This is Amy Eckhardt
Intel near
But again, it wasn’t “intel.” Never had been.
Impaler
It’s the Dragon
Please, anyone
I’m going to die in this basement
Even the soft background static cut out.
Dead.
Bess ran into her living room and frantically grabbed her cell phone.
It immediately started ringing in her hand.
“Hello?” Bess croaked into the phone.
“Hey Bess, it’s Greg. I feel like things took an odd turn the last time we spoke and, well, I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”
“Why?”
There was no answer.
“Greg?”
“I think we should talk. Can I come over?”
“This isn’t a good time,” Bess yelled at the phone and hastily pressed the giant red END CALL button.
She rummaged through notes on her desk about Catholic mythology and serial killers until she found the phone number she was looking for. It rang twice before a polite female voice answered.
“Hello, my name is Bess Jackson. I’m calling for Detective Scott Howland. I have information about Amy Eckhardt.”
Bess sat alone in front of a cluttered grey metal desk and looked at her hands. She’d been waiting for the detective for about fifteen minutes and the longer she waited the stupider she felt. What could she possibly tell this man that he would care about or listen to? Cold, familiar panic rose in her chest and she dug into a hangnail on her left index finger and sucked the blood as it welled along the cuticle line.
Detective Howland let himself in and shook her hand. He was handsome by Antioch standards, probably forty, but his skin had seen enough sun during his life to make him seem older—the deep lines next to his brown eyes weren’t so much from smiling as they were from squinting into harsh daylight. His hair was a medium brown, made lighter with age. He had a tall, lean body and as he strode over to sit in the chair opposite Bess, she noted the jeans he wore with his button down shirt and wondered if he thought he was a cowboy.
“Good afternoon, Miss Jackson,” he said, a pleasant smile forming on his face and melting away, all in one motion. “I hear you’re having a bad day.”
“I’m not sure that’s how I’d put it.”
“Well, how would you put it?” His voice had the hard graceless accent of someone who spent too much time trying not to have an accent.
“I told them when I called last night. I think I have information about Amy Eckhardt.”
“Right, and this is based on something you heard when you were listening to the radio?” the detective asked.
“Not exactly.” Her face burned.
“What, exactly, is it based on, Miss Jackson? You’ve got my attention, tell me everything.” His eyes locked, unwavering, on hers.
“I have a shortwave radio,” she mumbled. “I heard an SOS message and the person said their name was Amy Eckhart.”
“Miss Jackson, I’m sure you understand there are a lot of pranks involved with this sort of investigation. People like to fool about.” He waved his left hand absently. “They try to scare nice young ladies like yourself.”
“Are you investigating the Impaler murders as well?”
Detective Howland blinked. His head instantly straightened from the side-cocked “I’m a skilled listener” pose to the alert, detail-gathering position of an investigator. “Well, Miss Jackson, Antioch is a small town. We sometimes have to work on more than one case at a time.”
“Do you think they’re related? Amy and the Impaler?”
Howland sighed and eased back in his chair. “I see. At home playing armchair detective, are we?”
“I know about the dragon,” Bess said.
There was a long silence. “What exactly is it you think you know, Miss Jackson?” He leaned in and Bess caught a whiff of cologne or aftershave, something distinctly masculine that made her heart race.
“I overheard a distress transmission from Amy Eckhardt. Then someone left a dragon mask spiked in my lawn. I heard another transmission and she said, ‘It’s the Dragon.’”
“Why didn’t you call us after the first message? Or the mask?”
“I didn’t really understand the first message. I didn’t know what they were saying, not for sure. And the mask, well, it’s like you said, it seemed like a prank. But the message last night was clear.”
The detective considered what she’d said, his eyes studying her face. His gaze made her feel exposed and the exposure made her fidget. “When you called last night you gave them a rundown of the transmission you received,” Howland said, handing Bess a piece of paper. “This is a transcript of what you told them. Would you mind looking over that and telling me if it still seems accurate?”
Bess studied her words for a minute. “Yes. This is it, as best as I can remember.”
“You didn’t mention any dragons in there.”
“I’m sorry, I must have forgotten. I was upset.”
“But they definitely said something about a dragon? Can you be specific?”
Bess closed her eyes and thought back. “She said, ‘Impaler. It’s the Dragon’.”
Howland nodded, his eyes lost in thought. “Can you think of any reason someone would leave a mask like that in your yard?”
“I really can’t. I mind my business, Detective Howland.”
“I’m sure you do. I’m just trying to make sense of all this.”
“Saint Margaret of Antioch was swallowed by a dragon,” Bess blurted. Her hands shot to her mouth, trying to trap the words, or maybe shove them back into her throat before he heard them.
“Come again?” Howland asked. He seemed even more confused.
“Saint Margaret of Antioch,” she said, her voice quieter now. “The town was named for her. She was swallowed by a dragon and survived.”
“That doesn’t sound entirely factual, Miss Jackson.” He rubbed his hand across his face, his eyebrows knitted together. “Where’d you hear that? About a saint?”
“I, uh, from the historical society.”
Detective Howland laughed. It was so unexpected it forced a startled cackle from Bess as well. “You mean to tell me, that you heard a mysterious SOS message and you went to the historical society?” His face changed when he laughed and Bess saw that he was more handsome than she’d originally given him credit for.
“It made more sense at the time,” she said.
“I want to be very clear, Miss Jackson. The Antioch Police Department does not require the Scooby Gang running around town solving its mysteries. For your own safety, you should leave the detecting to the professionals.” He paused and that charming grin snuck its way back onto his face. “But I suppose as long as you’re not getting any more harrowing than the old ladies at the society, you’ll probably be okay.” She’d been on to something with the dragon, but the talk about Saint Margaret had ruined it. The interest he’d been showing her moments before seemed to fade away.
“Someone left that mask at my doorstep,” Bess reminded him.
“True. Did you bring it with you today? We could check it for fingerprints.” He said it like an afterthought. An empty gesture to make her feel better.
Bess sighed. “No, I threw it back out in the yard and it was gone the next morning.” She shrugged and tried not to get angry when he again laughed.
“You know,” he said, “it really was probably kids playing a joke on you. Now, who did you say you spoke with down at the good old historical society?”
“I didn’t,” Bess said.
“Could you? Please, ma’am?”
“Her name was Winnie Tate. She asked me if I was a detective.”
“Well, that’s real fine.”