“Little after six.”
“Okay, thanks, Gordie.” He sighed and trudged to the small coffee mess set up in the rear of the bullpen, then poured into a paper cup a thick black sludge that looked as though it had been festering in the pot since his resignation. He examined it with distaste, choked a little down, and walked into his new/old office to meet with the Feds.
When he opened the door he stopped short and blinked in surprise. The two agents sat silent and ramrod-straight in chairs placed side-by-side in front of the chief’s desk. They looked almost like they could be twins, dressed in nearly identical dark blue suits, plain white dress shirts, and maroon ties. At the sound of the door opening both men glanced at Mike in a move that appeared slickly choreographed.
“Gentlemen,” Mike said, extending a hand first to the man nearest him and then to the other. Their grips were firm and cool. “I’m Mike McMahon, Paskagankee Police Chief as of about three o’clock this morning.”
The man nearest Mike shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Chief. I’m Special Agent Alton Ferriss, and this is my partner, Special Agent Ward Cooper. We operate out of the bureau’s Portland Field Office.” The man sitting next to Ferriss nodded once, all business, and shook Mike’s hand briefly before letting it drop and returning his attention to the empty surface of Mike’s new desk.
Ferriss’s tone was frosty and belied his pleasant greeting. Facing a long day with no sleep under his belt, Mike decided that making nice with two stone-faced feds would require more effort that he was willing to expend, and elected to get right down to business.
He moved to the wheeled leather chair behind the desk and sat heavily. “You’ve probably heard about the two murders last night, one of the victims being my immediate predecessor, so I’m sure you realize we’re pretty busy here. I don’t have a lot of free time. Keeping that in mind, what can I do for you gentlemen?”
This time Cooper piped up. He glanced at Mike with a look that suggested he would rather be drinking acid than sitting here. “We received a report of the bodies discovered at the site of the excavation out on Route 28 yesterday. We believe the discovery may be related to a missing-persons case we worked several months ago. We wanted to take a look at the site, but thought it would be appropriate to check in with you first.”
Mike nodded slowly. “What sort of missing persons case?” he asked. Even though he had been out of law enforcement for months, he knew any case that would pull two FBI guys way up here to the middle of nowhere, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, on such short notice would have been an extremely high profile one. He couldn’t recall hearing of any.
Cooper gazed at him, simmering with barely concealed hostility as Ferriss hesitated for a moment and then said, “We’re not at liberty to discuss the case at this time, Chief.”
“Really,” Mike answered. He felt his patience beginning to slip away. “Who notified you about this discovery out on Route 28?”
The two agents glanced at each other uneasily before Ferriss said, “I believe it would have been your former chief.”
“You believe,” Mike said.
The two agents stared straight ahead. He wondered when Pete Kendall would have had time to call the FBI about the bodies with all that was going on yesterday, and why he wouldn’t have mentioned it to Mike. “What time was this notification made?”
“I really don’t recall,” Ferriss said immediately, staring at Mike flatly as if issuing a challenge. Mike returned the look, wondering just what in the hell was happening here. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be.
“Let me get this straight,” Mike answered. “You got a call from Chief Kendall about the discovery of human remains in a pit out by the Ridge Runner. You don’t remember what time the call came in, but you immediately linked this discovery to a long-dormant missing-persons case you were working out of the Portland Field Office.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Right. If I check the call logs here at the station, I’m not going to find any record of this notification, am I?”
A trace of a smile crossed Ferriss’s face and then disappeared. No such trace made it anywhere near Cooper’s face. “I think the dead chief…what was his name again?”
“Kendall,” Mike replied shortly.
“Kendall, yeah. I think Chief Kendall made the call on his personal cell.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. Anyway, this visit is just a courtesy call. We wanted to drop by and let you know we’ll be poking around your crime scene later today. Didn’t want anyone to see us out there and panic, do something stupid. We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, would we, Agent Cooper?”
Cooper sat silently until Ferriss leveled a gaze at him, and then mumbled, “Nah,” spitting out the single syllable like it was causing him pain.
Mike flashed back to his last experience dealing with the FBI, during the Chief Court fiasco nearly two years ago, and grimaced inwardly. The two agents he had dealt with back then had been assholes, but at least they operated with a modicum of professionalism. This pair handled themselves like a couple of hoodlums. “Well, we agree on that,” he finally offered. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt; we’ve had enough of that around here already to last several lifetimes.”
The two agents pushed their chairs back and stood in unison. Ferriss offered Mike a tight-lipped smile while Cooper scowled like he had just found out Mike was sleeping with his wife. Neither man offered his hand again. “Be seeing ya around,” Ferriss said. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
“You do that,” Mike answered as the men exited his office. He watched them wind their way through the bullpen and out the front door. This was going to be a long day.
13
The hunger was now so bad that Jackson Healy thought he might be going insane. Cramps wracked not just his stomach but his entire frame, and eating was all he could think about. Despite the fact he had chowed down less than twelve hours ago, he felt as though he had been wandering in the wilderness for months since his last meal.
Since awakening from his strange slumber down in that secret underground room he had felt mostly confused, like something momentous had happened to him but he couldn’t figure out what it was. But now, the awful hunger pains thundering through his system had the effect of focusing him in a way that nothing else could. He crashed through the thick underbrush of the forest, lost, no idea of where he was going or what he would do when he got there, clutching his ruined Colt revolver like a talisman.
From somewhere far off his right, Jackson began to make out an occasional low humming noise. It was barely noticeable at first, like a pesky mosquito buzzing around his head as he tried to sleep. Then the noise would rise slightly in volume, and shortly afterward fade away. Varying intervals of time would pass, and the mosquito-buzz sensation would begin again.
The sound was unlike anything he had ever heard, but Jackson was pretty sure it wasn’t coming from an animal, which meant it must have a human origin. Where there were humans there would be food, and Jackson needed food.
Badly.
So he stopped walking, forcing himself to stand and listen despite the powerful hunger ravaging his belly, and when he next heard the strange noise, he began moving, changing course slightly, navigating – he hoped – in the direction of the humming sound. He moved as fast as he could, driven by the overwhelming need to eat, a sensation now joined by a powerful thirst.
The forest was thick, thicker than any he had ever encountered, but he moved at a steady clip, enduring scrapes on his face and arms from the underbrush, and bruises on his shins from collisions with low-lying logs and boulders. He skirted massive fir trees, walked up gentle rises and down steep drops, continued moving doggedly forward.
His throat felt parched.
He was so damned hungry.
Just when he began to doubt he would ever exit the forest, when he began to fear he would walk in circles under t
he thick canopy of trees until he simply dropped dead from exhaustion or hunger, just when he thought it might be better to die than to put up with the unwavering hunger and intense thirst, he stepped through a thick screen of wild prickly undergrowth into a field of tall grass gently waving in the light breeze.
And on the far side of the field was a house.
Beyond the house, off in the distance, Jackson could see another of those terrifying buggies, somehow moving without the assistance of a horse, propelling itself along a trail that looked flatter and smoother than any he had ever seen. The low humming noise he had been using for guidance accompanied the carriage’s movement, fading away and eventually disappearing as the buggy turned a corner and disappeared. Jackson stopped and watched, spellbound by the sight even in the face of his nearly overwhelming hunger.
Once silence returned, Jackson resumed his examination of the house in the distance. Behind it, in direct line between himself and a screened back door, a length of rope had been strung in a zig-zag pattern back and forth between two poles shaped like a T. A lady stood in the sunshine hanging laundry out to dry. The lady was probably a hundred feet away, but even from here Jackson could see she had a thick mop of snow-white hair, leading him to believe she was probably in her sixties, or maybe even older.
Her age didn’t matter, though, because Jackson was approaching the limits of his endurance. Cramps rifled through him almost continuously and his throat felt as though someone had sandpapered it when he wasn’t paying attention. He needed food and he needed water, and he was going to get them both here, come hell or high water. No woman, young or old, was going to stop him.
He broke into a trot, crossing the field with long, loping strides, and for a few moments the woman didn’t even notice him. She was engrossed in her chore, working with machine-like efficiency. Finally, though, she spotted him out of the corner of her eye, stiffening noticeably and turning to face him head-on.
He slowed to a half-trot, not wanting to spook the old woman until he could get close enough to handle the problem if she drew a gun on him. She watched him approach, her forehead crinkled with concern at this unexpected development, but said nothing. Just when Jackson thought maybe she was mute, she raised a hand and pointed a finger in his direction.
“This is private property,” she said with the clipped tone and confident certainty of the righteous. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but you can just turn your ass around and drag it right back the way you came…”
Jackson kept moving, picking up his pace at the woman’s words rather than stopping or slowing. The closer he came to her, the less authoritative her voice sounded, until her words simply faded away and she stared with her mouth half-open, a look of shocked distaste frozen on her wrinkled face.
Jackson had seen that look plenty in his life, mostly from women but occasionally from men. He had even seen it a few times from his ma before he left home. He wasn’t surprised. He realized he must appear intimidating, with ill-fitting stolen clothes covering his unwashed body, blood stains splashed liberally over everything.
“Food,” Jackson croaked, stopping in front of the woman and swaying like he had drunk half a bottle of cheap whiskey.
The woman didn’t move. She stared in horror at Jackson’s midsection and he realized her attention was focused on the Colt revolver still grasped in his right hand. He glanced down reflexively and saw what had held her gaze so effectively. A clump of the dead sheriff’s hair was stuck to the grip, crusted in place by his dried blood. It bristled in the breeze exactly as the field grass had done when he was exiting the forest.
He smiled at the thought, and that seemed to jolt the woman out of her shocked inaction. Her eyes widened and her gaze left the gun, running up his disheveled body to his face, and she opened her mouth to scream.
And Jackson hit her.
14
Sharon was halfway across the dusty Ridge Runner parking lot when her cell phone rang. With every other available member of the tiny Paskagankee police force busy at the scene of last night’s double murder, Mike had asked her to examine the excavated pit closely in search of any evidence that might shed some light on exactly what had happened down there.
She glanced at the caller ID and smiled before pressing the Send button. “Hello, Chief, how can I help you?” She had gotten so used to calling him “Mike” during the months of his retirement that addressing him more formally now that he was back at work was going to take some getting used to.
“Sharon, have you gotten to the Ridge Runner yet?”
“Yes, I just drove in and am getting out my unit now. What’s wrong?” She could sense the tension in his voice.
“You’re going to have some company in a few minutes. Two FBI special agents are on their way over there. They left the station a few minutes ago.”
Sharon held her cell phone away from her ear and glared at it accusingly, as if it might be trying to get away with telling a particularly bad joke. Then she returned it to her head and said, “Could you repeat that, Chief?”
“I think you heard me,” Mike said. “There will be two FBI special agents visiting the Ridge Runner crime scene this morning. Names are Ferriss and Cooper.”
“You called the FBI and their people are already here? That doesn’t even seem possible.”
“No,” Mike answered. “I didn’t call anybody. There were at the station waiting for me when I arrived this morning. Claimed Pete Kendall notified them about the human remains uncovered behind the Ridge Runner and wanted to take a look at the scene. Something about a possible connection to a missing persons cold case they were working some time ago.”
“Pete notified them? When would he have had time to do that? He was with me most of the afternoon and then was busy getting killed overnight. I suppose he could have called Portland in the short time between when we left the Ridge Runner and when he called us at home, but…”
“I agree; it seems unlikely. And why would he suddenly decide to call in the Feds? I can’t imagine how he would have known about some FBI missing-persons connection. Plus, I think he would have mentioned it to me if he was planning on calling Portland, and he never said a word.”
“Very strange.” Sharon said.
“You don’t know the half of it. These guys acted more like thugs than buttoned-down Feds. They claimed to have stopped by the station as a courtesy before visiting the scene, but I think the only reason they were there at all was to throw their weight around and to try to intimidate the small-town cops.”
“Fat chance of that,” Sharon laughed.
“You got that right. But listen; be careful when those guys show up. Stay out of their way and don’t hassle them, but keep a close eye on them at the same time.”
“No problem, boss.”
“Do me a favor and check in with me when they leave.”
“Will do.”
“And Sharon? Watch your back, something’s not right about those two.”
She clicked off and eyed her phone thoughtfully. Mike McMahon was not one to worry over her like she was some helpless child who needed protecting. She knew he regarded her as a solid, reliable cop who could handle herself on the job and off. Plus, she had a 9 mm equalizer strapped to her hip.
But his concern was evident in both his words and his tone and that, in turn, made her a little uneasy.
She shook her head and dropped her phone into her breast pocket, then resumed walking around the deserted Ridge Runner toward the excavation site in back. She was a little surprised but grateful that Bo Pellerin wasn’t already on the scene, hassling her about all the business he was losing being forced to stay closed, and pushing to learn when the crime scene tape would be removed so he could get his precious septic system installed and once again serve the needs of Paskagankee’s drinking public.
As she approached the corner of the building, the crunching of tires on gravel told her that either Pellerin had decided to put in an appearance or the Feds had a
rrived. She tried to decide which option she preferred and realized there was no good answer. Reluctantly she turned and watched a dark blue G-car motor slowly across the lot and pull to a stop next to her own vehicle.
The FBI was here.
***
The two special agents followed Sharon to the gaping hole dug into the ground behind the Ridge Runner. Perfunctory introductions had been accomplished when the men climbed out of their vehicle, after which neither one seemed inclined to speak. She could feel them staring at her ass and was tempted to whirl around just to catch them so she could read them the riot act, but Mike had asked her to play nice, so she would try to do so.
For now.
The overcast layer had disappeared overnight, with the sun putting in an appearance for the first time in more than a week. The pleasantly warm temperatures had dried the ground out nicely. Most of the mud inside the excavated hole had hardened into flaky, powdery dirt, and Sharon was thankful for that. Maybe she would actually be able to find some useful evidence down there.
The small group arrived at the edge of the pit, the stationary earthmover looming above them like the skeletal remains of a gigantic yellow dinosaur. Sharon lifted an aluminum ladder off the ground where it had been deposited next to the construction vehicle and slid it into the massive hole, noting with distaste that neither one of the FBI agents made any move to help.
She briefly considered offering the ladder to her companions first, then discarded the thought and clambered down. It was her crime scene; the Feds could come or not, their choice. As she passed below ground level, the temperatures dropped dramatically. The trapped air still out of direct sunlight had not yet warmed.
The human remains were gone, transported to the morgue last night by Pete Kendall. He had also supervised a thorough photographing of the entire scene by patrol officer Harley Tanguay. It had been one of Pete’s final duties before being called to the Bronson Choate murder scene, where he had later lost his life.
Sharon’s job today was to examine the eerie room in search of anything the investigators might have missed yesterday, as well as to try to get a feel for exactly what had happened down here. She gazed for a moment at the tons of earth covering the portion of the room that had not been opened like a sardine can by Dan Melton’s earthmoving bucket and said a quiet prayer that today wouldn’t be the day the whole thing collapsed. Then she took a deep breath and walked to the far corner to start her search.
Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) Page 12
