I've designed a new print logo!

This is something I thought of a couple of years ago, but didn't put much thought into how it was going to work. I had already done a few rough sketches, but they ultimately went nowhere. And then I had a flash.

Here is the Museum's new print logo, suitable for business cards and stationery.

As you can see, all the elements are there: the clock face, the "2000," and the Copasetic font, but arranged in a slightly more mature way.

I think the problem with earlier drafts was, the "Museum" part was either right next to "Millennium" (making it too cluttered) or exactly underneath and centered with "Millennium" (making it look not quite right to the eye). Having "Museum" underneath but starting from the last "M" in "Millennium" lends it an unusual quality.

The first is the white-print version, and the second is a transparency version, intended for inserting into backgrounds.

"A plumber, a hedgehog, and a big eater walk into a bar..."

...and gain a new perspective on the world around them.

The school year has come to an end, and that means only one thing: Summer vacation is now underway.

Many kids will go to summer camp; if they're older, they'll start summer jobs. Some will take the opportunity to kick back, relax, and play some video games. Some will play a lot of video games. (Not me, though--I'm going to write for the Museum this summer!)

Now that we're in a more virtual state of mind, I thought it might be fun to talk about another big development from the end of the 20th century: The shift from 2-D to pre-rendered 3-D console-based games, and how video gaming's "big three" mascots helped usher in this new paradigm with Super Mario 64, Pac-Man World, and Sonic Adventure.

From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, the dominant game style was the 2-D side-scrolling platform game, which began with Pitfall and which Super Mario Bros. fully codified. Later games, including the Metroid, Castlevania, and Sonic the Hedgehog series, further refined the style and added new quirks and defining touches along the way.

Full disclaimer, before I start going: Adventure is the only one of these titles that I have any direct experience with, by way of its GameCube port, Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut. I never really got to play Mario 64 or Pac-Man World, so my thoughts on them will have to come from Let's Play videos on YouTube and outside sources.

The first stop on our little excursion is the fabled Mushroom Kingdom, as we take a look at Super Mario 64, for the Nintendo 64. (If you don't own this game, please check out NintendoCapriSun's let's-play on YouTube.)

This game came out in 1996, and it really set the standard for 3-D platform gaming. More importantly, though, it successfully reinvented Mario's formerly 2-D world for a 3-D perspective. I'll let a Eurogamer article from April 2015 explain why:

"...2D Mario games move from left-to-right to reach a goal zone, Mario 64 has open environments with goals placed at different points therein. Completing a level is no longer about moving through the scenery, but exploring it. The 2D Mario games progressed linearly - World 1's levels in order, then World 2's levels in order, with warp pipes and whistles letting experienced players bypass sections. The goal stars in Mario 64 allow progression to become more diffuse, which in turns allows the game's structure to be more open. A big challenge in 2D Mario games is the enemies, and hence power-ups are focused on killing or avoiding them. The big challenge in Mario 64 is navigation, and so the power-ups are focused exclusively on movement."

Basically, Eurogamer's point is that Mario is no longer bound by "World 1-1; World 1-2; World 1-3;" etc. In 64, movement through a particular world comes in the form of a series of tasks, and completing these tasks awards the player with "Mario Stars," which open up more of the overall game. Many games today, such as online games like Candy Crush and Monster Busters, use this star ranking. (Sonic Adventure uses something similar--the first game uses "A-B-C" ranks, and every game thereafter uses "Special-A-B-C-D-E.")

Another unique innovation ties the whole game together: the idea of the "hub world," which here takes the form of Princess Peach's castle. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World had used similar world maps for their level-select screens, but this time it was fully interactive: Mario enters the worlds and levels therein by jumping into paintings throughout the castle.

Many games released after Super Mario 64 used the hub-world, such as the Lego Star Wars series and, of course, Pac-Man World and Sonic Adventure.

Super Mario 64 also broke new ground with its multi-cam feature. Using the yellow directional buttons on the controller, players could switch from angle to angle in order to perfect their jumps and attacks. In a neat touch, the camera exists within the game: A friendly cloud-dwelling creature called a Lakitu holds a camera from a pole and follows Mario around with it, as if filming his adventure.

...So, why did this game make such a huge, sweeping change? The answer is very simple: It had to prove the Nintendo 64's capabilities to consumers, who already had the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn, both of which were 32-bit systems, to choose from. By 1996, Nintendo had already made a household name for itself with the earlier 8-bit NES and Game Boy and the 16-bit Super NES, but Sony's foray into the market made things that much more uncertain. Nintendo would have to do something truly unique in order to defend their position in the industry.

Mario proved more than ready to step up and usher in the new era.

========================================================================
That's about all the time we have for the Mushroom Kingdom. It's time to move on to...Ghost Island.

Let us now discuss Namco's step into 3D platforming: the original Pac-Man World. (If you don't own this game, please check out ClementJ64's let's-play on YouTube.)

Pac-Man World emulates Super Mario 64's innovations, but in a more conventional way. Nevertheless, I include it within the Museum because it marked the very first video game character's transition from 2-D to 3-D, and it also marked the first true Anniversary Celebration--Pac-Man's twentieth. In fact, this celebration kicks off the game's rather light narrative: The ghosts have kidnapped Ms. Pac-Man, Prof. Pac-Man, Pac-Baby, Jr. Pac-Man, and Chomp-Chomp the dog right at Pac-Man's own party, and he has to go to Ghost Island to find them. (Sheesh! Whatever happened to manners?!)

World is a much more linear experience than Mario 64, perhaps because Namco didn't want the game to look too similar to Nintendo's property. Players are constrained to "World 1-1, 1-2, 1-3," and so on, but there's a healthy variety of gameplay: Most of the levels are platform/puzzle levels, but there's a space-shooter level, a bumper-car level, and areas where our hero can swim or explore underwater with a "Chrome Power-Up."

Pac-Man shares moves in common with other characters: he has Mario's stomp in the form of the "Butt-Bounce," Sonic's spin-dash in the form of the "Rev-Roll," and he can swim. But he does have one other trick up his sleeve: He can use the "dots" from the original arcade game as weapons against the non-ghost enemies he encounters (a move which World 2 and 3 dropped). Ghost enemies require him to eat a Power Pellet and then attack them.

The game has a fixed camera, and for the most part it's a sidescroller with some 3D elements (jumping on boxes, moving toward and away from the screen, etc.). It may seem like a step back after the marvels of Mario 64, but the slightly more retro approach works in World's favor, because the background art is quite beautiful.

Instead of attempting to try wild new things and innovate in all sorts of crazy ways, Pac-Man World uses the side-scrolling platform game as the starting point, but then it finds other ways of setting itself apart. In an inspired move, World finds ways of incorporating the arcade game's elements within this new game. The fruit icons which give you bonus points in the original game now open doors and score bonus points and extra lives. Certain switches can activate "mini-mazes" within each level, allowing players to get rid of ghost enemies. Collecting tokens rewards players with Pac-Maze minigames inspired by the level they just played. And, as a way of remembering where it all began, the 1980 original is an extra feature.
=======================================================================

Whew! Those ghosts sure gave us a hard time! Tell you what? Why don't we reward ourselves and go for "Bright Lights, Big City"? Our next stop is Station Square! (If you don't own the Dreamcast version, I would highly recommend SheepNDan's extensive Let's Play on YouTube.)

So...Sonic Adventure. Where, oh, where to begin? We need to go pretty far back for context.

In 1991, Sega released the Mega Drive/Genesis (I shall use "Genesis" for simplicity's sake from here on), whose pack-in game was originally a beat-'em-up called Altered Beast, but this was later changed to Sonic the Hedgehog. From then on, the Blue Blur starred in hit after hit: Sonic 2, 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and several other spinoff games. By 1995, Sega was at an all-time high, but the company was a victim of its own success: Two failed consoles--the Genesis 32X add-on and the Sega Saturn--dealt a massive blow to Sega's profits and position in the market.

By the end of the decade, Sega and its mascot were in a bad way.

Enter the Dreamcast, Sega's 128-bit answer to the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Unlike the Saturn, which had NiGHTS into Dreams and one version of the Traveller's Tales-developed Sonic 3D Blast as its primary games, the Dreamcast boasted the most ambitious Sonic game to date.

Adventure expands upon Super Mario 64's hub-world by giving players three unique hub-worlds to choose from: Station Square; the Peru-inspired Mystic Ruins; and the Egg Carrier, a flying battleship.

The game features a whopping six characters to choose from: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, a robot named E-103 Gamma, and Big the Cat. Each of them has their own unique playing style: Sonic runs fast; Tails flies; Amy runs from a robot that's after her; Knuckles hunts for gemstones; Gamma runs through shooting galleries; and Big the Cat fishes. (Yes, that's right--he fishes. His section was intended to make use of a fishing-rod peripheral, but Adventure wasn't compatible with it. The one thing that would have justified his presence in the game, and it doesn't work!)

On top of that, the game featured quite impressive graphics for 1999. The signature scene from the game, and the one that everybody remembers, is the scene in Emerald Beach where Sonic is running from a massive orca whale as it breaks the pier behind him. There are at least three pre-rendered sequences within the game: the opening titles, the Egg Carrier flying through the air (it's one shot, but reused from different angles), and Chaos' destruction of Station Square.

Finally--and this is a big one--Adventure is the first Sonic game to come with an intricate narrative that involves all six playable characters. Certainly, the overall thrust is "get the Chaos Emeralds and defeat Dr. Eggman," but this story involves a god of destruction, an ancient tribe of Echidnas, a frog with an unusually long tail, a robot with an identity crisis, a team of explorers who got lost out in the jungle, and a painfully shy young woman who's infatuated with the chef at a hamburger joint. (Spoiler: She ends up working there.)

There is one other point of trivia: The game interacted with the Dreamcast's "clock." On New Year's Eve, 1999/2000, players got to see this:

(I can't remember where I found this, but it was interesting enough for me to include. I thank and credit whoever had it...It was probably SonicRetro, but I'm not sure.)

==================================================================

And there you have it: Gaming's top three mascots rang in a new millennium and brought about the evolution from 2D sprites to 3D polygons.

Millennium S1E11: "Weeds"

It's kind of funny: Everybody talks about cities as sleazy dens full of crime and iniquity, but I gotta tell you, there's nothing more terrifying than suburbia. That goes double for gated communities, while we're on the subject.

Sure, it's advertised as a great, safe place to raise a family, but sometimes you get this...this feeling you can't quite put your finger on. Under all the money and the success and the appearance of perfection, there's something horrible down there, and all the gin and tonic in the liquor cabinet won't stop it from waking up. And when it does wake up...nothing will ever be the same as it was.

============================================================

"But know ye for certain...Ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city..."

--Jeremiah 26:13 

=======================================================================

The community which figured into this particular exploit was "Vista Verde Estates," in Pierce County, WA. 

"Vista Verde"...I suppose the name made sense, given all the trees and forestry around me, but something told me that somebody just liked how it sounded without stopping to wonder if it actually meant anything.

A security guard approached my window. I gave him my name and told him that Sheriff Gerlach was waiting for me. That seemed to satisfy him, and he let me through.

I parked my car in the visitor's lot, and got into Gerlach's car. He was a pretty average-looking guy: about mid-fifties, balding, silver mustache, friendly-enough demeanor.

"I'm happy to accommodate you, Mr. Black," he began, "but I can't honestly say I know exactly how you can help us." I had, by that point, gotten pretty used to law-enforcement's wariness around the Millennium Group. Looking back, I can't blame 'em.

"I work with a group of ex-law enforcement people called the Millennium Group," came the usual canned reassurance. "We bring our experience to difficult cases like this one." For once, the words left a distinctly hollow aftertaste once I'd said them.

I continued: "When I saw this case on the news, I recognized a certain type of criminal pathology I think the Group's resources could prove valuable in solving this case quickly." Ugh. I started to imagine myself as one of those talking dolls. Pull the string, and I spout one of eight morbid catchphrases.

I glanced at the sheriff. He audibly gulped. And....Was he sweating? 

"This thing's got everybody here pretty rattled. We've got walls around all three square miles. 24-hour private security. Everything you can do to keep your kids safe, these folks have done it." I chuckled drily at that last part. Experience has taught me that even the most vigilant 24-hour security has weaknesses...weaknesses which clever people can exploit, because in places like this, nobody's really looking out for each other. I noticed the little catch in his voice, too, the sign that even he didn't truly believe what he was saying.

I shook the thoughts out of my head and pressed on. "The boy that went missing last night--You found no connection between him and the boy returned in his place?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he replied as he gave me a file. "They lived three blocks apart. It's all in this file." I opened it up and took a look at the crime-scene pictures. 

There was also a zip-lock bag containing a walletful of torn-up dollar bills. Gerlach explained that it came from Kirk's dad's mailbox.


"That's Kirk Orlando--the deceased. He disappeared three days ago while walking home from the basketball game."

"Did you alert the community after he was taken?" I asked. An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out how to say what he was about to say.

"The family asked me to keep it quiet. Turns out, I just made Josh Comstock a sitting duck for that son-of-a-bitch."

Later that evening, Gerlach and I paid a visit to the morgue, where a coroner named John Tasini waited to greet us...and offer us his two cents on what happened to Josh Comstock. 

"I'd have to run some tests," Tasini began as he pulled the blue sheet away from the boy's face, "but I'd say he bled to death." As he put on a pair of rubber gloves and pulled the sheet back a bit further to show us a nasty shoulder bruise, he continued: "His hands were amputated, crudely. Probably by some household tool--garden shears, possibly, or a hedge trimmer." He pointed to the shoulder wound: "I found another subcutaneous hematoma like this on the abdomen."

My eyes involuntarily closed as I caught a flash: It was young Josh Comstock being attacked with a cattle prod. Except, his face wasn't that of a teenager, but a very old man. 

"It's a cattle prod," I finally stated. "The kidnapper used it to subdue his victims. He sees them as ugly and decayed, and he wants us to see Josh in the same way. It's a message, and he won't stop until he makes us understand what he's trying to say." 

Tasini butted in: "He didn't kill the boy immediately. I'd place the time of death at around the last 24 hours, which means he kept him alive for at least 48 hours." Hours seemed to go by as that sunk in.

"There's something else," I said, as Tasini opened the boy's mouth. He said, "I found approximately four ounces of blood in his mouth and stomach."

Gerlach turned a new shade of gray, one I've never seen before, as the words left Tasini's lips. "Y...You mean he was forced to...drink his own blood?" "No, someone else's," I replied.

Before I left, I asked Tasini for a copy of the results, assuring him that I had a colleague who might like to take a look into this.
====================================================================

Later that night, Gerlach and I went to a community association meeting. 

The head of the community board, Edward Petey, was doing a passable job of keeping the peace and explaining the situation to Vista Verde's residents. Well, at least that's what he thought, I'd wager. As far as I could see, though, he seemed capable only of blathering inane platitudes. 

The crowd seemed about ready to turn into a mob when Gerlach prompted me to speak. "This is Frank Black," he began. "He's a criminal consultant, and he's come from Seattle to help us." 

"The killer is between 35 to 45 years old. Drives a late-model car, possibly a mini-van or sports-utility vehicle. I believe his parents divorced when he was a child. If he's married, his wife doesn't know anything about the crimes he's committing."

Someone said, "I don't believe it. Your description fits half the guys in this room."

That old "Twilight Zone" episode, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," flashed in my head. "One to the other...one to the other...one to the other."

Much, much later, at about 11:00 or so that night, I found myself at the Comstock house. From what I could gather, they'd found the number "3-3-1" painted in blood on Josh's bedsheets when they got home from the town meeting earlier that night. 

Tom--Josh's father--was inconsolable. "Why my family?" he wondered aloud. "Why not the Van Horns across the street? Why not the Trimbles? I know it sounds selfish of me, but I can't make any sense out of it."

I couldn't offer him comfort, not even as a fellow father and husband. "He knows you, Mr. Comstock," I said. "The number you found--331. You know what it means?" He hesitated. Whatever he was about to say next would probably blow the Comstock family sky-high if anyone else was in the room. 

"I...I met a woman, couple of months ago. Consultant for a firm that does design work for us. I met her a couple of times a week at the Hartman Hotel, room 331. Never told Linda"--his wife--"but Josh saw me leaving the hotel with her about three weeks ago. We had a big fight about it, and it was like a wake-up call. I'd been a fool."

"You have to tell her," I said.

==========================================================
I was at the Birckenbeuhl home the next morning. I made for Charlie's room to get a better profile on him while the tech guys did their thing--dusting for fingerprints and the like. Gerlach came in and told me that someone named "Andrews" was looking for me. 

Aha--that was Cheryl Andrews, a pathologist at the Millennium Group. When I first encountered her, I had just caught a film from 1987 called "Bagdad Cafe," and couldn't help but notice the resemblance between her and an actress in it named C.C.H. Pounder.

As she entered, she said: "Security's excellent. I've been stopped twice since I entered the gates."

She put down her big case and asked me to fill her in. I gladly obliged: "Charlie Birckenbeuhl; seventeen. The killer pulled him out of his own bedroom window. Hair and fibers turned out nothing...yet." She gave me a large envelope as she gave me her own findings. "The blood in the first victim's stomach is that of a white male, A positive. It's also the blood that was used to paint '331' on the bedclothes."

I didn't respond for several seconds until she snapped me out of my trance. "I...spoke at a community meeting last night," I explained. "Tried to draw the killer out with half-truths...Wanted to get him acting out in haste, thought it would send us a message and lead us closer to him. Instead he took another victim, same method."

Cheryl understood immediately. "This was planned. You didn't prompt him to act; you just didn't disrupt his pattern."

"Why didn't he send another message?" Gerlach wondered. My eyes, which were presently wandering about the room, suddenly fixed on the fish tank. All of the fish inside it were dead, floating at the top. "Maybe he did," I said, indicating the fish tank. Cheryl grabbed a vial marked "EVIDENCE" and scooped out a sample of the water.

I turned to Gerlach. "Charlie Birckenbeuhl and Josh Comstock--Did they know each other?"

"They went to the same high school," he said. "Juniors. Took a few classes together..." He paused, trying to remember something, anything. "They were both on the swim team."
==================================================================
After a little research, I found out that the swim team's coach was named Burke. Gerlach and I planned to pay him a visit after practice that afternoon.

We introduced ourselves, and Mr. Burke asked, "Any luck in finding this guy?" "Unfortunately, no," I said. "We were hoping you might be able to help us."

"Anything I can do," he said. "Charlie and Josh were outstanding, and for this to happen to two members of the team..."

I chose my words as carefully as possible. "Was there...anyone who took an unusual interest--Someone without children, perhaps?" "Not that I can think of," Burke replied.

"How about the boys?" Gerlach asked. "Were they acting strangely?"

"No," Burke said. "They were both good boys. Well, Josh had been having a few difficulties at home--trouble with his father--but..."

I noticed the way his sentences trailed off, like he was having some trouble holding back an emotional breakdown. 

He paused, regaining composure. "Please. Let me know if there's anything I can do. I just want to see them back safe and sound."

I assured him that I'd do everything in my power as Gerlach and I departed. After we got out of Burke's earshot, I asked: "How well do you know him?"

"Well enough," Gerlach said. "He's lived here for a couple of years...The kids like him."

"He's labile--emotionally unstable. I'd say he's taking some kind of anti-anxiety medication."

"He's had it pretty rough these last couple of years. He got divorced recently. Then, six months ago, his son got hit by a car and died. We never found who was responsible."

"The funeral services for the first victim are this afternoon," I said. "I'd like to go. The kidnapper might be there to see the results of his handiwork firsthand."

"And you know this for sure...how...?" "I don't. I just want to let him know I'm paying attention."

By the time I had reached the cemetery, the priest was already opening the services. While the crowd listened to his sermon, I started scanning for familiar faces. Birckenbuehl, Petey, Comstock...My eye flashed upon a group of four mourners--two men, two women, all in their mid-to-late thirties--and, just for a moment, I perceived them to be incredibly old. Balding, wrinkles, everything. I turned to look at the priest. 

He, too, looked old, even older than the four mourners...but he had blood dripping from his mouth, and his voice seemed to warp and deepen as he spoke. 

I shook my head and allowed reality to reassert itself. Time to go home and collect my thoughts. 
=========================================================
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. I was about to go through the front door when I saw--or thought I saw--a car pull up. I couldn't really tell. The passing thought was enough to get me rattled, and I took a seat on the couch where I could look through the front window. 

Cath found me sitting like that, and I told her about the car. After a moment, she said, " Something else is bothering you."

"This feels like a case from a long time ago. A kidnapper abducted kids from bus stops and took them to his cabin in the woods. Tortured them for seven or eight days. Then he took them back to the bus stops, just like nothing ever happened. Then one day he just stopped."

Someone knocked on the front-door window. It was our neighbor, Jack Meredith, carrying a small, unsealed envelope that he'd gotten by mistake. When he left, I looked inside. There was a small color swatch, the kind you can get at the hardware store. It was metallic green and had the numbers "528" on it. 

============================================================

Later that night, I was called to a crime scene at Vista Verde. Some paramedics got out of an ambulance, put a young man on a gurney, and whisked him away. I asked Sheriff Gerlach what was going on.

"His name's Richard Draper. He was planning a rendezvous with his girlfriend, and didn't want to get caught breaking curfew. Right now, he's in shock, and he's got a concussion and a few cuts and bruises. He's going to make it out all right." 

"What about the men?"

"Birckenbuehl, Comstock, and Petey were on neighborhood patrol. Birckenbuehl's gone home, and Comstock's in a bad way." Neighborhood patrol, huh? These three were so eager to catch their kidnapper that they pounced on the first person they found. 'Course, he was asking for it by breaking curfew, but even so, the poor bastard's traumatized. Never mind, Birckenbuehl's already left the scene...That's the telltale sign of a man who's got something to hide.

All of that being said, I offered Comstock a ride home. He gladly accepted.


"It's like a nightmare I can't wake up from," Comstock confessed. "I'm going home, but I don't know why. I can't sleep. The house is empty."

"You told her about the affair," I concluded.

"Yes. She left me this morning."

"Someone--I suspect it's the kidnapper--sent me a paint swatch with the numbers 528 on it. Does that mean anything to you?" He said no, and I continued. "I think it's a message that he intends me to understand. I don't understand it...not yet, anyway." 

We reached his house. The lights were on, and someone was inside.

"Mr. Comstock, did you give your keys to anyone--a neighbor, or a friend?" "No, why?" "I just saw someone inside." 

Cautiously, we entered the house. Stepping into the kitchen, we found Josh Comstock sitting on the floor, crying softly to himself. His mouth was covered with blood.

Cheryl Andrews and a few of Gerlach's men came by later. She gave Josh a quick examination while he took stock of the house. 

"No sign of forced entry," he concluded after a few minutes' investigation. "The guy must have used Josh's key. Tom's on the phone with his wife, and they're going to meet up at the hospital."

I went over and asked Cheryl what she'd found. "He's in shock," she began. "Lowered body temperature and dilated pupils. Also, there are two burn marks on his chest, similar to the cattle prod used on the first victim."

In my mind's eye, I could see a hand pulling Josh's head back, and another hand squeezing an IV bag, forcing blood into Josh's mouth. It was all I could do not to throw up right then and there. 

"He was made to drink blood, just like the other boy. The kidnapper thinks of himself as a purifier. He makes the impure ingest his blood so that they can be cleansed."

"What about Charlie?" Gerlach demanded. "Is he going to 'purify' him, too?"

"There's a reason why Kirk Orlando was killed and Josh wasn't. There's some connection we're missing."
==================================================================
Cheryl told me she was going to send me an email about the unsolved hit-and-run death of Mr. Burke's son. I dutifully went home to check, and sure enough, there was the full police report. Then, she called me at home to make sure I'd seen it.

"So," I said to her, "we've got one boy dead, one returned alive, and Charlie Birckenbuehl still missing. The death of Burke's son might be related somehow."

"I got some results back from the lab earlier today," her voice rang out. "The foreign substance that killed Charlie Birckenbuehl's fish was single-malt scotch."

Curious. 

"Did you find any fingerprints on that paint swatch?"
"No, but the paint is called 'Forest Green,' code-number 528. It's a three-step enamel used in late-model ML-750 minivans."
"The drunk driver who killed Burke's boy...That was the car he was driving. I think it affected how the kidnapper sees people. He became outraged, disillusioned...Let me call Sheriff Gerlach and get us all over to Birckenbuehl's place. I think there's something we missed."
===================================================
The three of us walked along the driveway. I'd never really noticed Bob Birckenbuehl's minivan, but I could clearly see the words "ML-750" on the back door. Suddenly, a tiny, seemingly insignificant detail took on a great deal of significance.
"I don't understand what you're looking for," Bob Birckenbeuhl spluttered. 
"Of the three fathers, you're the only one who hasn't received a communication from the kidnapper," Cheryl explained. 
"Bu...But the dead fish..." "...wasn't directed at you, Bob," I said, finishing his sentence. "It was directed at me. We're overlooking something, and it could save your son's life."
"Then you know what he wants."
"He wants you to confess. He believes you've done something wrong, whether or not you have. The sins of the father, visited on the son. When Comstock confessed, Josh was released alive. The first boy was killed because his father didn't confess...something involving money. You have to confess in order to save your son."

Cheryl found something under the bed. It was a Nerf football with the initials "CB" on it. 

I picked it up and weighed it. These things are normally pretty light, but this one was heavy.

"This isn't your son's ball," I stated. "I know it looks like your son's initials, but they actually stand for Carl Burke, Coach Burke's son."


When I returned the ball to Cheryl, she squeezed it into an evidence bag. To our shock, the ball was full of blood. A lot of blood.

===================================================================
The next morning. It was January 23rd already. Four days we've been at this, and we were only just getting somewhere. I tried to remind myself that most of my other cases took as long to solve, but my better judgment protested: We seriously could not afford to lose one more day. 

Bob called in his attorney. They proceeded to make me and Gerlach wait in the kitchen while they had a long, drawn-out palaver. Finally, at about 11:12 or so, the attorney emerged. He said: "Sheriff Gerlach, my client insists he's absolutely innocent of any charges relating to the death of Carl Burke."
"And I don't care if your client insists that he's the King of Prussia," Gerlach retorted. "I'm still bringing him in." ("King of Prussia?" Really? You could have tried for "Eleanor Roosevelt." That's at least a little more recent.)

Somewhat taken aback by Gerlach's tenacity, the attorney continued: "Yes, well, under these rather unique circumstances, he has agreed to be taken in publicly for questioning, but he expects that his cooperation will be taken into consideration." 

My plan, as it stood, was to very publicly and very conspicuously "arrest" Bob Birckenbuehl and then quietly bring him back home later that day.

If it worked--and, looking back, it was admittedly a pretty big "if"--it would bring our kidnapper out into the open. This line of work often felt like a game of roulette, and time and again I found myself betting on "red." I usually managed to break even if I didn't win, but every case I took on gave me the sneaking feeling that my luck could run out any day.

Anyway...The plan seemed to work pretty well. Ol' Bob became the talk of the town as soon as he got in the police car. Then, morning gave way to afternoon; and afternoon to night, without so much as a peep from PE No. 1.

The prognosis looked dire, but at about 7:20, Coach Burke came to the front door with something he'd found in the mail. It was an audio tape of Charlie Birckenbuehl.

"Dad, I'm scared," the voice said. "I'm really sick. He says he's merciful, but he says he's just. You have to pay for what you've done. If you've taken a life, then your life must be taken in return."

Bob had to leave the room after we played it the first time. Once he was out of earshot, I played it back again. Cheryl listened carefully to the echo and judged it to come from a large room with a low ceiling. More specifically, a basement of some kind.

I could hear something too. Right when he said, "I'm sick, Dad. I'm really sick." It sounded like...a diving board at a high-school swimming pool.

The jigsaw puzzle was almost complete.
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The three of us made for the pool as fast as we could. I took a good look at the water, and I saw some kind of a viewing area on the pool's floor. There had to be a way to get in. Gerlach went to find a key while Cheryl and I planned our attack.

He came back with a key after a few seconds. Cheryl flipped a light switch, but it didn't work. This was going to be a fumble in the dark with only the blue light reflected from the pool to guide our way.

The only way to do this efficiently was to split up and take each of the three aisles. I took the leftmost aisle; Gerlach, the middle; and Cheryl, the rightmost. We made our way, slowly, to the far end of the room. Just as we were about to reach that furthest end, Cheryl tripped over a cooler. She popped open the lid, felt around inside, and found...an IV bag with blood in it.

We followed her voice until she found Charlie Birckenbuehl, tied by his wrists to a pipe over his head. She was so preoccupied with untying him that she didn't notice a man's shadow moving behind her. Charlie's eyes went wide. Cheryl picked up on it, but too late: Edward Petey zapped her right in the chest with his cattle-prod.

"It's over, Petey," I said.

He lunged at me with the prod.

I moved out of the way and hid behind a nearby support column.

"I'm their only hope," he stated. "The fathers of these boys were all liars. They tried to hide their sins. You've seen what they look like. You see what they'll do to their children."

He lunged at me again.

"They'll make them just the way they are: Sick and corrupt. I tried to help them. I care about these boys. Why am I the only one?"

I heard the familiar sound of a gun being cocked. Gerlach's voice rang out: "Drop it, Ed!"

Petey knew he was defeated, so he did the smart thing and dropped the cattle prod. He gloated all the while, even as Gerlach cuffed him.

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We thought we'd saved the day.

We weren't prepared for the nasty surprise waiting for us when we took Charlie home.

Bob Birckenbuehl had hanged himself in his bedroom.

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COMMENTARY

Wow! After the episode that was "The Dull and the Boring" "The Wild and the Innocent," Millennium makes a bold, in-your-face return to proper horror.

It covers much of the same ground as the pilot--a serial killer casts judgment upon the world and finds it lacking--but takes the premise into a different direction. Instead of following Frank Black through the seedier parts of Seattle, we accompany him into the seemingly idyllic world of gated-community suburbia, where everybody knows each other, and where there's always something bubbling just under the surface.

I hope I carried across at least some of the setting's psychological tension within the narrative section, because the episode really lent itself to the "film noir detective story" approach I usually take with Millennium.

I had Frank deliver much more sardonic humor than usual in his internal monologues, because here he's bristling against Vista Verde's nature as a planned, gated community, where all the residents share similar characteristics: white; affluent; middle-aged; conservative; complacent. Their lives are perfect...or so they think. They'd like to believe in their heart of hearts that it's a place where people look out for each other, just like the neighborhoods where they grew up, but they all know on some level that it just isn't true. Nobody's looking out for each other in Vista Verde; in fact, everyone's just looking out for numero uno.

Everyone's afraid, too; afraid that someone's going to reveal their deepest secrets. One who cheated on his wife; one who committed financial fraud; one who killed a young man in a car accident and never reported it.

And then there's the last one, the one who wants to blow it all sky-high. He can kill with a clean conscience, because in his heart he knows he's right, and he can hide in plain sight, because everyone else is looking for someone outside the community. Heaven forbid that a threat should come from within!

Suburbia is the perfect place for Millennium's overarching theme of "evil, hiding in plain sight." Who would ever have thought that a serial killer might also turn out to be the head of a gated-community's association board? Who would ever have thought that he'd put his hideout right underneath the high school's swimming pool?

I have to admit, Edward Petey is one of the series' most well-developed villains, because he does a really good job of covering his tracks and keeping his darker side hidden behind the veneer of respectability. (That being said, if you try watching the episode again, but this time knowing what you're looking for, it's signposted during the association meeting. The first time around, it seems like it's just a little bit of enmity between himself and Bob Birckenbuehl, but the second time around, Petey sounds pretty evasive, and Bob's not having it.)

One last note: In the section where there's two pictures of the priest--one real, the other in Frank Black's vision--in that part, I wanted to do a mouseover so that you could switch between the two and approximate the effect as seen in the episode. I went through about ten attempts, none of which worked. Life's bitter pills....


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(Millennium copyright Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All screenshots are property of Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Millennium--This Is Who We Are for episode transcripts, which helped me adapt the episodes.)