Death at Dawn

by Arthur Day

  MJ was different. No longer married for one thing. Fully capable of doing whatever he wanted for another. Obviously ex-military and well trained. Well off financially as far as she could tell. What girl wouldn’t at least take a second look at such a man? It was more than that, though, but she couldn’t quite put words to it even to herself. He was dangerous. He seemed at once hard as steel and sensitive to people around him. He was a bear trap and cotton candy all wrapped into one package and there was no way to know what part of him she might first engage What if he found out? He did not seem the type but there were numerous horror stories in the clubs and online of men that had resorted to violence when they found out that their companion was not who they thought he or she should be. She had friends who had been badly beaten and one who had been killed and the police were not about to put it all on the line for a tran. She could deal with anger and violence, she thought, but it would be the end of their friendship and Dianne wasn’t sure she could handle that. She didn’t know why she felt that way. It was just a feeling after all and he was a man but she couldn’t get rid of it.

  She was glad that they had met when she sold him his present house, the one her fellow agents thought was unsalable and snickered quietly behind her back when she took it, an unsalable property in a state owned by the unions and rapidly going broke. She thought that at least one of the agents in the office suspected her but they said nothing and divided the best properties among themselves. Dianne thought of those days and smiled. Not only had she sold the unsalable but she now was getting referrals from clients with whom she had worked. Maureen Valenti, who sat behind her, hated Dianne’s guts. Dianne was good with that. Maureen was a loquacious, frigid, fat, nosy piece of shit, the kind who would pass Dianne’s desk and tell her with an oh-so-superior smirk that Dianne should fire her tailor because her pants were much too loose around the crotch and her skirts were terribly unfashionable. Dianne spent as little time in the office as possible.

  BUCKMASTER

  Sheriff John Buckmaster liked dull days. Dull days meant that the huge majority of the folks in Rockmarsh County were going about their daily lives without major mishap or upset. In the drug store novels, the hero was always bored and looking for something to happen on dull days and, inevitably, they were quickly embroiled in action that kept the pages turning while the pot came to a boil. Reality was far different and filled with reports and meetings and budget worries. After the events of the previous year, he thought dull was just great thank you very much.

  A young woman had been killed after being stalked by a not-so-young psycho and then another young woman, Jennifer Walker, renting a place just out of town had disappeared. The press was all over it spreading lurid details across their pages while he and his department had the thankless task of finding this serial killer and the young woman he had kidnapped before she turned up dead as well. Only luck and the killer’s sister had prevented the Walker woman from being torched as the angel bride of this lunatic. Buckmaster sat in his car for a moment listening to the ticking of the hot metal in the engine. That had been enough action to last him the rest of his time as sheriff and the rest of his time on earth for that matter.

  It was the week after July 4 and there were still fireworks sounding off at night as folks used up their supplies. The temperature was already in the seventies and it looked as if it would be another scorcher. It was the time of year when people started acting crazy. Road rage took on a life of its own and ordinarily peaceful, law-abiding citizens started getting paranoid about their wife or girlfriend and thinking about the .38 or .45 that they kept in their gun safes. So far so good, Buckmaster thought, and looked around for a piece of wood on which to knock. Not that he was superstitious but he figured it couldn’t hurt to cover all the bases even those you couldn’t see or even feel.

  He walked across the parking lot feeling the heat of the new morning sun sucking at his energy and was glad to get through the glass doors in the front of the station. He was buzzed through the gate and picked up the overnight sheet from the front desk as he walked back to his office in the rear. Although he seemed to be casually glancing at the sheet Buckmaster was acutely aware of the people at the desks in the large bay behind the front entrance. Dave, his second-in-command was standing in the doorway of his tiny office next to John’s. He was reading something and frowning. The morning shift had taken over and people were walking between desks, talking, working their phone, strolling in the direction of the parking lot to pick up their cruiser. They all looked fresh and pressed he was glad to see. Impressions were important. If they looked scruffy and grouchy the average citizen would stay clear and avoid getting involved in any way. That could be a serious handicap. Even in a small county like Rockmarsh, he needed folks to support the police and be willing to help out when asked to do so. He saw Tobin Grant, newly graduated from the academy, checking the duty roster. He would be paired with Sergeant Rachel Ward who had been on the force for five years and knew what to do, how to do it and, more importantly when to do it. Moreover, she was always calm and friendly and would be a steadying influence on the newbie.

  The overnight sheet showed no major problem. Someone’s dog had chased the neighbor’s cat up a tree. The fire department had got it down and the dog’s owner told that he was liable for any damages. Clara Burton, ninety-two and a little senile, had called to report a masher looking through her window. She called this in almost every night. A patrol car had swung by her house, but they found nothing. Clara swore that someone was after her body and wanted to seduce her. The officers had thanked her for her vigilance in defense of her maidenhood and gone on their way. She must have been a statue in a castle hall as a young woman Buckmaster reflected. He wondered what her parents had been like to bring up a daughter this way and they were far from unique during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Girls were brought up to shy away from men and take care of their parents and, in return, their parents would take care of them in their will. Buckmaster had been to Burton’s once and doubted that she had ever kissed a man.

  The last note on the list was a bit strange though. 911 had received a call stating that the caller had heard someone scream out on the dirt road that ran around Lake Compton about twenty miles southwest of Junctionville. Lake Compton was one of the few pristine lakes left in Connecticut and was heavily populated by both year-round residents and people with summer homes there. It was an upscale, educated, liberal community. These were people who could both afford and were willing to pay heavy taxes to maintain the summer lifestyle that many of the seasonal residents had known for generations. They came from all over the state and many from other states. If all men were created equal, then the people in the Compton area were created more equal than others. The dispatcher had sent a patrol car to the lake but not much had been discovered.

  Isabelle Fornier had made the call at seven that morning. Her cabin was close to the lake road so it was plausible that she had heard something. The officers had walked up and down the road for a half mile in either direction but had seen no signs of a struggle, no body, and no other reason to think that the scream was that of a person and not an animal. Mrs. Fornier stated that she had woken up to that sound and was sure that it was a person. There were no large cats this far south and that was the only animal she knew that might have screamed in a similar fashion. She lived by the lake year round, and knew the difference. The officers asked her to call the sheriff’s office should she remember anything else or hear the noise again.

  Buckmaster walked into his office thinking about that part of the report. There would be more detail on the incident report turned in and he would look at that before deciding if further action was indicated. He smiled at himself as he settled into his chair. He was even thinking in bureauspeak. Action was indeed “indicated” but he did not yet have enough facts to take the next step.

  The reports were placed neatly in the center of his desk with the lake incident sep
arated from the others. Obviously, Dave had found that report worth pursuing. Officers Robson and Martins had answered the call. The deputies had arrived at 7:40. They had driven directly to the Fornier house where Mrs. Fornier had been waiting for them. She stated that she was an early riser, always had been, and she had been standing on her back porch sipping the first cup of coffee and enjoying the peace of the lake and the time of day. She heard the scream at about 6:30. She knew that because she had turned and gone back inside the house when she heard it and had taken note of the time on the kitchen clock. She had only heard the one scream from direction of the road. She had walked up the driveway and looked in both directions but had not seen anything. She had then gone back to the house thinking she had misheard and it was a car backfiring or some animal, but she couldn’t let the memory go and had decided to call 911 at 7:05.

  The officers had gone up to the road and split up, one walking east towards the paved road into town and one walking west following the dirt road around the lake. Neither had seen or heard anything. The road was hard pack so there had been no prints or tire tracks except on the shoulder and those had been the tracks of a car and the broader tracks of a truck, probably a pick-up. There were lots of them in this area. They heard nothing unusual.

  They had then walked to the nearest home on each side of the Fornier residence. Robson had talked with a Thomas Mentoning who came to the door in his bathrobe. He had been asleep and was not in a good mood when he answered the door. He had heard nothing. He banged the door shut. The Mentoning house was about thirty yards from the Forniers. Martins had found the house on the other side of the Fornier’s to be empty, a cabin belonging to people who came up from New Haven for several weeks each year according to Fornier.

  Buckmaster put the report down on his desk and blew air through his lips. Not much to go on. The woman might have heard a scream, or she might have heard something else entirely. Mentoning had been sleeping and the other was empty. No corroboration there.

  Dave knocked and opened the door. “Good morning, Sheriff.”

  “Morning Deputy Calhoun. How’re you doing this morning?” Buckmaster smiled at his deputy and leaned back in his chair. He and Dave did not always agree. Dave was young and ambitious. He had run against Buckmaster in the last election and might have won had the Walker case not been solved with Jennifer shaken but unhurt at least physically. Dave had accepted defeat gracefully, a strength of character that Buckmaster had not heretofore known about his deputy and for which he was grateful. Dave Calhoun was an experienced policeman with excellent instincts and a penchant for detail that made him invaluable in dealing with the daily minutiae required to run the department. Recently married to his long-time girlfriend, Nicole Grillman, Buckmaster was not sure how much longer he wanted to put up with the long hours and uncertainty that went with the job. He might well back Dave in the next election.

  “You saw the report,” Dave said. It was not a question. He knew his chief would have spotted it immediately even had he not separated it from the other reports.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Buckmaster shrugged and came to his decision. “Not enough to go on yet. Could have been anything so we won’t put anyone on it. I will drive around the lake road later today just to show people that we haven’t forgotten and that we are doing something. If we get another call from someone up there, get it to me ASAP.”

  “Okay. Will do.” Dave backed out of the doorway closing it behind him.

  Lake Compton was indeed beautiful. Small but deep and clear, it nestled in a series of little hills that would become mountains further north. The shoreline was still tree lined and dotted with cabins. Docks stuck out into the lake like the fingers of babies. Small hills rose on three sides with the tiny hamlet of Compton on the fourth. Buckmaster pulled over to the side of the road leading down the hill to Compton and looked at a map of the area dotted with little squares representing houses with the owners’ names written alongside. He found Fournier on the north end on the lake road.

  The report had been accurate. The lake road was hard-packed dirt and twisted slightly to follow the lake shore. Some houses nested on the slope above the lake to the right of the road but many others were down by the lakeshore at the end of long private driveways that sometimes accessed two or three of them. If someone had been hurt or attacked there were numerous places where that could happen, and no one would know. He drove slowly along the road from the Fornier house that was partially visible through a screen of pines. The road ran straight for about twenty yards and then curved to the right. The next house on the right was about a further forty yards down the road. Buckmaster pulled over onto the shoulder as far as possible, got out of the cruiser and walked back and forth along that stretch of road. There was nothing to see. Maple, poplar, birch and pine gave way to a clearing sloping up to a white clapboarded farmhouse with an attached garage with the rear of a black Ford Escape showing on one side. The other side was empty. The air smelled of pine, freshly cut grass and a faint whiff of wood smoke from someone warding off the morning chill earlier in the day. Robson and Martins had not mentioned canvasing this place so they had not come this far down the road.

  Buckmaster walked up the dirt and stone driveway and pushed the black button to the right of the door. He heard no chime or other sign that the bell was working but stood there anyway looking around at the woods surrounding the house and the view of the lake about a quarter of a mile away.

  “Yes? Has Something happened? Is Ned okay?”

  The voice caught him by surprise and he whirled around to face the woman who had answered the door. “Forgive me,” he told her. “I was admiring the view. No. As far as I know everything is fine and Ned is okay.”

  “Thank God.” The relief in her voice was evident. Possibly embarrassed by her display of emotion the woman quickly followed up with “Lovely isn’t it? I think that’s what attracted my grandfather to this place when he first saw it. Back then, of course, there were only woods around the lake. Probably less than ten houses scattered along the shore.” She looked past him at the lake and smiled. “Never fails to impress,” she finished.

  “I’m Sheriff Buckmaster. One of your neighbors thought she heard someone scream this morning about six thirty. Did you hear anything or see anything strange or out of place?”

  The woman opened the door and gestured inside. “Please forgive my manners. Come in.” She turned and went into the house. Buckmaster followed. The front hallway was short. To the right was the living room by the furniture scattered around and to the left a smallish oval pine table marked the dining room.

  “I’m Connie Shoulter.” She held out her hand. Her skin was soft and dry to his touch.

  “How do you do Mrs. Shoulter?”

  Connie Shoulter was an attractive woman probably in her early forties with broad open features and blue eyes beneath honey-blonde hair cut short just below her ears. She had an impish, just-about-to-tell-a joke twist to her mouth and obviously cared about her figure. “I do well,” she responded, “but to answer your question. I was fast asleep at that hour. Ned is on the road as he is most of the time so I go to bed late and sleep late. There are several people who go out for early walks though. A friend of ours up the road a bit walks early for instance. Are we in danger?”

  “Not at all,” Buckmaster reassured her. Even late in the afternoon the woman had a sleepy, sensuous look about her. She was wearing some kind of Chinese garment. It was green with red dragons chasing each other around its circumference but it only came down to mid-thigh and the legs below it were tanned and well-muscled. She looked as if she could wrestle alligators but Buckmaster had no doubt that she was not interested in such animals. Not one to leave alone for long periods he thought. “Thank you for helping out on this. We’re just doing routine follow up on the call we got. No need to worry.” He suddenly realized that people might be in danger should the w
orst come to worst and there was someone attacking people out early. Too early to raise the alarm though. He thanked her again and let himself out the door.

  The radio squawked as he got into his cruiser. “Dispatch Sheriff.”

  “This is Buckmaster.”

  It was Peggy Noonan the daytime dispatcher. “Sheriff. We just got a call on a missing person on Lake Compton. Since you were already in the area, I thought you’d want to know.” Peggy always sounded as if she were selling a box of cereal that you absolutely had to have on your shelf or feel singled out the rest of your life.

  “Address?”

  “501 Arlington Road. The woman’s name is Pamela McCaal.”

  “Got it. Sheriff out.” He put the mic back on the set and sat there for a minute not thinking about anything but simply digesting what he had just heard. Coincidence. Unlikely. He put the car in gear and headed back in the direction from which he’d come. Compton was now on the front burner.

  McCAAL

  Hello the house” I called through the open doorway

  “Yes?” The man reminded me of a gnome, one of those little people who show up in childrens’ tales making shoes or making jokes or simply providing character contrast to the hero or heroine. He was small, maybe five feet three or four inches, and slumped a bit. He was bald on top but sported a small beard that framed a nose that he had broken sometime in the past and a pair of brown eyes buried deep in their sockets. He looked up at me and smiled. “My my. The good Lord must have used a different mold for you.” He smiled to show that he meant no offense. His voice was high and somewhat feminine.