Oh, Harry, what have you gotten yourself into this time? Time for tea?

[Gerry Rafferty \\ Baker Street]

C1.6

Callahan jogged from his apartment to the Central Division homicide bureau on Bryant Street at least three times a week, getting there early enough to put in fifteen minutes in the weight room before taking a quick shower in the locker room. Once dressed he usually walked up the stairs to the main Homicide Bureau offices before picking up a cup of coffee and flopping down at his desk to catch his breath, and after half a cup he would usually walk over to his ‘mail box’ and pick up copies of incident reports from Patrol he’d been assigned. With those in hand he would then drop by Captain Bennett’s office to pick up any assignments from him, then he’d spend a few hours reading through the incident reports from the shifts before to see if follow-up investigations were warranted.

But not this morning.

By the time he’d made it to the coffee pot he saw Bennett standing in the doorway to his office – and he was just waiting for him. “Good morning, Captain…”

“My office. Now,” Bennett growled, his jowls pulsing in scarlet waves.

Callahan sighed and took a pass on the coffee – for now – then he trudged into Bennett’s office but came up short. Al Bressler and DiGiorgio were already in the room, as were Captain McKay – and Frank Bullitt.

“Shut the door, Callahan,” Bennett grumbled as the Old Man made his way to his desk.

Callahan’s eyes swept the room, his mind anxiously trying to get a read on the mood, but even Bullitt looked as confused as Callahan now felt.

“Alright,” Bennett said as he picked up a blue incident report form from his desk, “as you know, Harry and DiGiorgio had a weird one a few nights ago, but he and I were doing some followup last night down at the scene and we, both Harry and myself, saw something…well, something of interest. But before we get to that, Lieutenant Briggs called me at four this morning to let me know there’d been another incident. The victim was a piano player working at one of the jazz joints down near the wharf. He and some friends walked down to look at the fishing boats after the place closed, and something came out of the water and hit this guy with something, well, with something that literally blew his body apart. Like Harry’s case a few nights ago, there was nothing left but blood and body fluids, no bone, no sinew, no nothing, and now we have five witnesses that describe the same thing. Black, slimy body, described as looking like wet snake’s skin, vaguely human in shape but much taller, like seven or eight feet tall, and when it fled the scene all five witnesses saw a large green area of what looked like glowing gas, green glowing gas, under the fishing boats down there. Divers couldn’t find anything.”

Bennett paused and looked around the room.

“You said the victim was a pianist?” Callahan asked.

“That’s right.”

“My reporting person is a pianist,” Callahan said. 

“Coincidence?” Bennett wondered out loud.

Frank Bullitt cleared his throat: “No such thing as a coincidence in a homicide investigation, Captain. It’s a lead.”

Bennett nodded then turned and looked at Harry. “You play the piano, right?”

“I, uh, yeah, I play a little.”

Bennett nodded. “Okay, I want you and Bullitt on the case from last night, so Harry, get Frank up to speed on your original incident report and include yesterday’s events, then you’d better head out and get your witness interviews knocked out. I’m still not sure what we’re dealing with here, and I’m still not sure if we’re dealing with a human or some kind of marine life, but we need some answers in order to develop some kind of protective strategy. DiGiorgio? I want you to take Gonzales and a crime scene artist and talk with last night’s witnesses, get some idea of what this thing looks like, then take your sketches up to Steinhart and see if any of the biologists up there can help us figure this thing out.”

DiGiorgio nodded. “Right. Anyone know where Chico is?”

“Weight room,” Callahan said. “He doesn’t come in ’til ten, so he’ll be down there now.”

Bullitt and Callahan walked out of Bennett’s office and went to Harry’s desk, but both stopped off at the coffee pot on the way. “What happened yesterday?” Bullitt asked as they sat at Harry’s desk, nursing hot cups of coffee. “Bennett looks pretty miffed.”

Callahan recounted their day out on the water, all of it, finishing up with spotting the head and torso of this black creature in the water by the marina.

“You’re kidding, right? You sayin’ you two really saw this thing?”

“We both did…yeah. About a hundred, hundred and fifty feet away. Shiny and with amber eyes. Big eyes…” Callahan said, his voice almost trancelike as his mind drifted back to the moment he’d felt those amber eyes.

“So, what’s up with you and this girl? Devlin, is it?”

“Yeah, and nothing’s up.”

Bullitt looked at Callahan, his eyes looking for an opening – as if he was peeling through layers of deceit, pushing past the dangling webs of his momentary diversions. “Bennett said she’s on some kind of heavy psych meds. Know what’s going on with her?”

“No,” Callahan said, suddenly on the defensive.

“Seems like basic stuff, Callahan, so I’m wondering why you’re protecting her…?”

“Am I?”

Bullitt shook his head. “Any other witnesses last night?”

“Yeah. An old guy out taking a walk stopped and stared at the thing, too – but then it was like he just faded into the fog.”

“How thick was it last night?”

“I’d say I could see things that were maybe a hundred yards away, like to Broderick Street.”

“Which way did the old guy walk when he left?”

“West on Mason…I think…” Callahan whispered.

“So, towards the trees?”

“Yeah.”

“What was he wearing?”

Callahan closed his eyes and drifted on those other currents… “Cape – wool. Loden green. Gray corduroy slacks. One of those funky hats. Bavarian, like with the bristles on one side…”

“Did he have a beard?”

“Yeah. White, medium long. Bushy white eyebrows. Not tall. Maybe five-eight and two hundred pounds. And he was walking with a cane…”

“Limping?”

“No. But he did the damndest thing, Frank. I caught it out the side of my eye, but he swung the cane in a circle above his head then brought the tip down – and I mean hard – on the sidewalk. And then it started to thunder, like way out past the bridge.”

“Thunder? You’re saying you think he, like what? He summoned the thunder?”

“I know it sounds nutty, Frank, but that’s what I saw.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I know, I know, it sounds weird…”

“It sounds as nutty as a fuckin’ fruitcake, Slick,” Bullitt sighed. “So, you got the number for this girl…at her house?”

“Yeah. Maybe you ought to call her.”

“Ya think?” Bullitt looked at Callahan and tried not to think the worst. Callahan had only recently been assigned to the bureau after testing high on the exam, and he obviously didn’t have any reported history of mental illness, but this crap was over the top. The only thing that mattered right now was that Bennett had seen this thing in the water, but Bennett didn’t see the old man and the cane – but did that matter. “Gimme the number,” Bullitt growled. “I want to get to the bottom of this – first thing.”

Though Bullitt only talked with the nurse looking after Devlin that morning, he scheduled an appointment to talk with her at noon, so he took Callahan in tow and went to the original crime scene by the yacht club, then they walked along the sidewalk where Callahan had seen the old man – and sure enough, Bullitt found evidence of two fresh strikes in the old concrete, and right where Callahan had indicated they’d be.

“Looks like a fresh metal strike,” Bullitt sighed, checking the area for similar markings.

He found none.

But Weyland’s house turned out to be, literally, just a few yards away. 

They crossed Marina and walked up Baker Street until they came to the doctor’s home, a three-story Spanish colonial, replete with red tile roof and a freshly painted, light gray stucco exterior. Bullitt walked up to the door – and a housekeeper opened the heavy oak door before he had a chance to ring the bell.

“I’m sorry sir, but Miss Devlin is having a bad morning,” the old woman said, apparently very nervous and speaking as if she was reading from a well rehearsed script, “and her nurse asked me to convey her regrets.”

Bullitt, standing with his legs apart and a hand covering his mouth simply nodded. “Ask her to come to the door, please. I’d like to speak to her.” The housekeeper hesitated, then the flustered housekeeper curtsied before she closed the door and scurried off in a huff, disappearing inside the house and leaving the two detectives standing alone in clouds of confusion. “Baker Street,” Bullitt whispered. “Where the hell do I know that from?”

“You ever read Sherlock Holmes when you were a kid?”

“Of course! That’s it! Did you read that stuff too?”

“I think maybe I read a couple of them,” Callahan said with a self-deprecating shrug.

“What was the name of that club where he and Watson hung out?”

“You mean that gentleman’s club?” Callahan mused. “The Diogenes Club, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

The door opened just then and a nurse stood there looking seriously put-out and angry. “What do you want?” she asked brusquely, her steel-gray eyes leveled like lances ready to do battle.

“I’m Detective Bullitt. Did I speak with you earlier?”

“No. I took over at eleven. What’s this all about?”

“We need to speak to Miss Weyland…”

“There isn’t a Miss Weyland here,” the nurse said.

“What?” Callahan barked. “Devlin? But I’ve been here with her before.”

“Oh, you mean Miss Aubuchon? Devlin Aubuchon?”

“I thought Dr. Weyland…”

“The doctor is Miss Aubuchon’s guardian.”

“Her guardian?” Callahan sighed, now very confused. “Where is her family?”

“I don’t know anything about her background, and you’ll excuse me, but are you with the police, too?” she said, her eyes now boring into Callahan’s.

So Harry reached into his coat pocket and produced his badge, and that seemed to satisfy the beast – for now. “We were out sailing together yesterday,” he added, “and a few questions have come up since. We were hoping to clear them up with her this morning,” Callahan continued, now smiling as politely as he could.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, warming a little to Callahan’s sudden contrition, “but she’s not really up to seeing visitors right now…”

“She was two hours ago,” Bullitt growled. “What happened since then?”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know. When I read the morning notes it only said that Miss Aubuchon had a bad night and a worse morning and that Dr. Weyland had ordered an increase in her Haldol. She’s out like a light right now.”

“Haldol?” Callahan said. 

“Standard treatment for cases like hers,” the nurse said.

“Schizophrenia, you mean?”

The nurse nodded, but then she looked away suddenly and now Callahan thought the woman was concealing something, or trying to, anyway. “I take it you can’t really talk about these things,” Callahan said.

“She’ll tell us whatever we need to know,” Bullitt growled menacingly – now really getting into the whole ‘Good-Cop–Bad-Cop’ schtick. “But you know what? Let’s cuff her and take her downtown, run her through a polygraph.”

“Frank, take a hike,” Callahan snarled – and then he turned to face the now very cowed nurse. “Do you think we could go inside and talk…just you and me?”

Bullitt grumbled as he walked away from the house, really laying it on thick as he kicked at the sidewalk. “Maybe I should get a search warrant first, huh?”

Now the grateful nurse nodded at Callahan and let him in, and he could see she was visibly shaken by Frank’s antics. “What did you say her last name is?”

“Aubuchon.”

“And what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Page. Page Sanderson.”

“Miss Aubuchon isn’t really schizophrenic, is she, Page?”

The nurse shook her head and looked away. “No sir, I don’t think she is; in fact, there’re times when I think she’s being drugged. Like maybe to keep her quiet.”

“You work for Dr. Weyland?”

“I work up on the wards. Dr. Weyland sends us down here on our days off.”

“So a lot of people are involved in her care? Are you the only one who thinks…”

“Look, some really weird stuff goes on here, alright? With her. I mean stuff that makes your hair stand on end…”

“Can you tell me…”

“Look. No way, man…”

“Have you ever…when you were with her…seen an owl? A white owl?”

Sanderson stepped back and now she really looked upset. “You’ve seen it, too?”

“It? The owl?”

“It’s not an owl.”

“I saw an owl, then I saw her eyes had changed to…”

“Amber,” Sanderson sighed. “Yeah, and you better not be around her when that happens.”

“What happens…if you are?”

Sanderson looked terrified now, and she was shaking hard. “You…believe me…you don’t want to be around her when that happens.”

“I was. I got sick, I think I passed out.”

“Is that it?”

“What have you experienced…when it happens?” 

“I really can’t begin to describe it…”

“Have you…did you see a strange animal? Like shiny black?”

Sanderson nodded. “Oh yeah. I have…most of us have…”

“Do you get a sense that this thing knows her?”

Another nod. “It’s the thing that’s really protecting her, Mr Callahan.”

“Does the doctor know about this thing?”

Again she nodded. “He isn’t what you think he is,” she whispered, “so if I was…look, you be very careful what you say around him.”

“Are you saying the doctor isn’t who I think he is? What does that mean?”

They heard someone walking through the house. Heavy footsteps, like a man walking on tile.

“You need to leave now. Right now,” she said as she pushed him towards the door.

“Okay, I’m going. Thanks,” Callahan just managed to say before the door slammed shut. He turned and walked down to the sidewalk, then pulled the microphone out of his coat pocket and brought it to his lips. “Did you get all that, Frank?”

Bullitt pulled up in Cathy’s pale yellow Porsche and pulled the plastic earpiece from his right ear. “Yeah. Took notes, too. But you know what? I think I need a drink…”

“Hell, it’s five o’clock somewhere,” Callahan said as Bullitt drove away from the house on Baker Street. Neither saw the white owl overhead, ducking in and out of the clouds as they drove back to the bureau.

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[Peter Gabriel \\ Darkness]