Odds

Jim was packing his laptop away and locking his desk as Agent Windom walked in.

"Long day?" he asked.

"Too long," Jim replied. 

"About to get longer. Got some information about the guy who was jetting out of Craig after our visitor arrived. Name should sound familiar."

"Who?"

"Thomas St. Claire," Windom said, tossing the old folder onto Spann's desk. 

"Jesus," Jim said, "that guy."

"Yeah. I saw your name on the old reports when I opened the folder. That was a long time ago."

"You know," Jim said, "we took over the case from the local authorities because a couple of detectives were hellbent on going after that kid. He did nothing. There was no way on God's green Earth he could. Did you read the report?"

"Naw," Windom said, sitting in a chair across from Jim.

"His best friend vanished. Gone. The locals thought St. Claire killed him and disposed of the bodies of all the folks who vanished. They were convinced. There wasn't an ounce of evidence that supported that. But..." he went silent.

"But what?"

"There was one odd thing. It's in the report if you'd looked. There was this bike, his friend's bike. The back of it was all that was left, from the seat back to the rear tire. The rest... was stuck in this pine tree."

"Like wedged?" Windom asked.

"No... I mean, literally stuck in. Frame and all. And it didn't jut out the other side. We cut the tree down, cut that section out... what a mess. Bob Johnston was my lead on the case at that time, and he had a hell of a time trying to get keep a lid on it. We tied up traffic on Hogan Road for like an hour getting the equipment unstuck. Can you imagine trying to keep that out of the news? Jesus. 

"I was fresh out of training, Jax was my first assignment. I stuck around partially for that. I knew that some day this would all come back around."

Windom furled his brow, "what do you mean?"

"Well, we had some experts come up from Gainesville. We sectioned that part of the tree we cut... with the bike stuck in it. This is where it gets... plain peculiar."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It was as if the frame just... faded. You could use a magnifying glass and see little particles of bike frame intermingled with the tree."

"You mean like melted?"

"No, I mean like mixed. This one physicist from Florida said that if we ever found out how that happened he'd love to know, 'cause he no idea. It was merged."

"Oh, man, you mean like that movie "The Fly"?"

"Huh. Yeah, I supposed so, never thought of it that way," Spann said. 

"And now this St. Claire person has seen this thing. What are the odds, Jim?"

"Hell, I'm not calculating them. Look, get a tail on St. Claire. Just... keep an eye on him. There are still a couple of old timers here in J'ville who want to see him go down for this, and I'm sorry, not on my watch. I was supposed to have retired two years ago, but held out. Now I think I know why."