2
The cold apple pie stared back at Dewey as he pushed it around his plate. He had hardly touched his food since sitting down at the booth half an hour earlier. It wasn't much of a breakfast, but he was more focused on the circus he'd witnessed at the house on Cooper Street earlier anyway. His police scanner had picked up the call just after sunrise, waking him up. A neighbor out walking her dog had seen the blood-soaked body of a young woman lying in a driveway, having obviously fallen from the broken window above. The woman had immediately called 911, but the girl had been dead for hours and there wasn't much the paramedics could do. As Dewey rushed to pull his pants on and find his old police issue revolver, the radio chatter had turned from one body in the driveway to multiples inside the house.
A murdered college student always caught Dewey's attention and reminded him of the incidents at Windsor College six years before, which took a good friend's life. One college student reminded him of the Windsor murders, but didn't concern him much. College students are easy targets and die every day. Multiple students, on the other hand, spoke of something more. Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and old wounds in his muscles ache. He knew it couldn't be directly related to the Woodsboro or Windsor murders, everyone connected with those cases were dead, but he worried of others like it. Billy Loomis and his friends had been taken care of, but there were other twisted people out there. Those were the psychos Dewey was trying to stop now.
Sheriff Burke had tolerated Dewey poking around crime scenes and playing detective longer than most, but lately had grown tired of seeing the same face just beyond the police tape. Dewey knew the Sheriff didn't like him talking with the other officers and was almost sure he knew Rodney Morris helped Dewey gain access to crime scenes. He knew it was nostalgia and pity that kept Sheriff Burke from putting a stop to it altogether, but he didn't care. As long as he could still sift through the evidence and stop another serial killer, he was happy.
Dewey was aware that the odds of another killer picking a quiet town like Woodsboro were astronomical, but he also knew that the draw of the multiple murders years earlier might prove too much for some sick individual. He worried that Billy and Stu would be idolized, and for that reason Dewey had moved back to act as the town's silent guardian. He didn't need much; the royalties from Gale's books were more than enough to keep his old Honda running and to pay his rent. So now Dewey spent most of his time driving to local murders and reading case files, compiling clues and assisting officers whenever they would let him. Through all of this, he had never actually stopped a serial killer, and God, how Gale would always remind him of that. She was such a bitch when she wanted to be, Dewey thought. He knew that despite what everyone said, he was making a difference, and that's what mattered.
"Can I fill you up," said a familiar voice, pulling Dewey from his thoughts. Annie, his waitress, stood there awkwardly holding a half full pot of coffee. He always sat in her section and tried to be friendly, but knew his social skills weren't what they use to be, and they were never good. He smiled and thanked her as she began pouring. "It looked like we lost you there for minute."
"No," he said, "I was just thinking about a job I have to do today."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"Nothing too interesting," Dewey said, not wanting Annie to look at him the way everyone else in this town did now. "I just have to check some things out for a friend."
"Well, you're going to need more than coffee and pie for that," Annie laughed as she moved on to another table.
Dewey smiled and glanced around the little diner. Annie was busy moving from table to table, filling coffees and making small talk. For a Saturday morning, Dewey was surprised at the lack of patrons. Woodsboro was full of yuppies and young couples trying to become yuppies. For them, Saturday mornings were for getting outside early and exercising or heading to hole in the wall diners for decaf coffee and all-wheat pancakes. This morning though, Dewey counted just nine people in the whole restaurant...three couples, Dave – the young new owner and cook, Annie, and a man sitting alone Dewey didn't know. The man wore a bulky jacket, hiding his large frame and had an old baseball cap pulled over eyes which were intently staring at his food. Dewey thought such a large jacket was an odd choice for the middle of summer and made a mental note to check for the man's car in the parking lot and write down the license plate .
As Dewey turned his attention back to pushing the pie around his plate, the restaurant's door chimed and opened. He heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Sydney Prescott and her fiancé, Mark Kincaid, walking through the door. Sydney waited at the front of the restaurant to be seated, while Mark walked towards the restroom in the back of the room. Seeing his chance to talk to Sydney alone, Dewey stood up and walked toward her.
"You know, usually they just let you seat yourself here."
Sydney looked up, surprised, and saw Dewey with almost fearful eyes. "Oh, well…um, we aren't eating. Mark just had to run in for the bathroom." She shifted uncomfortably as she searched for the right thing to say.
"How've you been, Syd?" Dewey asked, with the same concerned tone that he knew always annoyed her.
"We've been great, Dewey. I think Mark's starting to enjoy Woodsboro a little more. The move wasn't easy for him, but we're fine." She hesitated slightly before asking, "How have you been?"
"Someone killed four college students last night Syd, and I'm afraid that-"
"Stop it!" She said as quietly as possible, glaring at him. "I don't want to hear any of this, Dewey. It doesn't affect me and it's none of my business."
"Sydney, you need to hear this. You need to be careful; you can't just forget about what happened."
"Yes I can, Dewey. I've got a great life right now and I don't need the ghosts of the past coming back to haunt me. Everyone wants to forget about what happened to us…me, Mark, your mother, Gale-"
"Gale doesn't want to live in the real world," Dewey said bitterly.
"You don't live in the real world!" Sydney's eyes softened as she cocked her head to the side slightly and looked at him with pity. "Dewey, you need help. You have to stop living in a fantasy world. There's nothing you can do to bring Tatum or Randy back. Look at what you're doing to yourself."
Mark walked up and put his arm on Sydney's back. "Mr. Riley, good to see you," he said tensely. "What are we talking about?"
"Nothing," Sydney said coldly as she turned to face her fiancé. "Are you done?"
Mark looked back at Dewey and his eyes narrowed. "Yeah, let's get out of here." As Sydney walked through the door, Mark turned to face Dewey again, grabbing his arm tightly. "Riley, you need leave her alone. I know you think you're everyone's savior, but you're just hurting her. Let me take care of her, I'm a cop."
"Ex cop," Dewey reminded him.
"Well I guess that makes two of us then, Riley," Mark spat. He was almost shaking with anger now, and released the smaller man.
"One of us left a little more honorably than the other," Dewey said under his breath as Kincaid walked away. Mark froze for an instant and then continued out the door. From inside the restaurant, Dewey watched as the couple got in Mark's Jeep and drove away without a word to each other.
Well, that could have gone better, Dewey thought to himself.
________
By the time Dewey pulled his old sedan next to the curb in front of the Cooper Street house, things had calmed down. The fire trucks and ambulances had vanished and all that remained were a few squad cars parked in the driveway. The early morning excitement in the quiet neighborhood had turned into a looming sense of dread. He looked up at the large house as he stepped out of the car. It was like others on the street, much like the house he and most of his friends in the northern California town had grown up in, yet it now looked gloomy and oppressing. A chill ran up his spine, and Dewey looked over his shoulder. He found himself doing this so often since he'd been attacked that it had just become habit. He adjusted the gun holstered under his jacked and put a pair of latex gloves in his pocket.
Rodney would be waiting for him inside, but first Dewey wanted to take a look at the outside of the house, especially the driveway. The yard was large for this neighborhood, with the house set farther back on the lot than most. It was grassy with a few sprawling oaks shielding the majority of the two story house from the street. Walking up the driveway, he could see a garage with windows above it, one of them covered with a clear plastic sheet. That must be where she was thrown out, he thought to himself, looking at the cement below. The blood spot had already been washed away and coved with gravel by the police, probably for the neighbors' sake, he thought. People paid too much to live here and didn't want to worry about bloodstained driveways and masked serial killers.
"Deputy Riley," Rodney called as Dewey stared down at the driveway. "Would you like to come inside a little quicker so both of our asses don't get in trouble?"
"Sorry, I was just thinking," Dewey said as he walked past the deputy and entered the house. Like a flash, everything was familiar. From the smell of dried blood to the chalk used in marking outlines and points of interest, Dewey was back in his element. He had spent countless hours pouring over photos and crime scene descriptions, but nothing was like the real thing.
The air inside had the sweet smell of vomit and blood. Every corner of the living room was lit with portable flood lights the officers had set up. Walking in Dewey could see two uniformed officers standing near the foot of the stairs talking in hushed tones. They both looked his way and nodded a hello; both had served with Dewey when he was a member of the Woodsboro Sheriff's department.
Rodney took Dewey by the arm. "The tour starts in the kitchen."
Dewey followed the deputy across the large living room and through an open door at the back of the room. As he walked by the couch he saw a deep maroon stain on the carpet beside him. The area had a tape box drawn around it, with little red tags placed in different spots on the floor. Through the door, both men were inside of the large kitchen. Streaks of blood covered the door of the refrigerator and most of the floor. The area around the fridge was sectioned off in tape just like the living room and covered in similar red tags.
"From what the coroner has told us, it looks like this is victim one, a Leslie McCann. Twenty-two years old from Frisco," Rodney began.
"Relatives?"
"Back in San Francisco. They've been contacted and are on a flight up to identify the body. Do you want to take it from here?" he looked at Dewey.
Dewey closed his eyes and imagined the scene hours earlier. "Point of entry?" he asked.
Rodney sighed, "There's no apparent forced entry. All doors and windows, except for the one upstairs of course, are locked."
"Okay, so our man was either invited in, used an unlocked door, or had a key. First victim was found by the fridge? I'm guessing he wasn't invited in if he surprised her. This guy probably let himself in the house and waited. Make sure you check outside for a hide-a-key. I bet it's been used in the last twenty-four hours. So he comes in and waits in the dark for one of the girls to come in here alone. There's no telling how long he had to sit here…this is a patient man. How was she attacked?"
The deputy flipped through the notepad he was carrying, "Let's see, victim one was found with a cranial contusion, but died from a large throat laceration.
"He slit her throat?" Dewey asked.
"Mr. Riley, this girl was probably the luckiest one."
"Jesus," Dewey said under his breath." "Alright, so this girl is killed probably pretty quietly, but after a while the girls upstairs start to wander where she is. I'm guessing that spot I saw is—"
"—victim two, Cathleen Collins. The poor girl is unrecognizable. At this point we're identifying her from body type and process of elimination until the family gets here and we can do a DNA test. Victim number two…" Rodney looked down at his notepad squeamishly, "had her face completely stomped in. From the tracks of blood throughout the house, he did it with a size twelve work boot, probably steel-toed."
A familiar knot in his stomach tightened. Tatum had been unrecognizable when they found her; the garage door had completely destroyed her face. Dewey had been looking through the Woodsboro case file one afternoon when he came across the medical examiner's photo. The knot clenched hardener, but he pushed the feeling down and focused on the task at hand. "Cathleen?" Rodney nodded, and Dewey continued, "Cathleen's death made a lot of noise, and at this point the girls upstairs had to know something was going on down here. I'm guessing he had to move fast after this." He looked down at the bloody tracks. "I'm guessing he ran up those stairs pretty quickly. Show me what happened up there."