Chapter 3.

“They killed them.” Dean licked his lips, his mouth feeling dry. Sara had sacrificed herself to warn her boyfriend. Yet Rick had still died.

Dean thought of his father. John gave his life in exchange for his oldest son. His mother, Mary, tried to protect Sam with her life. In the end did it really matter? It just postponed the inevitable. His brother interrupted his morose thoughts.

“No one knows about this.” Sam had rolled down his window, allowing air into the stagnancy of the car. “She’s getting revenge, or maybe he is- can’t say I blame them.”

“Kinda like what we do.” They were after the demon for what it had done to their family and others. Sara and Rick were after the state troopers who had killed them. Dean started the Impala.

“Guess so.” Sam admitted. “Maybe we should talk to Christopher, our friendly landlord?”

Dean gave a sidelong glance to his brother, before looking back to the road.

“What?”

The older Winchester sighed. “She’s clueless. The cop’s wife. This comes out and she’s destroyed.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sam’s shoulders slumped with the weight of the same knowledge.

Dean didn’t add a reply. They were committed, Rick and Sara had seen to that by exposing the tapes to the Winchester brothers.

They entered the boarding house with the key the landlord had given them. They called out to him.

“In the kitchen,” he yelled back to the brothers. The older gentleman sat before a steaming bowl of beef stew. “You boys can help yourself, Mady made it.”

Neither of them knew who Mady was, but the stew was inviting. Dean found the bowls in the cupboard. He ladled a generous portion for each of them.

Between bites Dean wove a story. “Our car broke down and we found this cabin. . .”

“Lots of cabins around here. Which one and did you steal something?” Reynolds stopped eating. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for an answer.

Sam laughed nervously. “Did a lot of your students break under the pressure of your glare?”

“Usually one a semester left the room in a panic.” Christopher replied, raising his brows, and not forgetting he had asked a question.

“This place looked like no one has lived there for awhile, and the door was open.” Dean provided the landlord with a sufficient response since he began to eat again.

“Where was it?” Christopher wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Up, out of the way on Route 3, hidden by some pine trees, but less than a mile and you can get back on the road.” Sam tried to provide an accurate description.

Reynolds rolled his eyes up to the ceiling in thought. “Wait, not that so-called haunted cabin?” He pulled away from the table, continued talking as he went into his office. “Paper did a story on the anniversary of the unsolved murders a few months ago.” He still continued to talk to them from the other room. "I remember it was big news, but I can't tell you the names or anything."

Christopher returned to the room with a newspaper. He read the front page. "Some people think it was a lover's quarrel and some say a drug deal gone bad." He handed the paper to Sam. "Either way, now kids are using it because it is private and romantic in that haunted kind of way."

“Yeah, we noticed.” Dean said, finishing off his bowl of stew, and ignoring Sam who glared at him. "What is with people tempting fate in haunted places?"

The younger Winchester kicked his brother, but Reynolds didn’t acknowledge Dean's statement.

"Can we keep this? It's kind of interesting reading." Sam asked.

Christopher waved him off, picking up his bowl, and the plates of the brothers. "Sure, like I said before I’m in the early part of my memoirs."

The brothers went upstairs, Dean reading the paper over Sam's shoulder.

"So it's like they said. They went up there two days later and found the bodies." The younger hunter stated. "Everything went according to their plan."

"'Course it did. The paper said that Rick and Sara had a falling out with their families, and then to discover they were tied up with drugs…embarrassing and why want more of an investigation?"

"It wasn’t like hard core drugs." Sam flipped back to the first page where the story started.

Dean neither agreed nor disagreed. He was ambivalent about drug use, having learned from his father drugs would not be tolerated in the Winchester household. “When did that first trooper die—Dushane?”

Sam put down the paper, and went to the other pile he had gotten from Christopher when they signed in. “Says here little over a month ago.”

Dean picked up the paper his brother had discarded. “Round the same time that cabin became a love shack. All that rockin’ must have gotten Rick and Sara all hot and bothered.”

“So they went after the men responsible. . .”

“Looks like.” Dean sat down next to his brother. They knew the poltergeists were Rick and Sara, and they were killing state troopers. The older Winchester knew the course of action as did Sam.

“We should burn that cabin down, then go warn Phillips just in case.” Sam folded up the newspaper carefully.

“Maybe.” Dean rubbed a hand across his mouth. They had a solution, but still he wasn’t satisfied.

“Maybe?” The younger Winchester looked at his brother.

The older hunter shrugged his shoulders, divulging the truth to his brother. “Why give him a chance? The burning might end it all.”

“Might,” Sam stressed the word.

“Yeah, might.” Dean knew the meaning his brother was referring to. The Winchesters got rid of the supernatural. They did not get involved in providing human justice.

But, the younger Winchester was able to see both sides of an argument. He also understood his brother. “I don’t know. A lot of times seems like a burning isn’t enough. I would like to see that he turns himself in or something.”

“We’re not the police.” Dean reminded his brother, but knowing Sam was providing an oppurtunity. “And we could be opening a can of worms –there are people that think these guys are the good guys.” Dean said it, wondering if they should tamper with the memory of these men. Wondering how he would feel if someone made disparaging contentions against his father.

“I know, Dean,” Sam said simply, echoing his brother’s feelings.

“But, hell, I’m for a little justice and seeing how the chips fall.” Dean rubbed his hands on his jeans, then stood up. “How about we check out the state police barracks?”

Sam smiled and gave a nod.

The barracks were nearby. The brothers strode through the doors, and warmly greeted the officer on duty at the desk.

“I’m Dean and this is Sam, we’re from the—“

“Boston Herald,” the younger Winchester added. He then continued with an explanation. “We’re doing a story about fallen state troopers, and heard about Steven Whitmore.”

“Quite a loss,” the man replied solemnly. His eyes flicked out the glass door to the flagpole with its flag at half mast. “He was a good man.”

Dean found the dichotomy of Steven Whitmore uncomfortable. On the one hand there was this loving family man, and on the other hand there was this man involved in a heinous crime and cover-up. “We’d like to talk to someone who knew him from the beginning. You know, when he started with the staties. . .”

“Any help would be fantastic, maybe a mentor?” Sam suggested, hoping with enough prompting they would get information on Trooper Phillips.

The officer gave it some thought, and gave them the answer they wanted. “There’s Keith Phillips. He retired awhile back, after his wife died of cancer. He lives over in Cushman.”

“Sounds perfect.” Dean smiled. “Can you give us an address?”

“Sure, Nineteen Common Street. He has a barbeque there every year.” The officer wrote down the address on a slip of paper and pushed it thought the opening in the glass window.

“Thanks, you’ve been a big help.” Sam accepted the paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.

They walked out, heading to the car. The younger hunter turned the address over to his brother. “You ever think about how much information is freely given.”

Dean fingered the note. “Yeah, if not then our job would be a pain in the ass, and we wouldn’t get to dress up.”

“Dress up?” Sam frowned.

“Sam, I know how much you like those priest outfits.” Dean grinned, opening the Impala’s door.

“Shut up.” The younger Winchester brother replied. His brother was jealous he had made a more pious looking priest.

They headed up to Rick and Sara’s cabin, this time finding the side road off of Route 3 instead of climbing the rock face. Each brother took a can of gasoline, and walked around the perimeter. Dean went inside, gave a few splashes to make sure everything would burn. By the time they were finished, dusk had descended.

They lit the house, and watched as the fire caught, consuming the small cabin. After thirty minutes a dark smoke began to spiral in the air. At some point the fire department would be called by an astute Samaritan or neighbor.

“I’m sorry we had to do that.” Sam was mesmerized by the fire. It was supposed to be a place that held promise and a chance for Rick and Sara.

Dean nodded. He clapped his brother on the back. “Me too. Let’s get out of here. We’re not done yet.”

Cushman was a few towns over. A rural community, if that was possible after Twin Mountains. In forty-five minutes, both boys were again angry. They channeled it, roughly placing the car in park in the gravel driveway in front of Phillips’s home.

They went up the cement walk, rang the doorbell and insistently knocked on the door. A cop, retired or not, would not be able to ignore a disturbance at his front door, in his domain. A porch light turned on, illuminating the brothers.

A burly man came to the door, this belly hanging over his jeans. He was cleanly shaven, a receding hairline evident with his short gray hair. He looked flustered and annoy. “Don’t know what you’re selling, but I don’t want it. Get out.” He was about to shut the door, but Sam jammed his sneaker so it remained open.

“We want to talk about Steven Whitmore,” Sam said, placing a hand against the door so there would be less pressure against his foot.

“And Boone Dushane,” Dean added the other trooper’s name.

“Yeah.” Phillips jutted out his pudgy chin. “What about them?”

“Back in 80’s you had quite a set up going on. How much protection money did you take in?” Dean placed his hand on the door too. Sam removed his foot.

The retiree shook his head, and wrinkled his face. “Boys, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“About Rick Laramet and Sara Barry.” The younger Winchester studied the man’s face, looking for a reaction. “Sound familiar?’

“No.” Keith’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his body to the right.

“Really, ‘cause it was a big case around here and you and your friends just happened to find the bodies. . .after killing them.” Dean snarled, pushing the door towards the man in order to see him jump slightly in fear.

“We know what you did,” Sam said in a low, menacing voice.

“What I did?” Phillips brought a rifle to his shoulder, which he had been hiding. “This gun says that you need to leave.”

Nonplussed Dean looked straight at the rifle barrel. “Still the shoot first kind of guy, aren’t you?”

Phillips placed his weight behind the door, breaking the boy’s grip. He fired the rifle over their heads, their ears ringing from the loud sound of the discharge. “Get out of here!” He yelled at the two young men.

They backed down two steps. Dean held a hand out to his brother, signaling him not to retreat further. “Not yet. You see your two partners are dead. Rick and Sara are getting their revenge.”

“Turn yourself in and hope they don’t get to you.” Sam warned, knowing it was futile.

“Now, you listen.” Keith spat the words. “Get off my property.” He slammed the door shut.

The boys backed away, their eyes never leaving the front door. “That went well,” Sam said as he opened the passenger side door.

“Did you really think he was going to admit that he did it?” Dean replied over the hood of the Impala.

“No, not really.” Sam’s eyes looked back at the house, catching the retired trooper still watching them.

Dean smiled, and waved to the man at the window. “Now, we get to have some fun.”