His friends were agreeing as well, nodding and holding their fists in the air. “Let’s get ’em!” Austin Reece said, inciting the others, who reacted by shouting:
“Yeah!”
“Let’s kill ’em!”
“Find those bastards!”
Jeffe was shaking his head, and some of the others were doing the same. “Let Mr. Sphinx explain what he wants to do,” he nearly shouted.
“Goddammed sissies!” Ivor cried.
Fred joined in, “Yer all a bunch of blowhard pussies.”
“Hey! Watch your language!” Rod Larimer reprimanded. Owner of the Bull and Bear Inn, he was in khakis and a dress shirt, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. “We’ve got women here. Let’s keep this civil.”
“Civil, my ass!” another guy yelled. He was hidden by the others, but when Ivor moved, Pescoli caught sight of Otis Kruger’s red face. Ah, there he was. An instigator if there ever was one. He looked ready to charge out, guns blazing.
But Sphinx was cool, lifting his hands, then patting them downward, indicating that everyone should quiet, which they did, some grumbling, a few chanting a few final “Big Foots!” before trailing away as he spoke again.
“By now you’ve all heard about this most recent sighting that I mentioned,” he said to a murmur of agreement. “Bianca Pescoli, a local teenager, was chased by what she thinks was a Sasquatch, late Saturday night. The beast charged at her and forced her to run down a steep hillside, where she was injured and, believe it or not, nearly stumbled over the body of another girl, a classmate.”
Sphinx was solemn now. Sober as a judge. And appeared troubled.
“The girl, Destiny Rose Montclaire, was mercilessly killed, the victim of homicide. An innocent young life cut short. Someone or something strangled her and was strong enough to break her neck.”
Pescoli thought she should stop this and took a step forward, but she caught Alvarez’s eye and the quick little shake of her head. The meeting-goers were quiet, listening, all eyes on the speaker. It was so quiet that Pescoli heard her own breathing above the humming AC.
“Was her murderer a rogue Big Foot?” he threw out to the group.
More whispering and one loud, “Hell, yeah!”
Sphinx shook his head. “We can’t go there . . . at least not yet. And I’m not so certain. There’s a chance Big Foot just might be a gentle creature.” He paused for effect, then said, “But who knows? Maybe we can find out. And yes, we’ll use the most sophisticated technology: tracking systems, night vision, drones, whatever it takes. We’ll find ’em.”
More murmurs of agreement. He had them. Everyone in the room was rapt, and Barclay Sphinx knew it.
Gripping the sides of the podium, he swept his gaze over the crowd. “But we owe it to Destiny to help the police catch her killer.”
Whispered agreement swept through the audience.
“Along with the new series Big Foot Territory: Montana! I’m putting up a website connected to the show, but also to the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department, for people to access easily and offer up anything they might know about the tragedy. I’ve already talked to Detective Regan Pescoli, lead investigator on the case, and I’ll work with her to make sure the website is up to date, the best technology available.”
“Wait a second,” Pescoli said, but her voice was drowned by the roar of approval from the crowd. She hadn’t agreed to any of this.
Sphinx bent into the microphone. “It just so happens that Detective Pescoli is Bianca’s mother, so it’s one tight little family. Let’s get started, shall we??
??
And he did, sitting in a chair and facing Bianca as if they were alone, as if there weren’t three hundred people plus hanging on their every word. He began by asking Bianca question after question, leading her through her story so that she told exactly what she saw and experienced. He was good, Pescoli gave him that, even though her stomach was in knots as Bianca described the “monster with an eye that seemed to glow,” its incredible height, and how it smelled. With soft-spoken questions, he asked how she’d found the dead girl, and Bianca, white-faced, her splint visible, relived her terror and the sheer horror of finding the dead body, a classmate, as it turned out, in the water.
At that point, Sphinx turned to the crowd and said, “We’re not going to go into this any further. There’s an ongoing homicide investigation and a family that is devastated and grief-stricken, so we’ll confine the rest of this meeting to Big Foot.” To Bianca, he said, “I believe that’s what you saw up on the mountain, at Reservoir Point, a Sasquatch. A very close encounter. Thank you.”
His statement caused a fresh murmur to race through the crowd, a new jolt of electricity. “Don’t you?” he said to the group as he stood at the podium again. “Don’t you think Bianca, here, came across Big Foot?”
Whistling and clapping and hollering were the enthusiastic response.
Some of Bianca’s friends sidled closer to the stage. Pescoli made eye contact with Austin Reece and TJ O’Hara, but the others, including Lara Haas, Lindsay Cronin, and Maddie Averill, didn’t notice her and inched ever closer to the podium.
“I think setting Big Foot Territory: Montana! right here in Grizzly Falls is a great idea, and I think that Bianca Pescoli should relive her adventure, her encounter, on screen. Don’t you?”