Elizabeth walks out of the bathroom, toweling her hair dry and plopping down on the bed opposite Sam. "Don't get me wrong," Dean says, flipping through John's journal. "I love our dad, but the dude writes like friggin' Yoda."
"I think he does that so no one else can decipher his writing," Elizabeth says, flopping backwards. "Or maybe he just does it to piss people off. Who knows?" Dean seems to be the only one able to decipher the journal so far. Elizabeth thinks maybe he uses the Force. Sam is focused on another train of thought entirely, gaze far away and worried.
"Maybe we should call the feds," he suggests. "File a missing person report or something." Sam looks genuinely offended when Elizabeth throws her towel at his head, batting it away a second too late.
"Yes, because that's how we want to face John again after all this time. He'll be trying to bend us over his knee and swat the hell out of us. Let's not do that."
"I don't care."
"You will care when your daddy spanks you like he did when you were little." The shrill ring of a cell phone has Dean rising out of his chair to dig through his pile of clothes while Sam continues trying to make his point.
"After everything that happened in our house…." He trails off, scratching his fingers through his hair. "Why wasn't Dad there? Why wasn't he there with us to fight that Poltergeist or see Mom?" His voice cracks at the end and his lip trembles as he stamps down on the emotions.
"I know, I know," Dean grumbles. "Where the hell is my cell phone?"
"He could be dead for all we know." Elizabeth sits up and leans over to help Dean search through his things while he straightens and fixes Sam with a no bullshit stare.
"I don't ever wanna hear you talk like that again, you understand me? Not ever."
"Then where the fuck is he? Taking a vacation in Tahiti?"
"Sam, that's enough," Elizabeth snaps, leveling him with a harsh glare. Part of her feels bad when he flinches back, but the vast majority of her feels like he deserves it. Dean finally digs his phone out, flipping it open to stop the ringing. "What is it?" He sits on the edge of the bed, staring down at the small screen. "Come on, don't hog all the information. Is it a dirty text?" She gets up on her knees and looks over his shoulder to see what has him so transfixed. There are numbers on the screen, more Yoda writing for all she can make of it.
"It's coordinates," he says. Dean moves over to the little table and opens Sam's laptop, typing in the coordinates.
"You think it's Dad," Sam asks in disbelief.
"He's done it before." Dean shrugs, not looking away from the computer. He misses Sam's scowl and Elizabeth's expression of total confusion.
"Those were written in his journal. Dean, this is the man that can barely work a toaster." The sad part is how true that statement is. The dude screams every time the toast pops out and he even shot Elizabeth's toast when she was six. That was around the time Bobby decided that all pistols must be on safety before they're allowed anywhere near his kitchen appliances.
"At least we know he's alive."
"Or it's not John," Elizabeth says. "Last time I talked to him he was just figuring out that he could play pool on his phone. Did a number show up that we could Google?"
"No, it said unknown." Dean turns back to the laptop, typing away at the keys.
"Where do the coordinates point," Sam asks as Elizabeth dumps Dean's clothes back in his bag and stands up.
"That's the interesting part. Rockford, Illinois."
"Am I missing something," Elizabeth asks. She stands and moves over to Dean, squinting down at the computer screen. She didn't bother putting fresh contacts in after her shower and her glasses are at the bottom of her duffle, she's too lazy at this point to dig them out. "What's so interesting about a place I've never even heard of?"
"I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this." He turns the computer so that the other two can see, Sam shoving her glasses on her face so that the news article isn't just a black smear. Dean clicks onto a picture of a cop in the article, an attractive man with a bright smile and kind, brown eyes.
"He someone special?"
"According to this, Officer Walter Kelly came home from his shift, shot his wife and then blew his own brains out. Earlier that night, he and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum." Dean grabs up John's journal again, flipping through it rapidly.
"Okay, I'm lost," Sam says. "What does this have to do with us?"
"Dad wrote about that place in his journal. Hang on a sec... Yeah, right here." He points to a page with a newspaper clipping glued to it. "Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths until last week. I think this is where Dad wants us to go next." Elizabeth groans, flopping back down on the bed while Sam begins to pace. She'd planned to surprise her niece this weekend, but there's no way she's letting these boneheads do a job by themselves. They'll kill each other.
"Dad wants us to work another job."
"Thanks for explaining it, Sammy," Elizabeth says, deadpan. "I hadn't quite figured that out yet.
"Maybe he's waiting for us there," Dean says, shrugging.
"Or not. He wasn't waiting for you guys when he sent you to deal with that Wendigo." Elizabeth is glad she'd missed that particular hunt, Wendigos are a massive pain in the ass. A Wendigo killed Daddy, she remembers with a frown.
"Who cares? If he wants us to take care of it, then I'm down. I'm going." He shuts the laptop and stands up with the journal still in his hand. He looks ready to head out right this second, catching his second wind.
"This doesn't strike you as weird," Sam asks. "The texting, the coordinates?"
"Guys, Dad's telling us to go somewhere, we're going." He disappears into the bathroom, leaving Sam and Elizabeth to stare at the closed door with twin expressions of disbelief.
"I guess I should pull on some pants then," she says after a moment. She digs through her bag until she finds a moderately clean pair of jeans and shimmies into them, throwing her jacket on over her camisole and shoving her feet into her shoes. Sam begins to move as well, gathering things up and tossing her the occasional sock to shove in a bag.
This is going to be a long ass drive and Elizabeth is so not looking forward to it.
"You're Daniel Gunderson, right," Dean asks, addressing the black man sitting at the bar. He had been Walter Kelly's partner, the one that went into Roosevelt Asylum and came out on the other end without going bonkers. Daniel is an older man with graying hair and a fit build that's starting to go soft around the edges, nursing a bottle of beer with a short thumbnail picking at the label.
"Yeah…?" Dean gives a bright smile, sitting uninvited across from the cop and pulling Elizabeth down to sit in his lap. She's not complaining, he's always warm.
"I'm Nigel Tufnel and this is my photographer Bobbi Flekman, we're with the Chicago Tribune." Elizabeth holds up her camera as proof of the lie, a professional thing meant to be a gift for Tanya. "Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions about your partner?"
"I do, actually. I'm just trying to have a beer, not fill your paper with bullshit stories." He's been antagonized about this before, his fingers tapping out an irritated beat on the table.
"Please, it won't take long. I just need to hear it in your words and I'll make the article as genuine as possible."
"A week ago, Walter was sitting where you two are and now he's not. Simple as that." His gaze is flat and hard, daring either of them to keep picking away at him. Elizabeth wants to stop, wants to leave the man to his beer and his peace, but they have a plan here. If they want to keep this from happening to someone else, then Elizabeth will have to play her part.
"How about a picture," Elizabeth asks, and raises her camera again. "Nigel can write about how people are coping rather than what happened to Walter. Just something to make our editor happy."
"I'm not gonna let you vultures pick this tragedy apart just for a paycheck. Forget it." Dean leans forward, ready to argue as Sam approaches from his hiding place in the back of the bar, giving Elizabeth just enough time to stand up before man-handling Dean out of the chair and shoving him away. Dean's back smacks into a support beam, drawing an involuntary wince out of him.
"How about you leave the poor guy alone," he snaps, the heat in his voice not entirely fake. "The man's an officer, so show him some respect." Dean and Sam have the customary stare-down, chests puffed out like a peacock showing its feathers, then Dean's scoffing and herding Elizabeth outside. Sam's shove was a little over the top and it made the older brother in Dean want to react, shove back and prove dominance.
"You okay?" He shrugs the question off and sits on the hood of the car, Elizabeth following suit and ignoring the way her jeans grow damp from the droplets of water that have been collecting on smooth black metal. There's a moment of silence, stretching between them until Elizabeth feels like she'll go insane if she doesn't break it. "You guys need to talk things out more often. If you don't y'all will just explode later and it won't be pretty."
"Nah, we just need to get this case over with and find Dad."
"That's another thing, why is he texting you when it's infinitely easier to call? I'm sorry, Dean, but your old man is beginning to piss me off."
"I know, Liza. Trust me, I have the same thoughts as you, but he's…. There has to be a good explanation and I'm sure he'll give it to us when we find him."
"Or he'll just continue with the lifelong streak of being a dick." If that was an award, John would have it in the bag. Sam comes out half an hour later, hands in his jacket pockets and satisfaction softening the tense line of his shoulders.
"You shoved me kinda hard in there, buddy boy." Sam shrugs with a faint smile.
"I had to sell it, didn't I," he asks. "It's method acting."
"Is that what they're calling it these days," Elizabeth asks. He almost looks like a kicked puppy when she sends him a warning look, one that tells him to chill his attitude before she does it for him. She slides off the hood with some help from Dean, the hunters moving to stand by their respective doors. "Did you get anything good from the cop or did I waste my time playing a down-on-her-luck photographer?"
"Nah, you did great, Liza."
"Sarcasm noted."
"Apparently Walter Kelly was a good cop; head of his class, even-keeled, bright future ahead of him." Sam clasps his hands together, resting them on top of the car. "His home life wasn't much of a different story. He and his wife got along pretty well, mostly smooth sailing with a few arguments here and there. They were even talking about having kids."
"And then this cool-headed dude went off the rails?"
"Either he had some deep-seated crazy waiting to burst out like a jack-in-a-box or something supernatural hitchhiked home with him from the asylum," Dean says.
"I have a feeling he wasn't a closet serial killer wannabe. The real question is if it's the asylum itself that caused him to go wacko or if it was something inside the asylum. Did Daniel give you any information about it, Sam?"
"Just enough," Sam affirms.