Transcript for:
Being a Cop in a Small Town in Minnesota

being a cop in a small town in minnesota probably isn't the most exciting career there is but it's not bad either it's actually a relatively peaceful and safe line of work compared to being in law enforcement in one of the big cities new york or l.a for instance where the action is there's only around 10 000 people in the town where i live it's way out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles of open farmland and the only real crime that ever occurs is pretty minor stuff the occasional rowdy rednecks getting into a fistfight at one of the three bars downtown teenage vandals petty theft the odd drunk driver a case of disorderly conduct here and there the rare breaking and entering that sort of thing the only real serious stuff i've ever had to deal with is a couple cases of domestic violence and assault and battery but even that's pretty typical i guess and it doesn't happen very often well that's not entirely true there was one case that still haunts me but i'm getting ahead of myself like i was saying i live in a pretty peaceful little town boring some would even say the kind of rural out-of-the-way farming community you've probably driven through on the highway yourself on the way to someplace more interesting without as much as a second thought or a glance back the kind of place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens you've probably thought and for the most part you'd be right but there's one case i can't get out of my mind one case that still makes my blood run cold whenever i think about it one case i can't explain no matter how hard i try to rationalize it to myself what happened to the old garrity woman seven years ago i'd been a police officer for five years when it happened in the early spring of 14 there were only five cops on the entire town police force me my partner jerry pete and vance who both worked in night patrol and the police chief plus karen an older woman who was a retired librarian and worked part-time as the dispatcher the police department was located in the town municipal building and consisted of two offices one for the chief and one for the rest of us to share and three jail cells in the rear and the three of them were never all occupied at the same time it was an overcast rainy afternoon in late march early april me and jerry were in our cruiser on a routine patrol around town when karen's voice came over the radio telling us there was a possible 1082 in progress at the garrity house on turner road for those of you who aren't in the know but 1082 is police code for a burglary we acknowledged then changed directions heading for the garrity home i wasn't unduly concerned about the call i already had a pretty good idea who had made it eileen garrity was an elderly widow who lived in a run-down farmhouse on the outskirts of town she was probably around 65 or 70 years old and had lived alone since her husband had died of a stroke three years before they had two adult children but they both lived out of town and never visited her since her husband's death she developed something of her reputation for being eccentric to put it nicely or crazy to put it not so nicely she was a shut-in who rarely left her home and had her groceries delivered once a week basically a crazy cat lady minus the cats the reason she was considered crazy was because she'd become pretty flaky and paranoid since being widowed and had called the police department on multiple occasions for everything from hearing intruders moving around in her attic to seeing ufos in her cornfield there were probably at least a dozen others too all her calls turned out to be false alarms of course the burglars she claimed were hiding in her attic turned out to be a pair of raccoons that had slipped in under the roof and the ufos were probably just jets flying overhead from the national guard base 50 miles west me and jerry and pete and vance had all visited her home before during our respective shifts we never got frustrated with her or gave her a hard time about it and we usually indulged her inspecting her house and property to calm her nerves she'd relax thank us we'd leave and the process would repeat itself in a couple weeks or a couple months honestly our infrequent trips to her house were probably the only real highlight of what was a rather dull and unexciting job when we told the chief about mrs garrity's latest emergency bigfoot was sneaking around her yard or there was a giant anaconda lurking in the basement he would just shake his head sadly when vance and pete were the ones who had to deal with her they'd tell us all about her most recent ordeal when me and jerry saw them at the end of their shifts and the start of hours they'd usually smirk in a mean-spirited way and pete would twirl his finger next to his temple before they left jerry and i just felt sorry for the old woman it couldn't have been easy for a frail nervous lonely woman living all alone in that old crumbling house with no friends or close family i suspected she might be eating senile or maybe entering the early stages of alzheimer's or dementia we worried about her living there by herself almost a mile from the nearest neighbor if her health suddenly turned bad or she had an accident and couldn't call for help well there wasn't really much we could do about it a couple times i looked up the numbers of her daughters and son and i tried calling him about possibly placing her in an assisted living home or a mental health facility but the one time i managed to reach her son as i was explaining his mother's situation to him he interrupted me by telling me he was too busy the moment and would call me back then abruptly ended the call he never did call me back from then on they always happened to be unavailable and never answered any of the voicemail messages i left them so jerry and me turned onto turner road and drove up to mrs garrity's house on the gray rainy late spring day certain that the old woman was just overreacting yet again to something relatively minor and her imagination was just playing tricks on her she was waiting for us outside on her porch when we pulled to a stop i'll never forget how she looked it shocked me she'd already been a thin frail woman the other times we'd been out there but we hadn't seen her in probably a couple months since her last false emergency and she changed drastically since then now she was gaunt almost emaciated her cheeks hollow and dark rings around her bloodshot sunken eyes her gray hair was tingled and didn't look like it had been washed in days maybe weeks and the dress she was wearing was wrinkled and dirty her physical appearance was alarming enough but there was also something about the way she was staring at both of us with those dark doll eyes that seemed to look at us through us and passed us all at once it reminded me of old photos i'd seen of american soldiers in vietnam the blank expressionless shell-shocked look of someone who'd been through more horror than any ordinary person should have to endure me and jerry exchanged a shock look then got out and approached the old woman what uh seems to be the trouble mrs garrity jerry asked her amiably trying to keep his voice nonchalant there's something in my house she told us in a flat toneless voice she was shaking slightly a woman on the verge of total physical and mental exhaustion the way she phrased it not someone but something made me raise my eyebrow well you just wait here and we'll go have a look and make sure it's safe okay i told her trying not to sound too patronizing i looked at jerry and nodded we drew our pistols and stepped past mrs garrity cautiously entering the house we did a routine sweep of the first floor guns leveled then headed upstairs it only took about five minutes to check out the house we'd done it so many times before we had the layout down pat and there was no sign of any intruders or evidence of a breaking and entering but i saw plenty of other things that disturbed me deeply for one thing the place was a total mess the house was already pretty decrepit but mrs garrity had still taken pride at how clean she kept it and it always had been [ __ ] and span on our earlier visits now dirty dishes were stacked high in the kitchen sink the counters were dirty and trash and dirty laundry littered the floors i also noticed that mrs garrity's pillow and blankets were lying rumpled on the couch in the living room the surface of the coffee table in front of it was cluttered with half drunk cups of coffee open containers of food a bible and a rosary it looked like she'd been eating and sleeping in the living room for some time when we went upstairs sure enough the bed in mrs garrity's room was bare and the room itself looked like it had been vacant for quite a while there was also something in the living room that really alarmed me leaning in one corner was an old double-barreled shotgun that had probably belonged to her late husband jerry picked it up broke it open and found two spent shells in the chamber he took one out sniffed it then told me the gun had been fired very recently we also discovered something else bizarre all the mirrors in mrs garrity's house had been shattered and every closet door had been boarded shut the one in the front hall on the first floor had a huge hole blasted in the center of it smaller holes pitting the splintered wood around it he didn't need to be sherlock holmes to deduce that mrs garrity had fired her husband's shotgun into that door but why what the hell had happened here jerry shot me a perplexed questioning look i shrugged clueless and equally bewildered finishing with our inspection of the house we put away our pistols and turned around to go back outside mrs garrity was standing in the room behind us staring at us with that unnerving blank expression both of us almost jumped a foot in the air startled neither of us had seen her enter jerry regained his composure and flashed her a fake reassuring smile well we don't see any sign of him mrs garrity he must have slipped out the back you're safe now she didn't relax or appear relieved like she had the countless other times we'd humored her her face seemed to twitch and some new look dawned in her eyes it took me a moment to identify it it was a look of pure hopeless doom mixed with terror no [Music] she said in that same odd listless flat voice i'm not safe it's still here it's hiding that's why you couldn't find it and after you leave it'll come back for me then she began to quiver she started to cry with total despair breaking down into hysterical sobs that wracked her whole body jerry and me looked at each other concerned we went to the old woman and comforted her as best as we could guiding her over to the couch and sitting her down with us on either side of her coaxing her gently back to a state of calm after she had herself back under control we asked her to explain what had happened she was quiet for a few moments gathering her thoughts then she began to speak as we listened to her story my body temperature seemed to gradually drop and i felt a chill several times i made eye contact with jerry and his expression was a mirror of my own disbelief and fear it started about a month ago she began that's when i first heard the scratching at my closet door a soft slow steady scratching that seemed to come from inside her bedroom closet at night at first she'd assumed it was probably a mouse or some other small animal except the scratching seemed to come from too high up to be the work of a mouse whenever she opened the closet door always after the scratching had ceased there had been nothing there several times she'd started to open the closet door while the scratching was in progress to get to the bottom of it once and for all but each time she'd grasped the knob she'd been overwhelmed with a sudden irrational sense of unease and had been unable to do it the scratching sounded too deliberate too gentle too deceptively harmless as if something was trying to lure her into opening the closet door to be safe she'd started locking her closet door every night over the next several days the scratching had gotten louder and more intense as if something was trying to tunnel its way through the wood one day she opened her closet door and found claw marks on the other side claw marks that were six feet off the ground claw marks that looked like they'd been made by fingernails the horror had really started from mrs garrison about a week after she'd first heard the scratching sounds one night she'd awoken to a voice softly calling for her a voice that seemed to be coming from the locked closet door she was bewildered even more so because she recognized that voice it belonged to bill her dead husband bill's voice had pleaded for her to open the closet door telling her that god had sent him down to take her up to heaven where they could be together again and young like they used to be forever at this point jerry had looked at me wide-eyed from the other side of the couch then what happened i prodded her gently i thought i was dreaming mrs garrity said i thought it had to be a dream poor bill had been gone for three years and since i was having a dream i didn't see no harm in doing what he was asking me to i got out of bed and went to the closet i reached for the lock but then i stopped something something didn't seem right it was bill's voice and it seemed perfectly normal but somehow it was wrong too the way he was talking it wasn't like how bill used to talk it was like a stranger was using bill's voice trying to trick me into opening the closet door that doesn't make much sense does it actually nothing she was telling us made sense but we just asked her to continue telling her story bill or whoever or whatever was using his voice had continued to beg her to unlock the closet when she'd refused the voice had changed becoming harsh and belligerent it had angrily demanded she opened that door and when she'd still refused it had begun to shout at her using profanity and making obscene threats things bill never would have said to her while he was alive she said before beginning to pound violently on the door the voice had begun to change no longer sounding like her late husbands it had become deeper and distorted until it didn't sound human in terror she'd fled her bedroom and spent the night on the couch downstairs eventually the pounding and the threats had stopped mrs garrity jerry politely interrupted her at this point why didn't you call us at the police station when this happened she was silent for a moment then a small bitter smile formed on her lips i thought you think i was just imagining it i know people in town think i'm a crazy old lady and i've had you all out here so many times before for things that turned out to be nothing i thought maybe it was all in my head and i didn't want to bother you about it things had escalated pretty quickly from there the pounding in threats had continued every night she'd been too scared to sleep in her bedroom and it started sleeping on the living room couch then one night the pounding had begun not just on her bedroom closet door but all the closet doors in the house all at the same time like there were people in all of them trying to get out all at once she told us but it was the same voice in every closet the same horrible voice in fear she nailed all the closet doors shut to keep the thing whatever it was from coming out to get her then about two weeks ago something even more terrifying had happened she'd been in her bathroom and was washing her hands in the sink when she'd looked up into the mirror here she paused in her story what did you see jerry asked her i saw it she said in a choked whimper i saw its face instead of my own it was wearing a black robe with a hood and its face its face was just a grinning skull a skull with horns its eyes were red the eyes of the devil himself i don't mean i saw it standing behind me in the mirror it was in the mirror itself i felt a shiver crawl up my spine it reached out of the mirror it didn't have hands it had claws and it tried to grab me she'd thrown a bottle of lotion at the mirror shattering the glass then to be safe he'd done the same to all the other mirrors in the house how could you stay in this house with all this happening to you i asked her she shrugged sadly i don't have anywhere else to go and no one will take me in the nights were awful but it was always better during the days at least then i could get some sleep it always stopped by morning and never happened during the day she suddenly shuddered until three days ago then it started happening all the time day and night i wasn't safe no matter what time it was it did all come to a head late this morning the pounding had gradually gotten more violent and forceful until all the closet doors were rattling in their frames mrs garrity knew that even with the boards nailed over them it was only a matter of time until that thing broke through in desperation she'd begun praying and reading from the bible which had only caused the entity in the closet to laugh at her mockingly finally she'd gotten out bill's shotgun and fired it through the closet door for a minute or so there wasn't a sound she told us i started to think it was finally over and then i saw those red eyes burning in the dark in the hole the shotgun had made it chuckled and it said one word to me what word did it say i asked her tonight she said and began to tremble she lowered her head into her hands and began to sob again jerry and i were silent for some time trying to absorb what she just told us we looked at each other deeply troubled by her story neither of us actually believed it of course but it was obvious the poor woman was deeply disturbed she was having some kind of nervous breakdown maybe her frayed grip on reality had finally snapped or maybe it was old age taking its toll on her mind one thing was clear it wasn't safe for her to be alone anymore especially not here it wasn't healthy for her hell for all we knew maybe her paranoid delusions were the result of some dangerous form of mold that had formed in the house jerry and i excused ourselves for a moment then stepped outside to talk in private we both agreed she needed help she needed to be institutionalized but for now it was best she stay somewhere else we went back in and told mrs garrity she was coming with us she was going to spend the night in a motel room in town and tomorrow jerry added we were gonna find a priest who would come out and exercise the evil spirit that had been bothering her getting rid of it once and for all she broke down again this time crying in relief and she hugged me and my partner thanking us over and over again we drove her to a cheap motel in town and checked her in her mental state already seemed to improved in that short amount of time being away from that house she smiled and told us she couldn't wait to finally get a decent night of sleep without having to worry about that thing banging on the doors i think mostly she was just glad she wouldn't have to be afraid anymore of the entity she was convinced was lurking in her home we both smiled at her and said goodbye getting in the cruiser and driving away our smiles faded as soon as we pulled away from the motel we both drove in grim silence we both liked old mrs garrity in spite of all the time she'd made herself a nuisance to the police department with her bogus calls and erratic behavior we were sorry her mental state had deteriorated to such a point that she could no longer look after herself we told the chief her story when we got back he sighed sadly and nodded agreeing that she had to be committed somewhere tomorrow him and me were gonna drive out and personally visit her son and daughter and explain to them what was going on and if they still refused to do what needed to be done the chief would see to it himself that mrs garrity got the help she needed but we never got the chance the last time we ever saw mrs garrity was when jerry and i left her at the motel around 4 am the next morning i was awakened by an urgent phone call from the chief telling me to get over to the motel as soon as possible he wouldn't say why over the phone but i already had a hunch that had something to do with mrs garrity i felt an awful sense of dread as i got dressed i wondered if maybe she'd taken her own life in that motel room when i arrived outside the motel my fears were confirmed when i saw crime scene tape blocking the door to mrs garrity's room the chief along with jerry and pete and vance were gathered outside along with a couple cops from the state police and a pair of detectives from the city the chief greeted me with a grave expression as i approached he told me that mrs garrity was gone at first i thought he meant she was dead then seeing the solemn look on my face he clarified himself she was literally gone i looked at him confused i saw something in his eyes i'd never seen before something that caused a ripple of fear in my heart the chief was scared he told me he didn't know what to make of it himself people in the neighboring rooms had heard blood curdling screams and sounds of violence coming from mrs garrity's room around 2 am and then nothing they'd called the police department pete and vance had been the first to arrive they'd pounded on the door but there'd been no response so they'd force the door open when they saw what was inside they'd called the chief himself what did they find i asked him maybe you ought to come see for yourself he told me leading to the doorway and under the crime scene tape he explained to me that they'd found no sign of forced entry and that the door and windows of the motel room had all still been locked from the inside when pete and vansen showed up i took a look around feeling a shiver run through my body there was fresh blood splattered around the room on the walls the floor the bed even the ceiling the blood-stained bed sheets had been ripped away from the mattress as if someone had desperately tried holding on to them as they were pulled from the bed there were ten very thin trails of blood on the carpet leading away from the bed ten thin trails of blood that had been made by ten desperate terrified fingers clawing for purchase as their owner was dragged away i followed the bloody finger marks across the floor away from the bed to where they ended at the closet i looked at them then i looked at the chief he looked back at me his face hard and impassive but i could see fear in his eyes i approached the closet the door was standing open i stood there looking in for some time the closet was empty completely empty there wasn't even blood on the floor they never found mrs garrity [Music] part two i told you in my last post that the garrity case was the scariest thing that ever happened to me and that apart from that nothing much out of the ordinary has ever happened to me in the course of a mostly uneventful and rather dull career enforcing the law in a rural middle of nowhere town most of you have probably never even heard of well until about a week ago that was mostly true mostly but in light of recent circumstances i feel i have a new story i have to share with you but first i have to back up a bit and tell you about something that happened about three years ago it was a strange thing but at the time i wrote the first story it hardly seemed important enough to warrant mentioning cops get used to dealing with all kinds of weirdos people reporting confessing to false crimes and things of that sort people confessing to murders they didn't commit etc i'm sure police departments in the big cities have to put up with crap like that all the time but even small town departments get it once in a while it was i believe late june or early july of 19. i was on the night patrol at the time i usually worked the day but i was filling in for vance because he was out to get his appendix removed joe a rookie we took on just the year before was doing the day patrol with my partner jerry it was an early summer evening and i was in the office shooting the breeze with the chief and pete just getting ready to punch in for my shift when a woman appeared in the police station surprising us i say appeared because afterwards when the three of us discussed what happened we were all in agreement that none of us had seen or heard her enter the room it was as if one moment she wasn't there the next she was she was young perhaps late teens or early 20s slender and might have been pretty but you wouldn't have known that looking at her in her current condition for one thing she was soaking wet i mean absolutely drenched head to foot her dripping hair was matted and tangled all around her face and her dress which i noticed looked kind of old-fashioned was saturated she was panning completely out of breath as if she'd just run a mile and her eyes were frantic and wide with fear another thing i noticed was she was very pale unnaturally pale i mean her skin looked almost bone white i guess we were all pretty taken aback by her appearance for a few seconds the three of us me pete and the chief just gaped at her in shock please she said you have to help me the chief who had been sitting at his desk working on a jigsaw puzzle found his voice what seems to be the problem ma'am he asked a little awkwardly someone kidnapped me i managed to get away i think they were gonna kill me we all exchanged a sober look things like this didn't happen very often in our town why don't you have a seat and tell us all about it ma'am the chief asked her politely and gestured to an empty chair next to his desk she sat down trembling slightly as if she was cold the chief told pete to go get a blanket for her and pete went to fetch one the chief asked the young woman if she would care for some coffee gesturing to the pot sitting on a table across the room no thank you she said distantly looking past him into space distracted or maybe in shock what's your name miss the chief asked her surely the young woman said shirley anne mcdougall the chief took a police report form out of his desk drawer and jotted that down pete came back into the office carrying a blanket which he offered to shirley and mcdougall she thanked him and wrapped it gratefully around her shoulders but continued to shiver through the interview as if it wasn't possible for her to warm her body back up how old are you miss mcdougall 19. he wrote that down where do you live right here in town and how long have you lived here my whole life at this the chief frowned a little he threw a questioning look at pete who shrugged than me i shook my head i could see what was bothering the chief when you've been a cop in a small town for long enough you get to know most of the people who live in your jurisdiction i'd been a cop for 10 years at that point pete who was older than me had been one for close to 20. and the chief who was older than both of us had been one for nearly 40 and yet none of us had ever seen this woman who claimed to have lived here her whole life or heard of her before this night what's your address miss mcdougall the chief astor i live with my parents in their apartment above the hardware store they own mcdougall's hardware on main street that was when i knew there was something really off about this whole deal there was no mcdougall's hardware on main street in fact i'd never heard of anyone named mcdougall ever living in the area the chief was looking at shirley strangely but he continued doing it by the book and didn't miss a beat now miss mcdougall you can call me shirley she interrupted softly still staring off vacantly and nothing in particular surely why don't you tell us exactly what happened tonight so she told us and her story only got stranger and stranger i was coming back home from the movies me and my friends had gone to see the new martin lewis comedy at the mayan whoa pete interrupted her at that point raising his hand aha i'm sorry you say you went to the buy-in yes to see martin and lewis martin and who you know dean martin and jerry lewis we went to see their new film partners it just opened last week pete met eyes with me the look on his face was a combination of confusion and bewilderment he mowed the words what the hell is going on shirley just went on anyway i was walking back home to my parents and i stopped at beckman's drugstore to get a chocolate malt first beckman's drugstore that rang a bell somewhere in some distant corner of my memory i dug for it and after a moment it came back beckman's had been a pharmacy here in town when i'd been a little kid an independent family-run drugstore complete with an old-time soda fountain like something you would have seen back in the 1950s it had been owned and operated by the beckmans for three generations until the last of them old clyde beckman had died back in the late 90s his kids had sold the business and now there was a cvs where it had once stood i felt a shiver creep up my spine i was going into the store but a man approached me outside he was an older man maybe in his late 40s silver hair he was dressed like a priest and he had a crutch under one arm he asked me if i could help him he said his wallet had fallen under the seat of his car and he wanted to know if i'd help him get it out he was very polite he seemed harmless and i felt sorry for him because of the crutch you know he led me over to his car what kind of car was it shirley the chief interrupted her she thought about it for a few seconds i think it was a buick yeah yeah it was a dark buick a couple years old maybe a 53 or 54. a 1953 or 54 buick that according to shirley mcdougall was only a couple years old what the hell was this was this chick on something was she nuts or just pulling some stupid prank i searched her face trying to detect a lie but she seemed genuinely shaken by whatever she'd been through did you see the license plate shirley the chief asked i just caught a glimpse as we were going around it i didn't see the numbers but i noticed it was an out-of-state car i think the license plate said oklahoma then what happened shirley the chief prodded her gently i knelt down and i was feeling beneath the driver's seat for his wallet and then she paused and took a long shaky breath then exhaled it sharply as if mustering her courage to recall her ordeal to herself something hit me in the head it hit me hard it was him the man dressed like a priest he hit me from behind i think with a crutch he was carrying and then he hit me again i was stunned i think i might have even lost consciousness for a few moments when i came to he was dragging me around to the back of his car i tried to fight him off but he slapped me and told me to shut up or he'd kill me he called me uh she hesitated i'd rather not repeat what he said he lifted the lid of his trunk and shoved me inside and then he slammed it shut i was screaming at the top of my lungs and pounding against the truck but he'd already gotten back in and started the car and then he was driving i was screaming and crying praying begging him not to hurt me i told him i just wanted to see my parents again but he kept driving i don't know how long he drove it was a long time maybe an hour but then something happened he had an accident i heard him shout an alarm and then the car swerved i could hear the tires shriek we went off the road the next thing i knew the trunk was filling with cold water we must have crashed into a lake or a pond i was panicking pounding trying to force the trunk open and then i don't remember it just went black for a while the next thing i remember is splashing around at the surface of the water i don't know how i managed to get out i swam to the shore and climbed back onto the road and i just started walking back into town her story finished shirley fell silent she lowered her head shuddering none of us knew what to say we stood there trying to make sense of what she told us i looked at pete then at the chief the chief looked back at me a disturbed expression on his face may i use the telephone surely asked looking up i want wanna call my parents to tell them i'm okay of course shirley just give us one minute we wanna run this guy's description out on the radio get an apb going so we can catch this creep the chief told her standing up and gesturing for me and pete to follow him he let us out of the office and shut the door what the hell is she talking about chief pete asked that mayam theater went out of business when i was a kid 30 years ago there's a liquor store there now yes yes and mcdougal's hardware is long gone too the chief replied long before your time either of you it burned down when i was a kid back in 67 i think maybe 68 and the mcdougalls went up in flames with it died in their sleep pete and me took a moment to absorb that so what the hell's her deal is she crazy or strung out or what the chief shrugged who knows maybe something really did happen to her tonight and the trauma caused a psychotic break dissociative identity disorder whatever they call it he opened the office door and motioned us back in surely mcdougall or whatever her name really was was still sitting beside the chief's desk she looked up as we entered can i call my parents now she asked urgently as the chief sat back down they must be worried sick about me surely the chief said staring at her thoughtfully who's the current u.s president she blinked at him what dwight eisenhower what's this have to do with anything the chief looked at her for what seemed like a long time surely he asked her softly do you know what year it is she gave him a puzzled look excuse me do you know what year it is 1956 why are you asking me this no shirley he said gently looking at her with compassion it's not 1956 it's 2019 1956 was 63 years ago she looked at him confused 2019 what are you talking about are you crazy look at the calendar behind me shirlene he told her pointing at the bulletin board on the wall above him looking at him suspiciously shirley stood and approached the calendar she stood directly in front of it staring for some time then she backed away her eyes widening in disbelief no no this is some sort of trick it has to be she stammered terrified and confused surely the chief said pointing at the computer on his desk have you ever seen one of these before but surely ignored him her attention had shifted to a large map of the united states on the opposite wall she stepped up to it studying it intently hawaii and alaska she muttered quietly to herself she moved to the window and looked outside at the parking lot the cars she said her voice rising in panic what's wrong with the cars why do they look so different we stood by the chief's desk just watching her dumb found it and not knowing how to react shirley turned to face us beginning to shudder she fell to her knees clutching her midsection her breath heaving in and out like she was hyperventilating i i think i'm gonna be sick she uttered in a low choked voice please just show me where the ladies rum is i'm gonna be sick pete looked to the chief who nodded grim-faced pete helped shirley to her feet and escorted her out of the office he looked back at us and the chief mouthed at him keep an eye on her pete nodded then they stepped through the door and out of sight a long awkward moment of silence passed with the chief sitting at his desk distractedly toying with a piece of his jigsaw puzzle and me standing there both of us trying to wrap our heads around what had just happened the entire encounter from the moment the soaking wet woman had entered the police station to when pete had taken her to use the restroom had lasted no more than 20 minutes i finally broke the silence forcing out a nervous laugh to try to lighten the mood weird night huh i said to the chief he just grunted in response seeming preoccupied with something so who should we call the state cops or the hospital i asked he didn't answer me he was still lost in thought staring intently straight ahead what's on your mind chief something just dawned on me a couple minutes ago just when pete and her were leaving he looked at me troubled 1956 was two years before i was born but mcdougall's hardware store was still in town until i was nine my parents used to do business with the mcdougalls i remember something from when i was a kid overhearing my parents talking something about the mcdougalls having a daughter that vanished under mysterious circumstances i looked at him come on chief you're not telling me you're actually buying into this thing are you it wouldn't be the first time something strange has happened in this town he said giving me a pointed look i think you know what i'm talking about i didn't answer him but i did know what he was talking about in my mind i saw images i cared not remember a blood spattered motel room sheets torn from the bed bloody claw marks on a carpet trailing off and stopping abruptly at an empty closet i shuddered at the memory and then suddenly there was a commotion from down the hall pete was yelling for both of us to come quick [ __ ] what now i muttered as we hurried out of the office pete was standing down the hall just outside the women's restroom he looked rattled she's gone he said as we got closer what the hell do you mean she's gone the chief demanded see for yourself pete answered and pushed open the restroom door we looked in all three stalls were standing with their doors open vacant the chief turned to pete well where the hell did she go i thought you were watching her hey chief i was standing right here outside the whole time i swear it pete insisted looking anxious and scared he muttered something to himself something i couldn't quite make out i asked him to repeat it he looked at me i'd never seen pete look so frightened before in my life i said she was cold when i was helping her up to go to the restroom my hand touched her arm it was so cold it was like touching the skin of a corpse the chief shot me in grim look which i reciprocated feeling a stirring of fear in the pit of my stomach this was too much like what had happened back in 14 the chief and i entered the women's room and looked around there wasn't much to see and no obvious place to hide three empty stalls and a sink there was a small window directly above the sink i approached it certain i was going to find it locked but the latch was unfastened i felt a weird sense of relief at that that this avenue of denial this fallback position of logical explanation hadn't been blocked because otherwise chief i said windows unlocked outside quick he ordered me me and pete hastily followed him down the hallway to the main entrance of the municipal building we went outside and looked around all we saw was the front lawn of the building and main street beyond it mostly deserted on this early summer evening the window in the women's restroom faced the left side of the building we went in that direction but when we turned the corner there was nothing there no sign of the mysterious young woman who called herself shirley mcdougall i looked up the window was about 10 feet above the ground and while small it was not impossible for someone with a smaller build like shirley to have squeezed through it what i'm getting at is that it was conceivable for her to have escaped out the window dropped to the ground below and then disappeared into the night the grass had been recently mowed and it hadn't been raining so the ground hadn't left any footprints we could see to determine which direction she'd gone we looked at that window for some time finally the chief lowered his head and emitted a slightly shaky chuckle she uh must have closed it behind her before she jumped i guess she was not saw chief pete said guess so or lion or on drugs or who the hell knows but that troubled disturbed look was still in the chief's eyes and i think he was trying to rationalize what had just happened as much as i was let's go back inside he told me and pete and that's just what we did it was easier for us to believe that we just been dealing with some deeply disturbed young woman or a flake looking for attention because otherwise we would have to accept that what we'd been questioning a ghost that summer night the chief did report the incident to the state police and they put out an alert for her but nothing ever came of it and we never saw or heard from shirley and mcdougall ever again i did some research in my free time just out of curiosity or so i told myself searching online and looking through old newspapers and town records there really had been a young woman named shirley ann mcdougall the 19 year old daughter of wilbur and harriet mcdougall the owners of mcdougall hardware and she really did disappear one night back in early august of 1956 never to be seen or heard from again but for all i knew the crazy woman we dealt with had known about the case and incorporated the details into her delusion there were no pictures if you were wondering i looked but couldn't find anything in the newspapers i even tried locating any of shirley's surviving relatives to no avail it had been over 60 years and presumably all the family photographs had been destroyed in the fire that killed her parents i forced it all out of my mind i was a police officer and there were more pressing matters to deal with eventually i forgot all about my strange encounter with shirley mcdougall then last week i went into the station to start my usual shift the chief beckoned me into his office his face pale and grave he didn't say anything just pointed to the newspaper on his desk i picked it up and i looked at the headline lake yields dark secret after 66 years one town over some guy in a boat had been trying out his new fish locating sonar and it inadvertently stumbled upon an old car at the bottom of the lake 20 feet down he went to the police and they'd hoisted the car to the surface an old battered rusted wreck that had once been a 1953 buick a set of skeletal remains belonging to a man had been found in the driver's seat the old buick had an oklahoma plate and when the authorities ran it through the system they discovered the vehicle was a match for a car registered to a man the fbi had been looking for back in the mid 1950s a drifter and convicted offender they suspected of being a serial killer or a spree killer as they called them back then who was believed to have abducted and murdered up to 10 young women in six different states his last intended victim had managed to escape she claimed a man dressed as a priest had tried to lure her into his car and then overpower her this had happened in iowa one stayed away from minnesota after that he just vanished off the fbi's radar when they conducted a more detailed inspection of the wrecked buick they made a further gruesome discovery a second skeleton was found in the trunk a skeleton belonging to a young woman [Music] you