Ruckman Road: An Alex Penfield Novel

by Robert W. Stephens

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

  “Of course.”

  Penfield led Torres into the den.

  “Do you need some water or anything?” Penfield asked.

  Torres ignored his question and sat down on the sofa.

  “I don’t know what happened out there today,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Penfield sat down beside her.

  “It happens. We all lose control sometimes. After what you saw him do to those two people in the store.”

  “That wasn’t it. I was just so angry with him for running. When he got out of the car, I couldn’t stop thinking about Dominic Stewart. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done to us.”

  Penfield didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “What’s happened to us? Nothing feels the same since that night.”

  Penfield subconsciously moved his hand toward his side, but he caught himself doing it and stopped.

  “There’s a distance between us. I don’t know what it is,” Torres continued. “It’s Hannah, isn’t it? There was something going on there. I felt it between you two.”

  “What are you talking about?” Penfield asked.

  “Don’t tell me you felt nothing for her. I saw the way you looked at her. I saw how torn up you were when she killed herself.”

  “Of course I was upset. You were, too.”

  “I got a call from the sergeant earlier. He thinks the guy is going to file a complaint. He said I broke the guy’s cheekbone.”

  Torres’ eyes filled with water, and Penfield could see she was fighting back her tears.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Torres asked.

  She couldn’t hold the tears back any longer, and she started to cry. Penfield slid across the sofa and wrapped an arm around her.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Penfield said.

  Torres looked at Penfield.

  “Did you love her?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “Hannah.”

  “Why would you even ask that? There was nothing between us.”

  “Why have you never been interested in me? Do you know how many guys come on to me at work? Why do you never want me?”

  Penfield didn’t know how to answer her question. He didn’t even know if it was even a serious question or the simple result of Torres having had too much to drink. He could smell the alcohol on her breath now that he’d gotten closer to her on the sofa. He thought her drinking was the direct result of her assault on the perp from the convenience store murders, but he wasn’t sure where these personal questions were coming from. The truth was he had thought of her in that way, more times than he was willing to admit to himself. Torres was an attractive woman. Anyone would be blind not to see that. There were many times where he’d noticed her and had sexual thoughts about the two of them, but he’d pushed those feelings to the back of his mind for the sake of their working relationship. Had she had those same thoughts too?

  “Why do you not want me?” she asked again.

  Torres leaned forward and kissed him. Penfield thought of pulling away, but the softness of her lips brought him closer to her. He felt himself growing aroused, and he imagined how it would feel to be inside of her. Torres let out a soft moan as they kissed.

  “No,” Penfield said. “We can’t.”

  Penfield pulled away from her. Torres looked up at him.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “You’ll regret this in the morning. I won’t let us make this mistake.”

  Penfield stood.

  “Come on. I’m taking you home. You’re in no state to drive.”

  Penfield drove Torres back to her house. She slept most of the car ride, which only confirmed his feeling that she’d had way too much to drink. He got her into her house and turned the lock on the front doorknob as he exited. He climbed into his car and looked at the time on his cell phone. It was after ten o’clock now. He decided to make a stop before heading home.

  It didn’t take him long to get to the house on Ruckman Road. He still had a key to the house, and he let himself in. The heat was on, and he heard the heating system groan from the basement. Penfield walked across the living room floor. The glass had been swept up, and all of the windows in the room had been replaced. Penfield took a glance at the cameras in the upper corners of the room. They were now a common sight in this house, but they were still an odd fixture. What had Talbot hoped to capture on video? Was it the little girl? Had Talbot seen or heard her too? Was it someone or something else? Had he actually seen the dark energy that Atwater referred to?

  Penfield walked up the stairs and headed into the master bedroom. The rope had been removed from the door by the crime scene techs weeks ago. The room felt warm. He walked over to the window in the back corner. Penfield raised the shade and saw that they’d replaced the single pane. He left the room and headed to the third floor. Penfield entered the room where Atwater had collapsed. He opened the closet where Atwater claimed the little girl had been. Both the room and the closet were empty as he expected them to be. Penfield next walked into the attic. He saw the chair on the opposite side of the room. He remembered seeing Talbot’s cell phone on the dirty floor.

  Penfield walked to the first floor. The only thing he heard was the sound of his footsteps on the old wooden floor and staircase. He got to the first floor and thought about walking through the basement. He didn’t know what the point was. There was nothing down there that would give him any answers, either. Penfield wasn’t even sure why’d he’d come here. It was a waste of time and a reminder of his failure.

  Nothing had gone right since his encounter with Patricia Porter and Dominic Stewart. His life seemed to be spinning out of control, if he had ever been in control to begin with. He thought of all the horrible things he’d seen as a cop. They seemed to all blend in his mind as one massive storm cloud ready to tear him apart. He would laugh when he’d hear people say they thought the majority of people were good. They had no idea what they were talking about. Human beings were killers by nature. He’d seen it way too many times. The first instinct is always to do harm. It’s in man’s DNA.

  Penfield removed his phone from his pocket and checked the time again. It was now pushing eleven o’clock. It was late but maybe not too late. Penfield hit the contact symbol on the phone display and dialed Atwater’s number. The phone rang several times, and he was about to hang up when Atwater answered.

  “Hello.”

  “This is Penfield.”

  “Hello, Detective.”

  Penfield hesitated a long moment, and there was an awkward silence.

  “Can I help you with something?” Atwater continued.

  “How did you find me?” Penfield asked.

  “Is that what you’re really asking me?”

  Penfield didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “I told your father,” Atwater continued.

  “Now I’m asking you to tell me,” Penfield said.

  “I saw you drowning in a sea of black.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything. How do you get from that vision, whatever it is, to be able to find the exact spot I was buried in those woods?” Penfield asked.

  “I was too frightened to tell the truth. Besides, no one would have ever believed me,” Atwater said.

  Penfield waited for Atwater to continue, but he didn’t.

  “I’m listening,” Penfield urged.

  “I had a dream. I saw through his eyes. I saw the black river. I saw the cord on the branch that hung across the water, and then I saw the cord on that tree. I didn’t know you were under the earth until your father and I got there. That’s when I knew what the darkness was.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Penfield asked.

  “I don’t care what you believe. I’ve spent the last
three decades with people acting like I’ve got leprosy. I know what they’re thinking when they look at me. Questioning me. Judging me. Everyone assumes I did it. You assume I did it. I found you because I somehow connected with a monster. I didn’t ask for it to happen, and I certainly didn’t want it to happen. Do you think that was easy for me, seeing through his eyes? Where would you be without me, though? You would still be lying in that wooden box under the ground.”

  Penfield began to respond when he stopped suddenly. He’d been looking down at the ground while Atwater was talking. Then he’d looked and found himself facing one of the new windows in the living room. It was dark outside from the night, and the overhead light of the ceiling fan was on. His reflection in the window couldn’t have been clearer.

  “Did you see something that night before the windows shattered? Did you see him?” Penfield asked.

  “Drop this investigation, Detective. It will bring you nothing but pain.”

  “What did you see?” Penfield demanded, but Atwater had already ended the call.

  “Damn it,” Penfield said.

  He walked closer to the window and looked at his reflection again.

  “He doesn’t want you to see him.”

  He heard the little girl’s voice in his mind. Penfield searched through the contacts list on his phone again. He selected the number and placed the call. He waited a moment and heard the voice answer on the other end.

  “I’m sorry,” Penfield said, “but I need your help one more time.”

  Chapter 21

  Discoveries

  Penfield’s friend, Doug McMahon, sat down at the computer workstation at Talbot’s house as Penfield stood behind him and off to the side. It had taken some considerable convincing to bring him down from D.C. on his day off. It was already dark by the time McMahon arrived. This was the third time he’d helped him out. He was going to owe McMahon favors for the rest of his life. McMahon reached into his bag and removed his laptop, which he placed on the table.

  “You know, there’s bound to be someone in your department who can help you with this,” McMahon said.

  “I know, but then I would have other things to worry about,” Penfield said.

  “So what exactly are we looking for?”

  Penfield handed McMahon a USB thumb drive, which he plugged into his computer.

  “This is a copy of the video from the other night, recorded in this house when I heard those voices.”

  McMahon opened the folder on the drive and saw two video files.

  “Which one do you want to start with?” McMahon asked.

  “Let’s go with the second file. That’s the one where the camera is placed above the kitchen doorway. I think it’ll give us a better view,” Penfield said.

  They looked at the video file and saw Penfield, Torres, Atwater, and Hannah in the living room of the Talbot house.

  “I recognize Maria. Who are the other two?” McMahon asked.

  Penfield told him who they were, and then he gave a brief explanation of what happened that night.

  “The windows couldn’t have just broken on their own,” McMahon protested.

  “We saw no one outside and nothing in or outside this house that might’ve broken all the windows. There were actually two windows that shattered when I was inside the room and Torres was outside the house. We were right beside them when they blew.”

  “Were they wired or something?”

  “We would have found the wires. There was nothing but broken glass,” Penfield said.

  Penfield looked closely at the screen.

  “Is there any way you can zoom into the screen?” Penfield asked.

  “Sure, which part?”

  “The windows.”

  “You want to see what broke them?” McMahon asked.

  “No. Something else.”

  “Okay, which part of the video and which window?”

  “I want to eventually go through all the windows for the entire length of the video,” Penfield said.

  McMahon didn’t say anything, but Penfield could tell by the look on his face that he thought Penfield was losing his mind or maybe had lost it a while ago. McMahon zoomed into the window closest to the camera. The camera angle was extreme, and the resolution wasn’t as good as Penfield would have liked.

  Penfield watched the entire video, and they repeated the process with the next window. Penfield froze the screen each time someone walked by the window. The reflection was always somewhat out of focus by the poor resolution as well as the nature of a reflection in old glass. The glass had a somewhat distorted look, even when he was standing right in front of it.

  Penfield did his best to compare the reflection to the person casting it. He examined the colors - both the colors of the person’s clothing and the color of their hair and skin. Nothing seemed different, though, between the person and their reflection. He thought back to the night Atwater claimed he saw a different woman in Hannah’s window reflection. Penfield remembered that night well, and he remembered standing in the room with Hannah and Atwater. He didn’t recall seeing or particularly noticing her reflection, though.

  Penfield grew dismayed by the time he finished the second window. He cursed himself from not forcing Atwater to be here and help him review the video. He’d known it was a long shot, but it was something that had to be tested. Penfield decided to go through the video one more time with the camera zoomed into the third window. McMahon adjusted the image for Penfield and then slid the computer back over to him. Penfield started the video playing from the beginning again. McMahon looked at the desktop computer and DVR.

  “I had a hard time believing you when you told me about this place. Now that I’m here, I still can’t believe he’d go through all this trouble to monitor an empty house. Where is Maria by the way?” McMahon asked.

  Penfield changed the subject.

  “Hey, once a file is deleted, is there any way to get it back?”

  “Depends on how it was deleted. What file are you looking for?”

  Penfield told McMahon how he couldn’t find any files from the last day in the house before the jogger spotted Talbot’s body in the Chesapeake Bay.

  “Maybe he didn’t record anything that day,” McMahon said.

  “Probably not, or maybe he was already in the bay by then. Can you check, though?” Penfield asked.

  “Sure.”

  Penfield powered Talbot’s desktop computer on and entered the password that he remembered Hannah giving him and Torres on one of their first days in the house. He slid the keyboard over to McMahon.

  “Most people just hit delete and think it’s gone. Half the time they don’t even think to go into the trash bin and delete them there, too,” McMahon said.

  “If you delete it there, is it gone for good?” Penfield asked.

  “No. That just removes the virtual pathway to the file, but it’s still on the hard drive. There are apps you can install that will permanently delete the file, or you can go into disk utilities and write over it from there.”

  McMahon opened the trash folder on the desktop and saw it was empty.

  “Nothing here. Give me a minute with this thing.”

  Penfield went back to McMahon’s laptop and played through the video for the third time. It was as fruitless as the first two attempts. He was almost finished with the file when McMahon turned the computer monitor to face Penfield.

  “There wasn’t just one day of files missing. Looks like you have an entire month or so that was deleted,” McMahon said.

  Penfield glanced over the long list of folders, which were named after the rooms in the house, just as the other folders had been. He opened the folder labeled “living room” and saw at least thirty new video files - each labeled with a date. Penfield knew the dates well by now. These files were all from dates before the ones they originally reviewed. He quickly scanned to the bottom of the list and saw the file from the day before Talbot’s body was discovered.

  “This i
s the day,” Penfield said. “I’m going to check on the living room since that’s where the front door is.”

  Penfield scanned through the file as quickly as he could. He saw Talbot leave for work in the morning. No one appeared throughout the day, at least not on that particular camera. Penfield fast-forwarded through the video until Talbot arrived sometime after dark. He walked through the living room and headed into the kitchen.

  Penfield opened the file folder for the kitchen and found the matching time on the video file. Talbot went straight for the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. He drank the bottle in one long gulp and tossed the empty bottle on the counter. He walked over to one of the counters and removed a can of soup. He dumped the contents into a bowl and placed it into the microwave. He drank a second bottle of water while the soup heated. He then took the bowl and water and walked out of the camera’s view.

  Penfield opened the folder for the den and found the spot on the video where Talbot entered the room with his dinner. He sat down on the sofa and turned the television on.

  “Interesting stuff,” McMahon said.

  “Try looking through hours of this,” Penfield said.

  “And he just recorded himself doing all of this?”

  “In every room of the house.”

  Penfield watched Talbot walk out of the den, and he followed him on the various cameras as he headed for the stairway. He picked up Talbot again when he entered the master bedroom. He watched him climb into bed and go to sleep. McMahon looked at the time on the video screen.

  “You got the guy still alive at 11 p.m.,” McMahon said.

  “Did he look to you like a depressed guy?” Penfield asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the theories was that he jumped into the bay.”

  “Suicide? He looked like an ordinary guy to me. Of course, there’s always these video cameras in the house, so my official diagnosis is that the dude’s nuts. I’d buy that he’d off himself by drowning.”

  Penfield paused the bedroom footage and reopened one of the living room files. He started the file at the point Talbot walked through the room to go to bed. Penfield scanned through the video, but the room stayed empty for several more hours. Then another person came through the front door.