Brooks & Smith, page 7
“That would’ve been a shame,” Smith said.
“You realize we hit ninety-five on the interstate?”
Smith stared at him with contempt. “So?”
“That’s reckless endangerment,” Brooks said. “If we’d been pulled over—”
Smith rolled his eyes and approached the manager’s door. “Wait ’til you find out I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.”
Brooks was appalled. “Are you serious? That’s—”
Smith tuned him out and gave the thin metal door a few taps, which caused it to rattle.
No one answered.
“Parking lot’s full,” Smith noted.
“Maybe the ghosts got him,” Brooks said.
“Him and all the workers?” Smith spread his arms wide to note the nothing. All the quarry equipment was unmanned. The place was silent. “There’s no one here.”
“Except ghosts,” Brooks said, deliberately annoying his partner.
“There aren’t any ghosts,” Smith said.
“There could be,” Brooks said.
“You read the file?” Smith asked, already knowing the answer was yes. “Nobody’s seen any specters. No EMF activity. It’s just a bunch of hicks making wild accusations.”
As he tapped at the door again, a voice came from behind them.
“You fellas lookin’ for a ghost?” it asked.
Brooks, still new to field work, jumped a little.
Smith drew his gun, whipped around, and pointed it at the source of the voice. An old man in a straw hat stood at the end of the concrete pad, unfazed by the gun.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Smith tucked his weapon away. “You the manager?”
The old man—who would have looked perfectly at home on a rocking chair—shook his head in the negative and blathered on. “Lotta folk come ’round here looking for a ghost. You two look like you’re from the city.”
The city the old man meant was Harrisburg (population: 48,950).
“Where would we find a ghost?” Brooks asked, to Smith’s eyerolls.
“If it’s a ghost you’re lookin’ for, check the quarry pond.” The old man pointed to a break in the treeline at the edge of the gravel. “I wouldn’t go over there, though. Lotta bad history at that pond. Just last week, Leewood Tankle drowned out there. Six-time county swim champion and he just up ’n’ drowns in not much more’n a puddle. Ain’t right.”
“One event is a lot of bad history?” Smith asked, like a smartass.
“Thanks,” Brooks said, pulling his partner away from the old man and toward the treeline.
The old man droned on about the town’s history, but the detectives were well out of earshot.
Beyond the treeline was another gravel expanse. Sure enough, this one contained a pond. An unimpressive pond, at that. Maybe ten feet in diameter and three feet deep, composed of grey pebbles like the ones that surrounded it. Brooks and Smith circled it for ten minutes and found nothing. No remnants of Leewood Tankle. No EMF activity. No evidence of a pirate ghost or a ghost pirate. Nothing.
On a flat, pebbly area, Smith began pulling his shoes off. Then his mismatched socks.
“What are you doing?” Brooks asked.
“I’m gonna check the pond,” Smith said, removing his belt.
“You think it’s a good idea to walk into a haunted pond?”
Smith, top half in a suit and bottom half in nothing but worn-out boxers, stepped into the pond and made a declaration. “There are no ghosts.”
Almost immediately, the water in the pond disappeared into thin air and he was standing in an empty gravel pit. Smith took a step back and looked down at it, scowling.
Brooks crossed his arms. “You were saying?”
“There might be something fucky,” Smith said, “but it’s not a ghost and it’s not in this pond.”
There was nothing in the pond. No twigs, shards of glass, or used needles. Nothing but pebbles. It was the cleanest pond Smith had ever seen.
“We should head back to the office,” Brooks said. “See if that old man’s seen any workers or—”
“Yeah.” As soon as Smith’s feet left the pond, its water reappeared. He squinted at it. “That’s fucking weird... but it’s not a ghost.” He wiggled his EMF reader at it. “Nothing.”
“I guess not,” Brooks said. He still sort of thought there was a ghost. Mostly he thought about what a shame it was that Smith was putting his pants back on.
When they got back to the quarry, the old man was nowhere to be found, and all of the employee cars were gone.
“Apparently quarry work stops at five on the dot,” Smith said.
Brooks shook his head. “What work? There was no one here.”
“There’s definitely a case,” Smith said.
“We’re going to have to stay overnight,” Brooks said, with a sly smile.
Smith didn’t acknowledge it. “I’ll meet you here at eight tomorrow.” He then remembered he could set his own schedule. “Make it nine. Ten, even.”
Brooks curled his lip. “We’re the only two agents out here. You don’t think we should hang out and do some research? Two heads better than one and all that? Who knows, we could even get food.”
“Do your own research. I know what your idea of food is.” Smith opened his Aztek’s door.
“Drinks?” Brooks wondered.
“Do whatever you want,” Smith said. “I’m gonna rent a room at the Ramshackle Inn and eat chips for dinner like a fucking deviant while I read about pond monsters.”
“There’s nothing to do out here,” Brooks complained.
“Exactly.” Smith shut the door and drove off.
❦
Smith wasn’t alone in his one-star hotel room for long. One bag of Amish kettle chips and a hardcore porn rental later, there was knocking at his door.
“No room service!” Smith shouted, fumbling to cover himself with a duvet.
“It’s me,” Brooks said through the door.
Smith grabbed the remote and quickly flipped to the Sci-Fi Channel. He threw on some pajama pants and cracked open the door. “What?”
“There’s only one hotel in this town,” Brooks said.
“Okay... and?”
“I went to a bar first, and by the time I got here, it was full,” Brooks said.
Smith squinted at the parking lot. “It’s full?”
“Cheese convention,” Brooks said. “Can I crash here?”
“It’s a single,” Smith said.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Brooks offered.
Smith rubbed at the inside corners of his eyes. “Fine.” He opened the door wide.
Brooks eyed the older man’s low pajamas and made an even lower chuckle. “Can we talk about the dragon tattoo?”
Smith pulled his pants up to his waist. “I was seventeen.”
Brooks stepped into the room and noticed half a dozen empty beer bottles on the nightstand. “You didn’t want to get drinks, huh?”
“Sure didn’t,” Smith said.
“Yeah, okay—” Brooks eyed the TV “—and that’s research?”
Smith flopped back onto the bed. “You’ve sure got a lot of complaints for a freeloader.”
“Yeah. Okay...” Brooks seated himself on the edge of the bed. “So, like I said... I went to the bar, and... everyone there had a ghost story.”
“For the love of—”
Brooks held his palms out to tell his partner to settle down. “All of them described the ghosts differently. Some of them saw dead Victorian kids. One of them claimed they had sex with a ghost, which... definitely didn’t happen. I think you’re right about them being full of it.”
“I know I am,” Smith said.
“So... we have... six missing quarry workers, one drowned swim champion, a disappearing old man in a hat, and a bunch of liars. What do we do with that?”
“My best guess? Illusion magic. But there’s nothing to do until we can talk to the quarry guys tomorrow,” said Smith. “Whatever’s going on, it involves them.”
“We could go talk to them at home now. We could go talk to more townies,” Brooks said.
“Yeah,” Smith said. “You know what people love? Being harassed at home at ten o’clock at night.”
“But if they’re already out in public—”
“Quit being a go-getter. My report on you is gonna say ‘adequate’ either way.”
Brooks grouched. “Wow. Thanks.”
An hour later, he found something else to grouch about. While Smith reclined in comfort, watching Quantum Leap reruns atop a pile of four pillows, Brooks folded awkwardly in the space between the bed and the wall, browsing Reti-net on his laptop. His back, which was too young to hurt, hurt.
He eyed the king-sized bed. “The floor is harder than I thought it would be.”
“I’m not sharing,” Smith said.
“Please?”
Smith turned up the volume. “Nope.”
Brooks tugged at the comforter. “Come on.”
Smith looked down at a pair of pleading brown eyes. Part of him wanted to crank the volume even higher and flip his partner the bird. Another part felt the smallest twinge of affection.
“Fine,” he said, tossing one pillow to the other side of the bed.
Inside, Smith raged at himself for being a pushover. To keep his pride and his distance, he scooched himself as close to his edge of the bed as possible.
Brooks didn’t do the same. He settled in the middle of the bed and—despite bringing his laptop with him—fell asleep in an instant, making the occasional assault on Smith with an errant arm or leg.
Hours later, one egregious bump woke Smith in the middle of the night. It had been hard enough for him to fall asleep in the first place, and he prepared to shove the other detective across the mattress and yell at him. For some reason, he didn’t do either of those things. He just lay there, watching Brooks sleep, thinking about Willowbrook Park, and repeating a mantra:
He’s cute, but he’s doomed.
❦
The next morning, the quarry buzzed with activity. Loud equipment beeped and slammed rocks. Workers shouted in order to hear each other through their noise-blocking ear muffs. Plumes of dust filled the air. Brooks and Smith pulled up in their Azteks and began interviewing everyone they could find.
None of the workers had any idea what the men from New York were going on about.
“I was here all day yesterday,” one worker said.
“We were here at four o’clock,” Brooks said. “The parking lot was full, but no one was here.”
The worker shrugged. “I was here. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Tell us about the pond,” Smith said.
“What pond?”
Brooks pointed in the direction of the pond. “The one over there. Maybe two hundred meters?”
“That pond’s been empty all season. Drought, y’know.”
“We were just there yesterday,” Brooks said. “It was a pond.”
“Leewood Tankle drowned there,” Smith noted.
“He may have drowned at the pond,” said the worker, “but he couldn’t have drowned in the pond. I’m telling you it’s been dry all season.”
Brooks and Smith led the worker back to the pond, only to embarrass themselves.
The pond was empty. Smith kicked at it, hoping the pond would respond to him. It didn’t.
When they returned to the quarry, the dust had settled. The noise was gone. The only cars in the parking lot were the Azteks and an old Camaro belonging to the agents’ tour guide.
“Shit,” said the quarry worker. “Where’d everyone go? If they’re not working, I’m not.” He ducked into his Camaro and sped off, leaving the detectives in a cloud of dust.
Brooks and Smith continued poking around the quarry all afternoon. As far as they could tell, it looked like a quarry. There were rocks everywhere, and an empty pond. No corpses. No EMF. With nothing to go on, they did what any sensible person would do and made their way to a local tavern. They claimed a high-top table near the bar, where they could overhear everyone in the room.
“Ever heard of a ghost pond?” Brooks wondered.
“Pondtergeist,” Smith offered. “And no. There’s no ghosts, and that includes the goddamn pond.”
“Maybe the workers are turning invisible together,” Brooks suggested. “And if one of them is away from the quarry, they don’t get turned.”
“So they come back and it looks like everyone else is gone, but everyone else is just invisible?” Smith thought on it. “That’s dumb. Won’t rule it out. But the cars disappeared too.”
“Our cars didn’t disappear,” Brooks noted, ruining his own theory.
As they thought on it, a server brought out the abomination Smith had ordered. Knot-chos were like nachos, but instead of chips the base was a pile of sourdough pretzels. They were topped with liquid cheese product, jalapeño slices, olives, bacon bits, and a glob of sour cream.
Brooks eyed the mess and winced. “How are you still alive?”
“I ask myself that every day,” Smith said, before devouring a knot-cho.
Brooks regained his focus. “How could Leewood Tankle drown in an empty pond?”
“Suicide?” Smith suggested.
“It was a rhetorical question,” Brooks said.
“This is why I hate working small town cases,” Smith said. “No one’s stories ever line up and it almost always turns out to be some group of busybodies dicking around.”
Brooks eyed Smith’s knot-chos. “Can I try one of those?”
“Sure.” Smith slid the plate toward the center of the table. “They’re terrible.”
Brooks grabbed one and popped it into his mouth. He rendered his judgment. “Awful.”
“Told you,” Smith said.
“But weirdly enticing...” Brooks grabbed another.
“The power of salt,” said Smith.
Smiling between bites, they made quick work of the knot-chos, which were nearly gone by the time their server returned with an apologetic face.
“Um... my manager told me you two are making other patrons uncomfortable, so I’m supposed to ask you to tone it down...”
Brooks’s eyes shifted from side to side. “You sure you have the right table?”
“Yes.” She not-so-subtly slid Smith’s plate back toward him.
Brooks took a sip of water, so the cheese goop couldn’t impede his ability to complain.
“We didn’t do anything,” Brooks said, “but if you’re going to give me that attitude, we will.”
Smith gulped down a knot-cho. “We will?”
Brooks hopped off his seat and stepped around the table, with a look that sought consent.
Smith gave a quick nod, and Brooks leaned in to kiss him. Nothing too outrageous. Soft mouth-to-mouth action with only the slightest bit of tongue. When Brooks pulled away, Smith’s mouth trailed toward him, like he was a cartoon character floating through the air in pursuit of a pie. He shook it off and resettled himself.
Brooks turned back to the server. “Tell your manager they don’t have to like it, but they can deal with it.” She scurried off, and Brooks reseated himself, huffing. “All we did was share a plate.”
Smith—trying to hide his fluster—gave his partner the side-eye. “Why do I feel like that was a thinly veiled excuse to kiss me, Agent Brooks?”
“Don’t Agent Brooks me,” Brooks said.
“That’s the only way I’m gonna name you,” Smith said. “Because we’re keeping it professional.”
“Yeah, we’ll see...”
One by one, a circle of patrons formed around Brooks and Smith’s table. Muttering and whispering amongst themselves, they gave off angry mob vibes. The detectives found themselves surrounded, and they readied themselves for a fight. For Brooks, that meant mentally reciting Reticent fighting tips. For Smith, it meant loading up on carbs.
Instead of attacking, a woman with a speak-to-the-manager haircut reached for Brooks’s hand and gave it a friendly shake. “Hi. We all just wanted to say... how brave it is for you two to express your love here.”
Smith almost choked on the last knot-cho. “Our what?”
“Kudos to you,” said another local, who sported a mullet.
“Um... thank you?” Brooks said. “What are—”
The circle mumbled a few words of encouragement, then dispersed as the detectives’ server returned to announce that their food and drinks had been comped.
“My manager had a change of heart,” she explained with a smile.
Things were really starting to feel amiss.
“What just happened?” Brooks asked.
Smith didn’t have an answer for him; he was busy reminding himself of his new mantra.
He’s cute, but he’s doomed.
❦
Back at the hotel, Smith hung his jacket on a peg near the door as he made a proclamation. “Today was a bust.” He clutched his side. “And I’m pretty sure the knot-chos are killing me.”
Brooks—still fully dressed—leapt onto the bed and sprawled out, exhausted.
“You’re somehow taking even more space than you did yesterday,” Smith said.
There was an incomprehensible, sleepy mumble.
In the forty seconds it took Smith to change into his low-rise pajama pants, Brooks passed out. Smith tucked into the sliver of bed that had been set aside for him and shut his eyes.
Said eyes sprung open to another bump in the night. But it wasn’t an errant limb this time. Brooks had moved his whole body over and made it conform to Smith’s. It was far too cozy and warm for someone unused to being either, and Smith readied a complaint.
He tapped Brooks’s shoulder, but the younger man didn’t rouse. He aimed his finger again, but something came over him. Instead of prodding for more space, Smith ran his hand down the side of Brooks’s body, threw his arm around him, and pulled him closer. Just as this made him feel like a creep and he prepared to retract his arm, Brooks grabbed it and pulled it tighter.
“You’re awake?” Smith asked.
Brooks said nothing.
❦
Door by door, citizen by citizen, Brooks and Smith got a complete picture of Lititz. It was a boring picture, and only a few houses had information of note...
Ms. Carpenter (née Wilson). Age 58. Widow. After her former husband won the lottery, he skipped out of town, attempting to leave her without the fifty percent she was owed after a quarter century of marriage. Thankfully, he died almost immediately, and she inherited every cent. For some reason, she remained in Lititz.
