Mike glanced between Sharon and the two agents. He had no trouble believing her story. She was dirty and bedraggled and looked as though she had crawled a mile through a sewer tunnel, while the two feds seemed to have survived the search of the construction site mostly unscathed. A small clump or two of stubborn dirt was stuck to their dress shoes, and a thin film of dust covered their suits, but compared to Sharon’s appearance, they looked ready for a night on the town.
He nodded slowly, turning his attention to the heavy metallic disk. “What is it?” he asked.
Sharon shrugged. “I have no idea. Why don’t you ask these two geniuses? They seem to have all the answers.”
Mike raised his eyebrows and looked at Ferriss. Based on their earlier meeting, he knew that man was the senior of the two agents. The FBI man gazed back with a sour look on his face. Then Ferriss glanced over at his partner, who shook his head obstinately. The thick purple vein continued to pulse in Cooper’s forehead.
“Come on, guys, spill it,” Mike prodded. “You can’t expect us to release evidence into your custody when we don’t even know what it is, or what application it might have to our own investigation.”
“That’s exactly what we expect,” Cooper answered, surprising Mike. He had thought Ferriss would do all of the talking.
Ferriss raised a hand, silencing his partner. “I already told you,” he said evenly, “that we’re not able to divulge the details of our investigation. You’re just going to have to trust us when we tell you we need that disk a hell of a lot more than you do.”
“Just trust you.”
“Yep.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” Mike said pleasantly. “On the one hand, I’ve got a dead cop, and not just a dead cop, but a dead chief of police, along with a dead civilian, both killed at the same location just hours apart. I’ve got a bizarre underground death chamber, complete with what appears to be the skeletal remains of two human beings. I’ve got a witness who swears the room originally contained a third body, which has now disappeared seemingly of its own free will, and is unaccounted for.”
“Oh yeah? Well–”
“—I’m not done yet,” Mike interrupted, raising his voice and cutting off the Fed. After the easy camaraderie of his initial statement, the outburst had the exact effect he wanted: the FBI man stopped talking, momentarily shocked into silence.
“As I was saying,” Mike continued, his tone amiable again. “I’ve got all these events, which I’m willing to bet a month’s salary are related, although I couldn’t begin to tell you how. In addition, I’ve got my best officer sitting in front of me telling a story of investigative ineptitude at best, and sexual harassment at worst.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ferriss spat. “We might have glanced at her butt a couple of times, but, hell, who could blame us for that? She’s a damned fine-looking lady. Besides, it’s not like we groped her or anything.” While Ferriss talked, Cooper’s face had grown steadily redder, until now it resembled an out-of-control bonfire, with the reliably pulsing vein stuck in the middle.
“Well, see, that’s where you should consider yourself fortunate,” Mike said. “I believe my officer showed remarkable restraint under the circumstances, but if you’d tried to lay a hand on her, I’m pretty sure you would have found yourself regaining consciousness in the hospital down in Portland sometime tomorrow.”
“And facing a lawsuit the likes of which you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmare,” Sharon added, fuming.
“None of my nightmares involve lawsuits, missy,” Cooper said, his voice tight with fury.
“Hey!” Mike said, banging the desk with a fist. “Let me finish saying what I have to say. This is the last time I’m going to tell you.”
He waited a heartbeat, then two, for his message to sink in, and then continued. “Everything I just mentioned is what I have on one hand. On the other hand I have two federal agents, neither of whom I’ve ever worked with or have even seen before. These agents show up in my office the morning after a brutal double murder, speaking cryptically about missing persons cases and claiming, without offering anything to back up their statement, that the evidence my officer uncovered through her own diligence is so critical to their mysterious case – the case they’re unable or unwilling to discuss – they must take possession of it immediately.”
Mike lifted his hands chest-high, palms up, like a set of scales. “This is what I have on both hands. Now, put yourselves in my shoes, gentlemen. What would you do?”
“I’ve had it!” Cooper burst out, his throbbing vein working overtime. “Just grab the damned disk and let’s get the hell out of here!”
Ferriss ignored him, as did Mike. Sharon shot him a scornful look, which he either ignored or didn’t notice. The senior FBI agent waited a moment and then said, “Okay, I put myself in your shoes. It doesn’t change a thing. That disk is our evidence, and we’re taking it back to Portland.”
Mike shook his head. “Wrong answer, guys.”
He turned to Sharon and said, “Go process that thing, whatever it is, and then place it in the evidence room. Double-check to be sure the room is locked when you leave.”
Sharon stood without speaking. She stared down each agent, in turn, and then walked out of the office, pulling the door closed behind her.
“You’re making a mistake, Chief,” Ferriss hissed, his voice low and threatening.
“Maybe so,” Mike said, unruffled. “It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. When you’re willing to spell out why that evidence is so critical to your case, we can revisit the subject of releasing it into your custody. Alternatively, if you’d like to have the Special Agent in Charge down in the Portland field office give me a call, I’d be happy to discuss the subject with him.
“Until then,” he said, “it looks like we’re done here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. As I believe I mentioned before, it’s already been a long day, and it’s going to get a lot longer. As pleasant as it’s been chatting with you fellas, unless there’s anything else, I’ll have to ask you to get the hell out of my office.”
The men sat for a moment, unmoving, staring across the desk at each other, Mike doing his best to ignore the throbbing vein in Agent Cooper’s forehead. Finally, Ferriss said, “This isn’t over,” and the two agents stood as one and marched out of the office.
Mike moved to his office window and watched as the pair plodded through the bullpen, looking neither right nor left, and disappeared through the lobby door. He hoped they would climb into their G-car and head south to Portland, but somehow he doubted he had seen – or heard – the last of them.
17
The telephone abruptly stopped ringing. Rose noted this development from somewhere that seemed very far away. She had fallen limp in the stranger’s arms as the blue spots in her vision were replaced by rapidly growing roiling black clouds. A buzzing sound began inside her head, increasing in volume, becoming more insistent, and she knew instinctively that she was seconds away from losing consciousness. A few seconds after that happened she would be dead.
But then the phone stopped ringing and the stranger’s iron grip on her airway relaxed, just a little, just enough for Rose to choke a wheezing breath into her lungs. The black cloud receded. She managed another shuddering breath and the cloud disappeared entirely.
The stranger seemed to remember her then, and he removed his arm from around her neck, but thankfully continued supporting her, as she was afraid she might still fall to the floor if he let go. He stared at her wide-eyed, face white, body shaking.
And then the answering machine clicked on. “I’m not here right now,” Rose heard her recorded voice say. “Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m able.”
The unrestrained panic returned to the stranger’s eyes and he spun a full three hundred sixty degrees, releasing his hold on Rose to do so. She stumbled forward a couple of steps, wondering whether she would break her hip when she collapsed
to the floor, but surprised herself by somehow managing to stay on her feet.
Through the answering machine’s speaker, a sweet-sounding female voice was saying, “Hello, Rose, this is Annette. I know you haven’t been feeling well, and when you didn’t show up for work I just wanted to check in on you, make sure everything’s okay…”
The stranger stopped looking around the kitchen and was now homing in on the origination of the voice. He took a step toward the kitchen counter, hesitated, then took another, finally reaching the counter and extending an arm toward the answering machine, a small plastic box Rose had placed on the countertop directly under the wall-mounted phone.
The man’s actions were so bizarre she momentarily forgot about being attacked, forgot about nearly being choked to death, even forgot about her intense fear. As Annette Middleton, the young assistant at Needful Things, voiced her concern about Rose not showing up for work, the stranger hovered over the machine, a look of intense concentration etched on his face. Then, without warning, he swiveled his arm up like he was preparing to hammer a nail and smashed the butt end of his pistol down on the machine’s case.
The plastic cracked with a loud POP and Annette’s voice erupted in a high-pitched electronic squeal and then abruptly died away. The stranger leaped backward like he had been kicked in the chest by a horse, almost knocking Rose down in the process. He spun on his heels and his narrow, angry eyes locked on to hers and he said, “You’ve got some explaining to do, old lady. What in the hell is going on here?”
Rose’s fear rushed back and she said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you want me to say. What don’t you understand?” She felt her panic rising and choked off a sob, trying to keep herself under control.
“WHERE’S THE OTHER LADY?” he shouted, his face just inches from hers, splattering her with spittle. “WHAT WAS THAT GODDAMNED RINGING NOISE BEFORE? WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE?”
And just like that, it clicked in Rose Pellerin’s head. This man’s unreasoning terror stemmed from the fact he had either never heard the ringing of a telephone before, or, more likely, had suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury and didn’t remember ever having heard a phone.
The same was also true with the answering machine. Annette Middleton’s disembodied voice had had thrown him for a loop. He looked like he had just seen a ghost because he had just seen a ghost, practically speaking: a third person was talking but was invisible to him.
The man stood panting, his chest heaving, pistol held loosely in his right hand. The disgusting clump of matted hair was still stuck to the gun’s handgrip. Even the violent blow to the answering machine had failed to loosen it.
Rose steadied herself with a deep breath. Her attacker was dangerous, but he was also clearly confused and terrified. He might not be quite as afraid as she was, but Rose guessed he was probably close. Speaking gently, she said, “That was Annette, my assistant. I own a small curio shop in downtown Paskagankee. I’ve been rather ill lately, and when I was late showing up for work today, she obviously became concerned. She wanted to make sure I was alright, that’s all.”
“Where is she?” He seemed to have relaxed slightly, but the fear still radiated off him.
“She’s at the shop. The ringing noise you heard was her calling on the telephone, and when I didn’t answer, she left a message on the answering machine.”
The man backed up a step. “Telephone? Answering machine?”
“It’s all right,” Rose said soothingly. “Neither of those things will hurt you. They’re just machines, designed to make life easier, although, to tell you the truth,” she said with a smile, “many times they seem to have the opposite effect.” She was trying to keep things light, to ingratiate herself with the plainly unstable man and keep him calm, until she could figure out what to do next.
He continued to gaze at her in obvious confusion, the concept of a telephone foreign to him. “May I sit down?” she ventured. “As I said, I’ve not been feeling well, and the day’s events have worn me down just a bit.” She didn’t mention the part about being struck in the jaw and nearly choked to death. The volatile stranger had finally begun relaxing, just a little, and Rose didn’t want to do or say anything that might counteract the minimal progress she’d made.
“I could still use that food and coffee,” he mumbled. “I guess after that you could sit.”
The omelet had by now practically burned to the base of the pan, and when Rose scraped it onto the plate, the bottom was charred a nearly uniform black. She grimaced at it and told him she’d make a new one, but he waved her off. “Looks fine,” he said gruffly.
He was obviously ravenous, and by the time Rose poured a cup of coffee and brought it to the kitchen table, the man had already worked through more than half the omelet, burned and all. He nodded wordlessly at the chair on the opposite side of the table, and she sat, grateful to be off her feet.
Rose tried to imagine where on earth this strange man might have come from that he would be so unfamiliar with a telephone its ringing would send him into a frenzy. She couldn’t come up with a single guess, so she decided to ask. As gently as possible, she said, “So, where are you from, Mr…?”
The stranger looked up from his food blankly. For a moment she thought he would refuse to answer. She began to wonder if he had even heard the question. Then, between large bites of burned egg, he took a deep breath and said, “I was born in Kansas City and moved to Texas as a young boy, but I left there a long time ago. I’ve lived all over. Wherever my horse’ll take me, basically.”
Rose furrowed her brow. Despite her fear and pain she was intrigued, though she took note of his refusal to give his name. “Your horse? What do you mean? You raise horses?”
The stranger chuckled. “Raise ‘em? Nope, just ride ‘em. How else would I get around?”
“Well, by car, like everyone else. Do you own a car?”
“A car? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know, a car. An automobile.”
The stranger shook his head in utter confusion, and Rose Pellerin began to feel an odd sense of…clarity…begin to sink in. As hard as it was to swallow – Rose Pellerin had always been a pragmatic Yankee, a believer in things she could see, feel and touch – this confused man’s lack of familiarity with seemingly every modern convenience might not be due to where he grew up, she began to suspect it was due to when.
She sat quietly, watching the man eat and thinking about time travel, and about the science fiction novels she had read and loved as a young girl, and about all the secrets of the human brain that mankind has yet to unlock. She considered how to proceed, and even whether to proceed. For all his confusion and vulnerability, this uninvited and unwanted houseguest was still extremely dangerous, as evidenced by the gruesome clump of hair hanging off his gun and his frenzied attack on Rose, an attack that had been precipitated by nothing more dangerous than a ringing telephone.
After a silent but vigorous internal debate, she decided to ask her questions. She realized with some surprise there had never been any real doubt whether she would. The man would be finished eating soon, and then he would either move on, or…not. What would happen to her if he chose the second option was something Rose very much did not want to think about, but she doubted a few harmless questions would affect his decision one way or the other. Her fate had probably already been determined in his mind, anyway.
She cleared her throat and said, as casually as she could manage, “Do you happen to know today’s date, Mr…?”
“My name’s Jackson,” he said, surprising Rose.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jackson,” she said, knowing how ridiculous the statement sounded, given the circumstances. “So, about the date…”
He thought about it for a moment. “I dunno the exact date,” he finally said. “I was…out of circulation for a time. Not sure about how long a time, but it may have been several days. I assume it was more than a day or two, anyway, ‘cause I’ve been so damned hu
ngry since waking up. Anyway, I know it’s June, but that’s about the best I can do.”
Rose sat for a moment, wondering about his phrasing. Waking up? Then she decided to go for broke. What did she have to lose? “Yes, it’s June, and what’s the year again?”
The stranger had finished his omelet, cleaning the plate of every last crumb. If Rose didn’t know better, she would have thought the dish had been washed and dried and placed in front of the man empty.
“The year?” He took a sip of coffee and eyed her over the top of the mug, plainly convinced he had entered the home of a lunatic. “The year’s 1858, of course.”
18
Ward Cooper leveled a hard stare out the windshield of the Bureau-provided Chevy Suburban, currently parked along a desolate stretch of Paskagankee, Maine roadway. He chewed on a stick of gum relentlessly, attacking it as if competing in a professional sport. “What the hell do we do now?” he said sourly.
“Christ, would you just relax already?” Alton Ferriss looked his partner up and down with equal parts concern and amusement. “This is the biggest break we’ve gotten in…well…ever, and you can’t even seem to enjoy it!”
“Enjoy it? What’s to enjoy? We were this close,” he held up a hand with his thumb and forefinger positioned an inch apart, “to getting that goddamned disk and now it’s locked up tight.” He took a deep breath, his jaws working like pistons to punish the offending stick of gum. “You think we can convince the boss-man to pressure that hick cop to release the disk into our custody?”
“I doubt it,” Ferriss replied. “The chief might be a hick, but he’s right about one thing: the disk is evidence in a double-murder investigation. We don’t have anything to trump him with. Hell, we don’t even have a real case; at least not a law-enforcement case. That disk isn’t going anywhere.”
Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) Page 14