"What's in there?" Agent Dillard Murphy asked.
"It's not in the house. It's in the pool," Police Sergeant Alder handed them masks and put on his own and motioned for them to follow him on the stone path to the back yard.
"Gas masks?" Agent Taylor repeated.
"We don't know what we are dealing with and we've been having a vomitous situation with law enforcement officers contaminating the scene with unprecedented volumes of vomit," Sergeant Alder opened the side yard gate. They ran into a man wearing scuba gear who walked past them quickly shaking his head no.
"You can't dive into that thing. That is not a swimming pool anymore. You throw something on top of it, it doesn't sink," the man suddenly began gagging and vomiting, resting one hand on the side of the house to steady himself. He'd been in such a hurry to get out of the backyard that he didn't bother to take off his scuba gear.
When the trio arrived at the pool area they noted the vomit filled scuba mask that had been abandoned. Nearby was an upside down life saving pole sticking out of the pool like a candle on a very disgusting birthday cake.
"Alright. Let's check out the house and get a hazard team out here to find out what this is," Murphy threw up his arms. He and Taylor did an about face and hurried into the bungalow.
The bungalow belonged to Oscar-winning actress Angie Richards. Back in the day she had been a stunner. Her career was cut short when alcohol got the best of her.
"Let's check this out," Murphy found a name that appeared frequently in Angie's checkbook and arranged a meeting with the woman.
* * * *
"I was her personal assistant up until a month or so after she won the Oscar," Doreen told the FBI agents.
"We noticed her Oscar was not on display at her bungalow. Would you happen to know where she kept it?" Agent Taylor asked her.
"She didn't get to keep it. That was part of the deal," Doreen replied.
"What deal was that?" Agent Taylor asked.
"If she won the Oscar and accepted it without falling off the stage, delivering a drunken speech about Native American Indians, the actors and politicians she had slept with or any other controversy, then Dr. Bramley got to keep the Oscar for services rendered." Doreen explained.
"Dr. Walter Bramley, the psychiatrist?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah, I think that was his name." Doreen nodded.
Taylor and Murphy returned to the bungalow to see what kind of progress was being made on the pool situation.
"Do you think Angie Richards is at the bottom of that pool?" Sergeant Alder asked the agents.
"God only knows. In the meantime Agent Taylor and I are going back to Appleblossom to re-interview someone who might know," Agent Murphy answered as he took a parting look at the pool. The backyard had become like an archaeological excavation site. There was an eerie atmosphere that reminded Taylor of that movie that had just come out, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND." She half-expected an alien life form to come out of that pool.
~ To Be Continued ~
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