Night   Weapon

 

 

        Much can be made of the week in which Bruce Hansen was lodging with his famous promoter.  That's because of how his visit came to an end.  During that week the residence had the least number of occupants in its two year history.  Most of the family and help were absent.  At the guesthouse there was only one bit of noteworthy stirring that happened before the critical event.  The stirring took the form of an appearance by Rodney Kennish.  He'd been invited to come see Hansen for a reason that's never been disclosed to the public.  It wasn't long before he was done with the conversation and left the neighborhood.  It was very quiet, but the number of people present increased after the discovery that Hansen had died.

        Within a few days I was told several facts of the case.  My name is Sean Lieser.  It's amazing how much of a story can be reconstructed when people care about someone's demise.  The event's immediate aftermath has been summarized for me as follows. 

        Various professional experts were welcomed to the house by its owner, Alvin Trombley.  A high-powered example was Clifford Rau.  His reason for being there might not have been obvious at first.  In time he was able to give useful information to the writer.

        Alvin said to him, "You respond very quickly."

        Clifford answered, "We do when it concerns us.  Will you show me what there is?"

        They walked out to the guesthouse.  They found the corpse as well as the medical expert and someone from the police.  Clifford was given a clear description of what Alvin had seen and heard.

        Then he said, "I'm told there was a visitor named Rodney Kennish.  He left shortly before the death was reported."

        "He was here," Alvin replied.

        "Did you talk to him?"

        "I didn't see him," Alvin said, "but I knew he'd be arriving.  I notice he signed in at the front gate."

        After Clifford looked at the body and then looked around the room, the medical expert told him, "This will be difficult.  I don't see anything here that says this man should be dead."

        Clifford answered, "Mysterious death?  No doubt."  He appeared to be skeptical.  But he had to admit, with what he'd been told there could be something noteworthy here.

        Alvin, a monarch of real estate business, enjoyed saying that his life was uneventful.  Now a friend had instantly been removed.  Alvin could adjust to the change with, for the time being, a look of detachment.

        The site was no jumble, and very soon Clifford was on his way home.  I eventually learned his reasons for the visit.  He had no intention of catching a criminal.  At this point it's enough to say that he's a kind of administrator, not a cop.

        Alvin grabbed his cell phone and called a woman named Erica Wallace.  He spent several minutes telling her what happened.

        He finished by declaring, "This is a setback for us."

        Erica said, "All right, I'm calling everyone immediately."

        This was the kind of problem she'd been hired to deal with, and it was by far the biggest challenge yet.

        Some of the opinions I listened to as a kid were prophetic.  At times my grandmother would say something like, "Don't blame Percival, he's from a broken home."  After looking into the ties between Bruce, Alvin, Rodney and others I have to conclude that somebody's from a broken home.  No doubt about it.

        The fabulous Trombley had a grand building project that was more or less finished when he arrived in the county two years ago.  Would anyone believe the claims about attempts to keep it secret?  Those attempts would be a pipe dream.  But even if that's the case, a purpose may have been served.  People find it hard to believe that these glorified citizens from elsewhere would move to this region as if they coveted some portion of it.  Then again if they purchase the region they can't be described as coveting it.

        The guesthouse received no more attention than it deserved, even with Bruce Hansen's perplexing death.  A lack of publicity was fine with Mrs. Trombley.  She'd be active refurnishing the smaller building, and she didn't care to talk about it.  Of course it's never been widely reported that she prides herself on being the traditional housewife.  In the past year she'd had various commitments preventing her from doing the work that she'd like to do in the guesthouse.  The death of Hansen changed that.  It coincided with a break in her schedule.  She had an opportunity at last.

        There's been no attempt to keep the public ignorant of the situation's eeriness.  Three days after Hansen's demise I had reasons to confer with a man named Bob Zorn, one of the investigators appointed to the case.  He was the first to give me data worth mentioning.  He had learned much about the deceased, who was arguably the most accomplished urban planner in the northern half of the West Coast.  The investigator knew that I had become acquainted with the other man several years ago. 

        "The body had no injury," Zorn declared.  "There was no illness or disease.  To judge from his appearance Hansen could be sleeping, nothing worse."

        "They must identify something as cause of death."  

        "It looks like they're taking their time with it.  As they work at making up their minds an urban myth develops."  Bob said some things about the night of Hansen's death.  He was unimpressed with the response by Trombley and his aide.

        I asked, "What time did they call for help?"

        He wasn't too precise.  "Ten thirty, ten forty-five."

        He spent some time inveighing against false leads and the 'characteristic paranoia.'  He seemed to exaggerate the aspersion factor.

        I said, "Bloggers are talking about the Demogorgon."

        This reference was abruptly made.  He knew the stories I had in mind - accounts of a very unfriendly creature described as supernatural.  He seemed to like the idea, but he wouldn't give it emphasis.  And though he'd heard of a certain technology, he wasn't fascinated.

        He recalled, "There's that transmitter they've developed to have a similar effect.  They used it against one person somewhere on the East Coast a few years ago.  It was more forceful than they expected - too forceful.  But it left some traces."

        He believed there was an advanced group devoted to such weapons.  Anyone who's intrigued by it can choose between the monster and the mad scientist.  Bob knew that if he wanted to say much that was factual, not speculative, he'd have to try a different topic.

        I asked, "Anything relevant about this guy named Kennish?"  

        "Probably not," Zorn answered.  "They know that Bruce walked over and said something to Trombley about ten minutes after Kennish had left.  He didn't have any complaints at that point.  He returned to the guesthouse.  Then twenty minutes later the boss walked over to see Bruce and he found the body."

        The investigator looked at me, ready for my next question.

        "What does Kennish do for a living?"

        To Zorn this was much less interesting.  He answered, "Some sort of high level go-between.  He's with a nonprofit group that supports a research project.  Something near Mount St. Helens."

        He told me about his own specific assignment.  He was claiming to have gotten the most useful channels of information, and maybe the claim was true.  He told me about various officials. 

        After he left my little corner of the universe, I went to a notorious and finely-crafted website.  This one shows images of the spiritual beast I mentioned.  They comprise a gallery of rather impressive still photos even if the accompanying motion picture is, almost predictably, hard to interpret.  One of the images is unique for the way it indicates emotion and anatomical features.  This is the photo supposedly causing a worshipful frenzy in the posture and speech patterns of certain people.  I don't see how they get the stills from the motion sequence.  Be that as it may, for me the sum experience is comparable to the Roger Patterson film. 

        I understand there's a text which is electronically transmitted and supplements the pictorial content.  But this is on a different website, one I haven't located.  A few persons claim that the text was meant for them especially.  I haven't been able to learn the origin of this message.

        Another thing I won't be able to do is resolve the polemics that concentrate on Clifford Rau.  I don't pretend to have some evidence against him and his work.  I have no opinion regarding his alleged partnership with a fabled predator of mythic tradition - a creature that may or may not have killed Bruce Hansen.  I do have something of interest : an eyewitness report of someone's medical crisis, a thing that happened to that person when he was viewing the bestial image.  The crisis involved the most frightening symptoms.  He's being looked after by specialists.  He may never again return to work - the work he was doing for Clifford.

        Erica Wallace and her business partner, Kim Sherman, had been doing a special public relations project for Alvin Trombley.  They usually spoke, not to him, but rather one of his minions at Commended Properties.  The firm's regional center was established more than ten years ago.  Erica's work has the purpose of dispelling a fume of mystic rumor and blogger's mania that besets the organization founded by Trombley.  They're fighting the suggestion of sorcery, the charge of dark ambition leveled against their associates.  In a way it's comical.  The business prospers despite or because of the fearmongering.  But it's an embarrassment for the man who leads the way.

        It's clear that some enforcers of national security have a vested interest in whatever's perceived as being wrought by the Demogorgon.  Contrary to the belief that they're trying to suppress all reports of it, they're only trying to learn from it.  Clifford Rau's public statements on the matter suggest the open-minded sort.  In the agency he works for he is, among other things, director of the research unit.  It makes sense that someone like him would arrive at Trombley's place to have a look at the victim.  He was already thinking this example came close to the importance of what happened in Sterling Heights, Michigan, earlier this year.  That situation has been kept unpublicized, even if studied rigorously.  The last time I spoke to Clifford he mentioned a weapon that might kill someone the way Bruce was killed.  He wanted to know if Bruce was the kind of person who cares about the esoteric traditions.  Clifford likes to say, "Dabble, don't drown."  But if he was candid he'd admit he doesn't care that much how the mystery affects the company that Erica works for.

        By the time I got to know Bruce he was already enjoying some recognition in his field.  We had lengthy dialogues, and I noticed that he made special use of the word 'slumber.'  It was awkward, at least for others, the way he would introduce this term in a conversation when it wasn't needed.  I still think it was a kind of sentimentality.  But I can't forget his devotion to it considering what finally happened.

        I regret not having elicited statements by Bruce about a system of therapy he was undergoing at one point.  On some of the printed materials he left at one end of his large carport you could see defiant messages.  "USE YOUR DREAMS AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE IF YOU HAVE TO," was one slogan.  Another was, "DREAMS TELL THE UNACKNOWLEDGED PREFERENCE."  His therapy must have probed a depth I hadn't wondered about.  The sentimentality was accompanied by something more important. 

        A difficult mindset corresponded to the works of pictorial art that he purchased.  Though considered avant-garde, they're easy to grasp at some basic level of discernment.  You believe that you're looking at a room, a neighborhood or landscape.  There's a minimal reference point that controls the interpretation.  In most examples the field is lacking features and the sense of obscurity has to do with a subterranean place instead of starry skies.  In a few cases of the darkness you think you observe a tree or the corner of a house.  Bruce could appreciate these works of art as long as he applied esoteric principles.  At times he tried to maintain a high profile.  Years ago he feuded with an art critic, describing him as a 'fossilized hippie.'

        One of the puzzling notions in this matter had to be the idea that Rodney Kennish encouraged the mystical fearmongering.  I heard this from Erica Wallace right before I spoke to Alvin Trombley one day.  The Kennish name was losing its luster among some of the colleagues who had admired him.

        She declared, "I know for a fact he talks that way.  Anything to make life more interesting."

        "And he's on speaking terms with company big shots?"

        "Right, it doesn't add up."

        "You'd think he would pay a price for talking that way."

        A chair close to Erica was occupied by a denizen of headquarters.  He was fairly young, with an athletic build.  At the moment his face had a playful expression.

        He told me, "You should have been here last Wednesday.  The man himself gave us a lecture.  He's a wildernik."

        I replied, "Kennish - one of those wilderniks?"

        The young man nodded. 

        Erica savored it.  "He's been here several times.  Rodney's always playing down some report about strange animals in Gifford Pinchot.  He seems to think he has to bother with it for the public's sake.  What a pathetic job to have."

        Her further statements were a revelation.  Some activists claim that Rodney's work has been harmful to the national forest.  The news reporters had left him alone, but he was being denounced in some circles.

        "I've never met him," I said.  "If he's a nasty character that could explain the accusations - "

        Erica dismissed the idea.  "Some people here like him, some don't."  She made a few statements I couldn't believe, and it didn't matter.  Then she finished.  "My job's what it is, but I'm not gonna tell people the man's a criminal."

        The office denizen claimed, "You'd have to say he's humorless, not criminal."  That was the major trait, apparently.

        I asked a taboo question.  "Which people here don't like him?"

        The young man replied, "The ones who really hate him are the ones with a substandard education, marital problems, rabid politics - "

        It was the start of a comical harangue, very longwinded.  I was surprised that Erica didn't at least give him a polite warning to shut up.  She was enjoying this.  We both listened for a while.

        "I'm interviewing your CEO," was my next remark.  "Is Kennish a dirty word with him, too?"

        Erica said, "He doesn't remember dirty words.  He convinces you that he doesn't hold a grudge."

        The reason for the interview had been vaguely defined.  He was probably hoping I'd talk about business matters without trying to get a meaningful statement about Bruce Hansen. 

        I gained entry to the executive suite.  The secretary greeted me as if we already knew each other.  The space and furnishings were more than adequate, but certainly not excessive.  There was a TV set by the wall, and a talk show was going.  The boss came out from one of the side rooms.

        This was my only face-to-face interaction with Alvin Trombley.  I don't think he's burdened by feeling he has to represent the citizens of actual palaces.

        I mentioned a few of the employees and then I stated, "Erica's work assignment sounds very demanding."

        His face displayed what I'm told is his closest approach to a grin.  I was one more opportunity for him to impress the audience.  He began his comments with a gentleman's acknowledgment of Erica.

        But before the chatter got serious he looked at the TV screen for a couple of minutes.  He made a snide remark about Dr. Phil.  Finally he turned off the set.

        Then, moving to what was supposed to be the main question of interest, namely outreach, he told me, "We have to nip some things in the bud.  The biggest thing to nullify is Ignorance.  The next biggest thing is Hysteria.  Those uneducated masses - "  He looked aghast.  "They believe what they're told by every demogogue and sideshow barker.  Someone has to oppose the flood of malice and hatred."

        "Is it the same old malice," I asked, "or something new because of the recent tragedy?"

        "Well there's something new, but it's no less dangerous."  He wasn't offended by my question.  "The passing of Bruce Hansen is a major loss.  I'm afraid some plans won't be salvaged."

        He then spoke of a plan that he thought would be.  He spent five minutes at this, and he made it a point to discourage my curiosity about his friend's death.  He did make a eulogistic statement.  And he said some things a clever person might succeed in relating to the tragedy.

        "Looks like you have your work cut out for you," I told him after more talk, mostly about trends in the market.

        He had a look of cosmic self-satisfaction.  He's able to say a great deal before pausing to catch his breath.  I left his office without a sense of having been told something useful by the man at the top.

        I spoke once more with Erica before I left the building.

        She said, "I don't suppose you asked him about the music room floor."

        I hadn't known I was supposed to.  But the comment referred to something I'd heard of - one among several features the man's house was already noted for.

        She informed me about the room's disconcerting reputation.  Mind you, this isn't just any tile flooring.  The pieces are made of an absurdly expensive substance taken by workcrews only at two sites in the Philippines.  Erica's spent lots of time debunking the claims made by outsiders.  According to these claims the tile floor is used for divination.  It's been hard to track down the entertainers who make this up.  I think Trombley has a casual attitude towards the music room.  He might even listen to music there.  It's all right - new fetishes keep appearing. 

        How should we interpret the developer's opinion of all this?  Perhaps he relates it to an earlier allegation about the firm, perhaps he doesn't.  Erica says her work has been prompted by several grim occurrences involving the people at Commended Properties.  Until Bruce Hansen the most interesting one involved statements about the Demogorgon, the power that was mentioned by an employee who worked in the main offices.  The employee was a woman charged with a felony.  There were considerations investing her crime with a mystifier's touch.  The several offenses taken together provoked a reaction from the sort who fears being exploited by necromancers, or for that matter, tabloids.  The CEO's response : bring in Wallace and Sherman.  

        Of the concerns receiving Erica's attention, an example to one side is the special garden having a riverside location.  Established four years ago near Kelso, this place has been maintained with Trombley funds.  In his interview with Erica, the man in charge at the garden found it difficult to answer certain questions.  He seemed reluctant to acknowledge the fact of 'Halloween mischief' at the facility.  He's been ridiculed as the inveterate partisan cog.  This was the first interview I heard about. 

        I reserved some time early on to attend a lecture given by Rodney Kennish.  This was at the main library in the Ft. Vancouver system.  The turnout was impressive considering the fact that I never see any Kennish publications, and few persons recognize the name.  His talk had surprising content.  He's no wildernik, and he managed to get through without mentioning climate change.  Of course that subject came up in the Q and A following the lecture.  He disposed of those references quite effectually.  I didn't get much time with him on that occasion.

        I should mention one more fact about this phase of my search.  There was a memo that told about some death threats.  According to one of these threats there'd be an attack having two victims, and this would occur by the middle of September.  I've spent greater effort on this problem than I have all the other questions.  I suggest that more investigators be assigned to it. 

        The last time I saw Bruce was in April when I stopped by his east county bungalow.  From what he told me at that time I had to believe he was getting ready for something especially difficult.  He didn't refer to Kennish, but he described the group that Kennish works for.  He called it a 'foundation largely maintained by Trombley.'  Bruce had become involved with new associates.

        Though he gave me a referral to people at the research group, my efforts there later on were frustrating.  I didn't get much information by talking to Rodney himself.  He won't even say much, at least to me, about the studies promoted by the foundation.  His own job is to secure contracts and other arrangements, instead of doing research.  I'm sure he has interesting, definite ideas about what happened to Bruce Hansen, and he may have told someone.  The most remarkable suggestion I've heard from the officials I've approached is that the group using the secret weapon benefits by associating with Rodney's foundation.  They 'practice' by using the weapon on some unspecified creature as it moves from place to place in the wilderness.  Rodney's colleagues serve as guides in that wilderness.  

        Can we explain the peculiar menace to Trombley's people?  I have a special piece of evidence about this problem - a recording of a man's voice.  I obtained this by the kind permission of Clifford Rau.

        The man in the recording says, "What happened in Sterling Heights will happen again sometime as a demonstration.  The technology for the effect is nothing new, but there's been a kind of inhibition about that.  You could say we're at the mercy of a decision-making process.  The rules are unclear.  I think we can finally do something about that, but it's a struggle anytime weapons are considered ... "

        Eventually a woman comments, "What we've learned about Bruce Hansen raises another question.  Are we discussing the same cause and effect?  It sounds like something different took place in his case."

        The man agrees.  "Our information on that is perplexing, like you say.  We have to find out what happened there."

        He makes other statements.  I find these rather cryptic, though they might mean something.  Several persons who follow the story have heard the tape and seem to regard it as useful information.

        I don't know if Clifford wanted to toy with me by giving me some distraction.  He was prepared to elaborate when I mentioned the meager value of the evidence.

        He said, "These are professionals who understand secret R and D.  They can tell the difference between two occurrences.  I've talked to this man."

        I replied, "You've talked to him and he doesn't believe - nobody believes - that a weapon was used against Bruce Hansen."

        "It's unexplained," Clifford said.  "People don't exclude the possibilities.  But if you call it spiritual, they demand ectoplasm or a voice that comes from below the earth."  He shrugged.  "The tape has value as a novelty.  But we have a lot of work to do on the Hansen case."

        "So you let me hear the recording because you like to display novelties."

        "I thought you might have an opinion worth hearing."

        How flattering.  "So far the tape is like anything else," I said.  "It tells me almost nothing.  If the essential truth can be discovered I'm willing to credit the person who discovers it."

        "I keep the tape in the archive," he confided, "not in the safe.  It might be relevant, but I don't know if it means anything."

        "I asked, "What's all this about Sterling Heights?"

        He answered with a summary of the events in February that made for great stories, and they were stories with some important details not made known to the public.  Several deaths on the same day were hard to interpret.  A medical examiner was fascinated by one resemblance to the death of Bruce Hansen.  Clifford's account could have been endless.  It was gruesome reporting like you've never heard.

        I suggested, not very seriously, "Those victims might have a connection to Hansen that tells you something."

        "No," Clifford said.  "Bruce was too independent for such comparisons."

        This wasn't our first conversation about him.

        I said, "Three years ago you were telling me that he had some bad ideas.  Are they something we still need to worry about?"

        Clifford answered, "His proposals aren't going anywhere.  I was worried at first.  Development should be compatible with public health standards, and he was unorthodox, to say the least."

        The administrator didn't seem to be gloating.

        I remarked, "It would be hard to blame his death on some adversary unless the adversary had resources that are superhuman."

        "I agree," Clifford said.

        I've never told him that I'd seen Bruce any number of times over the years on a friendly, social basis.  There's no reason to think our friendship was public knowledge.

        The story has concentrations that won't unravel.  Everyone I was talking to denied a stimulating rumor - the rumor that said Mrs. Trombley had found a significant clue in the guesthouse.  It would have been a convenient starting point.  She's the one most familiar with that building, having spent so much time there cultivating its look before anyone made use of it.  The allegation's wording implies that she sees a tell-tale change in the furnishings or even the building materials.  I conjecture that she's really found something.  Unfortunately the people who would know what to make of it are kept from looking or kept from talking. 

        In my profession the kinds of reports usually filed are supposed to tell you the latest facts about someone's business.  The same is true of the latest 'exposes' of Commended Properties.  These have been written by other commentators, not by me.  I can at least tell about one relevant session of data review and follow-up decision making.  I was allowed to be present because at the time, and briefly, I had a working relation with Erica Wallace.  This is one reason why someone asked me to write a concise history of these events.  For me a more personal reason has to do with a philosophical give and take.  Bruce and I had a long, troublesome discussion of Eternity.

        My conference with Erica Wallace and a few others provided some wisdom.  The man who led the session was elderly, careful and efficient without being well-known.  He was, like the rest of us, watching a large video screen.  A second man was present, and so was Kim Sherman.  After watching the motion picture we kept a still photo on the screen for a few minutes.  Erica mentioned the big shot who gave the investigators their assignment. 

        The leader of our group declared, "So he's thinking there's a cadre that wants to exploit Hansen.  They're trying to get some factual material for the entertainment of the public.  Or else they're fabricating, and they like to feed the delusions about what goes on here."

        Erica said, "It's like throwing some raw meat to the common people."

        The leader ignored the affectionate remark.  He pointed to the screen and asked, "This is the person you're calling the Second in Command?"

        "It's what he calls himself," Erica replied.

        The supervisor frowned.  "From what I see here and elsewhere, I'm still not sure he's meeting these conspirators you talk about."

        "There's more to the story," she said.  "If you have enough time to look at all the images, and then talk to a couple of witnesses, we can make our case."

        He answered, with a slight tone of exasperation, "These days I have plenty of time for whatever."

        Yes, there were some more images.  One of the things the old man resented was the Demogorgon's online depiction.  He'd mentioned that a few minutes earlier and now he brought it up again.

        He suggested, "We can only hope none of it is used to prove something about Hansen."  Bruce had been too close to the company.

        Erica said, "Our problem is, they try to prove something about the rest of us."

        Kim Sherman was delicately sorting through some items removed from her handbag.

        The other man present at the meeting said that further study of the video was bound to make a difference. 

        Kim told the old man, "Maybe you should look at these before you run the film again."

        He looked and then he made a noncommittal statement about their value as evidence.  But he agreed with an opinion that Kim had expressed earlier.  "Kennish wouldn't have anything to do with these people, and he certainly didn't kill Hansen.  Who'd be able to kill someone that way?"  He looked at Erica.

        "We have another man on his way here," she said.  "He's bringing some artifacts."

        The supervisor answered, "Let's talk to all the witnesses you've got."

        I wasn't allowed to be there for those further discussions.

        What was Clifford's agenda during this time?  It's hard to relate it to his most important press release on the question.  He's responsible for policies and information about public health.  If his group would be urgently concerned about the Hansen death it's because they've known of similar, previous, examples.  They'd need to know if much more of this could happen.  Clifford has more authority than most people realize, and though he has leanings to socialism his comments bear no discernible malice against Alvin Trombley.  Some of his workers do research that overlaps the projects of Erica Wallace.

        That kind of work is always going on, but I don't know how much of it gets reported to Trombley.  Even more than most people the man should not be underestimated.  No matter the mudslinging that's against him, or the litigation or threats by prosectors, he stays above it all.  My suspicion is that he belongs to the decent sort.  His rhetorical posture may inspire some hostility, but that's on the surface.  There had been a very elaborate series of complaints about the ventures he proposed and conducted in his erstwhile stomping grounds - Ohio.  It looks as if he pays the price that's required of someone who's well-situated.  I doubt if he sponsors covert action which is worth mentioning.  And you can try, but you won't get his most interesting opinions about the Hansen case.  I still have no idea why he moved to this part of the country.  It's worth noting that he held a debate on the subject of enigmatic hazards.  This was held in the largest room in his house, and he asked a well-known expert to take part.  Kim Sherman was also invited, for the sake of providing the opposed voice.  The result was pleasing to everyone there - that is to say, inconclusive.  His de facto partnership with Bruce may have brought on the uncanny occurrence, if something uncanny happened.  Clifford Rau seems to have already been tracking their concerted efforts in some sense. 

        It may be impossible to stamp out the belief that Kennish, like Rau, has a working association with the spiritual beast.  One scenario has him well-rewarded for serving the dreadful creature, conducting malicious efforts.  From this point of view his final visit with Hansen at the guesthouse was a preparation for the attack.  According to a different theory Kennish cooperates but doesn't know he's merely another victim, one whose torment is still in the future.  Yet again there's the notion that he merely exploits ideas about the Demogorgon, and does so more successfully than his competitors. 

        One of the managers in the firm, a person who knew something about Erica's credentials, gave me a sense of his own perspective.

        He told me, "The beast in the background is fancied as a threat by some of these office workers, but only as long as it doesn't cost them anything tangible.  It fits with the kind of novels they read.  There's a literature started by Wayne Carmichael, the fiction writer.  He sets the example, so I'm told.  I've never seen one of his books.  A guy who worked here was very Carmichael in his reading habits.  It may have been his biggest problem.  He almost killed someone before they took him away."

        "The beast in the background," I said.  "And he has nothing to do with the operation here, according to Erica."

        "Or if he's here you can only see him out of the corner of your eye."  The man frowned.  "Where else would you see him?" 

        I commented, "Most of the people in the building tell me they don't know enough about Trombley to give me any help."

        "I'm in the same room with him twice a year," the man said.  "Even the rank and file persons like me get invited to some festivities."       

        I replied, "Something is better than nothing."  I was trying to confer dignity.

        It was worth talking to this guy, and his thoughts about a dangerous instrument are like my thoughts.  If the weapon was built for use against the Demogorgon, that's one thing.  In that case it might be easy to keep its design a secret.  To admit that it's part of the general arsenal used in human competition is to suggest that everyone could produce their own version. 

        He may have been humbled a bit by what happened less than a week later.  I learned of it when they called me into the offices.  The denizen - the young man I've mentioned - greeted me and led me down a hallway.

        "The stairway, here," he pointed, as we came to a flight that reached the roof. 

        A dozen or so persons were up there on the roof, talking quietly.  They were using respirators because of the stench coming from a large animal carcass.  The young man had given me a respirator, too.  The carcass filled most of a space that was enclosed on all sides except one.  Perhaps the location was to make it unlikely that a drone would notice the object.  Alvin had brought in a couple of zoologists, and they couldn't guess what the thing was.  A long appendage was thought by some to be a tail.  Someone else pointed to a knob that might have had a similar appendage, now lost.  These might have been two legs.  The stench defied comparison to other noxious odors.  Reports of this creature had begun to be sent to various organizations, carefully not quickly. 

        Already two of the men in this group were talking about the 'weapon.'  This morning's events were pretty clear : how a manager checked his email and found a message telling him the weapon had been used.  Someone was already complaining about the smell.  There was no indication of where the animal had been obtained or how they had placed it on the roof.  According to the recipient the message for the most part was a string of obscenities.  The sender hates what Alvin Trombley stands for.

        Someone claimed that shortly after nightfall he had reported seeing a strange object in the sky over the building.  Whoever got the report hadn't mentioned it to anyone else.  One thing's for sure : everyone's heard about the amusing operation of carcass disposal.

        When I found the time to read some of Wayne Carmichael's books, I was repelled by their plausibility.  They could give an idea what's happening to people.  Most who talk about it seem to prefer the idea that Bruce was killed by an angelic or other spiritual creature instead of killed by a human-designed weapon.  I'm not sure it couldn't have been a death by natural causes, but each of the explanations would be hard to accept.

        The next day after my session with Erica's research team, I approached a man I'd recently been talking to.

        "Some things you don't anticipate," he said.  "Bob Zorn cracking up is an example."

        Just what I needed.  A man I'd consulted was losing his mind, if that's how it really was.  I'd see for myself.  Bob was making strong claims about an experience of his.

        The event doesn't sound unusual as a creepy dream experience - not the way Bob described it for me later.  He spent a half hour telling me.  According to his recollection it seemed more than dreamlike at the time.  He did show me some very grotesque markings along his rib cage.  I think they'd be harder to impose than tattoos.  The story's definitely interesting if it's regarded as an example of humans attacking another human, in this case Bob Zorn.

        It happened one night about 1:30 AM.  Later Bob would be unable to recall his movement from his bed and to another room and from that room back to his bed.  He believes he would have been going for his gun, but it's an assumption, not a memory.  He does remember some other things.  The frightful creature came through the front door.  The predator was a non-humanoid figure, saying something and then attacking the mere human.  He was all over Zorn, with Zorn trying to pronounce the words he knew he'd have to pronounce.  This was worthy of any panic attack he'd ever had.  It was the most believable, terrifying sense of not being able to breathe.  He's read some accounts of people applying a technology that has this effect.  But he doesn't think it's technology.  He thinks the intruder's angelic.  The worst part of the encounter was the creature's component - organ, if you will - that caused the greatest misery.  This organ was unspeakable.  It could have impaired him forever.  In Bob's passive perception during the attack, the features of his surroundings were chaotically mobile, always relocating.  At last he pronounced, or mispronounced, the religious phrase.  It seemed to work.  His desperation and terror ceased.  The figure was gone. 

        Zorn told of this experience the next time he spoke to his boss, a rather imaginative person.  Zorn is convinced a physical assault really happened.  He also exasperates the authorities by saying that the two additional murders predicted for the summer will be carried out by someone 'in league with the Demogorgon.' 

        When he told his boss about his frightening encounter the man replied, "You wouldn't think they'd be able to do something like that.  I guess if you combine electronics with psychiatry - "  He was blase.

        The subordinate answered, "Technology.  Sure."  He wouldn't argue the point. 

        Clifford is known to have made an extremely unflattering description of Bob Zorn, and the antipathy seems based on Bob's remarkable claims.  Clifford expresses the despair felt by some bureaucrats and operatives in regard to 'this kind of thing.'  But some officials sound like Bob in saying that human weaponry can't be the cause of it.  

        Another unpleasant fact was brought to my attention soon after Bob told me of his episode involving the beast.  I found the website that shows photos of Bruce Hansen's corpse - images from the guesthouse and from the morgue.  Workers at these two locations managed to get away with this.  Our society doesn't need a showmanship as disgusting as this.  I've spoken to the appropriate officials.  The website is being shut down.

        After my first conversation with Bob, he learned something that made him seek out Rodney Kennish.  Later I had my own interview with Rodney.  He made clear what the investigator suspected about the spirit-beast : that it sometimes has less destructive encounters with humans at places along the forested hill slopes northeast of population centers.  Rodney himself denies ever having seen the creature, and he denies having told Bob anything of interest.  There must have been a different source for Bob's conjecture.   

        It also turns out that Bruce came to feel more strongly than Alvin did about the foundation's merit, though the billionaire continues to give support.  Benefactors with much different political views have had common cause in the form of the nonprofit agency.  What we have to resolve now is the most alarming suspicion.  Is there a core group that uses the hypothetical weapon as well as maintaining alliance with the Demogorgon?  It looks as if Rodney and Bruce were conferring about this on the night Bruce died.

        "Bob's a target of some group," Erica declared, when I mentioned his experience.  We were talking again one day with her 'supervisor,' and they both had already been told of it.  This was my last conference with those people.        

        "That carcass on the rooftop makes all the difference," Erica said.  The woman wasn't very optimistic.  "It's one thing to put some employee under surveillance and be able to associate him with some of these occurrences.  We did that.  We did some other things, too.  But now this enigmatic, putrid specimen pops out of nowhere."

        At this point her job seemed impossible.  She had offered to resign, but Alvin was discouraging that.

        I told them, "I can't believe there's a rival businessman who's doing this to you people."

        Somehow the supervisor had notions about the origin of the problem.  He said, "They're not just being frivolous, whoever's behind it.  The secret agencies are developing this resource, big time.  There isn't much I'd recommend.  You might be safe as long as you don't cross the boundary between the studies we can do and the studies they keep for themselves.  Bob doesn't have a history of being very careful about it."

        I told him, "I'd like to know if there's an example where this big time resource has definitely been used.  I mean something besides that creature on the rooftop, assuming that one's an example."

        "Sterling Heights," the old man replied.  "Apparently those killings have strong similarities to Hansen, but there's a critical difference."

        "You know the problem," Erica said.  "Nobody talks about Sterling Heights."

        The old man answered, "I don't know that it would have to come out."

        The woman added, "I don't even know if Alvin's heard of it."

        "Of course he knows," the man said.  "That's one reason he enlisted Bob Zorn."

        He fell silent, as if too puzzled to go on.

        "Did you work with Bob?" I asked.  

        "I know someone who worked with him," the man said.  "Alvin kept him separate from our little group here.  In past years, though, I'd see Bob from time to time."

        He was polite when I told him that Bob refused to think of it as technology.  He wasn't embarrassed by the concept of the supernatural.  In fact he pleasantly speculated for a while.  He recognized the possibility of different kinds of causes.

        They got back to another problem they had been discussing.  This had to do with errant personnel.

        "What's the final decision?" Erica asked.

        "It's official with our attorneys," the old man said.  "We're filing charges against Earl Dunlop." 

        That part had begun.  The accused was the manager at the garden where spectral forms allegedly were seen.  He's said to have grossly mismanaged the facility.  But more than anything else the rap was for conspiring with someone in the main offices.  Conspiring to do what?  And who was the someone?  I haven't heard.  I do know that the manager was the 'Second in Command' that Erica referred to, and he had a lot to do with the corpse-exhibit website.

        In spite of himself Rodney Kennish was helpful to my project of gaining an overview.  As a member of the staff at the nonprofit organization funded by Trombley, he's able to do that.  It's unfair to dismiss the nonprofit's mission as 'cryptozoology.'  I'm also convinced that he had left Trombley's residence with no idea Bruce was about to die.

        The weapon in question must exist and has been developed to a reasonable proficiency.  But what is it used for?  The most obvious purpose would be to remove certain people from the category of useful witnesses.  This application could be frequent without being the most frightening.  Crude experimentalism, party politics and sadism are additional possibilities.

        The fear about such a device figures in the changes of testimony that contaminate this affair for the historian.  My report keeps the statements these persons first made to me - statements that I think are more accurate than the revisions.  Where did the pressure for these changes come from?  I suspect the weaponry won't be mentioned in legal proceedings that could materialize before long.   

        One of the last things I learned about in my fact-finding was the unusual method they've chosen for disposing of Bruce Hansen's body.  We've been assured that his relatives, not some sinister elite, have opted for this.  No, they're not using the cryonic method, but it's a very special approach that few people have heard of.  I'm told it's respectable.  Still, there have been rumors that describe astonishing changes in the corpse, and for some reason the public should not be informed of the changes.  According to more than one source Trombley pays the bills for the 'preservation' or whatever it is.  I'm a skeptic regarding the claims that various writers are making about his role in these connected events.  But it's clear that some academic authorities are taking respective stances on just what it is that science has to say about it.  They're pretty confident they understand a situation that stumps the rest of us.

        By an unlikely arrangement Rodney and I were together with Clifford Rau one afternoon.  It's hard to say what makes Rodney seem unconventional.  Despite his impression of indifference he says things that matter.  At this time we discussed photographic evidence concerning Hansen's final moments. 

        "A series of still photos," the bureaucrat said.  "Hansen's close enough to the camera, you can't tell if he's the one holding it.  And we never did find his phone."  Clifford looked at Rodney.  "You say you didn't take these pictures."

        "It wasn't me," Rodney insisted.

        "The photos don't exactly tell me what happened," I said.

        "Sure they tell what happened," Clifford answered.  "Something was in the room with him."

        Rodney concentrated on two of the pictures.  "Maybe," he remarked, "the something is the same as what you see on the Demogorgon website.  If you're determined, you can see what looks like a face."  There was a pause for the sake of reaching a definite judgment.  "There's no mystery if something's amorphous.  Here, if you try to pin it down as having a purposeful structure - "  He shook his head.

        I commented, "The forensics people tell me there's no medical evidence about what killed him.  They say the case is impossible."

        Clifford replied, "A case of murder?  It's awfully precise work, for the Deep State or anyone else I can think of."

        He can be as hospitable as anyone I've met.  He invited Rodney and myself to a luncheon that Mrs. Trombley had scheduled for that restaurant Alvin established near Battle Ground.  It was more than being hospitable.  He told us the Trombleys were willing to discuss the pivotal clue that was found in the guesthouse.  Alvin's wife really had made a discovery.  I accepted, of course.

        (Editor's note : We were hoping for a more detailed summary of these events, but the narrator has increased the bewilderment.  Described as 'a close friend of Bruce Hansen' and someone highly esteemed in the community, Sean Lieser vanished after giving a radio interview.  Fortunately he'd written this much of his narrative, and we gained access to it.  His point of view expressed here seems realistic.  It's also true that we've been promised a degree of clarification about the treatment of Hansen's remains.  Another point is that the action against Earl Dunlop is gaining steam.  On the other hand Mrs. Trombley's discovery is being kept secret for now.  The most grievous fact in all this is well known : the murders of two more men who had been favorites of Trombley.  The deaths happened after Lieser vanished.  Not a successful or prolific writer, certainly not a historian, he has still achieved something.  It would be nice, though, if the 'series of selfies' that fascinate Clifford Rau was made available to the rest of us.  No doubt Lieser was planning to talk about the imagery before he disappeared.  In spite of the strange rumors of his being abducted on the way to the luncheon, we expect his emergence from a presumed solitude, along with his final report. - Kim Sherman)