Even Monsters have a Social 6/?

[emebalia]

Chapter 6

Harold was busy. He was always busy when a number came up but this one turned out to require more of his time than others. He had to go through the personal life of the people working with Ms. Martin, her patients and of course he had to find out everything there was to know about Ms. Martin herself. Which turned out to be more difficult than expected. She hardly left a trace on the internet or in other ways easy accessible to Harold.


And then there were the Winchesters of course. Their files where a whole different mess. Never in his life had Harold seen such a sloppy collection of data.
It had all started with Agent Henriksen, the very agent who'd died alongside with the Winchesters in a gas explosion but unfortunately wasn't granted with a second chance like the brothers.

To Harold the file looked like Agent Henriksen wanted the Winchester brothers, Dean especially, to be guilty of everything that even faintly matched the pattern he'd put together around them.

"Where you chasing your White Whale, Agent Henriksen?" Harold asked into the empty library and not even Bear bothered to lift his head in an answer. However, Agent Henriksen had started it and whoever had worked the case next just continued in that manner. And the one after that and the next one. Crimes were added without crosschecking if they could have been committed by the brothers or not. Harold found at least two cases where Sam and Dean Winchester had been accused of crimes ruling each other out.

There were things not adding up but in general it didn't change the fact that the brothers where two very dangerous criminals. Even if they'd only committed half the crimes listed in their files.

How they'd managed to fake their own deaths that many times was another mystery waiting to be solved and so far Harold had not the faintest idea how they did it. It wasn't so that convenient doppelgangers just appeared out of nowhere when they might need them. However, in two cases there had been a body clearly identified as Dean Winchester, one of them right next to a body attributed to Sam Winchester. Granted, those where missing their heads and had been cremated by the time the agents had arrived so the identification was based on the statements of the sheriff and the coroner but even the FBI, an Agent Valente had signed the report, had been convinced that the Winchesters were gone for good this time.

And still, two years later they were alive and healthy here in New York.

Aside from his research Harold had to aid Mr. Reese and he had to keep an eye on the Winchesters' movements. And Bear needed a walk from time to time but at least the dog didn't complain about the rather short trips outside. And the little walks helped Harold to think.

"Why were they asking about the rate of fatal heart attacks?" Harold wondered aloud while he watched Bear taking care of his business. So far they had no angle on the Winchesters modus operandi. What Harold found in their file was far from coherent and a short consultation with Mr. Reese confirmed his initial thought. The file was useless. There was too much in there which didn't belong there. Usually there was a pattern, a signature but there was nothing like that in the Winchester file. There were things that came up frequently, like the credit card frauds or impersonating an officer, but sometimes things went down rather violently and other times they barely left a trace they'd ever been near a crime scene. It didn't make sense.

Before Harold could have a closer look at that mess, he and Mr. Reese listened in to a rather confusing conversation between the Winchester brothers and then Harold had to focus on Nachtmahre and he had to find the most likeliest hiding spots in the hospital.

First they had to find Ms. Martin and bring her to safety, then they could keep searching for answers.

Harold shared Mr. Reese's hope that Ms. Martin could shed some light on this case.

Aside from medieval European lore Harold found nothing of interest on the Nachtmahre topic and he already had the blueprints of the hospital ready for when Mr. Reese would need them so he used the time while Mr. Reese was driving to go back to the Winchesters' file.

Like he'd noticed before, things didn't add up and there was a lot of unrelated data in there. To get a clear or at least a clearer picture of the brothers Harold had to sort the data and find the relevant facts.

There was for example the statement of Ms. Rebecca Warren. In 2005 Dean Winchester had attacked, tortured and killed several women in St. Luis. Ms. Warren, his last victim and the only one who survived, had identified the man shot in her living room as Dean Winchester, her attacker. Years later, when the Winchester brothers had surfaced once again, Agent Henriksen had interviewed her a second time.

"The man who attacked me died that day." Harold read in her statement. "If Dean Winchester is still out there, alive, he's obviously not the one who did this to me."

Harold was willing to let this one slide. Maybe the man had shared some remarkable features with Mr. Winchester and there had been a mix-up, things like that happened. But it had happened a few times too often with the Winchesters.

That wasn't all. There was a problem with the time-line, Harold found out. The Winchesters had been at various crime scenes but pinning the first murder of a series on them turned out to be rather difficult. Not that Agent Henriksen hadn't tried. But at least in one case the brothers had been at the opposite part of the country when the first murder had happened.

"I wonder ..." Harold mumbled to himself and had a closer look at the dates of when somebody had been murdered, often under very, for the lack of a better term, strange circumstances and compared that to the proven interferences from the Winchester brothers. He found time gaps from a few days to several months. And not once he found evidence that the Winchesters had been in town before the first death.

"It's all in this file, Agent Henriksen." Harold said aloud and wondered if the late Mr. Henriksen had been too blinded, too engaged in this hunt, to see the incoherency. If he'd even cared.

Another thing were the witness' reports. Not many gave statements but the ones who did never accused the Winchester brothers of anything. Quite the contrary, they were often said to be the heros. That they'd saved them. Those statements were a little fuzzy on the how and from what the Winchesters had saved these persons but the tone was clear.

Harold sat back in his chair and Bear used the chance to lay his heavy head on his thigh. Absently Harold scratched him behind the ear and the dog gave a content sigh.

The Winchesters appeared after a murder had occurred, after it had been made public. For the same reasons Harold and Mr. Reese turned up before a violent crime happened?

"What do you think, Bear?" Harold looked down into the brown dog-eyes. "Vigilantes?"

If they were something like that, which was highly speculative at this point, they'd spoken rather dismissive about the idea of John being a vigilant.

"I'm at the hospital now." John's voice drew him out of his thoughts and Harold chased Bear way, he had work to do.

"I'm here, Mr. Reese." Harold opened the hospital's blueprint. "I'd suggest you start with your search in the basement. There are some rarely used rooms down there, maybe Ms. Martin hides in one of them."

Like Mr. Reese Harold wasn't sure if or even why Ms. Martin hid in the hospital but they had to find her before the Winchesters did.

An hour later they still hadn't found her but the signals of the Winchesters' phones told Harold that they were running out of time.

Using the hospital's cameras Harold kept an eye on the Winchester brothers who'd split up to cover more ground.

"Hello, Rachel." Harold heard John saying. "I'm here to help you."

"Help me?" She snorted and Harold didn't need to see her face to get her disgusted expression.

However, John managed to convince her to come with him, promising he'd explain everything once they'd reached the safe-house Harold had set up for them. Harold doubted she believed one word John was saying but she went with him and that was all that mattered at the moment.

"I suggest you take the staircase in the north-east corner, Mr. Reese." Harold directed them through the hospital, as far away as possible from either of the Winchester brothers. They had to take a detour at one point but all in all they reached the parking lot without an incident.

However, when they were right out in the open, Harold caught another call from the Winchesters.

"Dude, where are you?" Sam yelled into the phone as soon as his brother picked up. He was running down the stairs.

"East wing, fourth floor." Came the prompt answer.

"They're in the lot." Sam reached ground level and sprinted down the hallway. "Saw them through the window. Rachel and that guy in the suit."

"Shit."

Another camera caught Dean Winchester running for the stairs but by now Mr. Reese and Ms. Martin had reached the car and were on their way to safety.

Sam, phone still at his ear, stormed out of the doors but could only watch the car disappearing in the distance.

"Lost them. Dammit!" He looked like he wanted to kick something and Harold was glad that nobody was around Sam Winchester at the moment.

"They left together?" Dean was still running down the stairs but that didn't show in his speech.

"Yeah."

"So what?" He reached the bottom and had to make his way through the few people in the lobby. Harold held his breath but so far the older Winchester didn't seem to even notice the people around him. "They're both horsey things?"

"Doubt it." Sam was on his way to their car. "There would be more causalities if there were two of them feeding."

Harold didn't know what they were talking about but it crushed the little confidence in their sanity he'd developed over reading their file.

"We have to find them." Dean pointed out. "Before she decides that she doesn't need the idiot in shining armor anymore."

With that they ended the call and Harold sat back in his chair. That last part sounded rather ominous.

"Mr. Reese." Harold switched over to him. "The Winchesters have lost you. For now."

"We're almost at the safe-house." Came his short answer back.

The Winchesters clearly thought Ms. Martin was the threat in this scenario but so far Harold hadn't seen anything pointing in that direction. However, Dean's last sentence gnawed at him.

"Be careful, Mr. Reese."

"Are you worried about me, Finch?" John answered with clear amusement in his voice.

A few minutes later they were at the safe-house and Harold heard John reassuring Ms. Martin that she was safe there. Which made her laugh, a humorless, dry laugh.

"Safe?" She asked. "You really think I believe that?"

Her voice grew louder as if she was closer to Mr. Reese now.

"Do you really think I couldn't smell you all over my place?" She snarled. "I know what you are."

Taken aback Harold just sat there and listened while John asked: "What do you think I am?"

"Stop playing games. You're a hunter." Her voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Only question is, where are your partners? The one whispering in your ear and the other one? And will they be here in time to save you?"

There was the sound of a struggle.

A gunshot.

Silence.

"Mr. Reese?"

Chapter 7
Masterpost