UVD part 3

“Hi…aren’t you the detective from last night?” she asked wiping the sleep from her eyes and squinting in the sun, “Has there been any new developments?”1

“Well I kind of just came by to tell you that Todd has the same thing as the other two, and I also came by to ask you if you knew anything about this scarf we found at Mr. Jenkins’ house?” He eyed her suspiciously and pulled a pink scarf out of his briefcase. 2

“Pink scarf…pink scarf… umm well I haven’t seen it before but oh never mind I have, well not seen it but know who might know something about it.” She laughed, “My friend Alice said she had one like that I would imagine. Except she said she tore it and threw it away and that is why she didn’t wear it to grad last night.”3

“Is that so?” he questioned, evidently hoping for some more information. “Do you know where I might be able to find this Alice girl?”4

“Well I can give you her phone number or address if you want. Would that help?” 5

“Why yes it would. Thank you.”6

“Okay, her phone number is 403-5668; and her address is 2304 45th street. It’s really hard to miss it’s this big pink house; it has a huge white gate around it.”7

“Thank-you Miss Annie your help is greatly appreciated.” He said turning to leave, “and Miss Annie if you think of anything that can help it would be greatly appreciated.” 8

“I’ll let you know if I remember anything or if anything turns up.” She waved and stood at the doorway for a few more minutes thinking before closing the door and walking into the kitchen.9

“Granny are you up yet?” She yelled up the stairs. She must be out with some friends, I wonder if she left anything for breakfast? She thought to herself. 10

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She went upstairs and changed out of her dress, seeing as it was a tad rumpled from being slept in. She took one look at her hair and makeup and stuck out her tongue in disgust. Geesh I wonder what Mr. Hoid thought of me when I opened the door before, I must have looked like a monster. She thought to herself. She quickly took a cloth to her face and removed the excess mascara and glittery eye shadow smudged down her cheeks. She ran to her room and slipped into some jeans with a whole in the knee, and a simple black t-shirt; V-neck of course. 12

A few minutes carrying a bowl of cheerios, walked into her granny’s room and collapsed on the bed. She felt around for her granny’s TV remote but couldn’t find it where it usually was. She got up and looked under the bed. She pulled out a couple boxes thinking it might have been stuffed under there, on the account that her grandma usually doesn’t use the TV in her room. After about 4 boxes Annie gave up. She walked over to the TV and switched it on, using the panel on the screen. How much she detested having to do things manually. This is why we have technology people!!!  She plopped back onto the bed and began watching TV, although she wasn’t really watching. Her attention had been diverted to a piece of paper in her granny’s dresser drawer. She knew she probably shouldn’t go snooping but what could a 90 year old woman have to hide? 13

She walked over to the drawer and opened the drawer; the piece of paper fell to the floor. It was a fairly wrinkled piece of paper; about half the size of a normal piece of paper, probably cut in half. She unwrinkled it and looked, confused at it. It was a picture from an old magazine, she couldn’t make out the headline but she could read part of the first line of the article. It said something about a lawsuit against the company “Aag-Corp.” She studied the picture and saw some men and women standing in front of a factory; police tape was surrounding it. She didn’t have any idea what her granny might be doing with this old article when she saw in the picture, a lady that looked like her granny. This aroused her curiosity.14

She got up from the bed and shoved the article into the back pocket of her jeans and walked downstairs. She grabbed her skateboard from under the deck and rode off. 15

A while later she arrived at the town’s local library. She went into the town’s history section. She asked the secretary if she could pull up some newspapers from about 30-40 years ago. The secretary looked bewildered but did as Annie had requested. Apparently there weren’t many newspapers published at that time so it was fairly easy to locate her granny’s article. 16

The article was from 1963, it was about a lawsuit filed against the company, Aag-Corp. As far as Annie could tell it was over a claim against the company, saying that they had been dumping excess chemicals and wastes into the town’s river. The company had denied all accusations but was never able to come up with the real site for their dumping so the government filed a lawsuit against them and had the factory shut down. The factory was abandoned soon after and burned a few years later in a fire. After the factory closed there was no more news in any of the newspapers about anything related to that company. This puzzled Annie.17

She got up and went outside. She took off on her skateboard again, but soon found as she neared the edge of town where she was going that a skateboard was not the best transportation. She got off and stuck in a hollow log that was marked for eviction with a yellow painted “X”. She began on foot down a long winding road until she came upon a huge building, it was kind of spooky looking; with a huge gate or what was left of the original, big doors and about 6 floors. She hesitated then walked closer to the gate, from here she could see that about half the building was burned and only ashes and bits and pieces of walls and windows remained intact. 18

Mustering her courage she began walking towards the building, which proved to be a difficult task. She had to maneuver herself through sharp fence posts, barbwire and parts of cars and other various machinery. She dodged some fallen trees that had fallen over the years and crushed the fence. As she approached the doors to the building she read the faded letters painted in yellow and green spray-paint: “Aag-Corp National Chemical Treating Plant and Storage Center.” This was definitely the place she was looking for.19

As she pushed the doors to the factory open she had to turn her head away as a huge cloud of dust came through the tiny opening where she had managed to open the door. She coughed loudly as she inhaled dust and dirt from inside the building. 20

The inside of the building was dark, and cobwebs were hanging all over the place. Annie could have sworn she heard bats screeching their silent sounds of slumber. She pushed through the door and began walking through the bottom floor, she knew as she walked farther into the building it was going to be impossible to get to the other floors due to the fact that the elevator had been in the part of the building that had burned down. She shrugged and began poking around. She wasn’t exactly too sure what she was looking for. But she searched on none the less. She moved through what were as she guessed offices on one half of the building and a huge area with machines on the other half. 21

Honestly the place gave her the creeps. She hadn’t even truthfully been in a building like this; and she wasn’t sure what had made her now either. A cold wind crept down her back like a slow moving turtle down the beach. Her hands went cold and she began to shiver. Since when had it become this cold? It was so nice outside before. I think this place may be getting to my head. Annie thought to herself as she pulled her T-shirt sleeves down as far as she could over her arms now prickled with goose bumps. This was exactly like the setting of those horror stories she had been reading she thought as she moved about, and this is about the time a huge vampire comes down from the ceiling; stopping the vulnerable girl dead in her tracks. She tries to scream but he is already on her. Man I’ve got to stop reading so many horror movies; they really don’t help in times like this.22

She decided this search was pointless and was starting to make her way back to the little opening she had made from the huge metal doors at the front of the factory when she noticed a pile of metal barrels. Each had a different colored Aag-Corp label and a huge “Bio-hazardous” sign printed on one side. This aroused her curiosity and she walked closer. She saw a crumpled peice of paper attached to one of the cans. She went over and grabbed it, looking at it she realized it was some sort of authorization form for dumping these barrels, which as she found out were full of chemicals into the town’s river. The paper was signed by a Mr. Harry Gong-ling. She stuck the page in her pocket and ran for the door. Tons of ideas were going through her brain. 23

As she emerged from the factory she ran to the spot where her skateboard was, she grabbed it and sped off towards town. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do with the new found knowledge she had acquired about the factory but she had a pretty good idea.24

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She arrived at the Police precinct about 20 minutes later. By this time she was exhausted and little droplets of sweat were trickling down her forehead and onto her shoulders. She felt hot and sticky. She ran her hand over her forehead and wiped it on her pants. She wasn’t sure what that had accomplished but she didn’t exactly care at the moment. She marched through the doors and right into deputy Marco’s office. She sat down in a chair and stared at him. Apparently she had interrupted his lunch break, he had mayonnaise smeared on his top lip and his mouth was bulging from having just taken a huge bite out of his pizza sub. To his left was a huge box of donuts and to his right was a huge glass of ice cold Pepsi; oh ya the deputy who thinks young. She tried not to giggle at her own thoughts. 26

He looked genuinely shocked and surprised to see her. People never exactly came around this office unless they absolutely had to or were actually in trouble with the law. And everyone knew Miss Annie Dianne Porter wasn’t the type to be getting into trouble. She figured she must be this perfect little angel to everyone. 27

She waited for him to swallow then pulled the shipment paper from the factory and the magazine article out of her pocket and laid them on the table in front of him. He stared blankly at first until he seemed to figure out what it was. He looked closer and his eyes widened. He leaned over his desk so there was only about 2 feet between him and Annie and said, “Miss Porter where did you get these?” 28

To Annie it seemed a demand whether than a question, like she had found something she wasn’t supposed too. She thought about it a second then replied, “Well the article belongs to my granny and I found the other paper at the old Aag-Corp Factory attached to a huge barrel of Chemicals. Why?”29

“Annie listen, you can’t just go looking about and poking around in placed you are not allowed.” He looked serious. “I have to take these from you.”30

“Yeah and are you going to tell me why?” she asked suspiciously. “I mean those are mine, you can’t just take them without a reason.”31

“Stop fooling around Miss Porter. This is not funny. I mean it I am taking them and I never want you to think about this again. And I am a police officer I don’t need a reason to take things.” He answered.32

“That’s a pretty lame excuse Mr. Marco. But heck it’s your problem…”33

“Go home Annie. And don’t you go do any more snooping.”34

“Fine.” She replied, getting up and walking to the door. “You know what before I leave there’s just one more thing I have to do.” She walked over and grabbed a jelly donut from his box. Flashing him a big smile she walked out of the office. 35