Chapter 10

Stephaine and Townsend start searching for their target.

Chapter 10

Stephanie’s alarm woke her with a jolt. This was particularly shocking considering that she never set an alarm, ever. Stephanie was always the kind of person who could wake up naturally when morning came around. She couldn’t seem to sleep past nine. With the guttural groan of someone who was woken up prematurely, she pawed for her phone to shut off the alarm. The clock said it was six in the morning.

“What the hell?” she groaned as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the palm of her hands.

Then her nose caught the scent of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed coffee.

“Is that,” she questioned, cocking her head, “music?” The sound smooth jazz was playing softly somewhere downstairs.

Stephanie got out of bed and wandered around the corner to the staircase that lead to the rest of her loft. Her entire bottom floor was lit up. Someone turned on every light. The sounds and smells grew stronger as she approached the kitchen. Standing in front of the stove was her “bodyguard” Townsend. He was bobbing and bouncing from the waist down in time with the music occasionally singing along. On the island behind him was a breakfast buffet. He had managed to make a large stack of pancakes, some sausages, a bowl of oatmeal, and chopped a variety of fruit before she had woken up.

“Mornin’ bud!” he said as he gingerly laid four slices of bacon onto a sheet of paper towel to cool. “Bacon’s done, but I’d let it cool down. It’s pretty hot.”

As nice as it was to wake-up to a breakfast like this Stephanie couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a “last meal”, and the thought made her stomach turn.

“No thanks,” she said rubbing her stomach, “not feeling well.”

“Aw, that’s a bummer, Steph,” said Townsend with an over exaggerated sad face, “At least have some coffee to wake yourself up, we’ve got a big day.”

Stephanie walked past the coffee pot and pulled out a box of herbal mint "sleepy time" tea that she could have sworn was from when she moved to the city, “I don’t like coffee, I’m more of a tea person.”

“Oh,” he said, a little surprised, “I’ll remember that for tomorrow.”

“That won’t be necessary Townsend,” she said, “I can handle it, I’m a big girl.”

Townsend shook his head, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Steph. Boss Man says I have to be here every morning. He says he wants to make sure you start your day with the right frame of mind.” His voice said that they were best friends, but his face said ‘read the subtext’.

Stephanie took a sip of her tea and grimaced into her mug. Whoever decided to put mint in tea clearly hated the world, she thought.

“But, I don’t have to actually eat any of this right?” she asked gesturing and the delicious looking meal in front of her.

He wiped his hands with a towel and said, “Well…no, not really, but it would sure hurt my feelings Steph.”

“Perfect.” and she turned on her heel and headed back up the stairs.

Stephanie made sure to drag out her usual process, taking an extra ten minutes in the shower, spending that extra five to find just the right top and blazer to go with just the right skirt. After all, Townsend said it was going to be a big day so might as well make sure everything is perfect. Then she just sat on her made bed--normally she never made her bed, but hey, since she was there�"and waited. Today was the day that she would have to roll up her sleeves and actually make some progress otherwise, well, Archie would tell Townsend to do more than just make her breakfast, if he hadn’t already.

She stalled as long as she thought she could without drawing suspicion and went back downstairs. The kitchen was spotless when she got back down, there wasn’t even a hint that a four-course meal was just prepared there. The food was nowhere to be found, she checked the fridge and it was just as empty as it was yesterday morning. Townsend must have thrown it out, Stephanie thought. She couldn’t seem to find him either, that was the first good thing to happen all week, she thought. That feeling soon ended when she walked to the door and found him standing stock still next to it. “Ready to go, friend-o?” he said like a sentient statue. He was standing hand over fist and she could swear he was flexing, not to brag but as a show of force. “You wouldn’t be trying to sneak off without me?” he said cheekily.

They made it down to the parking structure and Stephanie went to her car. “Shotgun!” shouted Townsend and got on the passenger side.

“Archie told you to do this too, right?” Said Stephanie.

Townsend sat stiffly in the seat like someone bent an action figure to awkwardly fit into its vehicle accessory, a hand resting on each thigh. He turned his head without moving the rest of his body. “Yup! Think of it like a road trip. Give us time to talk and get to know each other. I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot of one another.”

They drove in silence then Townsend said, “Hey, I was thinking we meet with the security chief and go over some of the footage from the robbery. Then we could bring the head of IT in and go over the search history for some of our…less wholesome actors. What do you think?”

“Does it matter what I think, that’s what’s going to happen, right?” Stephanie said, “We’re going to get to my office and I’m going to find Mister Graner sitting behind my desk.”

Townsend let out an onomatopoeic laugh “Ha. Ha. You really do catch on quick, Steph. Yes, I have already arranged that, purely for your convenience, since I knew you’d make the right decision.”

“Do you and Archie even need me?” asked Stephanie, testily, “It sounds like you’ve got everything covered.”

“Don’t sell yourself short Steph. Archie sees something in you. He just wants to ensure that you are capable of living up to his expectations.”

I’m sure he does, thought Stephanie.

At Townsend’s request, they parked in the guest parking structure and walked in through the park’s main square. There was a light morning haze covering the deserted park. They walked past a group of guards standing by the entrance talking amongst themselves; killing the time before half of them would have to get to work and the other half would go home for the day.  The daytime security guards were there mostly to keep people from wandering into the employee sections of the park or other places they weren’t meant to go. The Sheep, like Townsend, were the unseen peacekeepers within the park. They were the reason why the park was as crime free as it was until recently.

The sun was beginning to rise and was at the point where it was hanging behind Howell Castle, its biggest spire perfectly centered in the sun. She had never seen The Castle like this before and it was a beautiful sight. Even knowing the truth about The Castle didn't detract from the experience.

People came from all over the world to America’s first castle, although calling Howell Castle a “castle” wasn’t strictly speaking correct. It looked like a one, sure, with its all-white bricks and five massive spires�"four in each corner, and the largest in the center�"accented with deep purple shingles; but Howell Castle had more in common with a warehouse than an actual castle. The public facing side of The Castle was decked out to look like a castle from somewhere in Germany, Stephanie wasn’t sure where, but it was all a façade. The operational half of the building was obscured by a small forest. The real building was much bigger and extended back and down into the ground to connect with The Tunnels. That was called the Nerve Center of the park. Anything to do with Howell or its subsidiaries was handled somewhere there. Other than a few executives, like Stephanie, and Archie whose offices were in the center spire of The Castle everyone else with a desk job in the park was stuffed into the Nerve Center. 

Townsend and Stephanie walked into the elevator inside the building and took it up to the top floor. The doors opened and the entire floor was deserted, which didn’t surprise Stephanie since the workday didn’t start until ten o’ clock. Townsend twitched and looked at his gleaming silver watch.

“Looks like the Security Chief will be up momentarily,” he read off his watch face, “he was caught up in a shift dispute with some of the guards.”

Stephanie caught a glimpse of Archie’s office in her periphery, “Is he here?” she asked.

Townsend looked at his watch again and said, “Nope, looks like he’s out of the country for the next few days.”

Stephanie let out a sigh of relief, it was one thing to have to live with her executioner and quite another to have Archie physically breathing down her neck. “Good.” She said.

Stephanie’s office was largely unchanged from the way her predecessor left it. The walls were a light blue with white molding, and the carpet was a deep navy. There were assorted Howell art pieces hung up around the room and stuck into one corner of the room was a simple lounge area: a couch, two small chairs, and table. Stephanie’s desk was a simple wooden structure, polished to a mirror shine, but otherwise unremarkable. By far and away her favorite part of her office was her chair. It was a custom leather number with memory foam cushioning. It was big and fluffy and when you sat into it you sank into its folds.

On her desk sat several manila folders stuffed with papers. “Neato!” Townsend said, “They brought the dossiers up!”

“The what?”

“Those folders are all the info Howell has on the problem actors in the park.”

Stephanie ran her thumb height-wise along the side of the folders, “And what qualifies someone as a ‘problem’ worker?” she asked.

“Basically, any repeated rule breakers or someone that doesn’t fit into Howell’s sensibilities.”

She didn’t like her new job, but if she was forced to do it, she was going to do it right. The problem is that she didn’t know what the right way was, so she relied on what she saw in movies. “Which one is, what’s his name, Devon? Where’s his file?”

Townsend comically rolled his eyes, “Yeesh, that bad egg. His file should be on top.”

Stephanie grabbed the top file--it was easily twice the size of all the others, about an inch thick--and opened it. The first page looked like the back of a baseball card. It had his old ID picture in the upper left-hand corner followed by his name, address, phone, email and list of most used sites. Stephanie noticed that most of his sites were conspiracy forums. What dominated the center of the page was Devon’s rap sheet. The first few items were innocuous enough, showing up late, misuse of the internet during company time and the like. From there things got more specific, he was written up several times for accessing files and off-limits areas of The Castle. She skipped into the middle of the folder and found transcripts of conversations he had between various people in the company dating all the way back to persuadable when he was first hired.

She skipped a few more pages and found a page titled “Known Howell Associates” the page caught her attention because it was the shortest, one page, and one name: Oliver Wolcott. “What’s with this Oliver guy?” Stephanie asked, “Seems like he should have been the first person you brought in, for, what would you even call this, questioning?”

“That’s a great idea Steph, you should definitely do that,” Townsend said happily.

There was a knock at the door. “C’mon in!” said Townsend welcomingly. 

Bosco Graner walked in, he was a stocky man in his late fifties, salt and pepper hair. He was wearing a Howell Park Security windbreaker. “Morning,” he said stiffly nodding at each of them, “Miss Waits, Mister Townsend.”

“Hello,” she said.

“How’s it goin’, Bosco?”

Graner recognized that he wasn’t speaking to a normal person and simply nodded at Townsend again. To Stephanie, he said, “I was told you wanted to hear about the break-in a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, whatever you can tell us about that night would be extremely helpful.” She said.

“Well, I don’t know how much help I’ll be, ma’am. Most of my guys were casing the park, seems like it would be a better question for Townsend.”

Stephanie looked at Townsend, “Would if I could Steph, but we don’t know how Devon managed to break into the park. All signs point to The Tunnels, but we found no trace of forced entry. His keycard and access codes were deactivated by that point.”

To Graner, she said, “That aside, I’m still fuzzy on what was taken.”

“We believe Mister Rozen stole a substantial amount of archived security footage.” He said.

“What was on it?”

“Can’t say, he took a copy and deleted the original behind him,” Graner answered.

To Townsend, she said, “Any thoughts on this?”

“Plenty, unfortunately, no one knows what footage he stole but Archie was pretty cross that it was taken.”

Stephanie flipped through some of the papers in the pile, she wasn’t looking for anything, she just wanted a minute to think. “I was told that there was possibly a second person involved in the break-in, do we have any leads on that?” she asked.

“Beyond the fact that they exist, no, we have no information on them,” Graner said bluntly.

Stephanie held up Devon’s file, “Have you seen this?” she asked.

“No, ma’am I can’t say I have.”

“It says that Devon talked a lot to one guy, Oliver Wolcott, has he been ruled out yet?”

Graner straightened up, slightly embarrassed, “Mister Wolcott has been under surveillance for quite some time now, for, unrelated reasons. I believe we have him set to Level Two surveillance.”

“Level Two means that he’s watched while he’s in the park.” Interrupted Townsend. 

The Security Chief continued, “Up until now we haven’t had any reason to believe that he was in contact with Mister Rozen.” 

Stephanie rubbed her temple, “Ok,” she started, “maybe I’m not understanding this, Devon had one friend in the entire park and he broke in without triggering a single alarm. These dots are pretty easy to connect.”

Townsend leaned over and grabbed Devon’s file, “Hey, Steph I think I might know why.” he flipped to the correspondence section, “It looks like Oliver and Devon had a bit of a falling out about a year before Devon left Howell.” He pulled out a file about halfway into the pile, “Oliver’s file shows that he was in a relationship with a former employee by the name of Kassidy Windsor. It could be that the boys got into a fight over a girl and neither of them won.”

Stephanie took Oliver’s folder and leafed through it. Compared to Devon’s “crimes” Oliver was basically a saint, occasionally late to work, never more than ten minutes, lost costume pieces, and the odd complaint from a guest. This put him under surveillance, she thought, it’s hard to imagine what a “perfect” worker would be to the park. “Would he have the ability to get Devon into the park that late?” she asked both of them.

Graner said, “All non-essential personnel are locked out of the park an hour after it closes. We temporarily deactivate their keycard.”

Townsend said, “I’ll send some of my guys to check him out, but from what we’ve seen before, no, I don’t think Oliver has what it takes break-in.”

“Still, we should talk to him.” she said flipping between a few pages in Oliver’s file, “When will he be in the park next? Is his schedule in this thing?”

“Sure is, Steph!” Townsend gleefully confirmed as he turned to the appropriate page. The page had a detailed theoretical breakdown of his schedule from when he would most likely get up, how long it would take for him to get to the park from his apartment, when he would get off for lunch, all adjusted for his habit for tardiness.

“Holy s**t,” said Stephanie quietly to herself.

“I know right!” beamed Townsend, “Howell is very through with their reports.”

“That’s a word for it.” She said still staring at the timetable then she asked, “Is there a file like this on me?”

 Townsend laughed.