Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3)

by Leverone, Allan

  Mike still had his doubts about whether the killer was really gone, though. He could be within fifty feet of the cabin right now, watching the cops’ every move from the darkness and safety of the forest, secure in the knowledge he was virtually invisible in the impenetrable blackness.

  A pair of gurneys trundled Bronson Choate and Pete Kendall side-by-side to waiting ambulances, their bodies sealed inside the zipped and sealed black body bags. Hours had now passed since their discovery of Pete’s body, Mike quietly seething while the corpse of his friend and successor cooled on the ground as the crime scene was examined and photographed from all conceivable angles.

  It was now past one a.m., and the darkness of the primeval forest seemed to have thickened further. Mike wouldn’t have thought it possible and wondered if it was his imagination. He stifled a yawn as a lone vehicle approached the cabin, headlights bouncing and yawing, the car’s operator struggling to avoid driving off Long Pond Road and into a tree. It was the first car to arrive in over an hour.

  The headlights flicked off and the engine died as the driver took his place at the end of the long line of vehicles. A moment later a hefty, jowly man of around sixty heaved himself out of the car and clambered along the trail to where Mike and Sharon stood side-by-side near the front of the cabin.

  Mike offered his hand and the man shook it perfunctorily. Paskagankee Town Council Chairman Van Beebe was a blue-blood Yankee descended directly from riders on the Mayflower – or so he claimed – and projected a dour, cheerless demeanor even in the best of times, which this clearly was not. Adding to Beebe’s natural gloominess, Mike assumed, was the fact that Mike’s resignation as police chief had been spurred largely by the council’s displeasure at learning he was sharing a bed with a subordinate. Mike doubted Beebe had ever planned on dealing with him again and was surprised the councilman had even consented to the brief handshake.

  “A terrible business,” Beebe growled, ignoring Sharon and avoiding eye contact with Mike. “Did Chief Kendall suffer?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mike said. “He was hit from behind. I doubt he ever saw his killer coming. Obviously, you’ll have to wait for Dr. Affeldt’s report, but my guess is he never knew what hit him. He was probably dead before he hit the ground.”

  “Yes, well, that’s something, I suppose.”

  “Councilman Beebe,” Mike said, “I’m sure you’re aware of why we called you out here at this time of night. Losing Chief Kendall puts the Paskagankee Police Department in a terrible position. Given the fact Pete was the only management representative in the department, Officer Dupont and I thought the Town Council would appreciate as much planning time as possible to determine where you go from here. Presumably you’ll want to call in outside help to investigate these two murders, and get your search started as soon as possible for a replacement for Chief Kendall. He was –”

  Beebe cleared his throat and held up one beefy hand in interruption. His discomfort with the situation was palpable, but he pressed on. “Mr. McMahon, you and I have not always seen eye to eye. The situation with Officer Dupont,” his gaze slid briefly to Sharon before returning to Mike, with whom he resumed reluctant eye contact, “showed poor judgment on your part. However, your law enforcement credentials are impressive and your performance running the department was sterling, especially given the two horrific scenarios you were forced to deal with in the two years of your stewardship. I’ve already spoken to the other council members – that was what took me so long to get here – and we are in unanimous agreement. We would like you to consider coming out of retirement, on a temporary basis only, to guide the department through this ugly situation. We know you’ll provide steady leadership, and the town will benefit from being able to perform a thorough search for a replacement, rather than having to make a hasty decision, one we might later regret.”

  Mike said nothing for a moment. It occurred to him that he must be more tired than he realized, because he should have seen this coming. In the chaos of the events over the last few hours, he hadn’t even given a thought to the possibility of being recruited back into the job he had so recently been forced out of.

  The town council chairman yawned and looked at his watch pointedly. Mike said, “Councilman, you understand nothing has changed with my living arrangements. Officer Dupont and I are still sharing a home and are, in fact, now engaged to be married. We haven’t set a wedding date yet, but my personal life today is exactly the same as it was when I announced my retirement. I loved my job as chief here in Paskagankee, but I love my fiancé more.”

  “We understand, Chief McMahon, and our position on the matter of you and Officer Dupont’s relationship remains unchanged. However, given the current circumstances, we believe it to be in the town’s best interest to disregard your situation – temporarily and unofficially, of course – as we move forward. We are prepared to offer you a six-month contract, at your former salary, with your former benefits package intact as well. We believe it’s a generous offer. I’m sorry to rush you, but we really do need an answer immediately.”

  Mike thought Beebe didn’t sound sorry, he thought he sounded stuffy and self-important, but said, “As long as we understand each other, I accept your offer. I assume I’m to start immediately?”

  “Of course.”

  Mike thought for a moment and frowned. He lowered his voice, not sure why he was doing so but doing it anyway. Saying what he had to say next at any volume above a respectful whisper would have seemed profane and somehow blasphemous. “Do you know if anyone’s been to see Pete’s wife yet?”

  Beebe shook his head. “I’m told your dispatcher, Gordie…”

  “Rheaume,” Mike said, suddenly remembering why he disliked the town manager so much. Paskagankee was tiny, not much more than a village, and there was no reason for Van Beebe not to know Rheaume’s name, other than a callous disregard for his employees.

  “Yes, Rheaume,” he continued. “All Mr. Rheaume told Mrs. Kendall was that there has been some trouble, and the chief has been delayed indefinitely.”

  Mike sighed and glanced at his watch. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. “I guess I know what I’ll be doing first thing in the morning.”

  11

  Jackson Healy watched the flurry of activity around the cabin from the safety of the forest with a sense of disbelief and the growing conviction that the world as he knew it had somehow vanished. He had felt that way since awakening in the secret underground room next to the Paskagankee Tavern, and the events of the last few hours had only reinforced the notion. It came as no surprise the killing of the cabin-owner would be investigated – the law had very little patience when it came to murder – but the speed with which the lawmen had been able to marshal a response had caught him completely off guard.

  When the victim’s lady friend had scrambled down the steps of the front landing and begun running in the direction of her strange horseless carriage, Jackson had initially been right on her tail. Another second or two and he probably could have caught her.

  But then she leaped into the belly of the bizarre-looking beast, and moments later it began to growl obscenely, and Jackson had been struck with a fear unlike anything he had ever experienced. He immediately veered off from his pursuit and began backing toward the house, afraid to take his eyes off the machine. Then he froze in his tracks in utter disbelief as the young lady somehow piloted the buggy down a barely visible overgrown trail and out of sight.

  After the roar of the horseless buggy faded away, Jackson had taken a moment to collect himself and then retreated to the cabin. He stopped to check on the man lying half in and half out of the front door – dead, exactly as he had expected – and then hurried into the kitchen. His hunger had been overpowering.

  He returned to the odd humming icebox – the “fridge,” the cabin owner had called it – and after rummaging around inside it had come up with some meat and cheese that was, if not exactly fresh, at least edible. He had stuffed the food down his t
hroat and then finally taken a moment to sit down and really give some thought to his situation.

  The young woman would go straight to the law, that much was certain, but Jackson didn’t feel there was any real cause for concern. From what he had seen riding into this backwoods village, houses were spread widely apart and it would likely be hours before the law could muster any kind of response to her claim of an attacker at this out-of-the-way cabin. Hell, it might not even happen until tomorrow.

  He had concluded fairly quickly that there was no reason to abandon the dwelling he had fought so hard to acquire, at least not immediately. Besides, where else did he have to go? He was in an unfamiliar town with no supplies besides the clothes on his back, and even those didn’t belong to him.

  As he considered his situation, Jackson felt an extreme drowsiness begin to overtake him. He was no longer hungry, but he was exhausted. The couch he was sitting on was small but extremely comfortable and before he realized what was happening, he had fallen asleep. He was awakened some time later – how much later, he had no idea, as his pocket watch had chosen the worst possible time to give up the ghost – by the sound of a thick metallic clunking noise somewhere outside the house and then a man’s voice cursing, “Holy shit!”

  Jackson had scrambled off the couch with just enough time to hide in a closet before a man dressed in blue, apparently the color of the sheriff’s department here in Paskagankee, examined the cabin’s owner – he was dead, as Jackson well knew – and then hurried off and began talking excitedly into some strange device he picked up from inside his own horseless carriage, this one painted blue and white with the words “Paskagankee Police” on the side.

  Jackson waited until the sheriff’s back was turned and then eased as quietly as he could out the front door. Once down the steps he bolted around the side of the house and straight into forest. He expected at any moment to hear a shout of surprise from the lawman, followed by the pistol shot that would knock him off his feet, but it never came. Whatever the lawman was doing, he was so wrapped up in it he didn’t see a thing.

  The sheriff’s deputy had hung around for a time, wrapping yellow ribbon around everything in sight, and then had climbed back into his strange horseless carriage and disappeared in what Jackson thought must be the least effective murder investigation ever. By the time the deputy had departed, Jackson’s hunger was nearly overwhelming again and he decided a return trip inside the cabin was a risk worth taking.

  He had just started across the clearing when another sheriff’s deputy showed up, catching Jackson by surprise and confirming what he had already begun to suspect: that there was no way to anticipate what the crazy lawmen in this town might do next. Jackson once again managed to retreat to the safety of the forest without being seen, and then watched while this new lawman repeated most of the actions of the first one, checking the body – still dead – and then actually searching the cabin.

  When the lawman strode to his carriage and began talking into his own strange device, Jackson had erroneously assumed this sheriff’s deputy would further repeat the actions of the first one and pilot his buggy away. He was by this time so ravenously hungry he had begun to care less and less about the presence of the law and had started across the small clearing behind the cabin, hoping to get inside it and back to the “fridge” the minute the deputy departed.

  But the lawman surprised him. He didn’t go anywhere; instead he began a search of the exterior grounds of the cabin.

  The man had nearly walked right into Jackson, who by now was so flustered – and hungry, goddamn was he hungry! – that he had not been able to stop himself from attacking the deputy. He crouched behind the only cover available – a big piece of roaring machinery in the middle of the clearing – and then took the lawman from behind, killing him in much the same manner as he had taken down the cabin owner. Jackson was discovering a Colt .38 revolver could be quite a useful tool even without bullets.

  Shortly after that, two more people, a man and a woman, both dressed like civilians, had shown up. If Jackson hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the dead cabin owner was running the world’s smallest rooming house, there was so much goddamned activity. The man discovered the body of the dead lawman in short order and then all hell had broken loose. Within minutes, hordes of people were swarming all over the cabin after rumbling up the trail inside more of those frightening horseless carriages, some of which seemed nearly the size of a small barn.

  Jackson had watched it all, thanking his lucky stars for the soothing anonymity provided by the darkness and the thick underbrush of the forest. How so many people had managed to mobilize so quickly he could not imagine.

  There was much he did not understand about what was happening here, and it was frightening. He knew he would now be a hunted man after killing two people, one of them a lawman.

  It got worse. He didn’t know a single soul in this town. He had no horse. And, he realized with a sudden sinking feeling, no money either. He had completely forgotten about the solid gold Peruvian disk until just now. It must still be somewhere in that damned secret underground room.

  All of which was bad enough, but it wasn’t the worst development. The worst development was that he was getting hungry again. The hunger was building rapidly, again. Soon it would rule his existence. It would be all he could think about.

  He had killed because of the hunger last time, and it was coming again.

  And he had no idea what to do.

  12

  Mike glanced tiredly at his watch as he drove the deserted back roads toward the cement-and-brick Paskagankee Police Department building. Breaking the news of Pete Kendall’s murder to his wife was not the way he would have chosen to begin his second stint guiding the department, but there was no putting it off. It wouldn’t get any easier by delaying, and more importantly, the young woman had a right to learn her husband’s fate.

  He had stayed with the distraught widow for over an hour, sipping strong coffee at the kitchen table listening to Jane Kendall talk, sometimes about her husband, sometimes about things entirely unrelated to his loss, until a neighbor had arrived to drive her to her parents’ home outside Bangor.

  Now he felt washed-out and jittery, no surprise given the fact it was nearly nine a.m. and he had not slept in more than twenty-four hours. Mike rubbed his eyes and tried to formulate a plan with which to approach the rest of the day. The first priority would obviously be the investigation into last night’s two murders. But there was also the issue of the body that had disappeared out of the excavation pit behind the Ridge Runner to consider.

  Mike mulled over how the two events might be related as he drove, becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to focus thanks to his building exhaustion. He slowed the car and turned into the police station parking lot, surprised to discover he had been so deep in thought he could not recall more than the most basic details of the cross-town trip he had just made. Guess I should add “get some sleep” to my to-do list.

  He shut down the engine and glanced at a vehicle he didn’t recognize. It was a coal-black Chevrolet Suburban with blacked-out windows and U.S. Government plates, angled carelessly into a spot a few spaces away. Mike wondered what the vehicle’s presence might signify and decided it was probably nothing good. He stepped out of the car and walked to the station, entering as a cop for the first time since his forced resignation.

  Dispatcher Gordie Rheaume smiled grimly and waved through the heavy plate glass window separating the public lobby from the interior of the station. Gordie stood and weaved his way through the bullpen, realizing Mike would not have received an access card yet. He unlocked the reinforced door and offered his hand. “Welcome back, Chief,” he said warmly. “I’m sorry about the circumstances of your return, but it’s good to have you back.”

  “Thanks, Gordie, it’s good to see you, too. It seems we have a lot of work to do.”

  The older man nodded. “You got that right. And the first order of busines
s is waiting for you in Chief Kendall’s – I mean, in your – office.”

  “Waiting in my office? What are you talking about? Is it the Maneater?” Mike’s first thought was how the hell did Melissa Mannheim get word of the double murders already? He had known he would have to deal with the Portland Journal reporter and the rest of the press at some point today, but couldn’t imagine how the Melissa “The Maneater” Mannheim had managed to get on the story so soon.

  He pictured her slinking into the chief’s office before poor Pete Kendall’s body was even cold, all flame-red hair and provocative clothing, spouting off about freedom of the press and expecting an exclusive on the search for Kendall’s killer. Suddenly he felt even more exhausted than he had a few minutes ago driving into the parking lot.

  “No, it’s not Mannheim,” Gordie answered. “Although I’m sure you’ll be seeing her soon. You’re lucky she’s distracted by all the hoopla with the Hollywood film crew coming in a couple of weeks, otherwise she’d be up your ass already.”

  Mike scratched his head. “If it’s not Melissa waiting to speak to me, who is it?”

  “FBI,” Gordie said.

  Mike flashed back to the government car in the lot and realized he should have made the connection immediately. He would have, too, if he hadn’t been so damned tired. “What does the FBI want?” he asked.

  “Beats me. They refused to speak to anyone but the chief. I told them it’s been kind of hectic around here and that you’ve only been chief for a few hours. Even told them I didn’t know when you’d be in. They just said ‘no problem,’ and that they’d be happy to wait. They’ve been drinking coffee and sitting in your office like a couple of ugly statues ever since.”

  Mike glanced at the big clock on the wall. “What time did they get here?”