Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

When I dropped Kanok and Joon off in the nursery, I walked past the living room to reach my office.  It was packed with people wanting a little open door face time with me.  Nightshift and graveyard shift people.  No telling what they wanted, but that was why I was there.  Julia was working the day shift and would have them enter in an orderly fashion.

I cleaned off my desk and said a prayer.  Like Martin Luther had said about a busy day, he would have to pray more to prepare.  But I did not have someone wake me up two hours earlier to pray more.  But, I was not going to start this long line without prayer.

I heard my text chirp on the phone.  I thought it was Julia letting me know people were getting antsy, but the text said, “teenagers here. In bad shape. I am having them jump in line first. Do not look good.  Book and Booger.”

I huffed, thinking, ‘Kanok even has Julia saying Book and Booger instead of Brooke and Goober.”

I texted a “K” back to Julia which meant that I was okay to get started.  These weird texts and the shortcuts.  No wonder people are failing reading tests.

Brooke and Goober looked worse than I expected.  They looked totally disheveled.  It looked like they had no sleep.

I said, “Book, Booger, come in, sit down.”

Goober grumbled, “Book and Booger?”

I didn’t catch myself until he repeated it, “I am so sorry, Ricardo.  I will call you Ricardo to avoid the confusion, and I apologize.  You two look like you were in a tough fight last night.  Should I ask about the other people in the fight?”

Brooke sat down, as if she couldn’t stand for another second, “Goober can explain, but where is that little imp that got our names wrong?”

I said, “The little imp is my daughter.  She is two, so give her a break.  And she is in the nursery with her brother Joon.  Sparkle is there also.  We have the room to ourselves.”

Brooke began to cry, “I’m sorry I snapped at you and your daughter about our names.  That’s the least of our problems now.”

I turned to Goober, “Ricardo, Brooke said you could explain?”

Goober nodded, “You know Flintheart won the state championship again, but the team lost to Central Baptist before the tournament started.  No back-to-back unbeaten seasons.  For that one loss in two years, Margie wasn’t pitching and our hitting went flat for that one game.  But after the championship was won, they handed out the awards.  Margie was again the star pitcher, Sophia the star infielder, Carla got the offensive player of the year, Menzie got the freshman of the year, and Josie got the comeback award, spending last year having a baby.  The entire infield got awards except Brooke.  Well, I graduated last semester and went to T.R.U.S.T. for the Spring semester.  I walked at graduation last month with everyone else, but going to the university, I got to play Spring football.  I got a call from a group calling themselves Flintheart HS Boosters and former softballers.  They wanted to give Brooke an award at a private ceremony as the best overall player, combining the stats for fielding and batting, she was at least comparable to Carla and Sophia.  Brooke had her feelings hurt about two years and no trophy, so we jumped at the chance.”

I shook my head, “That was bold.  I have never heard of this organization.  With human trafficking and other such things, that might not have been a smart move.”

Brooke cried even harder.  “It was my pride, Mommie Pinkie.  I knew the girls who picked me up.  They were upper classmen during my freshman year.  But Goober and I thought we could get ourselves out of any kind of jam, just like we thought we could do it on our own instead of doing like Carla and Brenton and joining your religion here at Lily the Pink.  We were arrogant and stupid.”

Goober said, “That gets ahead of the story.  We were picked up in a van, one of those vans with tented back windows and curtains, with a bed in the back.  The driver drove around in circles for a while, but we weren’t paying attention.  We were visiting with kids that were college aged, catching up.  Like Brooke said, we thought we had good control of the situation.  We didn’t stop until we were inside a garage and the garage door was closed.  They ushered us inside the house.  There were a lot more people inside, a big crowd in a medium sized living room.  They served us punch that was spiked, not much, but you could tell it had liquor in it.  I am supposed to abstain since football practice starts soon for the Fall season.  But we thought, this was a special night, and Brooke would get her trophy.”

I groaned, “Something tells me that there was no trophy.”

Goober shook his head, and Brooke buried her face in her hands.  Goober said, “The punch was also spiked with some kind of date rape drug.  We were aware of everything going on, but our inhibitions were gone.  We don’t know how it started, but one person after another started stripping, and Brooke and I became the center of attention. …”

For the next hour, Goober talked about the strangest ceremony, almost like a pagan worship service.  They were being prepared for the finale.  I would write what they said, but it was all ritualistic and perverted.  Several people had their way with both of them as they lay at opposite ends of a U-shaped sectional, looking at each other, trying to communicate that they would not be doing this if they could physically stop it.

I texted Julia after the first few minutes.  I asked her to tell the ladies to see Joseph and if anything was an emergency, call Rev C.S.L. to come over if he could.  Otherwise, it would be this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  I knew the graveyard folks needed to go to bed soon.  This took precedent.  They were in pain.  But the others were employees, thus family.

Goober said that the climax was two elderly ladies having sex with him while a guy in black had sex with Brooke.  Then Brooke was sprayed with those spray cans of whipped cream until there was a mountain of whipped cream on her.  Then everyone except the two women on top of Goober went over for ‘dessert.’

The van driver dropped them off at their car, no bath, both of them were still strung out, but the date rape drug was starting to wear off.  Brooke had said something was inside her that had to come out.  Goober thought she had to go to the bathroom, but she said to take her to the Medical Center.  The ER said her vaginal cavity had been filled with something like bathroom caulk, not the caulk but that consistency.  It wasn’t fully setting up due to the moisture, but it had to be washed out immediately.  They called Brooke’s parents since she was a minor, but Brooke went straight into surgery.  They knocked her out because they didn’t want her moving while they worked inside her.  That left Goober to explain what happened to her parents, but when Brooke came out, she was groggy.  She told her parents that she would be home after she and Goober came to my office.

By this time, I texted Dev Yeggs.  He already knew about it.  The Medical Center called him, mentioning rape, molestation, date rape drugs, and attempted mutilation.  It was one of those things required by law, but somehow Dev was the only senior detective on duty at the time.  He and Poached would come over, along with Georges, to get statements from them.  This was organized and those two targeted.  Something evil was in Tracy.

I asked them, “Why did you want to come here?  Police are on their way to interview you.  They want these people caught.”

Brooke said, “We were cocky, Mommie Pinkie.  We thought that we didn’t need God.  We had each other.  We were in love.  Nothing could go wrong, but we got in trouble because my pride wanted that trophy.  If the football coach hears about this, he’ll probably kick Goober off the team.  And the doctors could not guarantee that I could ever have children.  They think they got everything out of me without damaging anything, but only time would tell.  We were in a situation last night that neither of us could handle.  We were both violated.  And we could only sit there and watch each other’s sorrow.  We had no one, Mommie Pinkie.  We laughed at Carla and Brenton, but if it was them, they have Jesus.  We came here, Mommie Pinkie, to accept Jesus and join your church.”

I said, “This isn’t a church.  No membership required, but I will guide you through the salvation prayer.  Then, we can talk about what church you might want to join.  It seems you were being initiated into a totally different church last night, a Satanic worship service.”  We said the salvation prayer and I hugged them both.

Just then, the doors opened and Dev, Poached, and Georges entered.  I told them that I still saw a couple of people in the living room waiting.  Julia would show Dev and the rest of them to some rooms upstairs for the individual interviews.  By Tracy and state statutes, they could be interviewed without a parent present, but the parents joined them once they arrived.  They were not being charged with anything.  They were the victims and the witnesses.  This gave their parents a chance to hear what they had to say.

I finished my open-door period in time for a late quick lunch and the afternoon sessions began, but most people that were waiting in the beginning had seen Joseph.

Then, not seeing anyone in the living room, Dev walked in with Poached.  Georges was taking Brooke and Goober down to the precinct to sign their statements.  Gisele had been e-mailed the audio files and would have the statements made quickly.  The four parents followed Georges to the precinct to take the children home.  Goober would be back the next day to get his car.  It was a miracle he got here in the state he was in.

Then Poached said, “Mom, Boaz has got yet another can of worms on his hands, and another bad cop.  At least, I do not think he could have his hands clean.  We have pictures.  The perps sent them to the parents as blackmail.  I recognized the living room.  I have been in that room myself on official business.  They were being really stupid with a photo of that unique artwork over their fireplace.  All this happened in the living room of our head of Vice.  And his wife and mother were the two that did the last molesting of Goober, Goober’s finale.  No idea who the man in black was that was all over Brooke.  Blackmail, Satanic worship, rape, illegal drugs – probably stolen from the evidence locker, part of the Rotten Apple raid back in January.”

Dev said, “Jim is having what we have in evidence from the raid tested, but he says at least one bottle of the evidence looks different.  He’s thinking it was swapped with sugar pills.  Tampered evidence might hurt that case.  It goes to trial soon.”

So many things happened over the week that followed.  All the people at the party that Brooke and Goober could recognize and remember were arrested and questioned.  Lt. Lee Casanova was suspended indefinitely and later fired when evidence put him at the scene of the crime.  His wife and mother were both arrested.  Jim confirmed only one bottle in the evidence locker was swapped for sugar pills.  The supervisor of the evidence locker was suspended, pending a thorough investigation, and the officer who swapped the bottles was fired.

The two Casanova women had an attraction to athletes, and they dabbled in the occult.  They finally gave up the name of Warren Wood, a taxidermist in Doyle County.  He was the man in black.  Once he was arrested, they confirmed his fingerprints at the scene.

As for Brooke, they got a call later that day and they went back to the hospital.  They administered a douche that was designed to dissolve the remaining fragments that they might have missed.  They also administered a carefully designed douche to calm the inflammation, soothe the vaginal mucosa, and maintain moisture.  They removed her birth control device and told her to return in two weeks, after having used the douche twice each day.  They would give her a better birth control device.  But in the meantime, no sex.  She and Goober both said they would comply with that instruction, and they had a room full of people at Lily the Pink that would help them keep that promise.  Besides, until the inflammation went down, she didn’t want anyone touching her there.

Goober took Dev’s advice, and he called the head coach of the football team.  He confessed what had happened.  The head coach was sympathetic and said Goober would serve a token half-game suspension for the first game of the season.  Since he was a freshman, everyone would be more interested in the true freshman entering the game in the second half than in why he had not started the game.  Not many freshmen start their first game in college, but the coach admitted that he would have been one of the few.

The girls, who were thrown off the team when Margie told what had happened to her, had been part of the crowd molesting Brooke and Goober.  They wanted to get even with those who had thrown them off the team.  Their thought was that everyone was doing those things, and it was what came naturally.  One of the ring leaders of the group cooked up the idea of having a Satanic ritual to sacrifice them.  They were playing along, but Warren Wood was the one who did such things along with the Casanova women.

The Casanova women laughed when they were charged.  They said that they had secured the souls of those two teenagers, and they could not ever retrieve them.  Judge Farquharson was arraigning them.  He said, “This may be improper in this court, but I must respond to your taunt.  Your two victims have given their hearts to Jesus and are at Vespers services every night at Lily the Pink.  With your Satanic rituals, you accomplished nothing.  May the court proceedings so reflect.”

But as for Brooke and Goober, or Book and Booger if you like Kanok’s way of saying it, they attend Vespers every night, they go to Stinker’s Sunday school class, and they visit my office once each week.  What was meant for harm has become a conduit to salvation.

Credits

A Vice cop handles cases involving sex trafficking, prostitution, pornography, gambling, illegal drugs, and illegal alcohol sales.  Lee Casanova was involved in a few of those things at his home.

I once applied a “quick setting” bathroom caulk around the tub that never set due to the existing moisture, actually becoming thinner, watery.

Warren Wood – almost Wormwood, as in the junior devil who received the letters from his uncle Screwtape.