The Cat and Mouse Game by Ogden Bloody Valentine contest entry |
We had called the police, but when we showed them the evidence, they were disappointingly dismissive. One officer said something like, "C'mon folks, this is a toy! I think it's a pretty funny one, though." The postal inspectors were equally unimpressed. The day after the murdered doll arrived, my husband got a strange call at work. It was like something out of a Mafia movie. A chilling voice said, "Did you get our little present, Bill? Taken aback, Bill, of course, answered, "Who is this? What the devil is this about?" And the voice said, "Don't play dumb with me, Jonesy. You should know better than that by now." And he hung up. Although we had hidden the doll away, the troubled girls couldn't get that frightening image off of their minds, and we allowed them to stay home from school, hopeful they would become functional soon. The private detective, Mike Dean, agreed with Bill that he had hit on something important. Mike was a highly respected FBI director, since retired, renowned for his plain talk and keen mind. "Bill, it's a good thing that you've got a bundle, because this whole thing is going to cost you. I'm starting with ten men on this. As you say, there's got to be dozens of Wiliiam Joneses in the area. They won't all have kids, but that's still a lot of dolls, if they're using the same M.O. The bad guys probably have been working all of you Bill Joneses. And maybe at least one is known as 'Jonesy', which you're not." If Mike was on the right track, that would take some of the load off our shoulders, we thought. They might not be looking for my Bill, after all. There were eighty-six Willam Jonses living or working in a radius of a hundred miles from our home, and eighty of them had young children or grandchidren. Mike theorized that they would be shaking down these terrorized individuals, but finding Jonesy was their number one focus. Bill believed his caller would be so skillful at "persuading" his "marks" to do as he suggested, that there would be relatively few of them willing to risk their childen's lives by notifying the police. If true, so much the better, because the field would be less cluttered with investigators. Mike knew his business. Bill received another call at work from the intimidating voice, this time about the doll. What he said was so chilling, I remember it almost exactly as Bill told it to me. "Tell me the truth, do you still have that little present for your kids, Jonesy?" Bill admitted he did. "Good boy, Jonesy, I was just testing you. I know you wouldn't part with it voluntarily. But, I regret you will have to give it back You may not have noticed that under the little girl's skirt there's a door. I'd appreciate it if you would open it and fill her hollow body with the jewelry in the top center drawer of your wife's armoire. As you have likely gathered, you and your house are being watched closely. Make no attempt to contact anyone this morning. Kindly go right home now. Your wife is there, so please don't forget to relieve her of the lovely diamond wedding ring, and include it with the other booty in that hollow body. Oh, and give our regards to Mr. Dean." "Bill, should we call Mike,?" I asked, after he gave me the awful news. Mike showed up in the afternoon with a hangdog face. "Don't pay attention to my worried look. I laid it on for our friends out there. "i'd prefer they weren't on to me, but things could be worse. Let me take a look around, and see if they've done any more mischief." He returned about fifteen minutes later. "The place is clean," he assured us. "I'm thinking you might have had a close call, Mary. If the perps had time to calmly take inventory of your possessions, but left wihout bugging the place, they must have had to get out of here in a hurry."
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Ogden
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