Chapter Text
Early afternoon sunlight glinted jewel-like off the water. They stood near the lake’s edge, on a short beach fringed with colorful rocks smoothed by the perpetual movement of the waves. Small whitecaps crashed toward them, fizzling against the shore. On a clear day, Canada was allegedly visible across the twenty-mile bay, but Sam couldn’t see to the other side. Superior stretched endlessly, deep blue at the horizon.
“That’s no lake,” Dean said with a Jedi’s gravitas. “Thing’s frigging massive.”
“The Great Lakes are inland seas.” Cas stood at a distance, hands deep in the pockets of his dark wool overcoat, unflapped by the stiff breeze off the lake. “They contain twenty-one percent of the Earth’s fresh water.”
“No shit.” Dean threw a playful elbow into Sam’s side. “Are you sure there's a case here? This wasn’t an excuse to take a vacation?”
Sam braced against a gust of wind. It bit at his cheeks, so he turned his back into it and scanned the beach for the dog he heard barking. It sounded large, maybe a retriever, though there were no dogs visible. It must have echoed from down the shore.
“Trust me,” he said to Dean. “When I take a vacation, I’m leaving the suit at home. Not to mention the water’s freezing.”
“It’s as cold as thirty-eight degrees in places this time of the year,” Cas said. “You’d be lucky to survive an hour.”
The dog barked again, in time with gleeful shrieks from a family down the beach. Three children played a game of chicken, testing who could run farthest after the retreating waves before the next line advanced. Smiling parents took pictures a safe distance from the water. They must not have heard about the body local authorities recovered last week.
Cas knelt down to examine something dark along the shore. His appreciation for Earth was endearing, though time consuming. He’d probably carry a pocketful of rocks home to Lebanon. Dean would complain but get him a box to store them. Sam was surprised when Cas photographed the object instead of collecting it.
“Find something?” he asked.
“I think it’s the remains of something,” he said. “It appears marine.”
“Probably something a bird dropped.” Dean scratched his neck beneath the collar. “So we’re looking at six deaths over a three-month period. There’d better be something here, otherwise this was one hell of a hike for a shipwreck museum.”
“I liked the museum,” Cas sniffed.
“There were only two confirmed deaths on Lake Superior last year, and two the year before that,” Sam said. “There were nine in 2013, but they were spread across the year: snowmobile accidents, cliff diving. These have all happened within weeks of each other, most of them along this bay, though there was one farther west.”
“Might be an off year. Or a serial killer,” Dean said.
“There wasn’t much information available,” Sam said, “but what I found online said there were no marks on any of the bodies, no signs of foul play. We need to look at the most recent body. The rest are already buried but we should be able to access the coroner’s reports.”
“Did the sheriff call you back?” Dean said.
“She’s meeting us at a restaurant a couple miles inland.” Sam checked his watch; it was almost four o’clock. The motel manager had given him a strict one-hour check-in window. “And we need to get our room before we lose the reservation.”
“No problem,” Dean said. He helped Cas to his feet and kept hold of his hand long enough to run a thumb across Cas’s knuckles. He loudly cleared his throat and stepped away, turning his head as if to survey who might be watching them. “Me and Cas’ll head over that way, rendez-vous with the sheriff. We’ll drop you at the motel, let you check in. You look beat.”
“Sure. Sounds good,” Sam said, anticipating the guaranteed hot shower. Dean had initially protested Cas hunting with them. It had been their gig for so long that a third person would only interrupt their rhythm. But having Cas along meant they could divide responsibilities. His knowledge was unsurpassed, his insight keen, and Dean slept six hours a night, sometimes more, when Cas bunked with him. Happiness had always eluded Dean, so Sam didn’t mind occasionally falling asleep wearing headphones. He’d never seen his brother wake up smiling so often.
As if on cue, Dean ruffled Cas’s hair and headed toward the car. Sam, grinning, looked down and kicked a gray rock into the surf.
They left Sam at the office to check into the motel, a cluster of cabins on a wooded lot situated ten miles south of Whitefish Point in a town called Paradise. Castiel watched Sam’s reflection wave in the rearview mirror, and vanish when Dean turned onto the main road.
Castiel was quiet for a while, content to let Dean drive. He had a gentler way of handling the car. Sometimes Sam was too generous with the accelerator.
“Do you think Sam's alright?” Castiel asked. Dean cast him a sideways glance.
“Why wouldn't he be?”
“He overheard us last night.”
“He was asleep,” Dean dismissed. “That’s what has you worked up?”
“Yes,” Castiel sighed.
The trees grew thicker together, eclipsing the road the farther they drove inland. After a half mile, Dean pulled over to the secluded shoulder and shut off the car. He radiated a quiet need, almost shy when he slid across the front seat and drew Castiel to him, as if he still expected to be pushed away. He held Castiel’s face, something he only did when they were alone, and smoothed a thumb across his cheek when he leaned in to kiss him.
The pattern was familiar: a kiss to each corner of Castiel’s mouth and one to the center. Dean dragged Castiel’s lips between his teeth, but he licked away the pain. Castiel massaged Dean through his suit, encouraged by each hitch in his breath, the desperate noises that rose to a pleased groan. He thrust into Castiel’s hand.
“Missed you today,” he murmured. He untucked Castiel’s shirt and slid his hands over his bare skin.
“We were in the same car for eight hours.”
“You know what I mean.” Dean's kisses communicated his weariness from two days on the road, slow and lush. “Can’t believe we get our own room.”
“On the other side of a wall from your brother.”
“You’ll have to be quiet.”
“Historically, I haven’t had an issue with restraint,” Castiel reminded him.
“Guess that means you gotta keep a hand over my mouth.”
Castiel lurched forward and Dean, laughing, fell backwards and allowed Castiel to pin him against the seat. Castiel fumbled their zippers to take them both in hand, humbled to be allowed this intimacy. He licked into Dean’s mouth in time with the motion of his wrist and Dean ran his hands over Castiel’s shoulders and his arms, through his hair, underneath his shirt to scratch his back. Castiel drank his own name from Dean’s lips and he saw stars.
“Do you think Sam minds?” he asked when his heart had calmed down. He re-buttoned his collar and righted his tie, crumpled from Dean’s fist. His hair was mussed where Dean’s fingers had pulled it. He let it be.
“What, this? Nah, he’s cool about it,” Dean said. He tucked his shirt in and checked his reflection. “Did he say something?”
“He looks at me strangely sometimes.”
“Kid’s got a strange face.” Dean cast a smile across the front seat. “Cas...Sam loves you. You’re part of this family. If he's got any problem with this, it's not for the reason you think.”
“I'm concerned he feels that I took his brother.”
Dean sighed. “You and me, we got our thing. Sam and me, we’re brothers. They're not...you can't compare them.”
“I can appreciate that it must be strange to have me here.”
“I know I was a dick about it at first, but we both want you here,” Dean said firmly. He melted into the seat and rolled his head side to side. “Sam's been in relationships. He knows how it works.”
Castiel didn’t bother to keep the joy off his face. “I thought that word was off limits.”
Dean's neck and ears flushed a lovely pink. He angled his head away to hide a smile, but Castiel perceived it in the muttered “shut up” and the way Dean’s hand fit over his knee like a puzzle piece.
The cabin perched on a softly eroding cliff that overlooked the lake, a single-story building with dingy ivory siding and a sagging carport. A pair of Adirondack chairs stood a jog from the front door, angled toward one another, the way lovers might sit. Sam turned from them and unlocked the cabin.
The inside was what he'd expected from the website: spartan but clean, with walls covered in blonde wood panels that dated it from the eighties. Three mismatched wood chairs surrounded an oak table dulled at the center from being scrubbed so many times. The floral couch stuck out, likely a cast-off from someone’s home. No two wood surfaces in the room bore the same color stain, but it felt homey. Sam crossed the worn berber and deposited his bag in the larger bedroom—perk of being the first arrival. There were traditional hotels in the area, but for an extra $20 a night, he had his own space.
A former guest had left a container of Folgers behind, so Sam set a pot of coffee to brew and arranged his laptop and case notes on the coffee table. He sunk onto the ugly couch with a groan and let his head hang between his shoulders. Ugly but comfortable. Too bad they couldn’t get accommodations like this for all of their cases.
Cas messaged to say they were bringing home dinner but didn’t give an ETA. Since he had time to spare, he lingered in the shower, ducking down in order to wash his hair. Even tilted fully up, the spray only hit him at chest height, but the water pressure was strong and the water hot. It eased the kinks in his back and shoulders from the sixteen-hour drive to Michigan’s upper peninsula. The soap was a cheap off-brand that left his skin taut, so he moisturized since Dean wasn’t around to poke fun at him, and drank coffee with a towel around his waist.
Twenty minutes later, they still weren’t back, so Sam dressed in comfortable clothes and poured a second cup of coffee. He located social media accounts for each of the victims, looking for any useful details. Most people had no idea how much personal information was easily available online.
According to Facebook, the first victim, a 52-year-old woman from Sault Ste Marie, was married with two grown children. She worked at a title company. She’d posted photos from her grandson’s second birthday party and a series of bar selfies, the most recent taken two days before she died. The second victim was her junior by twenty years, also married, and had recently become an uncle. He held a beer in all of his Instagram photos. Number three was single but had been tagged drinking with the same person in multiple photographs. So it went. All six victims were employed, four of them locals, two tourists. And all of them had entered the frigid waters of Lake Superior and died, seemingly without struggle or reason.
The wind built outside, bending the trees and rattling the windows in their panes. It was only May, but if the spring storms were this miserable, he couldn't imagine suffering a winter here.
He jotted down details about each of the victims that might be useful and sent a quick hello to Eileen, then relaxed with the TV. He was doubled over laughing at a reenactment of demonic possession when Cas and Dean arrived, weighed down with grocery bags.
“Figured, since you said we've got a stove…” Dean sounded embarrassed that he’d spent the last hour food shopping. He put a gallon of milk in the fridge along with twin six-packs of lager and a carton of eggs. Cas opened a bag containing boxes of pasta and jars of pasta sauce, bread, and peanut butter.
“You know we’re only here for a week,” Sam said, spotting a box of just-add-water pancake mix. Dean ignored him and went into the bathroom.
“What did you find out?” Sam asked Cas.
“There were no unusual marks on the bodies, no signs of foul play.” Cas passed him a stack of photocopied coroner’s reports. “In all cases, toxicology was negative for drugs. Cause of death was ruled as drowning in one case, hypothermia in the other five.”
“Do you think it could be a cult?” Sam asked.
“Like an Extreme Polar Bear Club?” Dean called through the bathroom door.
“There was a mass suicide when Hale Bopp flew over—when was that, the late ‘90s?”
“They poisoned themselves,” Dean said. Sam heard the water running. “I don’t care how brainwashed I am, I’m not hiking into a freezing-ass lake and pulling a DiCaprio. Plus, these are spread out.”
“Fair point,” Sam said. He glanced to Cas. “Witches? It could be a spell like the one Rowena had on you.”
Dean rejoined them, looking thoughtful. He flopped down on the couch next to Cas. “Could be demons possessing someone long enough that their bodies fail, and they peace out before it's too late.”
“That's a sick joyride,” Sam said.
Dean shrugged. “When I was sporting a pair of black eyes, I would have found that hilarious.”
Sam paged through the first victim’s autopsy report. “There are plenty of substances that don't show up on a tox screen. It could be a secretion that allows for mind control.”
“You’re thinking siren?” Dean asked.
“Maybe. I mean, it fits. The cause of death is closer to the original myth than the last one we encountered.”
“When was that?” Cas asked.
“Couple years ago,” Dean grunted. “Dick hooked me with a flask.”
“How was the sheriff?” Sam asked. “Cooperative?”
“She seemed grateful for the help,” Cas said.
“We're not going to have a problem with her,” Dean said. “Everything is spread out up here, but she said there’s a bar not too far away. A couple of the vics were regulars.”
“Think it’s worth checking out?” Sam asked.
“Can’t hurt. Worst-case scenario, I drink a couple rounds with my two favorite guys. C’mon, Sammy. Get your monkey suit back on.”
The bar was called the Shipwreck and, true to its name, had a ramshackle exterior and overgrown landscape. Dean looked overjoyed when they pulled into the parking lot, mouth fixed in a wide grin. He parked on the edge of the gravel lot, away from the mesh of pickup trucks near the door.
“My kind of place,” Dean said. Their boots made pleasant crunching sounds as they navigated to the front door. The building had no exterior windows. It resembled the gentlemen’s club Castiel had accompanied Dean into on a case last month.
“Classy,” Dean added appreciatively before yanking open the front door.
There was a fair crowd for early evening, but they still secured a table against the longest wall, with a view of the musician: a young woman with dark red hair performing on an acoustic guitar. She reminded Castiel of Anna’s preferred vessel.
The walls were rough, dark wood hung with black and white renderings of nineteenth-century steamships and barges. Over the bar hung a battered ship’s wheel. In opposition to the aged appearance was a backlit sign on the wall that announced, in vibrant orange and pink lettering, that there was a $2 special tonight on domestic drafts.
“I’ve got the first round,” Dean said, leaving his coat over a chair. He sauntered up to the bar and waited with a hand on the edge, until the bartender--a handsome man with shoulder-length dark hair and a loose white shirt--noticed him.
They chatted while the bartender dispensed their beer into pint glasses. If Castiel had to guess, the man was the same age Jimmy had been when Castiel assumed him. Most people smiled when Dean spoke to them, but the bartender’s expression was pinched. Perhaps he was displeased that the FBI was in his bar. Some humans had an aversion to law enforcement.
Dean carried their beers to the table, held together in a triangle formation. Foam clung to the rims and spilled down the sides of each frosted glass. He set them down with a thunk.
“Don't everyone look at once, but does the bartender look familiar to you?” Dean asked. Sam glanced over his shoulder.
“Not really.”
“An actor or something,” Dean said. “I can't put my finger on it.”
“Has he seen anything?” Sam asked.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. He was pretty clear he doesn’t want us bothering people in here, though.”
“The recent deaths likely haven’t been good for business,” Castiel said.
“I doubt much hurts you when you're the only bar in a twenty-mile radius,” Dean said. “How ‘bout we wait till the singer finishes. If she performs here often, she might have seen something.”
The singer had a pleasant voice. Humans might even call it angelic, which made Castiel chuckle, imagining how the picture frames and glassware in the bar would shatter if he were to sing in his real voice. Which of his brothers and sisters was responsible for the misconception? Maybe Gabriel.
He would have preferred to stay at the cabin, but Dean appeared to be enjoying himself, bobbing his head with the song’s tempo. He stole glances at the bartender and made the face he did when he was thinking—head tilted and eyes narrowed, lips slightly parted. Castiel had fallen in love with the fire in Dean's soul and his relentless drive to save people, but he could not deny that Dean was beautiful, endlessly so, and looking upon him filled Castiel with such exhilaration he often felt his body couldn’t contain it.
He lay a hand on Dean’s forearm, resting against the table, and squeezed once. Dean surprised him by covering Castiel’s hand with his own and patting it twice before glancing toward the bar. Sam politely focused on the performer and clapped after each song. She strummed the opening bars of an Elvis Presley tune and Dean whipped his head around.
“I got it,” he said, slapping the table.
Sam quirked an eyebrow. “You have what?”
“Who the bartender reminds me of.” He grinned. “John Stamos.”
“Uncle Jesse?” Sam said with a laugh. He pushed the hair from his face and turned around long enough to steal a glance. “From Full House?”
“Yeah, don't you think so?” Dean said.
“Maybe a little?” Sam looked unconvinced. His eyes flicked to Castiel and he smirked. “You’ve really got a thing for dark hair.”
“Shut up or I’ll tell everyone you had a thing for Kimmy Gibbler,” Dean muttered but nudged Castiel’s thigh and winked.
They drank two rounds waiting for the singer to finish. She wrapped the set with an acoustic version of a Led Zeppelin song, one Dean regularly denied performing in the shower, and he licked his lips. Castiel slipped his hand inside Dean’s jacket and subtly rubbed his back.
“Oh, I like her,” said Dean, although he leaned into Castiel’s hand.
“Good,” Sam said, pushing their empty glasses to the center of the table. “You can do her interview.”
The singer got a bottle of water from the bar and headed toward the door, presumably to take a break before she performed again. Dean intercepted her with a smile and flash of his badge. She stiffened. Her pale skin shone with perspiration and she clutched a moth-eaten fur coat in her fist, but she shook Dean’s hand and spoke with him for several minutes. He left her with a business card.
“What do you think?” Sam asked when Dean returned to the table. “Does she know anything?”
“Her name’s Jennie. She plays here during the week. Said two of the victims were scumbags who tried to solicit her for sex.”
“Lovely,” Sam said. “Did she see who they left with? They died at night. This was probably the last place they were seen.”
“No recollection.”
Castiel cleared his throat. “The bartender appears agitated. He keeps looking this way.”
“I’ll settle the tab and we can get outta here,” Dean said. “You two wanna wait outside with the car?”
“I’ll wait with you,” Castiel said, walking with him toward the register. Sam took the keys and went to warm up the engine. The bartender folded his arms, puffing out his chest, but he became cordial when Dean produced his wallet. He left Jennie a tip and kept a hand on Castiel’s back out the door.
They kissed delicately when they got into bed that night, fingers playing the contours of each other’s faces. Dean held him close and Castiel whispered praise into his mouth. He rocked lazily against Castiel’s body until he shook and went still. Watching him break was nearly as beautiful as listening to Dean pray.
He fell asleep draped across Castiel’s chest, both in need of a shower but too tired to move. Rain began to drum on the roof, sporadic pings that built to a steady, soothing rhythm that coaxed Castiel’s eyes closed.
The next morning, Cas sat in the living room with a book, a third of the way into a pot of coffee, when Sam woke up. He padded out to the living room in boxers and a t-shirt. Rain was coming down hard, running down the windows in rivulets. They’d be soaked getting in and out of the car for interviews. It was days like this Sam wished he had a dismal office job, maybe something in IT.
“Morning,” he said, settling in the arm chair. “Sleep okay?”
Cas looked up from the page. “I slept for a few hours. I find it enjoyable.”
“Is Dean still asleep?”
“Yes.” Cas slid a notepad across the coffee table, covered in his messy uppercase scrawl. Legible handwriting was one thing Metatron hadn't been able to transfer. “I wrote down everything I know about Great Lakes mythology. The bulk of it would have been passed down through oral tradition, but there were stories in the books I was given. I thought they might be useful.”
“This is great, thanks.”
Cas smiled and lowered his eyes to the book. He jotted occasional notes in the margins or chuckled quietly. Sam caught the title when Cas lay the book down and began making breakfast—Galapagos, a paperback copy Dean had owned for years, yellowed at the edges though the pages were still crisp. Dean never marked his books, never folded down the corner of a page to mark his place. It said a lot that he allowed Cas to write in them.
Dean got up in time for pancakes and low-fat turkey sausage—probably a compromise on Dean's part, considering the look he gave them, but he stopped grousing when Cas set a container of maple syrup in front of him.
“I didn’t see you put that in the basket,” he said.
“It’s locally made,” Cas said.
Dean enthusiastically unscrewed the cap. “I love you,” he told the bottle and flooded his plate. The first bite dribbled syrup down his chin. Cas sighed adoringly and handed him a napkin.
“Are we conducting interviews today?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Dean said through a full mouth. “What time is it?”
Sam checked his watch. “Almost eight.”
“Why’d you let me sleep so late?”
“Human beings cannot survive on four hours of sleep. Eat your breakfast,” Cas said. Dean made an effort to look irritated but obeyed.
Sam rotated his laptop so they could see the route he’d mapped.
“Since there’s a pretty big distance between some of these addresses and we’ve only got one car, I don’t think it’s possible to split up the interviews. I figure we’ll start with the one farthest away and work our way back here.”
“I gotta get a shower,” Dean said, stabbing a sausage link and biting off half. “Does this place have an iron?”
“I already ironed the suits,” Cas said nonchalantly, refocused on his book. “They’re in the closet.”
“You...” Dean aimed his fork tines at Cas and looked at him with such a lovesick expression that Sam was obligated to steal a picture for blackmail purposes. Dean flicked syrup into Sam’s hair in retaliation.
Dean rubbed his temples throughout breakfast and complained of a mild headache once they’d finished cleaning up the kitchenette. He blamed it on too much sleep and refused Castiel’s offer to block the pain.
“Next time, wake me up,” he grunted. “Sam, did you pack Advil?”
“In my bag on the bathroom counter.”
It would be twenty minutes before painkillers would provide relief, but a hot shower would help immediately and Castiel knew something else that could ease headaches. He allowed Dean a minute to himself before he drew the curtain aside and stepped in.
“Can I help you?” Dean asked, blinking into the shower spray. His body perked up at Castiel’s proximity.
“Move over.” Castiel put his hands on Dean’s waist and carefully rotated their positions, so the shower rained on Castiel’s head. He rubbed a dime of shampoo into his hair. It smelled like oranges. Lather slithered to his ankles.
“Why don’t you just mojo yourself clean?” Dean muttered, trailing his finger through the soapy runoff on Castiel’s chest.
“I prefer being naked with you.”
Dean snorted. He put his hands on Castiel’s hips and guided their bodies together. “You didn’t get enough of this last night?”
Castiel shook his head and kissed Dean against the discolored tile wall.
The first interview, with the second victim’s widow, was forty-five minutes away. Upon arrival, she offered them coffee in stark white mugs. They sat in a bright living room, which carried the unmistakable odor of a recent paint job. Price tags stuck off of throw pillows like weeds. The widow's skin was tanned, as though she’d just returned from vacation. She wore no rings on either hand and asked that they call her Elaine.
“We are so sorry for your loss,” Sam said with genuine empathy. He leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands together on his knees. He kept his voice gentle. “I know this must be difficult, but we have a few questions about your husband's death.”
“I thought his death was ruled an accident,” she said carefully, looking between them.
“This is a routine follow-up,” Sam said. “Is there anything you can tell us about the night your husband died, something you might not have been comfortable telling the police?”
“What difference does it make now?”
“Just answer the question,” Dean said. Elaine’s face darkened. Castiel feared she might order them out of her house, but Dean met her gaze in intensity.
“Steven was a drunk.” Elaine swept her hair over one shoulder. “He drank so much two nights before he died that one of his friends drove him home. He couldn't walk into the house by himself. I went to work the next morning and when I came home, he was still in bed. I've never seen him so hungover. I was furious, so I went to my sister's house for the night. I didn't come home until the next morning, and that's when I got the call that he’d been found.”
“Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?” Castiel asked.
“No.”
“What about odd smells?” Dean asked. “Like rotten eggs. Did you smell anything like that?”
“He never took out the garbage or helped around the house, if that's what you're asking.” She motioned behind her. “I never would’ve been able to keep it like this. Turns out he had a life insurance policy I didn’t know about. Thank god they didn’t rule his death a suicide or the bank would’ve foreclosed.”
“Did he say anything to you the last time you saw him?” Sam asked. “Places he’d been, people he was with?”
Elaine pealed with laughter. She fixed her eyes on Sam and spoke with prim indifference.
“The last time I saw my husband alive, I told him we were going to be late on the electric bill, and he told me to go fuck myself. Does that answer your question, agent?”
A safe distance from the front door, Dean muttered, “Steven sounds like a real winner. Looks like she’s doing okay, though.”
“She’s better off,” Sam agreed.
“I’m curious why she remained with him, if he was abusive,” Cas said.
“He probably wasn’t always like that,” Dean said, digging a knuckle into his temple. “Sometimes these things start out solid and they kinda…” He made an explosion noise with his lips. “You forget you’re not happy.”
Sam stilled, uncertain if Dean was confessing or merely postulating. Dean lifted his head sharply as if realizing the implication of his statement and zeroed in on Cas, who watched Dean with a calm curiosity.
“I’m not talking about us.” Dean’s words were gruff, but Cas touched his arm, gently, just above the bend of his elbow.
“I know.”
Sam turned away to allow them privacy. He heard the embrace in the brush of their coats.
He got into the car and pulled up the map, plotting their route from where they were parked. Cas and Dean joined him momentarily.
Dean slipped on a pair of sunglasses he fished from the glove box and adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could look at Sam.
“Where to?”
Victim four, it happened, had been skimming money from the register at the gift shop where he worked nights and had a warrant out for unpaid child support. The first had a string of affairs behind her partner’s back, and the latest had failed to report a hit-and-run that left one person dead, one in ICU. Victims three and five weren’t from the area; Sam would attempt phone interviews later.
They met with the fourth victim’s twenty-two-year-old daughter in a diner close to the lake. She ordered a cup of potato soup and sat across from them in an inexpensive polyester suit. She adjusted her nametag. Michelle. It bore the name of a local bank—given her age, she was probably a teller. Thick makeup concealed a struggle with acne and lack of sleep.
“I don’t have long,” she said, crushing two packs of Saltines into her soup. “I’m on my lunch break.”
“We just have a couple questions,” Sam said.
“Fine,” she huffed and he rattled them off. Her answers were unremarkable: Her father had a history of petty crime; her mother had left him three years ago along with their youngest child, and Michelle had been the only person willing to take him in, giving up college in the process to pay their bills. Her mother hadn’t spoken to her in eighteen months.
“Is there anything else that you didn’t mention before?” Sam asked. “Anything that seemed strange? Something he might have been complaining about?”
“No,” she said. “Well, he said his ears were bothering him but I figured he was on something.”
It wasn’t much to go on, but Sam made a note. “Did that happen often?”
“I don’t remember the last time I saw him sober.”
“I’m sorry, I meant the ringing,” Sam said.
“Oh. Yeah, sometimes.” She checked her watch, dropped a couple dollars on the table, and slid out of the booth. “I have to get back.”
“Thank you for your time,” Dean said. She didn’t acknowledge him as she left.
“This is strange,” Cas said, claiming the unoccupied side of the booth. “It would seem that whatever is behind this has some sort of moral code.”
Dean tore his gaze from the dessert case. “It’s not one of you guys, is it?”
“It’s possible angels are behind this, but the method of killing isn’t right.”
“What do you mean?” Sam said.
“These murders are passive. Something is causing these people to act in a manner that results in their death, but it’s not killing them itself. It’s acting as a catalyst.”
“I still think a curse is most likely,” Sam said.
“I sensed nothing at any of the locations,” Cas said. “No hex bags, no strange energy.”
“Must not be in their houses or on the beach. Could be at work, their cars...” Dean trailed off to flag down a server.
“Wait, are we getting dinner?” Sam said. “It’s only four.”
“Nah, I’m making pasta when we get back,” Dean said. He gave the server an easy grin. “How you doin’, sweetheart? Can I get a dutch apple pie to go?”