Gloves

The Rockton Nightlife

The internet lit up when Leanna Price went missing in Rockton, CO. Some outlets focused on her numerous film and TV credits, others on the mysterious circumstances of her disappearance. The website I wrote for, OkayY.com, dug into the town itself and found something that the other sites somehow hadn't discovered: Rockton had been experiencing similar disappearances for months, way before Leanna Price had wandered out of her family's cabin and directly into Hollywood infamy.

OkayY.com didn't have the resources of some of the bigger sites, but my editor decided the story was strong enough to send me to Rockton to look into the other missing persons cases. Once I got there, it became obvious that the sheriff's department, led by Sheriff Lowell Brand, didn't want to have anything to do with me, and most of the townsfolk dismissed me as either another nosy outsider or a woman that desperately wanted late-night company at the Lakeview Motel (I didn't). After two weeks, I hadn't gotten very deep below the surface of things, but it was apparently enough for my editor to keep me on the story.

"I'm telling you - there's nothing here but a bunch miserable assholes and about fifty hiking trails perfect for people to go missing on."

"Keep with it, Libby," my editor replied. "Most of the other sites have moved on, back to celebrity gossip and product reviews."

"And what are we posting today?" I asked.

"Celebrity gossip and product reviews." he said. "But an exclusive on the Rockton weirdness could really help us out, especially if there's a connection between the cases."

I found out that there were five cases in all, with Leanna Price being the fourth. Of the five victims total, three were women and two were men. None of their bodies or belongings were found, none had motive to skip town, and none had people that would want them gone for good. Only the first victim, Greg Snowden, seemed to have a troubled life, but he was in a recovery program and showed every sign of improvement before he disappeared. And as much as I wanted to believe the opposite, none of them appeared to be avid hikers.

Leanna Price's was the only case where witnesses verified that she went missing at nighttime, but it was likely that the other disappearances also happened at night, causing the sheriff to put a 9pm curfew in place. However, Rockton was a sleepy town where most of its residents had maintained self-inflicted curfews their entire lives.

Once he finally decided I wasn't going away without a story, Sheriff Brand gave me two conditions for his cooperation. The second one worried me a bit. 1) He wouldn't be available for an interview until the following Saturday evening, just before sundown, and 2) I would have spend the entire night with him at his house. 

Canyon Walls

When I drove up to his place in Dogwood Canyon, Sheriff Brand was standing in the driveway, pointing out the best spot to park my rental car. His aviator sunglasses reflected the last of the late afternoon light. I grabbed my equipment and went to shake his hand.

"Thanks again for the invite, Sheriff."

"Yep."

He was wearing jeans, but still had on his uniform shirt, which was untucked, wrinkled, and halfway open, revealing a grey t-shirt underneath. He had a can of Coors Lite in his hand and I could hear music playing.

"Ted Nugent?" I asked, nodding to the source.

"Yes, ma'am. Motor City Madman," the sheriff said as he began to nod his head to the beat.

"Very cool. One of my dad's favorite tracks," I said.

The sheriff removed his sunglasses and I could see from his eyes that he wasn't on his first beer of the day. I almost asked him why the interview had to wait until then, but there was a look in his eyes that told me he had something serious to say. He didn't.

"This one sounds like Deep Purple," he said. "I like 'Got Me a Rock n' Roll Band' better, but that one played already." He quietly belched under his breath. "Whoa, 'scuse me. Well, come around back."

Starting about thirty feet behind the house, the canyon wall curved upward, leaving the better view for the front side of the yard. However, I could see the reason for his preference when we rounded the corner to reveal a large patio area and a fully-stocked bar dug into the back wall of the house. Two waterfall fountains with mosaic tile backdrops decorated the sides of the bar and the music was blasting from hidden speakers.

"What're you drinking?" he asked.

"Uh, well I usually don't drink when-"

"Listen," he cut in. "I ain't gonna force you to drink with me, but this is my night off and I only drink alone when I'm alone." And then he added with a wink, "Takin' a drink don't make this a date."

"Better make it a bourbon then," I said. My editor knew about the mandatory sleepover and I let the sheriff know that people would know where I'd be staying before I accepted his terms. Plus, at this rate he would be passed out long before I even hit a buzz.

"Whew, bourbon sounds good!" he said. "Think I'll join you."

He walked to the bar area, finishing his beer during the journey. I looked around and noticed some sketches on the canyon wall, five distinct points, perhaps the beginnings of a mural. I almost asked about it, but stopped myself. Brand didn't need any more tangents and it was probably best to get started while he was still reasonably intelligible. I laid down my equipment bag and pulled out my tablet, audio recorder, and a notebook.

"You're not going to need that stuff," he said, handing me a glass of bourbon before attending his own.

"Well, I want to make sure that I get everything, you know, for the record."

He mumbled something about "for the record" and took another sip. I suddenly began to feel very thirsty myself, but I didn't want to test my bourbon tolerance just yet. It was better if the sheriff stayed a few rounds ahead of me.

"Okay, screw it. Get it all down!" the sheriff finally said.

The sound of his voice echoed off the canyon wall. Somewhere, the sun was close to setting, but we were shielded from the spectacle here. There was a steady breeze in the shady world of the sheriff's unique backyard that made me glad I'd worn a jacket. He led me over to a couple of wooden chairs facing a fire pit, which he prodded with his feet before sitting down. I sat down too, hit the green button on the recorder and started the interview.

Getting Soulful

"Sheriff Brand, thank you again for agreeing to this interview," I began, sounding to myself like a journalist for the first time in recent memory. "The past few months have been hard for Rockton, but the national press has ignored the situation except for the Leanna Price disappearance. However, four other people are missing and-"

"Shit, is that how you're gonna start?" the sheriff asked. He looked up and squinted, despite our position in the shade. "You ain't even gonna ask me how my day was?"

"Well, I...uh," I glanced down at my notes, weeks of preparation.

The sheriff laughed hoarsely and finished the last sip bourbon from his glass. We hadn't been sitting for more than a minute when he launched himself back over to the bar area. I was about to object to another round so soon, but saw that he had accessed a compartment that contained the stereo. I hadn't even noticed that the music had stopped playing.

"Let's try something a little more soulful," he said as he swayed. "Do you know J.J. Jackson?"

"I don't think so. No, I don't."

Things might have ended differently if I had just said "screw it" and decided to get drunk with the sheriff. It was early enough that maybe we could have called some of his deputy pals over to his place and made it a party. That night could have been the most fun I ever had outside of Denver.

But for whatever reason, "Sho Nuff" by J.J. Jackson started playing and I got pissed off.

People were missing, likely dead, and this was the man tasked with finding them and hopefully bringing their assailant or assailants to justice. It was more than apparent that good ol' boy Sheriff Lowell would rather drink himself stupid than do his job and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to break the son of bitch down. I tossed the contents of my glass into the ashes in the fire pit, set down my notebook, and walked up to the bar where the sheriff was digging for something in a stainless steel fridge. He was muttering again.

"Shit, thought I had another Coors in here. Damn, I hate that." He started to walk through the back entrance, but I stopped him.

"Let's just keep with the bourbon," I said, figuring that he'd lose the ability to walk before he lost his speech mechanics. I held up my empty glass and he smiled.

"Damn, you're just a hell of a drinker!" he said. "Well, alright." He poured us another round.

"You like this music?" he said, after taking another deep sip. "I usually listen this R&B soul stuff around Christmas, but I knew you'd like this one."

"Yeah, it's really great," I said, trying to sound like I meant it. "So, listen. We don't have to be formal about this interview shit, but I'd like to show my boss back in Denver that I wasn't sitting in Rockton for a month with my thumb up my ass."

I was glad to see the sheriff laugh at that. I wasn't worried at this point about him making advances, but it was still better that he found that image funny rather than weirdly sexy. He tilted his glass back again before beginning. Or beginning yet again, I guess it was.

Scary Stories

"You see those drawings on the rock wall back there?" he said, pointing to the canyon. I nodded. "Well, I didn't do that. And I don't know how closely you've been looking, but there are other markings like those around town."

I tried to not let my expression give away that I hadn't noticed, or how worried I was that the sheriff had stumbled upon yet another something else to talk about.

"They started popping up last year, about the time Sandy, my wife, died. I guess I was-"

"I'm sorry to hear that," I cut in, sincere. "I didn't know."

"Yeah...well anyway, I tried to take a vacation, get out and focus on my grief, but it didn't do me no good. Built this deck back here to give myself a project, even though it don't got much of a view. Anyway, I wasn't focused on things and I guess nobody wanted to tell me that it was pretty bad. By the time that junkie Greg Snowden went missing, I was glad to just write his case off as a heroin relapse, figured that his body would turn up in some gutter. And that made it easier get back to feeling sorry for myself, which is where I might have stayed until one of my deputies got my attention by killing himself."

"Frank Liesser," I said.

"That's right."

Finally, something I wanted to know. I had heard parts of this story from a group of people hanging outside a local diner called Skip's. Apparently Liesser had shot himself while on duty one night, but left a suicide note that caused the town to write him off as insane. None of the diner patrons had read it though, and could only seem to agree that the subject matter of the note had to do with "gloves or something".

I shivered a bit, despite my jacket. The sun had officially set, wherever it was. The lights from the patio still bathed much of the yard, including the canyon wall. "Sho' Nuff" had ended, though the sheriff didn't notice. His eyes glazed over a bit as he reminisced.

"Frank was coming up on ten years with the service, but he was never much of a friendly guy. Just a good deputy that seemed to enjoy busting speed demons and running teenagers out of the park at night. He'd been married a few years, though his wife ran off when he wouldn't give her a baby."

Sheriff Brand nodded at the thought, as though remembering a conversation he probably wouldn't repeat to me or anybody else.

"So, anyway. One day he gets back from patrol and says that Rockton's got a glove problem. That's what he said. I said, 'Frank, you need some time off', but he told me that he had to keep the gloves out. The next night, I got the call to come out and identify his body, as though they needed my help."

The sheriff took a long sip of bourbon and I did the same.

"And the day after that, we found out that Sherry Tenenrose was missing."

Sherry Tenenrose was a thirty-year-old waitress that never showed up to a morning shift at Skip's. She had likely disappeared the same night that Frank had shot himself.

"Sherry had a fiancee that everybody called Folsom, because of that Johnny Cash song. Well, you can imagine the kind of guy that gets a nickname from a song about prison. We figured he'd beat her to death and hid the body someplace. I'll tell you, working on that case was probably the most work that I've ever done as sheriff, certainly in the past five or six years. I just knew he'd done it, but we couldn't get anything to stick and he just kept crying and crying through it all. Made me sick at the time. Of course, then he went and accused Frank of having something to do with it, which just pissed off everybody. Things got out of hand after that and, well, we had to cut him loose. But I still think that if one of these cases would have been a copycat, it would have been Folsom killing Sherry."

"Where did Folsom go after you released him?"

"I heard he went up to Boulder to stay with some old piece of shit he used to date before Sherry, but who the hell knows? It was maybe a few weeks later that we had another one and I had to admit I was still on square one for information."

"Stephanie Merle."

"Huh? Oh yeah, Miss Merle. She was younger than the others. Just out of high school. Sad, you know? I still see her folks out there keeping hope alive that she'll turn up. And I hope she does." He trailed off.

I had met Stephanie's parents. Somebody had mentioned that they were only in their fifties, though they could have passed for a decade or two older after the incident. Stephanie had been house sitting for a friend of the family's and was never seen again.

"That's the first time that I noticed the markings," he said. "They were on the street in front of the house she was staying at. I wish that I put these things together faster, but I had to see them again at the Price family cabin and Darren Louden's campsite before I recognized it for the pattern it is."

The Leanna Price story was pretty well covered in the news and on the internet. The Price family owned a summer cabin in Shoulder Canyon, on the other side of Rockton from the sheriff's house. Leanna was between movie projects and met up with her sisters and mother for a week-long vacation. I'd spoken to one of their private detectives about the case, but he said there wasn't much to it. One evening, Leanna walked out with a glass of wine to enjoy the night air and never came back. Like Stephanie Merle's family, the Prices would never let the matter go. Though if my editor was to be believed, the rest of the world was moving on fast.

Darren Louden was camping by himself next to Lake McDonald and never emerged from the surrounding woods. This had happened on the exact day that I came to town and there was something so personal about that fact that I found myself struggling to investigate his case. I was almost thankful that Darren was from out of town, so there wasn't much information available about him in town. This news of the canyon drawings at his campsite was the first noteworthy item I had on him and I didn't know if I trusted the source.

The Rockton Nightlife, Pt. 2

The sheriff hummed a tune and I feared he was about to play another song on the stereo. I suddenly felt tired, though not the sleepy kind. I took a sip of bourbon, more to warm myself up than anything.

"There was one more thing that Frank used to tell me about the gloves," Brand said. "He told me that they could only get hold of one person at a time." He rubbed his eyes. "I guess I'm stupid for not realizing sooner that Frank was the one helping Greg Snowden stay off drugs, and that there might be something more there between them two. It was all in the note though. Frank said he saw whatever is stealing people in Rockton, saw it take Greg. I believe him. And if he says it was gloves, I guess that's what it was."

For a second, I imagined going back to my editor with this story. Maybe the world had already forgotten Leanna Price, and maybe they'd never care about the other four people that went missing in Rockton. But I had a feeling the world might want to know about the drunken sheriff that believed glove monsters were terrorizing his town. Oh, the world might love that story.

"Are we in danger sheriff?" I was choosing my words carefully. "Because of those drawings on the canyon walls?"

"No," he said. "I don't think that you're in danger. I might be though." He stared at me with a sad intensity that would be the first thing I thought of the next morning, when news got out that Sheriff Lowell Brand was the latest missing person case.

"I think I'm starting to believe that there are gloves out there," he continued, shifting his gaze into the last of the bourbon in his glass. "Maybe not physical ones, but something that's grabbing folks and tearing them away without traces." He drank.

The sheriff looked up with watery eyes, above the canyon wall. The stars were out.

"I guess I'm hoping Frank was right and whatever it is can't grab two people at the same time."

I waited for a punchline, for some sense that he was having me on. But then the sheriff rubbed his eyes and looked into his empty glass.

"Maybe I should come back in the morning," I said after a moment. "After you've had some sleep. Maybe we can meet for breakfast?"

"Shit, I'm too sober, if anything. It's still early," he said, forcing a smile as he opened the fridge again. He snapped his fingers. "Oh, that's right. Beers are inside. Can I get you something?"

"No, I'm good," I said. My mind was made up. We'd do the interview another time, sometime during the day and away from alcohol, if he'd ever allow that. I couldn't stay another minute that night listening to the sheriff's bullshit. I certainly didn't want to wade through another round of drinks and listen to another golden oldie. However, I was beginning to be afraid of how the sheriff would react if I tried to go, since my staying the night seemed so important to him. I decided I'd grab my stuff while he was inside and make a break for the rental car.

He left the patio door open as he walked inside. If I was lucky, he'd use the opportunity to take a bathroom break and buy me an extra minute or two of getaway time.

I was lucky.