Ruckman Road: An Alex Penfield Novel

by Robert W. Stephens

  She went into one of the slower ones so the noise wouldn’t disrupt her thoughts. Hannah ordered a soup and a cup of coffee. Despite being starved, she still found it hard to finish all of her tiny lunch. The food was good. She just couldn’t shake the feeling of sickness in her stomach.

  Her brother was gone. Even if she did help find out what had actually happened to him, it wouldn’t bring him back. She thought Detectives Penfield and Torres were competent, and they both seemed to understand what she was going through. She didn’t know, however, how long they would actually stay with the case. There was no body to examine, and there was no definitive proof that anyone had meant him any harm, other than her suspicions about the placement of the cameras being indicative of an earlier break-in or multiple break-ins.

  Hannah paid her bill and walked back to the hotel. She checked the file folders again once she got back. She decided to skip the second bedroom on the third floor and go right to the attic folder.

  She doubted anyone could have gotten in through the two attic windows since they faced the front of the house, and there was no easy way to reach them. There were several other windows that were infinitely easier to access. Still, her brother had placed cameras in that room. There had to be a reason for him to do that. From what she could see, there was only one small low-wattage light bulb that hung from a cord in the center of the room. It barely illuminated the room, so it was a little difficult to make out the grainy video.

  There was nothing of interest on the first several files. She noticed something startling on the seventh file, though. There was a wooden chair that had been placed against one of the walls that was relatively close to the attic door. That chair suddenly appeared in the middle of the attic half-way through the video. She continued to play the file and watched as the chair now appeared in front of the right-side window on the opposite side of the room. She dragged the video cursor backward and watched that section again. Her eyes hadn’t played tricks on her. The chair somehow moved from one side of the attic to the other side by itself.

  She then remembered the video camera hadn’t been recording in real time. She didn’t know how many frames per minute it actually recorded. She wondered if it was possible for someone to move the chair and then duck out of the way of the camera’s view to make it appear as if the chair had moved on its own. She quickly dismissed that theory, however. It made no sense for someone to do that, but what did this ultimately mean? The chair moved by itself. Was that what she was really thinking? How was this possible and was this in any way connected to her brother’s disappearance? She didn’t see how it could be. Maybe this was related to the cameras, she thought. Maybe her brother had noticed things like this happening, and he tried to capture the answer by videotaping the rooms during his absence.

  She grabbed her cell phone and called Detective Penfield. He had to see this video. Penfield told her he would call Torres in return, and they agreed to meet at the hotel.

  Hannah met them in the lobby. She had her laptop set up at a table in the corner of the lobby which overlooked the small marina behind the hotel. She talked them through her review of one of the third floor bedroom files, and then she showed them the attic video. She watched their expressions and was disappointed when she didn’t get the type of reaction she expected. Both of them, in fact, seemed completely unimpressed with the chair moving across the attic floor by itself.

  “How often do these cameras actually record? Maybe your brother moved the chair himself in between recordings,” Torres said.

  “We’ll need to go back to the house and review the settings on the system, but why would Joe move the chair and then leave the room?” Hannah asked.

  Torres didn’t answer her, which frustrated Hannah even more.

  “You don’t think this is something?” Hannah asked.

  “It’s something. I just don’t know what it means. The chair simply can’t move by itself. There has to be an explanation,” Penfield said.

  “Have you seen anything like this on any of the other files?” Torres asked.

  “No. I stopped and called you guys immediately,” Hannah said.

  She waited for them to say something else, but they didn’t. Torres looked at the screen of the laptop, while Penfield glanced outside at the marina. She had the feeling they viewed this as a wasted trip. She couldn’t believe they weren’t as blown away by this video as she was.

  “Was there anything you discovered about the break-in?” Hanna asked.

  Penfield told her how they’d thoroughly searched the house and found no one and no sign of forced entry. He also informed her that they’d shut and locked all the windows. He left out the fact they had a great deal of trouble shutting several of the windows. They agreed that the three of them should each continue reviewing the video files on their own and to touch base the next day.

  Penfield and Torres walked back to the parking garage across the street from the hotel. Neither said much on the way there. They decided on a time to meet in the morning.

  Penfield drove home and made himself dinner. He thought about the video but couldn’t come to any conclusions. There was nothing about the case that he could wrap his head around. A man’s body was spotted in the bay but vanished under the waves before the police could arrive. The man lived by himself in a house that is large enough for several people. Most of the rooms are completely empty. He placed video cameras in the majority of those rooms for an unknown purpose. He left his house and car keys, cell phone, and wallet in the house before leaving to walk to the bay, either on his own initiative or after being forced by an unknown person. Finally, there was a skull found in his garage, the age of which was undetermined, but was possibly, according to the medical examiner, at least one hundred to two hundred years old.

  Penfield decided to commit the next few hours to reviewing the video files when the doorbell rang. He checked his watch. It was after eight o’clock in the evening. Penfield walked to the door and saw Torres through the peephole. He opened the door and noticed she had a laptop computer under her arm.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “Something I need to show you,” Torres said.

  He led her back into the kitchen, and she placed the laptop on the table.

  “Is that Hannah’s computer?” Penfield asked.

  “No. This is my own, but I copied all the Talbot files to it.”

  She pressed the power button, and the computer booted up quickly. Torres used the mouse pad to open the appropriate folder on the computer screen.

  “I memorized the name of the file she showed us. I’d gone through some the third-floor files myself last night and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I certainly didn’t notice an attic chair moving by itself,” Torres said.

  “So you just missed it,” Penfield suggested.

  “I didn’t see how I could have.”

  Torres opened the attic video folder and selected the appropriate video file.

  “The file she showed us was from October thirteenth,” Torres said. “Look at this.”

  Torres pressed play on the file, and they both watched the video advance. It was clear to see that the chair was against the wall near the attic door, just as it had been in the file Hannah showed them. However, once the file reached its conclusion, they could easily see the chair was still against that wall. It hadn’t moved an inch and certainly not across the attic floor to the window on the opposite side.

  “That can’t be the same file,” Penfield said.

  “I looked at the file name three times while we were in the lobby. Then I wrote it down after I got back to my car. I’ve spent the last two hours going through all the attic videos a second time, just in case she renamed the file for some reason. The chair never moves in any of them. It’s always against the wall by the door.”

  “We know it moved at some point. We both saw it by the attic window when we first went through the house,” Penfield said.

  “Agreed, but it didn’t mo
ve in these videos, not once.”

  “Did she alter the contents of the file?” Penfield asked.

  “She had to. How else would they be different? We each got exact digital copies of the original files. Do me a favor and check your file.”

  Penfield got his laptop and opened the folder labeled “Attic.” He found the matching file and played the video. The chair didn’t move in this video either.

  “Let’s think about this for a second. She would have had to go back to the house, turn the system on, and then record herself moving the chair across the attic. Then she’d have to edit that footage to remove herself from the video. We don’t even know if his computer has editing software on it,” Penfield said.

  “She did say her brother was a video nut, so it might have that type of software. We were gone from the house for a few hours by the time she called you, so it’s possible she could have changed the file.”

  “Yeah, possible, but is it likely? Seems like a ton of work, and what did she really accomplish?” Penfield asked.

  Torres looked away, and Penfield knew he’d stumped her, even though that wasn’t his intention. The mystery had just gotten even deeper.

  Chapter 11

  Footsteps

  Hannah awoke suddenly. She blinked her eyes a few times and rolled onto her side. The blue digital hotel clock display read two-twenty. She’d slept maybe three or four hours and was desperate to go back to sleep. However, she realized it was a fruitless effort after staring at the ceiling for several frustrating minutes. She tried to do the math on how much she’d actually slept in the last few nights, but her brain was too exhausted to even figure out that simple equation.

  She thought about looking through the next batch of video files but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She walked over to the window and pulled the heavy curtain back. She sat down on the wide window sill and watched the marina’s lights dance and sway in the water’s movement below. Despite it being winter, the marina was still mostly full of boats.

  She remembered how she and Joe had liked to go fishing when they were kids. She seldom caught anything. In fact, she could only recall catching a fish on one occasion, and it had been so small, their father had encouraged her to throw it back into the water. Joe had laughed at her, but she didn’t mind. She just enjoyed spending time with him and her parents.

  Now they were all gone. She’d called no relatives like an aunt or an uncle to tell them of Joe’s disappearance. She hadn’t even talked to any relatives beyond Joe for years. She wasn’t sure what caused the distance. Her mother had always been the one to keep her and Joe informed about the extended family. Once she died, her father had temporarily taken over that role. However, he didn’t reach out to others as often as her mother had. He had been a kind man, but he didn’t have an outgoing personality. It was unnatural for him to pick up the phone and call someone. Hannah, her father, and her brother slowly became more and more distanced from their relatives. Physical distance and busy schedules were probably the biggest culprits.

  Once her father was gone, she and Joe lost touch with almost all of their relatives except each other. Now she had no one to turn to. She didn’t really even have a good friend she could call. Her only friends were her co-workers, and she doubted they could even be called that upon closer analysis. The long work hours had given them a sense of intimacy that really didn’t exist. It wasn’t like they called her when she got sick, other than to ask when she would be back to work to complete her work assignments. The reality of her isolation slowly sank into her consciousness. She was alone in the world. She had no one to count on other than herself.

  She continued to look at the reflections in the water. She could hear the faint rumble of a passing truck accelerating up the nearby bridge. Hannah walked back to the bed and climbed under the covers. She looked at the clock again. Only twenty-some minutes had passed.

  She tossed and turned a few more times and ended up on her back, once again, staring at the ceiling. Her thoughts drifted back to the house in the fort and the opened windows. What had been the point of it? It was clearly meant to scare her, but why? Was this a message for her to leave and not look into things? If so, it wasn’t going to work. She refused to look the other way and head back to California as if nothing could be done. Someone would pay for what had happened to her brother. Someone had pushed him into the water. She owed it to Joe to find out the truth.

  Hannah pulled the covers back and climbed out of bed. She stripped off her sleep clothes and tossed them into her open suitcase. She took a hot shower and got dressed.

  It was just after three-thirty when she got to the fort. She drove across the moat and went slowly down Bernard Road which circled the interior of the fort. She didn’t see anyone, including the security force. She drove a second pass down Bernard until she could make the left turn onto Ruckman Road. She stopped beside the chapel’s front door, which faced the road, and she observed the house her brother had rented. The porch light was on. One of the detectives must have turned it on before they left the previous morning. None of the interior lights were on, though. The side of the house she could see from her car was fairly dark since the street light couldn’t reach it, so she couldn’t tell if the first floor windows were closed. She drove her car several feet forward and determined the windows were closed. She watched the house for at least five minutes. Then she drove the rest of the way down Ruckman Road and circled back to the parking lot behind the house.

  Hannah climbed out of the car and walked toward the playground. She gripped a small can of mace in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She’d purchased the items at a twenty-four-hour convenience store on her way over. She observed the house for a few more minutes. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She circled the house once and then entered through the front door. Hannah flipped the light switch on in the living room. She walked over to the nearest window and confirmed the lock was shut. Hannah moved into the kitchen and checked its sole window. It was also locked. Then she checked the den’s windows as well. Everything seemed secure. Nothing seemed out of place.

  She walked back into the kitchen and placed the can of mace and flashlight on the counter. She opened a couple of cabinets before she found a glass and walked over to the sink. She reached for the handle to the faucet and was about to turn the water on when she heard a noise. It sounded like a footstep or maybe two. She gently placed the empty glass in the bottom of the sink and turned to reach for her can of mace. She heard more footsteps coming from the direction of the living room. Then she heard a child’s laughter. It was more like a giggle. She grabbed her mace and flashlight and walked slowly into the living room, but there was no one there. She heard more laughter and the sound of someone running up the staircase. She ran to the staircase herself and shined the flashlight toward the second floor landing. She thought she might have caught the sight of a bare leg and foot as it turned the corner sharply and ran down the hallway toward the front of the house. She could clearly hear the footsteps above the ceiling of the living room. The childish laughter and footsteps continued. She flipped the light switch on, and the staircase illuminated.

  She took the steps slowly. She was sure now the laughter came from a child, probably a little girl, but she didn’t know if there was another person with her. For a second, she wondered if this was the person who opened all of the windows, but it couldn’t just be a little child. They wouldn’t be strong enough or even tall enough to do it.

  Hannah reached the top of the stairs. She remembered the light switch was across the landing and close to the first bedroom on her right-hand side. She took a couple of tentative steps forward and shined the flashlight down the hallway in the direction she thought she saw the little girl turn. The hallway was empty.

  She walked across the rest of the landing and turned on the hallway lights. She saw all of the bedroom doors were open. There were two bedrooms in the direction the girl had run. She walked to the first bedroom and shined th
e light into it while searching for the wall switch. The room lit up, and she saw that it was empty. She entered the room and checked the closet. It was also empty. She repeated the process with the second bedroom and found nothing. She checked the windows. She didn’t think the girl could have escaped that way. It was a sheer drop to the ground. The windows were locked, though.

  She exited the bedroom and stood at the end of the hallway. She noticed the door to the third-floor staircase was open. She distinctly remembered that she had shut it on her last visit to the house. Of course, one of the detectives may have left it ajar after checking the house for intruders. She started to walk toward the door when she heard the laughter again and the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. She heard the third-floor door creak when it opened. Then the door slammed shut. Hannah was terrified, and she was tempted to flee, even though it seemed the intruder was just a child. Nevertheless, she needed answers. She tightly gripped the flashlight and the can of mace.

  The light for the third-floor staircase was at the top of the stairs. She shined the flashlight up the stairs and toward the door and confirmed there was no one on the staircase. The door was indeed shut as she had heard.

  She walked up to the top of the stairs and pressed her ear against the closed door. She couldn’t hear anything on the other side. Hannah slowly turned the door knob and inched the door forward. She shined the light through the crack, afraid she might see someone standing right there. There was no one, though, so she opened the door the rest of the way. She reached inside the door and probed for the light switch. She found it, and the third-floor landing illuminated. She walked onto the landing and quickly looked to her left. The attic door was shut. She checked the bedroom as well as its closet. There was no one. She walked into the second bedroom, assuming this might be the room where the girl would finally be found, but she wasn’t there. The closet was much larger in this room, and she saw that the door was shut. She flung the door open and pointed the flashlight inside. Nothing.