©1 February 2025 Levite
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1.
The Sheriff was standing in front of most of our department in the auditorium at the county complex. "It wasn't my idea. I didn't agree to it then, and I don't now. I think the existing item serves it purpose, it works well, and if there were any choice I wouldn't change it. But...."
"....we're all getting new duty hats."
I seldom wore any hat. It was the one advantage I had as a woman, when, even in dress uniform I didn't wear the official cover. Unless it was a function like our being part of an honor guard at funeral, which I have done recently. In plainclothes, the closest I got was a dark hairband.
So I had very little opinion about the decision from the County to change the hats for both the County Police and the Sheriff's Department.
For our uniform division, especially Corrections who wore the thing every day, it was a major change.
And I have to say it. The new dark blue beret looked somewhat silly. I did notice in the new official announcement that the honor guard cover would remain as it was.
The official line was that it was less intimidating to the general public than the old style hard bill police hat, or the wide brimmed high peak campaign hat.
It was less than three hours after the meeting that several petitions were going around the department to have the new hat be an optional cover that could be worn if the individual officer wanted to wear it.
Then we found out that the County Police simply said "no" to the beret and that was that. It took a full day for the Sheriff's Department to come out and say that they accepted the idea behind the new hat, but it would be a uniform option.
The next day I looked in the Sheriff's office, and there was no beret on his hat rack.
He caught me looking, "The last time I wore a beret was in the Boy Scouts." He said with no humor in his voice.
I spent a day reviewing the applications and resumes and CVs for several positions with another agency. Their admin suspected that the submissions had been done with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence.
At first brush it did look that way, but then I remembered something I'd seen in the college newspaper I get from Suffolk County College. So I went looking at the material for their job hunt seminar.
Then I drove over to the Eastern Campus and found the instructor that had hosted the employment fair.
Doctor Magyar was an interesting character to be sure.
I found the gentleman in his office between classes. But somehow the message he got was somewhat garbled and when I walked in he had packet of printouts and brochures for me and he began what was obviously a well used speech about entering, or re-entering the job market.
He was well into his sermon about how I shouldn't set my sights so low as to accept a position I didn't want......
I reached into my pocket and got my badge and ID wallet out and held it for him to see, "I'm sorry, sir, I've already got a job. And that's why I'm here."
He stopped in mid-sentence and stared at it. "Oh. I'm sorry, Officer Elaine, I thought you were here for...." He gestured with the employment packet.
"Of course, and if my police career doesn't work out I may be back to see you," I smiled my best smile at him. "But I do have some questions."
"Yes, ma'am. Whatever I can do to help."
Doctor Magyar was quite helpful. He recognized several of the phrases from the submitted CVs ...
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I've seen this phrase for years, but I don't know when people stopped using the term resume and when it became CV."
"It's been around for awhile, and in Europe the term 'curriculum vitae' was fairly common in certain circles since the fifties at least. The document would include more information than a simple transcript, but less than a full biographical brief of the individual. Sometimes it would include a cover letter as part of the CV, and sometimes it wouldn't. And here, while people would tailor their resume for a particular job, the CV could be more generic for an entire industry. And yes, sometimes it would be somewhat rewritten to highlight something a particular employer was looking for. Since about the early twenty teens, it has become more common over here to call them CVs. And now the idea of calling it a resume is almost an insult."
"Fascinating. Thank you." I took us back to the resumes in front of us. "So while these may be accurate, they should have rewritten some of the phrases."
He nodded. "And in the seminar I tell them to not cut and paste our, what I still call 'boilerplate' into their documents. And to not do it for exactly this reason."
"Evidently they didn't listen to you."
"But there is one good thing that came out of it." He looked at me and nodded, "I got to meet you."
"Thank you, for the compliment."
The county department sent a boilerplate message back to the applicants that didn't pay attention to the good doctor in the job seminar.
And then I went to see a counselor with Family Services.
2.
The Counselor, Ms Carol, was at her wits end. She hadn't been able to sleep, she was having problems staying focused on her clients, and she was looking for someplace new to move to.
"Then my friend showed me the video of what you do, and I thought if anybody could help me, you can." Ms Carol said.
"Is your problem here at the office?" I looked at the recently remodeled office decor.
She shook her head, "no, it's at home. I moved into a rental a couple of months ago, and now I want to move again." She sighed, "Now I know why it was so cheap. The place is as haunted as anything you've ever seen."
"I don't know if I can help you, if it's privately owned."
"It's not, it's owned by the Historic Trust, of Suffolk County." She handed me a page she'd printed out about the house.
"I've heard of them, let me do some checking into the place. If I can, I'll come out and see what's going on."
"If you need me to stay at a friend's place for a couple of nights I can do that," Ms Carol chuckled, "I'm already staying there a couple of nights a week just to get some sleep."
"That may be for the best."
I stopped by the main office of the Historic Trust and asked them about the house on Ridgeway Avenue in the Setauket area along the north shore.
The manager of Trust owned rental properties was familiar with the property, but denied there was anything going on other than it was a small, quiet, lonely house with small, quiet, lonely rooms, way off a... road.
"Ms Carol seemed to be fairly level headed and is genuinely considering moving out."
The manager looked at her computer screen for a moment, "she still has seventeen months on her lease. She signed for two years."
"Even if she has to move out."
"There is a fee for breaking the lease."
I gave up, "Does the Trust have any objection to an official Sheriff's Department investigation of the site, just in case somebody from outside is playing a prank on a county employee on County Owned property?"
Her face was unreadable, "Phrased like that, yes, you may investigate. You understand the historic nature of the property and are not to do anything that would damage the structure." She looked at me and I nodded. "Also, I would appreciate a briefing once your investigation is complete. And I would like to know as soon as possible if the tenant intends to stay in the house."
"I'll talk to Ms Carol, and then I'll talk to you."
"Thank you, Detective."
There are just some people that I talk to that I would rather never speak to again.
I called Ms Carol and set up a meeting with her at the property that afternoon.
I stopped at my apartment and packed my overnight bag, then I drove out to Setauket. I parked next to the small old house and was just looking around when Ms Carol pulled in with her friend Lisa in the car with her.
As it turned out Miss Lisa was related to Ms Carol, they said they were second cousins, a couple of times removed, or something like that. But they had become friends before they knew they were related.
"Oh, yeah, I stayed over here a couple of times. It was nuts. I was in the kitchen and heard a man talking in the living room. I looked over and there was nobody there, the TV was off, there was nobody outside. But I could hear him as clear as I can hear you."
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He was complaining about the Bridgeport ferry being late."
"What did he sound like?"
"You believe me?"
"I have no reason not to. Did he speak with an accent? Did he sound older?"
I could see Cousin Lisa thinking about it, "He did have a bit of an accent, not a lot, and he didn't sound young. I don't know, middle aged or so. His voice was a little soft."
"Anything else?"
"Stuff moved, not a lot, just enough to make you wonder what was going on. I slept on the sofa, and my phone and the cup I was using got moved to the other side of the table while I was laying there. I heard somebody put my phone back down on the table. I know the sound it makes."
"Want to go in and look around?" Ms Carol asked me.
"Sure." I said.
"I'll stay out here by the cars." Lisa said, "I've seen the place."
The house was small. Even by the standards of the cottages scattered from here all the way to Flatbush. This one had originally been built sometime in the seventeen eighties or nineties, but then after a fire in the nineteen teens it had been partially rebuilt on the same foundation with, as far as anybody knew in the same layout and style. A style which included door frames that were barely six feet tall and ceilings that weren't much taller. Apparently the original owners were short.
The old house had served as everything from a temporary parsonage for a local congregation, to housing for migrant labor in an orchard down the road, to a storage building. At one point it had sat abandoned until it ended up being owned by the county as a site of potential historic interest.
I'm still not sure what potential historic interest the small old house had, but, here it was. And Ms Carol was standing in her own living room looking very nervous.
"Are you worried that I won't find anything, or that I will?" I asked her.
She just stood there, "Honestly? I don't know which would be worse."
There wasn't much of a tour of the four room house. In fact, I'm certain my apartment was bigger, and better laid out. You walked in to the living room. To your immediate left was a small kitchen, across the room and slightly to the left was the door to the bedroom, and just off it was the bathroom, and the only closet in the place.
"I know, you've seen bigger motel rooms." She gestured around, "but the price is good for out here on the Island, and I thought it was cute."
"It's cute," I reached up and touched the ceiling, something I usually cannot do. "Until my younger brother came to visit. He's six five."
"He'd have to duck."
Miss Carol went into the bedroom and packed a carry on bag, she even remembered her toothbrush, then she gave me her spare key and left.
"Good luck. I hope you, I don't know, I want to know what's going on, but, I don't know."
"I know exactly what you mean."
3.
And now. The small old house was all mine for two days, and three nights.
I had come prepared. Including a pre-placed order for a pizza to be delivered from a local shop I was familiar with.
No. I do not know every pizza shop on the Island. But I do know my fair share of them. And, good ones, I keep track of. This was a good one.
The house was amazingly quiet. As it sat on a short cul de sac off a side road there was no traffic noise like you hear almost everywhere else on the Island. And as the house was small, and I mean Small, you felt like the place was closing in on you. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it had begun its career as a playhouse built for the children of some post colonial shipping magnate.
I set up my equipment, and because the place was so small, there was something in every room. Because they said that stuff moves I took a picture of everything, which meant four pictures in this tiny place. I turned on the recorders and let them run, making sure to put it right back where it had been when I took the picture.
Then I did a baseline sweep of the whole house. There were some unusual electromagnetic readings, but given that the walls with their outlets and switches were right there, and then if you turned the other way, there was a table lamp there, and the TV there, it wasn't unexpected.
I measured the living room, it was just over nine feet wide, wall to wall, and eleven feet long to where the kitchen cabinet started. "Bigger motel rooms? I've seen bigger living rooms in an RV."
My pizza arrived right on schedule and I put it on the tiny kitchen table. Then I looked around at the house and the darkening woods outside. "It's just us for the night." I said to the house, "Want some pizza?"
There was no answer.
I had a new toy, and this was its first outing. It was supposed to sit quietly until it detected motion of several different sorts. Changes in air pressure, electromagnetic, vibrations, and even through a low power sonar type of proximity sensor. Different tones or lights would indicate what was moving, and how fast. It was sitting on the floor between the bedroom and the living room.
It beeped and flashed blue.
I had to think about it. The blue light meant something had set off its sonar. Then a yellow light told me it had detected a change in air pressure. And in a moment the white light flashed a couple of times, EMF disturbance.
Then it went silent. I took a full spectrum photo of the doorway, then I aimed the thermal at the door and let it run as a real time monitor. As the house was so small I was able to set up a second laptop linked to the thermal and let it take a thermal image every few seconds. I also had my recorders set up in every room of the house, and from where I was sitting I could see all of the living room and about half of the bedroom. The only room I couldn't see was the bathroom.
I had eaten less than half the pizza, but I had had enough. Yes, it is possible for me to have enough pizza. So I put the rest in Miss Carol's apartment size refrigerator, and set about just letting the night close in around me and the house. To pass the time I was looking at other properties listed on the historic registry in the county.
I sat up with a start. "Hello?"
There was no answer. I reached over to the kitchen counter and grabbed my digital recorder and copied everything on it onto my laptop. Then I opened the audio program and played the last two minutes. I could see on the trace that something had made noise before I spoke.
There was silence. You could hear my clicking the mouse and it moving slightly. Then.
".... ... who eh ... you..."
I played it three times. It was a male voice, probably the same male voice Lisa described.
"I'm Elaine." I said, "I'm just staying here for a few days while Carol is away. She was here earlier and gave me the house key. I hope it's OK with you."
I heard a light tap from the other side of the living room, but I didn't see anything.
"I'll just sit here and listen, and if you want to say anything to me, or to Ms Carol, or to the Trust that owns this house, just stand next to that little black and silver box and say it. It'll record it and I can listen to it later."
Once again the house was silent.
So I sat still and waited, in a few minutes I touched my laptop and checked a news site that I liked, and then one that I didn't like. After reviewing the weather forecast and a sales ad, I went and got the recorder and copied the file into the audio program.
The trace on the recording was absolutely flat for most of that time. The noises that were there were me, and my laptop, and my drinking glass.
So I went into the bedroom to retrieve the recorder that I'd put on the corner of the bed.
It had been moved.
I went and checked the image in my regular camera. The recorder had been at least a foot closer to the corner of the bed than it was now. When I went back into the bedroom and turned on the light you could still see the imprint of where it had been in the comforter on the bed. I took several photos of where it was now, and included where it had been in the shot.
Then I listened to the recordering and could hear me talking in the kitchen.
And then, there was a shuffling noise and " ... ... thi s is od d..."
The voice was soft, and male. With the same sort of cadence I had heard on the first recording.
I held up the recorder and nodded to the room, "These are the recorders, that's how I can hear you. If you want to pick it up and talk into it that's fine too. Just don't drop it on the floor. OK?"
Then I put it back on the bed and let it run.
It was clear that there was activity in the old place. But it didn't seem to be aggressive or malevolent, just curious.
Which was demonstrated when I gave up listening about one in the morning and went to take a quick shower and then try to get some sleep on the couch.
I got out of the shower and saw movement in the bedroom.
The bathroom was really too small to maneuver in, so you had to leave the bathroom door open so you could dry off without hitting the door, the wall, or the shower with your elbow.
I turned off the bathroom light and stepped into the bedroom half holding the towel around me and looking for what had moved. It had seemed to be a person sized shadow. Then I stood still in between the bedroom and the living room. "Hello. I hope you don't mind if I took a shower. It'd been a long day." Then I stood there. Finally, without moving from the doorway, I finished drying off.
And saw that same shadow in the light from my laptop in the kitchen.
It was in the kitchen by the refrigerator. The laptop screen made a slight gleam on the chrome handle of the unit. I watched something move from one side to the other through that gleam. "I'm going to put my night gown on. OK?" I said to it.
And then I asked the questions that gave us the answers we needed.
4.
"..... em met sl oan ..."
"Just say it into that recorder that you moved."
"... dea con emm et ...."
Ms Carol shook her head and looked around her office. "You were just standing there in a wet towel and asked his name?"
"Yes, I said that since he had watched me take a shower he could at least tell me his name. He did." I forwarded the trace of the recording from the one on the kitchen counter to the next set of noises. "Then while I was putting on my nightgown I asked why he was here. Remember, I didn't see this until later."
"... .... (a sigh) ... ... the pars on age matt ers..."
I had sat at the table in my nightgown and listened to the recorders again just before I went to sleep, and heard that.
After I heard his name and why he was there I went and got my badge wallet out of my coat and held it out toward the kitchen and then the bedroom for him to see.
"Yes, Deacon Emmett Sloan. The parsonage does matter. That's why I'm here from the Sheriff's Office. The Trust that owns the house now wants to make sure that nobody is harming the place or the lady that lives here. They're taking care of it. That's why Ms Carol lives here now, so it doesn't sit empty and just rot away. This house matters."
After my speech I reset the recorders and laid down on the couch and tried to get a few hours sleep.
In the morning I got dressed and packed everything up and sat, somewhat bleary eyed, in a small cafe and had breakfast and reviewed the rest of the recordings and the photos I'd taken.
Then I called Ms Carol and said that even after only one night in the place, I had an answer for her.
She looked at the photos of the moved recorder and the somewhat questionable video I had of what might be the shadow moving in the living room.
"Deacon Emmett," she said.
I nodded, "I tried to find a record of an Emmett, or maybe Ammett, Sloan, but I'm not sure I found him. I even checked the records I could get this morning from Bridgeport, just in case he was from over there and that's why he was upset with the ferry." I brought up the database, "There's a lot of Sloans, and I found quite a few Emmetts, but no Emmett Sloans around here. But that may or may not mean anything. Maybe Emmett's his middle name, a nickname, whatever. It's going to take some more digging. I thought about pulling some church records. But the one that used that as a parsonage closed and merged with another congregation a hundred years ago. Those records may not exist any more."
She sat back and shrugged, "and even if you find out who he was, then what? He's been there a long time, and I don't think we can get him to move out."
"But he seems harmless. He's just taking care of the property. And now you know what's there, and how to talk to him. He's just a house guest that won't leave dirty dishes in the sink." I laughed, "or half a pizza in your refrigerator."
"That's true."
The lady manager at the Trust office didn't want to hear the recordings, or see the video. And she all but accused me of faking the evidence. Finally she looked me in the eye and asked if I had really found a ghost.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well. We do have a special status for those kinds of locations. I'll change the designation on the property."
"That might be for the best. And as a county agency, if you ever need any other property looked into, call me."
Once again, her face was unreadable, but she did say, "leave your card with the receptionist."
And I guess that closed the case.
- end parsonage -
The Elaine Investigates index page.
[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the geographical features of Suffolk County exist, such as the Bridgeport Ferry, the rest of the setting is fictional.
Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]
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