The Siege

by Hautala, Rick

  The pressure in Winfield’s bladder demanded that he head into the station soon to relieve himself, but he took a minute to appreciate the scenery, thankful that for the past nineteen years he hadn’t had to work in the potato fields during harvest. That was back-breaking work, and he’d had enough dirt under his fingernails when he worked the fields through high school. Becoming a cop saved him from ending up like his father and older brother, working sixteen or more hours a day every day of the week with nothing to look forward to but decreasing yields, lower prices, increasing costs, and no hope for improvement.

  It struck him as strange, though, that looking out over the potato fields made him feel so down. The harvest would start soon, and most everyone in town would pitch in to bring in the crop. Even school, which started in mid-August, would close for the few weeks of harvest so sons and daughters, and even teachers could help. Whatever jobs weren’t filled by local people would be taken by the migrant workers who followed harvests around the state from blueberry barrens to apple orchards to potato fields. As long as there wasn’t any trouble with the migrants, and there usually wasn’t, except for those unexplained disappearances last year up in Caribou. Things should be all right.

  Of course, Winfield wouldn’t be expected to help with the harvest. As a police officer, he was expected to stay on duty and sometimes even put in a little overtime; with the influx of migrant workers and everyone working so damned hard during the day, nights and weekends downtown saw more action than usual, especially at Kellerman’s, the only local bar. Of course, Dyer at its most active would still strike someone from down south—say, Bangor or Portland—as a sleepy little town. And that’s just how Winfield liked it, sleepy and quiet. So quiet, in fact, that now more than ever he couldn’t see any need to double up shifts, especially for someone who had been with the force for as long as he had. Maybe today he would mention it to Chief Bates, again.

  He swung open the cruiser door and stepped out, pocketed the keys as he stood up straight and then, yawning, stretched his arms over his head. A sudden twinge of pain shot through the small of his back, and he massaged it as he went up the walkway to the front door.

  “Mornin’,” said Pam Lessard, barely looking up as the heavy front door slammed shut behind him.

  Pam was the daytime desk officer and radio dispatcher who had been with the department almost as long as Winfield had. Still, in all those years, he felt as though he barely knew her. She was married and lived out on Ridge Road, past the town dump. She had two boys, both in high school now, and her husband had a job at one of the banks in Houlton, he knew that much. But Pam kept pretty much to herself; she did her job and went home at the stroke of four, and that was it. She never even made it to the few social events the department bad.

  Winfield knew one thing, though, especially on days like this: he knew he envied the regularity of her work hours: seven to four, Monday through Friday, and a Saturday morning every now and then, like today, to help catch up. That’s police work the way it should be.

  He nodded a greeting as he walked past her glass-fronted desk, heading toward the bathroom. He tried to walk without revealing the urgency he felt. “Oh, Jeff,” she said. Her voice was flat and nasal, and when she looked at him, her eyes seemed lifeless and dull. “This just came in over the wire. You might want to have a look at it.” She held a sheet of paper out through the slot in her window and gave it an impatient shake.

  “Uh, yeah,” Winfield said, biting down on his lower lip. “Just a sec.”

  He made it to the bathroom, just in time as far as he was concerned. He vowed he would limit himself to two cups in the morning from now on.

  Back at the front desk, he looked for the teletype Pam had tried to give him. She had it on the edge of her desk and was sitting with her back to him, busily typing.

  “So,” he said, feeling much relieved. “What’ve you got?”

  “Nothing much,” Pam said. She stopped typing and, turning, handed him the paper. “A File-13 from Detective Maloney in Westbrook. Seems they’ve had a few suspicious fires down their way and they all sort of fit together. State fire marshal indicates they were all set the same way. No real serious damage, just a couple of abandoned warehouses and one old barn. But according to this, whoever’s setting them seems to be moving north.”

  Winfield frowned as he quickly scanned the sheet of paper. A File-13 went out on the teletype to all police stations in New England as a general, informational bulletin. In these days of manpower shortages and budgetary restraints, not every crime could be pursued with full vigor. A File-13 was pretty much a catch-as-catch-can notice. If something happened to catch your eye, you could give the station of origin a call and offer what information you had. Usually, they just piled up and, after a week or so, made their way to the real File-13, the waste basket.

  This particular bulletin concerned straight arson, and because no people so far had been hurt or killed, the FBI hadn’t been called in. In time, either the arsonist would stop and disappear, or he would do some serious damage, or someone would get hurt or killed. Then more effort would be exerted to bring him in.

  What caught Winfield’s eye, though, was the warning to watch locally for a “cluster of suspicious fires.”

  Westbrook’s had a few fires recently, he thought. So what? It could be coincidence just as easily as it could be someone setting those fires.

  “I don’t get it,” Winfield said when he was finished reading. “Why does this detective think the arsonist is heading our way?”

  Pam quickly returned to her typing, but she heard his question over the loud clattering sound she was making, and without slowing down, tilted her head toward the telephone on her desk. “I know as much as you do. Give him a call if you’re so interested.”

  Winfield groaned as he massaged the small of his back with his fist. He glanced again at the File-13, his eyes getting caught once more by the phrase “cluster of suspicious fires.” Moving stiffly, he walked down the hallway to his office, unlocked the door, entered, kicked the door shut behind him, and sat down at his desk.

  His eyes felt like they were dusted with powdered glass. From his top drawer, he took a bottle of Visine and squirted three drops into each eye, blinking rapidly as the fluid ran from his eyes and down his cheeks. It felt better, but not much. A solid eight hours of sleep was what he needed, and the last thing he wanted was for anything to happen today.

  In spite of that, though, he picked up the phone and dialed the Westbrook police station. After eleven double rings, Detective Maloney picked up his receiver.

  “Detective Maloney here,” said a sharp, clipped voice.

  “Hello, this is Sergeant Winfield up in Dyer.”

  “How may I help you, sir?” Maloney said, sounding as though he had come to the police force straight out of the Army.

  “Well,” Winfield said, settling back in his chair, closing his eyes, and leaning his head back, “I just got your telex on the suspected arsons, and I had a couple of questions for you.”

  “Shoot,” Maloney said, so quickly it almost sounded as though he had sneezed.

  “Well, you say here to watch for a ‘cluster’ of fire, but I was wondering why you think this guy’s heading up this way.”

  There was a short pause on the other end of the line, and Winfield could hear sheets of paper being turned. He leaned forward in his chair, bracing the phone with his shoulder.

  “Since that went out, we heard from two more stations in Connecticut and another one in Massachusetts. All three of them reported several suspicious fires and putting them together with the others we’ve had, it appears as though they’re all the work of a person or persons heading north, up I-95.”

  “What time frame are we dealing with here?” Winfield asked. It surprised him that, after listening to Maloney for only a few seconds, he adopted his military-sounding speech pattern.

  “Each local incident has been a day or two apart for the space of approximately a week or so. T
he time between local incidents seems to vary between two and three weeks. My gut feeling is that whoever is doing this is travelling on foot or hitchhiking. Anyone travelling in a car would be too noticeable. They’d be in the local area too long.”

  “But you’ve had no reports of any arson north of Portland recently, correct? Nothing around Augusta or Bangor?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Winfield nodded and, glancing up at the ceiling, blinked his eyes rapidly. The Visine was starting to work now, and the small dots on the overhead acoustic tiles no longer blurred together. The caffeine from Kellerman’s was finally starting to kick in, too, so he was actually beginning to think he might make it through the day without falling asleep over lunch.

  “Look Sergeant Winfield, I have a call on the other line. I appreciate your call and any help you can give me.”

  “Sure,” Winfield said, but before he could say goodbye, Maloney’s line went dead.

  Winfield hung up the phone and, looking down at his desk, realized for the first time that he had been doodling on the telex the whole time he had been talking to Maloney. A faint smile curled his upper lip as he looked down at the face he had drawn at the bottom of the page, but he also felt slightly unsettled as he studied his drawing. On top of a smooth, rounded, rather sexless-looking face, a shock of thick, long hair streamed out in all directions. It took him a moment to realize that the hair looked, really, more like a raging fire than hair. The mouth he had drawn was open in a large oval that might have been a scream, but what unnerved him most of all were the eyes he had drawn, round, blank circles, opened wide with what?

  Surprise?… Pain?… Fear?

  In the middle of the message from Maloney in Westbrook, he had also underlined the phrase “clusters of suspicious fires” with heavy, dark lines. So heavy, in fact, his pen point had worn right through the paper and marked his ink blotter.

  “Burn, baby, burn,” he whispered as he pushed his chair back with the backs of his legs and stood up. He clicked his pen shut, not even remembering when he took it from his pocket to begin doodling, and replaced it in his shirt pocket. Shaking his head as though waking up from a nap, he went down the corridor to the front desk.

  “Any calls today?” he asked Pam, whose fingers still flew over the typewriter keyboard as though they had a mind of their own.

  Pam shook her head and continued with her work.

  “I guess I’ll take a swing through town,” Winfield said. “Maybe drive out by Higgins’ farm and see if he’s started harvesting yet. He’s usually the first.”

  Pam nodded and kept typing.

  “I won’t be far from the radio,” he said. He was just turning to go when the teletype beside Pam’s desk suddenly chattered into life. Between that sound and Pam’s typing, Winfield began to understand, maybe, why Pam was so anti-social. Fifteen years of that much noise was as bad as working with a drop-hammer in an iron forge.

  The teletype finished its brief flurry of activity and then fell silent. When Pam made no move to tear off the bulletin and give it to him, Winfield came around the side of the desk and got it for himself. He read it quickly and then left it on the desk for Pam to file later. It was nothing important, just a File-13 on an assault and motor vehicle left in Holden early that morning:

  BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A RUST-RED 1967 FORD PICKUP. ASSAILANT OR ASSAILANTS UNKNOWN BUT CONSIDERED DANGEROUS ANY DEPT. HAVING INFO. PLS CONTACT:

  SGT. MCCORMICK

  HOLDEN 29 AUG 08:27

  Winfield went out into the parking lot and got into his cruiser thinking, as usual, that it was the towns in the southern part of the state that got all the action, and that was just the way he liked it!

  “Good luck finding your rust-red Ford pickup, McCormick,” he said as he started up the cruiser, backed around, and pulled out into the street.

  II

  It’d be a great day for a drive, Dale thought, if they weren’t driving north for the funeral of their best friend.

  After packing, they took off just before noon, driving up Route One, stopping for a quick lunch at Burger King in Bangor, and then continuing up I-95 to Houlton. North of Bangor, though, the highway got pretty monotonous, just pine trees and open fields punctuated here and there by maybe a swamp or lake thrown in for variety. Between the boredom of the drive and the sadness they both felt, any pleasure they might have felt at having some time together quickly evaporated.

  Larry’s death left Dale with an icy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a physical emptiness that made him think of the dull concussion of a gun going off too close to his ear. But what was worse was seeing his own loss reflected in Angie’s face. She looked pale and aged beyond her years, and he found himself worrying how much of her youthful vigor would be lost forever. Through much of the ride, she sat silently, her head leaning against the window, her eyes staring blankly at the road unscrolling in front of them.

  Several times along the way he had tried to talk to her about it, but after a few empty-sounding platitudes, variations of “Larry wouldn’t want you to be this way,” he fell silent, deciding that first of all, she had to absorb this loss at her own pace; and second, they would have plenty of time during this week and the months ahead to share their memories and feelings. He tried to resist the thought that he was simply avoiding dealing with it; but after losing Natalie, he knew emotional shock when he felt it.

  They got off the Interstate at Exit 62, crossed the Meduxnekeag River, and after a quick “pit-stop” for gas and rest rooms at LeDoux’s Mobile station, started south toward Dyer on Route 2A.

  The road wound through thick, green-shaded pine forest. Dale had the impression that they were driving through a twenty-mile-long tunnel from Houlton to Dyer, but at last they hit the north end of town. It had taken them longer to get there than Dale had expected and it was almost six o’clock when they pulled into an empty parking spot right in front of Kellerman’s restaurant.

  “Looks like the local pizza-and-beer joint,” Dale said as he leaned over the steering wheel, regarding the restaurant.

  Angie smiled weakly and nodded. “Looks like they serve breakfast here, too.”

  Dale nodded. “Well, I guess it’s too much to expect to find a McDonald’s around here. Do you want to get something to eat now, or should we find a place to stay for the night and then come back?”

  Angie let out a long, whistling sigh as she looked at the dirt-streaked front window of Kellerman’s. Sun-faded posters in the window announced the local fair and a variety of church suppers and social events.

  “Let’s look for some place to stay, first. Maybe we’ll see a better restaurant,” she said tiredly.

  Dale backed out into the street and started back up Main Street. He figured they called it Main Street around here because it didn’t look like there were too many other streets in town. They passed a church on the right and a combination town hall and police station on their left and came to an intersection with a blinking yellow light. Across the intersection, Dale saw the Mill Store with its stand of gas pumps. An overweight man in faded bib coveralls was slouched by the gas pumps when Dale pulled in.

  “Excuse me,” Dale said, easing up to the pumps but positioning his car so it would be obvious he didn’t want gas.

  The snoozing man snorted and, shaking his head, looked up with a furrowed squint. He pushed his hat back on his head, exposing thin, brown hair that looked like it needed a good wash.

  “A-yuh,” he said, heaving himself up in his chair but not bothering to stand.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find a room for the night.”

  The man leaned back and scratched the underside of his unshaven jowls. His eyes remained half-closed as though in deep thought or half-sleep. For a moment, Dale thought he was trying to ignore him.

  “Well,” he said, drawing out the word as if it was the required way to respond to an out-of-towner. “If yah come up 2-A, you must’a passed the Twin Oaks Motel right outside ’
a Haynesville.”

  Dale shook his head. “We drove down from Houlton. I was hoping, to find someplace right here in town, though.”

  The man shifted forward again, and Dale thought for an instant that he was actually going to bother to stand up, but he merely leaned forward and hitched his thumb in the direction of the road leading back to Houlton. He looked down the road, as if to assure himself it hadn’t disappeared while he was napping.

  “Just ’crost the street up there, on your right, didn’t you see the sign for Appleby’s?”

  Dale glanced quickly at Angie, and they exchanged shrugs.

  “Lil Appleby rents out a couple of rooms, ’specially now with harvest comin’ up. I dunno. Maybe she ain’t got any right now. You might wanna check there first.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Dale said, shifting the car into gear and starting to pull away slowly.

  Now that the man was fully awake, though, he didn’t seem to want to let him go. With a loud grunt, he hoisted himself to his feet and waddled over to the car. He leaned down close to the window and glanced over at Angie, who shifted uncomfortably.

  “If Mrs. A. don’t have any rooms left, I’d say your best bet was to head back to Houlton. If you don’t mind me askin’, what you want to stay in a town like this for?”

  Dale felt a tingling tension in his stomach, and as the words formed in his mind, his eyes began to sting.

  “Well, uh, a friend of mine died and we’ve come up for the funeral.”

  “Umm, yeah. Larry Cole, right?” the man said, nodding his head slowly up and down. His eyes squinted tighter, making him look all the more pig-like. “Pity somethin’ like that could happen, and to a nice fella like Larry. Shit!”