In the Dark Already

Previously: The team hatches a plan for questioning witnesses, and learns a bit more about what happened at Lake Tahoe in July.

7:28 PM - Saturday, November 1, 2014

US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio

Paco felt useless with the way Jeannie and Mark were handling things, but grateful too. He hated that he had to reprimand Derek in front of them. He hated that he had to watch a man identify his dead daughter. He hated what today had handed him. 

The Headmaster left along with the Captain, both of them giving the assurance that they’d organize the morning meeting with the deans of the two other schools. The meeting time was set for 9:30 in the morning at Holy Heart. Paco let them out by the back door and found himself a mug of hot tea in the kitchen. He leant against the counter and huffed a deep sigh; it felt like everything was tilted. 

“Hey Pac.” It was Amanda standing in the doorway.

“Hi.” It was all he could manage. “Sorry - it’s just, it’s been a long day.”

“I know. But I want to give you guys an update before Monday.”

“Ah, okay. Let’s go.” In the conference room Jeannie and Mark were reviewing the list of interviewees on the whiteboard, deciding who would go first in the morning. “Hey guys - Amanda wants a minute.”

“Yeah - just a few things, but of course we’ll have a lot more on Monday once we’ve mapped everything.” She talked while connecting her laptop to the projector. “But, I thought I should give you a few little gifts beforehand.” An image of a dirty Xavier Prep jacket appeared on the screen. Navy blue with ivory leather sleeves and a block letter “XP” in deep crimson on the left side. “First, the jacket from the poop can. It’s got dirt all over it, so maybe someone fell wearing it, or it got tossed somehow, even before it landed in the garbage can. Inside, it’s embroidered with what we assume to be the owner’s name, which is - “ she changed the image, to show a name embroidered in cursive above the inside breast pocket. “Sebastian Podesta.” Jeannie looked at Mark and they both turned to look at Paco. 

“Well.” Mark said. 

“But there’s more.” Amanda said, sounding like a low-key game show host. “Inside pocket number one, we have a small bottle of Tito’s vodka, half full.” The image showed the bottle inside of an evidence bag. “I gave it a brief narco check and…it is positive for GHB.” 

“Woah.” Jeannie said. “So, whoever drank it was likely drugged?”

“Very likely. I’ve already swabbed the rim for DNA and that should come back in the next few days.” Amanda assured. “But that’s not all.” Amanda changed the image again to show a pink iPhone in an evidence bag. “Inside pocket number two, I have a cellphone. I powered it up and it belongs to Alexa Thomas.”

“Anything on it?” Mark asked.

“Well, I heard you’re the expert, so I’m sure you’ll be able to find out more than me, BUT, I went in through the camera on the Home Screen and took a look at the last few photos and found this:” She changed the image. 

The photo was dark with a high white flash revealing a trail path. Further up the trail was a figure that was standing just outside the range of the flash, but was definitely there. It wore a full-length trench coat to the ground that seemed to match the color of the dirt trail, which made it look like it was floating. But on the head of the figure, barely glinting in the flash, was a large gray wolf mask. 

“Holy shit.” Jeannie whispered.

“Yeah, I found it sufficiently freaky.” Amanda admitted wryly. “And I like freaky. But, I find I suddenly draw the line at a wolf in a trench coat on a dark trail. Even on Halloween.” She took a second and cleared her throat. “There’s more of these, but most are just bright flashes; before that there’s a few party pictures, which is when I saw this one.” The screen changed to show a picture of Alexa Thomas wearing a Xavier Prep jacket over her costume. A tall teen boy in gray wolf makeup had his arm around her waist. Alexa wasn’t fully smiling, more smirking, and was leaning away from the boy.

“So if she was wearing the jacket and her phone was in the pocket -” Paco began.

“Then, she likely took a swig out of the Tito’s bottle.” Mark added.

“Likely.” Jeannie said, but her brow was furrowed. “But at a party like this, don’t you think people pass things around? I mean, who knows?” 

“Exactly. I’m hoping the DNA will come out clear though.” Amanda said with finality. “I’ll try and get prints off the bottle, but it’s kind of smudgey all over.”

“Ryan Dominguez said Seb Podesta was dressed as Teen Wolf.” Mark put in.

“If that’s Seb Podesta,” Jeannie began, “she doesn’t look thrilled to be with him. Her body language is totally uncomfortable.” They all looked at the picture again. 

“I really don’t want to make a wolf cliché, but he has some big fangs, and not just because of the costume ones.” Paco said quietly. The boy’s face looked thrilled, victorious even. “He’s licking his chops.”

“The word you’re looking for is wolfish.” Jeannie told him with a rueful smile. “And it’s definitely appropriate.”

“Well, speaking of wolves,” Amanda was on a roll, “we found this. It was in one of those little wood fairy houses that the kid classes build from sticks?” She changed the photo, showing the fairy house at the base of a redwood tree. “It was in the redwood grove on the connector trail between Upper and Lower Ecology. That’s usually used as an outdoor classroom so there’s a lot of little fairy houses.” A large rubber wolf mask was propped up with its face directed toward the opening of the fairy house. But for the black empty eye cutouts it looked like a wolf head.

“Wow. ” Jeannie said. Paco looked stunned. “That’s — scary.”

“Especially when you think that it’s usually little kids that play there.” Paco added quietly.

“We found three others in the general area,” Amanda continued, clicking through photos, “kind of tossed wherever. One was in a ditch by the fence below Inspiration Point, and another near the Inspiration Point stairs. The third one, was tossed into the scrub below the Lower Ecology Trail - nearer to El Polin Spring, but was just resting on top of the blackberry. There’s so much over such a large area, we’re doing a map of all of it. Hopefully it will help.”

“Fuck.” Mark whispered, staring at the screen. “So. Four masks, four people, right?”

“Likely.” Amanda agreed. “We’ll have to see. These are being processed for DNA as well, but we’ll need comparison samples.”

“Yeah, of course.” Mark said. He was pacing again. 

“If Seb Podesta was Teen Wolf though, why would there be other wolf masks?” Jeannie ventured, looking at Mark who raised his eyebrows. “I mean, was everyone a wolf? And why just toss them casually.”

“They probably thought it wasn’t a big deal. Just garbage.” Paco said. “Like…” He tried to begin, “Like, they weren’t trying to hide anything, obviously.”

“What do you mean?” Jeannie asked. Paco paused, trying to fit it together.

“Like, I can see a bunch of dudes playing “wolf pack” or whatever on Halloween and then not wanting to carry home their masks. If they were just goofing off they wouldn’t care if we found them or not, so just tossed them.”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “I get that - tossing them was clearly a spontaneous decision. The one in the fairy house, well, someone got creative and seems to like scaring kids. But having four of the same mask wasn’t spontaneous. Goofing around or not, someone wanted a whole group of wolves there. But there’s only one creep in a wolf mask on Alexa Thomas’ phone.”

“One that we have a photo of, you mean.” Paco tossed back. “There could have been more, she just -”

“Couldn’t take a photo fast enough.” Jeannie finished.

“The photo is weird.” Amanda offered, clicking back to the photo of the wolf in the trench coat. “It’s like, she wanted to get away from it but also have a record of it. It seems to have a lot of movement. She just got lucky with this one.”

“So, one creep in a mask, but four masks total.” Paco said quietly, brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Exactly.” Mark was pacing again. “And why not try to hide them?”

“I don’t know - I kind of get a high school prank from this,” Paco said, “nothing crazy, just creepy. Trying to spook some people on Halloween. We don’t know Alexa was any kind of target - something else could have happened.”

“That’s true. And if Seb Podesta was still into her, why would he target her for a prank?” Mark added. “Or does it have something to do with the honor code thing?”

“Ooof.” Jeannie huffed. “I think that’s speculative.” Mark sighed, gripping the back of a chair. “No, I understand what you’re saying, but let’s slow down a sec. As far as we know, the dean at XP got the names but we don’t know if it went anywhere, and it wasn’t likely to since no formal report was filed. Don’t you think the “high school retribution” motive is a little dark?”

“Jeannie. I think we’re in the dark already.” Paco said gently. They all sat in silence for a second.

“Well, I’ll have more for you on Monday.” Amanda said quietly, disconnecting her laptop.