The Hatchings

,

The Hatchings

A sequel to the Birds

by chip

One year after Alfred Hitchcock died, and three years after he and his younger brother, Charlie Hitchcock, assistant director, made the film, The Birds, Charlie Hitchcock envisioned a sequel to it. He wanted to dramatize what happened to the abandoned town of Bodega and the multitude of birds that were left there. He contacted the writers of The Birds, who liked the idea of a sequel, The Hatchings, and with Charlie's ideas, the script was written.

Charlie's brother, Alfred, left him ten million dollars when he died the year prior to Charlie's beginning work on his sequel. Charlie used his inheritance wisely in the search for a film company who would make his film. American Movies agreed to make the film with Charlie directing and Jessica O'Connor playing the lead. For the last six-months Jessica had been dating Charlie as she had his older brother. She was always ready to express her sincere gratitude to Alfred for being chosen for his movie, The Birds, and she had the same thankfulness for being in Charlie's movie, The Hatchings.

"Here we are, love, Bodega Bay," Charlie Hitchcock said. Charlie is a fat, five-foot-five, distant and somewhat anti-social film making genius. He and his lead actress, Jessica O'Conner, pulled up to a stop sign next to a taffy shop in a Porsche Spider when Jessica, showing signs of a little pain, asked him to pull over in front of the shop.

"I need to use the ladies room now, or I might drown," Jessica said. She got out of the car and with dainty yet slightly painful looking steps, made her way to the taffy candy store.

Jessica O'Conner, a thirty-one-year-old, petite 5'2" but dynamic movie star was schooled in many disciplines besides drama and though refined, never flaunted her knowledge or her social skills.

"Damn you bitch," a lady's voice from inside the store was heard screaming.

"Go to hell you tramp," Jessica answered.

"Stop pulling my hair devil," the lady cried.

The celebrity, enraged with a livid anger and manifesting a set of flaring, then beady with hatred eyes, shouted, "Here snot-nose, here's my autograph," and swatted her foe's head with the back of her hand. She slammed the door on leaving and went back to the car.

"What, for goodness sake, took place in there my temperamental, cocky, but loving star?" Hitchcock asked.

"The shrewish hag wouldn't let me use the restroom, so I told her I would pee the floor. She said, go ahead Missy, so I pulled up my dress, pulled down my panties, and relieved my bladder right in front of the perfect ass that she was."

"Hah, hah, she's lucky you didn't have to expel excrement from your bowels my perfect love."

"Let's get out of here," Jessica said.

"My sentiments exactly, since she may take note of our license plate."

Charlie Hitchcock was five years younger than Alfred, who died at sixty-two from a heart attack. Charlie attended American Film School and William and Mary Collage where he slaved for perfection over the minutest details of his assignments. Charlie was a worldly blond womanizer who loved strong margaritas and late hours as did his brother.

Brushing her long, blonde hair out of her brilliant blue eyes, Jessica said, "You worked hard for Al on his, The Birds, and it worked. We all made fortunes and had good times. Charlie I'm confident The Hatchings will be a success also, but will it be as much fun to film?"

Bodega Bay's water flows in from the Pacific Ocean, and when the moonlight falls upon it and the gulls cry some; it is a romantically veiled haven for lovers. The Hitchcocks and O'Conner weren't true lovers, but Jessica had such a profound respect for their talent, she freely gave herself to them on demand.

"Positively," said Charlie. Why not start now? How about a jaunt to the Tides; their bar overlooks this luminous bay where anchored little fishing boats can be seen bobbing up and down awaiting the morning?"

Bodega Bay was nearly three miles wide and four in length. It was about seven miles from the town of Bodega where a school, a church, some art stores and dwellings can be seen but not much more.

"Are the gin martinis any good?" Jessica asked.

"They are providing we ask for the best gin," Charlie said.

A tall, slim, handsome and smiling Italian waiter approached the artist's table. His apparel was casual and immaculate. His bright white shirt looked formal, but by wearing a tie with a salmon painted on it, his style was casual. His black slacks and obviously costly cuff links and tie clasp holding down a silk deep purple salmon adorned tie, fit in with the Restaurant's expensive motif. Though catering to the family clientele, the Tides' arrangement of plush golden fixtures and deep napped red rugs with firewood tables and chairs graced, William Busoni's, restaurant. His original Tides had been serving the public for over forty-five years, but this rebuilt one has been going only three.

"We have a delicious lasagna special this evening, and our chef's raviolis are famous with Italian connoisseurs," the waiter said.

"Dear Sir, I notice there are many pictures depicting the old Tides burning down three years ago. How did that happen?" Charlie asked.

"The wind blew the oven's pilot light into some encrusted grease that caught fire," the waiter answered. "By the way, are you Alfred Hitchcock?" The waiter asked.

"No, he was my brother. I do hope someone keeps the oven clean now."

"Yes."

"My good man, please bring my brilliant and thirsty sweetheart a martini made with Plymouth Gin, and I'll take a margarita with two shots of Avion Anejo tequila," Charlie said

Brushing some hair strands from her face, Jessica spoke up, "Oh, waiter, would you add a fruit-cheese plate and some Ritz crackers to our order?"

"All right."

"Oh, oh, mmm, those aromas-jeepers they're frying salmon, and it is making my mouth water. Are you hungry, Al?"

"Starved for you my fragrant and tender victual. I reserved a couple of beautiful suites at the Ebb Tide Inn up the hill that lend themselves to a hotter time than my brother's trailer you two used," Charlie said, and with a puckish smile asked, "Would you care to see them after this round?"

"I'm hung-hung-hungry, love."

"Oh, okay," Charlie said. We'll eat."

The waiter, with a bubbly gait, served the drinks and a little later, the salmon dinners the duo ordered.

The couple ate and drank, smiled and giggled, and Charlie feeling a little lustful, surreptitiously but smoothly caressed Jessica's perky thirty-four-inch breasts.

Jessica blotted her newly applied, glossy red, lipstick from her elegant pursed lips and said, "That was the best meal I've had in five hundred years."

"Hah, hah; tell me about your past lives Jessica. I understand that your hypnotist saw you as having several."

"Yes, I was a Mexican beggar in one of my lives, a murderess in one and the prince of Norway in one. I was also a sausage maker in two of my lives and for two-hundred years, a fairy living outside time," the star said in all sincerity.

"A fairy, huh? What's the hypocrite's, I mean what's the hypnotist's name? I can't give much credence to re-embodiment," Charlie said.

"Give me a break. Charlie you should know that Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, and many other Upanishads all believe in reincarnation," Jessica sighed.

"Sounds like they're Hindus. Sweetheart don't be hoodwinked by this dead headed, bloodsucking, parasitical, freeloader; all he wants is your money and maybe some nerve ending gratification J.O.," Charlie said.

"You asked his name; it is, Marko the Gypsy," Jessica answered.

"It's your money funny bunny. Enough about past lives let's live it up now. It's time we scurry up the hill to the pads, sweet. We need a little dessert," Charlie said.

Jessica, blushing, brushed some hair from her eyes, and the two artists drove up the hill, parked, kissed and hugged, and then went into Jessica's suite. Al, wearing a big smile, emerged from the suite a few hours later and began his way to his place. He made an abrupt stop, looked around as if he sensed danger, and then began walking again. There was a crackling blast from a rifle, and Charlie went out like a lit match dropped in water. A bullet smashed into his head like an American rocket into an Iraqi terrorist. Though Charlie weighed Two-Hundred-Forty lbs his body flew Two or Three FT. into the landscaping with rare white lilies and a hippy's small marijuana plant.

A raven befuddled by the gunshot, swooped down and pecked at the marijuana plant then darted over to Charlie and plucked out his left eye just before Jessica appeared on the scene.

Jessica bit her lip until it bled, and in a state of shock, with eyes budging with terror and a sweating upper lip, cried out loud.

"My God, my God, who did this? Help!" Jessica, somewhat intoxicated, sped back into her place stumbling and weaving a bit on her way, and with tears in her eyes called the police. The raven returned and plucked out Charlie's right eye; neighbors began to accumulate around Charlie-one here, one there, then two more over there until a small crowd was staring at dead Charlie lying flat on his back as a beached great white killer whale, and the smoke from the shot lingered on.

The police arrived and began asking questions, but everyone was stone-faced. No one had a clue about the murder, as everyone was asleep at the time. Finally one citizen came out of his suite sauntered up to the captain of the police.

He said, "I had a dream right before the killing. I dreamt Charlie Hitchcock wanted to die, so he hired a gypsy apple picker from a shanty on Greenstein Rd to shoot him this morning,"

The captain though overtired and, with bloodshot eyes, exercised diplomacy and dismissed the citizen with a smile saying he would be sure to report this to the DA.

The investigation went on for two days before the stressed-out captain called Detective Eugene Vibes, PI, in San Francisco.

Local police departments asked Detective Vibes for help once in awhile, because he was great. He solved nearly each of the thirty cases the police handed him, but his wife, Kathleen, solved two. Kathleen was a licensed detective and worked for an insurance company. Her job was to verify the validity of accident claims, but like a faithful wife helped her husband off and on.

"This must be the place. Bodega Police Department. I've found it. I'll just park over there on that dirt drive. Gee, this is a beautiful area; it must be a hundred or so years old." Vibes thought.

The Detective put his car behind the police station in Bodega, gathered some notebooks and pens then, kicking up some dust that alighted on his shoes, walked inside the station.

"How do you boys keep your shoes clean? May I borrow a cloth to dust my shoes?" Vibes asked.

"Just who are you sir?" the desk sergeant asked?

"I'm the investigator from the city the captain called to help on a murder case, but why isn't there an array of cops from Hollywood working on this matter? Charlie Hitchcock was rich, famous, and powerful, aren't these gods supposed to have their own army?" Vibes asked.

"Heh, heh, hello, you must be detective Vibes. Frank Pavone, our retired chief, recommended you," the Captain said, as he entered the room.

"I remember Frank. He and I worked on a murder case in Santa Rosa back in the Eighties. It was an unusual situation; the murderer, who was hired to kill a certain party in errors on his vigs to the mob, killed the wrong person. Think what you will, but Frank and I were not too sorrowful. The person he killed was a child molester who was on the FBI's most ten wanted list. We agreed this killing wasn't a terribly bad mistake," Vibes said.

"Right, the chief mentioned that case. The killer of the child molester was caught and did fifteen-years," the captain said.

"That is perfectly correct. Now, do you know why Charlie Hitchcock was here three years after making The Birds with his brother?" Vibes asked.

The Captain answered, "His star, Jessica O'Connor, on questioning, revealed he had a script a sequel The Hatchings that was supposed to dramatize how the hundreds of birds abandoned here had offspring, you know, they hatched eggs.

May I have your reports on the Hitchcock case?" Vibes asked.

Vibes received all the information on the Charlie Hitchcock case, and began working. Vibes, on examining Charlie's body, determined he was shot from an elevated position; the coroner agreed. At the crime scene, he picked up a spent 30'30' shell and took photographs and cast impressions of some tire tracks in the landscaping with white lilies near where Charlie was shot. He also made a plaster cast of a shoe impression. He uploaded his digital photos of the tire tracks from his laptop to the criminology lab's computer in San Francisco that is connected to the FBI's central information center. He learned the tire track was from a 2006 Winnebago, a recreational vehicle.

Through a further mind-numbing investigation of several Sonoma Counties RV dealers' ledgers, he eliminated all customers except three. Two of the possible suspects lived in Santa Rosa, but one lived in the nearby town of Sebastopol.

"It's time I roved out to see this RV owner, George Jacobs. Hope I find it. Six- Fifty-Two Apple blossom Court, Sebastopol," Charlie thought.

Vibes took a ride to the address of the possible suspect, Mr. George Jacobs, and saw a Winnebago in the driveway. He photographed the RV from his car, and studied the images he uploaded to his laptop and was excited to see the same rare white lily petal that is found at the crime scene caught on the rear bumper. He focused his camera on the petal, zoomed in and took another picture.

Vibes appeared before a judge and argued that his photo of the white lily petal found on Jacob's Winnebago along with his photo of the white lilies at the crime scene was cause enough for the judge to issue a warrant permitting him to check the RV's tires. He wished to be able to search Mr. Jacobs' house for a 30'30' rifle and look for a shoe or shoe prints that match the cast he lifted at the crime scene. The judge agreed. Vibes went back to Jacob's place.

On arriving, Jacobs could be seen mowing his lawn. Vibes approached him and began the interview.

"Mr. Jacobs, have you read of the murder that occurred three days ago in Bodega Bay?" Vibes asked.

"Why are you questioning me, detective?" the suspect asked. "I have done no wrong."

"I have a warrant giving me permission to search your house," Vibes said.

"Go for it cop; I can't stop you," Jacobs answered.

Vibes took out the cast of the tire mark and held it up to one of the Winnebago tires. This is an exact match to the cast impressions I made at the crime scene. This is an exact match to the cast impressions I made at the crime scene.

"Sir, look here; this is an exact match! He took his shoe print cast atop the Winnebago and found shoe prints in the dust that matched his cast."

"So! So what does this prove that I shot Charlie Hitchcock?"

Vibes searched Jacobs' house for the incriminating rifle and shoe. He found the shoe with the exact markings as the cast he held. "Is this your shoe, Mr. Jacobs?" Vibes asked.

"It's my shoe."

"Where were you at 3:00am last Friday?"

"In bed where else, killing a director?" Jacobs answered.

Bang! Someone fired a shot from the backyard of Jacob's house. Vibes cautiously ran into the yard and found a teenager with a rifle. Jacobs yelled at the boy, "Give me that, Billy!"

"Dad, a wild pig was running around; I knew you hid the rifle, under the shed steps, so I grabbed it, removed it from its case, and shot at the pig but missed. You would've done the same Sir," Billy said. "Dad, there it goes now." A medium sized bore jetted from under a shed and down a slope out of sight, and gunpowder smoke odor lingered on.

"Let me examine that rifle, Billy," Vibes said. The boy looked at his dad, whose head was bowed down, then looked at the detective and gave the rifle to Vibes; he ejected the bullets, checked the caliber, picked up the shell from the ground and studied it. "The same caliber rifle and bullet were used in the murder of Hitchcock.
I have four pieces of incriminating evidence making you look 100% guilty of murder," Vibes said.

Jacob asked, "Do you have any eye witness? Do you have any photographs of Hitchcock's' killer firing at him? The courts up here, detective, need concrete evidence, not circumstantial like what you have gathered. Couldn't it be someone is framing me, setting me up as a killer when, actually, I am innocent as I was in bed at the time of the killing?"

"No. We haven't any witness nor do we have any photographs of the crime, but with all this circumstantial evidence, you had better have a witness verifying you were asleep or picture of you sleeping last Friday at 3:00am. Do you have either of these?" Vibes asked.

"No."

Vibes went on, "The courts in California are under the same ruling. Circumstantial evidence (if there is an adequate amount of it) is enough to charge a suspect with a felony. No concrete evidence is necessary. And because you killed the known brother of a famous and loved director, I'm sorry, but we don't even need this much evidence against you to send you away for life. So, unless you can prove your Alibi, the D.A. will be happy have you in court."

"I haven't any proof," Jacobs said.

"I spoke with the service station attendant working the grave shift across from the Tides in Bodega Bay about you and your RV. He said he knows you and told how you and your daughter visit Bodega regularly. He sold you gasoline at 2:30am the morning of the murder and gave me a copy of the receipt with your license plate number on it. He also informed me that you are the owner of the Sonoma Business' Owners Insurance Company, SBOIC. When I looked this up in the public records, I found it was SBOIC that honored Busoni's claim covering the fire that burned down his restaurant.

"You hated Busoni because the burning down of his restaurant cost your company two million dollars. You hated him because you damn well knew that he was involved in an act of arson performed right after The Birds was completed, but you couldn't prove it," Charlie said.

Jacobs said, "The Tides was burned down due to the old kitchen stove, having grease build up that caught fire when the pilot light blew on it due to a gust of wind.

"You don't believe that. You do not really believe that, Mr. I've learned you knew the Hitchcock brothers performed an act of arson on your client's restaurant. Why you killed the young Hitchcock is beyond me, so far. Finding out he torched your client's place doesn't seem motive enough to kill. You could have forced him to pay you more than the two million you shelled out," Charlie said.

"You sound like a criminal. I'd never blackmail anyone for anything especially if I couldn't prove a wrong has been done," Mr. Jacobs said.

"You know a wrong was done and by who. The gas station attendant crossed the highway at 3:00am to check on why a dog was barking, and from that significant vantage point saw the Hitchcock brothers' act of arson. The attendant called the fire department, but didn't rat on the Hitchcocks. Days later, however, when he filled up your Winnebago, he squealed to you about seeing the crime being committed,"

"Who said anyone needs to believe a gas station attendant?" Mr. Jacob's asked.

Vibes went on, "My wife, Kathleen, reviewed the American Artists' ledgers and found the postings of the expenses for shooting the film at Bodega. Everyone was paid by AA, from the township to the boat owners and from the gas station owner to the citizens for being extras.

"This entry was found also:" [The Tides Restaurant's owner, William Busoni, donated the use of his place for the filming of,

The Birds, in exchange for a service performed by the Hitchcocks.] "This unusual posting for the use of the restaurant puts Busoni under suspicion of trading the use of his place for the Hitchcocks's act of arson."

"Why kill Charlie Hitchcock and why wait three years? Charlie and Alfred easily had the means to pay you many times over the two million you dished out on the fire claim? All you needed to do was to let them know that you had proof that they torched the Tides, and it wouldn't have been blackmail, it would have been practicing prudence. "

"Sure, I could have sought restitution from the Hitchcocks; I could have turned them over to the law, but rich and famous people like those guys never are brought to justice and suffer punishment. I wanted revenge for more than torching my client's place of business. When he was here helping his brother film The Birds, Charlie Hitchcock made my eighteen-year-old daughter believe he would make her a star if she proved she liked the Hitchcock movies. He seduced my girl into losing her virginity and left her in tears. I went to Hollywood searching for Charlie Hitchcock, but found he had too many people around him at all times. I couldn't figure a way to kill him without being detected, but when I learned he was in town, I saw my chance to make him pay for his crimes," Jacobs said

"I'll pray for you, Jacobs," Vibes summoned the sheriff.

Within a short time, the sheriff's deputy pulled up in front of Jacob's house. The officer read him his rights and put him under arrest for the killing of Charlie Hitchco014

Jacobs kicked the deputy, knocked out Vibes and speed through his back yard and down the hill where the wild boar had run. He flew into an old barn and disappeared from view. The deputy limping slightly finally arrived where the barn rested.

"Jacobs, you might as well give up. We won't let you get away," the deputy shouted.

Vibes appeared on the scene, and the two lawmen hollered to Jacobs warning him to give up, so there wouldn't be any struggle that might be fatal. Jacobs was hiding in an abandoned dried up water well where he covered himself with leaves. The wild boar that Billy shot at ran from a horse trough and fell in the well exposing Jacobs. Jacobs was taken into custody.

Jacobs was tried for first-degree-murder and was sentenced to life in prison; The Tides Restaurant's owner, William Busoni, was tried and convicted of insurance fraud; his sentence would have been six years in the state penitentiary, but for cooperating with the detective on the case, Busoni received four.

Word Count: 3,926