by B. T. Lord
“That sucks,” Rick commiserated.
“Yeah, it does.” She sighed. “Let’s see if we can find anything that mentions a next of kin. Someone should be notified of his death.”
Together, they slowly and meticulously searched the cabin.
Because of its size, it only took them ten minutes to do a thorough search. On a set of five built in shelves located near an old and severely scratched bureau where Todd kept his clothes and underwear neatly folded, Cammie saw that Rick hadn’t exaggerated the amount of ammunition Todd had purchased. Each of the shelves was stacked top to bottom with boxes of bullets. He had enough here to wipe out all the Bambis and Bullwinkles in the surrounding mountains.
Moving aside a portable, propane operated camping stove and two kerosene lamps on top of the bureau, Rick found an additional stash of three whiskey bottles, and two six packs of beer.
With the exception of the books and the liquor, there was nothing that spoke of a man living here for four years. There were no personal traces of Todd Paradis, nothing that told them what he liked, what his interests were. Whether he’d ever loved or been loved. It made a sad scene even sadder.
“We’ll put police tape around the place,” Cammie replied. “We’ll also take the rifle and all his ammo. The last thing we need is someone breaking in here and stealing his cache. I also want to bag the beer bottle, and get a sample of the spilled contents.”
“Do you believe Todd and Marcy are somehow connected?”
“Not sure yet. But it does seem weird that Marcy goes ballistic after believing she’s seeing aliens, while Todd obviously saw something that scared the bejesus out of him enough to get him to leave the safety of his cabin. There has to be a trigger. Since Marcy’s mug is missing and I haven’t gotten the results from the apple pie we took from her home, maybe our trigger is in that beer bottle.”
It took them an additional twenty minutes to load up all the ammo on the two snowmobiles, and collect the samples. When they were done, Cammie was dismayed to find her shoulder throbbing painfully. Damn, she’d overdone it. She reluctantly sat down on the cot, embarrassed by how shaky she felt.
“You look worse than Todd,” Rick observed as he took in her pasty complexion.
“Thanks.”
“Maybe Doc has a point. Maybe you shouldn’t--” Her steely gaze shut him up. “Gotcha,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m going to go over Todd’s trail one last time. Make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
Cammie knew he didn’t need to search again. He was letting her save face by giving her the time necessary to gather up her strength.
She heard the roar of his snowmobile, followed by the sounds of its engines slowly fading away as Rick retraced Todd’s suicidal path. She closed her eyes and willed her breathing to slow. It was then that she noticed how completely silent the cabin was. There were no birds chirping, no rustling of the trees from the wind. Nothing except a bottomless, enveloping stillness that was unnerving. She shivered, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she admonished herself aloud. Still, there was an undercurrent to the cabin she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A sense of something dark and uninviting creeping up on her, waiting to pounce when she wasn’t looking.
If I’m feeling like this during the day, I can’t imagine what it must feel like at night.
“What happened to make you so afraid of something that doesn’t even exist?” she asked the walls.
She gaped in surprise when, as if in answer to her question, the front door knob turned and the door slowly began to open.
Crap! Maybe whatever Todd was afraid of does exist. Mommy!!
Her hand flew to her gun as she involuntarily held her breath. A moment later, a large shaggy head peeked in.
“Figured I’d find you here.”
Cammie slowly let out her breath. “Jeez Paul, you just about gave me a heart attack. I could have shot you.”
Paul Langevin maneuvered his six foot, three inch body into the small cabin. He was dressed in a dark brown wooly coat that came down to his knees. Instead of wearing a hat, a pair of large earmuffs lay over his salt and pepper shoulder length hair. His silver goatee was coated with icicles, and his appearance reminded Cammie of a 19th century fur trapper.
“Looking for me specifically?” she asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” he answered in his low, gravelly voice. He glanced around the cabin. “Heard about Todd. Bad business that.”
“What do you mean?” He cocked an eyebrow at her as he pointed to the locks on the door. She nodded. “Yeah, I noticed. Also noticed the mezuzah and the horseshoes. Know anything about them?”
“I know he was scared.”
She snorted. “No shit.”
Paul came over and sat down next to her, the cot groaning under his weight. “Shoulder bothering you, isn’t it? Mind?”
She shook her head, and Paul placed his hands on either side of her shoulder. He closed his eyes and began to mutter under his breath. To her surprise, Cammie felt a warm surge shoot through her shoulder. It was soothing, as if her injured muscle was enveloped in a big, fuzzy blanket. After a few moments, Paul removed his hands and sat back. “Try moving it now”, he ordered.
Cammie did as he asked, marveling at how the soreness was completely gone. “Someday you’re going to have to show me how you do that.”
He smiled. “And give away my secrets?”
Paul lived across from Cammie’s cabin on Mkazawi Pond. This quiet body of water, smaller and more remote than Waban, had few inhabitants living on its shore. A trail ran along the edge of the pond that connected her cabin to his – a path she’d followed more times than she could remember. His presence always gave her a quiet comfort which was why, ever since she was a child, she’d sought him out, especially when the troubles with her parents began.
Paul was a shaman, though he was unlike any of the shamans she’d met that belonged to the various Native tribes that lived throughout northern Maine. His features showed a mix of white and Native American blood, but his rituals varied according to what was needed. Sometimes he used rituals that were Russian in nature. Sometimes he used South American or Mongolian rituals. He never talked about his past, leaving her to wonder how he’d come to know so many different ceremonies. However, what was important was that whatever he did seemed to work. His reputation as a healer and seer was well known; it wasn’t unusual for him to find food, firewood and whatever else he needed left by his clients in exchange for his services.
Cammie owed him her sanity, a debt she could never repay.
She couldn’t remember how they’d met; it seemed as though he’d always been a fixture in her life. And she was grateful that he was now sitting beside her. If it weren’t for his presence, she would have high tailed it out of the oppressively eerie cabin and waited outside, despite the cold, for Rick’s return.
“Todd was coming to see me,” Paul spoke up. “He was terrified, and wanted to know if I had any protection rituals I could perform.”
“Did you?”
He clicked his tongue. “You know how I feel about protection. You have no need of it if you remove your vulnerabilities. The only way you remove your vulnerabilities is to heal those parts of yourself that you’re afraid to look at.”
“I take it Todd wasn’t in the mood to hear that.”
Paul snorted. “The last thing he wanted to hear about was self-healing. He wanted an instant fix. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Only that he was scared.”
“Didn’t you peek?” she teased, referring to his uncanny ability of seeing past, through what he called visions, people’s defenses and into their very souls. He’d unnerved her over the years with his accuracy over what she was feeling, or what she’d experienced.
Paul smiled. “Not unless I absolutely have to. I respect people’s privacy.”
Cammie turned and pointed behind her to the bookshelf. “Did you see those?”
&nb
sp; Paul followed her finger and silently studied the titles. After a few minutes, he shook his head. “Crazy shit,” he murmured.
“When did he come to see you about those protection rituals he wanted you to perform?”
“Mmmmm. Let’s see. The first time he came was back in August. I tried to explain that he was making himself a target by feeding his fears.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
A faraway look pooled in Paul’s dark eyes as he answered. “Cammie, in this world there are many things that can’t be seen with the human eye, but are felt within our being -- the shiver at the back of your neck, those moments when you know you are not alone. There are creatures that inhabit the in-between place which prey on the energy of the living. In order to gain access to this energy, they seek openings – vulnerabilities and fears that they feed on. The more the living react, the more of their personal energy they leak. This is what the creatures manipulate to keep the food source coming. They feed upon the fears, the doubts, the insecurities that we each possess. Whenever Todd came to see me, we spoke of these things. There were moments when I thought I’d made a breakthrough. An understanding would come into his eyes when I explained that the only way to find true peace from whatever tormented him lay in removing and healing those fears. Only then would these creatures find nothing to feed upon and move on. However, a few weeks later, he would be back to square one.”
“How many times did he come to see you?”
“Oh, at least a half dozen. His last visit to me was last night, around six pm. He came to tell me that he’d found the answer he was looking for, a way to keep the darkness away once and for all. Gave me three hundred dollars for my troubles, then left.”
Cammie raised an eyebrow. “Three hundred? That’s pretty generous.”
“I thought so too. But he wouldn’t take it back. As it so happens, I need to fix my generator.” Paul looked up at the ceiling and grinned. “The universe provides.” He paused, then continued, “I tried to warn him that whatever he’d done was only a band-aid. The fears he harbored were still there, festering within his soul. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“Is it too much to hope that he told you what this thing was that he did?” Paul lifted his shoulders as he shook his head. Cammie made a face. “Why isn’t anything easy?” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “How did you hear about his death? We only discovered his body about an hour and a half ago.” When Paul didn’t answer, she smiled. “You just knew, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Part of being a shaman. You’re connected to everything and everyone. Nothing takes place in these woods that I don’t know about.” He glanced sideways at her, a grin tugging at his mouth. “The trees have a way of letting me know what happens in their forest.”
Just as they’d told him what had befallen Marcy. However, he still needed to sit with it before bringing it up with Cammie.
“You do know that you may be the last person who saw Todd alive?” she pointed out.
“Humph. What do you know about that?”
“By the way, how did you get over here? I didn’t hear a snowmobile.”
“Snowmobiles are for sissies. I snow shoed over.”
“That’s over five miles away!”
Paul chuckled. “I started out early.”
They sat side by side, each lost in their own thoughts. Cammie wasn’t sure how she felt about Paul’s description of these dark creatures. It was all too fantastic. Something straight out of a horror film. Then, slowly, before she fully realized what was happening, a memory clicked into place – a night when she was ten years old, and she’d made her way to Paul’s cabin. She couldn’t remember how the subject came up, but he’d spoken to her of creatures that purportedly roamed the woods around Mkazawi Pond. He brought these creatures to life with his soft words, so much so that when she returned to her father’s cabin, she literally flew along the trail, afraid to look behind her. Creatures that, to this day, still had the ability to, as Rick said, scare the piss out of her. The logical part of her knew they didn’t exist; they were part of the Native American lore that still permeated the area. But, much like the bogie man that lurks under the bed, ready to pounce on unsuspecting children, Cammie knew the legends were a vulnerability she secretly hid in her heart.
The roar of Rick’s approaching snowmobile shattered the silence. She stood up and turned to Paul. “Can I give you a lift back to your cabin?”
“No thanks. It’s a good day for a walk.”
“Doc’s thinking of putting Todd’s death down to misadventure.”
Paul glanced back at the books on the bookshelf. “Misadventure? Mmmm. He wouldn’t be wrong now, would he?” Cammie started towards the door when Paul spoke again. “Think with your heart.”
She stopped and turned towards him. “Huh?”
“The head can lie. The heart never does.”
Their eyes met and locked. After a few moments, it was Cammie who looked away first.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she mumbled before escaping the suffocating silence of Todd’s cabin and Paul’s unnerving gaze.
CHAPTER TEN
After arriving back at Doc’s, Cammie changed out of her uniform, and threw on a pair of jeans and oversized sweater. Although she wanted nothing more than to lie down and take a nap, she knew if she did, she’d never hear the end of it from Doc. Instead, she padded downstairs in her stocking feet to the kitchen where Doc was cooking dinner.
Doc’s enormous cabin was built in an open style architecture, with pieces of original art and sculptures strategically placed throughout. The kitchen itself took up a corner of the immense room. The wide teak table that served as the dining area was only steps from the kitchen. Above it hung a beautifully globed, art deco chandelier.
On the other side was the living room area with its enormous river stone fireplace, thick Aubusson carpets and furniture that you could just melt into.
Bending at the waist, Cammie found the groove at the bottom edge of the black granite counter and pulled out what appeared to be a drawer, but was actually a cushioned stool. She straddled it, and took a whiff of the delicious aromas wafting from the stove.
“What’s on the menu for tonight?” she asked.
“Beef bourguignon.”
Cammie rubbed her hands together. “Smells heavenly!”
She immediately launched into what she’d found at Todd’s cabin that afternoon. Doc kept his back to her as he ladled the stew from a large metal pot into a serving bowl, but she knew he was listening.
“So that’s it,” she finished. “The guy scared himself to death over witches and God knows what, got drunk, which made him even more frightened, and ran off screaming into the night. It’s pretty cut and dried. Though to be honest, I’d still like to know what suddenly turned him into a doomsday prepper. Or made him so sure he was now safe from the things that go bump in the night.”
“You know more than most that not every question during an investigation gets an answer. If he was so caught up with protecting himself against evil, there’s no telling what he found that gave him peace of mind. Maybe a sheep’s fetus that he buried under the porch.”
Cammie made a face. “Ugh. By the way, is there anything I can help you with?”
“And have you burn down my home? I think not.”
Cammie may have had many talents, but it was well known throughout Clarke County that cooking was not one of them. The one time she’d tried to make dinner, it had taken the Twin Ponds Fire Department to save her cabin from going up in flames.
“I received the results from the apple pie you bagged at Marcy’s.”
“And?”
“You’ll be happy to know the pie was made with granny smith apples, sugar and cinnamon with a touch of nutmeg.”
Cammie frowned. “Damn. Did you find anything out of the ordinary during Todd’s autopsy?”
She saw Doc’s back stiffen. “Got as far as emptying his pockets before something came up. I
’ll get to it as soon as I can,” he answered in an unexpectedly terse voice. “If you want to look at his possessions, I’ll bring them up.”
His tone and rigid posture caught her attention. This was the first time in his capacity as county coroner that he hadn’t completed an autopsy as soon as he’d gotten the corpse home to his lab, named the Crypt by the townspeople, in the basement of his house.
Doc was a whirlwind of activity, as well as insatiably curious. He loved nothing more than to delve into the mysteries of how someone died. For him not to dig into, so to speak, a cadaver was highly unusual. She was about to ask if he was alright when she swallowed the words. He’d been so irascible lately, there was no sense in ruining his good mood.
“Why don’t you do something less dangerous and set the table while I take the bread out of the oven?”
Cammie’s head whipped up. Now this was highly unusual.
Due to Doc’s hyper energy, he liked to eat standing up. At breakfast, he could be found standing at the counter, reading the latest news on his I-pad while he munched on an omelet or eggs benedict, savoring the deep roast coffee that Cammie found disgusting, but which Doc lived for. Dinner time found him, unless he was hosting a dinner party, at his usual spot at the counter, bending over his plate, while conducting erudite conversations.
“Are we expecting company?” she asked in as casual a voice as she could muster.
“As a matter of fact, we are. Now hop to it. Our guest should be here any minute.”
“Can I at least ask who it is?”
“You can. Though it doesn’t mean I’ll answer you.” Cammie narrowed her eyes at him. He pointed his finger at her. “By the way, your hair looks like a fledgling that’s fallen out of its nest in a hurricane. Just sayin…”
Cammie looked at her reflection in Doc’s massive stainless steel refrigerator and saw that he was right. Her curly auburn hair did look worse than usual.
She tamped down her hair. It sprang up. She tried flattening the back. It sprang up again. She turned on the faucet and, shoving her hand under the water, dragged her wet fingers through her hair. Looking at her image in the fridge, she now resembled a drowned duck.
