Steam curled out of the Styrofoam cup and Mike breathed in the rich aroma of the coffee. “Bert Jenkins from Animal Control was at Ida Mae Harper’s house last night to examine the remains of that poor dog, what few were left, anyway. He says the animal was literally torn apart by something inexplicably strong and unrelentingly brutal.”
“What, you mean like a bear? If one of those guys gets hungry enough or is disturbed during hibernation, it could get mighty testy, and we’re approaching the right time of year for something like that. Maybe the dog stumbled across a really big black bear and ended up getting mauled before it could escape.”
Mike shook his head. “I don’t think so. Bert said there was no evidence of animal bite marks on the remains. He said it appeared more like someone or something had pulled the dog apart like you might pull a drumstick off a roast chicken.”
Sharon grimaced. She looked like she had bitten into a lemon. Her pinched expression was so comical he almost laughed. “That’s a pleasant thought,” she said. “At least now I don’t have to worry about what to have for lunch. I won’t be able to eat for days.”
She was silent for a few seconds. “What about kids? I know it’s a horrible thing to contemplate, but is it possible a group of sadistic teenagers may have tortured and killed the dog?”
Mike shifted in his seat. “You mean like some kind of sick cult initiation ritual or something?”
“Stranger things have been known to happen, right?”
“I guess so,” he answered. “But this strikes me as a pretty close-knit community. People really seem to look out for one another living in isolation as complete as this. Don’t you think we would have heard rumblings if there was a cult thing going on in Paskagankee? You’ve lived in this town practically your whole life, have you heard about anything like that going on?”
Sharon thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No,” she admitted, “but I was never really in the loop anyway, even when I was growing up here, so it’s entirely likely the kids could be into things that I wouldn’t even have heard about.”
“I guess we can’t rule anything out, then,” Mike said, “but considering the weather conditions, it just doesn’t make sense to me that a bunch of teenagers would pick yesterday afternoon to go on a rampage. I don’t know. I can’t say why, exactly, but I have a bad feeling in my gut that’s telling me it’s not anything that simple.”
“A bad feeling in your gut? Maybe it’s just indigestion from that steak bomb you devoured in about five bites yesterday. I told you that you’d regret having that thing.”
Mike laughed and then the police radio squawked and crackled and the voice of dispatcher Gordie Rheaume filled the vehicle, ending the conversation. “Unit Three, come in.”
Mike lifted the mic from the rack on the dashboard. “This is Unit Three, go ahead Gordie.”
“Chief, we got a call from a lady on Mountain Home Road by the name of Sally Crosker. She says her husband was out early this morning chipping ice off their driveway and now he’s disappeared.”
“Jeez, Gordie, maybe he went out for a cup of coffee.”
“If he did, he forgot to take all of his blood with him because his wife says there’s about a gallon of it splashed all over their driveway.”
The dispatcher gave them the street address, and Mike answered, “We’re on our way.” Sharon flicked a switch to activate the flashing blue lights atop the police SUV and carefully eased the four-wheel drive cruiser into the empty road. All thoughts of Ida Mae Harper’s dog were forgotten, at least for the time being.
***
OFFICER DUPONT EASED THE vehicle to a stop, parking at an angle across the end of the driveway at 32 Mountain Home Road. Mike could see even before exiting the SUV that some kind of violent confrontation had indeed taken place out here by the road. The two police officers opened their doors and walked up one side of the long drive, taking their time, examining the scene.
Before they had gotten halfway to the house, the front door opened and a woman dressed in jeans and flannel hunting jacket rushed out to meet them.
Mike turned his attention to her as she approached. Her face was heavily lined, either from advancing age or hard living. Her long brown hair was graying and tied up in a pony tail which trailed behind her in a streaming arc as she hurried to meet them. Mike tried to guess her age and decided she could be anywhere from early forties to mid-sixties—it was hard to tell.
“Thank you so much for coming, I know how treacherous the conditions are out here,” she said, holding her hand out to Mike. “I’m Sally Crosker. I wouldn’t have bothered you if I didn’t think something was really wrong.” Her voice broke at the end of her greeting. Her grip was firm but her hand was shaking.
“No problem,” Mike answered. “This is why we’re here, Mrs. Crosker. I’m Chief Mike McMahon and this is Officer Sharon Dupont. What happened out here? It looks like two dogs were fighting.”
“I know,” she said, staring at the blood-splattered ground and then looking away with a shudder. “I’m afraid something awful has happened to my Harvey. He’s not well, you know; he shouldn’t have been out here in this weather at all, but he wouldn’t allow me to try to clear the driveway. He said this is man’s work and he was bound and determined to do it.” Sally Crosker looked at Sharon Dupont with a trembling smile, as if assuming she would understand.
Mike watched as the woman, who he was beginning to think was closer in age to sixty than forty-five, shivered in the slanting rain. “Mrs. Crosker, would it be all right if we talked inside? You really aren’t dressed for this weather and getting sick won’t help your situation.”
She smiled gratefully. “Yes, please do come inside; I’m sorry for not offering. I’m just so worried about Harvey. Come with me.”
The icy rain continued to fall, and although it couldn’t have been more than eighty feet from the bloody ground to the front door, it took nearly a full minute to navigate the low-grade slope of the hill and reach the shelter of the house. Mike thought it was a miracle the woman hadn’t taken a header on her way out to greet them.
Inside, the home was warm and inviting, the furnishings old but clean and well-maintained. Mike and Sharon stood just inside the door, dripping water onto someone’s living room floor for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Sally Crosker shrugged off her too-light jacket and turned to the officers. “Please, come in and sit down,” she insisted, motioning them into the room. “Don’t worry about the water; I can clean that up later. What do we have to do to find Harvey?”
Mike and Sharon sat side by side on the small couch in the Crosker living room. He was conscious of their legs touching and wondered if she noticed it too. “How long was your husband gone before you called for assistance, Mrs. Crosker?”
“Please, call me Sally,” she replied. “It’s hard to say for sure, because when Harvey went out to clear the ice, I puttered around in here for a while doing the dishes, washing the floor, folding laundry. After a fashion it occurred to me that Harvey should have been back inside. He’s been suffering from cancer for several years now and his stamina isn’t what it used to be. When I realized he hadn’t come in yet, I looked for him out the picture window,” she indicated the large window behind them, “and couldn’t see him, even though the entire driveway is visible from here. So I threw on my jacket and took a walk outside, half afraid I would find him unconscious on the ground, but instead he was just gone and all that blood was everywhere . . .” She took a deep breath trying to choke off a sob and almost succeeding.
“Did you see anything at all, either while you were looking for Mr. Crosker out the window or when you went outside?” Mike asked. “Cars driving by, people walking along the road, anything unusual?”
“No, nothing,” the woman replied, looking bewildered. “Nothing but all that blood. Who would have taken Harvey and for what purpose? We don’t have money. Harvey’s cancer treatments have taken just about everything we have except for the house; it’s not like
we can afford to pay a large ransom demand.”
“At this point, Mrs. Crosker, we don’t know that he has been taken. Maybe he fell and hit his head, became disoriented, and wandered away. Why don’t you let Officer Dupont and me get out there and take a look around. Maybe we can come up with something a little more concrete. Please try not to be too concerned yet. We’ll put out a description of Mr. Crosker to all our officers and be on the lookout for him. In the meantime, if you hear from him or think of anything you might have forgotten to tell us, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Mike asked for a recent photograph of the missing man and Sally Crosker rushed out of the room, returning moments later with a picture of a graying, handsome man smiling into the camera. He was dressed in hunting gear and his face had the weathered appearance of a long-time outdoorsman. Mike accepted the photo, then he and Sharon rose from the couch and moved toward the front door. “We’ll be in touch,” he assured the woman, shaking her hand, before they pulled on their heavy winter parkas and moved back out into the escalating storm.
“Do you really think he fell and hit his head?” Sharon asked as they walked back to the Explorer. Mike noticed the smaller officer struggling to match his long strides on the icy ground and slowed his pace. The wind whipped the ancient evergreens surrounding the Crosker home. Trees were beginning to bend precipitously from the steadily accumulation of ice on their branches, and it was only a matter of time before some of them began snapping off and falling to the ground, making an already dangerous situation even worse.
”No,” he answered, “I don’t. Realistically, there’s way too much blood spilled on the driveway for that scenario. If a man, particularly an already sick man, had hit his head and lost that much blood, he would still be lying there. I didn’t want to say what I really thought in front of Mrs. Crosker, especially with no proof.”
“And what is it you really think?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as they arrived back at the end of the driveway, re-examining the blood now being rapidly covered by an icy, slushy mix. He looked at Sharon. “You tell me. Does this scene remind you of anything?”
“Sure. The mess behind Ida Mae Harper’s house,” she answered instantly.
“That’s exactly right. And if Harvey Crosker was attacked by whoever or whatever ripped that golden retriever apart, he’s in trouble. Big trouble.”
8
PROFESSOR KENNETH DYE TOOK a long pull on his JD and savored the sharp, smoky bite of the Tennessee Sippin’ Whiskey burning and churning its way down his throat before crash-landing in his belly. He had long ago reached the conclusion that the first sip of the day was the best but didn’t mind testing that theory with plenty of other sips and the occasional enthusiastic gulp too, just for good measure.
He slid his frozen dinner into the oven and reflected on the day just past. Not too bad, all things considered. After struggling through that first interminable class in the typically empty lecture hall, he had hit his stride and burned through the remainder of his daily schedule with ease, setting his internal autopilot and noting with pleasure he could remember next to nothing from any of the remaining lectures. Maybe not exactly the classic definition of job satisfaction, but under the circumstances, Professor Dye knew it was the best he could hope for. A dead-end job teaching students who didn’t care, for an employer who thought he was completely off his rocker, didn’t do much for motivation.
As he waited for his frozen fried chicken dinner to bake—Now there’s a mystery, the professor thought. How can it be fried chicken if I’m baking it?—he flipped on the local television news for no particular reason other than he appreciated the background noise. He could have microwaved his meal and been eating it in just a few minutes but why bother? He had all the time in the world, so whether the food was ready in eight minutes or forty-eight was irrelevant to Ken Dye. The extra time it took to cook in the oven would be put to good use anyway, as he could enjoy his Jack a few minutes longer before digging in.
On the tube, the perfectly coiffed anchor gravely informed his viewing audience a water main had burst under Portland Avenue. “The plummeting temperatures,” he intoned, “will cause the water to freeze, making the already hazardous driving conditions even worse. The authorities are advising motorists to seek alternate routes and to stay home unless travel is absolutely necessary.”
“Now you tell me,” the professor groused. His drive home from work, normally no more than fifteen minutes from campus to garage, had taken almost forty-five this afternoon. The streets formed a passable imitation of a gigantic skating rink, with ice building up too quickly for the town of Orono sand trucks to keep pace. Now cars were sliding off roads into utility poles and into each other with alarming frequency and predictable results.
For the time being, though, Kenneth didn’t care. He was home for the evening. He had no place to go and in any event no intention of driving after enjoying his nightly medicinal dose of Jack Daniel’s. The police had very little sense of humor about drunk driving, particularly in a college town, and Ken Dye knew his reputation was already damaged enough without adding the ignominy of a drunk-driving arrest to it.
On the TV, a perky blonde field reporter was transmitting a live breaking news report from the isolated town of Paskagankee, located fifty miles up the road, deep in the Maine wilderness. The woman was dressed in a dark green parka adorned with the station’s call letters and a fur-lined hood which the wind kept ripping off her head. Her face appeared chapped and cold, stung by sleet which seemed to be flying sideways in direct violation of the laws of physics. She looked miserable. Ken wondered whether it was her idea or the producer’s to broadcast the report from outside in the elements.
“This quiet, out of the way community was rocked today with news of the disappearance of fifty-eight-year-old Harvey Crosker,” the reporter gamely shouted into the wind, which howled around the microphone like an out of control freight train. “The missing man was last seen by his wife when he ventured out into the storm this morning to clear his driveway. That was almost twelve hours ago. Massive amounts of blood were found at the scene, and it is feared Mr. Crosker, sick with cancer, may have been abducted.
“This comes on the heels of a savage attack on a local elderly woman’s dog last night. The animal, a full-grown golden retriever, was discovered with its body torn apart in the back yard of its owner’s home.
“Police will not speculate on whether the two events are connected or if they have any leads on Mr. Crosker’s disappearance, but anyone with information regarding the man’s whereabouts is urged to call the Paskagankee Police Department immediately.” The report concluded with a photo of the missing man flashing onto the screen, a telephone number superimposed along the bottom of the image.
This was all lost on Professor Kenneth Dye, though. He was no longer paying attention.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered to the empty house, staring at the far wall and seeing nothing. “It’s finally starting.” In the kitchen, the oven’s timer beeped insistently, informing Ken Dye that his chicken dinner was ready and demanding he do something about it. But suddenly he wasn’t the least bit hungry.
9
“WHO IS THIS GUY again?” Mike asked, giving dispatcher Gordie Rheaume a quizzical look.
“He claims to be a professor of Native American studies down in Orono at the university.”
“And he claims to have information about our missing shoveler?”
“That’s what he said. He wanted to talk to someone in charge, and I told him you would be in this morning. But he said he had to speak to you in person, that this wasn’t something he could do over the phone.”
Mike put his hands on his hips. “Did this guy sound rational?”
Gordie shrugged. “He sounded normal to me, but how can you really tell? He just said it was imperative he talk to the officer in charge of the investigation into the missing homeowner and the tortured dog, that he had in
formation, and that it was critical you get that information as soon as possible.”
Mike McMahon sighed as he watched the storm raging outside the police station’s front window. It had taken three times as long as it should have for him to get to work this morning, and now he was looking at a three hour drive down to Orono in this mess. He certainly couldn’t ask the professor to drive up here, not with the conditions still deteriorating and not forecasted to improve any time soon.
He turned to Shari Dupont, who leaned against a desk, arms folded, watching the exchange between Mike and Gordie with a look of amusement on her face. “I don’t know what you think is so funny,” he said. “Guess who’s coming to Orono with me?”
***
BACK IN THE POLICE SUV, coffee in hands, the two officers warily eyed the two-lane blacktop that would take them south to Orono and a meeting with the university professor supposedly in possession of urgent information. Without any evidence to speak of or a single usable lead, Mike McMahon felt he had no choice but to take to the road and probably waste a good chunk of the day on what would likely turn out to be a wild goose chase.
The deserted road was covered with what looked exactly like the topping on a glazed donut. The ice continued to thicken by the hour and still the freezing rain fell in torrents that forecasters predicted would continue for at least another two days. Schools remained closed, and fortunately most people had finally come to the conclusion that staying inside and out of the storm was the best option, at least for now.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Shari Dupont.
“Glazed donuts, if you must know.”
She laughed. “Jeez, a cop with a thing for donuts. You’re a walking cliché, did you know that?”
“Hey,” he protested. “A man’s gotta eat, right?”
“I wouldn’t call what you do ‘eating right,’ not even a little bit.”
“I’m a guy, remember? Donuts, takeout and frozen pizzas are the only things we know how to make.”
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