Gwendy's Magic Feather

by Richard Chizmar

  68

  SHERIFF RIDGEWICK PICKS UP on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s Lucas Browne!” Gwendy nearly shouts. “Lucas Browne’s the Tooth Fairy!”

  “Gwendy? Do you know what time it is?”

  “Listen to me, Norris. Please. I think Deborah Parker’s still alive, but I don’t know how much time she has.”

  “Okay, start over and tell me how you know this.”

  “I just ran into Lucas Browne on Main Street and—”

  “What were you doing on Main Street at this time of night?”

  “I was walking to my car after the New Year’s Eve party,” she says, her frustration building, “but that’s not important. Lucas Browne went to dental school in Buffalo.”

  “How exactly do you know that? For that matter, how do you know Lucas Browne?”

  “I met him and his father when we were searching the field that day. His father told me Lucas went to college in Buffalo, but he came home early after he got into some kind of trouble.”

  “And Lucas told you it was dental school when you saw him tonight?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. “Something like that.” She takes a deep breath. “Norris, he was wearing cowboy boots. I think there was blood on them.”

  Rustling in the background now. “Where are you?”

  “I just turned on 117. Headed home.”

  “Turn around,” he says, and she can hear a door opening and closing. “Meet me at the station. Don’t call anyone else.”

  “Hurry, Norris.”

  69

  GWENDY PULLS UP A chair and sits next to Sheila Brigham inside the dispatch cubicle, listening to the radio calls as they come in. She recognizes Sheriff Ridgewick right away, although his voice sounds much deeper over the airwaves, and State Trooper Tom Noel, who was a year behind her at Castle Rock High and grew up two blocks away from Carbine Street. The others are strangers to her, their words terse and clipped, but Gwendy can hear the excitement simmering in their voices.

  The sheriff and Deputy Footman are in the lead car, followed by a large convoy of Castle County Sheriff’s Department, Castle Rock Police Department, and Maine State Police vehicles. They’ve just crossed over the old railroad bridge on Jessup Road and will be splitting up and surrounding the Browne’s ranch house in a matter of minutes.

  Despite numerous requests and a half-hearted attempt at bribery (involving one of Mr. Peterson’s prized fly fishing rods), the sheriff refused to allow Gwendy to ride along with him or his men—the press would have a field day, he argued, especially if something went wrong and she were injured—so this is the closest she’ll get to the action.

  She stares at the radio with nervous anticipation, tapping her foot on the ugly green carpet and chewing her fingernails. Sheila has already scolded her twice for not being able to sit still, but Gwendy can’t help it. She’s running on fumes and nearly a half-dozen cups of coffee. It’s almost ten o’clock in the morning and she hasn’t slept a wink. In fact, she didn’t even make it home last night.

  Shortly after 1:00 AM, not long after meeting Gwendy at the stationhouse, Sheriff Ridgewick got in touch with a Detective Tipton of the Buffalo Police Department. Files were pulled. Phone calls made. Doors knocked on. By 6:00 AM, a senior official from the Administration Office at the University of Buffalo verified that Lucas Tillman Browne of Castle Rock, Maine was dismissed from the School of Dental Medicine—just before the conclusion of his third semester—after numerous female students filed sexual harassment and stalking complaints against him. Shortly after 8:00 AM, State Police detectives learned from the Tomlinsons and the Parkers that both families had hired handyman Charles Browne the previous spring to power-wash the aluminum siding on their houses. In both instances, Mr. Browne had been accompanied by his son. It’d been so long ago the families had simply forgotten. This treasure trove of new information led to a search warrant being issued for the Browne residence and the surrounding property.

  “I’ve got eyes on a single male subject,” the radio squawks, and Gwendy can picture Sheriff Ridgewick sitting in the driver’s seat of his cruiser, squinting through a dirty windshield. “Check that, two male subjects in the garage. Second man’s working under the truck.”

  “Copy that. We’re in position out back.”

  “All good at the fence line. He comes this way, we got ’em.”

  “Approaching subjects now. Detective Thome is at my twelve o’clock blocking the driveway. Stand by.”

  Three-and-a-half minutes later: “Warrant has been served. Both subjects cooperating. Detectives entering the residence. Stand by.”

  The radio goes mostly silent then. Someone requests a new pair of gloves be brought inside the house. Another officer asks if he and his men should continue to turn away traffic at the intersection. Deputy Portman responds in the affirmative.

  Gwendy pulls in a deep breath, lets it out. Sheila takes a bite of her donut and stares intently at the radio monitor, the expression on her face unchanged.

  “How in the world are you so calm?” Gwendy asks, breaking the silence. “I’m dying over here.”

  Sheila gives her a dry look, smudges of white powder stuck in the corners of her mouth. “Twenty-five years on the job, honey. Seen and heard it all by now. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen!” She takes another bite of donut and continues with her mouth full. “I’ll tell you this, though … if you don’t stop chewing on those nails of yours, you’re gonna have to walk across the street to the drugstore in about five minutes and buy yourself some Band-Aids.”

  Gwendy lowers her pinky finger from her mouth and crosses her arms like a sullen teenager.

  “Sheila, come back,” the radio squawks.

  She wipes powdery fingers on her blouse and keys the mic. “Right here, Sheriff.”

  There’s a crackle of static, and then: “I’ve got a message for our visitor.”

  “Roger that. She’s sitting right next to me gnawing on her fingers.”

  “Tell her … we got our man.”

  70

  “TURN IT UP, GWEN,” her father says, sitting down on the arm of his recliner. He’s staring at the television screen with rapt fascination.

  “I’ll be making a few brief comments,” Sheriff Ridgewick says into the tangle of microphones set up outside the stationhouse, “and then I’ll hand it over to State Police Detective Frank Thome to answer any questions.”

  He flips open a notepad and starts reading. “Earlier today, the Castle County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine State Police executed a search warrant on a residence located at 113 Ford Road in northern Castle Rock. A number of personal items belonging to Rhonda Tomlinson were discovered under a loose floorboard in one of the bedrooms. After interviewing multiple residents of the home, a suspect, Lucas Browne, age twenty, was placed into custody. After receiving permission from the owner of the residence, Charles Browne, age fifty-nine, to search a family-owned cabin located near Dark Score Lake, officers discovered fourteen-year-old Deborah Parker shackled and unconscious inside the cabin’s dirt cellar. She has been reunited with her family and is currently receiving medical treatment at a local hospital.”

  The sheriff looks up from his notepad, the dark circles under his eyes telling the rest of the story. “After an extensive search of the property surrounding the cabin, officers were able to locate the remains of Rhonda Tomlinson and Carla Hoffman buried a short distance away. Both families have been notified and the victims’ remains will be transported to the Castle County Morgue in due course pending further investigation. Lucas Browne has been charged in the abductions and murders of Miss Tomlinson and Miss Hoffman and the abduction and torture of Miss Parker. Additional charges are pending. Lucas Browne remains in custody at this time at the Castle County Sheriff’s Department. Detective Thome will now take your questions.”

  Sheriff Ridgewick steps away from the makeshift podium and stares down at the ground.

  “Well.” Mr. Peterson sigh
s. “Far from a happy ending, but it’s the best we could’ve hoped for I suppose.”

  “Those poor families,” Mrs. Peterson says, making the sign of the cross. “I can’t even imagine what they’re going through.”

  Gwendy doesn’t say anything. The last eighteen hours have been a whirlwind—and her brain and body are still struggling to recover.

  Earlier in the afternoon, the sheriff confided in her with great detail the horrors they’d discovered inside the Brownes’ house and cabin: a pair of Ziploc sandwich baggies found under a second loose floorboard in Lucas’s bedroom, the first containing assorted jewelry belonging to Lord-knows-how-many-women, and the second baggie containing fifty-seven teeth of various shapes and sizes. In the cellar of the cabin, they found a macabre toolkit consisting of a selection of bloodstained pliers, an electric drill, and several power saws. Gwendy wondered how long it would take for the press to get hold of this information.

  “Good for Norris Ridgewick,” Mr. Peterson says, still staring at the television. “About time the people in this town gave him his due.”

  Gwendy’s cellphone rings. “I better take this.” She gets up from the sofa and walks into the kitchen. “Hello?”

  “Got a minute?”

  “Were your ears burning, Sheriff?”

  “Every day for the last two weeks,” he says, wearily.

  “We just watched a replay of your press conference. You did well.”

  “Thanks.” He pauses. “I still feel strange not mentioning your part in the investigation. Feels wrong to get all the credit.”

  “I figure a lot of that credit is overdue around here.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I would.”

  “I do have one question for you.”

  Here it comes. “What’s that?” she asks.

  “I know the whole dental school thing tipped it off for you. And the cowboy boots. But how did you really know?”

  Gwendy doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her words are carefully chosen and as honest as she can make them. “It was just a strong … feeling. He gave off this seriously creepy vibe, a kind of hunger, you could feel it wafting off him.”

  “So you’re saying it was … gut instinct?”

  She can picture him rolling his eyes. “Something like that.”

  “Well, whatever it was, I’m grateful. You saved that girl’s life.”

  “We did, Norris.”

  “Are you home right now? I want to drop off the report I just finished writing. Make sure we’re on the same page.”

  “I’m at my parents’ house, but I could swing by the station after dinner.”

  “That’ll be too late. You mind if I bring it by there?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be here.” And she thinks, If he tries to shake my hand, I’ll just tell him I’m coming down with a bug, better not to touch me. Just like I told my parents earlier this afternoon.

  “Great, give me fifteen minutes.”

  But it only takes ten.

  Gwendy is leaning across the dining room table, looking for a corner piece of the latest jigsaw puzzle—the nighttime skyline of New York City—when the doorbell rings.

  “That’s Norris,” she says, getting up from the table.

  “Make sure you invite him in,” Mrs. Peterson says.

  Gwendy walks into the foyer. “You must have been speeding—” she says, swinging open the door. The words die in her throat. “Ryan?”

  Her husband is standing on the porch, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, his camera bag in the other. His face is clean-shaven and tanned, and his eyes are twinkling with nervous anticipation. He looks like a little boy bouncing on his heels and grinning.

  “I know how you like surprises,” he says.

  Gwendy squeals with excitement and throws herself into his arms. He drops the camera bag and picks her up with his free hand, spinning her around. Her lips find his, and as he twirls her around and around on the porch of the house she grew up in, she thinks: There’s nothing bad in this man, only home.

  71

  FOR THE FIRST TIME in her life, Gwendy wants to tell someone about the button box.

  She glances over at Ryan in the driver’s seat. She hates keeping such a big secret from him—any secret, for that matter—but she worries that it could be dangerous for her husband to know about the box. She also doesn’t like the idea of him not having a choice in the matter. If she decides to tell him, he’s stuck with the knowledge—and the responsibility—whether he wants it or not. How is that any better than what Richard Farris has done to her? Twice now!

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he says, checking his rearview mirror and signaling to change lanes. “You’re awfully quiet. Worried about the emergency session?”

  She nods her head. “Yes.” And it’s the truth.

  “You’ll do great, honey.”

  “I honestly don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, what my role in all this will be.”

  “You’ll listen and learn, and then you’ll step up and lead. It’s what you always do.”

  She sighs and stares out the window. Frozen ponds and farm buildings, snow-swirled into gray ghosts, blur past in the distant fields. “Hopefully we can talk some sense into the man. But I’m not holding my breath.”

  “If I know you, you won’t rest until you do.”

  The call came in the night before. On the other end of the line was the Speaker of the House himself, Dennis Hastert. His message was brief and to the point: both the House and Senate would reconvene on Monday, January 3 at 9:00 AM, five days ahead of schedule. Gwendy thanked him for the call and hung up and then told Ryan. They’d only left her parents’ house a couple of hours earlier, and he hadn’t even had time to unpack his bags yet.

  She was afraid to leave the button box inside the safe at the condo—what if Ryan decided to go home without her at some point and he opened it?—and Castle Rock Savings and Loan was closed because it was Sunday, so she had no choice but to take the box along with her.

  As soon as that problem was solved, another complication rose in its place: because of the short notice, she was unable to arrange for a private plane out of Castle County Airport and was forced to fly out of a larger commuter airpark just south of Portland. But the extra drive and the inevitable questions from Ryan (“Since when do we fly private?”) were worth the hassle if only to avoid the X-ray machines at the airport.

  “How about I drop you out front with the luggage?” Ryan asks, steering the car off the exit ramp and onto the access road for Portland South Airpark. “I’ll go park in the garage and meet you inside.”

  “Sounds good. We should have plenty of time.”

  Ryan pulls up to the section of curb marked UNLOADING ZONE in front of the main building—unlike the Castle County Airport, this place actually has more than one, not to mention multiple runways and a three-story parking garage—and unloads the luggage from the trunk, including Gwendy’s carry-on containing the button box. He leaves Gwendy standing at the curb and drives across the street to the garage.

  She looks around and sees two large families waiting in line with their suitcases at Baggage Check (in this case, a makeshift fiberglass booth with a pair of oversized grocery carts parked beside it). Several young children are doing their best to squirm out of their parents’ grip, and one little girl, her face beet-red and stained with tears, appears on the verge of a major tantrum. A lone, harried-looking airport employee is ticketing the mountain of expensive luggage with the efficiency and speed of a sloth. If he has any help on this second day of January, it’s currently nowhere in sight.

  Gwendy sighs, feeling sorry for the guy, and sits down on a nearby bench. She arranges the three large suitcases in front of her on the sidewalk and places her carry-on next to her, resting an arm atop it for safekeeping.

  “Excuse me, madam, is anyone sitting here?”

  “Not at all,” she says, looking up. “Feel free to—”

  Richard F
arris is standing in front of her, looking almost like a mirror image of the man she’d first met twenty-five years earlier on a bench in Castle View Park. His face hasn’t aged a day, and he’s wearing dark jeans with a button-down dress shirt (light gray this time instead of white), a dark jacket as if from a suit, and of course that small neat black hat of his is perched atop his head.

  “How … where did you come from?” she says in a low, awed voice.

  He sits down at the other end of the bench, smiling warmly. The carry-on suitcase rests between them.

  Gwendy thinks about pinching herself on the arm to make sure she’s not dreaming, but she’s suddenly afraid to move. “Was that you at the mall with my mom? Did you … why did you leave the box with me again?” She’s speaking fast now, weeks of frustration and anxiety surging into her voice. “I thought you said—”

  Farris holds up a hand, silencing her. “I understand you have questions, but my time here is limited, so let us palaver for a spell before we’re interrupted.” He scoots a little closer to the center of the bench. “Regarding the return of our old friend, the button box … let’s just say I found myself in a bit of a jam and needed to tuck it away somewhere safe for a short time.” He looks at her with discernible affection in his light blue eyes. “You, Gwendy Peterson, were the safest place I could think of.”

  “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “As it was intended, dear girl. I told you long ago, your proprietorship of the button box was exceptional the first time I left it in your possession. And I have full trust it was once again.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she says. “I was a mess the whole time. I didn’t know what to do. Push the button, not push the button.” She lets out a long breath. “In the end, I did the best I could.”