Dunston Falls (12 page)

“I’ve got a count of twenty nine on my list. You?”

Reese scanned his sheets. “Thirty, at best.”

Peck returned to his desk and lit a cigarette.

Reese took another sip from his mug. “How many would you say are innocent?”

“Innocent of what?”

Reese grinned at Peck. “At least the two murders.”

“All of them. What about your list?”

Reese leaned back in his chair. “Some of them are guilty of something. Poaching chickens, maybe, but no murderers I could see.”

“Yet.”

Reese nodded and looked at the cigarette in Peck’s hand. “Can you spare one, sheriff?”

Peck tossed his pack across the room. Reese removed one and lit it from a candle. “Ever smoke, Lucy’s?”

Peck hadn’t heard the term Lucy’s in years. “Sure. When I was a kid, that’s all I could afford.” Before the war, you could walk into any tobacco store, grocery store or newsstand anywhere in the country and buy loose cigarettes for a penny apiece. “The gas station across the street still sells them that way. So does the drugstore.”

“I used to fool myself into thinking I could quit by smoking Lucy’s,” Reese said. “Buy only five in the morning and stretch them out all day. By noon, I’d be bumming smokes from anyone who would give them to me.”

“In the Army, they would issue a pack of four with K-rations,” Peck said. “The cigarettes would be so stale, we’d toss them and buy Lucy’s and reuse that pack for months.”

The office door suddenly opened and Bender came in, stomping his feet. “Christ’s sake, it’s starting to snow.”

“Looks like the nor’easters decided to show up early,” Reese said.

Bender looked at Reese. “Your men are here. Two vans and a cruiser pulled up outside.”

Peck said, “Why don’t you take the cruiser and run the lieutenant and his men to the logging camp, Jay. I think we’re done here today and I’m sure he’d like to get settled in.”

Reese folded his notes and stood up. “See you for breakfast, sheriff?”

Peck nodded.

Bender said, “Come on, Lieutenant. Let’s see if we can beat the storm and get you and your men tucked in for the night. You got plenty of firewood compliments of the paper company.”

“That’s very nice of them,” Reese said. “I’ll be sure they get a letter of thanks from the office.”

After they left, Peck busied himself for several hours with reports and notes to himself. He ate a quick meal at the diner where he sat alone and read reports. Afterward, feeling exhausted, he decided to turn in early.

Peck awoke when a slight feeling of heaviness behind his sinuses forced him to open his eyes. He stood up from the cot, feeling slightly dizzy and congested and tossed a log into the woodstove, then went to his desk and lit a candle. Sitting, he opened the drawer for the bottle of pills given to him by Doctor McCoy. He swallowed one without water, and then sat back in the chair to wait for the medicine to take affect.

On the desk, the tiny flame of the candle cascaded its light over the desk, creating flickering shadows on the wall. Peck’s eyes moved to the flame and focused on it. He could feel the medicine begin to kick in, relaxing the muscles in his face, easing the pressure behind his eyes, opening his sinuses.

The flame of the candle danced and flickered. Shadows whirled around the room in a waltz like dance in syncopation with the tiny flame. Peck was all but mesmerized by flame and shadow. He had the urge to move, but found his hands were locked in place on the desk. McCoy’s pills, whatever they were packed a wallop. He could feel his eyelids grow heavy and the room became slightly out of focus.

Suddenly, a child’s hand appeared to reach out of the candle flame and beckon to him. As the small hand reached for Peck, the flame of the candle appeared to grow and spread. It appeared to illuminate the entire office.

Peck blinked his eyes, knowing that he was experiencing some kind of side effect of the medication, but the flames only grew larger and more severe. Sweat began to roll down his face, but he was unable to move and wipe it away, so powerful was the tug of the candle and the effect of the drug.

From the center of the flames, the child’s hand stretched toward Peck, reaching for him. Fascinated by his hallucination, he raised his hand toward the child’s and just before contact; there was the loud cry of a child’s pain.

Peck jumped up from his chair as his head all but exploded from pent up pressure behind his eyes. He held onto his skull tightly, waiting for the pain to lessen, but it only increased. Blowing out the candle, Peck stumbled to the cot and fell on top of it. He closed his eyes and the pressure mounted to a new level. Nearly unable to cope, Peck held his head and wondered if he was having a stroke and tonight would be the night he would die.

Snow fell lightly as he walked in near total darkness through the woods. Shrouded by the ski mask, he appeared ominous, like a crazed madman as only the whites of his eyes were visible. At a clearing in the woods, he paused to stare at the mobile home of Linda Boyce. Then, slowly, he made his way toward it. As he neared the home, his hands clenched into fists with anticipation of what was to come.

Like a kid on Christmas morning, he thought.

At eleven PM, Linda powered up the generator so she could take a hot bath before Harvey arrived from his shift at the paper mill. She busied herself by making a roaring fire in the woodstove and at eleven thirty, she tested the water. It was ready and she filled the tub with her most expensive bubble bath. Harvey, despite his prodigious appetite for food and sex liked the way her skin smelled and felt and took the time to compliment her on it.

Peck moaned to himself as the throbbing pressure and stabbing pain in his head appeared to worsen. Fearful that he would not last the night, he forced himself to stand up from the cot and stumbled through the dark on wobbly legs to his desk for the bottle of pills. As he twisted the cap off the bottle, a razor sharp pain hit him between the eyes and he fell to his knees. The bottle of pills jarred from his grasp and rolled away.

From the exterior of the bathroom window of her mobile home, he crouched in darkness and watched as the robe slowly fell away from Linda’s body and she entered the tub of hot, soapy, scented bubble bath.

At the sight of her nude body, he felt his pulse quicken and a knot form in his chest. He was about to turn away from the window when she began to shave her legs with a razor. The procedure fascinated him and he watched, spellbound as she ran the razor up one creamy thigh and down another. He all but fainted when she turned her attention to her pubic hair and neatly cleaned up with gentle flicks of the razor. Breathing rapidly from his excitement, he felt lightheaded and giddy the way that child does on Christmas morning when they knew the present they wished and hoped for was actually under the tree waiting for them to unwrap it.

Forcing himself to turn away from the window, his eyes searched for a weapon and settled on a stack of firewood.

On the floor of his office, Peck crawled toward the bottle of pills, which rolled halfway across the floor towards Bender’s desk. The effort caused the pain to worsen, but he finally reached the bottle only to discover the cap was missing and the pills were scattered on the floor.

Linda rinsed the razor clean, then tossed it into the sink. She reached for a bottle of baby oil on the floor and rubbed some onto her legs and around her pubic area to avoid razor burn. Satisfied, with the results, Linda lowered herself into the hot, scented water and sipped from a glass of wine and felt all of her troubles melt away. Three candles burning on the sink gave the mood just the right amount of romantic atmosphere. She had tried the portable, transistor radio, but all she could get was loud static, but she didn’t really mind. The peace and quiet was reassuring in a way. She did not hear his truck, but the front door suddenly opened. Who else could it be but Harvey?

“Harvey? Sugar, is that you? Did you remember the scotch?” Linda called out. “Chevis like I asked you to.”

Peck crawled around, feeling the floor for the pills until he finally located two. He swallowed them and then tucked himself into the fetal position on the floor to wait for them to take affect. He tried his best not to vomit or pass out.

Linda drank the last bit of wine in her glass and set it on the rim of the tub. She heard footsteps outside the bathroom door and called out to Harvey again.

“Harvey, I’m in the tub.”

Without warning, the door smashed inward with a loud crash and the man in the ski mask suddenly appeared. A thick log from the firewood pile was in his right hand. Before she could move or react, he swung the club against the side of Linda’s head. She felt an explosion inside her skull, then she felt nothing at all.

In the main hall of the logging camp, Reese’s men entertained themselves with card games and rounds at the pool table. A fire crackled in the massive, stone fireplace. Reese occupied himself with reading reports at the sofa, aided by a powerful, kerosene lantern which rested on the coffee table directly in front of him.

Reese suddenly closed his report book and checked his watch. “It’s getting late, gentlemen. I am going to bed. I suggest you do the same.”

At the pool table, Harvey Peterson banked a shot to win his game. He tossed his pool stick on the table as Reese opened the front door of the cabin. Pausing, Reese said, “We’ll breakfast at eight, then head to town. Last man out, make sure the generator is off and wood is stacked for the morning.”

Harvey waited to make certain Reese was safely in his cabin, then snuck out the front door and walked to his truck. The other men in the squad did not question his actions. They all knew what an insatiable hound he was when it came to women. Besides, Harvey was reliable, never late and good at his job, so who cared if he spent his nights sniffing around.

Linda opened her eyes and her first thought was that she had gone blind from the blow to her head. She had never experienced such pure darkness before in her life. Slowly, as the fog inside her head lifted and consciousness became clear, she realized that her eyes and mouth were wrapped with duct tape.

She tried to move her arms and legs and felt the coarseness of rope binding her to the bed. She realized at that moment she was about to die.

There was a noise, a footstep, then she felt the tape pulled from her eyes, removing skin from her face and hair from her eyebrows. Her screams of pain and fear were lost inside the tape binding her mouth.

She waited, counted to thirty, waited some more and then opened her eyes.

Harvey opened the door to his truck as quietly as possible. He was about to step inside the cab when Reese came into the light from whatever shadow he had been hiding in and yanked him on the door. It scared Harvey shitless.

“I won’t tolerate lateness, sloppy work or a man too tired to perform his duties,” Reese said.

“I… forgot something,” Harvey said.

“What’s the name of the little floozy you forgot?” Reese said.

Harvey grinned as he entered his truck. “Don’t wait up boss. You need your sleep, an old guy like you.”

“Not so old I can’t figure out what you’re up to.” Reese stuck his face in the door before Harvey closed it. “Just you remember what I said and that your ass is here for roll call.”

“Count on it,” Harvey said and started the engine. “Me and my ass.”

Reese stared at Harvey as he put his truck in gear and drove away.

A lone candle flickered on the bedroom dresser. When she opened her eyes, it took a few seconds for them to grow accustomed to the dark and focus. She searched the room until she saw him sitting in a chair against the wall, watching her through a dark ski mask. By the dim light of the candle, his eyes appeared yellow and crazed. In a fit of panic, she struggled against the ropes. His eyes showed delight at her struggle, as if smiling at her. The tape on her mouth prevented her from screaming. After a few minutes, the rope began to burn her skin and she quieted down. She could see the disappointment in his eyes as lay still.

The pain in his head was like an elephant sitting on his skull. Peck wondered if he had a blood clot or tumor, if McCoy overlooked something seriously wrong inside his head. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled along the floor to the gravity fed water cooler. The effort made his head hurt even worse and his muscles ached and cramped. Reaching the cooler, he turned onto his back, flipped the switch and cold, clear water washed down and hit him in the face. It had a numbing affect and he let the water run for as long as he could stand it, then turned the water off. He shivered from cold, but at least the pain quelled a bit from the combination of pills and ice water.

Linda’s eyes didn’t move from the man in the ski mask. He sat in the chair for what seemed like an eternity. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing, he was so motionless. His yellow eyes were locked onto her and when she wiggled her leg to ease an itch, she could see the whites of those yellow eyes follow her movement. What was funny, she knew she was minutes away from certain death at the hands of this madman, yet she thought about the taste of glue from the tape in her mouth. Sour and sticky, she choked back a gag, knowing that if she vomited she would die from suffocation. So instead, she would die with a tongue full of post office glue as the last thing she would ever taste.

Suddenly, his right hand slowly moved as he raised it to a spot just above his nose and gently rubbed as if he had a headache. She had seen her mother do that whenever she had a headache caused by the weight of her heavy framed glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. She wondered if he wore glasses like her mother.

After several minutes of massaging the spot between his eyes, the man in the ski mask raised himself from the chair and stood at the foot of the bed. His yellow eyes scanned her spread eagle body. She could feel those yellow eyes searching and settling at the opening between her legs. With a gloved hand, he touched her foot and her entire body seemed to jerk on contact. The eyes inside the mask appeared to smile and take delight in the panic she displayed at his touch.