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It all began with a scream over 911…
Okay so it was less of a scream and more of Sam calling Gale Weathers while she sat on the quad between classes but it felt the same nonetheless. A sudden anxiety that she had slowly been working through since she and Tara… and the others… had dealt with Richie’s family in a theatre halfway across town that had since been stripped once more by the police.
It was in thinking about where that evidence turned souvenirs might end up next that had led her into a spiral that came with a sort of cold slide along her spine. It’s the kind that came with Billy Loomis’ voice in the back of her thoughts, that voice of a devil on her shoulder who would eventually take her shoulder angel hostage and could end with blood on her hands once more.
But instead of thinking about blood and the feeling of a knife going into flesh, she did as her latest therapist suggested. She reached out to someone that would understand, and who would maybe look into things for her.
“What’s wrong?”
Maybe the day would come they wouldn’t react to the other calling like that but maybe not. They were all part of the same fucked up family, after all, so they understood why things were always assumed to be the worst.
At least when it wasn’t around the holidays and making sure Gale wasn’t alone as she and Tara had done this past Christmas. None of them were alone, after all, because they had each other.
“Nothing.” It’s a sudden answer, a negative without thinking about it. Except that wasn’t true. “Maybe nothing? How long do you think Richie was collecting things? I mean, it had to be over years, right?”
There’s no answer there for the longest time, just the soft shush of Gale’s breathing and almost as if Sam can hear the wheels turning.
“I would say for a while. There’s a lot off about his family’s life and things like finances that don’t seem right but I can’t imagine that they just did it since he came into your life. He was likely working on it before then, at least since he did his movies.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. Not surprising that LAPD is corrupt, and a small town in Ohio probably wants to pretend they never had serial killers on their major college campus and were glad to be done with it. Who then was stealing or selling off the evidence from Woodboro?”
Again that silence reigned. Neither of them were ones to pressure the other to speak, especially not with something so heavy on the table. Sam can hear papers moving, Gale going through something, and then the sound of the phone being put down on something hard and then cursing just under her breath but it echoes how Sam is feeling. It should be over and done with and suddenly it’s not. Just like that it’s not done.
“You know what you’re saying, Sam. You do realize what you’re asking me?”
There’s a hint of that sharpness in Gale’s voice that Sam has come to recognize. A brittleness that has to do with Dewey and the sharp shards of her heart that are constantly stabbing at her from the inside, leaving her coping with a pain that never seems to be likely to go away.
“Yeah. I know. I also know they had Richie’s stuff, so that was evidence released after…” She sighs. There’s no point in saying after Dewey died. Just… “After. Even after Judy.”
Sam drew a breath and then, shaking her head, pushed on. “Look. I’m not trying to be a dick, Gale, but someone at Woodsboro was corrupt and I want to know who.”
“It wasn’t Dewey.”
“It wasn’t Dewey. We agree on that, but who then? I want to know who sold out our pain like that.”
“Yeah. So do I. Look, I don’t know where to start but give me a few days and I’ll be in touch. And Sam? Focus on your classes and let me work.”
Sam snorts at that, glad that no one is around to see the way she smiles at that. Gale had helped her get into school while she worked on her degree… in what she isn’t sure yet but criminal justice and therapy are right there.
“Yeah yeah, I’ll do my best. And Gale? Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Gale hangs up, never one to say goodbye on a call. You never knew when it might come true. Instead she hit another number, one she had memorized. Their actual 911 as it was.
“Agent Kirby.”
“Agent Zygote. We might have a problem.”
—
Doing as Gale asked was easier said than done. Not that Sam said she was going to do it either. She attended classes. She studied at the dining room table of their new apartment, across the hall from Mindy. And Chad when he didn’t want to be at the frat house. It still felt weird not to have him close, but they had to move on with their lives, they had to not let all they had been through change who they were. Tara kept reminding Sam of that and for her sister, Sam would do all she could to not be changed.
Especially since the feelings she had, the thoughts, they were changed. They just were something she accepted now.
So spent her days studying, pretending she had any focus at all, though the truth was she was studying something else entirely. The history of the Woodsboro police department.
Since Maureen Prescott’s death there had been only four sheriffs in charge in Woodsboro. Burke who had been sheriff for as long as Sam could remember. Sometime after the so-called “original” killings he had retired and Dewey had been the only one that had run for the position. Not surprising given the hero status he’d earned in protecting the town during Billy and Stu’s reign of terror. When Dewey had been asked to step down, Judy had taken his place. The new sheriff was someone she didn’t know.
There was no way that Dewey had a hand in selling off the pieces of their shared misery. The Woodsboro murders had given him everything he had ever wanted - Gale - and taken that away from him as well. He wouldn’t have wanted others to profit from it, and he wouldn’t have done anything to endanger Sidney. There was no question in Sam’s head about that. Not even at his worst when it had all fallen apart. Dewey wouldn’t have done it.
Which also meant it hadn’t been Burke. If the evidence had gone missing before Dewey made sheriff, Sidney or Gale would have known about it.
Which left just one Sheriff Judy Hicks.
Sam hadn’t known her well enough but their house had been nice and Wes always had money according to Tara. Maybe she had been supplementing a sheriff’s piddly ass paycheck with a little side business on ebay?
It’s a thought that Sam had been circling for hours instead of studying for her organic chemistry test when the phone rang.
Maybe one day it wouldn’t happen but the entire world went still.
Tara and Mindy’s talk at the dinette stopped and Chad was instantly on his feet. Danny’s hand against her ankle stopped moving. Sam didn’t take a breath even as she saw Gale’s face on her phone.
“Yeah?”
“I’m on my way to your place. Everyone there?”
“They’re here.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
It was nearly thirty minutes before the door buzzer rang throughout the room. Sam had been pacing while they explained to Chad and Mindy why Sam had gone to Gale. Ideas and suspects swirled throughout their conversation in that time, everything going silent again as Danny crossed to hit the button.
“Yeah?”
“Let me in, Cute Boy.”
Despite the tension he can’t help a small smile as he hits the lock to let her in. It takes a minute or two for him to undo all the locks but then there’s no elevator for Gale to take. They’ll never live in an apartment again where they can’t just go out the window and they’re paying a premium for it.
There’s hugs all around, drinks turned down, and a nervous gathering around the tiny Formica dinette table as they wait for Gale to lay out copies of her investigation.
“Wes?!” Tare’s voice was incredulous and stunned. “You’re saying Wes Hicks was Richie’s supplier? He…”
“He wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind,” Chad pointed out. “You’re sure his mom wasn’t the one behind it all?”
“I can’t say for certain she wasn’t, but the bank accounts lead back to Wes, and there’s no sign of it ever being funneled into her accounts. She might have turned a blind eye on what he was doing, but she wasn’t behind it.”
“Same thing,” Sam muttered, leaning into Danny’s touch as he curled his fingers against her shoulder.
“Wes Hicks,” Tara repeated. “I don’t buy it. I mean, yeah maybe he would do sketchy shit for money to be a cool kid but to break into the police station and sell off Ghostface stuff? That’s just…”
“Stupidly brilliant,” Mindy muttered.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
“What? It is. Police evidence, after the trial - or in the case of every Ghostface killer - after their deaths just goes into boxes never to be seen again. Eventually they’re even forgotten unless there’s a need for further testing. With all the killers dead and no trial, it’s kind of easy money.”
“Minds, you’re kind of scary,” Chad pointed out, sounding affectionate all the same. “Even if she’s kind of right. Though Wes never struck me as the….” He waves one hand around, trying to find the word.
“He was more a Chad than you are?”
“Hey. I represent that remark, thank you.”
Gale is used to their banter, but she still made a face at them. “If you’re done with the admiration society for Richie’s creepy obsession dealer, there’s more.”
Sam sat up straighter, dark eyes narrowing. “More like what?”
“More like I found a lot of correspondence between Wes and someone named Chas Muster. Ring a bell?” Everyone shook their heads. “Didn’t for me either so I started going deeper. Chas Muster is an alias.”
“Thank God. No one should name their kid Chas.”
“Shut up, Chad.”
“I hear that insult in your tone and I’m not impressed, Mindy.”
“Knock it off,” Sam muttered. Everyone went silent again. “Go on, Gale.”
“Chas is the alias of a patient at the Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. It’s the country’s top hospital for the criminally insane. The name on his intake form is David Marrow.”
“That’s the guy running the experiment in The Haunting, right?”
Everyone turns to look at Danny, confusion furrowing their brows and screwing up their expressions.
“What? Spend enough time with Mindy and you watch a lot of movies.”
Mindy sat up straighter, positively preening at that admission. “I feel like I’m doing the Lord’s work.”
“Can you all lay off the candy and focus? It isn’t about the name but the rest. David was admitted to Bridgewater in January of 1997. He came to the hospital in very weak condition having just been released from a hospital in Arizona. He was transferred there from California.”
Now the room goes silent, everyone focusing on Gale.
“January of 1997?” Sam didn’t like this. Not in the least. That date was much too close to another infamous time in her family’s life. The fall when her father and his best friend had gone on a killing spree.
Gale nods, drawing a manilla folder to the center of the table.
“He had severe trauma to his skull, several healing puncture wounds, a concussion and intracranial bleeding as well as a broken nose and jaw. His parents had his previous records destroyed according to the hospital due to a legal desire to let him die as he was. My guess? Sheriff Burke didn’t want the sensationalism of a trial and so he agreed to seal records and let the world believe the public story.”
There wasn’t even the soft shush of breathing, everyone holding their breaths even though they knew what they were about to see in that envelope.
“I had to blow this picture up from an intake picture that was about an inch by an inch so forgive the graininess but it’s clear enough.”
She turns over the front cover of the folder. The picture is black and white, grainy as all hell and yet despite the bandage and bruises it’s easy to make out the features of someone whose picture was still plastered all over the news once a year on the anniversary. Someone who had held a special place in Richie’s perverted museum.
“Chas Muster is an anagram for Stu Macher. He’s alive and he was actively communicating with Wes Hicks to provide Richie with souvenirs from his own kills.”
Sam stared at the picture but she wasn’t hearing the terrified and, dammit Mindy, almost excited chatter around her. She wasn’t hearing them but the soft timbre of the voice of the man reflected in the shiny gloss of the paper, almost superimposed over Stu’s beaten face.
“Well well. Looks like you and I need to make a visit to Bridgewater. Catch up on old times with old friends.”
“The hell we will,” she mutters, no one hearing her as Sam shakes her head.
Knowing even as she says it, that a trip up the coast was in her future.