©1 November 2025 Levite
http://themediadesk
1.
It had been quiet for a couple of weeks on the Unusual Case Front. So I got a lot of what I'd been thinking of as my "mundane cases" done. Except some of them weren't mundane at all.
One of those involved another credit card fraud attempt against a County Agency. This time the card had been issued in the name of Mister Simon Peters, the Chief Financial Officer for the Suffolk County District Courts, Unified Court System of the State of New York.
I reread the title and added, "salute."
The first thing I checked was the names of current and recent employees. While we had a Jessica Peters, she was in the records division and said had no access to the financial side of things, and I believed her when I talked to her.
Then I began checking the information from the credit card company itself. And that's when it became comical, and almost sad when you think about it. The card had been opened based on an online application, they had made one purchase, and one payment, then asked for the credit limit to be raised, and it was. All in less than a month.
It didn't take long to clear the matter up and have the card canceled once I got through to a live person at the issuer.
The home address given for the mysterious Mr Peters turned out to be a mail forwarding service in Manhattan. Except they didn't have an address to forward Mr Peters' mail to. Again, it had been done online, with one payment made, on another card, since canceled, and nothing else. There was a stack of mail- ads, more credit card applications, catalogs, and the like, sitting in a box waiting on someplace to go. I told the lady on the phone that most likely they could go to the recycling bin.
The shipping address for the items ordered was in Romania. All purchases had been done in Euros instead of dollars. And the contact email address was another free service based in Russia.
Two days later I got a call from the same credit card company. Somebody was attempting to open another card in the name of the County, and it just happened to kick up a flag in the system, and the same rep called me about it.
It took me about two minutes to verify that Andrew Thaddeus didn't work for the County either.
I was laughing when I got back on the phone with the rep, "Why are they picking on the Apostles to get their cards issued?"
"I don't know, but I think in just the ones I've handled, I've gone through all Twelve at least twice. I even had a Judas Iscariot. He didn't get a card."
Another mundane case involved some undercover field work. And turned out to be nothing. There had been reports of a county employee misusing a county vehicle for personal use. While there was a tracking device in the truck, it didn't seem to be working reliably, and later, upon inspection, we found that the wires that connected it to the truck's power supply had corroded.
I spent two days in different cars following a county service truck from a discrete distance, and watched the employee in question pick up a dead raccoon from the middle of a road. Then he cleared some branches that had fallen on a bicycle path. He picked up a lot of litter around a bus stop. Then he went to lunch. Later, he stopped by a park and ride and emptied an overflowing trash can and took all that to the dumpster back at the county yard.
And on Sunday he did more of the same, with the added attraction of helping to clean up an intersection after a fender bender. Where I even got involved, with my badge now displayed on my jacket, directing traffic and assisting the city police as needed when the rollback had to turn around in the oncoming lane to pick up the minivan that had caused the mess to begin with.
It was just the right thing to do.
So, yes, that truck, and the employee it was assigned to, had been all over this end of the county on the weekend.
It was supposed to be all over this end of the county on weekends.
I was very gentle with the concerned citizen when I assured her that the employee was one of the few of the weekend crew that actually seemed to be doing his job.
"I was just concerned. They talked on the news about waste, fraud, and abuse, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't happening here." The standard issue 'little old lady' said.
"Thank you, ma'am. And if you see anything else, please report it and we'll check it out."
And then the Paranormal Investigators that had been working with the Evanses at the former Convent called me.
"Yes, yes, I remember you, but I'm sorry, I don't remember your names," I said to them on the phone.
"I'm Karen and he's Buddy."
"OK, Karen and Buddy, what can I do for you?"
Karen answered, and, if I remembered them correctly when they were here for the Convent briefing, she'd done most of the talking that day as well. "I know you're an expert at debunking 'fun house' type hoaxes."
"Thank you, but sometimes I have to call in an expert with a particular piece of technology to help me."
"That's fine," she continued, "we've done everything we can on this case, and we still think there's something else going on besides some low level type of haunting activity."
"Sounds fascinating, but my investigations are limited to...."
Buddy chimed in, "It's an office and pantry and shelter for a charity in Nassau County, and they work with Social Services in Suffolk County."
I chuckled, "well, in that case...."
We set up a meeting at the site for the next day and I made sure my gear was ready to go.
2.
The office was in downtown Hicksville, but the directions to it talked about Jericho. Fortunately, my car knew exactly where I needed to go.
The combined charity outreach office wasn't far from the train station in an older business district of the town. The building had been just about everything in its life, including, if the notes I had about it were to be believed, a storefront 'house of ill repute' during the Depression and the War Years, and then later, a deli, and part of it even took a turn as a Hindu Temple in the Seventies.
Now, three of the sections larger building had been reconnected and were now operating as a charitable outreach for several organizations. Which divided the cost, and increased their exposure to their client base. They offered temporary accommodations in other facilities for certain clients who were on their way to various programs, emergency food and clothing pantries, some medical referral services, and so on.
I parked behind the building and walked around to the front entrance and looked for Karen and Buddy who were supposed to meet me there to then go see the building manager. But they were nowhere to be seen.
"Can I help you miss?" the receptionist asked me when I stopped and looked around.
"I was supposed to meet some friends here," I said.
"Were they coming for family planning?" She said and gestured off to a door on the other side of the lobby.
"No. A paranormal investigation," I said just to see her reaction.
"Oh, well, we don't offer that service here, perhaps you're in the wrong place."
I showed her my ID and badge, "no, ma'am, I'm in the right place, they're just late."
"Oh, I see." She said as she read the badge, "You're welcome to wait as long as you need to."
"Thank you."
It wasn't long before Karen and Buddy came in. I smiled at the receptionist and said "They're here."
"Oh, very good, do you know where you're going?"
"Yes, ma'am." Karen said and gestured to the door behind the counter, "We're going to go see Mrs. Stanlow."
"Very good."
You could tell that the building had been remodeled multiple times as we passed from one section to the other and the floors changed level and even the ceilings were different.
Mrs. Stanlow's office was in the interior of the building, with one wall of her office being the old outside of the building with the reception area in it.
Except Mrs. Stanlow wasn't in her office. Karen went to find her while Buddy got a cup of coffee from the coffee station along the wall, and I just spent some time looking around and getting a sense of what the place was and how it was used.
In a few minutes I saw Karen walking our way from another door with a surprisingly young woman who turned out to be Mrs. Stanlow.
"Please, call me Sue, or Susan, Mrs. Stanlow sounds so old and formal."
I looked at her, "Susan it is." I said and extended my hand, "I'm Elaine."
"Why, yes. I remember you from the story on TV. You're much prettier in person."
"Thank you."
Karen needed no introduction to Susan, "Do you want to start at the top and tell Elaine what's been going on that's been upsetting some of your clients, and staff?"
"And me," she answered, "yes, and we can start right where we were. That's why I was back there." She looked at me, "Something keeps turning the water on in the old mop sink. But to do it, you have to get down in the crawlspace and belly through for about ten feet."
"Let's go see," I answered.
The 'old mop sink' was a relic from another time. A solid glazed cast iron fixture that was as much a part of the building as the wall it was bolted to. Built in under a set of stairs it had obviously been there since the place was new. The faucets and all that were long gone, but it was still securely seated on its drain pipe. I could see that the old incoming water lines had been plugged, but one of the plugs was leaking into the sink. Which was why it had been turned off down below.
"Where's the access to the crawlspace?" I asked her.
Buddy answered, "Back here, I'll show you."
I followed him to a storage closet and he pointed to an actual trap door built into the floor just to one side of the door.
"Can I look?" I asked him.
"Sure, I've been down there. It's pretty gross."
I checked my small flashlight, it was working. "I'll be OK. If I call for help..."
"I'll be right here and, send somebody."
"Oh, gee, thanks."
Buddy was right, the small cellar below the storeroom was 'pretty gross', and the crawl way that led to where the mop sink was even worse. But I wanted to see how the water had been turned on, so, in I went.
I can say for certain nobody had been in that service crawl for quite a while. Then one of my unasked questions was answered for me by the building's plumbing. The water and sewer lines running along the top of the access continued on, and from the looks of things from down here, to a rest room not far down the hall. I found the valves and tried one, it was off, so I tried the other, it was just barely on, but it was on. I turned it off while it made a suitably unpleasant sound.
It wasn't something you would do unless you really wanted to. Or perhaps needed to. One reason for that was, unless you were very small, you had to back out.
We were walking back down the hall with them looking at me.
"Do I need a key to get in that restroom," I said nodding further down the hall. "I need to wash up a little."
"It's open," Susan said.
Other problems they had been having included having interior doors shut and locked from the inside, and the printer on the second floor actually being unplugged from the wall during the night once in awhile.
Susan nodded, "And there's other things too. Just ask around, everybody has some sort of experience with Floyd."
"Floyd?" I asked.
"That's what we've taken to calling him."
I went around and talked with several of the staff that were there.
The problem was that, lately, Floyd was working days almost as much as he had been working nights unplugging things.
Miss Mae had a story to tell, "I was in that conference room right over yonder with some volunteers from the Ministry Baptist Church when all of the sudden the lights went off. We could hear the click of the switch, and when the pastor reached over to turn them back on, something pushed his hand away. I said 'now Floyd, stop that', and the pastor was able to turn the lights back on. The switch was down, and it clicks, you have to push it down to turn them off."
A long time volunteer said that before they got the "newfangled computerized thermostats, and instead, had the old round ones like your grandmother had", Floyd would turn it down in the winter until everybody was shivering.
A staff member that simply went by Lee said that she, let me correct that, that They, had tried to do a blessing and burned some incense to get Floyd to settle down.
"What happened," I asked them.
Lee shook their head, "nothing. He put the incense out." They laughed, "I turned for a second to lay my spellbook down and when I looked back, all three sticks of incense were out. I had sandalwood, and sage, and a special blend that has some other things in it that is supposed to spiritually cleanse the area. I guess he didn't like it."
"How hard is it to put the incense out once its burning?"
"Unless you dip them in water, they'll burn down to the end. I've heard some say they can pinch it off with a wet paper towel, but I've never tried that."
I sat in Susan's office with Karen and Buddy and thought about it.
"It's day and night. Here, and upstairs, and in that crawlspace. And in all three buildings." I said and they agreed.
"But we've never gotten an EVP, never saw anything definite on a camera," Karen said.
Buddy finished the thought for her, "and he's never interacted with anything when you want him to. Like the flashlight experiment."
Karen held her hands up, "How do we find out if something is really going on and its not a hoax? And if Floyd, or whoever, is really here doing all this, how do we get him to stop?"
Susan added something, "If not stop, at least slow down a little, especially when clients are here."
"I don't know. Yet. Let me spend some time here and see what I can find out."
Susan was enthusiastic, "You're welcome to open a branch office upstairs. We've got an office that people don't like to use."
Karen pointed up, "Jack's office?" Susan said yes. "That's perfect."
"What is Jack's office?" I asked with a certain sense of dread.
"It the former office of the financial assistance program manager."
"Jack." I said.
"Yes. Nothing ever happened in his office that we know of. Until he retired, let's see, it was three years ago, almost. But now, we can't keep anybody in that office. They say their computer goes off, or the desk ends up locked if they go to the restroom. All kinds of stuff."
Buddy smiled, "We set up our stuff in there, and nothing happened at all."
"Until everything happened at once," Karen said, Buddy laughed and she continued, "the lights went off in the office, then the laptop beeped that it was on battery because the power strip had been turned off, and then when we turned the lights back on the camera was off."
I looked from one to the other, they were all waiting on me to say something. "Well, OK. I'll go out and get my stuff. I can open a Suffolk County Sheriff's Office Substation."
Susan was all in favor of it, "I'll even print you a sign."
Buddy and Karen went with me, even though I told them that I didn't have that much 'stuff'. But then as I thought about how to make it look authentic, I decided I needed my actual Sheriff's Office Briefcase, which I am pretty sure I could count on one hand the times I've had it out of my car in the last year. In the end, it did look like I was 'moving in'.
Susan explained how to get onto their secure wifi network, and even had their 'office gopher', a special needs student on work-study, bring me some office supplies.
"Let us know what happens," Karen said as I got settled.
"If anything. Maybe Floyd won't like me."
In a few minutes Susan and one of the assistants brought a sign printed on card stock that looked better than some of our official signs. It had my Department's badge on the left, with my full name and title on the right, and below it said Hicksville Remote Office. Then we stood in the hallway while the student mounted it on the wall with double-sided tape.
"Very official," I said and thanked them.
So I sat in my remote office and checked my work email. Then, as the office staff got over having me up there, I began to do things to try to get Floyd's attention.
I had the office lights on, and Two desk lights. As the office had its own "newfangled" thermostat, I turned it up a few degrees, then went and found a small fan and plugged it in and turned it on.
As Floyd sounded like he may have been the janitor or custodian at some point, I also made sure that after lunch I left my personal sized pizza box.....
Which, I must add, was EXACTLY the second, or maybe third, one of that size that I can remember EVER ordering, in my life! If a pizza is worth ordering, get a full sized one. It won't go to waste.
.... in my trash can. But then I noticed something. And I went to see Ms Susan.
"Well, I've got a key to it, and I I know Brian has a key to it. And there's one in the key cabinet. And I think there's one on each custodian's ring, and Miss Clark used to have one."
"So everybody and their sister has access to it." I said.
"Pretty much, yeah. Or they can get access to it with no problem. Everything in the building is like that."
I thought as much, but I didn't say that, instead, I asked a question. "Do you mind if I changed the lock? Just for the duration of our little test. I'll give you a copy if you want one, and when we're done I'll change it back if you want me to. But that will prove if it is a hoax or something else."
"That'd be fine, and no, don't give me a key until you're finished. People borrow my key ring all the time because they locked theirs in their office or something."
I ran out to the hardware department of a big box store and got a door handle lock that was not only a standard lock, but if you turned the key, or the thumb turn inside, to a second position, it became a one inch deadbolt that couldn't be jimmied with a pocket knife or credit card.
And yes, one of the things that rides around in my car is a small tool kit with a good assortment of hand tools. And yes, I know how to use all of them, at least for basic tasks. And Yes. One of those tasks is changing a lock on a door. And yes, I did that to my apartment when I moved in, with permission of the building owner.
With my temporary office it took me about half an hour to get the old one out, and the new one in and working.
Everything in my office was still on and running. Evidently Floyd hadn't been around. So I set about doing the mundane work I could, which turned out to be quite a bit of it.
I had been reading through a report from a manager in a county agency who was under suspicion of plagiarizing information when I noticed something.
The fan that had been on in the corner on the low bookcase wasn't running.
I went over and checked and it was unplugged but I had no idea when it had happened.
I had a camera running in the corner behind me and I got the video off it and checked.
It had happened about fifteen minutes before I realized it. In the video you could see the cord simply drop out of the wall outlet. But, there was nothing in the video that suggested that an unseen janitor had unplugged it. And when I plugged it back in the bottom outlet, it did feel somewhat loose, so I plugged into the top outlet.
Then I went back to work and shortly found a very similar report from another state that was almost word for word what the manager had submitted, but it was only 'almost word for word'. But then another search engine brought up another section that was being questioned, and it even had the same typo included in the result from an academic paper some fifteen years ago.
And the academic paper had been written by the manager when they were in school! While you, technically, can not plagiarize yourself, when you are being paid to prepare a report on a topic by your employer, perhaps cutting large sections of texts from something you did years ago, without even proofreading it, isn't a good idea.
Between those two results, and some other issues with the submitted report, I had enough to go back to the agency and say that the director needed to ask the manager some serious questions.
I had intended on staying late, and it was. The others in the offices around me were leaving for the night and telling me how they had enjoyed meeting me.
Slowly the building got quiet as conversations ended, printers fell silent, and, somewhere, a radio on a classical music station was turned off. Finally the lights in the hallway went to their dim night setting, and I just sat there.
Then I turned on my digital recorders and just listened for a few minutes.
"Hello. I've been assigned here to see if anybody is here and has anything to say or do that I can help with."
I could see the readout on the directional recorder, the only thing it was registering was my own breathing.
I asked several more questions, then left the recorder running and did an EMF sweep of the building.
"WOW!" I said as I watched my detector max out not far from my office.
The readings stayed high some distance away from the hallway intersection. Where the halls met the readings spiked off the scale, and stayed high down the side halls.
I found a stepladder and checked above the drop ceiling and found an aging power junction box that was humming to beat the band just to one side of the intersection.
Then I continued my sweep and found a handful of other anomalies, but nothing that ever said "Floyd."
It was now very late, and I had to be right back here in the morning, and I didn't want to spend the night in the building. I reset everything, making sure the cameras were taking a picture every few minutes, and the recorder set for sound activation. Then I locked my office with the deadbolt in place, and went home as I thought I had at least part of the answer to what was going on.
3.
Well, I Thought I had Part of the answer. And maybe it was part of the answer, but only part.
When I unlocked and walked into my temporary office I immediately noticed a couple of things. First, the fan was unplugged, again. Then when I checked the digital recorder on the desk it was turned off as well. Not only that, the camera on the far bookshelf turned off with manual switch on top which has to be physically clicked into place.
But the other camera was still running with motion activation. The recorder with the annoying push buttons was also still on, so I could go through them. First I checked the last image on the camera that had been switched off for a time stamp as an indicator of when it was turned off, and then I did the same thing with the recorder.
The last photo had been taken just after one AM. The recorder stopped not long afterward.
In the last couple of photos from that camera you could see a shadow that wasn't there in the others. All that was on the recorder that had been shut off was a slight 'click' that was probably the camera being turned off.
The other devices had a bit more interesting content on them.
From the video on the other camera I could see the cord on the fan shaking for a few seconds before it came out of the outlet. Again, there was a shadow in the image on the far side of the office that wasn't there in the earlier images.
But on the digital recorder the only thing I could clearly make out was the sound of the camera moving on the shelf. Whoever, or whatever, had turned it off had jostled it backward and forward. I could hear it, and recreate it.
Then after all that, the sound on the recorder sounded like somebody trying to open the door, but it was never opened, and it was still double locked when I came in.
4.
Over the next three weeks I spent at least two and sometimes more, days a week in Jack's Office. Sometimes things would be turned off when I came in, and sometimes they wouldn't be.
And once, one of the desk lights turned itself off while I was there.
And then my Remote Office became somewhat more official when a Nassau County Police Officer needed it to interview a local citizen in a neutral location on another matter. I met the officer there and opened the office and then when the citizen arrived the receptionist sent them up and I went in search of Floyd. With some interesting results, especially around the massive EMF anomaly in the hallway. Which, at least for right then, wasn't there.
Some of the other officers and deputies from Suffolk County simply stopped by to see the office, usually with the excuse that if they had to go in to Nassau County it was good to have a 'base' to operate from. And, in reality, that happened more often than one would think it should.
At the end of the third week, I set up a meeting with Karen and Buddy, and Manager Susan. It had taken that long to establish a pattern and figure out what was going on.
I showed them some images of the large electrical box that was humming in the ceiling, and then a smaller but similar unit on the other side of the building, and the massive EMF fields they were both giving off in a video of my meter as I walked under where the box was.
"Long term exposure to Electromagnetic Fields like that can cause everything from physical problems to hallucinations, and something else I'll come back to later." The view changed back to the box upstairs. "The building maintenance staff said it had always been there, but they didn't know anything about it. I ended up calling in PSEG. They sent in a technician. He said, and I'm quoting 'I've never seen a relic like that that still has power to it.'"
I showed them a picture that the tech had taken with my camera, "Yes, that says it was built by the Westinghouse Company in 1921. It's over one hundred years old, and is still working."
"What does it do?"
"At the time this place was built, something in here required a lot of Direct Current. He couldn't tell me what, and I couldn't find a reliable record that went back that far. It could have been anything. An electric oven or kiln, perhaps some sort of machinery, something. And that supplied the power." I changed to the next image. "That side of things was disconnected a long time ago, if it was ever connected to begin with that is. But the incoming power side is still live, at least occasionally. Fed directly off the main out in the alley." I changed the picture again, "But here's the odd part. The main outside is only live once in awhile as well. It has something to do with the railroad switch a block or so away. And they can't explain the connection either."
Manager Susan was shaking her head. "What can we do about it?"
"Nothing." I said and she blinked, but I continued. "The tech from the power company said that thing belongs in a museum, not in your ceiling. They're making arrangements to get it, and its cousins on the other side, out of here." I smiled, "As soon as they can figure out where the feed comes from and how to disconnect it without knocking the railroad out of service they'll get started. Somebody from the power company will call you after they sort it out, then they'll send a crew in and physically remove them because the oil that's in it is a hazardous substance."
Susan seemed relieved, "OK, good."
"Now, here's how all this ties into what's going on, and why it is so hard to get any solid results, and why most of what happens seems to involve electrical appliances up here, and other things downstairs."
I showed them my data from the last two weeks. "You see, there is some activity on the days when the transformer isn't live, but it is nothing like what happens when the box has power to it. Which confirms something we've seen on other investigations," I nodded to Karen and Buddy.
"Spirits can draw energy from electrical devices," Buddy said.
Karen agreed, "your flashlight or camera will die in your hand even with brand new batteries in them."
"I had one pull power out of our cell phones and even my laptop not long ago," I said.
"But that is halfway across the building, and up in the ceiling." Susan said.
"I thought of that too, but look at the strength of the EMF field. One night when it was humming I turned the hall lights off and got elevated readings a long way away. And when it wasn't energized, it barely registered above background when I was standing right under it. So whatever is here could pull from that source when it was live, and have power to spare."
"The more energy, the more activity," Buddy said.
"And the further away," I added.
"Makes sense," he agreed.
Then came the part that Buddy and Karen were interested in.
"There is activity here the rest of the time. The being known as 'Floyd' does appear to be here, and active. He either doesn't want to, or perhaps can't, communicate directly with us. Which could well be because of the EMF field being generated by the equipment in the attic. The only way we'll know for certain is if any activity continues after PSEG removes the transformers." I showed them the video of my fan being unplugged for the second, and third, time. Then I showed them the shadow I caught in my office on numerous occasions. "But, like you, I have no EVP or other audio or photos to show you. That shadow could be anything, and the plug the fan was in is actually worn out."
"What do you think will happen once the transformer is gone?" Karen asked me.
"Personally, I think Floyd will slowly dissipate into the background of the building. It may take some time. Think about it, he's been here, with that thing humming along, for... well, my entire lifetime, and maybe longer."
Manager Susan was sitting quietly when she realized we were all looking at her.
"Well," she said, "I never expected this sort of result."
"We told you she's the best," Karen said.
"Obviously, but, to have called in the power company, and have test results, and ... And that Floyd is still here. I don't know." She looked at me and shook her head.
"Whether there is background paranormal activity or not, those antique transformers need to get out of here. If for no other reason, if it fails, it could burn down the building or leak toxic oil down into the spaces below it."
"Yes. I agree with that. But. It's a lot to take in."
"Yes it is, but I'm going to keep that office until they finish the removal of the equipment, and then see if things settle down." I paused for a second, "Unless you want me to pack my junk up and go."
"Oh, no, please, stay and keep tabs on it." I could tell that Susan was grateful not to have to make a decision right then.
It took the power company a week to identify out all the ancient connections, most of which were supposed to have been removed in the fifties, and get to where there was no active A/C electric current anywhere near the old beast of a transformer.
Then they had to figure out how to get it out in one piece without spraying hundred year old toxic oil everywhere.
"We'll fix their roof. But that's just the easiest way to get it out of there. For the others. We'll take them down through the ceiling and out the back door."
They had the three smaller units out two days later, and were putting the ceiling back in place. The big one needed a crane, and a construction crew, and then two days of roofing repair.
Finally, my last day in the Hicksville Remote Office arrived.
Manager Susan made a decision, and put up a new sign where my sign had been.
"Visiting Law Enforcement Courtesy Office." I read off it. "Well, thank you."
Buddy and Karen kept in touch with Manager Susan and about three months later Karen called me and said that since the humming monstrosity in the attic had moved out, the paranormal activity in the building had dwindled to almost nothing.
"Now it's unusual for something to happen," Lee had reported.
The word from other staff and volunteers was the same. While Floyd was still there, he was far less energetic than he had been.
Which closed the case.
-end Floyd's Hum-
[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the features of Long Island exist, the rest of the setting is fictional.
Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]
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