 years old standing along the path to somewhere, dressed in nothing but a blue swimsuit and a white t-shirt. I couldn't make out who he was, but he had a look on his face as if to say he knew what happened to the remains we just found.
"Hey guys, wait here a second," I said.
"Velma, where are you going?" Fred asked.
"Like, out of here, I hope!" Shaggy guessed.
"Wait here, I'll be back," I said and proceeded down the path that the ghost was just standing at. But by the time I got to the path's entrance, he was gone. Trusting my instincts, I followed the path and eventually came across what appeared to be a pony corral surrounded by a fence made of rotting wood. Slowly, I proceeded towards the pony corral and there he was again, the 12 year old boy standing in the corral.
"Are you a ghost?" I asked the boy. "How long have you been here?"
The boy didn't say anything and just stood in the corral, starring at me like a statue.
"I'm not going to hurt you, I just want you to answer my question," I said, trying to speak in a gentle voice. The ghost was scared, I could tell just from looking at him, but I had no intention of harming him in any way.
"Where is he?" the boy asked me, causing me to stop advancing towards him. "Where's the guy who did this to me?"
"What guy?"
"That crazed man who claimed to know Walt Disney," the boy answered. "The last thing I know, he forced me into the water and wouldn't let me come up for air."
"Who forced you into the water?"
But before I could get an answer, the ghost disappeared in fear. I then began to get another premonition, this time from one of the stables. Then, much to my surprise, I saw what appeared to be the ghost of a small black pony, who reared on its hind legs and whinnied loudly. Before I could get closer, the pony ran off and disappeared.
"Okay, this is getting more and more stranger by the second," I said to myself. "I gotta tell the others what's happening."
…
So, I went back to the others and told them what had happened, but they had something else that they were focused on. While I was away, Beau had called for Mickey, Donald and Goofy to come down to River Country. Their car was pulling up just as I arrived.
"Are you quite sure that someone was in the tower?" Mickey asked.
"Gawrsh, who would want to be up there?" Goofy added.
"I don't know, but I want you to close off this park to any park goers," Beau ordered. "We might have a cold case on our hands."
"It's been closed for 20 years, who would want to come here?" Goofy asked again, but Beau didn't answer him, causing Goofy to change the subject yet again. "Uh, what's a cold case?"
But it didn't matter what a cold case meant to us because this was a cold case and there were ghosts running around. If there was more than the ghost of the 12 year old boy and the pony, what other ghosts would we possibly find at River Country?
…
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