Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) (16 page)

The
sheriff’s deputy had hung around for a time, wrapping yellow ribbon around
everything in sight, and then had climbed back into his strange horseless
carriage and disappeared in what Jackson thought must be the least effective
murder investigation ever. By the time the deputy had departed, Jackson’s
hunger was nearly overwhelming again and he decided a return trip inside the
cabin was a risk worth taking.

He had
just started across the clearing when
another
sheriff’s deputy showed up, catching Jackson by surprise and confirming what
he had already begun to suspect: that there was no way to anticipate what the
crazy lawmen in this town might do next. Jackson once again managed to retreat
to the safety of the forest without being seen, and then watched while this new
lawman repeated most of the actions of the first one, checking the body –
still dead – and then actually searching the cabin.

When
the lawman strode to his carriage and began talking into his own strange
device, Jackson had erroneously assumed this sheriff’s deputy would further
repeat the actions of the first one and pilot his buggy away. He was by this
time so ravenously hungry he had begun to care less and less about the presence
of the law and had started across the small clearing behind the cabin, hoping
to get inside it and back to the “fridge” the minute the deputy departed.

But the
lawman surprised him. He didn’t go anywhere; instead he began a search of the
exterior grounds
of the cabin.

The man
had nearly walked right into Jackson, who by now was so flustered – and
hungry,
goddamn
was he hungry!
– that he had not been able to stop himself from attacking the deputy. He
crouched behind the only cover available – a big piece of roaring machinery
in the middle of the clearing – and then took the lawman from behind, killing
him in much the same manner as he had taken down the cabin owner. Jackson was
discovering a Colt .38 revolver could be quite a useful tool even
without
bullets.

Shortly
after that, two more people, a man and a woman, both dressed like civilians, had
shown up. If Jackson hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the dead cabin
owner was running the world’s smallest rooming house, there was so much goddamned
activity. The man discovered the body of the dead lawman in short order and
then all hell had broken loose. Within minutes, hordes of people were swarming
all over the cabin after rumbling up the trail inside more of those frightening
horseless carriages, some of which seemed nearly the size of a small barn.

Jackson
had watched it all, thanking his lucky stars for the soothing anonymity
provided by the darkness and the thick underbrush of the forest. How so many
people had managed to mobilize so quickly he could not imagine.

There
was much he did not understand about what was happening here, and it was
frightening. He knew he would now be a hunted man after killing two people, one
of them a lawman.

It got
worse. He didn’t know a single soul in this town. He had no horse. And, he
realized with a sudden sinking feeling, no money either. He had completely
forgotten about the solid gold Peruvian disk until just now. It must still be
somewhere in that damned secret underground room.

All of
which was bad enough, but it wasn’t the worst development. The worst
development was that he was getting hungry
again.
The hunger was building rapidly,
again
.
Soon it would rule his existence. It would be all he could think about.

He had
killed because of the hunger last time, and it was coming again.

And he
had no idea what to do.

12

Mike glanced tiredly at his watch
as he drove the deserted back roads toward the cement-and-brick Paskagankee
Police Department building. Breaking the news of Pete Kendall’s murder to his wife
was not the way he would have chosen to begin his second stint guiding the
department, but there was no putting it off. It wouldn’t get any easier by
delaying, and more importantly, the young woman had a right to learn her
husband’s fate.

He had
stayed with the distraught widow for over an hour, sipping strong coffee at the
kitchen table listening to Jane Kendall talk, sometimes about her husband, sometimes
about things entirely unrelated to his loss, until a neighbor had arrived to
drive her to her parents’ home outside Bangor.

Now he felt
washed-out and jittery, no surprise given the fact it was nearly nine a.m. and he
had not slept in more than twenty-four hours. Mike rubbed his eyes and tried to
formulate a plan with which to approach the rest of the day. The first priority
would obviously be the investigation into last night’s two murders. But there
was also the issue of the body that had disappeared out of the excavation pit behind
the Ridge Runner to consider.

Mike mulled
over how the two events might be related as he drove, becoming increasingly
frustrated with his inability to focus thanks to his building exhaustion. He
slowed the car and turned into the police station parking lot, surprised to
discover he had been so deep in thought he could not recall more than the most
basic details of the cross-town trip he had just made.
Guess I should add “get some sleep” to my to-do list.

He shut
down the engine and glanced at a vehicle he didn’t recognize. It was a coal-black
Chevrolet Suburban with blacked-out windows and U.S. Government plates, angled carelessly
into a spot a few spaces away. Mike wondered what the vehicle’s presence might
signify and decided it was probably nothing good. He stepped out of the car and
walked to the station, entering as a cop for the first time since his forced
resignation.

Dispatcher
Gordie Rheaume smiled grimly and waved through the heavy plate glass window
separating the public lobby from the interior of the station. Gordie stood and weaved
his way through the bullpen, realizing Mike would not have received an access
card yet. He unlocked the reinforced door and offered his hand. “Welcome back,
Chief,” he said warmly. “I’m sorry about the circumstances of your return, but
it’s good to have you back.”

“Thanks,
Gordie, it’s good to see you, too. It seems we have a lot of work to do.”

The
older man nodded. “You got that right. And the first order of business is
waiting for you in Chief Kendall’s – I mean, in
your
– office.”

“Waiting
in my office? What are you talking about? Is it the Maneater?” Mike’s first
thought was
how the hell did Melissa
Mannheim get word of the double murders already?
He had known he would have
to deal with the
Portland Journal
reporter
and the rest of the press at some point today, but couldn’t imagine how the Melissa
“The Maneater” Mannheim had managed to get on the story so soon.

He
pictured her slinking into the chief’s office before poor Pete Kendall’s body was
even cold, all flame-red hair and provocative clothing, spouting off about freedom
of the press and expecting an exclusive on the search for Kendall’s killer.
Suddenly he felt even more exhausted than he had a few minutes ago driving into
the parking lot.

“No,
it’s not Mannheim,” Gordie answered. “Although I’m sure you’ll be seeing her
soon. You’re lucky she’s distracted by all the hoopla with the Hollywood film
crew coming in a couple of weeks, otherwise she’d be up your ass already.”

Mike
scratched his head. “If it’s not Melissa waiting to speak to me, who is it?”

“FBI,”
Gordie said.

Mike
flashed back to the government car in the lot and realized he should have made
the connection immediately. He would have, too, if he hadn’t been so damned
tired. “What does the FBI want?” he asked.

“Beats
me. They refused to speak to anyone but the chief. I told them it’s been kind
of hectic around here and that you’ve only been chief for a few hours. Even
told them I didn’t know when you’d be in. They just said ‘no problem,’ and that
they’d be happy to wait. They’ve been drinking coffee and sitting in your
office like a couple of ugly statues ever since.”

Mike
glanced at the big clock on the wall. “What time did they get here?”

“Little
after six.”

“Okay,
thanks, Gordie.” He sighed and trudged to the small coffee mess set up in the
rear of the bullpen, then poured into a paper cup a thick black sludge that
looked as though it had been festering in the pot since his resignation. He examined
it with distaste, choked a little down, and walked into his new/old office to
meet with the Feds.

When he
opened the door he stopped short and blinked in surprise. The two agents sat silent
and ramrod-straight in chairs placed side-by-side in front of the chief’s desk.
They looked almost like they could be twins, dressed in nearly identical dark
blue suits, plain white dress shirts, and maroon ties. At the sound of the door
opening both men glanced at Mike in a move that appeared slickly choreographed.

“Gentlemen,”
Mike said, extending a hand first to the man nearest him and then to the other.
Their grips were firm and cool. “I’m Mike McMahon, Paskagankee Police Chief as
of about three o’clock this morning.”

The man
nearest Mike shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Chief. I’m Special
Agent Alton Ferriss, and this is my partner, Special Agent Ward Cooper. We operate
out of the bureau’s Portland Field Office.” The man sitting next to Ferriss
nodded once, all business, and shook Mike’s hand briefly before letting it drop
and returning his attention to the empty surface of Mike’s new desk.

Ferriss’s
tone was frosty and belied his pleasant greeting. Facing a long day with no
sleep under his belt, Mike decided that making nice with two stone-faced feds
would require more effort that he was willing to expend, and elected to get
right down to business.

He
moved to the wheeled leather chair behind the desk and sat heavily. “You’ve
probably heard about the two murders last night, one of the victims being my immediate
predecessor, so I’m sure you realize we’re pretty busy here. I don’t have a lot
of free time. Keeping that in mind, what can I do for you gentlemen?”

This
time Cooper piped up. He glanced at Mike with a look that suggested he would
rather be drinking acid than sitting here. “We received a report of the bodies
discovered at the site of the excavation out on Route 28 yesterday. We believe
the discovery may be related to a missing-persons case we worked several months
ago. We wanted to take a look at the site, but thought it would be appropriate
to check in with you first.”

Mike
nodded slowly. “What sort of missing persons case?” he asked. Even though he
had been out of law enforcement for months, he knew any case that would pull
two FBI guys way up here to the middle of nowhere, a stone’s throw from the
Canadian border, on such short notice would have been an extremely high profile
one. He couldn’t recall hearing of any.

Cooper
gazed at him, simmering with barely concealed hostility as Ferriss hesitated
for a moment and then said, “We’re not at liberty to discuss the case at this
time, Chief.”

“Really,”
Mike answered. He felt his patience beginning to slip away. “Who notified you
about this discovery out on Route 28?”

The two
agents glanced at each other uneasily before Ferriss said, “I believe it would
have been your former chief.”

“You
believe,” Mike said.

The two
agents stared straight ahead. He wondered when Pete Kendall would have had time
to call the FBI about the bodies with all that was going on yesterday, and why
he wouldn’t have mentioned it to Mike. “What time was this notification made?”

“I
really don’t recall,” Ferriss said immediately, staring at Mike flatly as if
issuing a challenge. Mike returned the look, wondering just what in the hell
was happening here. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t imagine what it
might be.

“Let me
get this straight,” Mike answered. “You got a call from Chief Kendall about the
discovery of human remains in a pit out by the Ridge Runner. You don’t remember
what time the call came in, but you immediately linked this discovery to a
long-dormant missing-persons case you were working out of the Portland Field
Office.”

“That’s
about the size of it.”

“Right.
If I check the call logs here at the station, I’m not going to find any record
of this notification, am I?”

A trace
of a smile crossed Ferriss’s face and then disappeared. No such trace made it
anywhere near Cooper’s face. “I think the dead chief…what was his name again?”

“Kendall,”
Mike replied shortly.

“Kendall,
yeah. I think Chief Kendall made the call on his personal cell.”

“Is
that right?”

“Yep.
Anyway, this visit is just a courtesy call. We wanted to drop by and let you
know we’ll be poking around your crime scene later today. Didn’t want anyone to
see us out there and panic, do something stupid. We wouldn’t want anyone to get
hurt, would we, Agent Cooper?”

Cooper
sat silently until Ferriss leveled a gaze at him, and then mumbled, “Nah,”
spitting out the single syllable like it was causing him pain.