The Mask, Chapter 4
4.
October 4th, 20198:00 AM
Sheriff Chris Baker hung up his smartphone, sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and sighed. As it happened with a mercurial rhythm as regular as the tides, something odd was once again afoot in his town. And also, as always, he had no hard facts to back up his feelings. Just a few odd occurrences which didn't seem connected, and an uneasy intuition lingering on the back of his neck. Like cold fingers tapping out an unknowable message in alien Morse code.
A widower, he and his daughter Meg moved to Clifton Heights seven years ago, when he took the sheriff's position through a special appointment by the Town Board. That had seemed odd enough in its own right; town sheriff usually being an elected position. Appointing a sheriff by committee wasn't unheard of, just unusual.
At the time, he hadn't cared. He'd just wanted to find a quiet town to settle in, a nice place he could raise his daughter while trying to recover from his wife's untimely passing. And for the most part, Clifton Heights had turned out to a nice town. Mostly. People were friendly here, and they looked out for each other. It wasn't a perfect town; he knew such a thing didn't exist. But Clifton Heights seemed nice enough, all the same.
It didn't take long for him to understand why the Town Board conducted a committee search for a sheriff, rather than hold elections. In the past seven years, he'd discovered Clifton Heights wasn't a town of black and white, but a town shifting shades of gray. Good people lived here. The town was financially sturdy, having so far avoided the withering decay striking down so many small towns across the country.
But odd things happened here. Unexplained things. People went missing with frightening regularity. Children and teens ran away. Hunters died in accidents. Though violent crime didn't run rampant, per se, Chris felt sure - should he actually want to make a comparison - he'd find their rate of mortality through "violent means" would be higher than the surrounding towns.
The odd thing - the part Chris still couldn't fathom - was how the town dealt with these strange happenings. They didn't ignore them, exactly. They reported on them in the newspaper, and they talked about them in public. But memories seemed extraordinarily short in Clifton Heights. These "sad and tragic" events passed from the public conscious quicker than they would in other towns. When he couldn't solve a case, most everyone, from top down, simply thanked him for doing his best.
And then things settled down. Got quiet. Became peaceful and downright normal, for long stretches of time. Until it started again, and it usually started like it was starting today: a few weird stories which didn't seem connected...until the whole thing blew apart.
He opened his eyes, sat forward, and pulled the notepad he'd been jotting on closer. It always began like this. Always. He'd recognized the pattern after about three years here. But no matter how often he sensed things getting weird, he was never quite able to head events off at the pass.
He tapped the first item on the list. Three days ago, a custodian at Clifton Heights Junior/Senior High, Lester McDonough, had apparently left work before school started, without telling anyone. No one had seen him leave. No had noticed him missing, in fact, until partway through the morning, when his tasks had gone undone.
Calls to his small house on Gatto Road hadn't been returned, despite threats of firing him. Principal Stedman had finally called Baker this morning, asking him to check in on McDonough. Despite his annoyance at an employee simply not coming to work, Stedman actually sounded slightly concerned. It wasn't like Lester McDonough to simply walk out of work and disappear.
Right, Baker thought as he tapped Lester's name with his index finger. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that in this town, I could've retired three years ago.
He'd sent Deputy Potter out to McDonough's house on a drive-by. Everything looked in order, except that McDonough's car indeed wasn't in the driveway. Potter had knocked on the door to no answer, and best as he could tell by peering through the front windows into the den, nothing appeared amiss. Without probable cause or anything else to go on, Baker really didn't have any reason to break into McDonough's house.
Weird, yes. That an employee who hadn't missed a day in three years would suddenly walk out of work without a word, vanishing, apparently skipping town. Odd and out of character...but nothing else.
Dammit.
It always started like this.
He moved his finger down to the second item, also connected with Clifton Heights High, and part of the same call with the beleaguered Principal Stedman. Margaret Seaver, widowed fifty-five year old seventh grade science teacher, had missed two days of school in a row without calling in. This was also highly out of character, and calls to her home had - like those to McDonough's - gone unanswered.
Potter had gone to Seaver's house after McDonough's, and found things just as normal..eerily so. Everything seemed in order (though her car was gone, also), and when Potter knocked on her door no one answered. When he looked into the window, just like at McDonough's, everything seemed fine. No signs of struggle, or anything out of place.
Two people who worked at the same place but had little to no interaction with each other had up and vanished. And neither of them had family in the area, or even in the state. No one to miss them any time soon.
That last bit bothered Baker more than he wanted to admit.
When he'd suggested (only partly joking; it had been known to happen) that perhaps McDonough and Seaver had been carrying on a secret relationship and had flown the coop together, Stedman sputtered and acted is if merely the thought of it mortally offended him.
When he asked Baker what he was planning on doing, Stedman got even huffier when Baker told him: nothing, until something else happened. All he had at the moment were two adults who up and left without telling anyone, and no signs of foul play existed anywhere. He had absolutely no reason to force entry into either of the homes.
He sighed and moved his index finger to the last item on the list, the one which admittedly bothered him the most. Jasper Riley had never come home from school the night before. Joan Riley calling him had been odd enough. Usually, other people called him about one of the Rileys, not Mrs. Riley calling out of her concern for one of her sons.
Her hand-wringing concern about her son's whereabouts seemed even odder. He hadn't been caught yet, but Jasper was a Riley. Which meant he spent most his time hell-raising all hours of the night, drinking, smoking pot, and while probably not getting laid yet, at least rounding the bases pretty quickly for his age. Baker would expect that his mother was used to Jasper keeping whatever hours he felt like.
She'd been frantic, however. Claiming Riley never spent the night out, and that she had an "awful bad feeling somethin's happened to ma boy." Baker assured her he would look into the matter.
A call back to a very perturbed Principal Stedman yielded no results. When Baker asked him if he'd had any idea who'd seen the Riley boy last, Stedman retorted it was highly unlikely the boy had actually spent the whole day in school, seeing as how skipping out early happened to be the only thing he was good at. When Baker than asked for a likely list of Riley cohorts, Stedman sputtered that he had no idea, "keeping track of that white trash's social circle isn't on my daily agenda."
Knowing that Stedman had close ties to chairman of the Town Board, Bob Phillips (the man he responsible for this job, after all), Baker forced himself to thank Stedman for his time, and that if he thought of anything which might help, to not hesitate to call him. He also promised to keep his eyes open for anything relating to his two missing staff members.
Baker sighed again. He'd go out to both McDonough and Seaver's house himself, see if he could turn up anything Potter hadn't. Then, he'd visit Joan Riley in person, scout around there, also. Maybe visit the school today, get a line on who might be palling around with Riley these days, who might've seen him last.
And that was about all he could do at this stage.
Like always.
He grunted, stood, grabbed his trooper hat off his desk, and headed out to make what he already knew would be futile rounds.
October 4th, 20198:00 AM
Sheriff Chris Baker hung up his smartphone, sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and sighed. As it happened with a mercurial rhythm as regular as the tides, something odd was once again afoot in his town. And also, as always, he had no hard facts to back up his feelings. Just a few odd occurrences which didn't seem connected, and an uneasy intuition lingering on the back of his neck. Like cold fingers tapping out an unknowable message in alien Morse code.
A widower, he and his daughter Meg moved to Clifton Heights seven years ago, when he took the sheriff's position through a special appointment by the Town Board. That had seemed odd enough in its own right; town sheriff usually being an elected position. Appointing a sheriff by committee wasn't unheard of, just unusual.
At the time, he hadn't cared. He'd just wanted to find a quiet town to settle in, a nice place he could raise his daughter while trying to recover from his wife's untimely passing. And for the most part, Clifton Heights had turned out to a nice town. Mostly. People were friendly here, and they looked out for each other. It wasn't a perfect town; he knew such a thing didn't exist. But Clifton Heights seemed nice enough, all the same.
It didn't take long for him to understand why the Town Board conducted a committee search for a sheriff, rather than hold elections. In the past seven years, he'd discovered Clifton Heights wasn't a town of black and white, but a town shifting shades of gray. Good people lived here. The town was financially sturdy, having so far avoided the withering decay striking down so many small towns across the country.
But odd things happened here. Unexplained things. People went missing with frightening regularity. Children and teens ran away. Hunters died in accidents. Though violent crime didn't run rampant, per se, Chris felt sure - should he actually want to make a comparison - he'd find their rate of mortality through "violent means" would be higher than the surrounding towns.
The odd thing - the part Chris still couldn't fathom - was how the town dealt with these strange happenings. They didn't ignore them, exactly. They reported on them in the newspaper, and they talked about them in public. But memories seemed extraordinarily short in Clifton Heights. These "sad and tragic" events passed from the public conscious quicker than they would in other towns. When he couldn't solve a case, most everyone, from top down, simply thanked him for doing his best.
And then things settled down. Got quiet. Became peaceful and downright normal, for long stretches of time. Until it started again, and it usually started like it was starting today: a few weird stories which didn't seem connected...until the whole thing blew apart.
He opened his eyes, sat forward, and pulled the notepad he'd been jotting on closer. It always began like this. Always. He'd recognized the pattern after about three years here. But no matter how often he sensed things getting weird, he was never quite able to head events off at the pass.
He tapped the first item on the list. Three days ago, a custodian at Clifton Heights Junior/Senior High, Lester McDonough, had apparently left work before school started, without telling anyone. No one had seen him leave. No had noticed him missing, in fact, until partway through the morning, when his tasks had gone undone.
Calls to his small house on Gatto Road hadn't been returned, despite threats of firing him. Principal Stedman had finally called Baker this morning, asking him to check in on McDonough. Despite his annoyance at an employee simply not coming to work, Stedman actually sounded slightly concerned. It wasn't like Lester McDonough to simply walk out of work and disappear.
Right, Baker thought as he tapped Lester's name with his index finger. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that in this town, I could've retired three years ago.
He'd sent Deputy Potter out to McDonough's house on a drive-by. Everything looked in order, except that McDonough's car indeed wasn't in the driveway. Potter had knocked on the door to no answer, and best as he could tell by peering through the front windows into the den, nothing appeared amiss. Without probable cause or anything else to go on, Baker really didn't have any reason to break into McDonough's house.
Weird, yes. That an employee who hadn't missed a day in three years would suddenly walk out of work without a word, vanishing, apparently skipping town. Odd and out of character...but nothing else.
Dammit.
It always started like this.
He moved his finger down to the second item, also connected with Clifton Heights High, and part of the same call with the beleaguered Principal Stedman. Margaret Seaver, widowed fifty-five year old seventh grade science teacher, had missed two days of school in a row without calling in. This was also highly out of character, and calls to her home had - like those to McDonough's - gone unanswered.
Potter had gone to Seaver's house after McDonough's, and found things just as normal..eerily so. Everything seemed in order (though her car was gone, also), and when Potter knocked on her door no one answered. When he looked into the window, just like at McDonough's, everything seemed fine. No signs of struggle, or anything out of place.
Two people who worked at the same place but had little to no interaction with each other had up and vanished. And neither of them had family in the area, or even in the state. No one to miss them any time soon.
That last bit bothered Baker more than he wanted to admit.
When he'd suggested (only partly joking; it had been known to happen) that perhaps McDonough and Seaver had been carrying on a secret relationship and had flown the coop together, Stedman sputtered and acted is if merely the thought of it mortally offended him.
When he asked Baker what he was planning on doing, Stedman got even huffier when Baker told him: nothing, until something else happened. All he had at the moment were two adults who up and left without telling anyone, and no signs of foul play existed anywhere. He had absolutely no reason to force entry into either of the homes.
He sighed and moved his index finger to the last item on the list, the one which admittedly bothered him the most. Jasper Riley had never come home from school the night before. Joan Riley calling him had been odd enough. Usually, other people called him about one of the Rileys, not Mrs. Riley calling out of her concern for one of her sons.
Her hand-wringing concern about her son's whereabouts seemed even odder. He hadn't been caught yet, but Jasper was a Riley. Which meant he spent most his time hell-raising all hours of the night, drinking, smoking pot, and while probably not getting laid yet, at least rounding the bases pretty quickly for his age. Baker would expect that his mother was used to Jasper keeping whatever hours he felt like.
She'd been frantic, however. Claiming Riley never spent the night out, and that she had an "awful bad feeling somethin's happened to ma boy." Baker assured her he would look into the matter.
A call back to a very perturbed Principal Stedman yielded no results. When Baker asked him if he'd had any idea who'd seen the Riley boy last, Stedman retorted it was highly unlikely the boy had actually spent the whole day in school, seeing as how skipping out early happened to be the only thing he was good at. When Baker than asked for a likely list of Riley cohorts, Stedman sputtered that he had no idea, "keeping track of that white trash's social circle isn't on my daily agenda."
Knowing that Stedman had close ties to chairman of the Town Board, Bob Phillips (the man he responsible for this job, after all), Baker forced himself to thank Stedman for his time, and that if he thought of anything which might help, to not hesitate to call him. He also promised to keep his eyes open for anything relating to his two missing staff members.
Baker sighed again. He'd go out to both McDonough and Seaver's house himself, see if he could turn up anything Potter hadn't. Then, he'd visit Joan Riley in person, scout around there, also. Maybe visit the school today, get a line on who might be palling around with Riley these days, who might've seen him last.
And that was about all he could do at this stage.
Like always.
He grunted, stood, grabbed his trooper hat off his desk, and headed out to make what he already knew would be futile rounds.
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