Detective Heinlein drove back to Warren, NJ in a brain fog.
That thing he saw in Ebersoll’s old photograph – was it AI? Was this all some rich guy’s fantasy – a confabulation of murky family history and scary bedtime stories? Was Dick Ebersoll just some lonely empty nester who believed his own fairy tales?
But the pieces hung together. The photo, the gun, the Warren lore, the Leni Lenape legends. The butchered and disappeared victims. What if – way back when – there was a monster in Warren that flayed and killed people? What if some crack German sharpshooter did track it down and destroy it?
And what if its hungry, vengeful kinfolk is now back?
He was roused out of his funk by a blast from his police radio. Unsecure conversations with his HQ were usually over his cell phone – but emergency and response alerts followed protocol: secure police radio channels only.
“Unit 555 respond to 7332 Mount Horeb Road. Possible 10-5 active event in progress. Three Patrol units on scene. Somerset County Sheriff and ME notified. SWAT ready for deployment. Please copy….”
Heinlein responded immediately. “HQ Warren – I’m ten minutes away – headed Eastbound on King George Road crossing over 78 now. Alert acknowledged.”
He immediately started speeding to the location. A “10-5” meant homicide.
The second Heinlein got out of his car on Mount Horeb Road, he got a queasy, sick feeling in his stomach. This address was about three thousand feet as the crow flies from the old ruins of the First Episcopal Church and Rectory that German settlers burnt to the ground in 1896 after Reverend Thistle’s wife was butchered there.
It was a bad omen. An ominous synchronicity.
7332 Mount Horeb Road was the old, ramshackle home of Pyotr and Magdalena Shinski. Pyotr died in 2008 and his wife lived in the home alone. She had “Meals on Wheels” deliver her food every day. For the past week the drop-offs had accumulated on her decrepit porch. Meals-on-Wheels called Somerset County Social Services – who called Warren PD – who responded with a “Wellness Check”.
Looking for a way into the profoundly overgrown Cape Cod property to check on Mrs. Shinski, two rookie cops made their way around back. They found a good part of the rear 1930’s cinder block foundation wall collapsed – crumbled into the home’s dirt-floor cellar. A cemented-over well cistern abutting the collapsed wall had also caved in revealing a dark, dank and fetid-smelling hole. When they investigated further, the Rookies found old Mrs. Shinski’s head. It’s eyes and brain were missing. What was left of her blood-encrusted mop of gray hair was shoved into a cracked open cast-iron septic pipe that was oozing foul effluent everywhere.
Something that looked like crumpled parchment was strewn near the cistern hole. It was large pieces of flayed skin. A leg bone – a femur – was discarded nearby. Heinlein arrived at the smelly cellar just as the Medical Examiner was studying the object.
“Hello Heinlein” Dr. Ashgari mumbled, deep in thought. “Looks like this bone was gnawed on. And some of its marrow was sucked out. I can’t say I’ll have more for you after the autopsy… there’s no body to autopsy. I’ll bag the remains and bone pieces I find…”
Detective Heinlein didn’t need his Gold Detective’s Shield credentials to deduct what went on here.
There was a foundation collapse. It opened a hole. Something came out of the hole and ate Mrs. Shinski. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.
It was the “who-or-what-done-it” part of the equation that bedeviled Heinlein.
All he had was hunches. And nobody would believe him. He needed help.
It was time to see Leni Lenape Sachem Crow-Feather again. The Indian Chief knew a lot more than he was letting on.
END OF PART I.
Copyright 2025, Jon Croft and his Assignees
vlchek1@gmail.com
www.bogironpatriot.com
