Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage (9 page)

“It’s a start.”

Dean looked up as Roy left his counter seat, carrying a hunk of steak between thumb and forefinger. Okay, Dean hadn’t begged for scraps, but …

“Where are you taking that?” he asked as Roy turned down the short hallway that led past the staircase to the backdoor.

“The cat,” Roy said.

Dean glanced around the downstairs. Had he missed a pet?

“You have a cat?”

“Not exactly,” Roy said enigmatically.

Taking a few steps down the hallway, Dean leaned sideways to peer around Roy. A black cat was sitting on the back lawn a couple of yards from the door. There was something odd about the way light reflected in its eyes. Roy tossed the wedge of meat at its front paws. For a few moments, the cat simply regarded the retired hunter. Then it dipped its head, snared the meat in its teeth, and bolted across the backyard. Roy barked a laugh and closed the door.

“Stray,” he explained to Dean. “Could be feral, never domesticated. Doesn’t trust a soul.”

“It lets you feed it.”

“Kindred spirits. I lost an arm in battle, he lost an eye.”

Roy rinsed his plate, glass and flatware and put them in the dishwasher. As he dried his hands, he said, “Assume you’re heading out.”

Dean looked at Sam, who nodded.

“Time you get back, most likely I’ll be gone,” Roy said. “Spare keys on the hook. Don’t trash the place.”

“Anything else?” Dean asked.

“Should be back Saturday,” Roy said. “Friday night, maybe you could put something out back.”

“For the cat?”

“You forget, no big deal. He can fend for himself.”

“Has he got a name?”

“Nothing he’d answer to,” Roy said, shrugging. “He’s a damn cat. But, sometimes, I call him Shadow.”

“Because he follows you around?”

“No,” Roy replied. “’Cause he usually waits beyond the range of the backdoor light. In the shadows.”

Wearing their Fed suits but carrying fake insurance adjuster IDs instead of FBI laminates, the Winchesters headed to Bedford Drive to talk to Michelle Sloney, owner of the home where the three roofers fell to their deaths. They found the address, but Sam parked the Monte Carlo several houses away and they backtracked on foot. While not an eyesore, the boosted car was obviously not a rental and contradicted the professional image they hoped to convey to witnesses.

As they walked up the driveway, Dean glanced up at the roof, not sure what he hoped to find, but trusting his eyes to
notice anything irregular. Nothing jumped out at him. Yellow police tape roped off an area around a roll-off Dumpster squatting in the driveway. Dean noticed and pointed out dark bloodstains on the edge of the trash bin facing the roof.

During his online digging, Sam had discovered the homeowner was a branch manager at a downtown bank and the bank’s website directory listed her telephone extension. She’d agreed to put her assistant manager in charge of the bank and meet them at her home so they could examine the site of the accident.

Sam rang the bell.

A few seconds later, a middle-aged woman opened the door and flashed a polite smile at them.

“Mrs. Sloney,” Sam said. “Tom Smith. We spoke on the phone …”

Sam’s voice faded with each word. Dean understood why. The woman looked like she’d gone several rounds with a welterweight—or an abusive husband. She had a nasty black eye, with bruises down her right cheek, and her right hand was bandaged.

“Ms. Sloney,” she said evenly. “I’m divorced.”

“From the reports,” Sam said, “I had no idea you were injured in the accidents.”

“Oh, no,” she said, gesturing at her eye. “Clumsiness. I was rushing to call 911 and ran into the door and my hand… Pure clumsiness.”

“Right,” Sam said, with a quick glance at Dean. “As I explained, my partner, John Smith—it’s a common name— and I are investigating some accidents in the area.”

“Insurance adjusters, right?” she said. “What company?”

“We’re independent contractors,” Sam said. “Part of a regulatory oversight initiative to ensure against fraud by either party involved in any substantial claims.”

“We just need to get a clear picture about what happened here,” Dean said. “We won’t take much of your time.”

“When I came home for lunch all three were on the roof,” she said. “Mr. Sedenko, the owner, told me they were nearly finished.”

“Storm damage warranted the repair?”

“Well, that was the final straw,” she said. “The roof was overdue for repair. I ran out of excuses.”

“Was there anything unprofessional in their work ethic?” Sam asked. “Horsing around? Drinking alcohol?”

“Oh, no. Well, not that I ever saw,” she said. “They were fast and efficient. Believe me, I did my homework, checked the company out. They’re licensed, bonded and insured. Been in business for years. I even checked references, around town. No complaints.”

“So, out of the blue, these three experienced roofers get clumsy and fall off your roof,” Dean said, thinking aloud.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“No, he’s not,” Sam said conciliatorily, flashing Dean a warning look. “It seems like a freak coincidence at the moment. Did you see them fall?”

“Only the last one,” she said. “Before that, I was inside. A loose shingle flew by my kitchen window. Then I heard something crash. I assumed they were tossing debris into that trash container. Looking back, maybe the first one
slipped on that shingle.”

She led them from her doorway, under a small portico along the narrow sidewalk that tracked around the front of the house, to where part of a downspout had been ripped from the wall.

“After a second crash, I decided to go out and check. That’s when… that’s when I saw Mr. Sedenko falling off the roof. I think he tried to catch himself on the gutter. But he flipped over backward and hit the pavement face first. I heard his neck.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was horrible. I saw the other bodies near his. I knew they were dead, but… but I had to do something, had to call someone. I called out for help, but he seemed oblivious, so I rushed back—”

“Who?” Sam interrupted. “Who seemed oblivious?”

“Oh, there was a man in a suit,” she said, “walking down the street. I saw him at the curb, near my mailbox. I yelled, told him to call 911, but he had no idea what had happened. So I ran back to the house, and that’s when I banged into my own door.”

“This guy,” Dean said, “can you describe him?”

“I don’t remember what he looked like. But he was big, I mean broad
and
tall. Maybe a couple of inches taller than you.” She indicated Sam, who nodded for her to continue. “He wore a black suit and one of those rounded hats with a brim—a bowler hat.”

“Was that all?”

“He had a cane. He looked very… formal.”

“And you never saw this guy before?” Dean asked.

“No,” she said. “And something was off about him.”

“How so?”

“Not all there, you know?” she said. “Or hard of hearing, maybe completely deaf. He certainly acted like he didn’t understand me. I mean, I was clearly panicked, but he had this amused grin on his face, like I was the one responding inappropriately to this … this horrible accident.”

“We’d like to check the roof,” Dean said. “Is there a window with access or…?”

“I have an extension ladder in the garage.”

“Perfect.”

Ten minutes later, Dean had completed his inspection of the roof. Other than the missing shingle, he found nothing unusual. Ms. Sloney explained that the police had confiscated the roofers’ generator and tools to look for evidence of foul play.

Back in the Monte Carlo, Sam said. “How does one loose shingle kill three roofers?”

“My money’s on John Steed,” Dean said.

“Who?”

“The Avengers:
sixties television series. Emma Peel? That catsuit!” Dean said. “That was Steed’s look.”

“A catsuit?”

“No,” Dean said, irritated and not sure if Sam was pulling his leg. “Diana Rigg wore the catsuit. Steed wore a suit with a bowler hat and carried a cane—actually, an umbrella, but it had a cane vibe.”

Catching Sam’s continued blank expression, he added, “The show aired on syndication, probably still on extended cable channels. And the bad movie version with Uma Thurman and the Brit guy… Trust me, okay? It’s a John Steed look.”

“So, bowler guy, down by the curb,” Sam said, moving on, “walks by her mailbox.”

“Walking,” Dean said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he also walked by chainsaw guy.”

“No witnesses,” Sam said. “Let’s talk to the Cessna pilot and go from there.”

Seven

Tora walked along another suburban street feeling like an artist in search of a bigger canvas. With the business day soon over, fathers or mothers would return from work, children would complete school assignments while waiting for dinner. Family dynamics would come into play, offering opportunities for Tora to increase resentments and elevate petty bickering to physical violence. But he had something bigger in mind.

Pausing before a home with signs of neglect, he extended his awareness and discovered an agoraphobic hoarder. An old woman with brittle bones, she squeezed through rooms piled floor to ceiling with stacks of yellowed newspapers and moldy books. He waited until she jostled a leaning tower of newsprint before giving the mound a little shove of encouragement. It crashed down, tripping her, and he heard
the crunch of her hip bone breaking as she sprawled on the dust-covered floor. She wailed in pain and struggled to right herself. Instead, her tugging on the mounds of paper created a domino effect. Hundreds of pounds of paper pummeled her where she lay, pinning and eventually suffocating her.

The house a little further down the street presented no challenge. A middle-aged man on disability for a bad back lounged on a lumpy sofa as he watched ESPN highlights, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingers. In seconds, the man nodded off and the cigarette fell into shag carpeting littered with fast food wrappers. The ratty sofa was highly flammable and cooked its occupant in minutes.

As the, surprisingly, functioning smoke alarms in the house commenced a screeching chorus, Tora saw a burly, bearded man with curly black hair exiting a house halfway down the block on the other side of the street. The man wore blue coveralls with the name Frank stitched on a patch over the left breast pocket, and carried a dinged red toolbox. Frank opened the rear doors of a white commercial van with “Kiriakoulis Plumbing No Job Too Small” painted in two lines on the side panels. The plumber slid the toolbox into the back of the van and stepped back to close the rear doors.

“Frank!” Tora called.

Frank turned around, a jovial expression on his face that instantly transformed to mild confusion. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I need a ride.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, mister, my insurance won’t allow pass—”

In one swift motion, Tora flipped his cane up into a horizontal position, catching the midpoint in his left hand
before ramming the ironbound pointed tip forward, spitting Frank like a roasted pig. He angled the point upward, shattering ribs and piercing the heart. He lifted the big man off his feet and with a hearty heave, shoved the body into the back of the van. With the heart muscle destroyed, blood loss was minimal. He reached into Frank’s pockets and fished out the keys to the van. With a few quick motions, he wiped the blood and gore from his cane. Then he slammed the rear doors and hopped into the driver’s seat.

Nobody witnessed the brief flurry of violence.

A few minutes later he followed the local streets that led him back to Kressen Boulevard. A fire truck and an ambulance passed him headed in the opposite direction. He slowed the van and veered toward the shoulder, giving the emergency vehicles a wide berth. Once they were beyond him, he accelerated again and followed the signs to the Laurel Hill Mall.

Before they could talk to anyone at the Haddon Airfield about the death of the three skydivers, Dean and Sam had to avoid two crews of reporters and camera operators. One crew filmed the airfield itself, most likely background footage for voiceover, while the other reporter interviewed a maintenance worker who pointed out three separate locations, no doubt indicating where the bodies had come down.

Keeping their backs to the news cameras, the Winchesters made a beeline for the Skydive Launchers hangar. They located the owner of the company, Angie Booth who, though shell-shocked by the triple tragedy, agreed to answer
their questions, especially after they presented themselves as insurance adjusters and not members of the press.

“They were all experienced jumpers,” she said. Hand trembling nervously, she brushed a dark strand of hair away from her face. “They had made dozens of jumps here. They brought their own gear, packed their own chutes. All three chutes failed, their reserves failed. The AADs should have opened the reserve chutes, even if they were unconscious. I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

“Did they pack their parachutes today?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” Angie said, sweeping her hand around to encompass a broad open area in the hangar. “They packed their main chutes here, along with everyone else who jumped today.”