Paskagankee

by Alan Leverone

  He laughed. “It is when you’ve got serious recovering to do. You lie back and get some sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early.” Mike lowered Sharon’s hand to the bed, drained his coffee, and prepared to do battle with the crutches he had already come to hate. Pausing at the door, he turned awkwardly to wish Sharon goodnight and saw she had already fallen asleep. The lines that seemed to have sprung up in her beautiful face over the last few days were gone, and she breathed slowly and easily, the light cotton blanket covering her broken body rising and falling with the rhythm of her respiration.

  He eased the door shut and struggled down the hall, dodging visitors, nurses and other patients as they hurried past. It was time to pay a visit to Melissa Manheim.

  59

  “HOW THE HELL DID you wind up in that log cabin?” Mike asked the Portland Journal reporter. Incredibly, Melissa “the Maneater” Manheim had suffered nothing more than a concussion and some bumps and bruises from her run-in with the homicidal spirit. Mike knew she would be the prime source of information for the State Police investigators—along with him, of course—and he was curious as to what, exactly, she may have seen and how much of it she would be willing to admit to.

  She looked up at him from her hospital bed, where she was propped up on three plump pillows, surrounded by laptops, telephones, and what looked like some sort of portable fax machine that was busy beeping and spitting out a more or less steady stream of documentation. Mike pictured Sharon lying in her own bed a few rooms down the hall, nearly immobile after her brush with death, and marveled at the unfairness of life.

  “Well,” she sniffed, “you weren’t giving me anything I could print, so after you threw me aside at the Sprague bonfire, I marched right off toward the forest. I knew you had assigned your little girlfriend to patrol the bonfire, too, so I figured I would eventually run across her. When I did, I intended to find out if she felt differently than you obviously do regarding the freedom of the press.”

  “You mean you intended to threaten her with public exposure for sleeping with me. You figured by blackmailing her, you would be able to get the information I wouldn’t give you.”

  “I can’t stop you if you choose to look at it that way.”

  “It’s not a matter of me looking at it that way, that’s how it is. But in any event, it’s obvious you never found her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re still more or less in one piece. If you had tried to threaten Sharon Dupont, she would have kicked your ass. You’d have been begging for a serial killer to show up by the time she was done with you. She may look small, but let me tell you, she packs a punch.”

  “I know why you’re here,” she told him, interrupting as was her custom and apparently choosing to ignore Mike’s comment. “You want to know if I’m going to tell the investigators about the broken-down body of that poor man floating rather than walking and about him doing things that no human being could possibly do, especially an old man—”

  “So you saw quite a bit,” Mike interrupted. He wondered how she liked it.

  “I was knocked silly when that thing flung me into a tree and remained woozy until after you rescued me, which, by the way, seemed to take a lot longer than it should have. Anyway,” she continued after a short pause when Mike refused to take her bait, “of course I saw quite a bit. I really wasn’t injured that badly.”

  “I hope you’re prepared for the investigators to label you a nutcase,” he said.

  “I’ve dealt with much tougher than the Maine State Police, believe me,” she said dismissively, waving her hand like a petulant princess. “But in any event, no one will be labeling me anything,” she continued. Her face was a mask of innocence. “As far as they’re going to know, I was unconscious the entire time. I didn’t see a thing.”

  “Are you telling me you’re going to withhold evidence from the police in a murder investigation?”

  Melissa Manheim snickered. “Come now, Chief,” she said. “This isn’t your first time around the block, is it? You know as well as I do that if the evidence points toward a supernatural element or any sort of connection to Native American mysticism, it will all be whitewashed away like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. I’m sorry, but poor old Chief Wally Court is going to be the fall guy here, there’s simply no way to avoid that.”

  “And you’re comfortable with an innocent man being railroaded, even though he’s dead? You don’t want the truth to come out?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she answered coyly. “There is definitely a bestseller in this, a book waiting to be written, and I hope you don’t think I’m bragging when I say that I feel pretty confident I’m the one to write it.”

  Great, Mike thought. I wonder what Ken Dye would have to say about this? Then he decided the professor would probably applaud the idea, in spite of all that had happened to him and the beating his reputation had taken.

  Mike shook his head at Melissa Manheim’s obstinacy. “Well, I’m glad you’re going to be all right,” he said, leaning on his crutches and turning toward the door. “Good luck to you—“

  “Wait,” she said quietly. “Please.”

  “What is it?”

  “I know what that college professor—“

  “His name was Ken Dye,” Mike interrupted.

  “Yes, Ken Dye. I know what Professor Ken Dye did; how he was directly responsible for saving Officer Dupont and me, and I’ll never forget it.” Mike listened in amazement and wondered, not for the first time, where she got her information.

  “He was quite a guy,” Mike agreed, not sure where she was going with this.

  “Anyway, effective immediately, I am establishing a scholarship fund in Professor Dye’s name, to support research into the field of Native American folklore that was so close to his heart. My newspaper will be contributing big bucks too; you can mark my words on that one.”

  “I sort of think the University would just as soon Ken Dye fade off into the sunset with as little fanfare as possible,” Mike answered.

  At that, Melissa Manheim laughed, the sound echoing off the walls and out into the hospital hallway. “Really, Chief McMahon, I’m starting to believe you actually did just fall off the turnip truck.” Mike could feel his ears start to burn as his face turned red. “Once the money starts coming in, and I will personally ensure it flows in by the boatload, the school will do an about-face on the subject of Professor Ken Dye and his research quicker than you can say ‘ghosties and apparitions.’”

  Mike stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. “You’re going to help rehabilitate the man’s legacy?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” she answered with a smile. “Like I said, I’m well aware that I am alive right now solely because of his sacrifice. I consider it the least I can do, especially considering how much money I expect to make off the book I have already begun writing. It won’t hurt me to throw some of that cash the school’s way.”

  “Wow,” Mike muttered as he turned back toward the door. “Strange bedfellows.”

  “Indeed. Interested?” she asked, throwing open her bedcovers in invitation. Mike didn’t think he had spoken loudly enough to be heard across the hospital room.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head and limping out into the hallway again, dodging a couple of kids streaking down the hall as he pulled the door closed behind him. He leaned reluctantly on the crutches and made his way slowly toward the hospital’s parking garage, looking forward to getting back to his apartment. Mike McMahon was late for a hot date with a shower and about twenty hours of sleep.

  Epilogue

  THE EARLY-MAY SUNSHINE beat down on Revere with an intensity that belied the date. It felt to Mike much more like mid-summer than spring, especially compared with the relative cool of Paskagankee, located as it was in the woods so far to the north, much nearer the Canadian border than here, on the outskirts of Boston.

  He held tightly to Sharon Dupont’s hand as they stro
lled together across the field, dotted with headstones. Stately, centuries-old maple and oak trees surrounded them. In the distance Mike could hear the muted sound of highway traffic, the never-ending symphony of tires and engines that played across any modern city nearly twenty-four hours a day. He had forgotten the constancy of the noise; in Paskagankee automobile traffic was almost an afterthought. He decided he liked the silence better.

  Sharon tossed her head to clear her black hair out of her eyes. It had grown back to the point where it was now almost as long as it had been prior to the emergency surgery performed last November to reduce the swelling in her brain. Her grip was still weak, thanks to the two broken arms, but seemed to be improving daily with physical therapy.

  When Mike had suggested the weekend trip down the seacoast to his old stomping grounds, he knew she suspected the reason, but he didn’t say and she didn’t ask. Melissa Manheim’s book on the Paskagankee killings was due out within a few weeks, and it would create a media firestorm. The investigation had gone exactly as Mike expected it to—the entire mess was pinned on Chief Walter Court’s defenseless shoulders. He had gone mad for some unknown reason and executed six people, tearing their bodies apart in the most grisly fashion imaginable.

  How he had managed to dismember six full-grown adults—with no tools, no help, and an arm so badly broken it was nearly falling off his body—was never addressed in the official report. How he managed to keep coming when Mike McMahon pumped twelve bullets from a semi-automatic pistol into his body was never addressed in the official report, either.

  Manheim’s book would come out and the attention of the world would be focused on tiny Paskagankee, Maine, again for a time, just as it had been late last year. News crews would come and shoot their footage for reports that would cast doubt on the State Police investigation, townspeople would be interviewed, theories on the crime spree advanced, a few—but not many—of them even more outlandish than the truth.

  Eventually, Mike hoped within a few days or so, some other strange and bizarre story would grab the attention of the world and Paskagankee would become just another footnote in the unending news cycle. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but ride out the impending flurry of unwanted publicity and hope it was short-lived.

  It was almost time to begin the drive back up I-95 to northernmost New England. Mike and Sharon had eaten an early dinner at one of Mike’s favorite Italian restaurants in East Boston, one town away from Revere, and he had purchased a single exquisite long-stemmed yellow rose from a street vendor as they strolled along the sidewalk back to Mike’s truck.

  Now the sun dropped steadily toward the horizon in the unseasonable heat as the pair walked hand-in-hand across the cemetery. Mike seemed to know exactly where he was going. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Many times,” he said tightly, holding her hand the way a hungry man might clutch a slice of pizza. They reached a small granite marker, tucked away in a remote corner of the field and decorated very simply with a carving of a baby angel winging her way to heaven. On it were written the words, “SARAH MELENDEZ, JANUARY 12, 2003 – JULY 16, 2010. REST IN PEACE.”

  Mike placed the flower on it, saying nothing.

  Sharon looked at him closely. “What a beautiful stone.”

  “Thanks,” Mike replied.

  “You bought it?”

  He nodded. “The grandparents had no money; they couldn’t afford to memorialize her. I thought, under the circumstances, that it was the least I could do. Of course, they wouldn’t accept anything from me—I can’t say I blame them—so I purchased it and had it sent to them anonymously. I wanted that little girl to have a fitting memorial.”

  They stood silently, listening to the muted sounds of the late-afternoon Revere traffic, of commuters rushing home to their families and people frenziedly living their lives. It all seemed far away from this little wooded corner and the peace and quiet of the gravesite.

  Finally, still without speaking, they turned as one and began walking back the way they had come across the carpet of grass, intensely thick and green and lush, reborn after the long winter. They held hands and moved in comfortable silence through the cemetery, ready to begin the long trip back to Paskagankee.

  THE END

  Coming soon

  REVENANT

  Book two in the Paskagankee series

  PROLOGUE

  Don Running Bear’s brakes screeched out a complaint as he pulled to a stop at the end of his dusty driveway. His ancient Chevy pickup kicked and bucked like a temperamental stallion when he shut down the engine, eventually giving up the ghost and wheezing into silence.

  He sat in the cab and mopped his face with a well-worn handkerchief. Faded renderings of sacred Navajo animals covered the blue cotton, which the passage of time had dulled to a sickly greyish-brown color. The hankie had been a gift from his grandfather and was now threadbare and clearly on its last legs. Don knew he should take some action to preserve it, maybe store it a drawer or something, but he had used the damn thing for as long as he could remember and could not imagine going through even a single day without being able to touch the only remaining link to the man he so admired.

  The temperature outside the pickup had to be well over one hundred degrees, which meant inside the truck it was probably close to one-forty, but Don was in no hurry to get inside the house, despite the fact his air conditioning would provide a welcome respite from this blast-furnace heat. Don needed to think, and to do that he had to be alone. So he sat in his truck, barely noticing the sweat running down his weathered copper face.

  Don Running Bear was worried. He hadn’t been sleeping well, being assaulted nightly by dreams filled with violence and bloodshed, nightmares which were clearly meant to be a sign. The problem was not that he didn’t understand the significance of his terrible dreams, but rather that he feared he did. In these visions, which were all stunningly similar, a beautiful young Navajo girl wrought death and destruction, murdering strangers and cracking open their cold corpses, plunging her tiny hand inside their chests, ripping out the hearts of her victims before turning to dust herself and disappearing.

  In these disturbing dreams, the identity of the young girl refused to reveal itself to Don, although she seemed strangely familiar. Each morning he awoke trembling, drenched in sweat, certain that with just a little extra effort he might be able to identify her, and maybe then begin to decipher the meaning of the nightmares. But so far, her face had remained elusive.

  Don Running Bear wished he could turn back time and salvage just a few more hours with his grandfather. Niyol Running Bear had died more than a decade ago, and with his passing, so too had many of the mystical secrets of the tribal medicine man been lost. Niyol had adamantly refused to share his wisdom and knowledge with his son, Nastas—Don’s father—saying only that the knowledge was explosive and dangerous and he would not involve his family in any of it.

  Nastas had died young, killed in a horrific car crash driving drunk at a high rate of speed on the reservation, leaving only Don and his grandfather, and when Niyol had become seriously ill, he had reluctantly entrusted a very valuable relic—a stone—to Don, telling him only that it was to be hidden and protected at all costs, that it was a sacred stone, possessed of incredible power, magical and fearsome and terrible.

  Don had been thinking a lot recently of both his grandfather and the stone. He wondered if the awful nightmares he had begun experiencing were somehow related to one or both of them. He guessed they were, but since his grandfather had never been specific about the danger the stone represented or about its awesome power, Don could do no more than guess. But the very fact he associated his dreams with the stone after Niyol had been gone ten long years illustrated the impression the old man had made.

  Don Running Bear sighed and stepped out of his truck. Dwelling on the dreams and their possible relation to the sacred stone, long tucked securely away, was pointless without further information, and he
had no way of acquiring that information. He vowed to let it go, to forget about the damned stone, but he had made that vow hundreds of times, maybe thousands, and knew he would never be able to follow through on it. The hot, dry wind which seemed to blow endlessly across the plains raised little eddies of dust around his shoes as he trudged across the front yard.

  Don stepped through the front door into the cool stillness of his small home, distracted and upset. He made it two full steps and then froze in confusion and fear. Seated directly across the room, facing the door so there was no way Don could miss the sight of them, were his wife and teenaged daughter. The two were fastened to matching kitchen chairs placed side by side. Thick strips of shiny silver duct tape had been wound around their wrists and ankles, immobilizing them. Don’s family stared in terror at him, eyes bulging, not speaking despite the fact they had not been gagged.

  Behind the two women, looming over them in a stool taken from the breakfast bar in the kitchen, was a middle-aged man Don had never seen before. The silver haired man displayed a long, curved knife, holding it above Eagle Wing’s and Kai’s heads, turning it slowly in the air so that the sunlight pouring through the window winked and glittered off the polished blade’s surface. If the man was trying to get Don’s attention, his efforts had worked to perfection.

  For a long moment no one moved. Time seemed to stretch into infinity. The stranger lowered the knife blade so that its razor-sharp point pressed against the soft skin of his daughter’s throat.

  Eagle Wing gasped softly and Don finally spoke. “What’s going on here?” He worked hard to keep his voice strong and calm, fearing he knew the answer to the question but asking it anyway. Sometimes life’s little plays are destined to be performed according to a script written by fate. He forced himself to direct his full attention at the man, not because he wanted to do so, but because he suspected that to do otherwise would be consigning his family to death.