Chapter 5: Investigations

[Tabs]

OOC:   That photo is lovely!

Owens made agreeing noises.

[HoneyDog]

"Good Lord!" exclaims Jordan. "Yes, I'd better speak with him. Please put him on ".

Isadora passes the phone to the clerk, who picks it up and moves so that his conversation won't be heard.After about ten minutes he returns and hands the phone back to Isadora.

"Mr. Jordan will speak with you" he grins, and picking up the note with the case number heads off into the files.

"The young man is an effective bargainer" grumbles Jordan, "but I want you to get to the bottom of this mystery. You'll have your file. Please call me later to fill me in on all the details, I'd be very grateful." He rings off.

[evil_scientist]

OOC:   Ouch!

"Thank you, we will report soon on our progress," she simply says and terminates the call. She has a feeling that on their next meeting, Jordan might NOT indulge them with top shelf sherry.

[HoneyDog]

The clerk returns and hands Isadora a file. Without taking his hands from it, he tells her “You can read it here and now, you are not to remove anything from it or let it leave my sight”. He lets go of the file.

On top there are 3 affidavits which all contain the testimony of residents near the Chapel of Contemplation’s location, swearing that it was responsible for disappearance of 3 neighbourhood children. This is the information that led to the police raid of January 1912, and which resulted in a gun battle in which the chapel burned down. Three policemen and seventeen cultists died during the raid, with many more wounded.

The report is somewhat brief and is accompanied by autopsy reports on the cult members, which seem perfunctory and somewhat incomplete. Several key details are missing, and you are left wondering if the coroner had actually carried out autopsies.

54 chapel members were arrested, however all but 8 were released. Pastor Michael Thomas was sentenced to 40 years in state prison on 3 counts of second-degree murder. However he escaped in 1917 and is missing, although he is believed to have fled the state.

As Isadora and Norman read through the reports, they get the sense that senior police and legal officers, perhaps together with city councilmen, interfered in the investigation in order to keep the whole affair from public knowledge.

After they finish, the clerk takes the file back. “We’re closing soon, so you may want to make your way to the exit.” He returns to the filing cabinets.

[evil_scientist]

OOC:   Does the file have the address of the burnt down Chapel?

"Thank you," Isadora says blankly to the clerk. She is utterly shocked by the contents of the file.

"Gun-toting cultists, abduction of children..." she shakes her head when they are outside the Courthouse. "Pastor Michael Thomas must have been at least 70 when all this took place! That, if he was only 20 in 1866," she adds, checking the dates against her notes. "Escaped in 1917?! This is absurd... Maybe it's not the same Pastor Thomas, but a Pastor Thomas, Jr.?"

[HoneyDog]

OOC:   It's in the same neighbourhood as the Corbitt house, but you'll have to get directions if you want to visit the site.

[evil_scientist]

"Let's go to the university, meet up with the Professor. And in the morning..." Isadora pauses for the second. "...we approach the house again. Although I would like to pay a visit to the ruins, or, well, the place where the Church used to stand. I'm sure now its place was built over."

[Tabs]

"You've done a good job, Ms. Carmichael."

Owens speculated wildly about what they would find at the site where the church burned.

[evil_scientist]

"Thank you. I hope Jordan won't crucify us for making him bribe that clerk, or whatever that was they talked about for so long..."

"So, what's our plans for tomorrow? First a quick visit to the Chapel's place, to see whether there's anything left, then... the house?"

[Tabs]

"Yes. Let's ask that news stall man its whereabouts."

[evil_scientist]

"Good idea! I'm sure he was around in 1912."