She Talks to Angels | {BOOK 2}

24|Dirk the Jerk

Ellie's POV

I had fallen into a routine with Brigham once more; running in the mornings, making breakfast for the two of us before he headed off to work and then keeping myself busy around the house all day until he came home and we ate dinner together. I forced myself not to think of Sam or Dean and I especially didn't look for any cases to work. I wanted to completely disconnect from that part of my life while I was back in Rockford, Illinois.

Then I heard about an incident at the local high school, Truman High and knew I had to check it out. So, under the guise of the school librarian, I went to investigate. It shouldn't have surprised me when Sam and Dean also showed up to investigate the potential case. Dean was posing as the substitute gym coach and Sam was a janitor. I had to admit, Dean looked really good in the tight red gym shorts, but then I remembered what he did with Anna, and I had to remove myself from the conversation before things got worse.

After the short interaction in the gym, there was another incident involving a Cuisinart. One boy shoved another boy's fist into it. They called for a 'nonviolence assembly' which left all the halls deserted. I was heading in the direction of the classroom the incident occurred in, when I heard Sam's and Dean's voices around the corner.

"How's the nonviolence assembly going?" Sam's voice asked.

"Apparently, shoving a kid's arm into a Cuisinart is not a 'healthy display of anger,' Dean replied. "So, the kid had ectoplasm leaking out of his ear?"

"Which only comes from a seriously pissed off sprit. It's got to be ghost possession."

"Yeah, but that's pretty rare."

"Yeah, but it happens. I mean, they get angry enough, they can take control of a person's body."

"Alright, so, what, we got a ghost in the building?"

"Yeah, but where? I mean, there's no EMF. Maybe we could find out who it is, at least. You know, check and see if somebody died bloody around here or something."

"Way ahead of you. I had to break into the principal's office to get this. Oh, and FYI, three of the cheerleaders are legal. Guess which ones."

I'd heard enough, turning on my heel before they could find me lurking. I made my way back to the school library, signing into the computer. The boys might have broken in and stolen the files from the principal, but I had my own way of finding the information. After doing a thorough search, I'd found records of the deaths of two different former students of Truman High. One was a suicide in '98, a kid named Barry Cook who took his life by slitting his wrists in the first floor girl's bathroom. The other was a kid named Dirk McGregor Jr. He OD'd shortly after his 18th birthday.

Figuring the boys would go after Barry's bones first, I decided to look into Dirk. I logged into the system and found that Dirk's father, Dirk Sr., worked as a bus driver for the school and it listed his address in the system. I wrote it down, and a few hours later, after school got out, I headed to 39 North Central Avenue.

⁘

"I'm sorry about your son, Mr. McGregor," I apologized as he handed me a cup of tea.

"Thank you," Mr. McGregor replied, taking a seat in a chair across from me. "It was just so terrible, you know? First the drinking, then drugs, then too many drugs. And then he just slipped through my fingers. It was my fault. I should have seen it coming, you know? Dirk, he, uh- he had his troubles."

"What kind of troubles?" I asked gently.

Mr. McGregor took a sip from his own cup before answering.

"School was never easy for Dirk. We didn't have much money, and, well, you know kids- they can be cruel. They picked on him."

"Dirk was bullied?"

"They called him poor and dirty and stupid," Mr. McGregor explained. "They even had a nickname for him- Dirk the Jerk. And after what happened to his mother, he..."

He trailed off, getting choked up, and I gave him a sympathetic smile.

"His mother?" I prompted him gently again.

"Yeah, Jane, my wife. She died when Dirk was 13. Cancer. I was working three jobs, so it fell to Dirk to take care of her. And he was a great kid. He made sure Jane got her medicine. He helped her, cleaned up after her. But, you know, you- you watch somebody die slow, waste away to nothing... it does things to a person. Horrible things."

"I see."

"He- he wouldn't talk about her, not even to me," Mr. McGregor continued. "Lot of anger in that boy."

"I'm very sorry again for your loss. Both your losses," I told him. "If you don't mind my asking, where was Dirk buried?"

"He wasn't," Mr. McGregor shook his head. "I had him cremated."

"All of him?"

"Well, I kept a lock of his hair."

"That's nice," I smiled. "Where do you keep that?"

"On my bus, in my Bible."

⁘

After thanking Mr. McGregor for his time, I left for home, planning to check the bus at school the next day. When I got inside, the house was filled with the smell of Italian herbs and I found Brigham in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce, a pot of noodles next to the sauce pan boiling.

"Welcome home, Ellie Bellie," he greeted me.

"Thanks, darling," I responded, walking over and kissing him.

"How was work? Any new leads on that case?" he inquired.

"Turns out, it's a ghost. A majorly pissed-off one. It possessed another kid and hurt someone again today."

"Are they alright?"

"They will be, I think," I nodded. "I think I also know who the ghost is. Dirk McGregor Jr. His dad is a bus driver for the school. He had him cremated, but there's a lock of his hair inside a Bible on the bus. I'm going to try and find it tomorrow, hopefully put an end to it."

"That's good," Brigham smiled. "Want to set the table?"

"Of course."

We continued chatting idly throughout the meal before migrating to the bedroom to get ready for bed. I hadn't mentioned the appearance of Sam and Dean at all, figuring once I took care of the ghost, they would skip town without me and I could go back to living my life here with Brigham.