Hollow's Eve Read online

  Hollow’s Eve

  Hannibal Adofo

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  From the Author

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  1

  A jack-o’-lantern glowed on the steps of Mrs. Kinsey’s porch.

  Three children were giggling, dressed like demons and ghouls, running past her steps while the church bell rang in the distance.

  It was All Hollow’s Eve on a misty night in Hollow Green and the town was ripe for the dead with the night’s festivities.

  Children and adults alike were dressed up in their favorite characters and trying as they might to mimic their likeness with makeup and costumes.

  The town was decorated with an abundance of fall colors, fake headstones, and all the Halloween trimmings that you could expect on the eve of All Saints Day.

  On Main Street, Edgar Vincent, Detective and former interim chief of the Hollow Green Police Department, walked through the front door of DelRose diner and found only one other person inside.

  Much to his delight.

  He enjoyed eating by himself. He enjoyed the solitude. And during a night where he volunteered to be on safety patrol, to make sure the people of Hollow Green wouldn’t get out of hand from drinking too much or getting in late-night disagreements over kids and Halloween candy, basically to try and keep the peace without anybody getting hurt.

  Hollow Green was a special town with particular law enforcement needs. Needs with which Vincent was all too familiar. Needs with which he was particularly well versed.

  He glanced at his watch: a half-hour to spare to chow down a grilled cheese and a bowl of tomato soup was a more-than-welcome proposition.

  “Don’t suppose I can interest you in some pumpkin pie?” Delores asked, the owner, the cook, and occasional waitress for the diner.

  Vincent smiled. He was always pleased to see Delores. She was a petite woman both in height and in shape, but she still exuded strength far beyond her diminutive stature. To look at her stance it was like she was ten feet tall.

  She wore fitted blue jeans with the diner’s black top with her name etched in yellow on the right side over the pocket. She had dark rings around her eyes and her hair was thick and disheveled. Yet and still somehow, she kept a nice smile on her face.

  “Just a grilled cheese and some tomato soup,” Vincent said.

  Delores sighed and shook her head. “I can hear those arteries of yours getting clogged already,” she said with a wink before moving toward the back.

  Vincent folded his hands and waited patiently. Delores returned to refill his cup of coffee as he cast a quick glance at the only other occupant in the diner—a man with a newspaper and an unruly beard, drinking his own cup of joe and working his way through the Hollow Green Tribune.

  Vincent raised his cup in the air.

  The man did the same.

  They left it at that and went back to minding their business.

  That was one thing that Vincent appreciated about Hollow Green and its people. Vincent, as well as the town, had been through his fair share of turmoil and upheaval. Hollow Green was a town that had become an infamous destination, well known for a string of serial murders and a siege that nearly burned the city to the ground.

  But that was years ago. Time had passed. Wounds had healed. Hollow Green and Edgar Vincent were back to a healthy state of mind, and nights like tonight were a friendly reminder that, despite the blemishes, despite the stains still absorbed into the fabric of this town, Hollow Green was a pleasant place to live.

  Vincent finished his meal in fifteen minutes and checked his watch. Time to go to work, he thought, ready to pound his designated beat up Main Street to make sure that the citizens were going about their night peacefully and, most importantly, tastefully.

  “Delicious as always,” Vincent said as he slapped down a twenty-dollar bill, face up, and tipped well over the average ten percent.

  “Have a good night, chief,” Delores said.

  “I’m not the chief anymore,” he reminded her as he stood to his feet and moved toward the door.

  “And that’s a damn shame,” she said. “Felt like the town was a little safer when you were running interference.”

  Vincent gave Delores a half salute, continued toward the door, and thanked God that the recently elected Chief Roland Riley was the man now taking all the flak from a town that still found reasons to complain, even though the worst crimes now committed were traffic violations.

  As Vincent left the diner, a small group of children flocked past him dressed like superheroes, crying out their battle cries and famous tag lines from super hero movies. He told them to “Be safe!” while they ran off into the night.

  He took a look around—everything seemed at ease. All of Main was decorated with haystacks, pumpkins, and bed sheets made up to look like ghosts clinging to the lampposts.

  Vincent hung at the corner of Main for a moment, soaking in the hordes of citizens moving toward town hall and getting ready to partake in the decades-old apple bobbing contests.

  It was a good night. A pleasant night.

  But that was before it all went upside down.

  2

  Vincent answered his phone on the second ring. His new, or rather newish, partner Dana Brandt greeted him with a hushed and concerned tone.

  “Vincent?” Brandt said.

  “The one and only,” he replied.

  “Get to Millennium Park. Right now.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Brandt took a moment to answer. “No… No, we have a big problem.”

  Vincent hung up, his stomach twisting into a familiar knot that he hadn’t experienced since the string of murders that had occurred two years ago.

  And with then, as it was now, the thought returned…

  This is going to be a long night.

  An officer sat inside his cruiser just outside the gazebo in the heart of Millennium Park, his skin a pale shade of white, and darkness consuming the entirety of the park.

  Vincent knocked on the window and saw that it was Officer Brackett, a youthful cadet two weeks on the job.

  “Hey, buddy,” Vincent said. “You okay?”

  Brackett rolled the window, his eyes darting from left to right and failing to home in on Vincent.

  “Hey,” he said. “Hey, Vincent…”

  Vincent leaned against the door. “You all right?”

  Brackett shook his head. “The tree,” he said. “Outside the gazebo…” He tried to muster more words, but his fear was getting the better of him.

  Oh no, Vincent thought. This can’t be good…

  Vincent made his way around the cruiser and approached the gazebo. Detective Brandt was about ten feet away and was pacing a half circl
e into the dirt.

  Brandt was a few years younger than Vincent, curvy auburn hair tied in a pony tail, lying down, just touching her shoulders.

  She wore a black waist coat with the collar pulled up around her neck, black slacks and much disturbed look on her face.

  Brandt was a transplant from San Francisco who saw so many crimes in abundance, some so brutal that she decided, no needed, to make the move to Hollow Green. A place she thought, like Vincent, would give her some peace.

  And it did until now.

  Only thirty-one years old, Vincent thought. A damn shame. Much too young for the trauma…

  The age disparity between most of the officers in the department had Vincent starting to feel like he was the old man in the department.

  “Detective Brandt,” he said, approaching her. “What’s going on?”

  Like Brackett, she was at a loss for words. All she could do was fork a thumb over her shoulder.

  Vincent walked around her and spotted something, or someone, strung up in the tree. He walked a few feet, stopped in his tracks, and found the soup that he had, just a few minutes before, doing backflips in his stomach.

  In the tree, strung up between the two branches that split halfway up, was the tattered and stab-wound-riddled corpse of a young man, hung up in crucifixion style between the branches.

  His body was soaked with crimson. Stab wounds ran the length of his body from his shins up to his throat, and both of his eyes had been completely, and crudely, gouged out.

  Vincent studying the body said. “My God. This just isn’t happening.”

  3

  Vincent stared at the body in silence for several minutes. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was one of the most, if not the most, heinous thing he had witnessed in his life.

  Detective Brandt walked up to him, not looking up at the body. Seemed the less she looked, the better she was.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Vincent knew he needed to try and pin an ID on the body, but its grisly state kept forcing him to look away. Finally, he composed himself and took a step toward the tree.

  The kid was no older than sixteen, he figured. All he was wearing was jeans and tennis shoes—the rest of his clothes were missing, and his torso was caked with blood so dark it almost looked black.

  He scanned the body, head to toe, trying to find some hint or clue that would help him piece together who the kid was.

  And that was when he saw the birthmark.

  “That’s Ethan Travis,” Vincent said, turning away again.

  Brandt’s eyes went wide. “Ethan Travis? The football star?”

  Vincent nodded. “He’s got a birthmark. Right above his left eye.” He pointed.

  Brandt saw it, though it took her a moment to find it through all the blood.

  Silence held sway. Both detectives continued to stare at the body.

  “How…” Brandt said. “How the hell is this possible? I was just past here a half-hour ago.”

  “Whoever did this,” Vincent said, “managed to drag the body up ten feet into that tree. That’s a difficult feat, considering that Ethan Travis weighed at least one-ninety.”

  Vincent focused on the eyes—or where the eyes used to be. They were nothing more than mutilated holes that looked like they had been stuffed with raw hamburger.

  Sick bastard.

  Who the hell could have done this to a man? To a child?

  “What do we do?” Brandt asked, a pleading set of eyes now focused on her partner.

  Vincent took a beat. “Cordon off the area,” he said. “And do it quietly. Tell people there’s been an accident. Play it down as much as possible. I don’t want a soul coming through here that doesn’t need to.”

  Vincent knew he needed to keep the citizens of Hollow Green as far away from the body as possible. He knew full well how this town reacted to anything out of the ordinary.

  “What about the chief?” Brandt asked.

  Vincent thought about it. “I’ll call him.”

  Brandt left without any further inquiries, probably more than happy to distance herself from the real-life horrors that had been played out in Millennium Park.

  Vincent moved back to Officer Brackett, still in his cruiser. “Hey, kid.”

  Brackett looked up. “Sir?”

  “You found the body?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When did you find it?”

  Brackett had to think about it. “Uh…fifteen minutes ago…I think.”

  “Was anyone else here?” Vincent asked. “Anyone at all?”

  Brackett shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone. Brandt said she didn’t either. She and I traded off patrolling the park and Cedar Avenue. I didn’t see anything!”

  Brackett’s voice was growing increasingly strained the more he spoke. Vincent put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

  “It’s okay, kid,” he said. “It’s okay. Just take it easy. But I need you to call in Finley, Gamble, and Miller. Okay? We need a few extra people down here. Keep it quiet. Keep it discreet. Don’t reveal any details over the radio. Got it?”

  Brackett nodded nervously, picked up the radio, and called in for additional units to report to Millennium Park as Vincent moved back toward the body.

  Christ, he thought. The kid was mauled. It looks like damn mountain lion killed him.

  Vincent took another examination of the body, equal parts horrified and saddened by the robbing of a young man’s life.

  How did the killer drag him up there?

  That’s no easy feat.

  Vincent moved around the tree, trying to spot signs of a disturbance, and saw a trio of fresh cuts in at the base in the back.

  Bingo.

  Moments later, Brandt approached him, a somewhat relieved look on her face. “Backup is coming,” she said. “I’ve got Brackett making sure no one comes through here.”

  “Look at this,” Vincent said, pointing to the marks in the tree, all three of them parallel and cleanly cut into the bark.

  “What is that?” Brandt asked.

  Vincent shook his head. “Not sure. Might be marks from whatever equipment our killer, or killers, used to haul the body up into the tree.”

  As Vincent examined the marks closer, he saw the blood from the body had trickled down and filled them in like glaze on fired ceramic.

  “This is sick,” Brandt remarked. “I can’t believe someone would do this.”

  Vincent was about to remind Brandt the importance of repressing emotions for the sake of an investigation, but he thought in this particular instance he would be a hypocrite.

  As he rounded the tree, he spotted something sticking out the bloodied pocket of Ethan’s pants.

  A note.

  4

  Chief Riley had arrived on the scene about ten minutes later with a Stetson hat on his head and a click in his heels come from his boots.

  Vincent rolled his eyes as the chief approached. This guy is a complete tool.

  Riley strolled up to the crime scene with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his chest puffed out in an overt display of authority.

  But Vincent knew it was all a charade. Riley was all talk, no bite, and no show. A big reason Riley had taken over as chief of police was that he was deferential to the powers that be—the second he faced resistance or criticism to his superiors, he gave in to their accusations or complaints immediately.

  Spineless, Vincent thought.

  “What do we got here?” Riley asked, his voice booming.

  Vincent leaned into the chief as officers Miller and Gamble went about setting up a tarp canopy around the body to shield it from public view—so far, no citizens had gotten wise to what was happening; the entire town was still engulfed in the Halloween celebrations out in the streets.

  But it won’t be too long before they figure it out, Vincent thought. Until then, he would take advantage of what time they had.

  “Victim’s name is Ethan Travis,” he said quietly
to Riley. “We’re waiting to take pictures before we take down the body. I’ve also got a few of the officers canvassing the area for any evidence.”

  Chief Riley nodded, looking somewhat confused. “Any suspects?” he asked.

  “No,” Vincent said. “But I sent two other officers to search the town. They’re rolling through in their cruisers to see if they can spot anything suspicious. I have them checking in every few minutes.”

  Riley nodded again.

  Still looking confused.

  “Let me see the body,” he said, swallowing with his mouth slightly open as Vincent led him to the tree.

  The second he saw Ethan Travis’ body, Riley had to look away.

  Guy doesn’t have the stomach for this job.

  “Jesus,” Riley said. “What the hell could have done that?”

  “Two people,” Vincent said. “Or one with some kind of equipment to assist them getting the body up into the tree.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s scratch marks on the back of the tree. Looks like it was made from a piece of machinery. Winch, maybe. Harness of some kind.”

  Riley took a breather, removing his Stetson hat and wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve. “I gotta call the mayor,” he said, somewhat frantic. “We, uh…we gotta figure out how to tell everyone in the town what’s going on.”

  Vincent held up his hand. “Not yet. We need to lock down this scene and remove the body first. We also need to make sure our people keep anyone back from the scene while we do so. If we start announcing to everyone what’s happening, we could have a panic on our hands.”