SPN gen fic: Sweet Caroline 5/11
Sep. 30th, 2008 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
superbadgirlTitle: Sweet Caroline
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
superbadgirl
Category: Horror/Mystery, A/A, H/C, Case Fic
Season/Spoiler: mid to late S1
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,377 this chapter/57,900, all told
Summary: Dean and Sam head to a small Minnesota town to investigate the mysterious death of a college student. They struggle to put together the pieces and end the hunt before anyone else gets hurt or killed.
Author's Notes: My thanks toldyanne for the alpha and encouragement, and to meg_tdj for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: Not mine, yadda yadda yadda.
Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three
The on-campus café wasn’t his first choice for dining, but the food wasn’t half bad and neither were some of the female patrons. Dean winked at a girl passing by his table before stuffing the last three fries on his plate into his mouth, appetite quelled for the time being. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the standing cooler filled with sandwiches ready to go, picking out a turkey club and chocolate soy milk for Sam. Food wasn’t allowed in the library, but Dean knew his kid brother had to be hungry, or had to eat anyway. If Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, then he’d bring the mountain to Mohammed. Nothing good could come from going into a fight without energy. He tossed in a brownie for himself, paying the cashier and strolling out.
The library was only steps from the student center. He crossed the ten feet of sidewalk between buildings, and was at the library door when someone bumped into him. Dean waved the guy off, but then recognized who it was. Will Pendelton gazed up at him, paling white as a sheet before backing away quickly and almost tripping over his feet. Dean didn’t even get to say hi. Pleased by the lasting effect of his intimidation techniques, Dean turned back to the library and went in search of Sam.
He found out that the records Sam would need had been archived online, and WiFi was available throughout the whole building. The library wasn’t huge, so a quick search found Sam tucked in a corner on the third floor, at a round table and on his computer. More interestingly, he wasn’t alone. Libraries were the new bars, apparently. Smiling, Dean approached in stealth mode, edging behind a shelf of books. He hoped to eavesdrop on his little brother and the tall drink of water Sam had befriended at the wake. He couldn’t remember her name. Abby?
“So, who are you really? Don’t tell me you’re a student,” were the first words Dean was able to make out. Uh oh. “I know you’re not.”
“Iris…”
Iris, that was her name.
“How much of what you told me was a lie?”
“Nuh…I…You don’t understand,” Sam said.
“I understand, you jerk. What kind of creep preys on people at a memorial service? It’s sick. It’s wrong.”
The girl sounded borderline hysterical, and it was past time for Dean to step to Sam’s aid. Much as a college angst-fest could be entertaining, for some reason Sam really seemed to care about this girl. This particular college angst-fest, therefore, was not so entertaining. He stepped out into the open, seeing both Sam’s and the girl’s faces for the first time. Both looked alarmed, red blotches coloring their cheeks. Christ almighty, Sam had really never outgrown that stage.
“Hey,” Dean said, “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Oh,” the girl said, whirling toward him. She was his height. Impressive. “The brother. If you really are his brother.”
“You betcha I am, sweetheart. Dean. Nice to meet you.” Dean made a show of looking at nearby students. “What do you say we keep this quiet? Calm down a little.”
“I will not…”
“Iris, please,” Sam said.
Surprisingly, Iris trailed off, but she still looked ready to lose it.
“Please tell me why you’re saying these things. Please tell me why you’re so upset.”
“Like you don’t know,” Iris said, voice shaky. “Go to www.idobelieveinspooks.com. It’s all over campus.”
Okay, what? While Sam entered the web address, Dean circled around Iris with his hands up in a show of peace, until he stood behind his brother. The website popped up, all cheesy graphics and music. Dead center on the screen was a video box. Sam clicked play. Dean groaned to himself. He recognized it immediately. It was their footage from last night, framed with cheesy text about ghost hunting. He recalled the look on Will’s face only minutes ago, at having run into him.
“That little sonuvabitch,” Dean growled.
“Guess he didn’t take your threat seriously,” Sam murmured to him.
“He will after I get through with him.”
“He must have gone back out there and found the camera.”
“Maybe he took it while we were all still out there. I left him alone.”
“That’s your voice,” Iris said, tapping the screen just as the footage became erratic, and Will screamed. “That’s what happened to your face. What is going on? I want you to tell me the truth, Gregg.”
“While we're being honest, his name is Sam, actually," Dean said. He pulled a chair out, gesturing for Iris to sit.
"Sam?" Iris repeated.
"Are you really going to believe anything we say at this point?"
“I don’t know. Probably not.” She eyed him nervously, before looking over at Sam. Something flickered across her features, going from angry to confused or sad or something indefinable. Iris sat down at the edge of the chair, still looking at Sam with that lost expression. “Maybe.”
That figured. Even exposed as a lying liar, Sam could work the puppy dog eyes like nobody’s business. His brother looked at him with those same puppy eyes before leaning closer to Iris. Dean felt like a third wheel all of a sudden, and he shifted back to his eavesdropping position behind the shelves. He could still hear everything if he wanted to, but he didn’t have to make an awkward situation even more uncomfortable by standing there watching it happen. He heard Sam speaking and Iris’ disbelief, but he didn’t listen to the words. Sam knew what to do.
He didn’t like it, but the sooner Sam realized the impossibility of making real connections with people the better off he’d be. By all rights, Sam should have learned that long ago. All they ever needed was each other. Him and Sam and Dad. There didn’t have to be anyone else if they could just stick together. Not for the first time, he wondered why he was the only one to see the magnitude of that.
A sharp “you must be crazy” drifted over to him, pulling him back to the here and now, and he winced. Yeah, the truth was rarely well received. He knew that from firsthand experience. He stepped out from his non-hiding place in time to see Iris leaving, and Sam gazing after her with his face twisted up. Dean didn’t say anything for a minute, sitting down in the chair Iris had vacated. Sam eventually pulled his expression back to one of carefully controlled sadness. Dean clenched his jaw.
“That was…awkward,” he said, going for lightness in a weak attempt to make Sam feel better.
“Dean.” Sam sounded old, tired. It broke Dean’s heart, it really did. “She needs time to…never mind. Let’s just concentrate on stopping this thing.”
He assessed his brother for another second. Dean didn’t blame the guy for feeling miserable. It sucked to be treated like a crazy person. Sam had to get his head in the game and seemed to be on that track anyway, so Dean would be here to make sure he stayed on it. He pulled the sandwich and soy milk from his jacket pocket, handing them to his brother.
“Here,” he said. “You can focus while you eat.”
For a second, Sam looked ready to protest. Then he just nodded and said, “Thanks.”
Sam tore open the cellophane wrapper, careful not to make too much noise. Dean watched to make sure his brother was actually going to eat. When Sam had half the sandwich gone, Dean glanced at the computer. It was still cued up to the stupid website.
“If you’re okay sticking with the research, I think I need to go do some damage control,” he said, tapping the laptop screen. “I ran into that little jerk when I was coming over here. He took off like a shot. No wonder.”
“What an idiot,” Sam said with his mouth half full. “Dean, this could turn into a circus really, really fast.”
“I know.” Before they’d be able to put a lid on the streaming video, there’d probably be night vigils planned out at the cemetery. The confrontation with Sam’s friend was plenty of evidence the circus had already started. “Call me if you find anything that can’t wait for me to get back.”
As Dean stepped from the library, it occurred to him he had no idea where to find Will freaking Pendelton at the moment. The way the kid had run off, he might be in Clontarf by now. Dean snickered at the returning thought of Clontarf, a momentary distraction before he got back to business. Though the campus was small, it wasn’t so small he could canvass it efficiently by himself. He couldn’t forget the name of the residence hall Will lived in, so he figured his best bet was to stake out the guy’s room and wait for him there. He wished he had a gun, because apparently he needed a refresher course in intimidation and Will needed a refresher course in making prudent choices.
He had no problem getting to Gay Hall. Once inside, though, Dean thought he’d never get out of the endless loop of asking stupid kids where to go or if they’d heard of his intended victim. After being misdirected no fewer than three times, Dean finally stood in front of Will’s door. Will and Thad’s door, technically. He hadn’t considered a roommate. He knocked and got no answer. With glances up and down the hallway followed by a quick jimmy, he was in the room. He wrinkled his nose. Even for him the place was a pit. He tried to imagine Sam in such an environment and couldn’t.
Dean stood there for a moment, taking in the piles of dirty laundry, a hot plate with something nasty burned onto the coils and fifteen different types of cologne bottles on one of the dressers. No, he definitely couldn’t see Sam in a place like this. His and Jess’ apartment was more Sam’s style. Dean winced, shaking himself out of that line of thought. He pondered a second, unable to decide if he should hide himself for a surprise attack or sit on one of the beds. There was a rattle of keys at the door, so he ducked behind it, his dilemma solved by necessity. The wait hadn’t been as long. He kicked the door shut and grabbed the kid.
Except it wasn’t Will. The roommate, Thad, shrieked and fairly well hit the ceiling. Which was damned amusing, because the guy was almost Sam’s height and twice as wide. The guy’s eyes were wild and huge, standing out brightly against dusky skin. Dean bit back the urge to laugh, making himself look menacing yet non-threatening at the same time. The whole I’m not going to hurt you but I could look that never seemed to work as well as he hoped. He caught his reflection in a mirror and realized why. The only thing translating on his face was the but I could, and in turning back to Thad, Dean saw the kid was a second away from tackling him. Maybe he was a linebacker. Despite the guy’s size, it wasn’t hard to subdue him. Ten seconds of scuffling later, and Dean sat perched on Thad’s back, in the middle of the room.
“I need you to do me a favor, Thad. It is Thad, right? Interesting name,” he said. Thad whimpered. Dean took that as a yes. “I need you to call your roommate and tell him you’ve got something for him in your room. Can you do that for me?”
“You’re one of the crazy dudes,” Thad gasped, voice high-pitched with tension. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“Jesus. No.” Okay, so maybe the gun threat had been ill advised. He had to admire Will a little bit for going ahead with publishing the footage, knowing Dean had guns. Multiple guns. “This isn’t about you, kid. I just need to talk to Will about something.”
“Are you going to shoot him?”
“I’m not going to shoot anyone.” Though the urge was growing stronger by the second. “I don’t even have a weapon on me.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He had a blade strapped to his right calf. But apparently his assurance wasn’t much of a comfort to Thad, who started wriggling underneath him. Dean sighed. Nothing was ever easy. He grabbed a handful of hair, pulled Thad’s head back and leaned in close to the kid’s ear. The struggling stopped, but Dean could feel how tense Thad’s muscles remained.
“Look, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here to hurt Will, though I have to admit I think he deserves it. Now, I’ll let you up if you promise not to scream, fight or try to make a run for it,” Dean said. “Can you do that?”
“Sure, man,” Thad said instantly, relaxing. “You got it. No problem.”
The second Dean eased off the kid’s back, Thad scrambled for the door. Dean had expected nothing less, of course, and once again subdued the kid. Instead of sitting on him, this time Dean grabbed a tie off the door handle (undoubtedly a signal to not enter), and bound Thad’s hands with it, attaching the end to the bedpost. Collapsing on the bed tiredly because the kid had put up more of a fight this time, Dean saw Thad staring up at him bug-eyed, obviously scared stiff. Dean regretted that, he really did, but sometimes the ends justified the means.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Dean said, figuring he might as well stick to the bad guy routine for the moment.
He wondered how he was going to keep this from escalating. If Thad or Will reported him, he and Sam wouldn’t exactly fly under the radar. And the last thing he needed was posthumous kidnapping charges. Thad didn’t even know he was being held hostage by a dead man. Heh. It was kind of funny.
“I asked you politely not to run.”
“You’re a psycho. Why wouldn’t I run?” Thad grouched. Like Will, like roommate with the smart mouth.
“The way I see it, there are two choices. One, you be a good boy and get little Willy back here. Two, you don’t and I sit around with you waiting for him to come back, no matter how long it takes,” Dean said, picking up one of the many dirty socks piled on the floor. “With this stuffed in your mouth. I like option one. What do you think?”
Fifteen minutes of idle chit chat with Thad later, and Dean was starting to think Will would never show up. All things considered, Thad turned out to be a pretty all right kid once he relaxed as much as a person being held hostage could. He gave pointers on how to score with women, while Thad explained to him why physics was everything. Dean wasn’t sure he bought it, but he made mental notes to field test some of the laws for himself. They were in the middle of a game of garbage can hoops, severe handicap given for the tied-up guy, when the jingle of keys came from the door.
“No, man, it’s cool,” Thad said when Dean picked up the sock to stuff in his mouth. “I won’t yell or anything.”
Dean looked for signs of subterfuge and found none. If that wasn’t proof the Winchester charm worked on anyone…. Dean ducked behind the door anyway. Will would probably try to bolt the second he saw Thad shackled to the bed. Closer proximity would mean less work for him in the long run. Will stumbled in, bag unshouldered halfway, halting when he saw Thad sitting next to the bed. The door snicked shut. Dean leaned against it with his arms crossed, blocking the only means of escape.
“Thad, what’s going on?” Will said.
“Well, if it isn’t little Willy,” Dean said. “It’s so nice to see you again. We have to talk.”
Will spun around, his bag of books hitting the floor with a resounding thunk. The look on the guy’s face was something Dean would cherish long after he and Sam put Morris, Minnesota far, far behind them.
~~!~~
The research would have gone even faster if Sam hadn’t kept mentally revisiting his disastrous conversation with Iris. He hadn’t expected to see her again, and to have it go so badly filled him with regret. Knowing how she felt in losing someone close to her, the last thing he had wanted was to cause her or anyone more pain. That kind of thing weighed heavily on his mind anyway, but he knew he couldn’t let it. He had a job to do, whether he wanted that job or not.
And right now, he had to find Dean. Sam knew which spirit was killing people. It had been fairly easy to determine though the records were old and sparse, once he was able to concentrate. He and Dean should be able to take care of it tonight, before anyone else got hurt. The only wrinkle in that plan was Will putting up the website, a surefire way to stir up interest. Sam dug out his cell and speed dialed his brother. It rang four times before Dean picked up.
“Hey,” Dean said, “I’m in the middle of something.”
“I take it you found Will?”
“Sure did.” There was a muffled thump in the background. “We’re coming to an understanding as we speak.”
“Tell me you’re not hurting him,” Sam said. The last thing they needed was assault charges. This case was getting messier by the minute. Scuffling sounds were the only reply Sam got. He spoke more deliberately, “Dean. Tell. Me. You’re. Not. Hurting. Him.”
The student worker at the circulation desk caught his words, looking at him with alarmed eyes. Giving her a shrug and a crooked smile he hoped was enough to allay her concern, Sam scooted out of the library before he had to yell at Dean to stop bludgeoning Will to death.
“I’m not hurting him. Really. Hey, you all done?”
“Yeah, I got what we need. If you’re done, meet you at the car.” Another thump, louder this time, and a dim shout. What the hell? “Dean, you’re really not hurting the guy?”
“No, I’m not. I need you to do something for me here, so come on over. I was just going to call you. I got caught up. I’m at the dorm. Gay 2.” Dean paused there.
Sam could virtually see the grin on his brother’s face, and glared even though Dean couldn’t see him.
“Third floor, room 351.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
“Star Wars, Dean?”
“Good line, Sam.”
True enough. Sam snorted, clicking his phone shut. He started walking faster, not convinced Dean wasn’t doing something unpleasant to Will. He hurried through the picturesque little campus, eyes to the ground after he caught more than one person staring at him. He was being paranoid. It was probably that he was wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. The website couldn’t have circulated that much, and his face hadn’t appeared in the vid at all. Still, he tucked his head down like a turtle, shoved his hands in his pockets and lengthened his stride.
Once at Gay Hall he was glad Dean had given him specifics, which helped him loop around to the right wing and floor easily. Sam was surprised to find the dorm room door open when he got there. Not that he doubted Dean’s assertion he hadn’t beat the crap out of Will for screwing them over. Really. He poked his head in, finding Will, Dean and another kid who was built like a tank playing some crazy game with a rolled up sock, a garbage can and strange positions. Will was doing a headstand at the far wall, lifting his right hand to take a shot at the garbage can and failing.
“Whore!” cried the big kid Sam didn’t know. “You’re so going down.”
“Uh,” Sam said. “Hello?”
“Sammy,” Dean greeted. “Come on in.”
Sam figured out what they were doing. Horse. He’d been off working and feeling like crap about Iris while Dean played a game with someone who’d caused them moderate-to-large problems. The irritation building up in him fizzled when he saw his brother’s face, absent of the chronic worry lines Dean had developed about Dad disappearing off the face of the planet. Sam couldn’t remember the last time Dean had fun that didn’t include scoring with women, just goofing off. He didn’t quite understand how Dean could be friendly with someone he’d wanted to kill an hour ago, but he also couldn’t hold it against his brother.
“Hey. What’s going on?” he said lightly, so Dean couldn’t mistake it for irritation.
“Just a second.”
Dean moved to the far wall, where he mimicked the position Will had just executed. He made the shot easily, flipping back over and joining Sam by the door in one fluid motion and with an impish smile on his face.
“I got the camera.” Dean pointed to the camera where it sat on a cluttered desk. “I also had Will take down the video and put up a message about it being a hoax.”
“Actually, I just asked the site owner to delete the post. Not that I had much choice,” Will said sourly, betraying the happy-happy-feel-good vibe in the room wasn’t entirely what it seemed. He stared up at Sam. “And wow, your face looks terrible.”
“Thanks,” Sam said, fiddling with his sunglasses. “It could have happened to you, or maybe something worse.”
Will became uncomfortable and nervous, scooting away from them again. Dean might be all buddy-buddy with the guy, but that didn’t mean Sam had to be. He wasn’t in the mood to fraternize or make nice, especially with this kid, if he were going to be honest.
Dean gave him a shrug and a wry look.
It wasn’t often Sam got to be the bad cop and Dean the good. He found he kind of enjoyed it. “Making friends, Dean?”
“Influencing people, Sam.”
Sam wondered how much of the influence was natural charm, and how much was force. He noticed the big kid had a necktie fixed around one wrist.
“But I think it might be a good idea for you to check that Will doesn’t have a copy stashed somewhere,” Dean said.
“What, you don’t trust me?” Will asked.
“No,” he and Dean answered Will as one.
“I’m on it,” Sam continued. “I’ll check the hard drive and check with the site’s webmaster to make sure there isn’t a copy out there somewhere.”
“I think I’m insulted,” Will said. “I told you I took it down.”
Sam moved to the laptop on the same cluttered desk the camera was on. Short of wiping the whole computer clean, he wasn’t sure he could track down every single place Will might have saved a copy of the vid. A quick look at the history and cookies gave him fairly good ideas where to look, but who was to say it hadn’t been snagged and uploaded to a thousand different places by now? All they could really do at this point was hope for the best.
“Look, kid, two people are dead. This ain’t a joke,” Dean said. “Trust me when I tell you we’re being very patient. Kind, even. Now, I like you. I do. You’ve got spunk. But if you screw with us anymore, I can’t guarantee I’ll stay nice.”
“H-holy shit,” the roommate said in awe. “The whole ghost thing, it’s for real?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said absently, listening with a distracted ear. “Real or not, people are dying out there. The last thing anyone needs is to go wandering out in a cemetery in the middle of the night.”
Except him and Dean, because, well, that was their job. Even they weren’t exactly safe out there, but at least they were prepared for big, bad, ugly things to come at them, usually. Sometimes. Okay, maybe not, but they did know how to fight.
“Like Will did yesterday.”
“Exactly like that, Thad. Will’s damned lucky we were there, and to repay us he put up a video for everyone to see. It’s attracting all sorts of attention,” Dean said. Gone was the fun-loving, basketball-tossing good guy, though even while he spoke menacingly, his tone was almost reassuring at the same time. “Now that’s not very nice, is it?”
“No, I guess not,” Thad said, then rolled his eyes at his roommate. “Jeez, Will. Buddy, I love you like a brother but you can be a tool.”
“Hey, you weren’t there when these guys were talking all kinds of crazy,” Will said. “But I’m sorry now, all right? I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, I just thought it was cool.”
“Real cool,” Dean muttered, following up with things not fit for civilized conversation.
Will brushed Sam away from the laptop, taking over the keyboard for himself. In a few quick strokes, he did what Sam would have done only after a thorough search and a bit of time – removed several copies of the footage.
Clearly their distrust was well placed in Will Pendelton, Sam thought. Sam wouldn’t put it past the guy to have kept a copy beyond that, but he had to think that the personal visit from him and Dean finally got through to the guy. He nudged his way back to the laptop and did a quick back check on what he’d watched Will do.
“Sam?”
“I’ve done all I can,” he said, glaring at Will when he bristled and opened his mouth, probably to claim credit. Sam felt mildly satisfied when the intimidation tactics worked, Will cowing without a word. Again, that was usually Dean’s shtick. He picked up the camera, putting it in his bag. “I don’t think Will here will pull the same stunt again. Will you?”
“No?”
“No?” Dean parroted.
“No. Definitely not. No way,” Will amended. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what we like to hear.”
Dean clapped Will on the shoulders with force that made Sam wince.
Will paled and wiped a hand across his suddenly sweaty forehead.
“It’s been great. Wish I could stay to kick both your asses in Horse, but we’ve got work to do,” Dean said.
“Be good, Will,” Sam said, pausing for a moment, “or we’ll be back.”
With that, they left Will and Thad in scared silence, and worked their way through the maze of rooms to the elevator.
“Well, I think that worked, but we should keep an eye on him until we can get rid of the problem. After that, who cares – the cemetery should be safe,” Dean said.
Sam nodded. He’d monitor the website.
“Nice line, by the way. ‘Be good, or we’ll be back.’ I’m going to remember that.”
“Thanks.” Sam smiled.
They continued on without speaking, though Sam had a lot to share. They couldn’t risk a conversation about vengeful spirits in the great, wide open, considering how crappy their afternoon had gone. It would be an invitation for more disaster. Unfortunately, Gay Hall was on the opposite side of campus from where they’d parked. Sam knew Dean liked quick escape routes, and in this case he was in agreement with his brother. The longer he spent on campus, the more he was afraid of running into Iris, and the more he thought about running into Iris the worse he felt about all of it. It was illogical.
“Tell me what you got,” Dean said when they’d finally steered through campus to the car.
Exposition time, Sam thought. Sometimes he resented that the exposition always fell to him.
“Of the two possible candidates, I’m pretty sure our Black Agnes look-alike is Caroline Sellke. She was a local teacher at a small country school, in the middle of the 19th century when Minnesota was still a territory. She was apparently well loved and respected,” Sam said, pulling everything from memory. It wasn’t difficult. The story wasn’t exactly made of happiness. “Back then, Morris was still a railroad town and there was a lot of flux in population.”
Dean waved Sam on impatiently.
Sam rolled his eyes. Not only did Dean get to go off to do other things while he was in researchland, but then he acted like a jerk when Sam had to do the obligatory exposition. He couldn’t win for losing.
“One spring morning her students arrived at school and found her brutally murdered. I mean Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks kind of brutal. The classroom was torn up good, so it’s apparent Caroline did not go gently.”
Sam didn’t mention his theory that some kind of sexual assault had probably also occurred. That wasn’t in any of the records he’d been able to find, but forensic science wasn’t exactly stellar back then, if it even existed. The thought of it alone made Caroline’s death that much worse.
“Damn,” Dean said. “Poor girl. And those poor kids. Hello, trauma.”
“Yeah, something like that is pretty damned shocking today. Imagine how horrifying it was for the town more than a hundred years ago,” Sam said. This example of human depravity made him squeamish. It was so much easier to think evil only came in supernatural packaging. “No one had obvious motive.”
“Everyone loved her.”
“Everyone loved her,” Sam repeated with a quick nod. “So much a local businessman paid for the monument, despite her religious leanings. She would have had a very simple marker. She was a Reformed Mennonite.”
“A what, now?”
“It’s a religion. Think sort of watered-down Amish. They’re still around this area. From what the librarian in town said, they actually own a fair share of the city.” Sam shrugged. This wasn’t too relevant. “But it explains the bonnet on the statue. Reformed Mennonites today still dress plainly, and women usually cover their hair with scarves. I know you were dying to have that question answered.”
“Huh,” Dean said, looking thoughtful. “So if none of the settlers did it, who did?”
“The popular theory was that some drifter came into town on the rail, and then left on it, with blood on his hands.”
“Pit stop for murder. Nice. Unless someone had a deep, dark, and ugly secret, I can buy that.”
“After a few years, everyone else did as well. From what I could tell, they never found out who did it. The mystery of the event got buried by other headlines, life carried on and people moved forward.”
“Except for Caroline.”
“Right. So fifty years passed, and that was when the reports of the weeping statue start cropping up. By then, anyone who was around when the murder took place was either gone or dead, because no one made any connection. If they had, it would have been all over the place – the newspaper had grown to more than a simple one page bulletin by then.”
“What’s up with the long wait?” Dean said. “Fifty years is a long time to be dormant.”
That had occurred to Sam as well. He didn’t have a solid answer for it. Not only was there a time gap, but the fact it started out nonviolent and was now responsible for two deaths was puzzling. It was possible he missed something in the research. Early records were spotty at best, and Sam was lucky to have gotten as much as he did.
“I dunno, Dean. Maybe a spirit with unfinished business doesn’t start out bad. Maybe she was in some kind of limbo or something, and it took time before the nasty stuff germinated.”
Sam thought of Jess, and their mom. Their mom had lingered for twenty-two years. She hadn’t been evil. He wondered if Jess was out there, somewhere, back in Palo Alto. He wondered if someday he’d have to go back there and put her spirit to rest, or if he should have already done so. The thoughts made him ill. He clenched his jaw and looked out the car window. He really didn’t feel like talking about it anymore.
to Chapter Five
Author:
superbadgirlCategory: Horror/Mystery, A/A, H/C, Case Fic
Season/Spoiler: mid to late S1
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,377 this chapter/57,900, all told
Summary: Dean and Sam head to a small Minnesota town to investigate the mysterious death of a college student. They struggle to put together the pieces and end the hunt before anyone else gets hurt or killed.
Author's Notes: My thanks to
ldyanne for the alpha and encouragement, and to meg_tdj for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Disclaimer: Not mine, yadda yadda yadda.
Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three
The on-campus café wasn’t his first choice for dining, but the food wasn’t half bad and neither were some of the female patrons. Dean winked at a girl passing by his table before stuffing the last three fries on his plate into his mouth, appetite quelled for the time being. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the standing cooler filled with sandwiches ready to go, picking out a turkey club and chocolate soy milk for Sam. Food wasn’t allowed in the library, but Dean knew his kid brother had to be hungry, or had to eat anyway. If Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, then he’d bring the mountain to Mohammed. Nothing good could come from going into a fight without energy. He tossed in a brownie for himself, paying the cashier and strolling out.
The library was only steps from the student center. He crossed the ten feet of sidewalk between buildings, and was at the library door when someone bumped into him. Dean waved the guy off, but then recognized who it was. Will Pendelton gazed up at him, paling white as a sheet before backing away quickly and almost tripping over his feet. Dean didn’t even get to say hi. Pleased by the lasting effect of his intimidation techniques, Dean turned back to the library and went in search of Sam.
He found out that the records Sam would need had been archived online, and WiFi was available throughout the whole building. The library wasn’t huge, so a quick search found Sam tucked in a corner on the third floor, at a round table and on his computer. More interestingly, he wasn’t alone. Libraries were the new bars, apparently. Smiling, Dean approached in stealth mode, edging behind a shelf of books. He hoped to eavesdrop on his little brother and the tall drink of water Sam had befriended at the wake. He couldn’t remember her name. Abby?
“So, who are you really? Don’t tell me you’re a student,” were the first words Dean was able to make out. Uh oh. “I know you’re not.”
“Iris…”
Iris, that was her name.
“How much of what you told me was a lie?”
“Nuh…I…You don’t understand,” Sam said.
“I understand, you jerk. What kind of creep preys on people at a memorial service? It’s sick. It’s wrong.”
The girl sounded borderline hysterical, and it was past time for Dean to step to Sam’s aid. Much as a college angst-fest could be entertaining, for some reason Sam really seemed to care about this girl. This particular college angst-fest, therefore, was not so entertaining. He stepped out into the open, seeing both Sam’s and the girl’s faces for the first time. Both looked alarmed, red blotches coloring their cheeks. Christ almighty, Sam had really never outgrown that stage.
“Hey,” Dean said, “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Oh,” the girl said, whirling toward him. She was his height. Impressive. “The brother. If you really are his brother.”
“You betcha I am, sweetheart. Dean. Nice to meet you.” Dean made a show of looking at nearby students. “What do you say we keep this quiet? Calm down a little.”
“I will not…”
“Iris, please,” Sam said.
Surprisingly, Iris trailed off, but she still looked ready to lose it.
“Please tell me why you’re saying these things. Please tell me why you’re so upset.”
“Like you don’t know,” Iris said, voice shaky. “Go to www.idobelieveinspooks.com. It’s all over campus.”
Okay, what? While Sam entered the web address, Dean circled around Iris with his hands up in a show of peace, until he stood behind his brother. The website popped up, all cheesy graphics and music. Dead center on the screen was a video box. Sam clicked play. Dean groaned to himself. He recognized it immediately. It was their footage from last night, framed with cheesy text about ghost hunting. He recalled the look on Will’s face only minutes ago, at having run into him.
“That little sonuvabitch,” Dean growled.
“Guess he didn’t take your threat seriously,” Sam murmured to him.
“He will after I get through with him.”
“He must have gone back out there and found the camera.”
“Maybe he took it while we were all still out there. I left him alone.”
“That’s your voice,” Iris said, tapping the screen just as the footage became erratic, and Will screamed. “That’s what happened to your face. What is going on? I want you to tell me the truth, Gregg.”
“While we're being honest, his name is Sam, actually," Dean said. He pulled a chair out, gesturing for Iris to sit.
"Sam?" Iris repeated.
"Are you really going to believe anything we say at this point?"
“I don’t know. Probably not.” She eyed him nervously, before looking over at Sam. Something flickered across her features, going from angry to confused or sad or something indefinable. Iris sat down at the edge of the chair, still looking at Sam with that lost expression. “Maybe.”
That figured. Even exposed as a lying liar, Sam could work the puppy dog eyes like nobody’s business. His brother looked at him with those same puppy eyes before leaning closer to Iris. Dean felt like a third wheel all of a sudden, and he shifted back to his eavesdropping position behind the shelves. He could still hear everything if he wanted to, but he didn’t have to make an awkward situation even more uncomfortable by standing there watching it happen. He heard Sam speaking and Iris’ disbelief, but he didn’t listen to the words. Sam knew what to do.
He didn’t like it, but the sooner Sam realized the impossibility of making real connections with people the better off he’d be. By all rights, Sam should have learned that long ago. All they ever needed was each other. Him and Sam and Dad. There didn’t have to be anyone else if they could just stick together. Not for the first time, he wondered why he was the only one to see the magnitude of that.
A sharp “you must be crazy” drifted over to him, pulling him back to the here and now, and he winced. Yeah, the truth was rarely well received. He knew that from firsthand experience. He stepped out from his non-hiding place in time to see Iris leaving, and Sam gazing after her with his face twisted up. Dean didn’t say anything for a minute, sitting down in the chair Iris had vacated. Sam eventually pulled his expression back to one of carefully controlled sadness. Dean clenched his jaw.
“That was…awkward,” he said, going for lightness in a weak attempt to make Sam feel better.
“Dean.” Sam sounded old, tired. It broke Dean’s heart, it really did. “She needs time to…never mind. Let’s just concentrate on stopping this thing.”
He assessed his brother for another second. Dean didn’t blame the guy for feeling miserable. It sucked to be treated like a crazy person. Sam had to get his head in the game and seemed to be on that track anyway, so Dean would be here to make sure he stayed on it. He pulled the sandwich and soy milk from his jacket pocket, handing them to his brother.
“Here,” he said. “You can focus while you eat.”
For a second, Sam looked ready to protest. Then he just nodded and said, “Thanks.”
Sam tore open the cellophane wrapper, careful not to make too much noise. Dean watched to make sure his brother was actually going to eat. When Sam had half the sandwich gone, Dean glanced at the computer. It was still cued up to the stupid website.
“If you’re okay sticking with the research, I think I need to go do some damage control,” he said, tapping the laptop screen. “I ran into that little jerk when I was coming over here. He took off like a shot. No wonder.”
“What an idiot,” Sam said with his mouth half full. “Dean, this could turn into a circus really, really fast.”
“I know.” Before they’d be able to put a lid on the streaming video, there’d probably be night vigils planned out at the cemetery. The confrontation with Sam’s friend was plenty of evidence the circus had already started. “Call me if you find anything that can’t wait for me to get back.”
As Dean stepped from the library, it occurred to him he had no idea where to find Will freaking Pendelton at the moment. The way the kid had run off, he might be in Clontarf by now. Dean snickered at the returning thought of Clontarf, a momentary distraction before he got back to business. Though the campus was small, it wasn’t so small he could canvass it efficiently by himself. He couldn’t forget the name of the residence hall Will lived in, so he figured his best bet was to stake out the guy’s room and wait for him there. He wished he had a gun, because apparently he needed a refresher course in intimidation and Will needed a refresher course in making prudent choices.
He had no problem getting to Gay Hall. Once inside, though, Dean thought he’d never get out of the endless loop of asking stupid kids where to go or if they’d heard of his intended victim. After being misdirected no fewer than three times, Dean finally stood in front of Will’s door. Will and Thad’s door, technically. He hadn’t considered a roommate. He knocked and got no answer. With glances up and down the hallway followed by a quick jimmy, he was in the room. He wrinkled his nose. Even for him the place was a pit. He tried to imagine Sam in such an environment and couldn’t.
Dean stood there for a moment, taking in the piles of dirty laundry, a hot plate with something nasty burned onto the coils and fifteen different types of cologne bottles on one of the dressers. No, he definitely couldn’t see Sam in a place like this. His and Jess’ apartment was more Sam’s style. Dean winced, shaking himself out of that line of thought. He pondered a second, unable to decide if he should hide himself for a surprise attack or sit on one of the beds. There was a rattle of keys at the door, so he ducked behind it, his dilemma solved by necessity. The wait hadn’t been as long. He kicked the door shut and grabbed the kid.
Except it wasn’t Will. The roommate, Thad, shrieked and fairly well hit the ceiling. Which was damned amusing, because the guy was almost Sam’s height and twice as wide. The guy’s eyes were wild and huge, standing out brightly against dusky skin. Dean bit back the urge to laugh, making himself look menacing yet non-threatening at the same time. The whole I’m not going to hurt you but I could look that never seemed to work as well as he hoped. He caught his reflection in a mirror and realized why. The only thing translating on his face was the but I could, and in turning back to Thad, Dean saw the kid was a second away from tackling him. Maybe he was a linebacker. Despite the guy’s size, it wasn’t hard to subdue him. Ten seconds of scuffling later, and Dean sat perched on Thad’s back, in the middle of the room.
“I need you to do me a favor, Thad. It is Thad, right? Interesting name,” he said. Thad whimpered. Dean took that as a yes. “I need you to call your roommate and tell him you’ve got something for him in your room. Can you do that for me?”
“You’re one of the crazy dudes,” Thad gasped, voice high-pitched with tension. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“Jesus. No.” Okay, so maybe the gun threat had been ill advised. He had to admire Will a little bit for going ahead with publishing the footage, knowing Dean had guns. Multiple guns. “This isn’t about you, kid. I just need to talk to Will about something.”
“Are you going to shoot him?”
“I’m not going to shoot anyone.” Though the urge was growing stronger by the second. “I don’t even have a weapon on me.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He had a blade strapped to his right calf. But apparently his assurance wasn’t much of a comfort to Thad, who started wriggling underneath him. Dean sighed. Nothing was ever easy. He grabbed a handful of hair, pulled Thad’s head back and leaned in close to the kid’s ear. The struggling stopped, but Dean could feel how tense Thad’s muscles remained.
“Look, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here to hurt Will, though I have to admit I think he deserves it. Now, I’ll let you up if you promise not to scream, fight or try to make a run for it,” Dean said. “Can you do that?”
“Sure, man,” Thad said instantly, relaxing. “You got it. No problem.”
The second Dean eased off the kid’s back, Thad scrambled for the door. Dean had expected nothing less, of course, and once again subdued the kid. Instead of sitting on him, this time Dean grabbed a tie off the door handle (undoubtedly a signal to not enter), and bound Thad’s hands with it, attaching the end to the bedpost. Collapsing on the bed tiredly because the kid had put up more of a fight this time, Dean saw Thad staring up at him bug-eyed, obviously scared stiff. Dean regretted that, he really did, but sometimes the ends justified the means.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Dean said, figuring he might as well stick to the bad guy routine for the moment.
He wondered how he was going to keep this from escalating. If Thad or Will reported him, he and Sam wouldn’t exactly fly under the radar. And the last thing he needed was posthumous kidnapping charges. Thad didn’t even know he was being held hostage by a dead man. Heh. It was kind of funny.
“I asked you politely not to run.”
“You’re a psycho. Why wouldn’t I run?” Thad grouched. Like Will, like roommate with the smart mouth.
“The way I see it, there are two choices. One, you be a good boy and get little Willy back here. Two, you don’t and I sit around with you waiting for him to come back, no matter how long it takes,” Dean said, picking up one of the many dirty socks piled on the floor. “With this stuffed in your mouth. I like option one. What do you think?”
Fifteen minutes of idle chit chat with Thad later, and Dean was starting to think Will would never show up. All things considered, Thad turned out to be a pretty all right kid once he relaxed as much as a person being held hostage could. He gave pointers on how to score with women, while Thad explained to him why physics was everything. Dean wasn’t sure he bought it, but he made mental notes to field test some of the laws for himself. They were in the middle of a game of garbage can hoops, severe handicap given for the tied-up guy, when the jingle of keys came from the door.
“No, man, it’s cool,” Thad said when Dean picked up the sock to stuff in his mouth. “I won’t yell or anything.”
Dean looked for signs of subterfuge and found none. If that wasn’t proof the Winchester charm worked on anyone…. Dean ducked behind the door anyway. Will would probably try to bolt the second he saw Thad shackled to the bed. Closer proximity would mean less work for him in the long run. Will stumbled in, bag unshouldered halfway, halting when he saw Thad sitting next to the bed. The door snicked shut. Dean leaned against it with his arms crossed, blocking the only means of escape.
“Thad, what’s going on?” Will said.
“Well, if it isn’t little Willy,” Dean said. “It’s so nice to see you again. We have to talk.”
Will spun around, his bag of books hitting the floor with a resounding thunk. The look on the guy’s face was something Dean would cherish long after he and Sam put Morris, Minnesota far, far behind them.
~~!~~
The research would have gone even faster if Sam hadn’t kept mentally revisiting his disastrous conversation with Iris. He hadn’t expected to see her again, and to have it go so badly filled him with regret. Knowing how she felt in losing someone close to her, the last thing he had wanted was to cause her or anyone more pain. That kind of thing weighed heavily on his mind anyway, but he knew he couldn’t let it. He had a job to do, whether he wanted that job or not.
And right now, he had to find Dean. Sam knew which spirit was killing people. It had been fairly easy to determine though the records were old and sparse, once he was able to concentrate. He and Dean should be able to take care of it tonight, before anyone else got hurt. The only wrinkle in that plan was Will putting up the website, a surefire way to stir up interest. Sam dug out his cell and speed dialed his brother. It rang four times before Dean picked up.
“Hey,” Dean said, “I’m in the middle of something.”
“I take it you found Will?”
“Sure did.” There was a muffled thump in the background. “We’re coming to an understanding as we speak.”
“Tell me you’re not hurting him,” Sam said. The last thing they needed was assault charges. This case was getting messier by the minute. Scuffling sounds were the only reply Sam got. He spoke more deliberately, “Dean. Tell. Me. You’re. Not. Hurting. Him.”
The student worker at the circulation desk caught his words, looking at him with alarmed eyes. Giving her a shrug and a crooked smile he hoped was enough to allay her concern, Sam scooted out of the library before he had to yell at Dean to stop bludgeoning Will to death.
“I’m not hurting him. Really. Hey, you all done?”
“Yeah, I got what we need. If you’re done, meet you at the car.” Another thump, louder this time, and a dim shout. What the hell? “Dean, you’re really not hurting the guy?”
“No, I’m not. I need you to do something for me here, so come on over. I was just going to call you. I got caught up. I’m at the dorm. Gay 2.” Dean paused there.
Sam could virtually see the grin on his brother’s face, and glared even though Dean couldn’t see him.
“Third floor, room 351.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
“Star Wars, Dean?”
“Good line, Sam.”
True enough. Sam snorted, clicking his phone shut. He started walking faster, not convinced Dean wasn’t doing something unpleasant to Will. He hurried through the picturesque little campus, eyes to the ground after he caught more than one person staring at him. He was being paranoid. It was probably that he was wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. The website couldn’t have circulated that much, and his face hadn’t appeared in the vid at all. Still, he tucked his head down like a turtle, shoved his hands in his pockets and lengthened his stride.
Once at Gay Hall he was glad Dean had given him specifics, which helped him loop around to the right wing and floor easily. Sam was surprised to find the dorm room door open when he got there. Not that he doubted Dean’s assertion he hadn’t beat the crap out of Will for screwing them over. Really. He poked his head in, finding Will, Dean and another kid who was built like a tank playing some crazy game with a rolled up sock, a garbage can and strange positions. Will was doing a headstand at the far wall, lifting his right hand to take a shot at the garbage can and failing.
“Whore!” cried the big kid Sam didn’t know. “You’re so going down.”
“Uh,” Sam said. “Hello?”
“Sammy,” Dean greeted. “Come on in.”
Sam figured out what they were doing. Horse. He’d been off working and feeling like crap about Iris while Dean played a game with someone who’d caused them moderate-to-large problems. The irritation building up in him fizzled when he saw his brother’s face, absent of the chronic worry lines Dean had developed about Dad disappearing off the face of the planet. Sam couldn’t remember the last time Dean had fun that didn’t include scoring with women, just goofing off. He didn’t quite understand how Dean could be friendly with someone he’d wanted to kill an hour ago, but he also couldn’t hold it against his brother.
“Hey. What’s going on?” he said lightly, so Dean couldn’t mistake it for irritation.
“Just a second.”
Dean moved to the far wall, where he mimicked the position Will had just executed. He made the shot easily, flipping back over and joining Sam by the door in one fluid motion and with an impish smile on his face.
“I got the camera.” Dean pointed to the camera where it sat on a cluttered desk. “I also had Will take down the video and put up a message about it being a hoax.”
“Actually, I just asked the site owner to delete the post. Not that I had much choice,” Will said sourly, betraying the happy-happy-feel-good vibe in the room wasn’t entirely what it seemed. He stared up at Sam. “And wow, your face looks terrible.”
“Thanks,” Sam said, fiddling with his sunglasses. “It could have happened to you, or maybe something worse.”
Will became uncomfortable and nervous, scooting away from them again. Dean might be all buddy-buddy with the guy, but that didn’t mean Sam had to be. He wasn’t in the mood to fraternize or make nice, especially with this kid, if he were going to be honest.
Dean gave him a shrug and a wry look.
It wasn’t often Sam got to be the bad cop and Dean the good. He found he kind of enjoyed it. “Making friends, Dean?”
“Influencing people, Sam.”
Sam wondered how much of the influence was natural charm, and how much was force. He noticed the big kid had a necktie fixed around one wrist.
“But I think it might be a good idea for you to check that Will doesn’t have a copy stashed somewhere,” Dean said.
“What, you don’t trust me?” Will asked.
“No,” he and Dean answered Will as one.
“I’m on it,” Sam continued. “I’ll check the hard drive and check with the site’s webmaster to make sure there isn’t a copy out there somewhere.”
“I think I’m insulted,” Will said. “I told you I took it down.”
Sam moved to the laptop on the same cluttered desk the camera was on. Short of wiping the whole computer clean, he wasn’t sure he could track down every single place Will might have saved a copy of the vid. A quick look at the history and cookies gave him fairly good ideas where to look, but who was to say it hadn’t been snagged and uploaded to a thousand different places by now? All they could really do at this point was hope for the best.
“Look, kid, two people are dead. This ain’t a joke,” Dean said. “Trust me when I tell you we’re being very patient. Kind, even. Now, I like you. I do. You’ve got spunk. But if you screw with us anymore, I can’t guarantee I’ll stay nice.”
“H-holy shit,” the roommate said in awe. “The whole ghost thing, it’s for real?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said absently, listening with a distracted ear. “Real or not, people are dying out there. The last thing anyone needs is to go wandering out in a cemetery in the middle of the night.”
Except him and Dean, because, well, that was their job. Even they weren’t exactly safe out there, but at least they were prepared for big, bad, ugly things to come at them, usually. Sometimes. Okay, maybe not, but they did know how to fight.
“Like Will did yesterday.”
“Exactly like that, Thad. Will’s damned lucky we were there, and to repay us he put up a video for everyone to see. It’s attracting all sorts of attention,” Dean said. Gone was the fun-loving, basketball-tossing good guy, though even while he spoke menacingly, his tone was almost reassuring at the same time. “Now that’s not very nice, is it?”
“No, I guess not,” Thad said, then rolled his eyes at his roommate. “Jeez, Will. Buddy, I love you like a brother but you can be a tool.”
“Hey, you weren’t there when these guys were talking all kinds of crazy,” Will said. “But I’m sorry now, all right? I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, I just thought it was cool.”
“Real cool,” Dean muttered, following up with things not fit for civilized conversation.
Will brushed Sam away from the laptop, taking over the keyboard for himself. In a few quick strokes, he did what Sam would have done only after a thorough search and a bit of time – removed several copies of the footage.
Clearly their distrust was well placed in Will Pendelton, Sam thought. Sam wouldn’t put it past the guy to have kept a copy beyond that, but he had to think that the personal visit from him and Dean finally got through to the guy. He nudged his way back to the laptop and did a quick back check on what he’d watched Will do.
“Sam?”
“I’ve done all I can,” he said, glaring at Will when he bristled and opened his mouth, probably to claim credit. Sam felt mildly satisfied when the intimidation tactics worked, Will cowing without a word. Again, that was usually Dean’s shtick. He picked up the camera, putting it in his bag. “I don’t think Will here will pull the same stunt again. Will you?”
“No?”
“No?” Dean parroted.
“No. Definitely not. No way,” Will amended. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what we like to hear.”
Dean clapped Will on the shoulders with force that made Sam wince.
Will paled and wiped a hand across his suddenly sweaty forehead.
“It’s been great. Wish I could stay to kick both your asses in Horse, but we’ve got work to do,” Dean said.
“Be good, Will,” Sam said, pausing for a moment, “or we’ll be back.”
With that, they left Will and Thad in scared silence, and worked their way through the maze of rooms to the elevator.
“Well, I think that worked, but we should keep an eye on him until we can get rid of the problem. After that, who cares – the cemetery should be safe,” Dean said.
Sam nodded. He’d monitor the website.
“Nice line, by the way. ‘Be good, or we’ll be back.’ I’m going to remember that.”
“Thanks.” Sam smiled.
They continued on without speaking, though Sam had a lot to share. They couldn’t risk a conversation about vengeful spirits in the great, wide open, considering how crappy their afternoon had gone. It would be an invitation for more disaster. Unfortunately, Gay Hall was on the opposite side of campus from where they’d parked. Sam knew Dean liked quick escape routes, and in this case he was in agreement with his brother. The longer he spent on campus, the more he was afraid of running into Iris, and the more he thought about running into Iris the worse he felt about all of it. It was illogical.
“Tell me what you got,” Dean said when they’d finally steered through campus to the car.
Exposition time, Sam thought. Sometimes he resented that the exposition always fell to him.
“Of the two possible candidates, I’m pretty sure our Black Agnes look-alike is Caroline Sellke. She was a local teacher at a small country school, in the middle of the 19th century when Minnesota was still a territory. She was apparently well loved and respected,” Sam said, pulling everything from memory. It wasn’t difficult. The story wasn’t exactly made of happiness. “Back then, Morris was still a railroad town and there was a lot of flux in population.”
Dean waved Sam on impatiently.
Sam rolled his eyes. Not only did Dean get to go off to do other things while he was in researchland, but then he acted like a jerk when Sam had to do the obligatory exposition. He couldn’t win for losing.
“One spring morning her students arrived at school and found her brutally murdered. I mean Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks kind of brutal. The classroom was torn up good, so it’s apparent Caroline did not go gently.”
Sam didn’t mention his theory that some kind of sexual assault had probably also occurred. That wasn’t in any of the records he’d been able to find, but forensic science wasn’t exactly stellar back then, if it even existed. The thought of it alone made Caroline’s death that much worse.
“Damn,” Dean said. “Poor girl. And those poor kids. Hello, trauma.”
“Yeah, something like that is pretty damned shocking today. Imagine how horrifying it was for the town more than a hundred years ago,” Sam said. This example of human depravity made him squeamish. It was so much easier to think evil only came in supernatural packaging. “No one had obvious motive.”
“Everyone loved her.”
“Everyone loved her,” Sam repeated with a quick nod. “So much a local businessman paid for the monument, despite her religious leanings. She would have had a very simple marker. She was a Reformed Mennonite.”
“A what, now?”
“It’s a religion. Think sort of watered-down Amish. They’re still around this area. From what the librarian in town said, they actually own a fair share of the city.” Sam shrugged. This wasn’t too relevant. “But it explains the bonnet on the statue. Reformed Mennonites today still dress plainly, and women usually cover their hair with scarves. I know you were dying to have that question answered.”
“Huh,” Dean said, looking thoughtful. “So if none of the settlers did it, who did?”
“The popular theory was that some drifter came into town on the rail, and then left on it, with blood on his hands.”
“Pit stop for murder. Nice. Unless someone had a deep, dark, and ugly secret, I can buy that.”
“After a few years, everyone else did as well. From what I could tell, they never found out who did it. The mystery of the event got buried by other headlines, life carried on and people moved forward.”
“Except for Caroline.”
“Right. So fifty years passed, and that was when the reports of the weeping statue start cropping up. By then, anyone who was around when the murder took place was either gone or dead, because no one made any connection. If they had, it would have been all over the place – the newspaper had grown to more than a simple one page bulletin by then.”
“What’s up with the long wait?” Dean said. “Fifty years is a long time to be dormant.”
That had occurred to Sam as well. He didn’t have a solid answer for it. Not only was there a time gap, but the fact it started out nonviolent and was now responsible for two deaths was puzzling. It was possible he missed something in the research. Early records were spotty at best, and Sam was lucky to have gotten as much as he did.
“I dunno, Dean. Maybe a spirit with unfinished business doesn’t start out bad. Maybe she was in some kind of limbo or something, and it took time before the nasty stuff germinated.”
Sam thought of Jess, and their mom. Their mom had lingered for twenty-two years. She hadn’t been evil. He wondered if Jess was out there, somewhere, back in Palo Alto. He wondered if someday he’d have to go back there and put her spirit to rest, or if he should have already done so. The thoughts made him ill. He clenched his jaw and looked out the car window. He really didn’t feel like talking about it anymore.
to Chapter Five
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 07:31 pm (UTC)Loved Dean being menacing and yet friendly: so Dean!
And Sam! so season 1!
Ah, I am tempted to go read the ff.net version, just to see how it all works out... 'cause chap 4 of 11? It can't be as forward as "Caroline did it". I'm even working on my own theory:-D
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 09:40 pm (UTC)Hope you enjoy it, either place you read it. (I did intend on getting all of the chapters out same day, but RL has gotten in the way. *kicks it*)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-05 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-05 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-05 06:13 pm (UTC)Or...
No, I'm speaking nonsense. Never mind.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-08 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-08 03:39 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 12:41 am (UTC)And because I can't figure out why it sounds familiar, and it's driving me crazy, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me where this line came from: 'Be good, or we'll be back.' I feel like I've heard it in a TV show or movie, but I can't think of which one. And if you came up with it yourself, I'd like to know so I can stop trying to recall something that never even happened in the first place. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 02:51 am (UTC)I stole 'Be good, or we'll be back' from ... SPN S2 episode Simon Said. Tee hee. "You be good, Andy. Or we'll be back." is what Dean said to Andy when poor Andy asked what he was supposed to do now at the end.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 03:09 am (UTC)Thanks so much for the help! It was really bugging me.