Paskagankee

by Alan Leverone

  The sound of voices grew louder and soon the group broke through enough of the fog to take in the impressive sight of the twenty foot high pile, brightly ablaze with dancing flames. The fire had clearly been lit only a few minutes ago, as the entire pile of debris had not even caught yet. Sharon had said Sprague traditionally threw the first match into his bonfire at seven p.m. sharp, and it was just a few minutes past seven now.

  Ken gaped in open amazement at the number of people milling around the bonfire, here in the chill of a late-November northern Maine evening. He had no idea what the population of Paskagankee was—One thousand? Three thousand? Five thousand?—but whatever the number, it seemed clear that a large percentage of those people had decided to brave the pervading dampness of the thick fog as well as the hazardous driving conditions to come here and enjoy the community celebration.

  Townspeople gathered in various sized groups, some holding large paper cups, presumably containing generous helpings of the hard cider Warren Sprague had promised Mike McMahon, all chatting and gossiping amiably, occasionally breaking out in raucous laughter. The recent murders of Harvey Crosker and the unlucky stranger passing through town during the height of the storm dominated the conversation, but if anyone felt concerned about his or her safety this evening, they weren’t saying so, at least not loudly enough for Ken Dye to hear it.

  Professor Dye and the two police officers stopped at the bonfire, now rapidly gaining in intensity, to warm their hands. Chief McMahon handed Ken and Sharon portable radios with explicit instructions for both of them to check in at least every fifteen minutes. The original plan had been for Ken to patrol with Mike, but he was able to talk the chief out of forcing them to stay together, pointing out that the professor was the one probably the least at risk, since he knew best what they were up against.

  The fire grew bright and hot as the interior of the gigantic pile of brush and debris began to smolder and finally catch. The intense heat pushed the small group back a couple of paces as Chief McMahon gave them his final instructions. “Make your outer perimeter the farthest group of people that you can observe. I don’t want you exposing yourself when you’re alone, especially considering the restricted the visibility. And DON’T forget to check in every fifteen minutes.”

  “How many officers do you have in the area?” Ken asked the chief.

  “We have one stationed at each end of the access road, if you can call it that, as well as two officers walking around in plain clothes. I’ll be in touch with them on a separate radio. Also, the two State Police investigators volunteered to help out tonight before leaving for Portland in the morning, so they’re here somewhere, too.”

  Ken couldn’t help but notice the disdain in the chief’s voice as he referenced his State Police counterparts. He tried to mask it, but it was definitely there.

  The chief rubbed his hands together and then slid them into a pair of fur-lined leather gloves. “Are we all set?”

  Both Ken and Sharon nodded, and Mike said, “Let’s get started, then,” and walked away from the fire. The thick, swirling fog enveloped his receding form almost immediately, and he was gone.

  40

  SHARON DUPONT HAD VISITED this place many times as a youngster, both to attend the annual pre-Thanksgiving bonfire and also with friends after discovering the area featured everything a young teen could wish for in a private location to drink and party. It was secluded, never patrolled by the cops and rarely by the farmer who owned it, especially after dark, and was mysterious and a little scary to boot. In short, for a kid looking for a place to drink or get high, it was perfect.

  Sharon couldn’t remember exactly how old she had been when she fell under the spell of booze and drugs, but she knew it had happened pretty quickly after the death of her mother, when her father reached the conclusion that hanging out at the Ridge Runner enveloped in his own alcoholic haze was preferable to spending time at home with his young daughter—a child who resembled her mother so closely it was almost spooky.

  In other words, she guessed, it would have been sometime shortly after her twelfth birthday. She immediately took to drinking and smoking, both as a way to lessen the pain of losing her mother to death and her father to disinterest and as a way to become a valued member of a group, any group would do, as long as she was allowed to belong. The core of young drinkers and drug users in Paskagankee was a tight-knit bunch, and Sharon knew now, years later, with the benefit of age and a little life experience, that it allowed her in some small way to be part of a family, an opportunity she had lost at home the day her mother died.

  Additionally, Sharon came to recognize that she had been cursed with an addictive personality, and the exposure to alcohol and drugs, especially at the very age when a young teenage girl is particularly vulnerable in trying to develop an identity, had virtually assured she would become addicted. And addicted she had been. By the time she entered high school, Sharon was drinking almost as much as her father—virtually every day, sometimes even before or during school.

  An extremely intelligent child, as a youngster Sharon had earned outstanding grades, but following the death of her mother, her schoolwork suffered, her grades plummeted, and her dad barely noticed. She stumbled through high school, literally on many occasions, until the winter of her senior year, when, as punishment for passing out drunk in a snow bank in the middle of the school day, she had been forced to report to Paskagankee Police Chief Wally Court for a month-long public service assignment.

  Those thirty days changed the course of Sharon Dupont’s life forever. She was still an alcoholic and knew she always would be, but working in the police station under the watchful eye of Chief Court gave the teen something sorely lacking in her life since the death of her mother—steady, consistent discipline and the faith of another human being in her value as a worthwhile individual.

  The work she performed over that life-changing month was nothing particularly exciting or challenging. In fact, as Sharon looked back on it now, it had been pretty damned boring most of the time—basic filing, sweeping floors, washing windows in the station—but her time spent with the police chief of Paskagankee gave Sharon a peek into a world she had never before seen. It was a world of responsibility and trust; a world where people did the right thing just because it was the right thing. Chief Court displayed a plaque prominently in his office, and it had intrigued Sharon enough that she still thought about it even now. It was a simple wooden square, and on it was stamped the words, “CHARACTER IS HOW YOU ACT WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING.”

  Thinking back on it, Sharon believed that in all probability she owed her life to Chief Court and the personal interest he had taken in her when she could just as easily have ended up another pathetic, used-up alkie falling off a bar stool every night at the Ridge Runner and eventually dying of liver disease or getting raped and killed by some slime ball in the Runner’s parking lot.

  Walking on Warren Sprague’s field, the same one she had stumbled around upon drunk and stoned as a teenager, was a jarring experience for Sharon. When she left town to attend the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, she had been one hundred percent certain she would never return, certainly not for more than a few days at a time. So to find herself here, of all places, on the strange and frightening mission she was engaged in with Mike McMahon and Professor Dye, seemed even more surreal than it otherwise would have.

  Her radio crackled to life as Mike checked in with her. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “It’s cold and wet out here, so it’s lots of fun,” she said brightly, “but no sign of anything unusual unless you consider the fact that people coming out on a night like tonight to stand around in this weather and gab with the very folks they spend the rest of the year gossiping about is a little strange in itself.”

  Mike chuckled. “Don’t let your guard down,” he told her. “Our friend the professor is convinced something’s going to happen tonight, with all these potential victims gathered in one place.”

  �
��Don’t worry about me. I couldn’t possibly be any more guarded.”

  “Good,” Mike answered. “I want you back in one piece.”

  They signed off. Sharon assumed Mike would now contact Professor Dye who, for all she knew, might be standing right next to her. The fog was so thick they could be ten feet apart and never know it unless they tripped over each other.

  Sharon was glad to hear Mike chuckle when he talked to her. He was extremely professional at work, maybe the best boss she had ever had, but the more she got to know him the clearer it became that he was haunted relentlessly by the events of that steamy summer night a year and a half ago on the streets of Revere, Massachusetts. Knowing the little girl’s death was accidental and being able to forgive himself for being the one who pulled the trigger on the shot that took her life were two separate and unrelated issues for Mike. He had not yet reached the point in his life where he could let himself off the hook; maybe he never would.

  A sharp snapping noise off her left side broke Sharon forcefully out of her reverie. She tensed, angry with herself. She had just promised Mike she would stay alert and had then almost immediately fallen into a daydream. For crying out loud, concentrate on what you’re doing.

  The officer stopped dead in her tracks and peered into the heavy mist covering the area like a thick wet blanket. The noise had sounded exactly like a large twig breaking; the sound a hiking boot might make stepping on a brittle branch. It was no use, though, Sharon couldn’t see anything. She had slowly been moving clockwise around the huge bonfire, remaining oriented in the fuzzy darkness by moving just far enough away from the fire that it remained a vague yellow-orange glow far off her right side.

  It struck Sharon as extremely unlikely that any townspeople would have wandered this far from the bonfire with the thick fog making it so difficult to stay oriented. If you lost sight of the glow you could wander for hours in the shroud of misty darkness with absolutely no sense of direction. Yelling for help was no guarantee of assistance, either, since the fog refracted sound as well as light. You might scream loud enough to be heard by someone a few hundred feet away and still not be found until morning.

  The silence was nerve-wracking. From somewhere far off to her right, Sharon could hear the low hum of the people congregated around the fire. It was nothing more than an indistinct murmuring of indecipherable words and conversation. To the left, though, it seemed that whoever or whatever had snapped the branch was standing still just as she was doing, aware that his (its) presence had been discovered and not wanting to compound the mistake.

  Taking a hesitant step or two in what she thought might be the right direction, Sharon aimed her heavy Maglite out into the mist, serving only to blind herself as the refracted beam struck her in the face like the oncoming headlights of a car. She cursed under her breath and snapped off the flashlight.

  Another cracking sound made her skin crawl. This one was similar to the first but far softer. It seemed exactly like the kind of noise a person might make if he was trying to sneak quietly away but could not see the ground well enough to avoid all the downed branches.

  Sharon reached for her radio to call Mike for help and then froze as the obvious problem occurred to her: she had no idea where in the hell she was. It might take forty-five minutes for backup to locate her and by then whoever was trying to sneak away would be long gone. She took a deep breath, not liking the way it caught in her throat, and said, “Who’s out there? Stop right where you are,” trying to sound authoritative and sure of herself but feeling nothing of the sort.

  Dead silence greeted her call and she took another halting step forward, then a few more, moving farther away from the bonfire than she intended. Reluctantly she reached for the service weapon at her hip, leaving it holstered for the time being with her palm resting on the grip. She stopped and listened intently, rewarded for her efforts only with the sound of the blood rushing in her ears.

  Another step forward; still nothing but the ever-present grey-white fog filling her consciousness. A sudden flash of movement to her left caused Sharon to whirl on the balls of her feet, simultaneously drawing her weapon and barking, “Freeze, police!”

  The movement ceased immediately and when she took another step forward, two figures materialized almost as if by magic in front of her, a boy and a girl, neither one more than sixteen years of age. Their faces registered shock and fear when they saw the gun leveled on them and Sharon quickly holstered it, demanding, “What the hell are you kids doing out here?” although it sounded stupid and lame as soon as she said it, even to her.

  It was patently obvious what the kids were doing out here; it was the same thing she would have been doing on a date at that age—looking for a little privacy. Annoyed with herself for letting her imagination run wild, Sharon spoke sharply. “Get back to the fire. Do you want to get lost out here and wander around until morning?”

  She gestured in the direction of the bonfire, which was no longer visible in the distance but the light from which would become apparent again as soon as they took three steps to Sharon’s left. The young couple moved off toward the fire, the boy muttering something under his breath to his girlfriend as they passed in front of Sharon. Whatever he said caused her to giggle and then they disappeared, swallowed up again by the fog. Sharon stood quietly, angry and embarrassed. She waited a few moments and then started off in the same direction.

  41

  MIKE CHECKED IN WITH Professor Dye immediately after speaking with Sharon. The professor had nothing to report, which Mike chose to interpret as good news. The plan they had developed was to patrol the area in two concentric rings. Sharon would circle clockwise around the outer ring, remaining just within sight of the blaze’s glow, and the professor would walk in the opposite direction, staying within roughly fifty feet of the fire.

  The professor was unarmed and untrained, so Mike wanted to be able to keep an eye on him. In the event of trouble, Mike would be able to get to him quickly. It had seemed like a decent plan when they drew it up—the best they could develop under such short notice and with severely limited manpower—but these pea-soup weather conditions had thrown a real monkey-wrench into things. Mike had never seen such a thick, all-encompassing fog settle into an area, and he had spent fifteen years in Revere, Massachusetts, a city located right on the Atlantic Ocean.

  Mike hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by allowing Professor Dye to come here tonight. He wondered what his friends on the Revere Police Department would say if they knew his prime suspect in two horrific murders was a three-hundred-year-old dead Native American girl, and his hopes for solving the crimes were pinned on an aging academic with zero credibility in his own professional circles.

  “This is a thrill a minute. No wonder you left the big city to move up to the armpit of the universe.” Mike looked to his side to see Detective O’Bannon scowling at him, holding a cup of coffee in his right hand and looking like he wanted nothing more than to throw it in Mike’s face.

  “Nice to see you again, too,” Mike answered. Behind them, the fire crackled and popped as the intense heat expanded the wet wood. Incredibly, it was still gaining in intensity. The townspeople milling around the massive brush pile had gradually been forced farther and farther away from the flames as the area became hotter and hotter.

  Mike decided to push O’Bannon’s buttons a little. The man had been nothing but condescending and uncooperative since arriving in Paskagankee, and Mike was still smarting over the whitewash job O’Bannon and his silent partner Shaw were giving this case, which, if Professor Dye was right, was about to explode in their faces. “Having a good time, are you?”

  O’Bannon snarled, “I can’t wait to put this freaking little hellhole in my rear view mirror. What a goddamn waste of time this whole circus has been. Jeez, a couple of people get attacked by an aggressive animal and you clowns think the world is coming to an end.”

  Heads turned as the people in the immediate vicinity of the two men heard the anger in O�
��Bannon’s voice and nervously stepped away. Mike calmly replied, “Come on detective, it’s just you and me here. The attorney general is fast asleep in bed a hundred miles away. You can’t tell me you really believe the ridiculous notion that those two poor men were ripped to pieces by a bear, right? We’ve gone around and around on this, and there’s no evidence to support that theory. Why don’t you just admit the truth: you have no idea what’s going on and you just want to get the hell back to civilization? I won’t share your dirty little secret with anyone, I promise.”

  O’Bannon sneered at him, disdain evident in his voice. “Maybe my theory’s a little weak, but at least mine’s plausible. The rumors I’m hearing are that you and your little girlfriend have been taken in by that egghead college teacher and you’re running around hunting a ghost. That sound about right, Chief?”

  Mike stared at the man, feeling his face begin to flush. He knew how silly it sounded, but yes, he finally had to admit to himself, he thought Professor Dye might actually be right. “It’s not a ghost,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s a spirit that has gained possession of someone’s body. Someone, I might add, who is just as much a victim as the two murdered men. And I’m well aware of how crazy it sounds, but it fits. If you would take the time to open your mind and actually pay attention to your surroundings for a change, you might find it plausible too.”

  Grimacing in disgust, looking like he had just bitten into spoiled meat, O’Bannon said, “You’re as crazy as a loon, you know that? Killing that little girl must have really done a number on you because you’re just about ready for the nuthouse. I’m leaving in the morning as planned and so is Shaw. Do us both a favor and stay out of our way until then.” O’Bannon glared at Mike, his face florid either from the chilly temperatures or his anger, Mike wasn’t sure which. Then he stalked off into the dark and the mist, muttering under his breath, as the fog swallowed him whole.