The Hooded Figure (A Wild Cove Mystery Book 5) Read online

  LAURA GREENE

  THE

  HOODED

  FIGURE

  A WILD COVE MYSTERY

  Copyright © 2020 Laura Greene – All rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Also by Laura Greene

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The last six months have passed quickly for Jane. Sinking easily back into the role of sheriff, she has come to terms, happily, with the fact that Wild Cove is her home. More than that, she is in the process of building a life here. She and Jack have spent several wonderful months growing their relationship. Over a candlelit meal at Stefano's restaurant, Jack popped the question just three months ago, and with utter joy Jane accepted his proposal.

  Agent Ross's FBI team has long since left town, making all the arrests he needed to in the aftermath of Deputy Morris' death. They indeed uncovered the trafficking ring they were looking for. Finally, the FBI left Wild Cove behind, and Jane gleefully recovered the use of her briefing room back at the station.

  It’s now autumn, and Jane and Jack are busy planning their wedding. Although there will be a sad void there without Deputy Morris, Jane is moving forward with her life in a positive way. But Wild Cove has lulled Jane into a false sense of security. She thinks that the dark dangers of her new home are behind her. That, however, is a false dawn.

  It’s late in the evening, and as the sun is setting behind the hills, casting an orange-brown glow on the golden-brown leaves of nearby trees, Jane is driving in her patrol car and doing one last round before heading home.

  "I love evenings like this," says Deputy Harley.

  Jane sighs, looking at the beauty of the town in the last wisps of sunshine. "Yes, Wild Cove certainly has its moments."

  Harley Rennie is the new town deputy. She has been with the sheriff's department for several years, and Jane knows that she will make an excellent deputy. Furthermore, Jane is certain that Deputy Harley will make a trustworthy acting sheriff while she and Jack are on their honeymoon.

  The wedding is only one month away, and Jane is both excited and nervous in equal measures. There are a few last minute things to be taken care of, such as a dress fitting at Doreen's Dressmakers on Maple Drive, and that is enough to keep Jane from being consumed by the thoughts of her wedding day going awry. Like any bride, she wants it to be perfect. Being able to put Harley in charge during the wedding and honeymoon means one less thing to worry about.

  With long blond, dusty hair, Harley is a beautiful girl; quite striking in fact. However, she can turn on a dime and be a tough nut when she has to be. Several of the town drunks have found that out at their own cost, ending up spending nights at the station confined in a cell all because they thought they could make lewd comments about her appearance. Harley does not like to be reminded of her beauty regularly as it often gets in the way of her police work, something she cares deeply about.

  "Think you'll ever get married?" Jane asks, turning off of Hemlock Street and heading up a hill towards Blackwood Way.

  The deputy chuckles to herself from the passenger's seat. "I'm only 25, but I guess one day, if I meet the right guy."

  "What about kids?"

  Harley takes in a deep breath and then exclaims with glee, "Are you pregnant!?"

  "No!" says Jane, quickly. "But, with me and Jack getting married, my mind has turned to kids occasionally."

  "How does he feel about kids?"

  "Oh, you know Jack," says Jane. "He's a big kid himself; he'd fit right in."

  The town is now covered in darkness, and Jane suggests that they should head back to the station to change over with the night shift patrol. However, just as she is turning the wheel to do a U-turn, the radio crackles. Leon, the operator's, thin voice comes over the airwaves with a buzz, "Sheriff, come in, over."

  "Go ahead, Leon. What is it?" Jane is looking forward to getting home. It’s Friday night after all; she and Jack have a movie to watch, and this time it’s her pick.

  "We just had a call," says Leon, "from Mr. Robertson."

  "That guy gives me the creeps," Harley observes almost to herself.

  "Is he in need of assistance?" asks Jane.

  "He says…" Leon hesitates momentarily. "He says that there is an old Ford pickup parked at the end of Oak Lane. It's been there for a few hours and he thinks someone might be up to something... lewd. You know?”

  Jane sighs. "Looks like this movie will have to wait," she mutters under her breath, before letting Leon know that she will check on Oak Lane herself before coming back to the station.

  Oak Lane is on the outskirts of town on the north side. It is a notorious place for overly amorous teenagers to park away from prying eyes, as it is well away from any traffic and actually cuts into the Wild Cove forest, offering relative seclusion. Mr. Robertson is the caretaker at the local cemetery, and his cottage is across the road from the lane. He is always calling the sheriff’s station every time he sees a car parked nearby. Usually, it is a young couple. Jane will just politely ask them to move on and that will be the end of it. In this instance, however, Oak Lane contains a more unnerving discovery.

  Jane is taking the road alongside the old cemetery, while the headstones are staring down grimly through a long metal fence. In the dark, the stones almost look like people, warily watching as the sheriff passes.

  "I wish Mr. Robertson would stop calling this in," says Harley. "I hate coming out here, especially at night. I don't know how these kids can bear it. If I was parking somewhere, this is the last place I would choose. And the ones who sneak into the graveyard that drive Mr. Robertson mad... I don't fancy having to chase them out of there."

  "One day you'll be sheriff, Harley. You'll need to be a little braver than that. I prescribe a large dose of horror movies. That will cure you... Or make you worse." Jane laughs loudly but Harley stares out through the windscreen into the dark, seeing the trees in the forest rising up to the right and the graveyard on the left, and lets out an almost audible shiver.

  When they reach the turn-off for Oak Lane opposite the graveyard, Jane sees the grim figure of Mr. Robertson standing next to the cemetery gates. She rolls down the window on the driver's side of the car. Then, Robertson, a tall man in his 60s with dark eyes and pallid skin, places his hands on the door over the threshold of the open window. As he leans in, Jane can almost feel Harley tensing up next to her.

  "Sheriff, Deputy," Robertson says, nodding. "This is a strange one, Sheriff."

  "It'll just be some teenagers parking again, Mr. Robertson. If you go back inside, we'll take care of this and move them along."

  Mr. Robertson shakes his h
ead. "It's not some punk teenager; I took a closer look after I called the station. I think it's Chuck Moore's old Ford pickup along there. What would Chuck be doing here at night?"

  When Jane hears this, she feels a sinking feeling in her stomach. Wild Cove lives and breathes routine; whenever that routine is broken, or something out of the ordinary occurs, it often acts as a bad omen. Something terrible soon follows. What was Chuck doing down there? thinks Jane.

  “Stay here,” says Jane. “We'll take a look.”

  “But Sheriff... If I could just...” Mr. Robertson is always wanting to come along to tell the people in the car off, but Jane is not in the mood to allow that. Something is definitely wrong about this situation.

  Jane politely declines the offer and rolls up her window before turning the patrol car into Oak Lane.

  “I've never liked this place,” says Harley as the car creeps along the narrow track of cracked concrete. “We used to tell ghost stories about it when I was in high school.”

  "Good ones, I hope," says Jane.

  "The usual ones," replies Harley. "You know, a madman with a hook, the ghost of someone buried in the forest, and of course, The Elders."

  "The Elders?" Jane is watching in front of her while the concrete is giving way to a dirt track. Either side of her now, she is being flanked by the looming pine trees of the Wild Cove forest. In the dark, they feel closer than usual, as though they are leaning in to listen to Harley's tall tales.

  "You never heard of The Elders?" Harley sounds surprised. "Sometimes I forget you're not from around here, Sheriff. My Dad and Uncle Felix used to tell me about them to scare me."

  “Who are The Elders?”

  “No one's really sure, but a kid from my grade at Wild Cove High said he was camping one night near here and saw a black, hooded figure wandering around at night. That gave me the creeps, because it was the same description my dad used when talking about them.”

  “So, that's it? A hooded figure? I thought there would be something scarier than that.”

  “My mom, she said there was something back in the 70s, a fire out here. When the firefighters came to put it out, they said they saw the same figure. That's why, when I was a kid, I used to think you would only see them when something bad happened.”

  “Them?”

  “Yeah, that's why I said 'The Elders'; it's supposedly a bunch of them, but no one knows who they are.” Harley grew quiet. Up ahead on the darkened road, the headlights of the patrol car are illuminating an old red Ford Pickup. It is parked across the lane at a strange angle with the muddied white letters of “Chuck's” emblazoned on the driver's side, and another word obscured by a layer of thick, dried dirt.

  Jane stops the car but keeps the engine running. “I don't like this...”

  “Me neither; I've never known Chuck to be out here. He's got a scrapyard out past Jack's auto shop, you know it?”

  “Yeah. That's a distance from here, though. Let's take a look, keep your eyes about you.” Jane exits the patrol car, silver flashlight in hand, and shines it in the direction of the pickup.

  She listens, momentarily, but she can't make out a sound over the purring engine of her patrol car. As if reading Jane's mind, Harley leans over and kills the ignition. She then gets out of the passenger side.

  “Chuck?” Jane shouts, but no reply comes. “Chuck, it's Sheriff Scott. Are you in your truck?”

  Nothing. Only the sound of a slight breeze rustling through the trees above.

  Slowly, Jane approaches the truck. It is covered in dried mud, and the tire tracks leading up to it are also flaking. “This has been here for a while.”

  “How long?” asks Harley, nerves in her voice.

  “I don't know. A few hours. Maybe a day.” Jane moves closer to the truck, the beam of her light finally reaching the driver's side door.

  “You see anything?”

  The car is empty; of people, at least. “No,” replies Jane. Moving the flashlight around, she notices a jacket on the front seat as well as a wallet on the dashboard. This combination fills her with dread. “He's left his wallet and jacket.”

  At that moment, a slight rustling can be heard through the trees.

  “Probably an animal,” Harley says unconvincingly.

  Jane draws her revolver and looks at Harley, who next readies her own gun.

  “Look...” Jane points her flashlight to the ground by the driver's door. There is a deep depression in the dirt, and then drag marks. Following the marks, she sees that they are heading off the lane and into the dense forest.

  “What are those?” Harley is showing her inexperience.

  “Drag marks. Something or someone was pulled from Chuck's Ford and then dragged into the forest.” Picking out her personal radio, Jane contacts Leon back at the station to tell the night shift officers to head out to Oak Lane as soon as they arrive. Something has happened to Chuck Moore. What exactly that is, she does not know.

  Another rustling sound comes; slightly nearer this time. Something is moving around between the trees. Jane and Harley pursue the sound, moving through the woods. As they do so, Jane is reminded of the woodland that surrounds Conwell House where she was confronted by Charles Hendry. But here, there is no path, only a dense growth of ever-tightening pine trees.

  Both officers are following the drag marks through the uneven terrain, which continues for some time. Then, Jane stops. She doesn't have time to tell Harley why. Just as she is opening her mouth to speak, Harley is stepping eagerly forward past the sheriff. The ground disappears beneath her feet.

  “Harley!” Jane yells, reaching her hand out quickly and only just grabbing hold of Harley's belt. With a wrenching motion, Jane pulls Harley back from the abyss in front of them, falling to the ground.

  “That was close,” says Harley, panting heavily.

  Both the sheriff and her new deputy point their flashlights at the ground in front of them. A wall of large bushes was hiding the truth from immediate view; Jane only noticed a slight glimmer of water at the last moment. Reaching out to the leaves of the bushes, Jane pulls them back carefully.

  In front of them, there is at least a 100-foot drop. Below that are the black waters of Wild Cove Quarry, a vast mining operation that has long since been abandoned. It is now filled to unimaginable depths with water, blackened by the night.

  The drag marks lead to the cliff edge. As Jane and Harley stare at the deep waters below, and the thought of Chuck Moore's lifeless body being dragged from his truck and flung into the quarry fills Jane's mind, something stirs across the water on another part of the cliff.

  It is only apparent for the briefest of moments before it disappears into the dense network of trees, but it looks very much like the grim outline of a hooded figure.

  Chapter 2

  “Ouch!” Jane says loudly as Doreen accidentally catches her with a pin.

  “Sorry, sorry, my bad,” says Doreen. She’s a lovely woman, but this is the second time she has caught Jane during this fitting alone. Running the only dressmaker's store in town, Doreen is working tirelessly on Jane's wedding dress to get it ready for the big day in three weeks’ time.

  “Hold still for a moment,” says Doreen, looking up at Jane through her black-rimmed glasses. Doreen's hair is up in a bob, pulled back tightly, and she has the appearance of a school teacher rather than a dressmaker. However, there is no doubt that she is talented at what she does. Though definitely clumsy.

  Standing in the dress shop, Jane can see several other wedding dresses hanging around her. Doreen doesn't have the space for a large room on its own, so the small room at the back has to be both a fitting room and a storage space for the dresses she is working on.

  Jane is getting more and more nervous, hoping that her dress will knock the socks off Jack when he sees her at the altar. As this is permeating, Jane hears the bell at the front door as someone enters unseen.

  Just as Doreen is about to stand up to see who it is, Jane gasps in horror at the loud word
s spoken from the next room. "I spy with my little eye…" It’s Jack, and he is playing a horrible joke on his bride to be.

  "Don't you dare come back here! It's bad luck for you to see me in my dress before the big day!" Jane and Doreen move quickly to remove the dress from Jane in case Jack is being serious.

  "I just want a little peek."

  "Jack, if you come in here," says Jane, her tone authoritative, "I will arrest you and put you in a cell for the third time. No bride should have to arrest her groom three times!"

  "That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.” Jack jokingly moves his feet to sound as if he is moving to the back of the shop to see Jane's dress.

  "Jack! I mean it!"

  At this, Jack laughs, enjoying the mischief. "I'm not going to look; it's a bit chilly out there so I was tired of waiting. Doreen, do you have a seat?"