Chapter 14

It was a simple thump of the screen. Calvin kept touching one icon and then he would touch another. He kept calling up alternative spreadsheets and, the results were always the same. There was a difference in the balance at the bottom of both windows. Calvin grumbled a few choice words under his breath. Barbara was not going to be happy and, that was putting it mildly. The woman was a stickler for budgets, column’s of figures, and decimal points. She balanced everything right down to the line. This was no small discrepancy either.

“How the hell did this happen?” Calvin quietly mumbled as he began looking back through general reports to see if he had missed something.

There had been no sign of any receipts. There had not even been any sign of an obvious need for that kind of money. Asking around, before everybody took off, had not turned up anything either. Cal did know that, occasionally, Norm would pay an informant but, never anything like this. Barbara bitched about that since criminals (your normal informant) did not usually carry receipt books around with them. Still, she normally let that go in the end. Cal was afraid that it would not happen this time.

An image formed in Calvin’s mind. He could just see Barbara walking through the back door of the commissary, shotgun in hand, ready to blow Calvin right out of his seat. When Calvin actually looked in that direction, it appeared as if his nightmare scenario had come true. Calvin yelped and almost fell right out of his seat.

After Cal caught his breath he growled at Garcia. The guy was loaded down with belted ammo and had a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

Garcia found Cal’s reaction kind of amusing, “what’s up with you man?”

Cal sneered, “Barbara said inventory the damn armory. Not start a war with it!”

“Hey,” Garcia replied whimsically, “look here bro. We already had some unwanted house guests. Now we got ground zero for a couple of hit men? I’m not walking around here without some home defense, if you catch my meaning?”

Annoyed, Calvin replied, “yeah, all twelve gages of it. You know, why don’t you do something useful like, oh, maybe go check on our guest?”

“What are you talking about man,” Garcia complained, “she was supposed to be in here with you?”

Calvin stood up and with great alarm he said, “you didn’t just… you haven’t… Where the hell is she?”

Garcia ran back into the hallway and up the stairs to the ops room. Calvin heard his heavy footfalls the entire way. Then Calvin heard Bob, who was manning the com watch, scream. That was followed by a few seconds of bickering and, while Cal could not make out what they were saying, he could tell from the tone that April May was not up there.

Just when Calvin was starting to sweat, Shannon came walking in through the rarely used door that led back to the kitchen. She had her phone in hand and was busy, texting away. Calvin opened his mouth to ask her something but, the kid tossed a quick thumb back towards the metal door, that was still swinging, and then said, “yeah she’s in there. I don’t even care if Mom tells me. I’m not touching that place.”
As Shannon was about to hit the screen door, on the way out of the building, Calvin just had to ask, “Noodle, who are you talking too?”

“None of your damn business,” Shannon replied just before the screen door slapped back in the frame behind her.

Calvin decided that Shannon was right or, more to the point, he really did not want to know. Instead of pursuing that matter he stepped into the kitchen but, not far. Just behind the door there was still a mess consisting mainly of grease that had previously been imitating a biology experiment in an old pot, for years. Calvin watched their guest as she frantically kept tossing something into one of the industrial sized sinks.

When April saw Calvin standing there, and watching her, she picked up one of the frying pans she had set aside and shook it in a threatening manner. Since her words did not sound as if she planned on throwing the damn thing, Calvin did not duck. He just listened to her complain, “there is blood on this? That’s why I set it aside. Do you have any idea how bad that is? After you cook meat you have to clean these out, immediately! Do you have any idea how many diseases you can get from the blood of an animal if you let it sit in…”
Cal interrupted her by calmly pointing out, “actually that’s human blood on the pan there.”

April froze with the pan still sticking out in front of her. Instead of waiving it around, now she just stared at it in horror. Meekly, she not only tossed the pan aside but also, right over the stainless steel prep table she was standing next too. Her expression got even worse as she shivered and said, “ewwww, I touched that.”

“Yeah,” Cal said somewhat sympathetic and was not the least bit sorry that it got the girl to shut up, “you see there were these two…” He finally decided she probably did not need to the know the story so, he asked, “what are you doing in here?”
Still somewhat rattled, from the blood revelation, April explained in a slightly subdued voice, “this place in here. It’s a disaster. I didn’t feel like just sitting around so… you know?”

Cal crossed his arms and leaned up against the door frame as he explained, “yeah well there’s a reason for that.”

April was confused but still subdued, “what kind of reason could account for this mess? That grease in front of you looks like it had a layer of mold on it, three or four centimeters thick.”

“We don’t use the place,” Calvin replied calmly.

April bounced back with, “oh, well, that’s a good reason.” She then surveyed the room one more time, “what a pity though. You could do so much with this kitchen.”

“Yeah well,” Calvin told her, “they used this place back when there were over a hundred Rangers, most of them living here. That was a little bit before my time. Hardly anybody lives here now and we’re lucky to have ten people.”

“Yeah but,” April replied, “what do you guys eat?”

“Oh,” Cal tossed a thumb over his shoulder and back towards the commissary, “we got a fridge out here, a microwave, a re-hydrator. We keep snacks in the cabinets and stuff. I keep some sandwich meat handy and run to town every now and then for a dinner.”

April shook her head in condemnation, “you’ll rot your insides out living like that. Really, you guys should use this place. I mean all this stuff looks like it still works. Well,” she pointed to the big sinks, “except for those. I can’t get any water to come out and I haven’t been able to find the shut off valves.” April quickly changed her mode of thinking and she pointed to the double door refrigerators, “and you got those things and you’re using that crappy little fridge out there? Those are still on. I just cleaned them out too.”

Inquisitively and up beat, Cal replied, “huh, well what do you know. I never really noticed them before.” Cal suddenly started thinking about all of the food, and more importantly beer, that he could shove in those things. As it stood, their average house kitchen sized fridge, behind him in the commissary, was packed to the limit.

Before Cal could ask this girl about any other goodies in this room, he saw her eyes get huge. Then she screamed. Cal did not even have to look behind him. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and angrily he said, “Garcia! Will you go put that damn shotgun up!”
“Sorry man,” Garcia replied as he wedged his way into the door, “I was just in a hurry. Hey look, Norm just called in. He wanted us to ask April a question.” Then Garcia pointed to the girl but, before he could continue he found himself side tracked, “damn. I didn’t know this place was this big. I never even been in here before.”

Agitated, Calvin asked, “so what did Norm want?”

“Oh yeah,” Garcia went on, “sorry man. He wanted to know what April’s boyfriend’s name was.”

April became confused, “why does he want to know that?”

“Search me,” Garcia told her, “you’d have to ask him.”

Cal tried to be a little more reassuring, “I’m sure he’s just trying to be thorough Miss May.”
She still looked confused as she said, “oh, ok. Um, his name is Greg. It’s Greg Beckett. Do you think he’s safe?”
“I’m sure he’s just fine Miss May,” Cal told her. “Agent Scoggins is one of the best investigator’s on this island. I’m sure he’s just getting some black ground.”

“Oh,” April’s eyes went up and almost crossed, “hose pipe! I saw one outside and I bet it’s right behind that back door!” She ran off to that door and began trying to get it open. It did not seem to want to budge.”

Garcia became reflective as he said, “damn man. So that’s where that door goes. I seen it out there a hundred times and I thought it was some storage room or something.”

Garcia shrugged it off and was about to leave but, Cal put a hand on the guy’s shoulder and said, “no, I’ll tell Norm. I need to talk to him anyway. You,” Cal pointed to April and said, “go help her get that door open.” A big huge smile lit up on Garcia’s face. The shotgun was about to come off of his shoulder when Calvin snatched it from him and said, “without putting any holes in it. I’m going to keep this. Just to be safe.”