Ruckman Road: An Alex Penfield Novel

by Robert W. Stephens

  They both proceeded toward the bedrooms, with Penfield taking the lead. He turned and entered the main bedroom to the left. Torres took the room on the right.

  The main bedroom was a mess. Penfield saw clothes scattered across the floor and bed. There was a large duffle bag on the center of the unmade bed. Penfield walked over to the closet. He stood back and extended his arm as far as he could to reach the closet door. He opened it. Most of the clothes were gone. He assumed these were the ones scattered across the floor. There were several shoe boxes and another empty bag on the floor. The top shelf was also covered with boxes, but no person inside. Penfield walked across the room and entered the adjoining bathroom. It was tiny. He immediately noticed the counter covered with make-up supplies, a hair brush, a half-squeezed bottle of toothpaste, and a few bottles of perfume. The shower curtain was pulled shut. Penfield yanked it open. No one.

  He walked back into the room and checked under the bed. There were several more boxes crammed underneath, but there wasn’t enough room for someone to hide. Penfield stood and walked back into the hallway where he found Torres waiting for him. She shook her head.

  “Just the baby,” she said in a low voice.

  It didn’t make sense. Why put the tarp down if you were just going to leave the body?

  Penfield and Torres walked back into the living room.

  “Call it in,” Penfield said.

  He walked over to the sliding glass door and found it unlocked. He pulled it open and walked onto the balcony. There were two cheap-looking lawn chairs and a glass table covered with beer cans and an overflowing ashtray. He checked the cigarettes. None of them looked like they’d been recently smoked. Penfield peered over the edge of the balcony. He could see the balconies of the apartments underneath him. They also contained a various assortment of patio chairs and small tables.

  It wouldn’t be easy, but someone could have climbed out this way, especially if they were desperate to get away from the police. Still, he and Torres would have undoubtedly heard those acrobatics, yet they had heard nothing when they approached the apartment. They’d parked in a lot that wasn’t within view of the apartment and approached the rest of the way on foot, careful to remain hidden in the shadows. Maybe the perp had freaked after killing the woman. Maybe he didn’t think he’d be able to carry the dead woman in the tarp down the stairs without someone hearing the commotion and calling the police. Perhaps he’d been long gone before Penfield and Torres had even arrived.

  Penfield walked back into the room as Torres slipped her phone back into her pocket. He kneeled beside the woman’s body a second time.

  “This is our fault,” Torres said.

  Penfield didn’t answer her. He didn’t need to. There was no sense in debating her statement. He knew she was right. It had been a calculated risk they’d taken, and Patricia Porter had paid the ultimate price for their gamble.

  He heard a creak a second later. Penfield looked up and saw a man standing in the center of the hallway. He had a gun pointed directly at Torres. Penfield jumped the moment the man pulled the trigger. He’d never been shot before, and he really didn’t have any idea what it might potentially feel like beyond being excruciating. There was no pain, though. It felt more like a dull bump as it pierced his skin and entered his stomach. He fully expected to be able to jump up a second time and return fire, but his legs didn’t obey his brain’s command to stand and fight. He told them a second time to move, but still nothing happened. Penfield heard a thump in the background. The sound seemed distorted and far in the distance, as if the shot had happened a mile away. Then the sound seemed to echo throughout the room and dance in and around his ear drums.

  Penfield looked toward the hallway to see if the man was still there, but his vision was blurred, and the white walls of the apartment seemed to converge into a solid field of blinding light.

  He told his legs a third time to move. This time his legs responded, and he stood partially before hearing a gun go off again. He didn’t know if he’d been hit once more, but he fell over and landed on the tarp. He heard the black plastic crinkle as he collapsed face-down on top of the plastic.

  Penfield felt a wetness surround his face, but he had no idea why. His brain seemed to slow down dramatically. Even the simplest of calculations seemed to now take great effort. It then occurred to him why his face was wet. He was lying in a pool of the dead woman’s blood. It felt hot against his right cheek. Several more moments went by. He had no idea how much time exactly. It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes. He thought he heard more gunshots, but they sounded even farther away now. The blinding white light turned into a fuzzy field of gray. His ears rang again as the sounds of the gunshots continued to echo throughout the tiny apartment. He listened for Torres, but he could hear nothing over the constant ringing.

  Another thought finally occurred to him. Maybe the wetness against his face was actually his blood. Maybe the gunshot was far worse than he realized. He then wondered if this was what it was like to die. He knew his brain was shutting down as the blood drained from his body. He tried to call Torres’ name, but no sound came from his lips. He tried to picture her in his mind, but her face had become a blur like everything else in the room.

  “Torres,” he finally said, or had he?

  He couldn’t tell if his lips had actually moved and spoken the words. Penfield tried to push himself off the tarp. His hands slipped on the slick surface, and his face collapsed into the blood again. He began to choke as the hot liquid rolled down his throat. He coughed and tried to spit the blood out of his mouth, but nothing would come out.

  He thought he felt hands grab his shoulder and turn him onto his side. His vision temporarily cleared, and he saw the face of the dead woman staring at him. Her eyes had been closed when they first entered the apartment, but now they were suddenly open.

  “You did this to me,” the woman said.

  She could barely say the words, but Penfield could understand them clearly. He recoiled as blood dripped out of her mouth and fell to the tarp.

  Penfield tried to tell her he was sorry. He’d known it was a risk to approach her, but they had to take the chance. At least, that’s the argument he and Torres had made to each other. Dominic Stewart had to be caught. It was for the greater good. Now the woman was dead, and Penfield had to finally admit to himself that he was going to die too. There was nothing that could stop that process now. He tried to figure out how they hadn’t seen Stewart during their search for the apartment. It was a tiny place. How could they have missed him? They’d both be dead if the wooden floor hadn’t creaked under Stewart’s steps.

  Penfield looked at the woman again. Her eyes were closed once more. He looked down at her throat, and he realized he could see the pale bones of her vertebrae. The killer had almost decapitated her with his knife.

  Penfield thought of Torres once more. He wondered if she’d survived the attack. He hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to her. He hadn’t said goodbye to anyone.

  Penfield’s vision had cleared somewhat, but he could no longer hear. The room was completely quiet as if he were inside some sensory deprivation chamber. He tried to call out to Torres a final time, but it was a useless attempt. His brain was seconds from dying. It could no longer connect with his body. Penfield looked at the face of the dead woman a final time. He thought he might just be a few inches from her face. Her eyes were still closed. He wondered if he’d see her on the other side, if there was even another side at all. He closed his eyes and felt the warm blood wash across his face.

  Chapter 3

  The Body by the Bridge

  Fort Monroe, Virginia. 2011.

  “The bridge is closed. I had to drive around,” my wife said.

  It was around nine in the morning, and she was usually at her desk by then. She had just left the house, though, and was obviously running late. I assumed she called me to vent about the few extra minutes added to her commute. I know the slightest delay can often seem
like a monumental inconvenience when you’re behind schedule.

  There are two bridges that lead in and out of Fort Monroe, which had been our home for the last several months. The main bridge was at the end of Mercury Boulevard, but we usually used the smaller bridge on East Mellen Street, since it offered easier and quicker access to the interstate.

  It’s a picturesque little bridge with a great view of Fort Monroe, the marina, and the Chesapeake Bay. It also has several red fishing boats docked near the foot of the bridge, which make for a great backdrop for scenic photographs. As an amateur photographer, I’d taken many walks across that bridge, photographing the aforementioned boats, as well as the birds that like to sit on the old wooden posts of a nearby dock that had been destroyed by a hurricane. During the warmer months of the year, you almost always see people fishing off the bridge or from colorful kayaks that are usually launched just down the street.

  The bridge is sometimes blocked due to the weather. It’s quite low, and it easily floods during a heavy storm. Still, there was no rain the morning of my wife’s phone call. It had been foggy and damp but nothing that I could think of that would block the bridge.

  “Could you tell why it was closed?” I asked.

  “No. There was a police car blocking the entrance to the road, but I couldn’t see much beyond that.”

  We quickly transitioned to another topic, the subject of which I don’t even remember now. It was probably something to do about work and meetings, stuff that seemed important - even critical - at the time, but now has been long forgotten.

  My wife works much closer to home than I do, so she’s the one who gets stuck driving back at lunch each day to walk our dog. She called me a few hours later when she was headed home for the dog walk to tell me the bridge was still closed. This time, though, she could see there were several police cars on and near the bridge, as well as a boat close to the shore.

  I logged onto the Internet to see if anything was on the local news websites. I quickly found a fuzzy photo that showed the boat just off the coast of Fort Monroe. The caption under the photo indicated it was a Coast Guard vessel searching for a body in the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently, someone had spotted the body that morning and called the police. Now, they were using sonar to try to find it.

  I did a quick calculation of the timeline. The bridge was closed before nine that morning since the police had already arrived before my wife drove by. It would have taken them some time to respond to the emergency call and get there. I guessed the person who spotted the body saw it around eight. So the body might have been there, floating in plain view, when I drove by a few hours before that. I had been completely oblivious to the whole thing. Granted, it was still dark when I left each morning for work, and I wasn’t in the habit of looking out at the dark water as I drove away.

  When I drove home that afternoon, the police cars were gone, and the bridge was open. I checked the internet again when I got back to the house, but I didn’t see any update to the story. I didn’t bother to check the next day. I had a busy day at work, and the whole event was temporarily forgotten.

  My first visit to Fort Monroe was in the late 1990s. I worked for a local video production company, and their biggest client at the time was the Army. Fort Monroe was the headquarters for the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, also known as TRADOC. They develop and manage the bulk of the training that’s done by the Army. They also define the new concepts or directions the Army decides it needs to take. I was excited about the job. It seemed like an interesting challenge to help explain these new concepts, which the Army deemed critical to the nation - at least that’s what the younger and more naïve version of myself thought at the time. I quickly learned, however, that like any large organization, the Army is highly political, and it’s pretty difficult to get anything done, including something as small and insignificant as a video.

  I eventually left that company and went to work for clients in the private sector. Now, over a decade later, I was back working with the Army. My wife had gotten a job with NASA, so we decided to move from Chesapeake, Virginia to the city of Hampton to be closer to work and avoid having to drive through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, which is the commuting nightmare for this region.

  I knew the Army was getting ready to vacate tiny Fort Monroe since it had fallen victim to budget cuts. TRADOC was moving about thirty minutes down the interstate to Fort Eustis, a larger but decidedly less attractive and less interesting Army post. The state was taking over ownership of Fort Monroe, and one of their first goals was to rent out the officers housing to local residents to help raise money for the maintenance and upkeep of the property. The enlisted housing was in poor condition and would soon be demolished.

  The availability of the officer housing was fairly limited during those first few months of the Army’s departure, so my wife and I rented one of the smaller apartments in a retirement home called the Chamberlin, which probably has the closest and best views of the water. It used to be a hotel, but was closed after several decades and later reopened as the retirement community it is today. The place still looks like a historic hotel, which is our attraction to it. Neither of us are close to retirement age, but the facility had a policy that up to twenty percent of its residents could be below fifty-five-years of age. They told us they were currently at just thirteen percent. Our unit was on the ground floor and faced a small parking lot as opposed to the Chesapeake Bay and the beautiful sunsets. The rent was right, however, at least “more right” than the much more expensive units on the opposite side of the building.

  Living at Fort Monroe was rather strange for the first year. I had known the fort to be a bustling place. I would always see someone walking down a sidewalk or walking in or out of the many buildings. Parking was always a challenge, too, since there were so many people trying to fit onto this little fort. I always had to arrive twenty minutes early just to find a place to park before my meetings. The place now, however, could best be described as a ghost town.

  Very few people rented out the old officers’ houses in that first year, either because they didn’t know they could or because the Fort Monroe Authority had not yet made all of the houses available. The Fort Monroe Authority had been established to run and maintain the property.

  It was pretty rare for me to see another person at the old stone fort, or even hear a car driving by, when I walked the dog. It was early winter by now, and the cold wind blowing off the bay tends to be a constant presence here. It’s not exactly a fun place to take a leisurely stroll or bike ride during the winter.

  A detective knocked on our apartment door a few days after my wife first saw the police cars by the bridge. He showed me a photograph of a man, who was apparently one of my neighbors, if you count the people who lived inside the fort as neighbors. People who live at Fort Monroe fit into one of two categories: you’re either inside the moat or on the outside of the moat. The old stone fort is still surrounded by a moat. There’s apparently a status to saying you live inside the fort, as opposed to the numerous houses that surround the fort and line the street that overlooks the water.

  Apparently, the man spotted floating in the bay had lived inside the moat on Ruckman Road. The detective asked me if I knew him, which I didn’t. I had walked inside the fort many times, but I didn’t recall ever meeting or even seeing this man. The only other thing I discovered in this brief conversation with the detective was that my neighbor’s name had been Joseph Talbot.

  A few more days went by and little pieces of information started trickling out. Neighbors who hadn’t given each other the time of day suddenly were interested in whether you knew anything about the “body in the bay.”

  I met one neighbor who lived outside the fort walls by the lighthouse who told me she saw Joseph Talbot jump off the fishing pier into the bay, at least she thought that’s who was on the pier. The pier is right down the street from the Chamberlin. It’s also within easy access of the fort. Apparently, this neighbor had gott
en up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Her bathroom window has an unobstructed view of the main fishing pier. She saw a man standing at the end of the pier when there shouldn’t be anyone at that time of day. The pier officially closed at sunset and didn’t reopen again until sunrise. She also thought it was odd that someone would want to go fishing in the middle of the night. She looked away for a few seconds to wash her hands, and when she looked back, the man was gone.

  I asked her if she saw the man’s face. She said it was too dark. I asked her if she saw him jump into the bay. She admitted that she didn’t, but she assumed he did because there was no way he could have walked back to the entrance of the fishing pier and made his way down the sidewalk in the few seconds she wasn’t looking. I asked her if she had been the one to call the police that morning, and she told me she didn’t make a call. She simply went back to bed. I didn’t know what to make of our conversation. I found it irresponsible that she wouldn’t call the police even when she suspected the man had jumped into the water, but I guess the desire to not get involved often outweighs everything else.

  I met another neighbor who claimed to have spotted a lone figure walking the fort walls that morning. He thought it was strange since it had been so cold and windy. He was sure the man was Talbot. When he told me where he lived, though, I quickly realized he’d have had no way of seeing the fort walls from his rental house. The only way he’d have seen the fort is if he had specifically driven or walked to the fort, and the fort was in the opposite direction of the roads leading to the interstate and to most people’s places of work. I asked if he took morning walks or jogs that took him near the fort, and he admitted he didn’t. It took him a few seconds to realize I was doubting his story, and he walked away instead of offering me further explanation.