Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) (22 page)

“Hello,
Annette,” Gordie said. “How can we help you?” Gordie had dropped candy bars into
a young Annette’s goodie bag at Halloween for many years and saw no reason to
provide cold, impersonal service simply because he represented the police
department.

“I…I’m
not exactly sure,” she said. “I just talked to Rose at home, and I got the
definite impression that something was wrong.”

“Wrong,
how? Did she sound sick?”

“That’s
the thing, I don’t know. She may have been sick, but it sounded more like…”

“Yes?”

“Gordie,
I might be crazy, but she sounded terrified, like she was trying to hide how
frightened she was, but couldn’t quite do it.”

“She
sounded afraid? Did you ask her what was the matter?”

“She
couldn’t wait to get me off the phone. Gordie, I hate to ask, but could you…”

“We’ll
send an officer out there right away,” he interrupted. “It’s no problem.”

“Thank
you so much,” she said, the relief evident in her voice. “I’m sure I’m just
being silly, but something just seemed…wrong.”

***

Standard operating procedure in
Paskagankee was to have two units patrolling during the day and one at night from
Sunday through Thursday. On weekend nights, a second unit would be added. Sharon
was working the day shift today with Harley Tanguay, and she had told the other
officer when they were coming on duty that she expected to spend the majority
of her day in the Route 28 area, specifically in the vicinity of the Ridge
Runner. Harley had agreed to cover the remainder of Paskagankee, an area
massive in size despite being lightly populated.

Common
sense would seem to indicate the killer of Bronson Choate and Pete Kendall was
long gone by now, probably halfway to the West Coast, but Sharon wasn’t so
sure. If he were going to flee, he would have done so after killing Choate, but
had apparently chosen to stick around. He had to have been hiding in the thick
forest to get the jump on a good cop like Pete Kendall. Who was to say he wasn’t
doing exactly that now?

The prospect
was creepy and frightening, and Sharon wondered if maybe the double murderer
was somehow drawn to the area for reasons as yet unknown. Hell, maybe he was a
Paskagankee resident, although why anyone would want to kill Bronson Choate and
Pete Kendall, two men seemingly with nothing in common, she couldn’t imagine.

In any
event, the theory was worth pursuing, and she had spent most of her shift
cruising Route 28 within a two to three mile radius of the Ridge Runner and criss-crossing
the many back roads and fire trails interconnecting the remote area.

So when
Gordie’s call came in, Sharon responded to it immediately. She had never
visited Rose Pellerin’s home, but was well familiar with its location. Rose
lived only about a mile-and-a-half east of the Ridge Runner, not far from her
brother Bo’s house.

On
Route 28.

The
only information Gordie had passed along was that Rose hadn’t shown up for work
today, and when her young assistant called to check on her, she said Rose had
seemed preoccupied and frightened.

Another
disturbing incident in roughly the same geographical area as the disappearing
body and the two murders.

Sharon
goosed the powerful Police Interceptor engine and the cruiser barreled along
the mostly deserted road. She would arrive at Rose’s home within minutes, and although
the nature of the call couldn’t have been more routine, she felt a nervous
tension begin to fill her gut and unfocused dread begin to worm through her.

She wasn’t
a friend of Rose, but having grown up in Paskagankee, she had known the woman
– at least to smile and wave hello to – for as long as she could
remember. Rose was the polar opposite of her brother Bo: where he was
suspicious and taciturn, she was open and friendly. With all that had happened
recently along this lonely stretch of Route 28, Sharon felt her concern was
justified.

She
spun the wheel in her hands with practiced ease, whipping around hairpin turns
and cresting hills with barely any reduction in speed. After nearly a lifetime
spent in the little town, Sharon felt she could probably drive even its most
remote roads with her eyes closed.

Another
sharp turn and a rare quarter-mile straightaway and Rose Pellerin’s
saltbox-style home rose in the distance. It was surrounded by a neatly maintained
yard, with acres of gently waving field grass beyond, and Paskagankee’s
ubiquitous massive, hulking forest looming in the distance.

Sharon
slowed just enough to make the turn, then accelerated up the long dirt
driveway. A rooster tail of dust rose from behind the vehicle, eliminating any
possibility of a quiet entrance, but there was no way to avoid alerting
potential lawbreakers to her arrival. The only alternative would be to park the
cruiser at the end of the driveway and hike the several hundred feet to Rose’s
front door, but the sick feeling in Sharon’s gut was telling her she couldn’t
afford to waste that much time.

She
jerked the cruiser to a stop and leapt out while the car was still rocking on
its springs. Jogging up the walkway, she scanned the front of the house,
particularly the downstairs windows, looking for any signs of life, but there
was nothing. The house stood silent.

She
took the steps two at a time, lifting her hand to rap on the door, and was surprised
when it swung open before she could knock. In the foyer stood Rose Pellerin,
white-faced and shaken but very much alive. “He left maybe ten minutes ago,”
she said before Sharon could speak.

“Is
anyone else here?” she said, placing a hand on the gun holstered at her hip.

“No,” Rose
answered. “It was just the one man and he’s gone. I watched him disappear into
the woods the same way he came.”

Sharon
looked closely at the older woman. A mottled purple bruise had formed on the
right side of her face along the jawline. “Are you alright? What happened here,
Rose?”

“I’m okay,”
she said quietly. “I don’t know who he was. A man, maybe mid to late thirties,
with long stringy hair. And filthy. It was like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. He
walked out of the woods while I was hanging up my laundry, appeared out of
nowhere. He was on me before I even noticed him.”

“What
did he want?”

“Food,”
Rose said, surprising Sharon. “He wanted food, said he was ravenously hungry.”

“All he
wanted was a meal?”

“Apparently,”
Rose said. “He ate the omelet I made him even though it was burned almost
beyond recognition. He had a cup of coffee with it and then just walked out the
door.”

“Did
you recognize him? Maybe seen him around town, or in your shop?”

Rose
shook her head firmly. “No. I’m certain I’ve never seen him before.”

“Would
you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Oh, yes.
I spent over an hour staring at his face in my kitchen.”

Sharon
pulled a neatly folded piece of paper out of her breast pocket. Jodie Miller,
the girlfriend of the murdered Bronson Choate and the woman who had somehow
survived her face-to-face encounter with the killer, had spent the previous evening
with a police sketch artist developing an image of the murderer. A copy of the
sketch had been handed out to each patrol officer as well as faxed to law
enforcement agencies around the state. Sharon smoothed her copy on a nearby
table and watched as Rose glanced at it.

She
nodded immediately. “That’s him.”

“Take a
good look. Are you sure?” Sharon asked.

“Oh
yes, dear, I’m sure. That’s the man who was eating at my table not twenty
minutes ago.”

Sharon
pursed her lips and blew out forcefully. “Then you’re extremely lucky. We have
a witness who watched as this man murdered a Paskagankee resident in his home
last night, and he’s also the only suspect in last night’s murder of Chief
Kendall.”

Rose
gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Pete Kendall is dead?”

“Yes,
ma’am, I assumed you would have heard. It’s been all over the news, both
locally and nationally.”

“I
haven’t turned on the television or the radio today.”

“I’m
sorry you had to find out like this, Rose. Now, if you’ll excuse me for just a
moment I’ll call an ambulance to transport you to the hospital in Portland.”

Rose
waved her hand impatiently. “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said.
“I’m feeling much stronger already, despite the horrible news about Chief
Kendall. A good night’s sleep is all I need, and then I’ll be right as rain.”

Sharon
narrowed her eyes and gazed at the older woman closely. Her preference was for
Rose Pellerin to get checked out, but she couldn’t force the issue if the woman
refused. Finally she nodded. “Okay. But listen, it’s very important you keep
all your doors and windows locked until we catch this guy. And we will get him.
He should have run like a rabbit last night, but he’s staying right in this
area for some reason. And while we don’t know what that reason is – yet
– it gives us a leg up on locating him.”

She
refolded the sketch and slid it back into her pocket. “If you see or hear
anything suspicious – and I mean anything – call the station and
we’ll have someone here in minutes.” She jotted her number down on a slip of
paper and handed it to the woman. “This is my home number. Call it any time you
think you need to.”

Rose
folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket. “In the meantime,” Sharon said, “I’m
going to call this in. You can expect to see an increased law enforcement
presence in the area, as well as searchers canvassing the forest behind your
house. Don’t be surprised if you see or hear them working later on today,
okay?”

“I
understand,” Rose said. “And I know you’re in a hurry. But there’s something
you need to know about this man.”

Sharon waited
impatiently. The more time she spent here, the harder it would be to pick up
the killer’s trail.

“There’s
something…off…about him, even above and beyond the fact that he’s a murderer.
When my telephone rang, it was like he had never heard the sound before. He was
like a spooked animal. Same thing with my coffeemaker. He was scared to death
of the damned thing. My
coffeemaker,
”
she repeated for emphasis.

Sharon
chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “Sounds like maybe he was high on
something.”

“I
don’t think so,” Rose said. “He was jumpy and nervous and almost as scared as I
was, but he wasn’t slurring his words and his eyes weren’t bloodshot or
anything. He stunk to high heaven, but he didn’t strike me as being impaired by
drugs or alcohol.”

“Okay,”
Sharon said, shrugging. “I admit, that sounds a little odd, but the guy killed
two people last night. He’s probably not thinking too clearly right now.”

Rose
said, “You don’t know the half of it.”

“What
do you mean?”

“He
thinks it’s June, 1858.”

“Excuse
me?”

“The
man thinks we’re living more than one hundred-fifty years ago.”

Sharon
stared at Rose without speaking. She had absolutely no idea what to say.

22

Mike looked at Sharon
quizzically. “1858? What are you talking about?”

She
smiled at his obvious confusion and the sight dazzled him just as much now,
nearly two years into their relationship, as it had the very first time he had experienced
it. “That was my reaction, too,” she said. “But Rose swears the man who killed
Bronson Choate and Pete Kendall thinks we’re in the middle of the year 1858.”

The
couple was finally home. In what had become a nightly ritual, Mike lay on the
bed watching Sharon brush her hair before bed. Mike tried to remember the last
time he had been this tired and couldn’t.

The
remainder of the afternoon had been an exercise in frustration. After getting
word from Sharon that Rose had positively identified the man who had accosted
her in her home as the killer, he had organized a massive search of the woods
behind the Pellerin house. Dozens of Paskagankee residents, fearful and angry
about the murder of their police chief, had taken part.

As Mike
had suspected, the FBI agents, Ferriss and Cooper, must have been hanging
around town monitoring their police-band scanner, because they had shown up a
few minutes into the search and been pressed into service as well.

Mike
had done his best to stay out of the pair’s way, not wanting to take the focus
off the search for the fugitive by getting into another confrontation. But the
feds had – surprisingly – been reasonably cooperative, at least
compared to earlier in the day, and Mike was surprised how at-home they seemed
in the vast wilderness north of Paskagankee, Maine.

Despite
their best efforts, however, the search had turned up nothing, and when the sun
disappeared below the horizon and darkness fell shortly thereafter, the search
was suspended.

With
all that had happened between the attack on Rose and the intense forest search,
Sharon had neglected to mention the fugitive’s bizarre conviction that he was
living more than a century and a half ago to Mike until now. He gazed at her, trying
to absorb the information, distracted by the sight of his beautiful fiancé in
her short silk nightgown. “1858,” he muttered.