Phantom Load - Part 4
Friday, November 24th, 2006
Sam stirred, waking to a dry mouth and all of his covers flung off. There was a slender thread of light coming between the crack in the curtains, and with it he checked the room. It was 8 o’clock, according to the square red numbers on the nightstand, and with a click, the heat came on. What on earth? It was already boiling in the room.
He got up and opened the lid to the controls on the air conditioner/heater. It was set to high heat, so he turned the knob to low heat, and felt the room cool almost instantly as the heat and the fan pushing it around went off. He didn’t remember it being that high last night. In the other bed, as he turned to look at it, Dean was face down, bundled in the covers. It looked like he was wearing one of Sam’s hoodies with the hood up as well, though Sam didn’t remember him borrowing it. Or even mentioning that he needed it. A cold was the likely culprit, because even though it hadn’t been that chilly, who knew where germs lurked in this dry climate.
“Dean,” he said, not kicking the bed. Instead, he leaned close and gave Dean’s shoulder a pat. Just a small one, but Dean flung out at him as though under attack. Sam jumped back, feeling like a rabbit on the run, and tried not to snap something mean. It would start out the day with much more tension than was needed, and the way things were going, they’d find enough tension between them to string wire.
“Dean, can you get up so we can go to breakfast? They’ll have sweet rolls if we’re early enough.”
Groaning, Dean sank back into his pillow. “I’m not hungry.”
“Look,” said Sam, going over to his duffle to dig for some mostly clean jeans and socks. “Just come and have coffee or something so we can go over what we’re going to ask Blake and Mates.” He pulled on the jeans and zipped up.
“Who?” Now Dean sat up, blankets tucked around him like bunting.
“Blake and Mates. Janitor and Principal, respectively. The diner around the corner has very good donuts, by the way they sold out yesterday. C’mon, will you?”
With several dark mumbles, Dean pulled himself out of bed and began pulling on clothes. First his socks, then his jeans, as normal. He pulled off the hoodie to pull on some thermal underwear over his t-shirt, and then a flannel shirt. Then he put the hoodie back on.
“Will you quit watching me?”
“I’ve never seen you wear so many clothes, Dean. You really are coming down with a cold, because if you’re not, this room is like a dry sauna for no reason.”
“Yeah, I turned it up last night,” said Dean. Shrugging. He grabbed the keys from the table between the beds and shoved it in his pocket, and jingled them while he stood there. “Gonna bring the notes?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, gathering up the folder and his pen. He needed coffee and he needed toast. With butter and jam.
As they entered the diner, the smell of coffee and grease settling over everything, Sam asked for a table by the window, liking the way the sun slanted in, liking the quiet of the corner. He sat in the chair with his back to the wall, smiling at Dean’s frown. It was warm enough that he could take off his jacket and drape it behind him. Something that Dean did not do. But rather than bring up a cold that Dean would, no doubt, dismiss, he let it go. If Dean wanted to wear his leather jacket and get egg on it, that was his problem.
“So these guys,” said Dean, sitting across from him, pulling out the menu. He waved his hand in the air, like he was coaxing Sam to remember his lines. “What’s his name and what’s his name-”
“Rondo Blake and Henry Mates. They agreed to meet with us today, either because they have nothing better to do, or because they have a story to tell and no one to tell it to.”
“Either is likely,” said Dean, cryptic. Staring at the inside flap of the plastic coated menu. He knew, as well as Sam did, that sometimes people had a story to tell, even after six months, it was likely they could get information from two guys who would have the key to every room in the building.
The waitress came by and Sam ordered his favorite, a ham and cheese omelet, and a short stack of pancakes. Did that come with bacon? Thank you. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
When she turned to Dean, he hesitated, like he was going to refuse her. Like he ever refused food. “Uh,” he said, not looking at Sam. His concentration full on the menu. “Coffee. Um, toast.”
“Dean.” It was not a question, but Sam said it with some force.
“I’ll have the number one, the two egg special. Sunny side up.”
“Thank you sir,” said the waitress, back in about two seconds with a pot of coffee, filling their cups far enough so that Sam had to take several sips of black before he could add cream and sugar. Dean had no problem, he liked it black. But he didn’t touch the cup.
“Are you going to be like this all day?” asked Sam.
“Like what?”
“Like this. Grunting. Not eating. Bundled up like an Eskimo.”
“I’m not bundled up like an Eskimo,” said Dean, fiddling with the handle on his cup. “I just got a cold is all, so you can just back off before you start.”
Sam blinked.
“Yeah, Sam, you. You’ve been at me since we started this job, and I’m sick of it. Quit harassing me.”
“I’m not harassing you.”
“Yes, you are. Like right now.”
“How-” Sam stopped to take a breath, to let himself cool off. “How am I harassing you? You mean about getting breakfast?” Sam waved his hands over the table. “It’s not like you to not order, especially breakfast. You want to say it’s a cold and that you’re not hungry, then, fine, don’t order. Don’t let me boss you around, but don’t tell me I’m harassing you.”
The waitress came with their orders, which meant that they could only glower at each other while she was there. And for some moments after she left, at their plates, as Dean asked for the salt and pepper to be passed, as Sam reached for the cream.
After several mouthfuls where it was obvious Dean was putting food in his mouth to please Sam, he looked up, brows furrowed. “Can we just stick to the job? Sam?”
“Fine,” said Sam.
“Fine,” said Dean.
*
Rondo Blake’s place was half of a duplex off of North Broadway, where the town suddenly flattened out on the top of a mesa, which was scattered with gas station, trailers, a goat farm, and a development that looked old even though it was new. When they knocked on Rondo’s brown door, he let them in, smelling slightly like weed, a lot like patchouli, and with a beard long enough for a castaway.
“Come on in, man, glad you could make it.”
As if he’d invited them to a party or something. That’s what Dean’s look said, and Sam shrugged and scowled to hide his smile. If Rondo was stoned, his story might not have enough facts to do them any good. Or they could get stoned on the residual smoke, which probably, in Dean’s mind, wouldn’t be half bad.
They were waved to the leather couch that was half covered in blankets and a pillow. The other half was a pile of clothes, hopefully clean.
“Don’t mind that,” said Rondo, shoving everything on the floor. “Buddy of mine had to crash here last night. You guys want Kool-Aid or something? Is it too early for beer?”
“Not by my watch,” said Dean, settling back, giving the blankets on the floor a kick.
Sam sat next to him, taking in the mountain climbing posters, the gear in the corner, ropes and belaying hooks, and took a beer when Rondo offered it to him. It was cold in his hand. He didn’t have to drink it, he knew that, but sometimes it paid to look like you were joining the party.
Dean took his beer with both hands, opened it with his ring, and took a healthy swig.
“So,” said Rondo, with a beer of his own as he settled into a nap-worn comfy chair. “You got a problem up at that school, huh?” He took a large swig of his beer. “Fire away.”
“What can you tell us about what happened?”
“You mean why I only worked there a month?”
“Did you?” Sam looked sideways at Dean, who shrugged. This hadn’t come out in their conversation with Audrey or Phil.
“Yeah, shit, that school was nasty.”
“Nasty?” asked Dean. “Like run down?”
That was hard to believe, the way it currently looked, all sparkly and well tended. Sam shook his head.
“No, man. Spooky nasty." Rondo shook his head. "Them damn X’s every where, lockers being opened. It was a good gig, right, but I could never explain why I wasn’t changing light bulbs fast enough. And then they found the you-know-what in the file cabinet.”
Dean was smiling against the mouth of his beer, Sam could tell, even without looking.
Rondo followed suit, swallowing loudly, not hiding his belch. “Yeah, I’m the hippy, right, so of course, it’s the weed that’s keeping me from doing my job, not anything else.”
“Was it something else?” asked Sam, leaning forward. He let the beer dangle between his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“Damn straight. That was a good gig for me. It was easy to keep up, there weren’t any bad kids lighting fires or shooting each other or peeing in trashcans. Kids are pigs, right?” Rondo gulped down the last half of his beer and then put the empty bottle by his foot. And while still looking down at his shoelaces, he seemed more alert than he had since they’d come in. “I worked nights so I could climb during the day, right? I would go down a hall, having waxed it, swept, done the trash, or whatever. Then I would get all cold, and then turn around to find light bulbs burned out, X’s up high over the lockers. Lockers open that had been closed when I went past ‘em. Could hear lockers being opened in another hallway. But there was nobody there but me.”
“You sure of that?” This from Dean, who had finished his beer also and looked like he could use another one. “Could have been-could have been someone else there.”
“Man, did you hear me?” Rondo slipped back in his seat, his head on the headrest. “I was the only one there.”
“And did you tell anyone?”
“Yeah, man, I did. They got one earful of my story and then they searched that boiler room, and found my weed. I only smoked it on my break, right? It let me think. And I got the job done, so what the hell did they care.”
“Well,” said Sam, trying not to laugh or shake his head. “Schools are funny that way.”
“And it gets even funnier, right?”
“How so?”
“I asked around, right? Janitors talk, you know. To each other. It’s like a little community, and thank Peter for that, because I’ve got me a cleaning gig in Ft. Collins starting next week, and man, there are some rocks up there.”
Sam felt his patience slipping away. “What did you ask them?”
“What was going on, don’t you get it?”
Both he and Dean shook their heads. Sam prepared himself to take it on the chin from Dean after they left Rondo’s place. Dean would give it to him but good. Waste of time, Sam.
“It was the last janitor. That’s what they said. He hung himself. In the boiler room.”
“And that would be-” said Sam, leaving it open, not seeing the pieces.
“It’s Mr. Gunnarson,” said Dean, and Rondo nodded at him.
“Yeah, man. Old Mr. Gunnarson is haunting the school. That’s what suicides do, right?”
“How the hell, Dean,” said Sam, turning towards his brother. “How the hell do you know who this guy is?”
Dean's hands froze on his beer as he brought it to his mouth.
“Yeah, man," asked Rondo, "you go to school there, or something?”
Dean’s mouth was open, his eyes on Rondo. Like Rondo was suddenly going to turn into a snake or something. “Yeah, uh, yeah. I went to school there, and the janitor’s name was Gunnarson. So I figured-”
“That’s who you thought it was when we talked to Audrey and Phil, too, Dean.” Sam felt like he was going to have to start shouting to get Dean to answer him.
“Hey, how they doing anyway?" asked Rondo. "Still mad at me for the weed, right?”
It was frustrating that Dean wouldn’t look at him, but he was now studying the beer bottle in his hands like his fingers wanted to tease the label off. Like it was the most important thing he would be working on that morning. Or any morning.
“They’re fine, Rondo,” said Sam, “and they send their regards.”
Rondo snorted at this and then looked up as Dean jumped to his feet. Not giving his brother the chance to find out why the hell Dean kept bringing up some old janitor.
“Come on, Sam,” said Dean.
Rondo stood up as well, and the two men clasped hands like old drinking buddies soon to be parted. “Alright, man, you take care, and hey, call if, you know, you want to hang out or something.”
Then he reached to shake Sam’s hand, which Sam responded to, hoping he wasn’t frowning. Not that it made any difference who Rondo was or what he did with his spare time. He’d given them a big lead, one they should have figured out for themselves. But trust the universe to laugh at them long and loud by having some ex-janitor-climber-wanna be figure out the reason for the haunting. He hoped the universe got a bellyache. Thank goodness janitors talked.
“Thank you, Rondo,” he said. “Take care.
They left, and as the front door shut behind them, Sam took several lungfuls of sharp, clear air.
“If we get stopped by the cops,” said Sam, shaking his lapel as he smelled it.
“I’ll tell them you’ve got it hidden on your person.”
“You would,” said Sam, snapping back.
Sam allowed himself to get into the car without going at Dean about Mr. Gunnarson, seeing as Dean wasn’t going to go after him about Rondo being a waste of time. Because he hadn’t been. Getting pissed off wouldn’t do any good anyway, and besides, they had a real lead. If Rondo knew about the suicide, then surely Bob Mates would, too.
“Where does he live?” asked Dean, pulling out of the driveway.
“Head south here, on Broadway,” said Sam, pointing. Wishing he’d taken at least one good swallow of beer. “Then, it goes downhill. When it goes uphill again, we take a right on Mapleton.”
The drive was silent, the after holiday traffic getting thicker as people headed out to shop. Mapleton was a tree-lined street, with elegant, large houses, and substantial fences around each one. Expensive cars. More trees in each yard. Mr. Mate’s house was one of the smaller ones, sided with stone and surrounded by a tidy green lawn. Dean parked on a side street half a block away, not wanting to leave the Impala in harm’s way.
“Is he going to be in?” asked Dean, as they walked along a flagstone sidewalk. Then Sam opened the gate to Mr. Mate’s yard. More flagstone.
“Yeah, he said his wife was shopping and didn’t want to hear any of this. She’s had enough, she said.”
“Wow. That’s supportive.” Dean smirked at Sam and banged on the door with the brass knocker.
Before Sam could make any kind of retort about people getting tired of other people’s shit, the door opened. Mr. Mates looked just like a retired principal should: cardigan sweater half-buttoned over a round belly, neat hair and eyeglasses. Indoor loafers. A newspaper in his hand.
“You the boys about the school?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Mates. I’m Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean.”
Mates opened the door wider and welcomed them in with a wave of his newspaper. The house smelled like baking and cleanser. Everything was dusted and tidy except for the newspaper spread out over the dining room table.
“Doing the crosswords. Gives my wife fits, so I have to sneak it in when she’s not here.”
Sam didn’t acknowledge Dean’s continued smirk.
“We appreciate you taking some of that crossword puzzle time, then, Mr. Mates, to answer some questions.”
“Bob,” said Mr. Mates, as if addressing a fourth party in the room. “You boys make yourself comfortable.” He pointed at the padded chairs. “Any of the remaining five.”
Sam sat across from Bob Mates and his newspapers and the little scratch pad he used so he could, apparently, do the final puzzle in ink and amaze his wife. Dean sat on his left and folded his hands on the table. Like he was a schoolboy and in trouble.
“So, Bob,” said Sam, tipping his head forward, trying for his best not-meaning-to-impose face. “What can you tell us about the school? You said over the phone that you couldn’t-”
“Not with my wife listening,” said Bob. Scowling. He tapped his pen on the pad. “She hates talking about this.”
“About-?” Sam began the question, let his voice trail off. People loved to fill in the blanks. Especially lovers of crossword puzzles.
“About all of it! The suicide. That janitor, Mr. Gunnarson-”
“Wasn’t he a co-worker of yours?”
This from Dean who hadn’t even as much as nodded hello to the man. Sam found himself staring, open jawed.
“Excuse me, young man?”
“You worked with him,” said Dean, biting off each word. “You were the principal there while he was the janitor. So, co-worker and friend, I’d say.”
Now it was Bob’s turn. His mouth hung open a little while he regarded Dean, the pen still in his hand, his fingers looking like they wanted to turn it around and around.
“Do I know you?”
“I went-” Dean stared, a little gasp of breath escaping him. “I went to that school while you were the principal. Years ago, it was-”
“1992,” said Bob. Nodding now. Pleased with himself. “Yeah, that’s you. You got into a fight with that Joel Booth, and Gunnarson covered for you.”
“You knew that?”
“You didn’t start the fight, Dean, I asked around, I asked teachers on bus duty. But you were going to end it, and it was going to get messy.”
Dean tucked his chin and tried to look abashed at this, but failed.
“I thought you said you’d never gotten into a fight at that school,” said Sam.
Shrug. “Dude, I forgot. What difference does it make?”
Only that every fight Dean had ever been in, especially the ones that he’d won, while sometimes a secret from Dad, had been spelled out to Sam. Lessons in how to win. What to do. What not to do. When to walk, when to run away.
Then he remembered the day Bob Mates was talking about. It had been a bright, windy day, with snow on the street and in the lee side of all the trees. When the white van had dropped him off, Dean had not been there to meet him, as he usually was. There had been some teachers there, watching him, and Sam tried not to look at them, thinking in the back of his mind that he shouldn’t attract too much attention. Then, suddenly, Dean had raced out of the front doors, his pea coat open. His collar, awry. He'd been white and sweating, for all it was cold.
Sam had asked questions because, from the way Dean was curled forward, it looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. Dean's denial had been quick. He'd denied anything was wrong, though the walk home had been slow, even for Sam, because Dean had kept tripping over his own feet.
Dean opened his mouth now and turned sharply towards Sam, and Sam knew what was on his lips, ready to burst out: Quit looking at me like that.
So he looked away. Looked at Bob. Pressed his lips together and took a breath.
“Why don’t you tell us what you know, Bob, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
“Sure, sure.” Bob looked at his crossword puzzle, which Sam could see had the dignity of being from the New York Times. Knew Bob wanted to bury himself inside of it. Made himself wait.
“Gunnarson worked at that school, I don’t know, twenty years or more. Not a black mark on his record, and he kept that school like it was his own. Kept it brand new. You see what I’m saying, why it was so wrong what happened to him?
What happened to him? Sam kept his mouth shut over this, tipped his head at Dean to keep him quiet as well. It worked. For the moment.
“Gunnarson committed suicide. But why? I’ll tell you why. Because of that kid. That dumb kid and his accusations.”
Someone shifted in his chair. There was a loud creak. It could have been Dean but he’d not moved.
Then Bob looked up. “Sorry. You’re not in the school system; it was all over like wildfire. Some kid accused poor Roy of inappropriate touching. But before they could take him in for questioning, you know, so he could clear his name, he hung himself. In the boiler room. The stress, after looking after those kids and that school, and that’s the thanks he gets for it?” He pulled his lips in against his teeth and did what all grown men did. He sucked it back.
“What kid?” asked Sam.
Bob shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. It’s unsubstantiated anyway. Kid transferred to another school, I hired Rondo Blake, who turned out to be a pothead, and then I retired. And that’s it. End of story.”
“His word against the janitor’s, anyway,” said Dean. Flat.
“No, that’s the thing of it. Kid said he had proof. That Roy kept files on each kid. Kept them in the school somewhere. Said he saw them. What a joke. A man’s life, let alone his reputation, ripped to shreds by some lying punk.”
“So, no one believed him then, this kid?” Sam made his voice gentle.
“No and why should they? I worked with Roy, hell, we practically started at that school together. He wasn’t into that. I would have noticed something. Or some other kid would have said something.”
“Maybe they were afraid,” said Dean. His voice sounded uncomfortable, but Sam could hardly blame him. Dealing with an accused pedophile, or rather, the ghost of an accused pedophile, was not their usual thing.
“They shouldn’t be, if they’re telling the truth.” Bob nodded. As sure of this, it seemed, as though it was all black and white, like his puzzles. Sam could see that.
“Anything else you can tell us, Bob?”
“Rondo Blake was sure that it was Roy’s ghost haunting the school. If you can believe that. That Roy was leaving X’s like a trail. But Roy’s dead, so you can see how strange that sounds.”
“Yeah,” agreed Sam for form’s sake. “That’s pretty weird.” What was even weirder was the fact that a pothead, someone very low on society's ladder, could see the truth better and faster than an upstanding citizen.
“Only what I expect from a pothead," said Bob. "I recommended that they fire him and I retired. It’s not really my problem any of it, though I hate to see that school be brought down by rumors. Or some punk kid sneaking in there and causing trouble.”
In Bob’s mind, it was some punk kid. Some punk liar kid, maybe. Nothing close to the truth.
Sam shoved back his padded chair and held out his hand to shake. Bob shook it.
“Thank you, Bob, for your time, then. We won’t take up any more of it.”
“I hope you get to the bottom of this mess. That’s a good school, even if it does have a woman principal.”
“Yeah,” said Dean, shaking Bob’s hand, going through the motions. “A good school.”
“Worth saving,” said Bob. “Even if you didn’t like it much.”
“I liked it just fine,” said Dean, drawing his hand back with a snap. He looked like he wanted to wipe his palm on his jeans but refrained. Sam wanted to snap out something about the woman principal remark, but he clamped his teeth on the end of his tongue. It wouldn’t serve any purpose, wouldn’t change Bob or his opinion.
“Thank you again, Bob,” he said instead. He tugged at Dean’s jacket with his fingertips, drawing them towards the door. Once outside, he hurried next to Dean, who was walking as fast as he could without running, as though he had someplace he wanted to be. And barely had Sam gotten in on the passenger side and shut the door, Dean had gunned the engine, and tipped the nose of the car into the street. Pulled out quick, not looking.
“So,” Dean said, eyes only on the road ahead. “We should go to that school, look for those records.”
“What?” Sam felt himself scowling. “What lit a fire under your ass all of a sudden?”
“Nothing,” said Dean, not stopping at the stoplight, pulling through, taking a right turn, fast. “But I think I got it figured out. We can wrap this gig up easy, just like you said.”
Dean pushed the Impala into the traffic on Broadway, heading south, purposeful. Not using his blinkers. Scaring other cars with the growl of his engine.
“And?”
“I’ll take you to the school now and show you.”
“Can we get lunch first?” It wasn’t like Dean to not remember that it was coming on to noon, the sun was at a hard slant, coming down like brass, warming the air in the car so the heater wasn’t necessary, though Dean had it on anyway. Sam felt himself grow hot, wanted to turn it down. Didn’t.
“Yeah, okay,” said Dean. “How about that Chinese place, Fans. North of town?”
Sam nodded, and Dean drove them there. He was tired of noodles and soy sauce, but this was comfort food to Dean, so if he would eat it, Sam would put up with Chinese. Again. Except, once there and when the food was brought to their table, Dean merely poked at it.
“This great idea of yours, then?”
“Gunnarson’s ghost,” said Dean, waving an egg roll for emphasis, “is looking for his files. That’s why he’s marking everywhere. To remind him of where he’s already looked. Phil, a very tidy man, kept erasing the marks. If he’d left them, Gunnarson would be at rest, having found the files.”
“Having found them, what was he going to do with them?” Sam felt the question was self-evident. “He’s a ghost, he can’t actually destroy the evidence.”
“Well, maybe he just wanted to know where they were. Since he forgot while he was hanging himself.”
It made an odd sort of sense. Find the records, take what Gunnarson was looking for, if that’s what he was doing with the crazy X’s, and that would stop the X’s.
“We still have to salt and burn the bones,” said Sam.
“Got to have a body for that.”
“Easy enough. Now that I have a name and a context, I can find it.”
Dean nodded, nibbling at his wonton like he was some dainty girl, as though the food didn’t interest him at all.
Part 5