Supernatural--Cold Fire (18 page)

“Let me rephrase,” Dr. Hartwell said. “Tell me about it.”

Forcing another weak smile, Maggie said, “You’ll refer me to the psych ward.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“So, I went in to check on them,” Maggie said. “Totally routine. See if they needed anything. Lights were dimmed, but I could see well enough. At least, I thought I could. Gary was in the chair, Denise in the bed, naturally, baby at her chest, all asleep.”

“Go on.”

“But, for a moment, I thought I saw something else in the room with them…”

“Someone else, you mean?”

“Right. Someone,” Maggie said. Though her original description was more truthful, it would also be more damning to her reputation. “A woman, dressed in rags, with long stringy hair.” She took a deep breath. “There’s more…”

Dr. Hartwell held a patient chart on a clipboard in her hands. As Maggie described the intruder, the doctor clutched the clipboard against her chest. Maggie knew enough about body language cues to assume Dr. Hartwell rejected her account of the intruder, blocking her entire story, unconvinced or unswayed by Maggie’s calm description.

Disheartened and knowing she had yet to reveal the most farfetched part of her account, Maggie continued. “Something stuck out of the back of her neck. Like a tube or something. And it seemed to… stretch from her to the baby.”

“A tube?” Dr. Hartwell frowned. “Medical equipment?”

“Something odd,” Maggie said. “I only saw it for an instant.”

“Is that all?”

“It was so strange and… unnatural—”
I sensed it was evil, but how do I tell her that?
“—it startled me. That’s when I sort of screamed.”

“Sort of?”

“Actually screamed,” Maggie said, chagrined. “But it was totally reflexive. I had no control over it.”

“Of course not,” Dr. Hartwell said. “What then?”

“I turned on the light to get a better look and… then it was gone.”

“Disappeared?”

“Crazy, right?” Maggie said. “Probably something weird about the shadows in the room, like Janice said. But for those few moments before I turned on the lights, I could have sworn it—she was standing right there, between Gary and Denise. I don’t know how to explain it, but I was scared—really scared—for the baby.”

Dr. Hartwell nodded again.

Maggie continued to assume no one gave credence to her story. She doubted she would have believed it coming from Nancy or Janice.
You had to be there
, she concluded.
Otherwise, nothing will convince you.

But what Dr. Hartwell said next completely surprised her.

“Let’s have a look at the baby.”

In the morning, Sam, Dean and Castiel returned to the Holcomb house—site of the first murder—in the Impala, with Castiel following in his gold Lincoln in case they needed to split up at some point. On the way, Dean fiddled with the radio dial until he found a station wrapping up a block of Zeppelin with “Ramble On.” As Dean swung over to the curb, Sam noticed a blue Dodge Ram 1500 that looked as if it had spent equal amounts of time off-road as on, parked in front of the house. Painted on the door panels of the pickup in slanted blue letters on a white oval was the company logo for Vargus Fabricators.

“Good timing,” Dean said.

They’d come to talk to Sally about her husband’s new job at the company to confirm or rule out a connection between Holcomb and Aidan Dufford’s unemployed father. Rather than relying on second-hand information from Sally, it looked like they had an opportunity to question Stanley Vargus himself.

For this repeat visit, Sam and Dean had dressed down while Castiel, as always, wore his suit and overcoat. Though he looked the part of an FBI agent, the Winchesters led the way, and Sam stepped back as Dean rang the doorbell. Once again, Sally’s grandmother Mary invited them inside.

Sally, who seemed oddly distracted but more composed than she had been the day before, sat in the middle of the sofa, with Ramon to her left and a tall man with a thick wave of black hair wearing a denim shirt, jeans and scuffed work boots on her right. The tall man held a bottle of Triple XXX Root Beer—taken from a cardboard six pack on the coffee table—by its long neck.

Sally started to stand with the tall man, but Sam told her, “Please, don’t get up on our account.”

She stood nonetheless and said, “Agents Rutherford, Banks and… Collins, wasn’t it? This is Dave’s friend, Stanley Vargus. Stan, they’re with the FBI. They don’t believe it was an animal attack.”

After exchanging handshakes with the new arrivals, Vargus sat back down, along with Sally. Sam and Dean took the wingchairs while Castiel seemed content to stand between them.

“The police have their doubts too,” Dean said. “But the medical examiner is clinging to the animal attack theory.”

“What the hell kind of animal gu—attacks a man like that?” Vargus said, casting a quick apologetic glance at Sally for what he’d almost said. “No offense to the medical examiner.”

“There have been other, similar attacks in Braden Heights,” Sam said. “We don’t believe an animal was involved or that the attacks were random. We’re looking for a connection between the victims.”

“We were hoping you could help with that, Mr. Vargus,” Castiel said.

“Me?” Vargus replied. “I don’t understand, Agent Collins. I’m here to support the family. Beyond that, how could I possibly help with your investigation?”

“The second victim was a young man named Aidan Dufford,” Castiel said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Aidan—oh, Dufford! That’s Don Dufford’s boy,” he said. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Don is an employee—a former employee of mine.”

“And Dave Holcomb was gonna be a future employee,” Dean added.

“Not so,” Vargus said. “I hired Dave already. Done deal. He hadn’t officially started, but there were no conditions he hadn’t met. He simply asked for some time to get things in order around here.”

“Did Dave’s hiring have anything to do with Donald’s termination?”

“No, sir,” Vargus said. “Donald was an hourly employee working in the plant. I let him go because I couldn’t count on him to show up on a regular basis. Let me be clear, Vargus Fabricators is not some massive corporation. We have fewer than two hundred employees. I rely on them and they rely on each other. You know what they say about the chain only being as strong as the weakest link? Well, Donald got to the point recently where I felt I needed a fresh link in the chain.”

“But that wasn’t Dave?” Dean asked.

“Hell no,” Vargus said emphatically. “One decision had nothing to do with the other. Besides, Dave was gonna be my night manager. I haven’t figured out a way to not sleep at least once a day. My old night manager was set to retire. I asked him to stay on… until I can make other arrangements.”

“No animosity between you and Mr. Dufford?” Castiel asked.

“Not on my side,” Vargus said. “I know the man has some personal problems but I could only carry him for so long. But right about now, I can guess he’s not my biggest fan.” He shook his head and sighed, took a long pull from the bottle of root beer. “But I don’t see how that weighs on what happened to Dave. If you’re suggesting Don was out for revenge, I doubt those two ever met each other. Donald would more likely have punched me in the mouth than go after another Vargus employee. And if you think I would hurt a former employee’s son for any damn reason, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Understand, we need to follow up on any leads,” Sam said.

“Certainly,” Vargus said. “But this particular lead of yours is pure coincidence.”

“Like the pregnancies,” Dean said to Castiel.

Castiel nodded.

“Excuse me, Stan,” Sally said abruptly, “are you finished with that bottle?”

He tilted the bottle side to side. “Would appear so.”

“Let me take it out to the recycling container,” she said, grabbing the bottle and rising.

Silent until now, Ramon placed his hand on her forearm. “I got it, sis,” he said, reaching for the bottle. “Stay here.”

Brushing away his hand, she shook her head. “No, I’m fine,” she said, her voice strained again as her erstwhile composure slipped away. “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

Sam suspected her grief would continue to come in waves. One never knew what random reminder or emotional trigger would begin a new downward spiral.

Ramon seemed confused by his sister’s reaction and started to rise, but sat back down when his grandmother, standing in the archway to the kitchen, shook her head at him. Sam thought she mouthed the words, “Not now.”

Vargus leaned over and patted Ramon on the knee. “Son, rest assured I plan to help your sister however I can. Whatever she needs. I know she didn’t sign up for this. She came all the way to Indiana to support her husband, my good friend, and I won’t forget that. I’m sure she’s told you, Dave and I go way back. I wanted good things for him, hoped to help him out here. If Sally chooses to stay here and keep this home, I’ll find a good position for her with my company. Dave told me she was an administrative assistant back in California. I can arrange something similar here. And if she chooses to go back to San Bernardino, I’ll give her whatever assistance I can.” He leaned back. “Short term, if she needs help with funeral expenses, I’ve got it covered. What I’m trying to say is, she’ll have options.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vargus,” Ramon said, genuinely moved. “I appreciate that.”

“God knows, I’ll miss Dave,” Vargus said. “I can’t even imagine what this must be like for her…”

Sam noticed the grandmother’s fleeting frown and looked at Dean, nodding slightly toward the old woman. When he stood, Dean rose with him. Castiel looked a question at them, but Sam shook him off. The angel nodded and remained standing between the wingchairs.

Vargus had segued into offering Ramon a job at his plant whether or not Sally chose to stay in Indiana. Ramon seemed to be considering the offer when Sally returned from the garage, passing through the kitchen. As she stepped past her grandmother, the old woman placed a hand on her upper arm and gave her a searching look. Sally nodded once and returned to the sofa. Sam thought maybe her eyes had become a bit raw since she’d stepped out.

Together he and Dean walked toward the kitchen.

“Could we speak in private?” Sam asked the grandmother as they passed her. She seemed to have been expecting this and wordlessly followed them into the kitchen. Reaching for glasses from a cupboard, she proceeded to fill them with chilled water from a dispenser in the door of the refrigerator.

“Mr. Vargus talks about options,” the grandmother said. “But Sally decided to leave this morning. She’s already making arrangements. David’s parents want to see his body before it’s moved, but that simply postpones the inevitable.”

“Is everything okay with Sally?” Sam asked softly, so his voice wouldn’t carry into the other room.

The grandmother shook her head. “Such a tragedy, especially with this latest news.”

“What news?”

“She was sick again this morning,” the old woman said, absently pushing the glasses across the countertop toward them. “She said she didn’t want to know, that it was all too much. But this is different. It’s not a house. Not something you can ignore or run away from. I finally convinced her to take the test.”

“Test?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “It was the plus.”

Still confused, Dean looked a silent question at Sam.

But Sam felt the pieces coming together. Everything started to make sense. “Sally’s pregnant.”

“Sally’s”—Dean caught himself and lowered the volume of his voice—“Sally’s pregnant.”

The grandmother nodded. “Only a few weeks,” she said. “But she will keep the child. That’s why she made the decision to leave. She’ll be a single mother, raising a child on her own. She wants to be near family. Mr. Vargus has offered to help her, but he is not family. He was close to David, but they hadn’t seen each other in a while and Sally is not close to this man. Here, she is among strangers in a place which has only bad memories for her. And for her family.”

“Found our connection,” Dean said.