CHAPTER 18
Tony entered the police station about one hour after escorting Eddie home and immediately knew something was very wrong. Five people, two males and three females, all attired in typical angel-porcelain white, were conferring amongst themselves in the lobby in front of the sergeant’s desk. Noticing the door to the corner office was ajar, the young PI poked his head in. L’Da was sitting behind the paper-filled desk. Gregory, Ba’al’figor, D’Ariel, J’ai Né and two other angels, a male and a female, both attired in black, were standing around him going over notes in a few manuscripts.
“Wow,” the greenhorn detective exulted. “Full house.”
“This is serious,” Gregory scolded him.
“Sorry,” he apologized as he entered.
“I think you’ve met most of the angels here,” his partner stated, “L’Da, Ba’al’figor, D’Ariel, J’ai Né. These two in ebony are Ka’Arina and Matthias.” Tony shook their hands. “Look at this,” Gregory continued, handing him a dossier. The neophyte perused the form but barely understood the drawings or language on it.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Matthias and I were part of the forensics team involved in the pathological examination of Ms. Winehouse,” Ka’Arina stated. “We consulted with other examiners from different heavens and simply couldn’t determine why a citizen had died. You can imagine the enormity of such a finding. We thought it best to keep this information from reaching the upper levels because they would exert executive powers over this first level and chaos would ensue. At least that is our belief because of something similar that occurred about 4,500 years ago.”
“Wow, the way you guys speak about time,” Tony joked, then adopted a fake stentorian voice. “I lost my dog 5,000 years ago to the day and I still haven’t found him yet. Pretty wild.” As usual, no one thought he was funny.
Ka’Arina, practically blowing smoke from her nostrils, turned to L’Da. “This is part of the investigation?” she grumbled, pointing to Tony like he was a diseased cockroach.
The head angel threw up his hands. “Like we have a choice.”
“Tony,” Gregory called out, “be serious or you’ll have to sit this out.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the youngster quickly apologized. “Can I get a break because this is just my first week here?”
“You’re okay, young man,” L’Da asserted. “Just try to focus.”
“No problem,” Tony nodded.
“We went back to the drawing board on this one,” Matthias stated. “Someone mentioned that wouldn’t it be odd if she had no soul because, as you know, no soul, no life. It was always ruled out because souls cannot be forcefully removed. The body has to die first, not the other way around. Still, even if we thought it involved her soul, how would we detect that? That idea was abandoned because when we consulted with Potens Vigilem, he said that her soul never came by him. And he sees all.”
“I thought he couldn’t talk,” Tony said.
“I have the ability to communicate with the Watcher of Souls and other non-verbal angels telepathically,” Ka’Arina revealed. “We dug up a rare machine that hadn’t been utilized in thousands of years because it was never required. A few beings had hypothesized that the creation of a soul-detecting device could be needed just in case something like this came up. It never did and the device was determined lost forever. However, a thorough search in an ancient depository rediscovered it. After we quickly learned how to use it we applied it to Ms. Winehouse. As it turned out, her soul was missing. Someone had removed it.”
“The machine showed you that?” Tony asked.
“Not directly,” Matthias admitted. “Considering it can detect other living souls as we’d tested it on others, and since it bore no readings from Ms. Winehouse, we are only left to conclude that, somehow, hers was purposefully removed. Yes, revolutionary, but still within the realm of possibility. We even considered that knowledge-occluding karma could also be a reason her soul wasn’t detected, but similar tests on those who are known to possess such karma still revealed their soul’s existence.”
“In other words,” Gregory added, “we have to find a missing soul.”
Tony furrowed his brow. “How can we find them when they’re so tiny they’re invisible?”
“It may have something to do with that very small abdominal scar,” L’Da explained. “Something powerful enough to somehow extract her spark.”
“Then her soul is being kept somewhere,” Gregory surmised, “otherwise the Watcher would’ve detected it already. I wonder where it could be?”
“Maybe it’s still in the extraction tool,” Tony figured, his brain bursting with activity.
“Could be,” L’Da agreed.
“Or maybe there’s a secret vault somewhere,” the young PI added. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s invisible. You guys have that kind of…magic, don’t you?”
“You’re reaching,” the elder detective counseled him.
“He may have a point,” L’Da admitted, “but even that would’ve been detected by now.”
A brief silence befell the three while they brainstormed. Gregory, tortured by silence, started a recitation out of the blue. “We travel, some of us forever,” he emoted, “to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
“Wait…what?” his young charged asked. “What does that mean?”
Gregory shrugged. “Just felt like saying something deep. It’s from Anaïs Nin.”
“Never heard of him,” Tony admitted.
“Her,” the ex-cop corrected him. “She wrote…”
“Can you two discuss Anaïs some other time?” L’Da interrupted, frustrated. “I think you have much more important business at hand.”
Around 3PM, Gregory and Tony were casually strolling down Ohayo Mountain Road just south of the main drag through town to meet their second interviewee. The narrow, winding lane, sorely in need of repair, was marred with cracks for most of its miles. The afternoon sun could barely be seen through the curtain of towering maples, oaks and pines decorating both sides of the street. Taking a break from the long walk, Tony stopped to drink some of the water cascading down a rivulet at the side of the road. Following suit, Gregory also stopped to imbibe some of the deliciously clear gelid drink.
“Remind again me why we’re walking instead of taking the trolley?” Tony asked.
“Just learning the lay of the land, Tony,” the elder PI explained. “You know, if I could bottle this water I’d make a fortune.”
“Who would you sell it to?” his pal asked rhetorically.
“True,” Gregory admitted.
A little further down the road, they stopped to read the green sign which pointed south.
WOODSTOCK PARK
“I guess we’re almost there,” Tony mumbled.
Traipsing a few yards further, they saw what they were looking for. In a clearing on the side of the road sat a red stone lodge with a gray roof much like the ones the Choctaw built in Oklahoma at the turn of the century. In front of it was an old-fashioned stone and wood well that looked like it was trucked in from a John Wayne Sunday matinee. Above the front door was a long rectangular wooden sign with the words ‘Ohayo Mountain Center’ carved in it. To the rear of the lodge was a serene oval lake approximately 1 ½ miles in circumference, framed by a forest so thickly wooded that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves could live there forever without ever being detected by the modern world.
“Funky little joint,” Tony thought aloud as they walked to the building.
Opening the front door, they found themselves surrealistically transported back to 1890’s Ohio, half expecting Annie Oakley or Buffalo Bill to show up on horseback and greet them to their humble establishment. Winchester and Remington rifles were displayed on varnished planks high up on the walls. Native American blankets and covers hanged off racks throughout the store. Along all walls were shelves stocked with fishing equipment – lures, poles, buckets, nets, how-to pamphlets, etc. Life jackets, inflat
able boats and wooden canoes were displayed at the far end of the spacious room. Several potential customers were checking out the goods. The one clerk in the store, himself attired in a mix of Apache and East Indian accoutrements, was assisting a gentleman in the back decide which canoe to purchase. Both salesman and customer on the ground facing the canoe, they were testing the strength of the carrier’s blue keel and hull. Gregory approached them while Tony studied the various items on sale elsewhere.
“Excuse me,” the PI introduced himself to the two guys. “Can I get some help?”
The clerk turned around and said in a gentle voice, “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Gregory almost had an asthma attack when he saw the brown skinned, afro wearing, Native American-hatted clerk was superstar guitarist Jimi Hendrix in the flesh.