Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 14:41:10 -0600
From: Paul Tolbert <jatonblue@gmail.com>
Subject: The Unit: Dream Catcher 5

Chapter 4 – Adelle

Standing before Dave was a tall, slender, brunette female, hands fiercely
placed firmly on her hips. She was about 6 feet tall, donning an all Black
and Brown wardrobe. She spoke with a deep British accent and oozed
authoritarian appeal. Her eyes narrowed at Dave as he studied her closely.

"No time for pleasantries. Come in."

Lincoln swiftly walked in first, Dave lingering in the doorway. After a few
seconds of thought he followed. DeWitt quickly went behind her colossal
Oakwood desk and sat down in the executive style chair. Her office was
huge, heavily decorated with all sorts of trinkets, yet it looked very
sterile. To the right were large window panes allowing a good amount of
sunlight inside. To the left Dave noticed a set of double doors that he
concluded led to the rest of the Kelencine building.

Adelle shuffled some papers together before offering the gentlemen a seat
on the leather couch in front of them. She directed her attention to Dave.

"I don't think we had the pleasure. I'm Adelle DeWitt, Director of The Unit
and Administrator of the Dollhouse. From this point forward you will be
having direct contact with me regarding your case assignments. Now that
that is out of the way, let's get to your first task."

She promptly stood up and grabbed what looked like a remote control from
her desk and turned around facing the wall behind her. She pressed a button
on the remote and a portion of the wall ascended upward, revealing a large
panel of monitors. On the screens displayed a picture of a man with jet
black hair.

"This is Justin Gabriel. He was 29 years old when he murdered a custodian
at a local engineering firm 2 years ago. The killing occurred in the late
hours of the night when everyone else was gone. The murder weapon was a
fire axe conveniently located on the wall near the crime scene. Camera
footage shows Gabriel heading out of the building when he encountered the
janitor making his rounds. He struck him repeatedly with the axe with no
remorse."

She pressed the remote several times, changing the screens to display the
crime scene photos. Dave studied them intently. They were hard to look
at. There was blood everywhere.

"Shortly after the attack Gabriel himself died of a massive heart
attack. The crime was handled by the local authorities and declared
Gabriel's death a natural, yet ironic one."

"And I assume the case gets a bit more weirder...?" Lincoln chimed in.

"Precisely Mr. Burrios. Last night a similar crime matching the details of
this case has surfaced."

Dave shifted in his seat as he continued to listen to DeWitt's briefing.

"Wait. What do you mean exactly?" Dave inquired uneasily.

"What I mean Agent Batista is that we have another strange murder on our
hands."

She clicked her remote and displayed a photo of a dead girl.

"This is Margie Hunningbern. 34 years old, born in Russia but raised
locally in L.A. She worked as an Assistant Chef at a local Italian
restaurant. She died of a heart attack, shortly after murdering a
co-worker. 2 crimes where the killer shortly dies after murdering their
victim is a bit strange to say the least."

DeWitt continued to cycle through various photos throughout her briefing.

"As you can see this is a crime of abnormal circumstances, thus we've been
assigned the case. Agent Batista and Mr. Burrios, you are to gather
information about the 2 cases and find a link before a 3rd crime
occurs. Before you leave—"

The door to the right opened sharply and in stepped a masculine man, tall
in stature wearing a standard issued black suit. He appeared young in age,
maybe mid to late 20's with short black hair. He had piercing viper-like
eyes and showed little emotion on his well chiseled face. As he walked
towards the 3 Dave noticed Lincoln was in good spirits about seeing the
stranger. Dave studied the stranger with purpose. He could tell by the way
he carried himself he was a fellow agent.

"Agent Batista this is Agent Randall Orton, one of our junior field
agents. He will be the consulting agent on the case. Any inquiries you have
will be made through him. Now If there aren't any questions he will escort
you out to the crime scene."

Orton nodded and turned to the 2 men.

"Follow me please." Agent Orton said unemotionally. Lincoln got up and
followed the firm agent to the single door that led back to the
elevator. Dave got up and followed. He was still trying to rapidly process
everything that was going on. He didn't understand why this was an issue
for him. This in theory should be just another day at the FBI, but this was
far from it. He felt everything was happening so fast. Things clearly
worked differently around here and Dave was going to have a difficult time
getting used to it.

As the 3 men entered the elevator, Orton pressed a button on the panel and
they descended downward.

"The crime scene is pretty gruesome so try to hold your breakfast." Orton
said.

"We'll be fine Randy." Lincoln replied contentedly.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They rode the elevator back to the 5th floor underground. Lincoln excused
himself as he headed to Topher's lab to get a 'Treatment', a code word used
for a slightly evasive procedure that the actives used to temporarily boost
their psionic abilities. Dave recalled his first encounter with Topher
after witnessing Lincoln receiving one of these treatments. He thought the
nerdy man was torturing Lincoln and quickly stepped into action,
threatening a flabbergasted Topher to stop the treatment and let Lincoln
go. Dave believes that incident is why Topher has issues with him. The
physical encounter wasn't a pleasant one. Topher has since been constantly
reminding Dave of that day and making snide comments about it, something
that annoyed him very much.

As Lincoln went to get his treatment, Dave and Randy waited in silence near
the elevator. Dave leaned over the railing watching the hub of the
dollhouse flood with activity. His thought process was broken up by a
laughing Randy.

"How's your head?" He asked with cockiness in his voice.

"Excuse me?" Dave asked insulted.

"Nevermind." Randy replied smirking and turning his attention to something
else. Dave narrowed his eyes and began thinking about what Randy
meant. After a long period of quietness Dave spoke.

"What the hell do you mean 'How's my head?'. What the fuck are you talking
about?"

"Just making sure Maryse wasn't too rough on you during our first
encounter..." Randy chuckled as Dave became increasingly irate and
wide-eyed. He remembered the incident when Maryse, some blonde
French-Canadian tasered him twice during his "Orientation." Dave now
suspected that Randy must have been involved. She couldn't have carried
Dave herself into that interrogation room and then again back into his
apartment. His previous comments now made sense and further pissed Dave
off. He clearly didn't like this guy.

As Dave was about to rip into Randy Lincoln returned.

"OK let's go." He said in a perky voice. Both men got into the elevator,
Dave following closely, still disturbed.

After riding the elevator, they reached the parking garage and got inside
one of the company's standard government black SUVs and headed to the crime
scene. On the ride there Dave studied Lincoln and Randy's
interactions. They seemed to be sociable.

"So how's John Linc?" Randy inquired.

"He's fine. Everything is great. We had a dinner date last night. It was
delicious." Lincoln replied.

"I'm sure. He was a nervous wreck last week you know."

"Why?" Lincoln asked worried.

"He wanted your date to be absolutely perfect. He kept asking me what he
should cook for you. It was adorable." Randy smirked.

Lincoln chucked and smiled brightly.

Both men sat in the front, Randy driving while Dave sat quiet in the
back. Dave was a pretty good judge of character. Although Randy was pretty
friendly to Lincoln, he came off as an arrogant jerk and he didn't know
what to think of Adelle. She certainly was a mystery.

After a few minutes of driving and a light conversation they reached their
destination.

"Here it is. The Olive Vine."

Randy parked the SUV near some police squad cars on the curb and got
out. Lincoln and Dave surveyed the outside of the restaurant before
following the higher-ranking agent. Randy showed his 'FBI' credentials to
the cops on the scene and was permitted inside. A few crime scene techs
wearing run of the mill FBI jackets were surveying the scene with cameras
and other forensic equipment.

"Has a medical examiner already examine the bodies?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah. Don't worry, you'll get a chance to examine the body yourself
later. Right now I just want you to you know, 'do your thing.'" Dave didn't
quite know what Randy was talking about but Lincoln seemed to
understand. He asked Randy where the killing occurred and he led them back
into the kitchen area.

"Witnesses say that Margie was quietly working at her station when she
complained of being tired, something she did often. Apparently she suffered
from insomnia. After that she saw her co-worker arrive to work and that's
when she snapped."

Randy walked over to a knife block sitting on one of the counters.

"She took a large butcher knife from here and slit the victim's throat."
Randy led them to a body covered by a white sheet near one of the
stoves. There was a large blood stain soaked in the sheet. Lincoln knelt
down near the body and slowly removed the sheet covering the body,
revealing the corpse of a 40-something heavyset blond Caucasian male.

"His name was Bob Whitfield, the Head Chef of the restaurant."

Lincoln nodded and studied the body intently. Dave scanned the crime
scene. He saw a few agents chatting with employees and some crime scene
techs gathering evidence. He placed his hands on his hips and sighed.

"Where's Margie?" Dave asked, unsure of himself and his position.

"Outside." Randy replied.

He took Dave and Lincoln out back into the alley where another body with a
white sheet covering it laid on the cold concrete.

"Like DeWitt must have told you, she died of a massive heart attack just
moments later after murdering Whitfield."

"How did she end up out here?" Dave inquired.

"She ran outside after killing Whitfield and going on a rant."

"What Did she say during the attack? What did her co-workers say about the
crime as they witnessed it?" Lincoln asked, removing the sheet from the
body. Dave noticed that Lincoln was hovering his hands over the body
slowly, something that he did just earlier to the murder victim.

'What the hell is he doing?' Dave asked himself.

"The witnesses say that she was screaming as soon as Whitfield entered the
kitchen. They say she was calling him a monster and that he needed to die."

Randy walked over to the other side of the body and knelt down near Lincoln
before continuing.

"Here's another strange thing. After Whitfield was dead she acted as if she
did something noble. When her co-workers looked at her in fear and asked
why she did it, she said she was saving them from the monster. She went on
to describe Whitfield as some green demon with spikes and a devilish
wail. One of them said that Margie claimed to have seen demons walking
around in plain sight weeks before. She must have thought she was killing
one of them.

"Clearly she wasn't." Lincoln replied unattached. He stopped hovering over
the body and stood up.

"I got nothing." Lincoln said.

"That's alright. Maybe you'll get a vision during the autopsy."

Dave now understood what Lincoln was doing with his hands. Apparently he
was trying to get a psychic vision from the bodies.

"So what now?" Dave asked.

"Um is this your first time or what?" Randy replied coldly and frigidly. He
looked at Dave as if he was a moron.

"NO it's not. I'm just trying to follow YOUR procedure. You are the
consulting agent aren't you?" Dave answered just as coldly, if not more
so. Dave and Randy got into an intense staring contest, to which Lincoln
interrupted them without delay.

"How about we take the bodies back to the Dollhouse lab and let me perform
an autopsy on Margie to see if she did indeed die of a heart attack like
Gabriel. Then we can go over the details of the 1st case."

"Sounds like a plan." Dave grumbled.

"Alright then." Randy added, still keeping his eye on an apprehensive Dave.

Randy led the way back into the restaurant.

"OK everyone wrap it up! You know the drill." Randy shouted to the agents
and investigators as he walked back outside to the vehicle. They got into
the SUV and drove back to the Dollhouse.

...